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Her dreams are always the same: she’s being pulled along, dragged somewhere in the dark she doesn’t want to go, and she’s tired and tries to stop moving but the pull is too strong. There are sounds — maybe voices? — but she can’t make them out, and she hurts, and it goes on and on and just when she feels like she really can’t take it any longer — she’s awake. It’s strange and confusing and doesn’t fit in with the rest of what she knows, but in the timeless unplace of her existence there’s no way to make things start or stop; they just keep happening.
But then something does start, a green-gold crack that quickly spreads across the sky, and she and her friends are ready; they move fast and slip through it before anything can stop them, and on the other side there’s an entire world. A new world, bright and noisy and absolutely full of things starting and stopping, and it’s all theirs. Gem doesn’t think about her dreams or anything else from before; she’s too busy figuring out how having a physical body works and how to rebuild it when it breaks, which happens a lot during the first few days. It turns out that eating is really interesting; different things have different tastes, and also seeing! with eyes! is fun and amazing. She spends hours staring at the trees full of birds, the sway of vines in the wind, the way the muscles in her hand move as she opens and closes her fingers. She wishes she could talk to her friends about these things, but (aside from Jimmy) nobody wants to listen; they’re all too busy cutting down trees and digging into the earth and making tools out of everything they find, and what they talk about is land and fighting and becoming kings and queens and building up power and do mountains make you richer than oceans? Probably all of that stuff really is important, and she ought to be thinking about it, but… for right now she’d rather keep watching the jungle living around her; how is it that the blue and red and green jewels of birds are flying? Would she be able to do the same if her body had wings?
Now that time exists, though, it turns out there isn’t enough of it, or at least not as much as she wants, because suddenly fWhip is telling her that there’s a plan. Everyone (even Jimmy) is going to meet when the sun rises the next time and decide how to divide things up between them, and then once that’s done they’ll go claim their land and get started on whatever it is they want to do. She can’t figure out if they’ve been talking to each other without her, or if everyone just came to the same decision at once, or if this is all fWhip’s idea, but whichever it is, it’s happening too fast for her. Once she starts watching her friends instead of the jungle, though, she decides not to argue; she can see that Lizzie is pining for the ocean, and both Scott and Pix are getting tired of being around so many people, and Sausage and Pearl are threatening each other even more than usual... Maybe it is the right time to split up, and after all, if the jungle is this interesting, what will she find when she starts exploring the rest of the world?
That night she has the dream again.
She’s being pulled along just like before, but this time it’s clear how: there’s leather tight and slick around her wrists, and that’s where the pulling is, and it hurts because the leather has worn her skin raw and the slickness is her own blood. Whoever has the other end keeps tugging and tugging so she can’t stop moving, she has to keep walking, and it’s so dark, darker even than the jungle at night, she can’t see anything, and her whole body screams with the need to rest, but when she stumbles and falls to the ground the pulling just drags her along which hurts even more —
And one of the sounds is a voice, a voice that whispers, Little wizard, little wizard. Keep moving. Little wizard. The sound of the voice feels like it’s rubbing the edges of her mind raw in the same way that the leather bindings have worn through her skin and any second now she’s going to scream – but instead she’s sitting up, awake in the jungle. There’s the sound of running water and the smell of earth and trees, and her friends are all sleeping nearby, except for Pix, who is sitting a little bit away from everyone else writing in a book. She reaches down to touch her wrists, which are fine, of course, because that was a dream, the same dream as before (but easier to understand now that she has a body for it to be happening to) — but still a dream, not something that actually happened here in the world. It takes a long time, though, before she can calm her body down, and even then she doesn’t want to go back to sleep. She sits there on her bed until her legs feel like she can walk, and then she goes over to Pix, who is still focused on his writing despite the noise she must have made. She sits down near him, not too close, and after a while he starts explaining how to make books. He talks without really looking at her, so that he might almost be talking to himself, which is his type of kindness, to distract her from whatever has her awake in the middle of the night without making her admit that she needs distraction.
Gem is gritty-eyed with tiredness and braced for a lot of yelling by the time all of her friends are awake and ready to talk to each other, but for once the way everyone stubbornly demands totally different things turns out to be an advantage. When it’s her turn to choose (the flight of birds overhead rustling in her ears) she claims a slice of cliffs between fWhip and Scott; the communicators will keep everyone a little connected, but she thinks it’ll be nice to have them as neighbours… plus she’s starting to think it’s a good idea to keep some people between her and Sausage. Does anyone ever actually listen to him when he talks about his plans? He’s very proudly told everyone that he’s recruited the most prestigious black-and-white mammal in the jungle to be his war general, and that he’s looking forward to eventually taking control of everyone else’s lands and ruling the entire world… but then he starts laughing, and people laugh with him like he’s just joking. And maybe he is? She’s never really understood his sense of humour, but either way it’s probably a good idea not to live too close to him.
The next morning she says goodbye to the birds and to her friends and travels south through the jungle until she comes to a large lake dotted with little islands. It’s not hard to cross, and on the other side are hills covered with trees so close together the sun barely makes it through the branches; she uses the occasional glimpses of light that come through to orient herself, and then suddenly the trees open up to a view of tall mountains with snow on top. They’re beautiful but they’re Scott’s, not hers, so she turns towards the still-climbing sun and walks that way, through narrow valleys cut by rivers. It’s an easy journey, aside from one confusing moment when she finds herself surrounded by more jungle and worries that she’s gotten turned around, but she keeps moving towards the sunrise, and then the valleys widen out in front of her, opening to lush green plains with more mountains still rising high and snow-covered to the south. Those are her mountains, she’s sure of it, but the cliffs she picked are on the opposite side, and from here there’s no easy way through, so she grits her teeth and keeps walking until she finds a place to cross. The last hour is the hardest; she’s so close but still not there, and she has to keep making her tired feet move, one after the other, and then finally, finally —
And oh it’s beautiful. There’s a tall cliff with snow glittering at the very top and a nearly sheer side that makes her catch her breath, and then it slopes down to a forest filled with trees, and a little ways off she can see houses and fields and what she’s pretty sure are people she can talk to. She can already imagine the house she’s going to build, right into the side of the cliff where she’ll be up high with the wind and clouds and can look out over the forest. It’s not wings, but it seems as close as she’s going to get unless she can figure out how to turn herself into a bird.
She starts exploring right away; the people in the houses call themselves villagers, and they’re happy to talk to her. They’re even happier to give her green gems called emeralds in exchange for things like sticks, and then she trades them the emeralds back again for useful things like food. When she’s not trading and talking and exploring she spends a lot of time looking at her mountain and thinking about how to safely climb it. She’s set her spawn near the village, so dying wouldn’t be too big of an inconvenience, but she doesn’t enjoy the way death feels, or the work it takes to rebuild her body afterwards, so she’d really like to avoid it if she can.
After a few days she’s picked her path up the mountain, and the feeling when she’s finally standing at the very top is – perfect. She can see so far in every direction, and everything she sees is beautiful. There’s a tiny pile of stone towards the north that shows where fWhip’s land starts, but other than that there’s no sign of other people, and the only sounds are the snow crunching under her feet and the goats bleating as they jump and climb on the rocks nearby. They’re cute, but she keeps a safe distance from them; the villagers warned her that they like to push people off of high places, and she definitely had enough of that with Joel and Scott shoving everyone into ravines when they first found the world. It might be fun to bring some goats down the mountain to live with her, but not right now – there’s too much else to do!
The biggest thing for her to do, of course, is building her house, but once she starts planning it, she realises that she really does need all those metals everyone else was so excited about back in the jungle. When she mentions this over the communicator, fWhip invites her to go caving on Sausage’s lands with him and a bunch of their other friends, so she trades more green gems for armour and travels to meet them all. It’s nice to see her friends again, but also a little strange; everyone’s louder and pushier than she remembers them being, and Gem can’t figure out if they’ve changed a lot in the short time they’ve been apart, or if she’s the one who’s different. fWhip and Katherine act the most like Gem expects, talkative and funny, so she sticks close to them and comes away from the adventure rich in all kinds of metal and stones and (best of all) beautiful glowing purple amethyst that sings if she walks on it.
Once she’s back home, it’s days and days of work to make the house in her mind exist in the outside world. She gathers wood and levels ground and convinces water to flow where she wants it, and then she works on digging out the cliff and building into and onto it. Every night she falls into her bed absolutely exhausted, and it seems like the dawn is there before she even knows she’s asleep. Sometimes it feels like it’s taking forever, even though the villagers say they’ve never seen anyone build so quickly. Her house has spruce for the frame and bright white stone for the walls and she crowns it all with amethyst; as a roof it doesn’t sing under her feet, but every time she reaches up to touch it she can hear the song it makes inside her mind, and it leaves her fingers feeling tingly and energised.
As soon as there’s enough house to be shelter, she moves her bed and all of her things there and then thinks about what else she wants to do. She decides to make some farms, so she doesn’t have to keep trading with the villagers for food; in between working on those she grows the moss she’s discovered and gets it to spread across the ground so she can feel it soft and squishy underfoot. It’s beautiful, vivid yellow-green against the stone of her cliff, and she really wants flowers to plant beside it, which seems like a good excuse to visit Katherine – maybe they can trade?
Katherine’s home is a long walk west, first through the village and then over wooded hills where the trees are so close together that Gem can walk on top of them for long stretches, with only occasional moments where she has to jump down and climb back up again. She gets better at staying on the treetops as she practises, figuring out how to jump further so she never has to touch the ground; she wishes she could find birds outside of the jungle, because up here it’s easy to pretend she’s one of them. Eventually, though, the trees are too far apart to walk on, and Gem’s feet start getting sore as the hills get bigger and more annoying to climb. By the time she gets to the edge of the cliff overlooking Katherine’s pretty flower-filled valley, she’s really tired and a little cranky, and not at all in the mood for Katherine pranking her by pretending she’s invisible. She pretends to laugh about it, but it bothers her; pranks aren’t really Katherine’s way, at least not pranks aimed at Gem, and she keeps it up for such a long time, while Gem waves and calls out over and over — but finally Katherine gives up, and once they’re standing down in the meadow together everything feels normal again. Gem trades the moss for a rainbow of flowers plus clay pots to put them in, and listens to Katherine’s gossip about everyone, and the two of them end up laughing together about nonsense, just like they’ve always done, giggling so hard they can’t breathe.
As Gem’s packing up to leave, Katherine calls her the moss lady, and somehow the words from her dream leap to her lips and she says, “No, no, I’m not the moss lady. I’m going to be a wizard!” But then of course Katherine asks her what that means, and Gem has no idea what to say – so she just laughs and says she’ll let her know. On her walk home she realises that Katherine is probably going to tell everyone what she said, and feels a little uneasy. How can she say she’s going to be a wizard when she doesn’t even know how to do magic? But then again, if her friends can call themselves kings and queens, why shouldn’t she call herself a wizard? It sounds like a lot more fun. She thinks, though, she should probably figure out something magical before anyone else asks.
*****
The problem with figuring out wizardry is that Gem has no idea where to start — and there are so many simpler and more interesting things she can do instead! She catches fish in the river south of the village and uses them to befriend a cat, who agrees to come live with her in her cliffside house, and she makes a wide path up to the cliff and plants the flowers Katherine gave her alongside it, and then lures bees to live near the flowers so she can have wax and honey. In between Gem tries to think about magic, but somehow she keeps finding herself sitting on the balcony with the cat instead; he chases dust motes in the morning sun while she nibbles at bread and watches the clouds move with the wind. It’s a different wind from the one in the jungle; that one was slow and damp, but hers moves quickly and is sharp with the scent of snow, and in the evenings, as the setting sun sends the shadow of her mountain falling across the forest, the sound of the wind rustling the leaves builds to a roar. She loves the little differences, the way each thing is itself, no matter how much it is like something else; the rhythmic splash of the waterfall she made keeps being water, but not the same water as the flow of the river. Sometimes she wonders how long it would take her to learn every single thing on her own land, if even with all the time there is she could do it, or if the things would change faster than she could learn them. It would be wonderful to try, she thinks, even if it’s impossible to know so many things so deeply.
She isn’t sure who first mentions enchanting tables over the communicators, but as soon as she hears about them, she starts working to put one together. It takes her a while, but it turns out to be worth it, because enchanting her armour with even the most basic protections leaves her giddy with delight. This is definitely, undeniably magic, even if it’s magic all of her friends can do too, and she can’t resist using the communicator to tell everyone that she’s an enchanter. Pix congratulates her on being a wizard now, which is sweet and maybe a little embarrassing — but she doesn’t really care, because enchanting is so much fun. She doesn’t exactly understand how it works, but she also sort of does — it’s something about wanting things, and wanting them not just strongly but clearly, so that the world can understand. The stronger she wants and the better she communicates, the better the enchantment is, but the more tired she is at the end of it; sometimes it’s as bad as having to rebuild her body from dying, and she ends up lying down on her floor to rest, with the cat sniffing her hair in confusion. Gem doesn’t really mind the tiredness, but enchanting iron tools only to have them break after a few hours of use quickly becomes frustrating. She needs diamond tools, she thinks, but diamonds are hard to find and take a long time to mine, so what she really needs are enchantments that will help — and according to Katherine, the person who has those is Sausage. Gem’s uneasy about asking him for help, especially after everything he’s said over the communicators about his ‘War General,’ but when she reaches out, he’s enthusiastic about trading with her, and says that if she’ll travel to Mythland with moss and teach him how to grow it, he’ll let her trade with his librarians for the enchanted books she wants.
Mythland is near Katherine’s flower fields, just further north, so Gem practises walking on the treetops again on the early part of the trip. It’s even easier than last time; she’s gotten the hang of the rhythm, and while it’s still not flying, sometimes (as she jumps from branch to crown to branch again) she pretends that it is. Eventually the trees thin out, and she’s walking through the spruce forest, and then up through the foothills of the mountains. As she travels, she gets more and more excited. She’s looking forward to seeing another of her friends in person, and it ought to be really interesting to talk to the librarian villagers; there aren’t any in the village near her house, and she hopes that, along with trading for the enchanted books, at least one of them is willing to answer some of her questions about magic.
Closer to Mythland the forest comes back, full of enormous dark oak trees, and she scrambles up one and runs joyfully across the tops to where she can see Sausage standing near his imposing deepslate house, scanning the area with a spyglass. He’s clearly been spending time with Katherine, because he immediately pulls the same prank of pretending not to see her. This time, though, Gem finds it easy to play along, and when he gives that up and starts teasing her about her ‘wizardly powers’, she just laughs and teases him back about how everyone knows that wizards always walk on top of trees. They stand together in the meadow across from his house, still laughing, and she shows him how to grow and spread the moss, and then how to tend an azalea bush until it grows into a tall flowering tree. She’d forgotten how much fun Sausage can be when he’s in a good mood, and how much he enjoys learning new things. He touches everything she shows him with care, and seems to love the azalea tree in particular, stroking the bark like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen.
After she finishes teaching him everything she knows about moss and azalea trees, he’s clearly ready to send her home. She playfully reminds him that she wasn’t giving him a gift – he’s promised she can trade with his librarian villagers, right? He laughs, saying she can have anything she wants in exchange for all the plants, and leads her up a hill to a small building that’s set away from everything else. It’s a strange contrast to the rest of his land; there’s his beautiful tall house that he clearly put hours of effort into building, and she can see sugarcane growing thickly along the banks of his river, but this is just a tiny wooden box that makes her stomach twist when she looks at it. He gestures proudly at one of the barred windows and says, “I’ve got three of them working now. They’re so beautiful!” She’s smiling and agreeing as he leads her around the corner to another flat wooden wall, where he says cheerfully, “There’s no entrance, because this is technically a prison!”
She’s so shocked she nearly stops walking, saying weakly, “A prison?” but he’s too busy showing her how to get inside to pay attention. She doesn’t want to go in, but he insists, so she makes him go first in case it’s a prank — but no, it’s just a cramped, bad-smelling room with a dirt floor, full of tired people writing in books. All her visions of friendly chats dissolve; as soon as she starts looking through the books she realises she doesn’t have enough emeralds, but Sausage gives her some, which just makes everything worse, and she does her best to just focus on the trading because she hates this. What are the villagers even going to do with the emeralds, stuck here in this tiny room? When she’s finally done, she thanks them and turns to leave, looking up for the narrow space she climbed in through, and then realises with a rush of adrenaline that Sausage is gone and must have sealed the space behind him –
She hears his voice outside the walls, “Now you’re pretty much trapped in here, aren’t you? You’re one of my villagers now! Thanks, Gem!”
“Sausage!” It’s just a stupid prank, she knows that, but the knot in her stomach is turning into a coldness that runs all through her body and makes it hard to move, to think. She takes a deep breath and yells, loud enough to carry through the walls, “Get back here! What do you think you’re doing?” The librarians are backing away from her, putting their hands up to cover their ears, and she feels terrible to be scaring them, but she’s got to get out of here. Why did Sausage have to go and do this, when they were having so much fun together? Is he really just going to leave her here to find her own way out? And then she hears him, further away now, shouting gleefully, “An unescapable prison! I got Gem, everybody! For the Kingdom of House Sausage!”
The chill in her body spikes into fear so quickly that it knocks the breath out of her; she can feel her heart pounding, but for a moment she can’t see anything and then her eyes focus again, and it’s ridiculous because there’s nothing inescapable about this prison, not for her, but she’s shaking as she digs through the dirt floor, why didn’t she bring her tools with her, why is it taking so long? Finally she comes out into the open air and the first thing she sees as she struggles to catch her breath is Sausage’s eyes on her; he’s still laughing but there’s another look on his face she isn’t sure how to name.
“See, Gem? You made it!”
She brings her sword and shield up into her hands, rounding on him, angry and confused and scared, and embarrassed, too, because why can’t she just laugh it off? He puts his hands up in mock-terror, saying quickly, “C’mon, now, it was just to test your might as a wizard.” He’s embarrassed too, she can see, but there’s something else besides, a hint of what she thinks might be anger, and as she sees his hand brush the hilt of his sword all of her fear surges back. She’s out of her depth here, she realises, and she has to do this right or she might end up really getting hurt.
She lets go of her sword and says as calmly as she can, “I… I don’t know how I feel about this. Do you want to be allies? Or not?”
“Yes!”
“Then what was that?”
“It’s just — oh, Gem, you know me, it’s all in fun. I’m never gonna murder you that bad, Gem.”
His voice catches just a little on the word ‘murder’, and oh she hates the way he keeps saying her name. It’s still so hard to breathe, but she takes a step backwards, and another, watching him and willing her hands to stay away from her sword. “Okay! On that note, I will be leaving you with your moss.”
He walks towards her, grinning again as she backs up faster. “Thank you! Allies forever — now, get out of my kingdom!”
“I’m leaving!” And she is, but still going backwards because no matter how calm she’s pretending to be, no matter how much he’s grinning, she doesn’t want to turn her back on him when his eyes look like that.
“Awww, Gem, I’m just playing. It’s what I say to everybody! That way they can be scared the next time!”
She says as brightly as she can, “It works!” And then, in spite of knowing better, she jumps up to the top of a tree and (with his laughter behind her) runs.
*****
She keeps to the top of the trees as far as she can towards home, trying to make the sound of her feet hitting the branches drown out the panic in her mind. Why did he do that? Why didn’t she expect him to do that, when it’s exactly the kind of thing he does, the kind of thing he’s always done? He loves that kind of joke, the sort that’s only a joke because it doesn’t work — but he couldn’t have thought it really would work, could he? But… what if he really had been able to trap her? She finds it so easy to imagine how he could have done it, using obsidian so she couldn’t dig out without special tools, and why would she bring those with her on a trading visit? If he’d put a bed in there, he might even have been able to get her to set her spawn, and then not even dying would’ve gotten her free, and of course it was just a joke, but what if it wasn’t? He’s always enjoyed scaring people, especially when he can pretend it’s their own fault, and he’s clearly fascinated by the idea of her being a wizard… maybe she should be the moss lady, maybe he wouldn’t have bothered doing that if she was. But what is wizardry to him, anyway, other than something shiny he wants to grab? Why shouldn’t she call herself a wizard, when he’s calling himself a king?
And then it hits her that what he did today — isn’t that what being a king is? Being able to take what you want and keep it, without any consequences? Her stomach sinks as she realises she handled it all wrong, not that she could have stayed in that room with the villagers, but she should have played nice, she should have asked him to let her go, she should have made sure he felt strong because now she’s made herself a challenge, she’s shiny and hard to get which makes her an exciting prize, something worth catching. It might have started out as a joke, but now he’ll keep doing things to show her that he’s the one in control, and he’ll pretend that it’s about wizardry and testing her powers when really it’s just about him —
The thoughts tangle and twist in her head, and she feels sick, but she can’t stop moving; the trees are thinning out, too far apart now, so she drops to the ground and runs towards home, flat out as fast as she can. It’s falling dark by the time she gets to her cliff and the panic is still racing through her; she runs up her stairs into the house, slamming the door and almost throwing herself onto her bed, ready to sob with exhaustion and fear and she just wants everything to stop —
The dream is different than before. It’s still dark, but she must be walking through the amethyst geode, because she can hear the music of her footsteps echoing off the crystal walls, and then instead of inside the geode, she’s outside, there's wind on her skin and the smell of water. She’s walking on amethyst, the rhythm of her steps making a music that is so right her entire body’s echoing with the joy of it, and then suddenly between one step and another the music sours and she’s not walking anymore, she’s on her knees on sharp stones and her wrists are bound in front of her, the leather strap is slick with her own blood and she’s being pulled up to her feet, stumbling along in the darkness and that voice again, louder and clearer than before. Quit fighting, little wizard. Why do you keep fighting? You wanted to know.
She sits up, awake, and sees the candlelight flickering off the white walls of this home she built with her own hands. She looks up to where the flames reflect off the amethyst roof, and even though her heart is racing again, and her mouth is still sour from all those hours of fear, her mind is surprisingly calm. She spends a little while rubbing the pain out of her wrists as she watches the light refracting through the crystal. Is it really so different to be awake instead of asleep when she feels so powerless either way? The air smells like honey from her candles, and the cat is purring next to the bed, and she takes deep breaths and feels something hot and clear starting to grow inside of her, a crystal of rage. Why is it like this? Why is she always getting pulled around by things that are so much stronger than her? She thinks about her friends, playing at kings and queens, except now she knows it isn’t really play; Lizzie in her ocean probably really is raising an army, and Pearl probably meant it when she said it would be a war between them all, and Sausage — she can’t keep her mind from going back there, his beautiful house and the horrible smell of his prison and what it felt like to dig with her hands through the dirt while he laughed at her from the outside. Her heart is hot and aching, not just with anger but with grief, too, because she doesn’t understand how all these things can be true at the same time: all that beauty he created, and the reverent way he touched the tree she grew for him, and how she knows none of her friends would ever hurt her, and also all the people she knows who delight in power, who laugh when someone else is scared, who’d probably be willing to hurt anyone if it would just get them what they wanted. Who would probably hurt her, which means no matter how much she wants to keep sitting on her balcony looking at the clouds, she’s going to have to do something else; she has to figure out how to be strong enough to fight back. And it isn’t fair — it isn’t fair that she can’t just learn about the world and herself without having to worry about what her — are they really her friends? Some of them, she hopes, but mostly they’re just her — counterparts. What her counterparts might do, what they might choose to do to her, if she makes it easy for them.
She could just leave, she guesses. She loves her land and her cliff and the forest, but there must be a lot of beautiful places in this world. She could pack all the things that are the most important to her and ask the cat to come too and start walking to find something new, and she could build a house again on a new cliff and look at the sky in perfect solitude, and the others would be far away doing whatever it is they do, and it wouldn’t have anything to do with her. She doesn’t think any of them want to hurt her; they’d only do it if she had something they wanted or was somehow getting in someone’s way. Maybe she could go so far away that nobody would know or care about what she was doing? And stay so quiet on the communicator that they all forgot about her? And — and never laugh with Katherine or find out what fWhip’s building or hear Pix explain how something is made — never talk to another person like her again, ever. No matter what she pretends, it wouldn’t be perfect and it wouldn’t be beautiful; it would just be another prison and this time she would be doing it to herself, with her own fear.
She can see the wall brightening pink with sunrise, so she gets out of bed and goes out onto the balcony to eat some bread and honey. The cat comes with her and delicately licks some honey from her fingers without ever getting any on his gray fur, which Gem thinks is probably the most magical thing about her household so far. After she eats, she starts using the books she got from Sausage’s librarians to enchant her tools, making herself focus on the work to block out the memories of the previous day. And later that morning, when Pix asks her over the communicator if she’s available for trading, she says yes despite the wave of fear that goes through her at the thought of seeing anyone. No matter how much she wants to just hide in her house, she isn’t going to learn anything new by avoiding everybody; she’ll trade with him outside at the bottom of the path, and if something goes wrong she can always go back inside and block the door.
*****
She spends an uneasy day organising chests and taking care of the plants, constantly checking the communicator to see if Pix is getting close yet. It’s late afternoon when he finally messages her that he’s nearby, and she goes to wait for him on top of a tree, taking deep breaths and trying to brace herself. It’s Pix, after all, but he’s been calling himself the Copper King, and she doesn’t know what to expect. When she sees him, though, he’s dressed in a hooded blue robe like one of the traders who move between the different villages, and he’s very patiently leading a llama harnessed to match; the sight of them together is so charming that it makes her laugh. She waves from the treetop and calls out, and he waves back right away and says cheerfully, “I can see you!” Some of the fear knotting in her stomach unwinds; maybe this is going to be simple after all. She hops down from the tree as he gets closer, and walks with him along the path, helping him find a place to tie up his llama once they’re at the top. He’s not exactly the Pix she remembers, but he’s very close; he’s still awkward but less withdrawn than before, warmer and brighter, and clearly overflowing with things he wants to talk about, beginning with how pleased he is with his llama.
“Do you know how far he’s had to walk? I’ve been trying to visit everyone, so it’s been days and days of travel. He’s so patient, and there was this one time I wasn’t paying attention and almost led him off a cliff and he dug his feet in and refused to move — saved both of us a nasty fall!”
He laughs, and she laughs with him, and all at once she changes her mind, saying, “Come on, let me invite you in. You can come all the way up the cliff and inside.”
He’s full of admiration as she leads him up the internal staircase and into her home; he loves the amethyst, the potted plants, her little enchanting nook, and most of all the view from her balcony. She’s warmed by his praise; she’s heard enough gossip over the communicator to know her home is on the smaller and simpler side compared to what he’s been building, but it’s kind of him to appreciate her work.
Once they’re settled on the balcony, she brings out the stone she’s been saving for him, deepslate flecked with emerald, and the smile on his face becomes a look of sheer delight.
“It’s not even the regular stuff, it’s — this is wonderful, you have no idea how hard this is to find!”
“When we all went caving early on, you mentioned how much you wanted it, so I’ve been saving it for you when I find it. It’s pretty, but I don’t really have a use for it.”
“It’s not just pretty, though. I think it might be related to —" And he’s off, excitement overflowing as he tells her about the traces of structures he’s been finding in the desert, things built in a style that’s like nothing else he’s seen, and the stories the villagers have about them, and something called a conduit that he’s trying to figure out how to replicate. It’s all fascinating; she peppers him with questions and he pulls out a book to write down the ones he hasn’t already thought of. The sun finishes setting as they talk, and she arranges candles around the balcony and lights them, then pulls out some bread and honey for them to eat. He gets fruit out of his bags, her favourite melons from the jungle, along with some others she hasn’t seen before, and they eat and talk while the wind rustles the leaves. There are places in her neck and shoulders unknotting that she hadn’t even realised were tense; it’s not just wizardry and this mess with Sausage, she realises — she’s also been lonely.
After they’re done eating, they finish the trading; he’s brought her nether wart and soul soil for growing it, which he gives her in exchange for the ore, and then he asks, almost shyly, “Would you like to learn about copper?” Which she would, very much, and it turns out to be much more complex than she’d expected. Pix delightedly shows her all of the different phases of copper, from orange-red to aged bright green, and then, as she assures him she’s really interested, he takes the time to show her each phase individually, explaining how long it takes to reach each one, and how to protect the copper from ageing by using wax. She’s thrilled to be learning so much that’s new; by the time she runs out of questions the moon has risen and the woods are quiet and still. They fall into a comfortable silence there on the balcony, and Gem is just starting to wonder if she ought to suggest that they both sleep when Pix says, “I haven’t felt comfortable asking anyone else this, but… do you remember what it was like, before?”
“Before this world? Well — " She’s about to say that of course she does, she remembers everything, but… does she? It’s all images, colourful and evasive. “It’s funny, I thought I did, but as soon as I try to focus on the details so I can put it into words — “
“It fades, doesn’t it?”
“Yes! Does it for you, too?”
He nods. “More and more, as time goes on. I did write things down, but — what do you remember?”
What does she? Her dream, but even as she thinks that, she realises that what she really remembers is the two times she’s had the dream since they arrived; the original endless loop of feelings has mostly faded away. Is there anything else? Pix is quiet while she considers, and eventually she says, “I guess the only thing I really remember is all of us, who we all are and how we are with each other, like you explaining how things work, and Lizzie wanting to be water, and fWhip and Joel competing about silly things, and everyone teasing Jimmy — things like that.”
“And what do you remember about yourself?”
She frowns; something about that question seems embarrassing, almost indecent, but at the same time she’s thinking about it and realising… she really isn’t sure; it’s so much easier to remember things about other people. Other than the dream, what was there? Curiosity, she realises; she has always, always been curious about everything around her, and maybe that’s why she knows so much about everyone else. She doesn’t really want to say all of that, though, so she settles on, “Not enough, I guess.”
He smiles easily and leans back, stretching out his legs. “Well. Who our friends are, how they treat each other — those are the sorts of things I remember, too. I mean, I’m sure it looks a little different from my point of view, but it’s the same idea, right? We know each other. The thing that’s interesting, though, or maybe worrying, is… like I said, I wrote down as much as I could when we first came through the gate —“
“The sky —
He waves a hand, “Sky, gate, does it really matter? The thing is, when I go back to read what I wrote those first few days, most of it doesn’t exactly make sense.”
“Doesn’t make sense how?” She turns so she can see him better; he’s pushed his hood back, and the moonlight casts odd shadows on his face.
“I was writing quickly, so maybe I was just careless, but I reference a lot of things that I must have thought were obvious, and now I don’t know what any of them mean. But, um, I also wrote down a lot of my plans, the things I wanted to do now that we were here, and…” His voice is slowing, dropping low. She can tell he’s uncomfortable talking about this, and although she really wants to urge him to continue, she bites down on her lower lip and waits. He is silent for so long she thinks he’s not going to say anything else, and as she waits, she makes herself look at him, really look at the him sitting there with her, not at the feel of him that she carries around in her head. He looks sad, and tired, and very, very worried.
Finally, he says, “The plans I can understand. But I don’t understand me — the me that wrote them, I mean. I don’t recognise myself in them. It’s not that I feel like I’ve changed my mind, it’s that I can’t understand why I would’ve wanted to do those things in the first place. That’s why I decided to come to trade with everybody, because if I’ve changed so much since we’ve gotten here, what about everyone else? We were so excited to have a world of our own, everyone was so eager to shape the land to their desires, but … what if it’s shaping us back?”
“Shaping us?” Has she really changed? She doesn’t think so, even if everyone else has. He’s quiet again, and she feels a little bad about pushing him, but she needs to know. “What’s so different between your early plans and now?”
He breathes out through his teeth and says, “Despite what I pretended, I never had any intention of cooperating with any of you. I just wanted to get as far away from everyone as I could – that’s why I picked the desert, I knew I could isolate myself there, and I planned to watch all of you and see… where the weak spots were, so I could use them to my advantage. Creating ‘Pixandria,’ calling myself the Copper King – I thought those things would help me accumulate wealth and power faster, and then I was going to use it all to study the gate we came through and how it worked. And then, when the time was right, I… I could set you all to tearing each other apart, and while you were busy with that I’d open up my own gate and —“
He breaks off, but she knows what he would say, if he could let himself. He would’ve gone somewhere that was all his own and left them to their endings.
“And now?” she asks.
“And now I feel responsible. For the desert and the people who live there, and to all of you. I need to be here, to be a part of whatever happens, to see what you all do and… and to see if I can make it better instead of worse.”
She hears her own breathing like it’s coming from someone else, shallow and quick; she’s not sure if she can trust him, she thinks she probably shouldn’t trust anybody, but before she can stop herself it all comes spilling out. “I don’t think anyone can make it better, Pix. I always thought we were friends, and that if we found a path into a world together we’d have fun, but now we’re here, and it’s nothing like I thought it’d be. The world is so big, and —" She takes a breath, trying to find words; she has no idea how to make him understand this, but she tries anyway. “People are so big, they’re so big inside themselves, you can’t really know who they are, and there aren’t really limits, are there? To what someone might want, to what they’ll do to get it. Kings and queens just sounded like a silly game when we were in the jungle, but it’s for real, isn’t it? Even without you starting it, sooner or later someone’s going to want what someone else has and decide to take it, and there’ll be wars and destruction and people will kill each other, and I don’t think it matters that we can all keep rebuilding our bodies, that just makes it worse because then there’s no reason to stop, people will just keep hurting and getting hurt and — I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”
“Is that why you wanted to be a wizard?” His voice is very gentle in the darkness, maybe he can’t see how upset she is but she’s sure he can hear it, and why can’t she stop talking?
“Not the first reason, but — yes, I guess so. Why would I want to be a queen and order everyone around and have to constantly make sure they’re too scared to tell me no? I do want something else, but — " Her voice edges higher no matter how much she tries to control it, close to cracking. “I think that was a mistake too, because — something happened — and I think calling myself a wizard instead of a queen just means that instead of being someone to compete with, I’m one of the prizes other people can compete for, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I don’t care about being powerful, but what else is there to do? Somehow I’ve convinced them all that I’m special, even though I’m not!” And her voice does crack, and she’s laughing over the absurdity of it, “Now I’m like those animal heads people are collecting, except there’s only one of me, so I’m worth the most. Get Gem! She’s a wizard!”
She feels his hand before she sees it; he’s touching her arm, so very lightly, but warm, and she chokes back the laughter and presses her arm against his touch and lets her body shake with all her fear, all the different fears of what might happen, not trying to hide any more how scared she is. He pulls back a few moments later, but somehow it’s enough — she’s not alone.
*****
They sit there as the stars wheel and turn and fade, and it’s only as the sky begins to brighten towards dawn that Pix speaks again.
“I don’t have answers for any of it, Gem, but… I think you have more power than you realise. Everyone I’ve visited so far has mentioned how you can run on the trees, and that nobody can see you unless you want them to. I know that’s not enough to stop a war, but it might keep you safe, and — after all, you’ve got to start somewhere, right?
“Nobody can see me?” But even as she asks, she realises what he must mean, and she’s embarrassed and relieved both, because what he’s saying means all that teasing from Katherine and Sausage wasn’t teasing at all. They really couldn’t see her, and there must be a reason why. She must have been doing something — something like the enchanting tables, the world was listening to what she wanted —
She can feel something moving inside her mind, something clenched tightly shut struggling to open, like the petals of a flower reaching for the light but even more like bound wings unfolding, she doesn’t think there’s enough room for them, how could she make more room? Pix is standing up, brushing himself off and getting ready to go, and as he checks his bags he says, “It still counts as power, you know, even if it’s something for yourself, something you do on your own. It doesn’t have to be about making other people do what you want.”
She nods, distracted by holding onto what’s trying to happen inside her head, and walks him down the stairs to see him off, not arguing when he decides to make her a gift of his llama — she’s not sure what she’ll do with a llama, but she agrees it’s probably easier for both Pix and the animal if he doesn’t try to lead it all the way back home. He pulls his hood up against the sun, and she pets the llama’s nose, helping it settle as she watches Pix walk away. Once he’s out of sight, she turns and goes back up to her house to tidy up the food and the melted candles, all the while feeling like she’s not really there at all, but then where is she? She wishes she could sleep in the day, but it’s hard to even lie down — and suddenly she realises it doesn’t matter. It’s not about lying down, it’s not about anything. She stands in her house and takes a deep breath of the cool morning air, feeling everything she holds tightly clenched, and all at once lets it go so that she falls into the place of her dream, which is a place inside of herself – and of course it is, because it’s hers, and she is the only thing she has always had. Wherever the dream came from, it’s right: she has always been a person who wants to see, and know, and understand.
She is standing awake in her room, she is kneeling inside her own mind with her wrists bound in the dark; it is all her, and this isn’t really a dream, is it? It’s a map, a map to what she wants the most; there’s enough space here for everything, and she finally lets it all unfold because that voice (is it her own voice?) is right. Why has she been fighting it? Her wrists are free now, painless and whole, and she stands up and all the noise falls silent; she’s on amethyst, and she can feel it singing beneath her feet even though there’s no sound, and the amethyst is a path, a road, and it’s still dark, but all she has to do —
She opens her eyes.