Mo felt a chill in her guts. She was human. That explained a lot. So what was Kan? What could explain this? Huh. That’s…uh…that’s something we should talk about, don’t you think?
Probably. But there are more important things going on right now. At the moment, I am choosing to believe I have enderman superpowers and leave it at that. I came to rescue you. Kan winced. That sounded stupid. It felt stupid. But he had. He’d come all the way up to the badlands for her.
Rescue me? But I’m fine. We’re fine. Jax is gonna experiment on me tomorrow.
Kan blinked again. Sounds great. Torture after lunch, then? Maybe a little slice and dice before bedtime? Mo, even for a human, Jax is bad news.
He says it’s to get my memory back. He’s said a lot of things, Kan. I don’t know what to believe. He’s pretty mad at me right now, to tell you the truth.
Well, believe that I am your friend. That I have always been your friend. I will always be your friend. I have always told you the truth. I have never experimented on you. And I will never leave you behind. Also believe that it is probably a bad idea to let someone who is pretty mad at you experiment on you. Mo blinked. That had never occurred to her. That Jax might hurt her on purpose. No one in the history of Mo’s life had ever meant her harm. The worst thing they’d ever done was simply to leave her alone with nothing. Let us go. I know where a portal is. If you are quiet, we can just slip back through before he knows what happened. We will be careful so he cannot follow us back to the End. He will not be able to kill ED. Or anyone else. And it will not matter what he is mad at.
But the others…
I do not think they are quite the same. They have all just been hanging out with Fin on this weird little island by the ship. They are not hurting anybody. None of them killed Lopp. They have not killed anyone. It is strange, honestly. I keep expecting them to start killing and they continue to kill nothing. I do not know what to make of it.
Are you spying on them?
An image opened up in Mo’s mind. A beautiful banner unfurling on one of the tallest violet towers of Telos. Kan’s smile.
I am a spy after all, he thought, proud of himself. Grumpo let me hide in his box.
Mo practically jumped over the windowsill in excitement. WHAT? Grumpo NEVER lets anyone in that box! He hates Fin least of anyone and all he’s ever let him do is stand a foot away and put one finger on the lid. And he still bit him.
You two ran off without a word to Grumpo and I think he is feeling very frightened. If a shulker can feel frightened. Where did you find Grumpo anyway? I have never met a shulker like that. You know they do not usually talk, right? They do not usually anything. I guess I never thought about it till now. Till everything.
I never met an enderman like you either. And I bet until about a day and a half ago, you’d never met a human like me. What was it like in that box?
Crowded. Dark. A weird odor. He refused to let me light a torch. And he said something strange. He said, Stay in here with Grumpo forever. We can hate everything together. Is that not the oddest idea? I left the box quickly after that. Mo, Kan thought, sliding his eyes off toward the other windows. Jax’s window. I do not want to keep talking like this. Come out. Come with me. Come home. It is okay. I am not mad. It is not your fault. I understand that now. I was just upset. I just…I wanted my life to make sense. And it still does not. But it is not about me right now. We need to make your life make sense. And you can only do that with us. Your twin and your ship and your shulker and me. Your End. Jax is not your End. He is just a hunter who wants to catch something unique. All hunters do. And you are very unique.
Mo looked over her shoulder toward the bedroom door. I don’t know, she thought. Maybe he has answers. You don’t know what’s happened. I had something in my pocket. I didn’t even know about it. A couple of things. The totem she didn’t really understand. It didn’t matter to her at all. The pearl she understood completely. But she couldn’t tell Kan about it. There were some things too wrong to forgive. And what if he saw Lopp’s pearl and knew who it came from? He’d never speak to her again. One of them is a dragon’s egg and Jax said there’s only one way I could have gotten one…and if I got it that way I should never, ever go back to the End no matter what forever.
I do not care what you have in your pockets. There is nothing you could have done that would change my mind about you. Mo, you turned out to be a human being and I am still your friend. I am still here for you, in the awful old Overworld where I do not want to be at all. Kan held up his long, black arms to her. I do not want you to be experimented on. Come home. Remembering is so overrated.
Mo looked over at Loathsome. She patted the horse’s greasy hair. She could see Loathsome’s huge heart not beating between two gleaming ribs.
Mumma, saaaaaame, the zombie beast thought.
You’re right, love. We are the same. Kan and me and Fin. And you. And Grumpo. And the ship. And home. I don’t know how you can be so smart. You were only just born. Or died. However it works. Either way. Both ways.
Loathsome winked one milky, dead eye. Brains, she thought.
I’ll climb down, Mo thought.
Kan shook his dark head. He held out his slender fingers toward the stone wall.
A block disappeared.
He lifted his fingers a little higher.
Another block vanished.
All hail the Great Chaos, Mo thought. And in Kan’s mind, the image of a golden chestplate glinting in the evening light of the End bloomed. It was Mo’s smile.
She held out her hand toward the windowsill. Human or not, the little violet particles still danced around her fingers, more faded and paler than they used to be, but still there.
The stone shimmered and hissed away into the air. Mo stretched out her arm again and erased another square of wall.
May the Great Chaos smile upon you, thought Kan, as the castle disappeared around him.
Block by block, the enderman and the human moved toward each other, making a staircase out of the remains of the wall as they went. Mo stepped down. Kan stepped up. The torches over the moat glowed golden. Jax’s house opened up all around them. And when you lay open to the world, strange things could happen that would never find you if you stayed locked up behind orderly walls. Strange things like an enderman rescuing a girl and her zombie. This was the whole purpose of the Great Chaos. That was how Mo knew it was the right thing to do. Human or not, she still believed.
In her infinite pocket, the dragon egg glowed coldly.
Kan grabbed Mo’s hand.
I didn’t need rescuing, you know, she thought. I could have just left anytime.
Kan shrugged awkwardly. Okay. It is the thought that counts? Can we at least tell Fin I rescued you, though? Very bravely?
Mo laughed in the quiet between their minds. Sure, Kan.
Come on, he thought. I feel pulled toward the nearest portal. I think I can sense the eyes of ender…but we have to be fast. It will be daylight soon. We will teleport. That is easiest. Ready?
Mo pulled back, frozen. Kan still thought of her as she had always been. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that humans couldn’t teleport. That she must not’ve been doing it on her own. And Mo couldn’t tell him. She just couldn’t. He wouldn’t understand. He’d just know that the ender pearl she’d used to teleport all over the End, all during their childhood, used to be somebody’s heart, and he’d hate her for it. She wouldn’t even let herself think about it. Kan would see the shriveled, dying ender pearl in her mind.
What is wrong?
Nothing. Um…Loathsome can’t teleport. So. That. Is what’s wrong.
Oh, right.
Loathsome burbled. A spit bubble swelled up on her lips and popped. But she didn’t neigh. Zombies know how to be quiet. Occasionally.
Mumma, the pony wheezed. Reeeeeins.
Ka
n winced. There were sores and moldy streaks all along the horse’s back. But she’d be faster than they could manage on foot by a long shot.
Mo hopped up onto Loathsome’s back. It wasn’t the nicest. It was a little wet and a little cold and a little slimy. But Loathsome was a little hers, so Mo didn’t judge her. She pulled Kan up behind her.
I came to rescue you, he thought huffily. I should ride in front.
My horse, my seat preference, Mo thought. Exits to the side and rear of the minecart.
What? Kan thought, confused.
I…I don’t know. What a strange thing to think. I don’t know where it came from. What’s a minecart?
How should I know? You thought it.
Mo shuddered in the dark. The moon came out from behind a cloud. It lit up Loathsome’s green and undead mane. The horse took off away from Jax’s great house into the hills, leaving nothing but hoofprints behind her. Neither Mo nor Kan looked back.
* * *
—
They rode for half an hour before Kan squeezed his knees against Loathsome’s flanks. The zombie stopped obediently, though she narrowed her eyes and growled a little. Kan wasn’t her mumma, and he shouldn’t tell her what to do. Endermen had brains enough to eat.
It is here, he thought. In that spot, but far under the ground. I can sense the portal.
Kan pointed a short ways off, toward an area with a sand dune on one side and an overhanging cliff on the other, surrounded by huge leafy trees. Mo couldn’t see any cave or passage underground, but she trusted Kan. If he said it was there, it was there.
The moon dimmed and vanished. Thunder cracked in the distance. Somewhere behind them, Mo and Kan heard the little speckled sounds of rain starting to fall.
Oh no, Kan thought in terror. No, no, no.
The cliff! Mo thought quickly. Get under it! It’ll be enough, the grass hangs over the edge and there’s a little hollow there, it’s almost a cave. You’ll be fine.
Loathsome ran for the cliff. Endermen cannot bear water. For them, water is death. Kan’s breath came in great, hitching gasps. He teleported instantly off the horse’s reeking back and appeared in the sandy patch beneath the overhang. Loathsome galloped full tilt after him.
The first drops started to fall.
Mo dismounted. She stood there in the grass, outside the safety of the cliff. The rain fell in big, loose drops onto her warm human skin. It fell harder and harder. She was soaked. She was soaked and it didn’t hurt at all. It felt amazing. The crackle of ozone in the air, the smell of fresh greenery in the wind, the excitement of the thunder. All the little tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. But it didn’t hurt.
Of course it didn’t hurt. Mo raised her hands up as far as they would go and looked up into the stormy sky. All that fear, all that grief, all that hatred of the rain that had killed her hubunits washed away. It had never happened. Whoever her parents were, dead or alive, it wasn’t rain that had taken them from her. Rain was just water. Cool and wet and sweet. She laughed and spun around. Rain wasn’t death. It was wonderful.
But then she stopped laughing.
Kan stared miserably at her from under the little cliff. Shivering, frightened, trapped. Rain trickled down off the overhang into a growing puddle. One toe in that puddle and Kan would fade away, leaving only a pearl behind, like a thousand other endermen. The human and the enderman stood helplessly, separated forever by who they were. They’d been able to fool themselves until right that second. That nothing had changed. That Mo could teleport and Kan could survive in the Overworld. That they were still the same people they’d always been. Still an End. But Mo and Kan were nothing alike. They could never be alike.
“We’ll go as soon as it stops,” Mo said awkwardly. “I’ll carry you to the stronghold.”
Kan said nothing. He watched the sky. After a long while, he took out his note block, set it on the muddy ground, and began to play. His music filled up the field and the night, sad and sweet and strange. The music of the End echoed through the Overworld for the first time.
Mumma, groaned Loathsome as water dribbled through the holes in her body into the mud. Raaaaain.
Yeah, baby, answered Mo as the delicious, delightful storm drenched her from head to foot. Sure is something, isn’t it?
“Let me get this straight,” said Roary. The night void of the End yawned behind her. The beginnings of the city Jess planned to build stood out brightly against it. “You’ve got all those books in your ship, hundreds of them, by my count. And you’ve never read any of them.”
Fin shrugged. “I told you, they’re enchanted. All got some kind of high-level Unbreaking enchantment on them. I don’t know how to get it off. Do you?”
“Grindstone,” Roary answered instantly.
“Grindstone,” Jess said at the same time.
“Grindstone,” said Koal.
“Fine,” snapped Fin. “You’re all so much smarter than me. It’s not like Mo and I didn’t try, you know. We didn’t have a manual. We did our best. It’s not my fault, either. The endermen didn’t teach us. How am I supposed to find out about stuff like that if I wasn’t taught it?”
The humans shifted uncomfortably. None wanted to tell the poor kid that they’d never gone to school. Or had a manual. Maybe things were just harder in the Overworld, so you had to sort yourself out faster. The kid’d had a hard enough day. Night. Whichever.
“If you didn’t know what was in them, why’d you keep so many?” Koal asked.
Fin clenched his jaw. He didn’t like having to answer for how he spent his time. Not to strangers. It was his time. “I like collecting things. I like the feeling of having enough. More than enough. Enough for anything that could ever happen. I hope I die with a full inventory, because that would mean nothing was ever bad enough that I had to use it all up. It makes me feel safe. It doesn’t matter what’s in the books or that I can’t disenchant them. Eventually, if I collect enough things, one of them’ll be the thing that will fix the books so I can read them. The Great Chaos will provide.”
“I wouldn’t think the Great Chaos would be big on books,” Jesster said wryly. Fin had explained about all that. Jess didn’t like it. Chaos made her nervous. Plans were so much better. “Books are pretty much the Orderliest.”
Fin opened his mouth to dig into the religious philosophy of his former people, but Roary cut in.
“Where did you even find so many? I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many books in one place outside a real library. It must have taken years.”
Fin looked out into the night and blinked slowly as he thought about it. It was very eerie to think about. His brain kept sliding off it. He tried to think about the books, but he just didn’t want to think about the books, even though he did want to think about the books and remember where they came from. It gave him a headache. “You know, I don’t really know where we found them. It’s weird. I can remember the day I found my Frost Walker boots, my Loyalty trident, the chestplate I use to make popcorn. I can even remember the day Kan found his note block. But I can’t remember ever finding a single book. Not one. Not once. And we have hundreds, so shouldn’t I remember something about one of them? But I don’t. They were just…always there. From the beginning. Before we found our first sword out there in the islands, the ship was already full of those books.”
Roary’s eyes lit up. “That sounds like a clue,” she said eagerly.
“God, Roary, you’re such a dork.” Koal put his hands on his hips mockingly. “Sergeant Roary, Kid Detective! That sounds like a clue!”
“Shut up, Koal,” Roary said affectionately. “End ships usually have shulkers and a couple of treasure chests. They do not usually have a mountain of unopenable books. That’s not a thing! And how many books have you seen anywhere else in the End? This is not exactly Booktown. Endermen aren’t what you’d call serious intellectuals. We ha
ve no idea who you are or how you got here, Fin, and that’s the first thing you’ve said that sounds like it might be a—stop snickering, Koal—clue. A path to some answers, are you happy? Ugh, take things seriously for once.”
“I could make you a magnifying glass and a stupid hat, if you want.” Koal laughed.
Roary threw up her hands and gave up on him. “Fin, it’s not just that it would be cool to find out how a human managed to become an enderman and forget how they did it in the first place. I need to know. We need to know. Because if it happened to you, it could happen to us, and I’m not going to get stuck wandering around here for years calling shulkers my BFFs. Ew. This is an operational imperative. We have to disenchant those books and see what’s in them. And if it’s just cookie recipes, well…I don’t know. We hope Jax and Mo come back with something. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, this is our best bet.”
“So…do you have a grindstone?” Jess asked Fin.
“Well, I did, but Commander Kraj and Corporal Murrum and Captain Tamat have it now. In Telos, with the rest of the armory. I assume.”
Roary thought about it. “Telos is big. It’s the biggest end city I’ve ever seen. We gave it a wide berth when we came through. Not worth it. But we have a local guide. I think two of us could get in and out pretty quickly.”
“No way,” said Fin. “You don’t understand. You think you’re sneaky. That you’re just playing games down here. The End was waiting for you. We knew you were coming by the taste of the air, Roary. Yesterday every enderman here was assembled to fight you. And they’re still fired up and ready for war. The only reason they’re not here now is that no one has come to check on Mo and me, so no one knows you’re here. But they’ll come soon. Someone will. Looking for Kan or looking for us. Karshen or Kraj. Sooner or later they’ll wonder where we went. At the very least, they’ll want to tell us they’re not going to give our stuff back.”
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