Knock Three Times

by Cressida Cowell

  “Yes,” said Wish.

  “I am a sin collector…” said the Nuckalavee, “a secret keeper… a guardian of power… I am a prisoner of the Droods, and the shadow men and women come to me and I look after objects for them that are too dangerous to be in the world.”

  That would explain the extraordinary amount of treasure in that cavern.

  This was the secret of the Nuckalavee. It was all treasure that the Droods and the Wizards considered needed guarding.

  “And in return…” said the Nuckalavee.

  “Yes,” said Xar. “In return?”

  “You answer a riddle that I ask you,” said the Nuckalavee. “If you win, you walk out of here, free and alive.”

  “And if we lose?” asked Xar.

  “The shadow men and women who lose stay here on this island to look after me,” said the Nuckalavee. “I turn them into nixes and they become my slaves forever…”

  Oh dear.

  A nasty, clammy, cold feeling stole over Wish and Xar.

  “The clever and the lucky know the answer to my riddle,” said the Nuckalavee. “They are the ones who escape. Accepting my bargain takes courage.

  “Now, what is the treasure that you have brought me?” said the Nuckalavee. “Is it that staff you are carrying? It looks a very powerful one…”

  “We already said, we have nothing to bring you,” said Wish, her voice trembling with fear. “And in fact, we are wanting to change the rules slightly…”

  The Nuckalavee’s eyes narrowed. His yellow eyes blazed orange for a second. “I hate it when people want to change the rules,” said the Nuckalavee. “It’s like people who come here without removing their shoes. Very rude.”

  “It’s just a small change…” said Wish. “We don’t want to BRING you something. We want to TAKE something from you. Two things, actually. If we lose, we will stay here as your slaves. But if we win, you must give back the life of my bodyguard, and… you must also give us four of your scales,” stammered Wish. Suddenly the request did seem a little, well, cheeky. “I hope you won’t miss them. You have an awful lot of scales, after all.”

  All thirteen of the Nuckalavee’s eyes swiveled to look at Wish.

  “Really? You want me to give you four of my scales?” said the Nuckalavee, repeating Wish’s request thoughtfully. “Now, that IS an interesting suggestion. My scales are very precious, of course… they’re powerful, powerful Magic, and they make the bearer a mighty Wizard indeed. But Magic as potent as this must be handled very carefully.”

  “It’s for a good cause,” said Wish. “The scales are ingredients in a spell to get rid of Witches.”

  The Nuckalavee thought for a very long time, all of his yellow eyes looking this way and that over Wish and Xar and their companions. Wish could feel her stomach going liquid with fear.

  “If you want to change the rules,” said the Nuckalavee, at last, “in all fairness, I must be allowed to change the rules too. You have asked for two things, so if you guess the answer to my riddle, I will want two things back. You must not only answer my riddle correctly, you must also perform a task for me. If you do both of those things, you can walk out of this cavern free as birds, and take the boy-who-didn’t-take-his-shoes-off with you. Otherwise, you stay here as my slaves just like the others.”

  “What is this task we have to perform?” said Xar.

  “I have something in my throat that has been bothering me for twenty years,” said the Nuckalavee, and he gulped again. They could hear from his voice that there was indeed something that had lodged in there. “You must walk into my mouth and remove it for me.”

  “But if we walk into your mouth you might just swallow us!” said Xar.

  “I promise not to swallow you,” said the Nuckalavee. “That is part of the bargain. I want this thing removed, and you can remove it. And I think that you are both lucky and clever, and that you will know the answer to my riddle. Do you take my offer?”

  “You swear that if we walk into your mouth, you will not shut your mouth and swallow us?” said Wish suspiciously.

  “You drive a hard bargain, small girl. But I swear by mistletoe and all things Magic, I will not shut my mouth and swallow you,” said the Nuckalavee. “My life shall be the forfeit if I break this promise. That is our contract if you care to take it. But if you do not take it… the boy-who-did-not-take-his-shoes-off is dead indeed.”

  How could they turn this deal down when Bodkin’s life would be the forfeit?

  The idea of climbing into the Nuckalavee’s mouth and removing something from it, trusting that he would not close it, was very unpleasant indeed. But what do you expect from a shadow quest? Of course it was going to be gruesome and challenging and terrifying. If the ingredient you are searching for represents courage, well, it seems logical that your bravery should be properly tested in order to find it.

  Wish and Xar had a short, whispered conversation.

  “I think the Nuckalavee wants us to win the bargain. His voice sounds terrible. I know how I feel if I even have a sore throat for a week. Imagine having one for twenty years!” said Wish. “The Nuckalavee will feel better if we take whatever it is out, and a promise made on mistletoe and all things Magic is an unbreakable promise.”

  “We’ve come all this way,” said Xar. “And we need those scales. The Nuckalavee says we are lucky and clever, and we are… He thinks we might know the answer to his question. We need to have courage…”

  “Don’t take the bargain, Wish and Xar!” Bodkin shouted down. “Seriously, Wish, as your bodyguard I have to urge you not to do this!”

  But Xar and Wish took the Nuckalavee’s bargain.

  They swore the oath of the shadow quest.

  And the Nuckalavee asked his riddle.

  19. The Riddle of the Nuckalavee

  Before I ask my riddle I need to tell you a story,” said the Nuckalavee. “Listen well…

  “By extraordinary coincidence,” said the Nuckalavee, “you are not the first people to have asked to change the rules. Twenty years ago, someone else asked to change the rules, and by very strange coincidence, that person asked for the very same thing you have asked…”

  “Oh dear,” groaned Caliburn. “I HATE coincidences, I really, really do…”

  “About twenty years ago,” said the Nuckalavee, “I was visited in this very cavern by a young man. The young man was carrying many wonderful magical objects. I hoped he wanted to leave them for me to guard, but instead he offered me a different bargain. I would give him four of my scales, and then if I asked him a riddle to which he knew the answer, he would walk out of the cavern, free and alive. If, on the other hand, I asked him a riddle he could not answer, he would give me his heart. For the young man was heartsick—ever so heartsick. He did not care, this boy, if he was risking his heart, apparently, for he was in love with a young lady who was not in love with him.

  “Well, I thought, what a stupid boy! Even if I gave him some of my beautiful shining scales, he would not be able to take them anywhere because if I had his heart, I would have ALL of him, and the wonderful magical objects in the bargain. Doesn’t that make logical sense?”

  “It’s a bit gruesome,” said Wish, grimacing. “But I guess it makes sense.”

  “So, even though it was a little unorthodox, and a breaking of the rules, because it looked like such an easy win for me, I took the boy’s bargain.

  “The boy thought he was lucky, and he knew he was clever. But I was cleverer, and I asked him a riddle, and I made it a hard one, so he would not know the answer…

  “So far, so good.

  “The boy lost. So the boy was supposed to give me his heart, and therefore all of him. He was supposed to walk into my mouth, with his heart safe inside of him. But the boy”—now the Nuckalavee gnashed his teeth at the memory of it—“but the boy was tricksy, ever so tricksy…

  “He had made his heart into a stone!” said the indignant Nuckalavee.

  “He threw the stone into my mouth, it
lodged in my throat… and he ran out of this very cavern with my scales still warm in his hand. He took with him the Magical Cup of Second Chances that ought to have been mine, and he escaped out of here, quite lickety-split! That thieving MAGPIE of a boy! And oh…” groaned the Nuckalavee. “That stone that was his heart got lodged in my throat, and it has ached me ever since…” (That must be the strange gulping noise the Nuckalavee made every now and then.)

  “I think a nix did bite him, at least, on the finger,” said the Nuckalavee. “And so he carries a little memory of us with him, for the bite of a nix has a sting. But if I ever get my hands on that trickster of a boy, I will swallow the rest of him whole, no questions asked!

  “And every day I get the nixes to send out curse bottles, with curses in them, and I have been waiting to know the Boy-Who-Tricked-Me’s name, so that it can be written on that curse… One day the curse will reach him,” said the Nuckalavee, “and then he’ll be sorry.

  “So my question is…” said the Nuckalavee, eyes narrowing.

  “What is the name of the wicked lickety-split of a boy?

  “That’s the question. Tell me the answer and, if the answer is true, it will magically appear in every one of the curse bottles floating in this lake around me, and that’s how you’ll know you’ve won the first part of our bargain,” said the Nuckalavee.

  “You trickster!” fumed Wish. “You said it was a question we might know the answer to! If it was twenty years ago, it could have been ANYBODY!”

  How could they possibly guess the name of this unknown boy?

  It could be any name at all. There were as many names in the world as there were trees in the wildwoods, or curse bottles in a lake.

  The children began discussing random names: Tinker, Jack-in-irons, Torremalay, Rumbelsomething, and so on, any name at all that popped into their heads.

  “Think,” said the Nuckalavee, bringing his great head with those glowing yellow eyes on it closer and closer to the children standing on the beach. “Think, as hard as you can…”

  “Hang on a second, it wasn’t just anybody,” said Xar slowly, remembering another story. “That’s why it’s not a coincidence!”

  The bite on the finger… Wasn’t his father once long ago meant to have gone on a shadow quest, after Sychorax had abandoned him? Didn’t his father have one finger that had a melancholy mark on it like a dark purple bruise? Was that the bite of a nix?

  “I know who it was!” shouted Xar.

  “Oh, I know too,” moaned Caliburn. “Don’t say, Xar, don’t say!”

  But it was too late.

  “The boy’s name was Tor,” said Xar excitedly. “But he’s now called… ENCANZO!!!”

  ENCANZO! ENCANZO! ENCANZO! called the echoes in the cavern. ENCANZO! ENCANZO! ENCANZO!

  20. Did You Think a Quest for Courage Was Going to Be Easy?

  Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Caliburn.

  As Xar spoke the name, the Nuckalavee sighed, a sigh of satisfaction.

  Blink! Blink! Blink!

  With a flash of Magic, every single curse bottle bobbing in the lake lit up with light. And in every single curse bottle there blazed the word Encanzo! with a bright, vengeful orange light.

  “You’re right!” whispered the Nuckalavee, eyes agleam with hatred of the boy called Tor. “I feel it in my heart that you are RIGHT. The treasure-hunting, staff-stealing burglar of a boy WAS called Tor… and he used MY treasures, MY staff, MY cup, MY scales, MY adderstone, MY treasures to become the greatest Wizard in the wildwoods. So the boy called Tor has become the noble Encanzo, the great Encanzo, the oh-so-clever Encanzo… I’ve heard that name, even down here in my dark and terrible dungeon, and I should have guessed it was him.”

  The Nuckalavee spat out every “Encanzo” with as much disgust as if the word had been made out of burned and bitter mustardseed mixed with the pus-like ooze of putrid-green-bad-eggs.

  “I’ve been cursing him ever since,” spat the Nuckalavee. “Every night I get the nixes to build a little bonfire down here in my dungeon and scramble the wrong way around it, wishing ill on the boy who stole my treasures and all his descendants.”

  “Oh dear…” said Caliburn. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…”

  It was clearly going to be quite important for the Nuckalavee NEVER to find out that one of Encanzo’s descendants was standing right in front of him.

  Unless he already knew…

  “I thought that you might know the answer,” said the Nuckalavee, all thirteen yellow eyes now burning orange in fury, “because in another extraordinary coincidence, YOU, boy, are carrying the very staff that Encanzo was carrying when he tricked me twenty years ago. Where did you get that staff, boy?”

  “I stole it,” said Xar, looking the Nuckalavee straight in all his eyes, one by one. “We have answered your question correctly. Now give us those scales!”

  “Oh, I’ve been tricked before, so I don’t make the same mistake twice,” said the Nuckalavee. “You will climb into my throat and remove the stone that is lodged there. Bring the stone out of my throat, where it has been burning, itching, torturing me—take it out of here and up to me and THEN I’ll give you four of my scales. And then you and your companions can leave this cavern with your hearts intact, and with your bodyguard and your selves free and alive.”

  Suddenly the second part of the bargain they had made with the Nuckalavee seemed very, very foolish indeed.

  “But you might close your mouth and swallow us,” said Wish, in a very small voice indeed.

  “I’ve already promised not to,” said the Nuckalavee. “By Magic and mistletoe, and giving my life as forfeit. Complete the bargain and remove the stone, on your honor.”

  The monster put his head down, and they saw him clearly for the first time.

  Ah, it was a scary one, that Nuckalavee, now that they saw him right up close.

  Great dark tentacles swung from his ancient, barnacled chin, and these tentacles were slimy with secrets, besmeared with curses, encrusted with hates and petty spites and mean little thoughts, and every kind of thing you might want to dispose of, and they were clinging like glue to the hairs on those tentacles.

  The monster rested his chin on the ground before them and opened his great mouth like a gigantic cavern.

  There was a smell in that mouth of disappointed hopes, and deep despair, and power bad and power strong, secrets that the Droods wanted to get rid of, magical objects too wild for the hearts of men, lies so bitter they would turn your lips green to speak them. There right in front of them were the giant daggers of his great green teeth, and even more spookily and horribly, down right at the bottom of his throat, you could see another mouth, farther down, another set of jaws, closed tight shut, so that nothing that went down there would ever get out.

  “We do have to keep our promise,” said Wish, shivering, trying to concentrate, even though the stink of the monster’s breath was confusing her as she peered inside the great grim depths. “Just as the Nuckalavee must keep his. We said that this was a test of our courage, didn’t we?”

  They had said that, but they hadn’t quite realized exactly how courageous they were going to have to be.

  The sprites and Caliburn offered to fly in first and see where the stone was lodged. Which was brave of them, not only for the obvious reasons, but because sprites have a very strong sense of smell, and so for them this stink was even worse than it was for the humans. They buzzed into the mouth of the great beast, wands drawn, prickling with anxiety and quivering with revulsion, and they were gone for so long that Wish and Xar began to get nervous.

  When they eventually emerged, they all looked green with nausea, and Bumbleboozle actually threw up. “Isss YUCKY in there,” said Bumbleboozle.

  “But we found the ssstone,” said Ariel. “A small gray stone, stuck tight as anything. We couldn’t budge it…”

  “It looksss very ssssorre in there, very sore,” said Bumbleboozle.

  There was no point in try
ing to transform into birds or fish or anything Perdita had been teaching them at school, because when they got down there, they wouldn’t have hands to remove the stone with.

  “Didn’t I TELL you that education wasn’t important?” fumed Xar. “Perdita said we were learning all that stuff for a reason, that we might need it in the fight against the Nuckalavee.”

  They did a quick mental review of the things they had learned at Pook’s Hill over the last three months:

  Transformation, telepathy, speaking to animals, illusions, wort-cunning, starcraft, leechdom.

  And it did seem that none of these skills would come in handy right now.

  “But that doesn’t mean they’re useless on EVERY occasion, Xar,” said Wish. “There are some quests where speaking to animals might be terribly important.”

  “Well, not right now it isn’t,” grumbled Xar.

  Sometimes there are problems that even Magic can’t help you with. You have to do it the good old-fashioned way.

  “You’re going to have to let me down on a rope, and I’ll try and dislodge it,” said Xar. “I should have spent the last three months practicing my ropework—that would have been a lot more helpful.”

  Crusher had a long rope twisted around his waist and he tied one end around a stalactite, and the other end around Xar. The giant braced himself against one of the Nuckalavee’s gigantic green teeth. And then slowly, slowly he let Xar down the throat of the Nuckalavee, the sprites buzzing in with him, to give out some light from their glowing bodies and offer helpful advice.

  “Stop!” yelled Xar, when he spotted the stone, halfway down the creature’s gullet. It was much smaller than Xar expected, so Encanzo must have shrunk down his broken heart to fit into the confines of the pebble. Crusher held the rope steady, and with a shiver of revulsion, Xar reached out to try and work the stone free.

  You, dear reader, I hope will never have been in the position of being lowered down the throat of a Nuckalavee, trying to remove a stone that has been stuck in it for twenty years, while being dripped on by the disgusting goo that is sludging down the sides of the monster’s throat walls.