by Matt Forbeck
Smacker stood near a statue of a horse that had been erected atop a stone patio in the main square. Torches on high sconces surrounded him. While they illuminated anything beneath them, Archie knew from experience that the light made it harder to see much beyond them. In fact, he was surprised Smacker had spotted him at all.
“How come I can understand him?” Archie said.
I am translating his language for you.
“Why didn’t you do that before?”
He wasn’t saying anything you needed to know.
“And he is now?”
Perhaps.
Archie rubbed his chin as he mulled that over for a moment. “Can you make him understand me?”
I’m not inside his head.
Archie nodded his understanding to the Orb. Fair enough.
“You thought you’d catch us unawares!” Smacker called out. “But I would never leave my favorite village unprotected!”
Archie bared his teeth in a vicious grin. “I was hoping for exactly that.”
Smacker glared at Archie, unable to understand a word he was saying. The threatening tone of the Arch-Illager’s voice, though, must have been unmistakable.
At that moment, a redstone golem swung toward Smacker as it lumbered through town, but rather than attack him, it veered off at the last instant, almost as if it had found something more interesting to destroy. A cluster of Illagers did the same thing, moving away in the other direction rather than charging at the hero.
Smacker tracked them each with his sword, a wide smile on his face as he waited for someone to challenge him directly. “Come on!” he said. “I’m right here! Ready and waiting!”
As he’d done with Yumi, Archie had ordered his people to avoid Smacker, no matter how much the hero taunted them. For one, none of them had the power they would need to stand up to someone as inherently strong as Smacker. As the hero had proved the last time Archie had led an attack on the town, he could take apart even a redstone golem in single combat.
For two, Archie didn’t want anyone else to get between him and what he had planned for Smacker. He wanted a front-row seat for when he brought the hero down.
“Come on!” Smacker bellowed as another of the redstone golems swung straight past him without slowing down to confront him. “Bring it on, you cowards!”
Archie waited until Smacker had shouted himself hoarse trying to challenge the others. Then he stepped forward again, just enough to get the hero’s attention.
“You!” Smacker stabbed his blade in Archie’s direction. “You’re not afraid of me, are you? Come here and fight me so I can hand you your head!”
Archie snickered at the hero as he strolled closer to him, just to the edge of the halo of light the torches in the center of town provided. “That’s not going to happen,” he told the hero. “No matter how much you shout about it.”
He still can’t understand your words.
“No, but he can get the gist of what I’m saying from my tone,” Archie said as he peered at the hero. “Can’t you?”
“I recognize you!” Smacker gave Archie a suspicious glare. “You were here the last time, leading these idiots into the village. How’d that go for you then? You got yourself all shot up by those skeletons before I could get to you, didn’t you? You ought to count yourself lucky for that!”
“He likes to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?”
Clearly.
“Well, you’re not going to be so fortunate this time!” Smacker said. “This time, I’m going to put you so far down into the ground they’re going to have to dig a mine to find you!”
Archie couldn’t help but laugh. He threw back his head and let out a long, loud cackle that seemed to spring from the bottom of his feet and shoot all the way up through his body until it came blaring out between his teeth.
That seemed to give Smacker pause. Archie was sure he’d never had an Illager laugh at him. Certainly not like that.
Rather than charging at Archie, Smacker held his ground. He couldn’t seem to make up his mind about the Illager. He just stared at him wide-eyed for a moment instead.
Archie started forward then, but as he did, he beckoned with his staff for the Redstone Monstrosity to return.
The gigantic creature lumbered forward into the light, passing Archie almost instantly with its long, thundering strides. Before Smacker could even properly see it, his bravado began to waver.
He could tell right away that it was a huge mob. At first he probably thought it was a redstone golem, which would have been a challenge, but one that he’d beaten before. Then he might have realized the ground was shaking too much for it to be that, and he could have thought that two or three of the creatures were coming at him at once.
Then he saw the actual Redstone Monstrosity. The whole of it. The towering figure of glowing-red rock, complete with its arms as wide as trees and the horns stabbing out from its head, each of which was as long as his sword.
Smacker took one long, entirely horrified look at that mob—and he turned and ran.
Archie crowed in triumph as the Redstone Monstrosity chased Smacker out of the village and into the hills beyond. The creature was under orders not to stop until the hero had vanished from its sight.
While the monstrosity wasn’t as fast as the hero, it didn’t get tired. Archie suspected that Smacker was in for a very long night.
Eventually the Redstone Monstrosity would return to him—unless something unbelievable happened to it. In the meanwhile, Archie decided to enjoy the screams of terror still echoing throughout the village and the glow of the fires burning the buildings there to the already scorched ground.
While he waited for the rest of his army to rally to him, he stood there in the center of the village and began to plot his next steps for conquering the land. He might need more soldiers, but he’d have to wait to see how many of the Undead mobs returned to Highblock Keep with Walda. Either way, he should set up a team at the Fiery Forge to build him as many inert redstone golems and monstrosities for him to animate as they could manage.
With those kinds of forces behind him, who would ever dare to challenge him? There was the matter of those four other heroes roaming around, but with luck they’d make the same decision as Smacker, leave the land, and put it as far behind them as fast as they could.
Perhaps they’d come after him for revenge—if they could figure out who had damaged their homes. If they did, he’d be ready for them. He’d give out orders to hinder them every step they took, all the way from the Squid Coast to Highblock Keep.
And if they somehow persisted through all of that, he would take care of them personally.
He and the Orb of Dominance. Between them, nothing could hope to stop them.
There might have been a part of Archie that still wished he could get away and live quietly and alone, far from the troubles that came with becoming the overlord of a land. But apparently that was not his fate…
Wise Illager. Once you’re on a ride that can’t be stopped, it’s best to figure out a way to enjoy it.
Archie seethed at the Orb’s words. He knew that he wasn’t in full control of the Orb anymore—if he had ever been. Worse yet, he was no longer sure he was in full control of himself either. The artifact had wormed its way into his mind and taken root there like a vicious cancer he could not remove.
Would this be the way he lived until he died? Unsure of who was making his decisions? Himself or the Orb of Dominance?
Yes.
Of course.
And how long would that be? Would he age and grow old? Or would the Orb keep him alive long beyond his natural years? Would he ever be free of it?
Not of your own accord.
Archie realized that he should have known this from the start. He was not the sort of Illager who just stumbled into success—especially
not the kind of success that gave him unbridled power and the ability to conquer the entire land.
He’d secretly craved power his whole life—if only to keep others from hurting him—but he’d never dreamed of attaining it like this. Or of the bargain he would have to make for it.
He’d been so stupid.
He should have seen the warning signs. One of them had been right there in the name: the Orb of Dominance.
From the moment he picked up the Orb, Archie had thought it would give him the power to dominate everything around him. Instead, it had dominated him.
Still, there were worse problems to have. Even if Archie was secretly the Orb’s servant—rather than the other way around—his job gave him not just power but prestige.
No one had ever united so many Illagers like this. Or forged an alliance with the Undead mobs.
No one had built a fortress like Highblock Keep.
No one had ever conquered the entire land.
Archie wondered if someone else had laid claim to the Orb of Dominance before. Had they become its servant as well? If so, how had they managed to free themselves from it? Could he hope to do the same?
No.
Of course it would say that. The real question, he supposed, was this: Once they’d gotten free, why hadn’t they destroyed it?
It is impossible.
One thing Archie had learned about the Orb: Sometimes it lied—and maybe it was lying now.
He could hope. The Orb couldn’t stop that.
Meanwhile, Archie decided—at least he hoped he decided—to embrace his new life. He still had a land to conquer. Mobs to make his own. Heroes to defeat.
If he had to rule the land, then he might as well play that role to the hilt.
He would be the Arch-Illager, and no one would ever stop him.
Right?
EPILOGUE
The heroes didn’t mind the destruction of their houses. Not really.
Sure, they had spent a lot of time on getting them just the way they wanted. They’d mined the things they needed and crafted them into the things they required. But they’d enjoyed the process as much as the results, and these were all things they could do again if they wanted.
But what had happened to the village? That was awful.
“It was the work of that Illager we saw being bullied in the village,” Adriene—the hero Karl had nicknamed Pinky—said as they gazed down from atop a nearby hill at what remained of the village. Parts of it still stood burning. “Remember him?”
“That squirrelly little guy?” Hal (whom Karl had called Stache) said with a deep frown as they surveyed the heartbreaking damage done to their favorite settlement in all the land. “Seriously? He didn’t look like he could lift an axe much less raise an army.”
“It doesn’t matter if it was him or someone else,” Hex—Karl had known them as Scarface—said in a bitter tone. “This was a coordinated attack, and we need to put a stop to it. This may look like it’s over—the village certainly does—but take it from me. This is just starting.”
Valorie—known to Karl as Red—nodded in agreement. “Conquerors like that never stop with a single place. You don’t gather an army like that to destroy a single village and go home. They keep going and going until they grind down everything whole and good under their force’s boots.”
“So what can we do about it?” Adriene said. “You saw Karl fleeing through the forest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone run that fast. He’s not going to stop until he hits the sea.”
“If then,” Hal laughed despite the seriousness of the moment. They all knew that Karl was a bully, and they had barely been able to tolerate him and his antics. Some of them had even discussed having to banish him from the land themselves.
If there was an upside to all this, it was that the attack on the village had done that for them. All told, Karl had been pretty useless as a hero. They’d left him behind to protect the village while they checked out the fires that had been set at their houses, for instance, and look how that had turned out. And that had just been the latest in a long line of failures by him.
Either way, with Karl gone, they were the only heroes left in the land. No one else could hope to stand against this threat. No one else could possibly protect the innocent.
Hex coughed. “I hate to say this, but for all his clear and awful faults, Karl knew how to fight. If he couldn’t deal with this new threat, what sort of chance do we have?”
“Well, for one, there are four of us,” Valorie said. “Even if the numbers aren’t exactly on our side, that has to count for something.”
“And together, as a team, we’re far better than the sum of our parts,” said Adriene. “That’s how this attack managed to destroy the village. They divided us. They drew us away from the village and sent us off to our respective homes. If we’d kept together instead, do you think they would have stood a chance?”
“It wasn’t like they beat Karl either,” Hal pointed out. “Like most bullies, he’s a coward at heart. He finally had someone with enough power stand up to him, and he just turned and ran. We’re not going to do that, right?”
“We’re not cowards,” Hex said. “But bravery on its own isn’t enough. Those were Undead mobs that attacked our homes last night. If they did that to draw us away from the village—and it seemed pretty clear they did—that means the Illagers and the Undead are working together. That’s a kind of alliance of evil this land has never seen.”
“That’s why we have to stick together and fight to stop it,” Valorie said. “The alternative is too horrible to contemplate. To leave the people of this land on their own against such a force? Unthinkable!”
“So we’re agreed?” Adriene asked. Even though it was clear what the answer would be, Adriene needed to hear it. “We’re banding together to fight this new threat and rid it from the land?”
They all knew what Karl would tell them. You’re all fools! They’re too powerful! Did you see that monstrosity? You’re all going to be killed!
And then he’d probably cackle about the fact that he’d been smart enough to run away rather than stay behind, fight, and risk being killed.
Hal gave the rest of them a grim nod. “Count me in. Just as long as you all swear never to say, ‘The real treasure we found was the friendships we made along the way.’ Okay?”
The rest of them laughed in agreement. From what they could tell, this wasn’t going to be some soul-searching journey that taught them something about themselves. It would be a brutal battle to defeat the greatest threat they’d ever seen. And they were all ready for it.
“Of course,” Hex said with a wolfish grin. “I never liked the rest of you anyway.”
Valorie shook their head at the others. This adventure was sure to test far more than their friendship. They’d be lucky if they all survived it. Still, there was no doubt what their answer to this call to action would be. “I’m in. Let’s get to work.”
For my kids—Marty, Pat, Nick, Ken, and Helen—who taught me the wonders of playing Minecraft back when it was still in public alpha. And for my wife, Ann, who loved watching us all play.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While my name may be on the cover, a lot of people spend a tremendous amount of time putting a book like this together. First and foremost, I need to thank my editor, Alex Davis, whose unflagging enthusiasm and constant support always spurred me to make this story the best I could manage. You were a joy to work with every step of the way.
On top of that, I want to thank my copy editor, Liz Carbonell, who helped polish the book’s text to a gleaming shine.
Also at Del Rey, I’d like to thank Keith Clayton, Tom Hoeler, Julie Leung, Sarah Peed, Elizabeth Schaefer, and Dennis R. Shealy, both for getting this book rolling and for their ongoing help.
M. S. Corley deserves huge praise for th
e wonderful cover art. I adore it so much I’ve had it staring back at me from my computer’s desktop for months.
Thanks also to Dan Bittner for narrating the audiobook. I love listening to Archie’s story being told in a whole new voice that’s even better than the one in my head.
Of course, not a bit of this book would have been possible without the entire team at Mojang who works hard to make Minecraft so much fun. Special thanks should go to the whole Minecraft Dungeon team—especially the leads, David Nisshagen and Måns Olson—for concocting such a vibrant new adventure for us all to play in.
On top of that, I want to recognize Agnes Larsson and the rest of the amazing Mojang team I met when I was a guest last year at the Nordsken games conference in beautiful Skellefteå, Sweden, a wonderful little city that sits just shy of the Arctic circle. Joining you at the dinner before the inaugural White Reindeer Award was one of the highlights of the week.
I’d also like to thank Jennifer Hammervald, Max Herngren, Alex Wiltshire, and Kelsey Howard at Mojang for all their help, plus their fantastic partners at Microsoft, including Vanessa Dagnino, Kevin Grace, and Dennis Ries. You are the unsung heroes of these Minecraft stories.
In addition, I want to give a shout-out to my fellow Minecraft novelists, who blazed such a glowing trail before me: Max Brooks, Tracey Baptiste, Catherynne M. Valente, Jason Fry, and especially my friend Mur Lafferty, who gave me invaluable insight as I embarked on this story. You set high bars for me to measure up to.
Of course, I can’t end this without expressing my gratitude to you, the reader. Stories really only come to life when they have heads to live in, and I’m thrilled you’ve chosen to invite this one into yours. Thanks.
ALSO BY MATT FORBECK
NOVELS
Mutant Chronicles
Amortals
Vegas Knights
Carpathia
Leverage: The Con Job
Halo: New Blood
Halo: Legacy of Onyx