Book Birthday! (Patreon)

Today is launch day for Minecraft: The End! 

It's been a long crazy road since I took this improbable job, mostly because I thought it would be funny. It's the last job anyone would think I'd take, and that's always the job I want. 

Those of you in the Totally Voluntary Test Subjects tier and up got to read some advanced chapters of this, but I wanted to put up a bit for all of my patrons, because you are the best and it's nearly the holidays. Thank you for your support, my darlings!

You can get it at bookstores everywhere, even if they are called Target and Walmart, as well as ebooks and audiobook!

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Chapter Three: Kan

Wake up, I hate you. 

 Grumpo’s thoughts blinked on and off in Fin’s and Mo’s head like an alarm clock. 

Wake up, I hate you. 

Fin stretched. Endermen sleep standing up. Beds didn’t really work in the End. If you made something to lie down on, it usually exploded. Endermen didn’t need much sleep anyway. They were a bit like cats. They just napped wherever they were. 

Wake up, I hate you. Someone is approaching the ship. I hate them. Make them leave. It’s time for you to make them leave now. I hate them so much. It’s happening again. Make it stop happening. 

Mo grabbed one of the enchanted iron swords off the sword pile and poked her head up out of the hold. You couldn’t be too careful. Humans didn’t just live in the Overworld. Every once in awhile one would show up here. Or so they’d been told. It hadn’t actually happened yet, but sooner or later. It was inevitable. And when they saw ships practically groaning with treasure, humans tended to go a little crazy. And they started out crazy, as far as Mo was concerned. 

She scanned the horizon. Telos loomed there, end rods aglow and banners flying. The night beyond was calm and deep. It al- ways was. She didn’t see anyone. 

Are you sure, Grumpo? Cutie baby Grumpo.
Haaaaaate, hissed the shulker down below. Want to bite. Okay, okay. Mo stuck her head out again.
Anybody there? she thought on a broad frequency that anyone should have been able to hear. Here, human, human, human!

I am no human, friend of mine. But I can steal your belongings if you are in the mood for humans today. The thought opened up in her mind. Mo recognized the thinker immediately. Their only friend in the End. 

Hello, Kan! 

Grumpo growled in his box. See? He’s happening again. I hate him. I hate how he . . . how he happens. It’s disgusting. He comes around all the time and he does not live here and I hate him. Make him leave. Make him not happen. 

A young enderman appeared on the deck of the greyish-purple ship. He raised one long arm to say hello. In the other, he clutched a brown-checkered note block. Their friend’s most prized posses- sion. Kan was longer and thinner than Fin, but because he was always so shy, he seemed smaller than both the twins. He had big, beautiful eyes, but he was always squinting, trying to hide them, trying to make them unnoticeable. 

Because Kan’s eyes weren’t like the wide, clear, magenta-violet eyes of other endermen.

Kan’s eyes were green.

No one knew why. No one could remember any other enderman who had green eyes, not in all the history of the End. It bothered people. Sometimes it bothered them a lot. Nobody in Telos looked Kan in the eye if they could help it. Fin and Mo had never minded. Some people are just born different, that was all. Some people were orphans. Some people had green eyes. Mo thought they were amazing. Nothing else in the End was exactly that color. Kan’s eyes were green like the grass in the Overworld. Green like emeralds. Green like the leaves of a tree in the sun. 

Kan raised his dark hands to greet her. 

I have run away again, the green-eyed enderman announced triumphantly. My hubunits attempted to retrieve me, but they could not. I am faster. Taskmaster Owari attempted to drag me back, but she could not. I am stronger. So their training has worked, but not as they hoped. They are all the worst. Every time I think I can bear it, they prove me wrong. May I hide here with you? 

You’re always welcome, Mo thought. Come in, come in!

That is the opposite of what I said! wailed Grumpo.

And there was the gang. They’d always been like this: Fin and Mo and Kan, morning, noon, and night. Inseparable. The best of friends. Not that Kan’s hubunits approved much of that. Not that anyone approved much of that. 

Fin and Mo lived on the outskirts of Telos. They lived on the outskirts of everything. They had no End. To everyone else, all these things made them dangerous. To Kan, it made them excit- ing. Your End was everything. So Fin and Mo should have been nothing. But they weren’t nothing. They weren’t nothing, at all. What made an enderman an enderman was the End they belonged to, the End that belonged to them. And that was why no one in Telos seemed to know what to do about Fin and Mo, living off on their own in a ramshackle old ship after their hubunits failed to return from the Overworld. Most people thought them frightfully stupid. How could they be anything else when their End consisted of nothing more than two endermen and a shulker? That wasn’t an End. That was just . . . a load of junk. So mostly, mostly, the other endermen left the twins alone. They had trouble only when they tried to go into the city. 

But Kan knew a secret about the twins. They weren’t stupid at all. They were much better company than the enderfrags at the Enderdome or the awful Taskmaster or any of the hubs and nubs and fragments Kan had ever met. Maybe it was a twin thing. Kan didn’t know any other twins. Maybe they were all like that. Maybe it was like his green eyes. Just some freak of nature. But somehow, just the two of them were enough. Even though a two-stack was usually just barely enough to count to ten between them. Three were the minimum for a decent conversation. Except that Fin and Mo stacked, without any help from anyone. And all three of them were positively plenty. 

Kan was part of an End, all right. Just like all the other ender- frags. But they never seemed to be much a part of him. He was forever running away from home. This was the third time that week. Kan hated the way he felt when he ran away. He hated the way he felt all the way up until he got to the ship. Mean and dumb and angry and hurt, barely able to remember where he was running to or why. But all he had to do was step on board the ship and the cool cascade of endstacking started up. He could feel himself getting beautifully calm and clever. Because he was home. Not with his End, but with his friends. 

 Mo had never met any other enderman who’d run away from home even once. But Kan did it every three or four days. Not that Mo judged her thin, dark friend. She understood, at least she thought she did. Mo would have hated it if she was stuck in some sour, crappy club full of people who scowled at her all the time and told her what to do. Who to be. She would have run away too. And she didn’t think anyone should be punished for running away. It was all part of the Great Chaos. Staying somewhere you hated because the rules said you had to was giving in to the Forces of Order. 

Mo led her friend down into the hold. Fin was frying chorus seeds in an iron chestplate over the torch flames. You could make a weird kind of sour purple popcorn that way. They’d never found a way to eat it safely, but it was pretty fun to watch the kernels pop. Every once in awhile, Grumpo would eat a handful if you sprin- kled it into his box like fish food. Thanks, he’d say. I hate it. I want to bite you. But he always ate it all up anyway. And refused to tell them how he managed to digest the stuff. 

Fin waved one long black hand at them, stuck inside the en- chanted iron gauntlet that they used as a cooking mitt. The seeds popped cheerfully—Pop! Pop! CRACK! 

Kan inhaled the smell of the chorus corn deeply. It smelled horrific. But it smelled like home. 

I like your house so much better than mine, he thought sadly. I wish I could live here with you. 

No room, Fin thought back jokingly. But the thought that he did not allow to float between their minds was: That would be great, but your hubunits would literally, actually kill us. They’d sweep through this ship like a shadow made of knives and we’d never make gross, inedible popcorn again. 

Kan settled into a corner of the ship’s guts, between a block of emerald and a pair of old boots. He put his note block between his legs. For a while, he just laid his head on top of it. He didn’t think anything. At least not out loud. Endermen could hide their thoughts if they really wanted to. It was just considered incredibly, aggressively rude. Kan didn’t cry. Endermen couldn’t, not really. But in their minds, Fin and Mo could see an image of the little white sparkles that fell from the end rods on the tips of the towers of Telos, falling all the way to the ground. They understood what that meant the same way any human knows what water falling from another human’s eyes means. 

Finally, Kan began to tap the brown thatch of his note block. Fin sighed eagerly and sat down with his long legs crossed. Mo leaned forward to hear better. No one could play a note block like Kan. Sure, the twins found them every now and again. Mostly when a human failed to kill the ender dragon (as they always did) and dropped one when they got what was coming to them. But when Fin or Mo tried to play it, all they got were short, sharp sounds that they could never fit together into a song. 

When Kan played, even the sky stopped to listen. 

His hands moved over the top of the block and music poured out. It filled the ship’s hold and spilled out onto the deck. The song was sad and bright and angry and hopeful all at the same time. But it was quick and light, too. You couldn’t help but tap your feet to it. It made you want to dance and it made you want to hug your friends and it made you want to run out and conquer the world, or at least conquer anyone who tried to tell you what to do. 

Grumpo’s box top rose up slightly. His yellow-green nub of a head peeked through the crack. Kan stopped playing.  

Let me guess, he thought at the shulker, you hate it.
After a long pause, the shulker answered: I don’t hate it.
A gasp rose from all three of the endermen. They couldn’t 

believe it. Of course Kan was good. The best. But Grumpo hated everything. Kan often thought the shulker was like his hubunits that way. 

I just STRONGLY DISLIKE IT, the shulker snapped back, and slammed his box shut. 

Kan turned his friendly rectangular head back to his friends. He had always been the handsomest enderman in the End. Mo thought so. Fin thought so. But whenever the three of them went to Telos and passed others on the long violet streets, they always heard the grown-ups thinking about how ugly and awkward Kan was. How horrible his eyes were. How stupid and weird and even hideous he was. It made Mo so angry. Kan was beautiful! Why couldn’t they see it? If only the whole of Telos could hear him play . . . but hearing him play never seemed to help Kan’s family like him any better. 

I was playing that song this morning. My secondary hubunit heard me. He was so furious. He is right. He has told me time and time again to give up my block. Stop it, he screamed, stop that hor- rible racket! Music is one of the chief servants of Order! How dare you bring it into this house! I cannot stand one more note! Be who you were meant to be! Be one of us! Go to the Overworld! Hunt humans! Serve Chaos like your fellow enderfrags! Eat, fight, and be merry! Why must you mope and sing all the time? You are not a sad parrot! And then he tried to break my block. 

I’m sorry, thought Fin. I wonder if our hubunits would have been like that. 

But then, if I try to get away, if I try to save my block, it only gets worse! Without me, my primary and secondary hubunits, their hubunits and nubunits, their other enderfrags and all the rest of them are weaker and dimmer. They roar and chase after me and try to get me back into their End even though I do not want to be in their End at all! I do not want to go to the Overworld! I do not care one bit about the Overworld! It’s bright and horrible there! I do not want to be a warrior. I do not care about the Great Chaos! 

Mo gasped. That was blasphemy. Real, serious blasphemy. If a grown-up heard them thinking like that . . . 

I do not want to be an enderman at all if all it means is hunting humans and fighting battles and breaking things. I just want to play my music. I like this familial group! Kan and Fin and Mo and Grumpo and the ship! That is my End. They don’t understand me. They will NEVER understand me. 

We like this End, too, thought Fin.
They were all quiet for a while.
How long before they come to get you? Mo thought delicately. 

Kan wouldn’t want to talk about it, but whenever his hubunits came to pick him up, they tended to do quite a bit of damage to the ship. 

I do not know. Kan’s thoughts were so quiet they were like whispers. I wish I didn’t have hubunits. 

Don’t say that, Fin thought fiercely.
No, you don’t, thought Mo at the same time.
Now Kan’s thoughts were so quiet they could barely see them. 

They flickered in the twins’ heads like candles about to go out. 

Then I only wish I had not been born different. I wish I liked to fight and break things like everyone else. I wish I’d never heard music in the first place. I just want to be normal. Why did the Great Chaos make me this way? 

I think you’re wonderful this way, Mo thought. 

Grumpo’s box clapped open suddenly. Then shut again. Then open. Then shut and open and shut and open and shut again, but faster and louder. SOMEONE IS APPROACHING THE SHIP, the shulker screeched into their skulls. SOMEONE IS AP- PROACHING THE SHIP. SOMEONE BIG. HATE. HATE. HATE. HATE. I WILL BITE THEM. I WILL. LET ME BITE THEM. YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY. EVERYTHING WILL BE BETTER IF I BITE THEM. TRUST GRUMPO. GOOD BOY GRUMPO. 

Fin and Mo turned toward the door into the hold. The terrible thoughts of Kan’s secondary hubunit, Karshen, appeared in their minds like flashing lights and sirens. 

KAN! WHERE ARE YOU LOCATED IN THE VOID?! 

Full of rage. Full of pride. Full of that strange way of talking grown-ups liked so much. There were enough of them here that Karshen could summon the intelligence to speak as he pleased. 

KAN! I WILL DISCOVER YOU! 

I will go, Kan thought glumly. He tucked his note block under his skinny, dark arm. I do not want any of your treasure to get ru- ined like last time. The behavior of my hubunits humiliates me. I am sorry. 

KAN! YOU ARE MORE FOOLISH THAN YOU APPEAR! UNCOVER YOURSELF TO YOUR HUBUNIT! WE DO NOT POSSESS AN EXCESS OF TIME IN WHICH TO PLAY YOUR FRIVOLOUS GAMES. UNCOVER YOURSELF. EVENTS COMMENCE. TERRIBLE EVENTS. 

One enderman alone may not be as clever or as strong as many endermen together. But one enderman alone is still plenty strong. They could hear him thrashing around on the upper deck. They heard the slats of the ladder on one side of the mast crack under his fist. 

I will go, Kan said again. But he didn’t get up. 

What’s he talking about? Mo thought swiftly. What terrible events? 

I do not know, nothing was afoot when I left. All was silence. Except for the usual yelling session concerning how much all sen- sible people hate music. 

KAN! 

It is the day of my fragmentation, Kan thought glumly. They do not even remember. 

Endermen were not born the way humans were. The little enderfrags just replicated off the primary hubunit. A tiny black sprite blinking away from a big black block. They looked almost like small black eggs. No pain or drama or cuddles in its mother’s arms. A newborn enderman was just part of the primary hubunit one moment, and off on its own the next. But they did celebrate their day of fragmentation, all the same. Usually. 

Now they could hear the thoughts of Kan’s primary hubunit, Teg. Even louder than Karshen’s. Her heavy feet crunched onto the ship. 

They’re going to wreck the place, Fin worried. 

KAN YOU MUST REVEAL YOURSELF TO YOUR CREATORS! 

Farewell my friends, waved Kan as he trudged up the steps to- ward his family. I will see you again. Someday. I hope. 

It’ll be okay, Mo thought after him. Will it, though?
Ender swear, Fin assured him. Ender swear, Mo agreed. 

Kan nodded. His face looked so pretty in the soft light of the End. Okay. I believe you. 

KAN, YOU HAVE APPEARED AS IF BY MAGIC. The huge endermen outside blared their thoughts everywhere with very lit- tle care for who heard them. They must really have been worried. Usually, endermen were much more careful to keep their thoughts tight and directed, like a flashlight’s beam that landed only where you wanted it to. 

How did you find me so swiftly? Kan thought dryly. 

You always come here, Kan’s primary hubunit thought, return- ing to a normal volume. Why would we look in an alternative loca- tion? 

But his secondary hubunit was still screaming at the top of his mind. 

YOU MUST RETURN TO THE HOME NODE IMMEDI- ATELY, FRAGMENT. THERE IS NO TIME TO EXPEND IN DISCUSSING YOUR FAILURES. 

Why? What is at home? More yelling? Kan’s thoughts were white-hot with resentment. 

The primary hubunit crouched on her black knees. The lights of Telos beyond her enormous head gave her a strange yellowish halo. She looked deep into her fragment’s strange, terrible green eyes. She even touched his head. Just a little. Almost as if she cared. And now, even though Fin and Mo and even Grumpo could still hear her thoughts, she sent her words quietly. 

Kan, fragment of mine, you must come home and prepare. It is imperative. We must defend ourselves. The humans are coming.