by Jason Fry
He rowed past desert shores and shipwrecks and broken towers, and across long stretches of empty sea. He stopped for a moment to give thanks when he spotted the ice floes and spiky towers he’d failed to reach on his first attempt to return home. Then he rowed carefully among them, seeking a path through the ever-changing obstacles posed by the ice. Other than a polar bear snarling at him, he met with no mischance.
And then, around noon one day, he came through the ice and saw a spot of green ahead of him. It was a peninsula with a little hill behind it, green and dotted with white birches: only a small part of the Overworld, perhaps, but one that meant everything to him.
Stax brought the boat in at the end of the broad green lawn, now overgrown with tall grass and interrupted by the stumps of birch trees. To his left were broken fences, and a single pumpkin growing amid the weeds. But to his right, flowers were growing with wild abandon, turning the hillside into a happy riot of red and pink and blue and white.
Stax walked up the lawn, past a stagnant green pool with a broken fountain, and climbed a flight of polished diorite steps, now gap-toothed and sprouting weeds. The top of the hill was a jumble of shattered rock, black-and-white diorite, and pink granite. To his left, where the sea curled around the peninsula, was a splintered dock and the wreckage of a boathouse.
“Well, I’m back,” said Stax, sitting on a hunk of diorite and surveying the ruins of the Stonecutter estate. His mind went back to that day of fire and horror, when Fouge had brought his raiders and Stax’s life had come crashing down. But Fouge was locked away and the bandits were scattered, and looking at the wreckage around him, Stax started thinking about stone blocks that could be fit together, and tall grass that could be cleared, and trees that could be planted.
He heard a little noise somewhere nearby and got to his feet, wondering if his ears were playing a cruel trick on him.
But no, it was real. A tentative, quiet meow.
A black head and golden eyes peeked out at him from behind a block of diorite.
“Coal?” Stax asked. “Coal! Come here, kitty! Come on, it’s okay.”
Coal, always the boldest of his cats, emerged from a jumble of fallen stone to regard Stax suspiciously and interrogate him with further meows. Then her tail went up and a moment later she was twining herself around his legs, bedraggled but purring.
Stax heard more meowing and looked up from stroking Coal to see a gray-striped cat with green eyes and a Siamese with blue eyes poke their heads out of their own hiding places.
“Emerald! Lapis!” A moment later Stax was surrounded by cats, meowing and competing for pats.
“It’s so good to see you, kitties,” Stax said. “Funny, you don’t look as skinny as I would have guessed. Seems like we all learned what we’re capable of, huh? Though I bet a fish or three would be nice to have, am I right?”
Fortunately, Stax had a fishing rod—he’d learned something from his hungry days in Desolation Bay—so he retrieved it from his boat and stood on the splintered dock until he’d landed three cod, which Coal, Lapis, and Emerald quickly reduced to bones.
Emerald meowed for more, and looked doubtful when Stax assured him that the days of shameful neglect had ended. But he was looking at the burned-out boathouse, and thinking about shelter for the night. It would be beyond ridiculous to make it all the way home, only to be caught out of doors after dark and obliterated by a creeper on its nocturnal rounds.
And so Stax spent the rest of the afternoon making an improvised shelter where the boathouse had stood. It was a ramshackle construction—honestly, it made the tower in Desolation Bay look like a palace—but it would keep out rain, wind, and hungry creatures of the night, which was good enough for now. Stax even found a few squares of carpet that hadn’t been entirely burned, and laid them out to cover some of the floor. And in the morning he woke up on the Stonecutter estate with Coal on his left and Emerald on his right and Lapis stretched out on his chest, and simply lay there for a while, smiling in happy disbelief.
* * *
—
A couple of days later, the employees of the Stonecutter offices were stunned to discover that Stax Stonecutter was not, in fact, dead. They were even more stunned when he arrived carrying his father’s maps and full of questions about outposts and trade agreements, and a dozen other things in which he’d never before shown the slightest interest. And they were absolutely flabbergasted when he thanked them for keeping the business in working order, not just while he was presumed dead but for all the years he’d been alive and had barely noticed its existence.
The employees were also surprised to be invited out to the estate, along with many of Stax’s neighbors. The estate had changed too. The day after he returned, Stax started clearing away the debris of the house and cleaned up the lawn, ridding it of birch stumps and weeds. Soon after that, he drained the water from the mine in the back garden—now that was a big job—and patched the mine’s roof. But after thinking about it for a little while, he chose not to rebuild the big house that had sat on the hill, the one made of diorite and granite that had shone in the sun. Instead, he cleared the hilltop of shattered stone, filled in the stagnant fountain, and removed the broken staircase, so that visitors found a green hill with a little lake, and a garden with a small, well-kept family cemetery.
What Stax did rebuild was the boathouse, as best he remembered it. It was cozy, but big enough for his bed, as well as a chest, bookcase, furnace, and a crafting table. Windows overlooked the sea, and Stax hung his grandmother’s stone pickaxe and sword side by side on the wall. He rebuilt the dock, too, and visitors got used to landing there when they had business at the Stonecutter estate. Most of the time, they’d find Stax sitting at a table on the dock with the cats snoozing in the sun, reading a book about mining or studying one of his father’s maps.
Stax would greet these visitors warmly, thank them for not coming to the old landing on the lawn that he no longer used, and prove quite able to talk about things besides cats and flowers. Though visitors did note that Stax talked to those cats quite a bit, and occasionally was found having conversations with himself.
* * *
—
For a long time—it was definitely weeks and might have been months—Stax was happy. But over time a certain restlessness crept into his thoughts. He found himself retracing the route from the Stonecutter peninsula to Desolation Bay, and from there to Tumbles Harbor, the Rain-Jungles of Jagga-Tel, the village of Patannos, and the caravan town of Karamhés. But the route he traced most often led to a place on one map, surrounded by a circle drawn by the hand of a friend.
Until one morning, Coal and Lapis and Emerald had to meow quite a bit more than usual to remind Stax that it was his responsibility to catch fish and deliver breakfast. Instead, he was packing up maps and trying on armor and sorting through chests, without noticing three cats who were becoming terribly hungry.
Stax apologized and caught some cod, but the cats had only just finished picking the bones clean when he carried them into the boat instead of rearranging the chairs on the dock so they could snooze in the sun.
The cats weren’t sure about this odd break in their routine, but they were too full and sleepy to object strenuously, and before they quite grasped what was happening Stax had rowed the boat away from the dock and was looking back and forth between the sun and his father’s compass.
“Come on, kitties,” he told them with a smile. “Let’s go see the world.”
This one’s for Sam Jones, a writer, thinker, and storyteller to keep an eye on.
After you change the world, kid, you owe me a dedication.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing this book meant that when my wife asked why I was playing a videogame at 4:30 A.M. again, I got to look wounded, exclaim “I’m working!” and have it actually be true.
Thanks to the good folks at Mojang for t
hat, and for creating such a fun, beautiful, and imaginative game and world. A special tip of the cap to Alex Wiltshire for keeping me on the Overworld straight and narrow.
At Penguin Random House, Sarah Peed was a warm, friendly editor and a generous traveling companion from start to finish, while Nancy Delia was her usual eagle-eyed self, saving me from mistakes, redundancies, and bouts of laziness.
At home, my son, Joshua, was a source of valuable Minecraft tips and even once told me Stax’s house was cool. My wife, Emily, puts up with far too much of my nonsense even when it isn’t videogame-related; she was admirably patient every time I announced I’d taken an even better screenshot of Stax’s cats, and asked if she wanted to see it. Even when it was 4:30 A.M. Again.
BY JASON FRY
STAR WARS
The Essential Atlas
The Clone Wars: Episode Guide
The Essential Guide to Warfare
Star Wars in 100 Scenes
Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure
The Weapon of a Jedi: A Luke Skywalker Adventure
The Force Awakens: Rey’s Survival Guide
The Force Awakens Incredible Cross-Sections
The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition
The Servants of the Empire Series
THE JUPITER PIRATES
Hunt for the Hydra
Curse of the Iris
The Rise of Earth
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JASON FRY is the author of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and has written or co-written more than forty novels, short stories, and other works set in the galaxy far, far away. His previous books include the Servants of the Empire quartet and the young-adult space-fantasy series The Jupiter Pirates. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son and about a metric ton of Star Wars stuff.
Jasonfry.net
Twitter: @jasoncfry
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