* * *
—
The ship was deathly quiet when Mo and Fin and Kan returned to it. They stood on the deck for a while. A little confused. A little upset. And a little, even though none of the three of them wanted to admit it, disappointed. It wasn’t that they wanted to go to war. Wars were dangerous. You could die in wars. Bits of you could become separated from the rest. Not just arms and legs, either. Souls. Hearts. Memories. But when you’ve gotten yourself hot and brave enough to do something, and don’t get to actually do it, there is a very strange hole leftover where you so nicely stacked up all that bravery to begin with.
Unfortunately, constant telepathy means never getting to completely hide how you feel. They knew they were all feeling the same odd disappointment. They knew they all felt they shouldn’t be disappointed that they weren’t going to get to kill all humans today. And yet the ship never stopped being as quiet as guilt.
The twins faced the prospect of their empty home. They stared down into the shadowy hold. Torches flickered on the walls. At least they hadn’t taken those. Grumpo’s box sat resentfully silent against the far back wall. Mo had somehow hoped that it would be magically full again. But of course it wasn’t. The purple and yellow wood of the ship, wood they hadn’t seen in years, practically shone in all the places where blocks and chests and boxes had protected it from dirt and footprints. Except for the mountain of books the army hadn’t wanted, it was unsettingly clean.
Like Grumpo, they hated it.
Fin, Mo thought with a panic. We’re poor. We don’t have anything to eat. We don’t have gold. We don’t have anything. How are we going to live?
Fin frowned. Maybe they’ll bring it all back in a day or two. Apologize. Maybe Kraj will tell us some more stories about pigs.
Pigs are pink, Kan thought distractedly.
Fin nodded. So they say.
No, but I’m serious. What are we going to eat? What I mean is, what are we going to eat tonight? Right now? I’m starving.
Can you eat books? Mo rubbed her dark belly. I suppose we can, but would it help? Are books nutritious? Maybe they have…good fats. Or something.
Don’t you dare. Fin was shocked. Books were the closest thing he had to training in the Enderdome like the others. Learning. Studying the enemy. They’re all we’ve got left. Why don’t we eat your egg then? At least eggs are food! Zombie horses are way more likely to have good fats! Yum, yum, yum!
Mo raced to the corner where she’d hidden her egg. She cradled it tenderly in her arms. She examined the crack. It didn’t seem to have grown any wider while she’d been gone. That’s so mean. Why are you being mean? If you touch my egg, I’ll touch you.
Fin felt bad immediately. He hadn’t meant it. Well, he mostly hadn’t meant it. He was very hungry and it was a rather big egg even if it was also a zombie. It was only that she’d said she was going to eat the books! Sorry, Mo. I’m sorry. I guess I’ve got some mean stored up that was supposed to get used on the war and now it just…wants to get used any old way it can.
Mo glared at him and held her egg tighter.
Suddenly, Grumpo’s box clapped open and shut. Three times, very quick. They all jumped nearly out of their skins. Three apples flew out of the shulker’s lair and thudded onto the floor.
GRUMPO! Fin’s and Mo’s minds sang out joyfully. They dashed down to snatch up the food.
WHO’S A GOOD BOY? Mo kissed the front of his box all over. The shulker snarled inside.
Not me. I’m not. They’re poison. Get away from me.
No, they’re not, Fin laughed. They’re good apples and you’re a good boy, YES, YOU ARE.
Very brave of you, to hide something from Commander Kraj, Kan marveled.
I didn’t. You can’t prove it. I hope you choke, spluttered Grumpo, and then he refused to think anything more at all while the twins called him so many sweet names and said so many nice things about him that the shulker vomited twice in his box. And shulker vomit is not very nice at all.
The three of them stuck the apples onto the ends of their swords and roasted their little feast in the torchlight. Maybe their last feast for a good while. They’d have to start all over again. Start collecting fruits and flowers from the chorus trees like they had when they were little. Like Endless beggars.
They didn’t feel very full when they’d finished their apples. In fact, they felt somewhat ill and very sleepy. A shulker is a shulker in the end, and the apples actually were a little poisoned. But it was only one apple apiece, for better (still hungry) and worse (slightly poisoned). Mo, Fin, and Kan finally fell asleep sitting up on the hard floor of the ship’s hold, back to back to back. Mo curled around her egg, Kan curled around his note block, Fin curled up beside his books. They were exhausted. For the first time any of them could remember, they had no idea what was going to happen next. They dreamed of apples, and pigs, and music, and hubunits, and a rain that could come anytime, even when the sky was clear.
* * *
—
The whispers came hours later. In the absolute dead of night. All hours in the End can be called “the absolute dead of night” but this really was. The end rods were at their dimmest. Total quiet and darkness everywhere you could look or listen—and then.
Whispers.
Outside the door. On the ship’s deck. Soft, secret, urgent.
Mo woke up first. Her heart thundered in her head. They’d already taken everything! Why would they come back! She moved protectively in front of her brother and her friend. She hid her egg behind her back. Maybe Kraj had decided she couldn’t keep that either.
More whispers. Louder now.
Now Fin woke up. His magenta eyes slitted open in the half-dark.
Someone’s out there, Mo told him.
Kan sat up. Is it my hubunits? Karshen? Teg?
I don’t think so. Mo glanced toward the stern and the shulker’s ledge. I wonder why Grumpo isn’t yelling his head off.
The whispers were right outside the door now. Something knocked hard against the wood. They could almost make out words.
Fin and Mo realized it at the same time. Their eyes got big and wide.
What? Kan looked back and forth between them, not understanding.
Whispers, Mo thought.
Yes, I hear them, too. Is it Kraj? Corporal Murrum? Captain Tamat?
Mo grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. Then she pressed his hand to the side of his head. Yeah, Kan, you do. You hear them. With your ears.
Someone outside the ship was talking. Not with telepathy. No beautiful thoughts appearing gracefully and instantly in another person’s mind. Talking. With their faces. A lot of faces. Grumpo wasn’t alerting them because Grumpo didn’t know. The shulker couldn’t sense other minds approaching the ship because the people approaching the ship weren’t telepathic. Their minds were shut. Their mouths were open.
“Shhhhhh! You klutz.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll startle the loot?”
“It’s another big dumb ship like all the other big dumb ships. Get in there, kill the shulker, open the chests, grab the elytra, get out. Lather, rinse, repeat.”
“I don’t know. It’s creepy here. It’s so quiet. Just be careful.”
“We can go back to the dragon if you want. He wasn’t quiet.”
“You don’t know it’s a he.”
“Oh my god, are we gonna raid this place or not?”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“You first.”
“Whatever. God, you’re such a baby, Roary.”
The endermen stared at the closed door in horror.
Humans.
Here.
Now.
And they had no escape.
The door slammed open. Four things poured into the ship. Blocky, hulking, squat, splotchy creatures. T
heir skin was all different colors when it should have been nice and slick and black. Their clothes were different colors, too—one wore red, one wore turquoise, one wore green, and one wore yellow. And they were wearing clothes! Any kind of clothes! An enderman’s skin was skin and shirt and coat and trousers and armor all in one. They’d never seen clothes. Ever. Chestplates, sure. But jeans and T-shirts? Fin and Mo didn’t even know the words for those things. They didn’t seem like they’d be much good as armor. What was the point of them?
The human mob yelled and brandished their weapons. They hurtled into Fin and Mo’s private space, their home, laughing and swinging their swords crazily, barely even looking at what they might hit. The one in the turquoise shirt threw herself at Kan. She held a diamond sword high above her head and slashed it down toward him with a yodeling war cry. Sobbing, Mo hit the human hard in the stomach, knocking her back before she could cut off Kan’s head.
“Ugh,” the human grunted. “I hate these guys. So annoying.”
“Ooh!” said the human girl in red. “That one’s got green eyes! Coooool.”
Stay away from him! Mo lashed back. But the girl couldn’t hear a thought any more than she could hear a memory.
I’m fine, Kan thought shakily. She didn’t get me. I’ve got my sword still. He groped behind himself for it and found the handle.
Mo fixed the wicked human girls with the terrible gaze of the endermen. Once an enderman has her prey in her line of sight, nothing can stop her. An all-consuming berserker fury takes over and it does not fade until the target is torn to pieces.
But the girls didn’t seem to notice that they’d been fixed with the terrible gaze of the endermen. They whispered something to each other and ignored Mo completely.
The boy in the yellow shirt ran up to Grumpo and started whacking his box all over with a trident. A trident! Fin couldn’t help admiring it, he’d only ever found one and Kraj had almost made off with it. Tridents were his favorite. He’d always hoped he’d find another one, but he never did. He charged the human in yellow, throwing himself between him and Grumpo. The trident hit him in the shoulder, in the knee, and glanced off his elbow, which somehow hurt worse than the others.
“Get out of the way!” the yellow human snarled at Fin. “I don’t have time for you!”
Please leave us alone, wailed Fin. His arm hurt so bad. He kept trying to look the boy in the eye, to fill himself up with that all-powerful, undeniable frenzy that was the legacy of his people. His birthright. But the human didn’t seem to care about legacies and he couldn’t hear Fin’s thoughts. All the human could see was an enderman flashing red with pain and rage, who didn’t immediately charge him or bludgeon him to death.
Grumpo was most certainly awake now. He was so angry, his thoughts couldn’t even form themselves into words, just one long scream of hate like a knife dragging through their heads.
KIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLL IIIIIIIIIT! shrieked the shulker.
“What the actual crap,” said the human boy in green. “There’s frick-all in here. Not even one chest? Worst. Boat. Ever. Koal, dude, are you really having trouble taking out a shulker? That’s like baby’s-first-kill territory. Weak. Leave it alone, I think you’re just bothering it now.”
“Let’s go, Jax,” the girl in red sighed. “This is stupid. And pointless. Somebody else obviously got here first.”
“Yeah, sorry, guys,” the girl in the blue shirt who’d tried to decapitate Kan apologized. “We didn’t know anyone else was raiding this far out. Our bad. I’m Roary, this is Jesster”—she jabbed her thumb back at her red friend—“the big guy is Jax and the skinny one’s Koal.”
Who are they talking to? Mo thought wildly. She squeezed her egg to her chest. Somehow that made her feel better. Is this the invasion?
I don’t know! Fin panted heavily, his arm still burning in agony. He turned from one human to the other, his hands curled into claws, ready to fight again.
Jax made a face. “Kind of weird to just be hanging out in here with an enderman, but you do you, I guess,” he said. “Did you kill the dragon yet? If not, you’re welcome to come with us. Once I’m looted up, I’m gonna stab that bad boy in the heart.”
“Hey,” said Jesster, snapping her fingers. “Helllloooo? Rude! Aren’t you gonna say something? You can still talk with a pumpkin on, you know.”
Kan’s bright, beautiful green eyes widened. They are talking to me, he thought. I am human. I was human all along. They think I raided this boat. Like them. Like a normal human boy. They think I raided this boat and tricked you into thinking I was a harmless enderman. And I guess…I guess they are right.
Kan took a step toward the humans. The look on his face was so horribly happy and sad all at once. He opened his mouth to talk, really talk, no silky, silent thoughts. Not anymore. Real words. Human words. At last.
“Whoa, Jess!” Koal called out. “Look out! It’s coming right for you!”
Koal lunged forward and swung his trident. It caught Kan on the cheek. The wound flared red, but it wasn’t deep. The green-eyed enderman stared at the humans, full of hurt and confusion.
“You guys should probably just kill him,” the one called Jax said. “Sneaking around is pretty fun, not gonna lie, but it’s easier just to clear the zone first thing. Don’t worry, they won’t even see you coming. They’re too stupid to breathe. As long as you’ve got your pumpkin, you can kill ’em left and right and they still won’t figure out what’s up.”
Fin and Mo just stood there, gawping. Grumpo was still screaming in their heads, like he was trying to drown out the intolerable sound of the humans talking. The place where they’d stacked up their bravery was clean cleared out. They didn’t understand. Maybe they didn’t want to understand. The twins grabbed each other’s hands.
Please just go away and let this not be happening, Fin thought.
Maybe we’re still asleep. Maybe the apples really were poisoned. Maybe Grumpo IS a bad boy. Always knew he might be, Mo thought, her mind starting to break under the pressure. She held on to her egg. Her egg was solid. Her egg was real. The egg was love. The egg was life.
Roary cleared her throat. “Awkward.”
“Anyway…” Jax coughed. “You two want to come kill a dragon? Us humans gotta stick together, you know.”
Us humans? the twins thought. Two?
Kan crumpled to the floor.
Grumpo’s telepathic scream cut off sharply.
Fin clung to his sister.
Mo squeezed her egg as tight as she could, tight enough to make it all go away.
The egg cracked.
You’re mistaken, thought Fin angrily. We’re not human.
Something long and thin and greyish-violet broke the shell of the egg. It had a hard, yellow hoof on one end, like a fist made all out of old thumbnail.
You have got it wrong, thought Kan desperately. It is me. I am the one. I am human.
A second spindly skinny thing emerged from Mo’s egg. Bloodshot veins snaked all over it in a complicated pattern that looked almost like the design on a pretty vase, only much, much gorier and…wetter.
What in the name of the Great Chaos do you mean “kill a dragon with you”? Mo thought accusingly. I hope you don’t mean ED because it will burn you standing.
Something very big was trying very hard to be born out of her egg. The spindly legs wiggled in the air with effort. The head pushed at the bluish-green shell. A sickly looking head with bits of bright bone showing through the bruised-looking skin. A head with sharp yellow teeth. A head with mold on it before it even took its first breath.
The thing neighed.
The neigh sounded like a coffin opening.
It looked up into Mo’s dark, loving face with enormous dark eyes fringed with funguslike eyelashes.
Mumma? the zombie horse croaked in the space between their minds.
“Wow! I heard about those!” Jesster exclaimed. “The eggs are super tough to find! I’ll trade you a nether star for it.”
Mo wrapped her arms protectively around the undead horse’s neck. It was a girl. A mare. Her hair was stringy and moist and smelled like raw beef.
Mumma, the ghoul burped happily. Her breath put out a torch. Brains. Braaaains? the zombie foal sniffed around for that special food all zombies love. She fixed her bloodshot eyes meaningfully on Fin’s head.
Your baby is disgusting, Grumpo observed from his box. I hate it. You should put it in the garbage. I can smother it for you if you want.
Put yourself in the garbage! Mo snapped back. She’s beautiful! Aren’t you, baby?
Mo, don’t you think there’re more important things going on right now?
Mo glared at her brother stubbornly. No. Very gently, she kissed the horse’s forehead. You’re all I have left, she thought softly. You’re my whole old life if my old life was a stinky horse. I don’t want whatever is about to happen to us to happen and I don’t want to know whatever we’re about to know, but you can’t stop things happening and you can’t unknow something once you know it, so I’m just going to focus on this until it stops happening. I’m never gonna let you go. You have the prettiest sores.
Mo had no idea what the mind of a zombie horse was like. She’d heard her thoughts, so telepathy was on the table. But could a dead mind even open up enough to fully let someone else’s thoughts in? Mo considered it silently. There was no way to know except to try. She smiled at the creature and tried to see inside her brain, her mind, her soul. Mo pushed her mind toward the pony’s mind.
She saw a graveyard. It went on forever, over a hundred hills and more. All the dirt was freshly turned. Wiry, crooked trees bent over the tombs. A sickly white moon shone on all of it. Nothing seemed to respond to her thoughts. The gravestones said various things: HELLO. HI. BEAUTIFUL. DISGUSTING. BABY. PUT IT IN THE GARBAGE. WOW. BRAINS. MUMMA. HUNGRY. HUNGRY. HUNGRY. MUMMA. BRAINS. Most of them were blank, though. Not that much had happened to her yet, after all.
The End: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 7