Chapter Eighteen: Standing Between
The first meeting between Hiccup and Toothless had not been under friendly circumstances, Hiccup at one point getting an intimate view of Toothless's throat when the dragon screamed out an unhappy protest at Hiccup. Traveling down the Monolith's entrance tunnel felt very much the same, like they were moving down the digestive tract of a behemoth. The polished sides had little streams of golden energy that flowed along the metal, branching out and forking into smaller streams like they were the veins and arteries of a living body. The Monolith acted way too much alive, an impossibility considering how non-organic the thing was. Then again, Hiccup had lost count of the number of impossible things that had come into his life recently.
The tunnel had narrowed considerably once they had gone past the entrance, the soothing glow from the energy streams mellowing the oppressive quality of the tunnel. The sunlight from the tunnel's opening faded as they flew deeper into the island. Toothless's head darted about, attempting to keep watch on the whole tunnel at once as if deathly afraid of something shooting out of it and ensnaring them. Considering that the war machine could make tentacles appear from anywhere on its surface, it wasn't an overreaction. The tunnel itself probably hadn't existed until Nestor used the powercore to summon it.
Nestor kept the powercore over his head, brandishing it like a holy man might ward off an evil spirit with his holy symbol. So far, no signs of aggression from the Monolith, and no sign of Cervantes at all. Hiccup didn't care if he had Odin's favor or the Fates' Luck, he just hoped it kept up a little longer.
The tunnel had an ending, it seemed. Down a ways was another wide opening that emptied into a large chamber. Their steady descent made it difficult to place their position within the war machine, though they had to be underwater by now. In the scheme of things, it didn't make much difference where they were – their chances of survival were dim no matter what.
"I'll give the Artisans credit," remarked Nestor. "When they set out to build a super weapon, they don't fool around."
Hiccup's first impression of the main chamber was that it was so… vacant. He hadn't expected to correctly guess what the heart of the Monolith might resemble, but he had expected a heart of some kind. The oval chamber was huge, capable of fitting every house in Berk within it and still maintain some room for expansion. The energy streams in the walls pulsed with a steady rhythm, furthering the living-thing impression in Hiccup's mind, but there was no device or artifact or vital organ floating in the center. There was nothing to attack, nothing to destroy – which meant no last-minute reprieve from their current plan.
No Cervantes, either. That didn't make any sense. Wouldn't the Monolith lead them to its war room or brain or wherever one goes to control the thing? Why bring them here to a vast, empty chamber? Where was Cervantes hiding?
"Not liking this," said Hiccup.
"You liked it before?" said Nestor.
"I meant that I have a feeling we're not all that in control," Hiccup clarified.
"I agree. Drop me off here and get out while you still can."
Hiccup gaped. "What?"
Nestor gave him a half-smile. "The tunnel's still open, Hiccup. No sense in all three of us dying."
"No sense in any of us dying," replied Hiccup. "I'm not about to…"
But you are, child.
The voice rang out from the ether, not in their ears but in their minds. An intrusive presence filled with great power and unabashed confidence. The three of them glanced about to identify its source, finding none. Hiccup sought to place it, the mentally trespassing voice eerily familiar.
"Did you hear that?" asked Nestor.
"I wish I hadn't," said Hiccup, placing it at last. The voice that awoke him this morning, the voice that had come out of nowhere. He had thought it a part of a forgotten dream.
The tendril that smacked into Toothless caught them all with their pants down, partly due to the distracting voice and partly due to it coming from the ceiling for a change. Toothless cried out in pain as the tendril thumped against his side, swatting him downward. Nestor swore helplessly as his untethered body parted from Hiccup's saddle, falling onto the metal floor and sliding along the frictionless surface just behind Toothless. The powercore and tome came out of his hands and skidded along with him. The stunned dragon landed on his belly, too dazed to stop his momentum until he met the curving wall up ahead and came to rest against it. Nestor careened into Toothless and bounced off, managing to put his palms on the floor and brake with his barrier, gouging the metal with his fingers before coming to a halt.
Dizzy but unhurt, Hiccup tried to rouse Toothless before something else snapped out and snared him. Alas, that was precisely what happened, a trio of ropey tendrils jutting out from the wall Toothless rested against and wrapping around the dragon's torso, pining him to the floor. Toothless regained his wits, snarled his displeasure, and fired a bolt at the ensnaring wall. He blew a chunk of melted steel free of the wall, but it was as futile as fighting the tide, the hole filling in with more myssteel right before their eyes.
Nestor got to his knees just before something pounded him into the floor… literally. His barrier marked an outline in the surface as he tried to rise again, only to get smashed face down once more. The attacker repeated his blows twice more, further smashing him downward before trapping him under its bulk, Nestor weakly struggling and barely able to draw breath.
The tentacles trapping Toothless had missed Hiccup, the young lad detaching from the dragon and sliding to the floor, his left false foot slipping out from under him on the smooth surface. He sprawled on his back, grimacing upon hitting the unyielding metal, then grimacing again when he got a good look at Nestor's captor. Horrified, he clutched at the little dagger tucked in his belt, the feeble weapon he had decided to start carrying again thanks to recent events. Too bad touching it didn't make him feel any better, considering how useless it was.
The metal statue of Cervantes standing upon Nestor was as lifelike as a metal statue could get, the staggering amount of detail jaw dropping. It had the necromancer's uneven shoulders and sunken eyes, right down to his modest rags held together by thread and bone. But it wasn't a statue, though – it was another Monolith-created Guardian made in the necromancer's image. A giant-sized replica at least fifteen feet tall, it calmly gazed at Hiccup with soulless eyes as it ground Nestor under its heel.
The powercore glowed off to Hiccup's right, having collided with one of Toothless's paws. Knowing how vital is was to keep the artifact out of Cervantes's hands (and wondering why the Monolith hadn't already taken it) Hiccup reached over and grabbed it. He held it to his chest protectively, not sure if the powercore could do anything for him but not having anything to lose by trying.
Now that your allies are incapacitated, said the voice in his head, which Hiccup now assumed was a distorted version of Cervantes's voice, I thought we'd take a second to discuss matters.
"Discuss matters?" said Hiccup, flummoxed. What was with the villainous exposition? "If you want to discuss matters, why don't you let my friends go and show yourself?"
I'm here, child, said Cervantes, the metal statue smirking in concert with the voice. It turns out that you don't so much control the Monolith… as you become it. Not such a bad fate. I was looking to trade in my body for something better.
Hiccup didn't think he could get more horrified, but he did. Cervantes was part of the Monolith, his brain somehow transplanted into the ancient war machine. They were one and the same. This Metal Cervantes, this voice in his head – all Cervantes. He had heard a term in passing from one of Gobber's stories, something he picked up during his travels. The word avatar came to mind, as in an incarnation of a god created for interaction with humans. This animated statue was Cervantes's avatar, now that the necromancer had discarded his old bag of bones.
Cervantes, the Monolith. Cervantes, the Metal God.
Cervantes's avatar saw the terror on his face and laughed in his mind. Do you understand now what you're up against, child? You should thank me for sparing your lives and your village. I could have overwhelmed you all at the onset, but I have no desire to see you dead, nor do I wish destruction for your people. All I wanted was to lure you back to me. A little misdirection, a little feigned weakness, plus a half-hearted attack on Berk, and you come cheerfully flying into the bowels of my new body thinking you were fighting the old Cervantes. So here you are, giving me the second powercore free of charge.
"Yeah, we figured that's what you wanted," muttered Nestor, his head poking out from below Cervantes's foot. "You didn't think we were that dumb, did you?"
The avatar's head focused on Nestor long enough to see him cry out from one more vicious stomp to the back. Incensed by his friend's pain, Hiccup moved his free hand from his dagger and groped around the small pile of myssteel debris, finding a suitable sliver with a sharp point. Still warm from Toothless's fireball, almost unbearably, he held it near the powercore with the tip poised for a plunge through the crystal's luminous surface.
Another laugh rang through his mind as the statue regarded Hiccup. Clearly Cervantes didn't think him a threat, not with him separated from Toothless and unable to stand properly. So that's your plan, is it? Pierce the heart of the powercore and detonate it? Just like an infant toying with fire. But it doesn't have to be this way, child. As… annoyed as I was with the resolution of our last encounter, I was also quite impressed with your ingenuity. I can use that. I can use you.
"You're not seriously trying to recruit me, are you?" replied Hiccup. Cervantes's strategy eluded him. Couldn't he just take the powercore from him and be done with the drama? He had no problem subduing Toothless and Nestor. Did he consider Hiccup so little a threat that he didn't feel the need to try?
I'm nothing if not a pragmatist, child. Berk is but one stop on my long path, and it might go quicker if I had a few allies to assist me. Believe it or not, you and your dragon have shown me the value of teamwork.
"I think you've missed the part where I don't deal with omnicidal maniacs," said Hiccup.
But you do want your village spared, don't you? Your friends and family? I can stop now, move onward. My gift to you, if you join me.
"Let me rephrase. I will never, ever, ever, ever…"
Do you really think you're no longer an outcast? interrupted Cervantes. Remember, I watched you for a time. You spend your hours appeasing a culture that, until recently, was looking for an excuse to be rid of you. A stroke of luck gave you acceptance, but for how long? You did something heroic, but the power of such acts fades in time. You remain the same feeble boy once disdained by your brethren. Someday your people will grow weary of change, weary of the chaos you've brought into their lives, and you will return to the life of an outcast. I know you fear this. It is the fear every outcast knows.
"Maybe it is," said Hiccup. "It doesn't mean I should sign up for necromancy lessons."
But I can ensure you will never be an outcast, Hiccup. You've tasted it, the secrets and the adventure and the horrors of this life. You can't hide your head and pretend they don't exist. Your old life is too small now. Your village is too small now. You could be a mover and shaker in the world… perhaps even beyond.
"Hiccup…" blurted out Nestor, the rest of his statement stomped into silence.
"Stop it!" said Hiccup, touching the myssteel sliver's tip to the powercore. Behind him, Toothless let out a growl of frustration and strained against his bonds. "You do that again…"
Easy, child, cautioned Cervantes, easing up on Nestor but keeping his weight bared down on him. Won't do your friends any favors to vaporize them. That is the end result of piercing a powercore, after all. Are you ready to sacrifice yourself, your friends, to stop me? Is what I offer such a bad alternative?
"We were ready when we came here," said Nestor defiantly. "Hiccup, do it already."
Hiccup kept the sliver at the ready, suspicion crawling through his brain. Cervantes couldn't be serious about this. He had to have an ulterior motive, some reason to want Hiccup cooperative. He kept coming back to the fact that Nestor and Toothless were pinned down by the Monolith and he wasn't, that Cervantes was talking to him and not Nestor. What did Hiccup have…?
That was it. It had to be it. The one thing he had was the thing in his hands. Cervantes had attacked them and knocked the powercore away from them, but hadn't taken it when he had the opportunity. The guy could form tentacles and statues from the very walls, so why didn't he act?
"You can't touch it, can you?" said Hiccup, getting his knees under him but opting not to stand and have his metal foot slip again. "The powercore. You can't take it. That's why you're trying to sweet-talk me, isn't it?"
Cervantes kept silent, his metal avatar adopting an emotionless visage. That all but confirmed it. Crazy as it sounded, Cervantes couldn't touch the powercore.
An irritating failsafe, said Cervantes. It must be to prevent the Monolith's pilot from wielding too much power. It creates an external dependency. Someone else must install it before I can use it. The one thing you should keep in mind, however, is that while this failsafe prevents me from seizing the powercore, it doesn't prevent me from hurting the one who holds it.
Something slithered around him before lifting into the air, revealed as another snakish tentacle armed with a spiky tip full of needle-thick barbs. Hiccup bit his lip to stifle his panic as three more tentacles solidified and thrust around him and over him, arcing in the air and poised for a kill. Hiccup shifted his myssteel shiv so that the he could bear down on the powercore in a heartbeat, praying that it would convince Cervantes to back off. Metal Cervantes only gave him a contemptuous smirk.
If you're going to do it, then do it, dared the monolithic necromancer. You won't, though. You're not capable of doing what needs to be done. But I can kill you and let the powercore reside within me until I try my luck with another individual more concerned with survival than morals. So what will it be, Dragon Rider? Can you win when you can't even stand?
One thrust would end it, Hiccup realized. One thrust would prove Cervantes wrong and save Berk. One thrust, and everything would be over. It was the Viking way to die in battle, preferably with your enemy's heart in your hands. It was noble.
It was tragic. So very tragic.
He looked back at Toothless, bound and immobile but still loyal to the end. The dragon narrowed his eyes and gave him a determined smile. Brave Toothless, his partner in the air and in battle… and ready for one final act of bravery.
He looked forward at Nestor, buried beneath the avatar's heel. Lonely Nestor, not so alone any more. He gave Hiccup a vigorous nod, though his eyes conveyed the sadness of a man wishing this wasn't the end… and knowing it was.
"But I do stand, Cervantes," said Hiccup fiercely. "I stand against the mistakes of the past… and you have to be one of the biggest mistakes of them all!"
Hiccup closed his eyes and pushed his makeshift weapon into the powercore. The shiv's point sank in with a crack, the voice in his head gasping with incredulous fear as the crystal shuddered in his hands. Hiccup's eyes reopened in time to see a shaft of blazing light blast out of the cut he made, enveloping the shiv and dissolving it. Hiccup thought his hand lost as well, another limb surrendered for the sake of his people, but his hand remained intact, illuminated in the light. It was tingly, but otherwise no more harmful than a sunbeam… to Hiccup, anyway. The Monolith wasn't so blessed, the shaft of energy connecting with the chamber walls and drilling through it, myssteel flaking and disintegrating like soap under a waterfall.
The crack in the powercore widened, splitting from the internal pressure of its contained mystical furnace, and another shaft of light emerged. This one found the avatar and sliced off its right leg, unbalancing the statue and causing it to fall off of Nestor, who wasted no time getting to his feet and smashing away at the damaged avatar with illuminated fists of his own making.
A third crack… a fourth… a fifth. A new light pulsed forth with each crack. The tentacles collapsed around Hiccup as the light sheered them in half. The ceiling of the chamber was assailed, myssteel dust tumbling down as the light dug holes through the Monolith's structure. Hiccup dropped the damaged powercore and crawled away, moving to Toothless as he grabbed another charred myssteel fragment with a halfway-decent edge. Tremors shook the floor as Hiccup sawed away at Toothless's bonds, desperation strengthening his hand as he tore great rents in the metal.
The mental voice became a garbled mess of noise as it surged through everyone's mind, a cacophony of jumbled words and emotions. Hiccup tried his best to ignore it, to pretend it was as ordinary as ocean surf and not the death knell of the Monolith… and what used to be Cervantes. He tried not to worry about the dozen shafts of Monolith-killing light he could see out of the corner of his eye, each shaft a dagger through the war machine's heart.
But he knew the Monolith was only minutes away from destruction, and they were smack in the middle of it. There was no way he'd free Toothless in time.
Nestor finished off Cervantes's metallic avatar with a kick to the head, shattering its skull into hundreds of crumbling pieces. But so focused he was on the disintegrating statue that he didn't see the new one rise out of the floor behind him, first as a glob of molten myssteel and then spreading its mass out to rapidly form limbs and a torso.
It grabbed Nestor around his right leg with a half-formed appendage, Nestor too slow to react before the monstrosity effortlessly yanked him off his feet and slammed him hard enough against the floor to embed him in the metal.
It picked him up and slammed him down three more times, shaking the floor with each merciless blow. Nestor finally dangled upside down from the fiend's grip, barely conscious, his field a faint orange and growing fainter. The morphing avatar completed its transformation and glowered at Nestor, its face contorted in rage.
Did you teach him this, lackey of Archibald? Cervantes directed his ire solely at Nestor this time, somehow cutting through the mental chaos of the Monolith. Was this your doing?
Despite feeling like a beaten bearskin rug, despite the rush of blood to his head, Nestor managed to laugh in Cervantes's face, or what approximately substituted for his face. "Can't take credit here, necromancer."
Your smugness shows your ignorance! Where I could have united this world, you and yours have doomed it! But perhaps I can take some small pleasure in watching you die…"
SHUNK!
A whirling blade removed the avatar's hand from its arm, Nestor falling away to the hard floor. A second blade cleaved off both legs at the knees, the statue sliding off its severed limbs and collapsing backwards. The statue's shocked head rotated in time to see the lithe form of the Seer catch her daggers and cock her arms back in preparation for the next throw.
"You've taken much, Necromancer," she proclaimed. "You will take no more!"
Both daggers spun away, powered by the Seer's uncontained fury. A second later, the avatar's torso split open like an overripe peach, the myssteel construct dissolving and mingling with the rapidly-growing debris filling the chamber.
Loopy from all the abuse, his vision blurry from one too many slams to the ground, it didn't register on Nestor that the Seer was physically inside the Monolith until she was lifting him off the floor and supporting him under his right arm. The floor heaved and convulsed as more and more destructive shafts of light carved up the ancient war machine, making walking difficult and staggering impossible. Yet the Seer moved him nonetheless, heading for the nearby angry green thing with all the lightning. There was a good chance that was Arc.
"What're you doing here?" he asked groggily.
"Saving your life, Outlander," she replied.
"Ah, yeah, obvious question really," he remarked.
"Hiccup, get back!"
The voice sent two types of shivers up Hiccup's spine – the ones you get when someone you greatly care about shows up, and the ones you get when you realize they're right in the middle of an unfolding disaster. But those shivers got his blood pumping harder and he scurried away from Toothless on all fours.
One solid axe throw later, all the tendrils wrapped around Toothless were severed from their source, coming apart like leaves in the wind. Freed, Toothless bounded up and over to Hiccup as Astrid helped him stand up and balance on his metal foot.
"Astrid?" he said, still thrilled and terrified at her arrival.
"Like you're really that surprised," she replied. "The entrance is still open, so get moving! And remind me to break your legs later for trying something this stupid!"
As Astrid helped Hiccup mount up on Toothless, he saw Arc over near Nestor and the Seer, his draconian face an intense mask of concentration and rage as his electrical blasts lit up the gloom of the chamber. Any tendril or tentacle that dared to show itself was instantly reduced to scorched junk. He kept the escape tunnel clear all by himself, a furious demon in dragon form smiting all enemies in his sight. But he couldn't smite the ceiling, and it was only a few moments away from total collapse.
Toothless waited for Astrid to clamber on, then he was airborne and rushing toward the exit. There were dozens of light shafts filling the chamber with a devastating glow that was both intoxicating and horrifying. Hiccup spotted the powercore sinking into the floor as it dissolved the metal underneath it, an orb of golden light enveloping it and growing larger as the seconds ticked away. They had no time left, no time at all.
Arc all but threw Nestor and the Seer on his back and took off just as the floor gave out beneath him. Toothless was hot on his tail as the walls exploded around them, the energy veins rupturing and flooding the chamber with more mystical energy, hastening the destruction. The tunnel seemed to rock and shift, one section constricting as if the Monolith was having an asthma attack. Toothless and Arc took care of the problem with fire and electricity, flying through the wreckage and out into the sunlight.
So much like a living thing, this Monolith. Hiccup couldn't help but see it as such as they sped out from the tunnel and climbed away from the dying island. Tentacles writhed and fractured, hills grew and shrank, light poured from a thousand holes that perforated the metal crust. Geysers of energy and metal shards blossomed outward, transforming the sea into a bubbling cauldron. The island lurched and quaked, resisting its fate as vehemently as any organism might cling to life.
Astrid clung to Hiccup as Toothless charged towards the sun, Arc a heartbeat behind them. Hiccup urged him on, every instinct in him saying the same thing – they needed distance.
A lot of distance.
Some things end in a whimper, others with a bang. The bang the Monolith gave was felt all the way to Tempest Point, where the villagers mistook it for a particularly bright Northern Lights performance. Up close, the experience was akin to witnessing ten hurricanes all at once.
With a roar that could deafen the Gods up in Asgard, the entire island flew apart into billions of glittering fragments, the blast cloud stretching up into the atmosphere a good half-mile. A gigantic burst of light, blinding and yet alluring, accompanied the whirlwind of chaos for the first few seconds, the light dispersing and dying as rapidly as it had appeared. A large amount of seawater evaporated around the explosion site, a literal cloud of steam billowing upwards in the form of a great mushroom. House-sized chunks of metal went airborne, some detonating into their own fragment clouds and others catapulting into the sea or colliding with the reefs.
The ocean succumbed to the power of the explosion, a wave front over thirty feet high rushing out from the blast point and engulfing the nearby reefs. While Berk was high enough off the sea to survive the tsunami, its badly trashed dockyard was finished off by the force of the waves, its wooden walkways smashed to rubble, its boats shoved onto rocks or other boats. It was fortunate that the docks had been abandoned during the previous battle, as no one standing upon them would have survived.
The energy release agitated the sky above the detonation, a brilliant band of iridescent colors forming in the stratosphere, bright enough to be seen through the fading sun. The color band persisted for several days, marking the place where the Monolith came to a violent finish, a phenomenon of beauty borne from destruction.
For the people of Berk, for Stoick and Gobber and the others, it had briefly felt like the end had come. So much raw unfocused power, and it had wrought such incredible destruction. They waited for it to overcome them, to wipe Berk off the map. But they felt only a slapping wind to the face and the tolerable burn of the light in their eyes. The wind passed, the light faded, and the waters receded. Though the docks were lost to the waves, Berk weathered this storm as it had all others.
Hundreds of eyes searched the sky for their champions, the giant killers, their one and true Dragon Rider and his friends. A task far from easy thanks to the settling dust cloud that glinted in the sun. Many false alarms went up, each time getting the village's hopes up and each time dashing them. A growing consensus of dismay took hold in their hearts as the minutes piled up with no sign or hint of survival.
But the dismay didn't take root in Stoick's heart. He stood his ground and looked to the west, to the setting sun. A whisper in his ear, perhaps. A thought, a silly, stupid-crazy thought. A hope, a wish, or just parental instinct. But he kept looking to the west, knowing that his answer would come from that direction.
He was the first to see the two dots in the distance, one black and one green. The first to see the outline of two dragons and four riders coming home. The first to see his son's beaming face as they came in over the still-standing village, the first to see Astrid and Toothless and Nestor and Arc and the Seer. And even when someone else finally saw the same thing and the thunderous cheers threatened to rob him of his hearing, he simply stood and watched his son come home.
He later claimed that the tears in his eyes were from all the Monolith dust floating in the air. No one believed him.