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!