and his whole skull rang with the noise as if it were
being used as the clapper of a bell.
Hiccup and Camicazi may have passed out for a
moment.
When Hiccup came to, the dragon’s three jaws
were stretched wide in front of him and Hiccup could
see down in the depths of the throat of the one
nearest to him, the muscles working, and he knew
that this time the heads were going to shoot fire out
of the fire-holes and this was going to be the end.
He would almost be relieved if it was, because
at least it would be quick, and he wasn’t sure if he
could stand another blast of that roaring.
And just as he had closed his eyes and tensed
for the final moment, one of the heads must have
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shouted ‘STOP!’
Everything stopped.
Cautiously, Hiccup opened his eyes.
His head was still ringing.
Six green eyes looked down at him in a sort of
stupefied amazement.
The dragon itself seemed to have gone rigid
with shock.
And then the pink forked-tongue flicked out of
the mouth of the nearest head.
Hiccup flinched, but it prickled downward, and
sensitively, gently, it lifted the lobster-necklace that
was hanging around Hiccup’s neck, and the six eyes
peered closer, closer, as if they could not believe
what they were seeing.
The Red-Rage vanished from those six eyes, like
the mist disappearing into nothing.
A great calmness and stillness came over the
dragon standing over Hiccup, as he looked into
Hiccup’s eyes, as if the great three-headed animal
was looking back through time.
One of the heads spoke, in a thrilling echo, so
deep that it seemed to reverberate in Hiccup’s heart.
It was the unbearable longing with which it spoke that
was so moving.
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‘He is wearing the lobster necklace…’ said the
middle head of the Deadly Shadow.
‘He is…’ hissed the others in reply, and all
around Hiccup’s head, they hissed like a nest
of joyful serpents. ‘He iss… He iss… He
issssssssssss…’
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17. DID I ALREADY MENTION
THAT THE PAST HAS A WAY
OF CATCHING UP WITH THE
PRESENT?
‘It was a gift,’ said Hiccup.
All three heads of the Deadly Shadow started
in surprise, for it is unusual for a human to speak
Dragonese.
And then the three heads spoke eagerly, again
with that unbearable note in their voices, as if they
had been longing for something for a very long time,
and were thinking that the something they had long
past hoped for was about to be snatched from them.
‘So you are not the owner of this necklace?
Who gave it to you? Where are they? Are they
alive?’
The questions came from three directions at
once, and delivered in those strange confusing voices
it made Hiccup’s head reel, as if the heads were
speaking in some echoing confusing cave.
‘He was my friend… He is alive… I hope he
is alive… I am looking for him…’ pleaded Hiccup.
‘That is why I am here.’
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Now the voices were stern, with an edge of
menace.
‘But you did not steal it? You are telling the
truth? The boy who owned this necklace is alive?’
Hiccup swallowed.
‘I really, really hope he is, because he is my best
friend,’ said Hiccup.
At that moment, Hiccup could see Fishlegs so
clearly in his head, skinny Fishlegs with his sarcastic
sense of humour and his glasses askew. For a moment
it was as if he really was standing right there beside
them, about to make some remark about the general
all-round terrifying-ness of the Deadly Shadow himself.
‘Look at us!’ hissed the heads of the Deadly
Shadow. ‘Look at us! Look at us! Look at us!’ The
hissing was all around him. The three heads were
whirring round him, confusing him, sliding back and
forth and in and out of visibility… They were like a
maze of mirrors… Where had he heard that phrase
before?
Hiccup had trained himself to hold a dragon’s
gaze – no easy feat, for a dragon’s gaze is hypnotic.
If you hold it too long you find your will bending to
theirs, or you are sick or pass out.
Certain dragons have a gaze that is almost like
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a truth drug, it seems to drag the truth out of you,
whether you want it to or not. And of course, triple the
eyes, triple the strength.
Hiccup forced himself to look into the dragon’s
six great glistening eyes, which were now flecked
with the reflection of the sky and it was like they
were boring right into his head, into his very mind,
and wandering around in the mazy passages in there.
And then there was a sucking sensation, as if
they were dragging the thoughts out of him.
Not surprisingly, within seconds Hiccup felt
dizzy, then sick – as you would if you had somebody
wandering around inside your own brain – until he
had to close his eyes before he passed out.
The dragon unclosed its fist of sky from around
Hiccup’s limp body, and from that of Camicazi. And
the hand that was only minutes before squeezing the
life out of them, and preparing to kill them, laid them
gently, protectively on the sandy grass.
‘What in the name of Thor and Woden and
Freya’s ickle pretty plaits is going on?’ wondered
Camicazi, trying to get her breath, holding her head
and gazing at the Deadly Shadow in awe.
‘I have abso-lutely no idea,’ gasped Hiccup. ‘But
it’s something to do with Fishlegs and this lobster
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necklace he gave me.
‘But we’re not safe yet…’ he whispered. Hiccup
knew this instinctively. ‘The Deadly Shadow has not
yet decided what to do with us.’
The Deadly Shadow strode around them,
circling like an invisible tiger. Deep in its throats
was a noise that in a less magnificent, noble, wild
creature, might have been purring.
But that was not a happy purring, it was
a purring that Hiccup knew well. That was a
‘considering’ purring. Toothless did exactly the same
thing when he was trying to decide whether or not to
do something.
Hiccup and Camicazi sat absolutely still in the
sandy grass. Even Camicazi knew not to speak, and
that their lives were in the balance. Round and round
them the creature paced, the three heads arguing
with one another. You couldn’t see it, but you could
hear it, feel it – the moving air, the great dragon
footsteps all around them in the grass.
There were fifteen circles of great dragon
footprints around them before the Deadly Shadow
stopped circling and brought its three heads very
close to Hiccup, the heads now visible and waving
like snakes in front of a snake-charmer.
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The middle head spoke.
‘We have been at war with ourselves,’ said the
middle head in that doomy-echoey miasma of a voice.
Hiccup nodded his head respectfully.
‘For there are two reasons why you are here.
Two Quests. The first is as you say, you are looking
for your friend, who you really believe is alive.’ The
first head gave what might have been a snarl, or a
snort of appreciation, and sent a bolt of flame down
into the sandy grass that made Hiccup and Camicazi
jump.
‘You spoke the truth,’ said the middle head.
‘But the Dragon Furious spoke the truth too.
There is a second Quest...’ said the middle head. ‘You
seek the Dragon Jewel. This is a dangerous Quest,
and one that could have dreadful implications for the
entire dragon race…
‘For the Dragon Jewel is no ordinary Jewel. If
it is found, it has a secret. And if a human knew that
secret, he could use the power of the Jewel to kill not
just one dragon, but all dragons. He could make us
extinct, obliterate us for ever.
‘But you seek it nonetheless…’
This time, the third head gave what was
definitely a snarl – more than a snarl, a roar – and the
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bolt of flame that it sent out missed Hiccup by inches,
and only because the middle head anticipated it and
gave it a knock to the left.
‘We have a dilemma ourselves,’ said the middle
head. ‘For we have made two promises. One to the
Dragon Furious, which was to kill you. The other to
someone else, a long time ago. Innocence here, on my
left,’ (the left head bowed) ‘would help you find this
friend of yours, who means a great deal to us.
‘On the other hand, Arrogance here’ (the right
head bowed and snarled) ‘would kill you.
‘I have the casting vote,’ said the middle head.
It paused, and then continued slowly.
‘Because the first promise that we made has a
prior claim, we will help you.’
Hiccup gave a sigh of relief. The result really did
seem to have been in the balance.
‘Thank you,’ said Hiccup, bowing his head. ‘All
I would say, is that there are others who seek the
Jewel, and they would use it to destroy.’
‘Ah,’ said the middle head sadly, ‘but they would
never find it without your help.’
The Deadly Shadow knelt down beside them,
inviting them to climb on its back.
‘Come,’ said the middle head compellingly. ‘Take
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me to this friend of yours.’
Hiccup’s stomach turned to jelly. Was it possible?
Here was a bewildering turn of events.
The dragon that was just trying to kill them, was
now trying to help them.
For one second Hiccup wondered if it could
be a trap, that the Deadly Shadow could be about to
take them to the Dragon Furious. But it could do that
anyway, without asking their permission, or saying
pretty please.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Camicazi, open-
mouthed, as Hiccup climbed aboard the shining
impossibility of the Deadly Shadow’s back. ‘That
dragon just tried to kill us!’
‘It seems to have changed its minds,’ said Hiccup.
‘Are you coming?’
Nobody changed her mind quicker than
Camicazi.
‘You betcha!’ said Camicazi, thrusting both of her
swords and her emergency battle-axe in her belt. She
scrambled up after Hiccup and settled down behind
him, beaming all over her little monkey face. She gave
a sniff of satisfaction, and stroked the shining back. ‘I
told you. I love Stealth Dragons.’
‘Ooh so do I!’ squealed Stormfly, turning a
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passionate pink, and flying in and out of the three
heads in a flirtatious fashion.
‘It’s not a Stealth Dragon. It’s a Deadly Shadow.
By the way,’ said Hiccup, addressing the middle
head of the Deadly Shadow, ‘if your brothers are
called Innocence and Arrogance, what is your
name?’
‘Patience,’ said the middle head. ‘Because
that’s what I have to have.’
And the Deadly Shadow took off.
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18. SEARCHING FOR FISHLEGS
At that moment, Hiccup didn’t know why, but
Eggingarde’s story came into his head.
‘Fly east,’ Hiccup said, ‘to the Evil Reaches…
We are looking for a rock shaped like a witch’s
finger.’
The Deadly Shadow flew east. Hiccup did not
want to find the rock shaped like a witch’s finger, but
he had to look.
One of those treacherous sea mists was
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blowing in from the east, so the dragon had to swoop
low over the red sands. For a long time he flew. Surely
it was too long for anyone to yacht that far?
Looking down over the Deadly Shadow’s shining
shoulder, Hiccup saw what he dreaded to see.
A crooked jagged rock shaped like a witch’s
finger, pointing upwards to the sky… and a little way
away was the speck of a yacht on the sand.
‘Down, Shadow! Down!’ cried Hiccup in terror.
Down they flew, and as they grew closer,
Hiccup could see, with a plummeting of his stomach,
that the yacht was not upright. It was turned over, on
its side.
Desperately, he looked to the horizon to the
left, to the right, his eyes already blinking with tears.
No sign of an untidy daddy-long-legs Fishlegs-figure
anywhere.
Of course there could not be. Because suddenly
the truth broke upon Hiccup, the truth that maybe he
had known somewhere, all along.
The story that Eggingarde had told him, two
nights before. That story about the Monster and the
slave-boy? That story was not a story. It was true.
And the reason that Eggingarde would have
known it to be true, was that she was there…
She was there. She was with Fishlegs when the
Monster struck, and when that dreadful creature
pulled Fishlegs beneath the sand.
It explained why she was so fearful, so scared of
the Monster but not of anything else. Why she had
told him the story as if she had to tell it, to get it off
her chest.
It explained everything.
248
19. THE MONSTER AND THE
SLAVE-BOY
The Deadly Shadow landed lightly on the sand.
Hiccup scrambled from his back and ran to the
confused mess of belongings.
Maybe it wasn’t Fishlegs…
Perhaps it was some other poor soul. It could
have been ANYBODY, after all, they lost people to
the Evil Reaches every day.
But when he reached the sand-yacht, Hiccup
spotted somethin
g half-buried.
With a shaking hand, Hiccup drew it out.
The crushed, mangled remains of something.
The ‘something’ was Fishlegs’s precious rucksack.
He had made that rucksack out of the lobster pot
that he had been found in when he was a baby, and
it contained the few belongings that he had owned in
the world. Just to be absolutely certain, when Hiccup
picked it up, a smashed bottle of Old Wrinkly’s asthma
potion fell out, and the potion leaked like blood
staining into the sand.
Hiccup tried to re-shape the crushed, mangled
remains of the lobster-pot-cum-rucksack back into its
original shape.
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This was it then. This meant that Fishlegs really
was dead.
There was no hiding from it any more.
The Story of the Monster of the Amber
Slavelands had been true after all.
It had been true and it had happened to Fishlegs.
Behind Hiccup crept the giant shining heads of
the Deadly Shadow.
The poor animal seemed crushed. He had hoped
against hope, and now those hopes had been crushed
again.
The three heads sniffed the lobster pot.
‘What was his name?’ asked Patience.
‘Fishlegs,’ said Hiccup, crying.
‘Fissssshlegssss,’ they hissed, waving like they
were being snake-charmed again. ‘Fissshlegsssss…
Fisssshlegssss… Fissshlegssss…’ they chanted
performing a sad dance around the lobster-pot.
They seemed to recognise the lobster-pot,
strangely, and they drank in the smell of it like it was
the smell of the past. (There is nothing more evocative,
nothing that brings back memories like smell.)
Hiccup held it up to the heads, unable
to stop crying.
‘I shouldn’t have let
him give me the lucky
necklace,’ sobbed
Hiccup.
‘I shouldn’t have let him give away what little luck
he had.’
‘He may not be dead,’ said the left head,
Innocence, hopefully looking around. ‘There are many
islands around here. Maybe he got away. Perhaps he
found one of the islands. Maybe he’s still there…’
How to Train Your Dragon: How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel Page 13