24 Epilogue

EPILOGUE Was it really sixty-five years ago that I discovered my destiny in the darkness of Berserk? It is another world, a vanished world, the dragons, the witches, the storms, the swordfights and the shipwrecks of my childhood. The boy I was is so far away to me now. Sometimes I dream that same dream, though, the one that haunted me long ago, of the ghost-lady, and the ship, and the boy on his dragon. The ghost of course is the ghost of Hiccup the Second's mother, Chinhilda, and she haunts the Bay of the Broken Heart, calling out for the baby who was taken from her by her own husband. That same dream still shakes my old body awake sixty-five years later in an ague of shivers and trembling in the dark watches of the night. But the dream has slightly changed. When I dream that dream now, I am the ghost- lady, calling out to my lost child. 'Hiccup!' I cry longingly, 'Hiccup! Come back to me, Hiccup…' And I hold out my arms. But the boy on the dragon is disappearing into

the clouds, fading into the airy glory of the next world, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop that from happening. The boy turns his head. I cannot see his face at this distance, but he is heart-breakingly young. I hear his voice, very, very faintly. 'Don't worry!' he calls. 'I will come back, I promise…' And here he is.

CAN THE HOOK SURVIVE THE FLAMES?

CAN the Seadragon Furious organise a second Dragon Rebellion that aims to extinguish the entire human race? And if so, which side is Toothless going to be on? WHAT is the terrible choice that Hiccup is going to have to make? And WHEN is everybody going to find out that he has the Slavemark? And, last but not least, SURELY, SURELY, that one- legged, one-armed, no-nosed, follically-challenged villain Alvin the Treacherous has not survived, yet again, the fire that burnt down the island of Berserk, and lived to fight another day???? Watch out for the next volume of Hiccup's memoirs, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword