PART X: OUT OF DARKNESS, PART ONE
A cry of utter despair rang out across the vast halls of the Temple of Notch. Instantly, I sprang to my feet, knocking over my chair in the process, and the Book of Notch tumbling from my grasp to splay on the floor. The sound had come from upstairs, in the sanctuary. Ripping open the door, I took off from the tiny study and bolted down the hall, leaping up the stairs two and three at a time. Crashing through the massive double doors, I slid to a stop on the polished sanctuary floor, the doors lazily booming shut behind me.
Only days ago, Herobrine and I had been sitting in the Nether with my friends around the round table, back in the fortress. We had vaguely discussed what to do, but to be honest, no real plans were formed. In a burst of impatience, I stood up and declared that if we needed aid, we had best ask for it now and get our answer. Thus, here I was, back in the Overworld with Herobrine to ask Notch for help.
The beacon behind the altar was lit, showering the sanctuary in brilliant light. Right before the altar was Herobrine, on his knees with his head in his hands clenched into fists in his hair. I approached cautiously, and saw that his arms were subtly shaking.
"He will not come," Herobrine said through gritted teeth, his voice strained. I stopped dead in my tracks and blinked.
"What?" I asked, getting an uneasy feeling.
"My brother," Herobrine said forcibly in a soft voice, "has refused to give us any aid. He has abandoned us." He got to his feet to face me, his fists clenched and trembling with rage at his sides.
The words hit me like a hard punch to the stomach, and I found that I could not breathe.
"He won't come..." I whispered, falling back a step in shock. No. This could not be. My mind locked in denial, I took several angry strides forward and slammed my fists down on the solid altar blocks.
"What do you mean you won't help us?" I hissed, then gathered up my courage. "Are we not your people? Our entire world is about to be destroyed!" My voice was rising in volume. "WHY WON'T YOU COME?!"
The light of the beacon tripled suddenly in brightness, and multiple shockwaves of energy blasted through the air, knocking both me and Herobrine backwards off our feet. The light spread to fill the room completely, then re-condensed into a single vertical beam that flickered like candlelight. A soft, deep voice echoed through the chamber.
Have patience. You will understand.
With a rumble of thunder from the storm outside, the voice was gone, and the beacon-light returned to normal. Herobrine rolled slowly to his feet, eyes blazing with betrayal. Picking up a burnt-out torch that had fallen to the ground, he stood and faced the lifeless beam of light.
"I cannot understand your thoughts," Herobrine muttered, "Unless you TELL ME!" He threw the torch at the beacon, and the wooden shaft broke on impact and clattered to the floor. The beacon shone on silently.
"Blast you, Notch," Herobrine said breathlessly, his voice strained with despair. "Not all of us are so lucky as to stand beyond the path of disaster." Turning on his heels, Herobrine swept past me and cast open the doors to the sanctuary, leaving without looking back. The doors swung shut behind him with an echoing thuds, leaving me alone in the silence of the room.
Getting painfully to my feet, I gave the beacon a baleful look.
"I thought you gods loved your creation," I said bitterly, and then turned and left behind Herobrine.
We were desperately hoping for aid from the Aether for this one, now that we all knew what the dragon was capable of. We Steves could not withstand its eroding effects on our mental and physical stamina, and even Herobrine fell to its whim. Its armies were too massive for us to fend off, and if the Overworld fell, the Nether would no longer be safe. We truly needed Notch to come. Now we knew that that wasn't happening.
Back in my room, I packed up my things and prepared to face my friends again in the Nether. This was the place I had slept on our previous stay in the Temple, and it was once a welcoming place for me. Now it was just another painful reminder of impending doom. My movements were stiff and robotic, and there was a heavy weight on my chest. Herobrine was right-Notch had abandoned us.
Clasping my pack shut, I turned to leave, but then I caught my reflection in the mirror out of the corner of my eye. I turned to face the small object, gazing dully at the Steve that stared back. A Steve with hair darkened by lack of sun, and skin paled by fatigue, drawn tightly over hollow cheeks, with frown lines forming from a habitual scowl. A Steve with glowering eyes of crystal white.
This was a Steve who was getting very tired of running and fighting. I just wanted all of this to be over.
With a sigh of depressed resignation, I hefted my pack up onto my shoulders and walked out of the room, thinking to go straight to the Nether portal. But something caught my attention as I passed an open door. I stopped just outside the threshold of that little study, and saw the Book of Notch still on the floor where it had fallen. Shrugging, I stepped inside long enough to retrieve the volume, smoothing its pages flat again before sliding it into my pack.
I continued on my way, exiting the Temple and pulling the hood of my borrowed cloak over my head against the rain. My feet sank deeply into the mud as I made my way up the hillock to the portal.
I hesitated before the obsidian frame. What would we do without Notch against the creature out to destroy our world?
My pace quickened as I stepped into the heat of the Nether. I was out of ideas- with so much on the line, I didn't know what to do. Everything was spiraling out of my control. Everything had gone all wrong.
In my frustration, I viciously kicked a rock on the path and watched as it smacked against the cliff walls that shadowed the path and vanished through a chink in the netherrack. With a schlop sound, it splashed and sank into the lava beyond.
A scream of defeat tore from my voice and echoed into the vast expanse of the Nether, slightly smothered by the heat and heavy air. I fell to my knees with my head in my hands and rocked back and forth, feeling my breathing speed up and grow shallower. We were all going to die.
I immediately took my hands away and banged them onto the blistering ground.
Stop, I mentally ordered myself. Stop this now! Think! You have to think!
Forcing myself to quit hyperventilating, I got to my feet and moved over to the cliff faces, walking slowly and running a stray finger across the rough, hot surface. I needed to think and to think hard. I needed to calm down.
What can I do from here?
In times of crisis, I often used this tactic. I would stop thinking about everything that had happened before and think about the here and now. What did I know? What could I use? What were my options? Where could I go, and how fast? My mind began to fall into its old patterns.
Yes. Forget the pain of the past to save the future. No more tears, no more backing down or running. It was time to stand and fight.
I would choose the battlefield.
With my arms crossed over my chest and my head bowed in deep thought, I continued along the path until I came to where the nether brick road came out of the cliff enclosure and entered the great empty space right before the fortress. Suddenly nervous, I stopped here. I wasn't ready to face my friends just yet- not with the news I carried. I had to think of something else to tell them, something to give them hope again when the news of Notch took it all away...
Halting just inside the cliff walls, I sat down with my back to the rock and closed my eyes, trying to stay in that trance-like state of uninterrupted pondering. I had to do something. I was known among my friends as the one who always knew what to do. Now I needed to come up with a plan for them.
But nothing came. I had no idea what to do.
A trickle of dust streamed down from above, shaking me out of my moody contemplation. Blinking, I looked up, and saw a pair of glowing white eyes gazing down at me from the edge. I scooted away from the edge as Herobrine jumped down and landed lightly before me, offering his hand to help me up. I accepted his gesture, and dusted myself off, shaking the staining red powder from the netherrack off of my hair and cloak.
"Are you ready?" Herobrine asked softly, his gaze moving from mine to his fortress. I sighed shakily. Nothing could prepare me for anything at this point- not my friends, not the Overworld, and certainly not anything from the End. My face tense, I shook my head.
"Why did all of this have to happen?" I said hopelessly, unable to meet Herobrine's eyes when he glanced back at me. "Why us? Why now?" I got that all-too-familiar prickling sensation in my eyes and immediately fought it away. I was absolutely done with crying. It had quit making me feel better a long time ago, and now it was making me look weak. I hated that.
Herobrine smiled in that awful way, his expression so full of ancient sadness and regret.
"I...truly never did understand my brother and his ways," Herobrine began, picking up a stone and brushing its surface with gentle fingertips. "He was always the wise one, with all the grand designs and foresights that made my devious schemes look like a child's scribble against a master's canvas. He will not come this time, but perhaps we should ponder on what that really means. Would he really leave us if there truly was no hope? That is not like him, and I doubt he has changed even in the ten thousand years we have been separated." I looked back at Herobrine with a vague idea dawning on me- something I couldn't quite put my finger on just yet. He saw the glimmer in my eyes and smiled more warmly, the tension fading away for a brief moment.
"Take heart, Huntress," he said, "It's not over just yet."
Together, we made our way into the great fortress.
"How long do we have?"
Just as everyone was bursting out in a babble of indignation at our news, Wolf's question cut through the noise and had all of us go silent. I blinked, and Wolf made an impatient gesture with his hands on the tabletop.
"So it is settled. How long do we have? When will it come?" he asked, his voice a deep rumble but nowhere near its angry growl. He was more concerned than outraged. Welcome back, Wolf, I thought to myself. Herobrine spoke up.
"The rain in the Overworld will cease within a few days," he answered, folding his hands before him. "We have until then and perhaps the day after before the Endermen are able to invade. We have less than a week." We all nodded gravely.
Except one.
"So," Dawn said, her eyes flashing, "That's it? Our homes are gone, an undefeatable monster is coming to destroy us, and Notch isn't going to do anything, so we get left here to count down the days before doom? What are we supposed to do?" She gave a meaningful look my way, and I shifted in my seat.
"It isn't even that simple," I muttered, looking down at my scratched, dusty hands.
"Why won't Notch help us?" Dawn said as she laid her head down on the tabletop, exasperated and strained. "I thought he-"
"Forget Notch." I snapped, and everyone turned to look at me. I fought to control the emotions boiling inside me, and I kept my eyes down, knowing the numbing effect that glowing white eyes such as mine had on everyone else. With the things I was feeling now, I'll bet I looked pretty terrifying.
"Forget everything that we can't change right now," I said forcefully, unclasping my hands and looking at my palms. "Wolf's right- It's settled. Done. We have to do something now. It's time to move forward."
"So what do you propose we do?" Dragon asked, leaning back in his seat. His eyes met mine and I raised my gaze. Determined not to falter, I sat straight and answered in a level tone,
"I don't know."
Just as everyone was about to react, I stood up from my seat.
"But I intend to find out." My voice had gone cold and emotionless. Turning on my heels, I strode out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Dragon called behind me, worry in his voice. I paused in the doorway of the room.
"To think," I replied, and left.
"I need to be alone," I muttered to myself.
I paced moodily back and forth in the hallways of the fortress, moving on when patrols of pigmen or skeletons marched by. My mind remained blank as ever as I tried to come up with a plan. I mentally reviewed and re-reviewed all the events leading up to now, searching for some clue to aid us in the battle to come. But what did I come up with? Nothing.
With an exasperated sigh, I swept around the corner and strode hard down the hall, going nowhere in particular and not caring whether or not I got lost in the vast labyrinth. I felt helpless here, and I needed fresh ideas. There had to be something I missed before. What could it be?
Have patience. You will understand.
Notch's words still echoed in my mind from the Temple. I kicked the wall, and hissed as I stubbed my toe hard. To be honest, I felt the same way Herobrine did. I would not understand Notch unless he told me what he was doing. Picking a random direction, I continued through the fortress.
Something caught my eye through an open doorway.
I paused and backtracked. Was that who I thought it was?
A brown-haired head was bent over something on a tabletop in a room scattered with End relics. Weather-worn hands smoothed over the pages, then suddenly froze. Dragon spun around from his work to see me peering through the doorway. I blinked, realizing that I had been staring.
"Sorry," I said, turning away to keep pacing.
"Hey- wait a minute." Dragon said, hurrying through the doorway to stop me. His hand landed on my shoulder, firm but friendly. I turned back, and I saw that the smile on his face was reflected in his eyes. Good old, unblaming, never-giving-up Dragon and his smile. "No need to apologize."
I nodded and shrugged.
"I just thought I had disturbed something," I said offhandedly, trying to hide my inner tension. But Dragon magically knew anyway.
"Care for a walk?" He asked, gesturing down the corridor where there was an opening to the outside causeways. "I wasn't finding anything in that dusty room anyway. We could use some time to clear our heads." Shrugging again, I followed him out into the hot and windy outdoors.
You'd be surprised just how noisy it is in the Nether. The lava underneath everything was usually boiling and moving, making a dull rumble under the surface, and the shifting heat patterns would cause a steady wind current that actually got pretty strong. The wind roared over the causeway, utterly dry and absolutely baking. Not to mention the noise of all the denizens of this unforgiving dimension- I don't think Dragon really thought about the term 'clear our heads' very well before he said it. It was too loud for us to hear each other on the causeway.
I held my hair out of my face with my hands since my cloak was forgotten inside with its protective cowl. Motioning to Dragon, I pointed to where the causeway went to a tunnel deep into the Netherrack cliffs.
"Somewhere out of the wind," I called, and he nodded. The wind wasn't usually this bad, but there is such thing as a Nether gale. They can get pretty wild- but more on that later. I had some pretty important matters to discuss with Dragon.
Taking refuge in the tunnel, Dragon and I sat down against the wall side-by-side, close enough that our shoulders touched. For a long awkward minute, neither of us spoke. I busied myself with smoothing my hair back out of my face from the wind that frizzed it up. It was getting absurdly long after all that had happened- I never let it get past my ribs, but now it was to my waist, and headed to that silly length where I might accidentally sit on it. Very inconvenient.
"You know," Dragon said, breaking the silence, "There's something that Herobrine told me a while back. This was...after you sort of woke up from the, uh..." He motioned with his hands, looking for a nicer word.
"Madness," I said emotionlessly. Dragon gave me a look, and I smiled back to reassure him. But my smile never reached my eyes. We both knew that was going to be a touchy topic to beat around.
"Yeah, and you were recaptured. Herobrine came to the Overworld that day, when you tried to kill me but didn't." I blinked. Herobrine had not told me that- in fact, no one had. I blame it on no one having time. So Herobrine came to the Overworld, as promised? Good. I gestured for Dragon to continue. He took a deep breath, unsure of how to continue. After a long pause, he finally spoke again.
"The sun was starting to rise when I came out of that cave. The one that the escape vents in Diamond City led to." I nodded, remembering helping to put some of them in. Dragon continued. "You were gone, the Endermen were gone, and there weren't any monsters anywhere. It was just so empty."
"I just looked up at the sky, and I felt so cold inside. Huntress, you could never understand just how low I was there. I didn't even realize that I had dropped my sword until I heard it clang on the rocks. Until then, I had a death grip on it. You know how I am about never letting go of a weapon in tough places. But then... I dropped the sword, and I could hardly keep from falling over and curling up just then. I remember hitting a lot of things, and I busted my toe trying to kick a rock that was too big." A wry smile appeared on his face before he licked his lips and continued with his story.
"That's when Herobrine appeared. You told us about how he could just appear without you noticing before, and that's what happened. He was just there, just like that, and I got so mad at him... Notch, I just couldn't help it.
"I started yelling my head off at him, things like 'Why weren't you here?', and 'Why didn't you save her?'. He just stood there while I screamed myself red in the face, and finally I ran out of voice. At some point, I just turned away and gave up. I sat down on a rock, and I asked the skies above why you had to do it. Why did you have to go through all of this to save everyone else? That's when he quit standing there and did something.
"He walked over to me and sat down next to me. He didn't say anything for a while, he just sat with me and looked at me. His eyes were barely glowing- usually they were a lot brighter, but something dulled them right then. He seemed sad, and when he talked, it showed.
"He said to me, 'I have never met a Steve as brave as Huntress.' He surprised me with that, and I guess I gave him an odd look, so he kept talking. He said, 'I once hated the Steve race with such passion that I thought they could never regain my love, let alone my trust. Huntress, you, you have all turned out to be so different than the people that once lived in this world. So brave, so clever- wise even. You are loyal to one another, and I have never seen you wrong one another.' Then he smiled and said, 'Well, almost.'." Dragon stopped then for a moment and laughed.
"You want to know what I said to him?" He said, and I raised one eyebrow.
"Surprise me," I said. Dragon shook his head, still grinning.
"I was still so mad. I said, 'How could you just talk about her like that? You're acting like she's dead!' His eyes started getting bright after I said that.
"He said, 'She is not lost to us,' and he started getting up, but I stood up faster. 'Why weren't you here?' I asked him. 'Why wouldn't you save her? You could have saved her!' I was yelling all over again."
"He stood straight up when I said that. His voice went very, very low and had this echo- it really shocked me. 'I could NOT', he said, and he stared me down. 'My brother's punishment left me weak, and our enemies in the End left me near helpless. I don't have much power left, mortal Steve.' I almost fell over backwards. His voice... it was like a physical force.
"Oh, and he wasn't done with me. 'As for taking her place,' he said, 'what could you have done? Beat her to it? No, I had you in the Nether. Lock her away? Tell her to stay somewhere safe? Protect her from the outside world? No again. You know as well as I do that that would kill her. She would suffer far worse in a prison made by you, the one she loves, than any horror that her enemies- our enemies- plot for her.' I just stood there speechless.
"We talked a little more there, but we both agreed that we had work to do from there. He disappeared somewhere, and I dug around for a while in the ruins. You know something, Huntress? He was right, about everything. I think he knows you better than I do."
I sat back, amazed. Herobrine had kept his promise, but more importantly, he had kept Dragon from despairing. I hadn't realized that I had so affected him...actually, both of them. Herobrine had once said that he liked me, and he thought that I really stood out among Steves, but this was different. Jeez, the way Dragon said that Herobrine said it, it made me sound like a hero. I looked up at the dusty ceiling helplessly.
"Well, that sure makes me sound cooler than I am." I said. I glanced sideways at Dragon, who looked like he was about to protest. On an impulse, I leaned over and hugged him fiercely. He stiffened under my embrace, clearly surprised, but then he relaxed and hugged back.
"Thank you," I whispered in his ear. Then I drew back.
"So," Dragon said, brushing dust out of his short hair with his hands. "What do we do from here? Have you thought of anything?" I sat back, closing my eyes.
"Not really," I answered at length. My mind was still blank as ever. Dragon reclined on the tunnel floor, his head resting back on his hands.
"Me neither." He almost sounded like this was just another day. Relaxed. You know, without the world-eating dragon from the void coming to get us. I will forever wonder how he does that.
"Hey, what were you doing in the Overworld?" He asked, suddenly sitting up to look at me. I looked at him like he was crazy.
"With Herobrine, at the Temple. I'm not telling that story again." But Dragon was already gesturing helplessly with his hands.
"No no no, not that. Before you went into the sanctuary with Herobrine, you were doing something, right? Just to pass the time." I made an 'oh' face and furrowed my eyebrows in thought.
"I was in that room with the bookshelves and table, where you, uh, drew your sword on me a while back. When we all came together again in the Temple, before my eyes were permanently... white. When they were just going on and off." Dragon nodded his understanding. "I was trying to read," I explained. "Back then, I was looking through the Book of Herobrine. The only part in that that I could read was a little addition in the back, and only by beacon light. This time, I was trying to read the Book of Notch. But it's in that same odd language as the Book of Herobrine, I was just getting a headache from it, and getting nowhere..." I trailed off suddenly.
Slowly, I got to my feet. That's it! That had to be it! I blinked my dry eyes several times in the heat, a grin spreading across my face.
"What?" Dragon asked, and jumped to his feet as I started down the tunnel. "What?!" I broke into a jog.
"I think I just might have the answer!" I called back. Energy coursing through my veins, I went into an all-out sprint down the windswept causeway to the fortress, the gale whipping the boiling lava below into a frenzy. The storm felt the same excitement I did.
I prayed to Notch I was right.
Dragon caught up with me when I got into the fortress, pounding down the halls after me and calling my name.
"Huntress! You've got to tell me! What? Don't leave me in the dark again-" I stopped at that and turned. That's right. All these adventures leading up to now, I had done alone. Dragon and everyone else had been left out. Breathless, I told Dragon my epiphany.
"Remember how Notch said he wouldn't come himself? He said that we would understand? Remember how I said Herobrine got mad at that and said that he couldn't understand unless Notch would tell him? What if he did?" Dragon looked confused.
"Did what?" he asked.
"What if Notch didn't say because he's already told us?!" My voice was rising with excitement. "Don't you see? The Book of Notch! That's the answer!"
"I thought you said you couldn't read it." I made an impatient gesture at Dragon.
"The whole thing is written in that blue ink that you can read by portal light. It's the same as that message in Herobrine's Book. It's some sort of enchantment that works with the portal light, which is also magic." Dragon slowly nodded, and a mischievous grin appeared on his face.
"You're not thinking what I'm thinking you're thinking?" He said. I laughed out loud at that old joke.
"I don't know what you're thinking I'm thinking," I replied, a wide grin on my face mirroring his, "But I'm thinking that we need to go to the Overworld." Dragon nodded.
"I'll go find Herobrine."
We ran our separate ways.
Greetings. This is the almighty author speaking. It's not really my style to write to my readers in-story, but I guess I owe it to you. I am EXTREMELY sorry for taking so long on this chapter. I have been through a consecutive series of power outages, heavy ice storms and snows (IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, for CRYING OUT LOUD!), sick days, and a massacre of schoolwork. Life is literally trying to kill me. So- this chapter was cut short (I'm really, really sorry...) but great things are coming! It is time to announce to the world: A sequel is coming! After the last chapter of A Minecraft Tale is released, the first chapter of the mysterious next installment tale will be released for your reading pleasure.
See you when it comes. Until then, this has been a message from Amanda the Huntress.
Huntress out.