by Mur Lafferty
“Back in my fortress, we were lucky we only had skeletons in the library to deal with,” Freya continued, nocking an arrow and looking around as they crested a hill of netherrack. “There are these cubes that like to hang out around and inside fortresses. Want to guess what they are made of?”
“Pumpkins,” Max suggested, his voice indicating he didn’t believe it for a moment.
“Fluffy wool?” Alison asked. Freya gave her a stern look. “All right, fire, they’re made of fire, like everything else here.”
“Exactly! Or magma, to be more precise. They’ve got a tough crust that’s hard to shoot, and if they are big, they can just hop around and crush you. It’s kind of cute from a distance, these red cubes just hopping around. You can kill skeletons and chicken jockeys, manipulate a ghast into killing its buddies, but it’s best to just avoid the magma cubes. Trust me.”
“Done,” Alison said. “Totally believe you. I hope we never find out if you’re lying to us or not.”
“But you’re lucky so far, because you haven’t seen one of the worst things—”
Max and Alison interrupted her at the same time.
“Lucky?” Max yelled.
“The worst?” Alison said. “You haven’t told us the worst one yet?”
“Yeah,” Freya said. She paused at the top of the hill and looked around, her bow ready. Nothing looked ready to leap out at them. “The worst one is the wither skeleton, which can give you a wasting disease. We usually find several mixed in with a mob of skeletons, but I haven’t seen any lately.” She squinted down the hill, lowered her bow, and pointed. “That might be why.”
On this side of the hill was a vast sea of lava, probably the one that Freya had warned them about. The heat coming off it was incredible, but when they squinted through the hazy air, in the distance they could see an island of netherrack. A massive tree of nether quartz rose from the stone, and within the crystalline branches sat a tree house made of Overworld materials. To the right of the house was a small-mushroom farm, with larger mushrooms growing on the left side. It was under these large umbrella-like mushrooms that the mobs swarmed. There were some skeletons, some zombie pigmen, but most were tall, blackened spindly things, like skeletons that had been stretched out and perhaps went for a swim in lava.
“Those are wither skeletons,” Freya said. “They’re all hanging out here. No wonder they haven’t been bugging me lately.”
“Uncle Nicholas,” Max whispered.
Alison didn’t say anything. She was too busy counting their supply of arrows.
BOOKCASES IN YOUR BACK POCKET
Freya sat on the side of the hill, placidly watching the tree house for any sign of movement, human or mob-based. Alison paced back and forth, never taking her eyes off the island.
“So, there are the patrolling mobs that are possibly the worst in the Nether,” Alison said, counting on her fingers. “The massive sea of lava with no obvious way across, and the fact that we’re not even sure if your uncle is there. Is that all the terribleness in one fell swoop?”
“Sounds about right,” Freya said. “Except you forgot the fact that we’re also exposed here; and the more we focus on that island, the more vulnerable we are to anything else that might see us.”
Alison whipped her head around to see if Freya was referring to any specific mob, but none of the monsters in the distance had gotten closer. Not too much closer, anyway. “Great. We need to find a way across, not fall into the lava, keep the skeletons from killing us, and hope that Max’s uncle doesn’t see us as a threat.”
Freya laughed, her voice sounding flat in the warm desolation that was the Nether. “That would be something, if we got all the way over there, cleared out those wither skeletons for him, just to have him shoot us for trespassing.”
“If by ‘something’ you mean ‘tragic and terrible and tragic again,’ ” Alison grumbled. She looked around. “I keep thinking about all of us building a bridge,” she said. “Where is Max, anyway?”
Max sat hunched over something a little way down the side of the hill. Alison hopped down a few blocks to check on what he was doing.
His armor was off and he was muttering to himself, picking up the diamond boots and then putting them back down.
“Max?” she asked, but he didn’t answer, just hunched more. “Max!” she said in alarm.
He turned around, defiance scrawled all over his face. He jumped up and tried to hide the thing behind him, but it was easy to figure out. He’d taken out the enchanting table. “I figured it was time.”
“You could get us killed,” she said, rubbing her head with her hand. She was so tired of arguing with him.
“Do you ever say anything else? I might save us, too,” he said, crossing his arms.
“Is he enchanting?” Freya called down the hill.
“Yes,” Alison said.
“Does he know about the bookcases?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you know about the bookcases?” She wasn’t sure she knew about the bookcases, but there was something apparently to be known. She knew that there always seemed to be a bookcase or three nearby enchanting tables. She thought proximity to the shelves was handy because enchanting involved books, but there might be something else to it.
“I’m so far ahead of you I’ve already rescued Uncle Nicholas and we’re back home eating pumpkin pie,” he said, producing two bookcases from his pack and arranging them on either side of the enchanting table.
She sighed. Just give her a crafting table and a furnace any day. Enchanting was too troublesome. She watched him put his boots on the table and select a book from the shelf.
“I can’t watch,” she said, and returned to Freya.
“Hey, he hasn’t blown up the hill yet,” Freya said.
“He just got started,” Alison said. “Do you have any thoughts about”—she waved her hand weakly toward the island—“all that?”
“You’ll probably not be surprised that I have done a lot of research on lava since moving here,” Freya said. “If Max can get us some protection spells going on the armor, I think we can make it.”
“You’re not suggesting we swim?”
“Sure,” Freya said, getting to her feet. “I’ve got some potions of fire resistance. Max can enchant our armor.” Alison raised an eyebrow. “All right, he can try to enchant our armor,” Freya clarified. “Still, with those two things we can swim across that stuff with no problem.”
“When did you brew those potions?” Alison asked.
“I did some when you were out, and had a stash of supplies for brewing long before you came vacationing here. Why does that matter?” Freya asked.
Alison didn’t know why she was so frustrated. She frowned and walked away from Freya, who approached Max and peered over his shoulder. “Doesn’t look like he’s blowing things up this time,” she called back, but Alison turned away and watched the red-tinged horizon and the floating terrors in the Nether.
She wanted to contribute. She wanted to do useful things like strategize and plan and make enchantments (or try to) and send a wolf into the fray.
Yes, she had made all of their armor, and upgraded weapons for herself and Freya, and that was useful. But now that they were in the field, she felt like all she was doing was telling them they were doing something wrong or dangerous. When had she become everyone’s mom?
She remembered what her mother did when she got tired of being a mom. She would borrow a neighbor’s horse and ride north to the tundra, bringing back white rabbit pelts and snow, and they would have snowball fights in midsummer. She said it made her feel alive, and like someone other than “just a mom.”
When Grandma was tired of being an authority figure, she would throw her hands up in the air and yell, “Do whatever! I’m not your mother!” and then retreat to her attic space.
&nb
sp; Now Alison was the mom, like it or not. She didn’t want to be the mom; she wanted to be the hero.
“Alison, we’re ready to test the armor,” Max called. “I think it’s got a fire protection charm, but there’s no way of knowing until we get out on the lava.”
“That’s the only way you can think to test it?” Freya asked, punching him in the shoulder. “With all this fire everywhere, you just want to jump into the lava?”
Before he could answer, Alison decided it was time to act. She slipped out of her own diamond boots and tossed them to Max, who caught them in surprise. “Hand me yours,” she said. “I’ll test them.”
His eyes grew wide. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, we need to get moving,” she said, motioning for him to toss her his boots. “And you can enchant mine while I’m testing yours. I’m getting tired of sitting around here, let’s do something!”
He frowned, and looked down at her boots, and then she was off down the hill.
Freya followed her. “Why the change of heart?” she asked from behind Alison.
“I said it. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of worrying. The worst thing has already happened to me, Freya. I lost my parents and my home. Then I got stuck in the Nether. What else is there for me to be afraid of?”
Freya glanced around. “I figured you were afraid of the Nether and the mobs and being stuck here forever, but I’m just guessing.”
“Yeah, and?” Alison said, pulling on Max’s boots.
“And…that’s what I meant. Do I need to say anything else?”
“The mobs will be there whether I’m afraid of them or not. My fear doesn’t affect anything except for me. And I’m tired of it. I’m so tired.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Freya said thoughtfully. “You have a point. What’s the point of being afraid?”
“Not that you can turn that off like a switch,” Alison said, feeling her heart hammer in her chest as she approached the edge of the lava lake. The air was warm, but it didn’t have the stinging, prickling heat that it so often did since she’d arrived here. “But it’s good to realize you’re just wasting time and effort.”
Alison paused at the edge, one foot raised. She glanced back at Freya, who held a hand out. Alison took it gratefully and steadied herself.
Freya held her as she dangled one foot over the lava, edging nearer, waiting to catch on fire. But it never happened. The foot went closer and closer to the lava, and she could actually see the lava bow slightly as her boot neared its surface, as if it were trying to escape touching the boot at all costs.
“Do it,” Freya whispered, and Alison plunged her foot in, her face screwed up in anticipated pain.
But she felt nothing. She could feel the resistance of the lava; this would be harder to walk through than air, or even water, but they could walk through it. For a short amount of time, anyway.
She pulled her foot out, shaking it slightly to remove the clinging lava, smoking in the air.
“You did it, Max!” she called. “It works!”
“No kidding?” Max called, sounding genuinely surprised. “Who would have thought I could do that?”
“You did!” Alison said. “Now, with your enchanting and Freya’s potions we should have no problem getting there.” She pointed triumphantly across the lake.
“Well, except for the mobs on the other side,” Freya reminded her.
Alison firmly shook her head. “One problem at a time. My grandma used to say that you can’t shear a sheep while you’re repairing a fence. You’ll get a fixed sheep and a shorn fence post.” While she never learned what a “fixed sheep” was, she knew it made the adults laugh. Still, it reminded her not to switch her attention, and to focus on the most immediate thing. “Right now, we need to get across that lake.”
Max and Freya joined her at the edge. “So, it really works?” he asked doubtfully.
“You enchanted the boots, you tell me,” she said.
He shrugged. “Who knows what I enchanted them with?”
Freya handed each of them a vial. “Drink this right before you go in. It will last a while, but not too long.”
“That’s as precise as you can be?” Alison asked incredulously.
“We don’t have clocks here,” Freya said. “We work with what we have.”
“So, we drink, and then we just walk into the lava and get across as fast as we can,” Alison said. “Anyone have any other concerns?”
“Plenty, but no better ideas,” Freya said cheerfully. She commanded Bunny Biter to sit, and then chugged the contents of her glass bottle. With a wink, she waded into the lake.
“And here we go,” Alison said, and stepped in after her.
It was harder going than she had expected; lava was much thicker than water. Still, they could move through, and that was what they needed. “Just keep the cabin in sight,” she said, wading deeper, trying to move as quickly as she could, jumping in case the lava was damaging her armor. The lava came up to her waist, and then her chest. Finally, she started to swim. It was strangely warm, and little puffs of smoke drifted up from their bodies, but she felt no pain.
The shore was drawing close, and Alison had already started trying to figure out their next move regarding the wither skeletons, but then Max started to scream from behind them, and things weren’t so calm anymore.
* * *
—
In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to ask Max what he had done wrong while he was still in the lava, screaming that he was burning. But she was going off instinct.
“Max, what did you do?” Alison shouted, turning around in the viscous fluid.
Max was jumping up and down, smoke wafting off him in bigger and bigger plumes. “It burns! It burns!”
“The potion should not have worn off so fast,” Freya said in her ear. “But I don’t think his enchantment worked on every piece of armor.”
“We didn’t test every piece!” Alison said, horror dawning on her. “What do we do?” She looked from Freya’s calm face to Max’s panic. She saw flames flare on his armor, and knew he would just get more and more hurt as time went on, unless they acted.
“Grab his shoulders,” Freya said, and before Alison could yell “What?” in disbelief, she had disappeared, having dived under the surface of the lava.
Max rose slightly from the lava, and Alison realized Freya had grabbed his legs. She took his shoulders and held him above the lava, while Freya surfaced, his ankles in her hands. He was heavy, but between the two of them they could carry him, and they hauled him, still burning, to the edge of the lake.
Freya dropped his legs, and Alison dragged him the rest of the way onto dry land. She pulled his still-smoking armor off, noticing with alarm the burns that were covering his body. Unfortunately, his smoking boots and helmet would not come off, no matter how hard she pulled. At some point she had to admit she was part of the problem, causing him pain as she tried to wrench the burning armor off him.
Freya rushed over with another vial in her hands, this time a potion of healing.
“I don’t think I did a good job enchanting this time,” he said weakly, choking the potion down.
“You didn’t drink the potion, did you?” Freya asked, taking the empty vial from him.
He relaxed back onto the rocky ground and closed his eyes. “I thought the enchantments were enough and we should save the potion.”
“So you botched the enchantment and failed to drink the potion?” Alison said incredulously.
Freya put her back to them, bow raised, waiting for the mobs to discover them. “He’s paying the price,” she said over her shoulder. “And that armor’s not going to come off.”
Alison bit back her further raging. Freya was right. She checked out his burns. “You’ll be okay, though, it looks like the one he
alth potion will be enough.” She looked at the remaining vials of healing potion. “We should save these.”
Max lifted his head from the ground. “Save it? Why don’t you save me?”
“The fact that you can complain about this means you’re probably fine, Max,” Freya said, not looking at him. “Besides, we need you right now.”
“Need me for what?” he asked, grumpily sitting up. His clothes had stopped smoking, and he was no longer radiating unbearable heat while she stood next to him, something she had noticed as her own heat protection potion wore off.
“That,” Freya said, raising her bow. They had come onto the island at the closest tip, which was unfortunately the place where the giant mushrooms grew and the mobs gathered. The mobs were starting to take notice of the trio, edging closer and then stopping.
“Why are they just standing there?” Max asked.
Freya took a step forward, squinting in the low light. “Your uncle needs to stick to architecture,” she said, smiling.
“Why?” Alison asked before Max could argue.
“Because he’s trapped them in some kind of glass box.”
It was true. The mobs were encased on all sides by glass blocks, having the ability to stare out at the kids, but go no farther. The zombie pigmen milled about the prison, oinking occasionally, but the other mobs just silently watched them.
“They can’t break through, right? If we don’t get near them, we should be fine?” Alison asked.
“I’d feel better if they all were dead,” Freya said. “No surprises.”
“We can’t take them all on!” Max said, struggling to his feet. “Not with nowhere to run! If they’re not going to bother us, why risk it?” He pulled at his helmet, grimacing. “This thing is cursed,” he grumbled. He glared at Alison.
What did she do? It wasn’t her fault. Then Alison realized he was waiting for her to say, I told you so. She smiled sadly, turning away from him. She was remembering how her mother would always be the more levelheaded of her parents, and never would rub it in anyone’s face when they turned out to be wrong.
