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16. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN
Hiccup's first thought was that he was going to drown. He was turned over and over in somersault after somersault, down, down, down in such a rush that he felt like his head was bursting. A strange, calm sensation of no longer really caring came over him, and then he was roughly grabbed by the shoulders and dragged coughing and spluttering to the surface of the water and into an air pocket trapped beneath the sinking ship.
The boat was still traveling downwards with such rapidity that Hiccup's ears popped again and again, but at least he could breathe.
"My turn to save YOUR life," gasped Fishlegs.
"Oh yes," said Hiccup sarcastically, once he'd got his breath back, "and I suppose the reason I'm here in the first place is nothing to do with you? If you hadn't gone rushing after Alvin we would be on board the other boat by now.... Didn't you hear me shouting at you?"
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Fishlegs blushed. "Couldn't hear anything, actually," he mumbled.
"A fine time for us to discover you're a Beserk," grumbled Hiccup.
Fishlegs blushed even deeper. "Do you think that's what it was?" he asked shyly. He was secretly extremely proud that he had these violent hidden depths.
"Yes, I do," said Hiccup. "Anyway, my life isn't exactly SAVED yet, is it? It's not like we're tucked ,up safely in bed in the Hooligan Village. I mean, where ARE we?"
The boat finally stopped its descent and settled gently on the seabed.
[Image: Fishes.]
"At the b-b-b-bottom of the ocean," said Toothless as he floated by, crouched in an upturned Outcast helmet like a malevolent eagle sitting on a nest, his eyes glowing like candles. (One of the only interesting features of the Common or Garden dragon is that its eyes light up in the dark.)
"The boat turned over and we seem
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to be trapped underneath in some sort of air pocket," explained Fishlegs.
Hiccup peered up the length of the upturned Lucky Thirteen. Sure enough, all the benches were now the ceiling of what looked like a long, low, barrel-vaulted hall, with water for a floor. Chairs, oars and cushions floated by, but as far as he could see or hear, there was no one else trapped with them, no furious Outcasts or helpful Hooligans.
"Everyone else must have jumped off in time," said Fishlegs.
"Hang on a sec," said Hiccup, "somebody seems to be stuck under a bench down there. ..." He dived below the surface, his kicking legs swamping Fishlegs and Toothless in a small tidal wave.
He was gone for nearly a minute and a half. When he finally resurfaced, he was holding a very limp and green Alvin the Treacherous.
"What you saving HIM for?" complained Toothless. "He a r-r-rat. Toothless kill him, if you like," he said, cheering up no end, his claws extending towards the sleeping Alvin.
[Image: Fishes.]
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As if he heard these words, Alvin opened his eyes. His face crumpled up and he cried like a baby.
"My treasure," he cried, "my treasure. Gone, gone, gone. ..."
"We are not interested in your treasure," said Fishlegs coldly. "What about the fact that not half an hour ago you were about to put the entire Hooligan Tribe into slavery? Not to mention serving up poor old Hiccup here as a starter. If it wasn't for YOUR stupid treasure we could all be sitting in one of Gobber the Belch's classes staring vacantly out of the window while he bangs on about Frightening Foreigners."
"We can still find it," said Alvin urgently, trying to peer into the water below him. "It's down there somewhere, the ground isn't far beneath me. HELP ME everybody, and we shall live like kings. ..."
"Oh belt up, you madman," snapped Fishlegs.
"We haven't got time," interrupted Hiccup. "This really is our lucky day. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this air pocket is getting smaller."
Hiccup was right.
The air pocket was getting smaller.
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17. HOW BAD COULD THIS DAY GET?
The "ceiling" was definitely nearer to their heads than it had been a few minutes before. It was now just a few inches above the horns on Hiccup's helmet.
There was silence for a second. Alvin's mad eyes swam back into focus again. The only thing that mattered more to him than the treasure was the preservation of his own life.
Hiccup found everyday life rather a trial but was always good in a crisis. "RIGHT," he said, "Toothless, I want you to swim out from under this boat and see whether you think we're too far to swim to tie surface. HOW," he added, as Toothless seemed to be taking his time about it.
[Image: Fishes.]
"Okay, okay," grumbled Toothless, "k-k-k-keep your horns on ...."
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The little dragon dived underneath the water and disappeared. He left the Vikings in nearly total darkness, for without the friendly light of his glowing eyes it was almost impossible to see. There was an eerie silence, apart from the lapping of the water against the sides of the boat, and a faint rushing noise, which Hiccup was sure was the sound of the air leaving the air pocket like a leaking balloon.
And indeed, after five minutes the air pocket had reduced so much that Hiccup's head was squashed against the wooden "ceiling" of the Lucky Thirteen, and he had to remove his helmet.
Alvin was panicking. "Where is the wretched reptile?" he hissed, and then choked as water sloshed into his mouth.
"That wretched reptile," scolded Fishlegs, as terrified as Alvin but bravely trying not to show it, "is trying to save your wretched life. ..."
Five minutes more and they had to turn their heads in order to keep their nostrils clear of the water. "If Toothless takes any longer," thought Hiccup, "we're going to drown here in this blackness. ..."
Two lights flickered in the dark below him.
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It was Toothless, swimming up towards them in the nick of time.
"Okay," said Toothless. "Surface t-t-too far away for h-h-h-h-humans ... hut there's a c-c-c-c-cave thingy.... F-f-follow Toothless...."
"Just hang on to me, Fishlegs, and kick like crazy," ordered Hiccup, because, of course, Fishlegs could not swim.
[Image: Fishes.]
Hiccup took a huge breath, just before the sea swallowed up the last remains of that air pocket, and dived after Toothless.
He had to swim underneath the rim of the boat, which was resting on some large rocks on the bottom.
He swam out into total darkness, which was very confusing. A little way above him, he could see
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that Toothless was swimming towards a small hole in the cliff, with light shining out of it. Trying to ignore the panicky feeing of his breath running out, and hampered by Fishlegs gripping on to one leg, he swam as fast as he could towards the hole. Once he had swum into it, he shot upwards through a short tunnel and surfaced in a huge pool of water at the bottom of a gigantic underground cavern, gasping for air.
A second or so later, Alvin emerged to lie in the water beside Hiccup and Fishlegs.
The cavern was huge, and surprisingly light, considering it was so far underground. The eerie green light seemed to be given off by Electricsquirms, a tiny dragon-like creature that glows with phosphorescence. Water rushed down the walls and dripped from the ceiling.
Hiccup was so relieved to be still alive and in the air again that this tomb of a cavern initially seemed like home. It was a while before his scared brain could focus on the fact that they weren't safe yet.
"Right," said Fishlegs, trying not to panic and wringing out his breeches and flapping his arms to get dry. "How are we going to get out of HERE?"
The cavern had some interesting rock
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formations, if Hiccup had been in the mood for admiring them. The weird shapes of fossilized dragons were caught in the stone. Some of them were very unusual, extinct species. However, even the discovery of an entire skeleton of the Burrowing Slitherfang, so rare that it was often thought never to have existed, failed to excite Hiccup a
s it might have done in other circumstances.
They walked round and round in circles for about an hour and a half, looking for a way out, before realizing that there wasn't one. They sat down.
Without his Tribe around him, and facing Death, Alvin seemed to have returned to his old, pleasant self again. He even apologized for getting them into this mess.
"I just cannot believe this," moaned Fishlegs, shivering violently. "It's like some sort of NIGHTMARE. I keep thinking we're safe, and then it seems that, NO, we're in some OTHER life-threatening situation even worse than the one we've just got away from."
"Okay," admitted Hiccup, trying to keep them from despairing, "it doesn't look good, but I'm sure I can think of a way out of here...."
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Toothless was sniffing away at the back of the cavern, and he interrupted, calling out, "Toothless can smell something m-metal over h-h-here!"
"Very clever, Toothless," said Hiccup, "but tie Treasure Hunt is over now."
"I mean," continued Fishlegs, "so far today we have narrowly escaped being 1. Torn to pieces by Skullions. 2. Eaten by Cannibal Outcasts. 3. Burned to death on board ship. 4. Drowned at the bottom of the ocean.... And now here we are, trapped in an inaccessible underground cavern facing DEATH BY
SLOW STARVATION.... It's just been a REALLY BAD day."
"N-n-not metal after all," Toothless called back in disappointment. "It's just a d-d-door....."
"A DOOR??" Alvin, Hiccup and Fishlegs scrambled up and over towards Toothless, with a sudden surge of hope.
Once they had scrabbled away at all the dust and earth covering it, they found it was a door. It was surprising they hadn't noticed it before.
"Is it a way out?" gasped Fishlegs.
"Not necessarily," Hiccup replied slowly.
A door with a DEATH'S HEAD painted on it.
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A door with lettering on it that was horribly familiar to Hiccup.
Large, scrawling letters gouged out of the surface of the wood, probably with a sword.
"DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR," it said, "UNLESS YOU ARE THE TRUE HEIR TO 6RÎMBEARD THE GHASTLY I REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME, DEATH AND DESTRUCTION AND OTHER TRULY AWFUL THINGS WILL FOLLOW IF YOU OPEN THIS DOOR. THIS IS A PIRATE'S PRIVATE PERSONAL PROPERTY"
Hiccup looked straight into the suddenly glittering eyes of Alvin the Treacherous. All the pleasantness had fallen away from him again.
He raised his arm with the Stormblade fixed into it.
Alvin didn't need to say anything.
Hiccup knew what he wanted.
"Ohhhhh no," said Hiccup, backing slowly away, "I'm not going to open this door."
"Oh, but you are, " smiled Alvin the Treacherous, resting the point of the Stormblade right in the center of Hiccup's chest.
"But I'm not the Heir to Grimbeard the Ghastly," Hiccup protested. "Snotlout is the Heir.
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He's the one who found the treasure, remember the riddle?"
"Ah, but was that the real treasure that Snotlout found?" asked Alvin. "Perhaps Grimbeard put it there as a decoy, to make people think they'd found the real treasure, when all along it was lying here. What better hiding place than a cavern accessible only by water? And if that wasn't the real treasure, that means Snotlout isn't necessarily the True Heir to the Hairy Hooligans."
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"Well, that's a relief, in any case," said Fishlegs, trying to lighten the tension.
"YOU are the True Heir," said Alvin quietly. "When I asked on the Lucky Thirteen who was the Heir to the Hairy Hooligans, who stood up? YOU did. Not Snotlout. This has all been a Test, set by Grimbeard the Ghastly and Fate herself. Only now does the riddle make sense. For what have we just escaped from, but a watery grave?"
"And WHOSE Beast has just sniffed out this door? YOUR Beast."
"S-s-see?" said Toothless. "Toothless is better s-s-sniffer than Fireworm."
"YOU are the True Heir to the Hairy Hooligans, Hiccup," said Alvin. "And so only YOU can open this door and live."
"But I don't want to open this door," said Hiccup. "If you give me enough time I'm sure I can get us out of here without opening it. What about the booby traps? You open Grimbeard's coffin and you lose your right hand.... We open Grimbeard's treasure chest and it triggers a smell that wakes up the Skullions.... I KNOW that if we open this door something REALLY UNPLEASANT is going to
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happen, sure as fish eggs are fish eggs. And the surprises are getting WORSE, if anything."
"I forgot to mention," said Alvin silkily, "if you don't open the door, you DIE."
He pressed the Stormblade forward a bit so that it pierced the skin just above Hiccup's heart.
"Let me get this straight," said Hiccup, "if I do open this door, you WON'T kill me or my friends?"
"I promise," said Alvin, "word of a Treacherous."
"Word of a Treacherous ... ," groaned Fishlegs. "It says it all really.... He'll kill us as soon as he has the treasure ... if there is any treasure behind that door...."
"But otherwise he's going to kill us now," Hiccup pointed out. "I haven't got a lot of choice."
Hiccup leaned forward, biting his lip, and slid the heavy iron bolt to the left.
"NOT a good idea, NOT a good idea, NOT A GOOD IDEA," repeated Fishlegs and Toothless to themselves, closing their eyes.
Hiccup slowly opened the door....
cr-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-a-k....
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Alvin, Fishlegs, Hiccup and Toothless stood there, their mouths flopping open and shut like fish in their astonishment.
The door had opened on to another GIGANTIC cavern. This was filled to the brim with more treasure than you could possibly imagine in your wildest dreams, even were you as greedy as Alvin himself.
So indescribably beautiful was this treasure that it drew them into the room like a magnet.
It was all piled up on top of itself in crazy giant mountains. Mound after mound of golden coins with Caesar stamped on one side and Neptune on the other. Heap after heap of rubies fat and ripe as scallops and emeralds green as a mermaid's eye. Gorgeous silver cups with seahorses galloping delicately around them and golden necklaces as plump as oysters and swords as sharp as a conger's tooth with octopus tentacles winding themselves around the hilt.
It was the sort of treasure you could get lost in, and forget yourself and your mind and this world at all.
"Oh my," breathed Alvin the Treacherous, stepping forward. "Oh my, my, my ..." And he reached out to grasp a cup, a glorious golden goblet, perfectly
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round in shape, with dolphins playing around the rim, so beautifully carved that it looked as if they were alive and leaping in a miniature golden sea.
Toothless, Hiccup and Fishlegs recollected where they were, and slowly backed towards the open door while Alvin was so preoccupied.
But Alvin caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye, and he stretched out and shut the door with the point of the Stormblade.
"Nobody leaves the cavern without asking Alvin," he said.
"Now, Alvin," said Hiccup nervously, "remember your promise. If I opened the door, you said you'd let us all live."
"Ye-e-e-e-s-s-s," said Alvin, considering the cup again, and then dropping it softly back on the pile. "The thing is, Outcasts don't always keep promises to other people. I blame our upbringing. My mother never really loved me, you know. But I always keep promises I make to MYSELF. And long ago, when that coffin lid snapped down and chopped off my hand, I made myself a very solemn promise indeed."
Alvin's pleasant eyes narrowed, and he sidled towards Hiccup like a predatory crab. "It's not that
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I dislike you personally, Hiccup, but I swore to myself," said Alvin, still smiling, "that I would FIND Grimbeard's precious Treasure, and I would KILL his precious Heir. That's fair, isn't it, an Heir in exchange for a hand?"
And he made a vicious swipe at Hiccup with the Stormblade.
<
br /> Hiccup dodged out of the way in the nick of time. He leapt nimbly onto the nearest mound of treasure and started scrambling up it.
[Image: Toothless to the rescue!.]
"And with Grimbeard's own precious sword, too," chuckled Alvin. "Isn't fate ARTISTIC?"
"TOOTHLESS!" yelled Hiccup. "Get me a SWORD!"
Alvin climbed after him and made another wild lunge at his head.
Hiccup ducked behind a large golden chariot wheel.
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"TOOTH-LESS!" cried Hiccup. "HURRY UP!"
"Okay, okay," muttered Toothless, who had flown to a pile of weaponry not far away. "K-k-keep your helmet on. T-t-toothless doing his BEST."
Toothless tried to pick up three of the swords, all of them as big and beautiful and flashy as the Stormblade itself. But they were all too heavy.
So he turned to something smaller, an undistinguished but serviceable object, a bit rusty at the edges perhaps. He could lift it easily with both talons, and flew with it to where Hiccup was climbing. He was a quarter of the way up a hill of treasure, hotly pursued by Alvin, who had little red lights dancing in his narrowed eyes and was swishing that Stormblade like he was a human flail.
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Toothless dropped the rusty sword into Hiccup's hand, and he caught it just in time to parry a blow by Alvin so terrible that if it had actually connected with Hiccup's neck, it might have removed his head from his shoulders then and there.
Hiccup caught the sword in his LEFT hand, because, if you remember, his right arm was dislocated and in a sling.
"This isn't going to last long," he thought to himself. It was a case of Man against Boy, and Hiccup wasn't exactly the greatest swordfighter in the Inner Isles even with his right hand.