Chapter 27 – The Three Challenges
Both Phenix and Charlie hastily ran their hands across the solid wall that was now behind them, hoping to find some crack or mechanism to open it again. But it was futile. There was nothing to open it back up.
"Well what do we do now?" Phia said despondently.
"I guess we go down," Kyle suggested, looking at the steps that descended down into darkness and having been the one who had wanted to get into the vault in the first place.
Phenix didn't very much like the idea of going down the stairs into the unknown. His plan had simply been to enter the vault and then leave immediately. He hadn't intended for them to go looking around. Who knew what was down there. He didn't want to put anyone in danger when it had been him who had convinced them all to join him but there seemed to be no alternative.
"I don't think we have any other choice," Phenix declared and looked around at the others to see their reactions.
Charlie and Phia had only come along to help their friends but now looked anxious to proceed further. Jack had never wanted to come in the first place but Kyle seemed eager to proceed and had already walked towards the first step.
With seemingly no other option the five of them began to descend the steps cautiously, lighting their wands as the darkness started to engulf them.
When they neared the bottom of the steps they could see it led to a small room and as soon as they stepped off the bottom step, torches that lined the walls began to magically light, illuminating the space. Everyone extinguished their wands and looked around. It was a small, round room with stone walls on all sides. At the opposite side was a pair of large wooden doors and other than the now flaming torches on the wall the only other thing in the room was a stone statue in the middle of it, which looked like it was of an old witch who was hobbled over. She had a rather large, crooked nose, jowly stone skin hanging from her cheeks and she was wearing shabby looking clothes and a tall, pointed hat and there was a bird that looked like a crow perched on her shoulder.
The five of them momentarily looked at the statue before moving to walk around it towards the doors.
"Halt. Who goes there?" the statue demanded to know in a croaky voice, suddenly coming to life.
The five of them stopped and Phenix stepped back to face the statue.
"Erm… we're students of Hogwarts and we're just looking for a way out."
"The only way out is through the vault," the witch statue said, her voice sounding wheezy.
"So how do we get through?" Phenix asked.
"I am Wilhelmina the Wise, the wisest witch there ever was," the witch said before letting out a barrage of coughs. "Sorry I've been down here for so long and it gets rather dusty. Incidentally what year is it? I don't get many visitors so I have no idea."
"It's nineteen-nighty," Phenix answered.
"Nearly a thousand years then. I'm not in bad shape for an old bird am I?" she said and tried to straighten herself out but bits of debris began to fall from her. "Anyway if you wish to pass you must first answer my riddles."
"Riddles?" Jack asked with an annoyed huff as the rest of them moved back to stand with Phenix.
"I shall ask you three riddles. You must get at least two right for that door to open," the witch statue said as she thumbed behind her and more debris fell from her stone arm.
"And if we don't get two right?" Phia asked but she already knew the answer wouldn't be good.
"Then you shall be stuck here forever," the witch said with a cackling laugh. "Or at least until someone else enters and manages to pass," she muttered in a hushed voice after.
"Ok what's the first riddle?" Phenix asked.
The witch cleared her throat before she spoke this time.
"If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you don't have me. What am I?"
The five of them looked at each other, all equally confused.
"If you have me you want to share me," Kyle said, repeating the first line of the riddle.
"And if you share me, you don't have me," Phia said, completing it and they all began to think hard.
"It could be a kiss because that's something you want to share," Kyle suggested when no one else had said anything after they had all been thinking for at least a minute in silence.
"But how would sharing it mean you don't have it?" Phia commented. "If you share it you'd get a kiss back. Seriously you've got kissing on the brain," she said with a hint of anger and Kyle gave Phenix a long glare of annoyance.
"Don't look at me, Jack was the one who told her," Phenix burst out.
"Told her what?" a confused Charlie asked. "What's going on?"
"It doesn't matter right now. Let's get back to the riddle," Phenix said, moving off the subject of kissing. "Anyone else got any ideas?"
Though no one did and they all went back to thinking in silence until Jack had an idea.
"I know what if it's a problem. If you have one you want to share it and they say a problem shared is a problem halved."
"That sort of works I guess but I'm not sure I'd say when you share it then you don't have it anymore," Phia commented as she thought through the plausibility of Jack's suggestion.
"Does anyone have any better ideas?" Phenix asked, having been unable to think of any of his own.
Again there was silence as no one did so Phenix took that as an agreement to go with Jack's suggestion, though Jack, who had been looking rather pleased with himself when he had first suggested it, now looked terrified in case he was actually wrong.
"Is the answer a problem?" Phenix said to the statue tentatively.
"That is incorrect," the statue said and let out another cackle of laughter. "The correct answer was a secret."
"Well done Lightfoot," Kyle moaned sarcastically.
"Kyle that's not helping," Phenix snapped back immediately.
"That riddle was hard. Can't we have an easier one?" Phia demanded as they waited for the witch to give them their next one.
"Riddles are not meant to be easy my dear," the witch said with glee. "But as you lot don't look like the brightest bunch how about this one - If all Snaggles are Yaggles, all Yoodles are Toodles, no Foogles are Yoodles, and all Yaggles are Yoodles, is it true that all Yoodles are Yaggles?"
"How is that easier? It doesn't even make any sense," Phia moaned.
"Yeah what even is a Yaggle or a Yoodle?" Jack said and was just as bemused as the rest of them.
"Well at least we have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right so let's think it through carefully," Phenix said as he thought over it in his head. "Can you repeat it again?"
"Fine," the witch croaked. "If all Snaggles are Yaggles, all Yoodles are Toodles, no Foogles are Yoodles, and all Yaggles are Yoodles, is it true that all Yoodles are Yaggles?"
They all listened carefully and then began to think as soon as the witch had stopped talking.
"Wait she just said all Yaggles are Yoodles?" Jack noted. "So that means all Yoodles are Yaggles right?"
As Phenix thought though the riddle again in his head he thought Jack must be right and was about to give their answer to the witch when Phia stopped him.
"Wait just because all Yaggles are Yoodles that doesn't necessarily mean all Yoodles are Yaggles."
Phenix's brain was beginning to hurt as he thought of Yaggles, Yoodles, Snaggles and Foogles. None of it made any sense to him anymore. They had all just become a blur of words and he had no idea. He turned to look at the others for help.
"I think she's right," Charlie said. "I think the answer is no."
When there were no objections from Kyle or Jack he gave their answer.
"No all Yoodles aren't Yaggles."
There seemed to be a long pause before the witch said disappointedly, "That is correct."
The five of them couldn't help but let out a collective cheer that they had managed to get one right but they still needed to get the last one correct to get past.
"I guess you're not as daft as you look," the witch commented. "So I'll end with a very hard riddle."
Now the group let out a collective sigh of dread and Phenix didn't fancy their chances much.
"Wait I have an idea," Phenix called out and the witch, who had been about to give them their last riddle stopped. "Seeing as you are the wisest of them all how about we give you a riddle to answer."
"Me?" the witch exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes and if you get it wrong we get to pass," Phenix said.
"What are you doing?" Phia asked in shock.
"Trust me," Phenix said as he briefly turned to his sister before facing the witch again.
"And if you get it wrong?" the witch asked in trepidation.
"Then we're stuck here," Phenix said. "But if you're not confident you can answer our riddle then I understand."
"No one is wiser than me. I accept your proposal."
"I hope you know what you're doing," Phia fumed and none of the others looked too thrilled by his plan either.
Phenix thought for a second, wondering if maybe he had made a bad decision. Was his riddle going to be hard enough for her? If it wasn't then he will have doomed them all to remain in that room forever. Now he was feeling the pressure.
"Here goes," Phenix muttered under his breath and everyone else seemed to be holding there's. "How can you drop a raw chicken's egg from a great height onto a stone floor without cracking it and without using magic?" he said trying to sound confident.
The witch thought for a second then let out a chortled laugh.
"Why that's easy. You use a hardboiled egg," she said and let out an even bigger laugh.
"Even I knew that one," Jack fumed as the witch continued to laugh.
"No you're wrong," Phenix announced with glee. "I did say the egg was raw."
Suddenly the witch stopped laughing and looked at Phenix with disdain as she thought through the riddle again.
"Wait that's not fair," she croaked.
"How is it not fair? We asked you a riddle and you got it wrong. Now let us pass," Phenix said, trying not to sound too smug.
"But… but…" the witch statue pleaded. "But it can't be done without magic, can it?"
"Why not?" Phenix said with a pleased grin on his face.
"What is the answer then? the witch demanded to know.
"You don't need to do anything," Phenix said and it wasn't only the witch who looked puzzled by his answer, his friends did too. "Why would dropping a normal egg on to a hard, strong, stone floor cause the floor to crack?"
The witch thought for a second then erupted in fury.
"You… you tricked me! That's not fair! Ask me another one!"
"No you agreed. If you couldn't answer our riddle correctly then we could pass," Phenix said and now he couldn't help but sound smug.
"Fine!" the witch seethed. "But don't tell anyone! I don't want anyone knowing Wilhelmina the Wise, the wisest witch there ever was got bested by a bunch of school kids," she grumbled as the door behind her slowly opened.
"That was brilliant Phenix," Charlie said, giving him a pat on the back.
"Yeah maybe I wasn't the only one in the family to get brains," his sister said jokingly as they all made their way through the door as the witch continued to mutter to herself about how she had been 'cheated'.
Once they were through the door they were faced with another staircase that descended down into darkness.
They warily walked down it they heaped more praise on Phenix for his clever thinking in allowing them to get past the witch statue and they heard the door they had just passed through slam shut behind them. They continued on unfazed and eventually found themselves in a darkened room at the bottom. This time no torches magically came to life to illuminate the room and despite having all their wands lit, the light seemed to barely be able to penetrate the darkness and they could only see a little in front of themselves. Not that there was much to see as they carefully walked around the room. It seemed to be circular in shape with a ring of pillars about half way between the outer wall and the middle of the room. But so far they hadn't seen anything else.
"Well this looks like a dead end," Kyle moaned as they had now seemingly walked to the other side of the room and hadn't seen anything that resembled a door out.
"What was that?" Jack asked as he spun around, having thought he heard something move in the darkness.
"It's just your imagination," Phia said as they continued to look for a way out.
But then Jack heard something again, only this time it sounded like a faint giggling.
"Did anyone hear that?" Jack asked again.
"No. Now shut up and help us look," Phia said, getting annoyed though Phenix wasn't sure if he had heard something as well.
"What's that smell?" Kyle said. "It smells like somethings been burnt."
Again Phenix was sure he also noticed the odd smell but couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
"There's defiantly something in here with us," Jack said and Phia was about to tell him to shut up for the second time when suddenly Jack yelled out.
"Arrghhh!"
"What's wrong?" Phenix asked as he cast his wand around but he could barely see Jack even though he was only a couple of feet away.
Jack had inadvertently bumped into something that had made him jump but now he looked at it he could see it was just a statue.
"Sorry it was nothing," Jack said as Phenix came over beside him and looked at the statue too, half expecting it to come alive like the one of the witch, but nothing happened.
"It's some sort of statue. Looks like it's of a student," Phenix noted as he looked it up and down and then saw the look of horror etched on the statue's face.
It was then that Phenix realised he could feel his leg shaking, only it wasn't his leg that was making the movement. He had been so preoccupied moving around the room trying to find a way out he hadn't noticed it before. He shoved his hand into his trouser pocket and felt the Sneakoscope vibrating wildly.
"There's another one over here," Kyle called out. "This one looks like it's of a girl. She looks pretty scared. And what is that smell?"
Suddenly a feeling of dread dawned on Charlie as he too thought he had heard something else in the room moving about and had also noticed the smell and realised what it reminded him of.
"Burnt toast," Charlie said like he was thinking out loud.
"Yeah that's it. It smells like burnt toast," Kyle said sounding relieved he had finally been able to identify the smell.
"Everyone get together now!" Charlie suddenly shouted in a panic. "Form a circle with our backs to each other and keep your wands out in front of you!"
"What's wrong?" Phenix asked as he and the others did exactly what Charlie had said and he now had his back to the others and was staring out into the dark.
"It's Dark Elves," Charlie said as his eyes darted, trying to see any signs of movement. "As long as we keep our wands lit and don't turn our back to them they won't approach."
"And if they do get near us?" Jack asked anxiously.
"Well lets just put it this way. I think we just found two of the lost students in those statues."
Everyone was huddle so close together they were all touching and Phenix could definitely feel at least one of them was shaking badly from fear but he didn't know who. He also vaguely remembered reading about Dark Elves in a book and how they had a distinct smell similar to burnt toast and that being touched by one would turn a person to stone.
"So how do we get out of this?" Kyle asked with his wand held tightly in front of him.
"Just do what Charlie said and stick together," Phenix instructed, trying to remain calm. "There must be some sort of door somewhere. Lets move slowly around the room together and look."
As they cautiously moved around the outside of the room Phia and Charlie examined the walls while the other three kept guard, holding their wands up to the darkness to keep the Dark Elves at bay.
As Phia shone her wand on a patch of wall she suddenly noticed something glowing back at her from the stone.
"I think I found something," she said with delight. "It's some sort of rune."
"Can you read it?" Phenix asked, hoping she could as she studied Ancient Runes.
"Yeah I'm pretty sure it means 'river'."
"I don't think that is much use," Kyle scoffed.
"Jack you do Ancient runes too. Move around next to Phia and help her scan the walls. There might be other ones," Phenix said and Jack and Charlie carefully changed positions and they carefully continued around the room.
Every now and then they would hear an eerie giggle from the darkness but they had no idea how many Dark Elves were down there with them.
As they moved around the room in a circle with Phenix, Kyle and Charlie keeping constant vigilance, Phia and Jack would every now and then shout out that they had found another rune. So far as well as the 'river' one they had found runes that meant 'sun', 'moon', 'earth' and 'mountain'.
"I think I've found it," Jack shouted out excitedly. "Pretty sure this one means 'unlock'."
"Well what are you waiting for?" Phia said as she moved closer to Jack to get a better look. "Does anything happen when you touch it?"
Jack ran his fingers down the rune but nothing seemed to happen but then he tried pushing it and to his surprise the rune slid back into the wall.
"It worked," Jack said in relief but no one else seemed so enthusiastic.
The room was still pitch black and there was still no door to be seen anywhere.
"I don't think that was it. Come on let's keep looking," Phenix ordered and then they began moving round the room again.
Now whenever either Phia or Jack found a new rune they attempted to push it in but so far the ones they had found since the rune that meant 'unlock' wouldn't move and they were beginning to think this wasn't the key to getting out of there.
Then Phia spotted another rune and she felt a glimmer of hope.
"This one means 'open'," she called out with delight and instantly pressed it.
The rune slid back into the wall but again nothing else happened. There was no sound of a door opening, no light flooded the room. They were still very much stuck in their with the Dark Elves, who were hiding in the shadows.
"I think we've been all the way around the room now," Charlie noted, his eyes somewhat getting adjusted to the gloom and he was sure he could see figures moving in the darkness.
Phenix tried to think quickly. There had to be a reason why those two runes could be pushed in like a button and none of the others could.
"Maybe we need to push them both at the same time," he suggested, unable to think of anything else to try. "If two of us stay here by this rune and the other three go back and find the 'unlock' one and then we try pushing them at the same time."
"It's worth a try," Charlie said, knowing that neither he or anyone else seemed to have a better idea.
They decided amongst themselves that Phia and Kyle would stay by the 'open' rune and the other three would head across the room to find the other one.
As soon as the other three had set off, Phia and Kyle moved so their backs were against the wall and they had their wands pointed out into the room.
Phenix, Charlie and Jack wasted no time and quickly moved, still in a circle with their backs to each other.
"I think it was over here," Jack said pointing to a section of wall but it was hard to tell in the darkened room and once he got to there he realised he had been wrong.
"Ok it was definitely before the 'fire' rune so keep heading left," Jack said after examining the nearest rune he had found on the wall.
They began moving again as they heard more giggling coming from all directions in the darkness and the sound of numerous tiny footsteps on the stone floor. The Dark Elves seemed to be all around them.
Jack swung his wand in every direction whenever he heard a sound, half expecting one of the creatures to come jumping out at him from the dark. But as he did he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and his armed knocked against one of the stone pillars in the room. Jack instantly turned in fear, breaking the circle with the others.
"Jack watch out!" Phenix shouted and Jack immediately realised his mistake and hastily turned back again but tripped over the edge of a stone slab and went tumbling to the ground. As he landed with a thud his wand fell out of his hand and went clattering along the floor, out of reach but still lit.
Jack's eyes strained against the dark as he lay on the stone floor and he thought he could see something moving nearby. A wave of fear passed over him as he tried to get back on to his feet but his body hurt all over from the fall and he stumbled back down as he tried to get up onto his knees.
Jack tried to spin around as he crouched, certain something had just passed by him, but still he could see nothing in the dark.
"Fulgeo!" Phenix shouted and suddenly Jack started to glow.
The light now emitting from him was enough to reveal the face of a Dark Elf, who had just jumped towards him. The creature had dark purple skin, long pointed ears and razor sharp teeth that were bared but it just hissed at Jack before retreating back into the shadows.
Phenix had now swiftly moved over to Jack and pointed his lit wand in the direction the creature had just disappeared as Charlie moved over to them too. Phenix helped Jack back up and they quickly went to retrieve his fallen wand. But now with only two wands between them they were unable to keep a look out in all directions and the effect of the glow-in-the-dark charm had begun to wear off Jack. They could hear the scurrying of footsteps on the hard stone floor increasing from all directions. Phenix and Charlie kept their wands moving all around them and every time they turned they saw a Dark Elf disappearing back into the safety of the darkness.
Jack hurriedly picked up his wand and the three of them formed a tight circle again and made their way back to the wall and Jack began scanning it again for the 'unlock' rune.
"I've found it!" Jack shouted after locating it. "Are you ready?"
"Ready!" Phia yelled back from the darkness.
On the count of three they both pressed the runes in and instantly heard a loud clicking noise as if gears had been put to work. Suddenly light flooded into the chamber as a door way had opened in the wall and they heard scrambling footsteps and high pitched shrieks as the Dark Elves ran for cover in the darkened corners of the room.
The five of them hurried into the safety of the light and wasted no time in exiting the room and found them selves in a huge cave like chamber that was lit by numerous torches. As soon as they had stepped through the doorway they heard it instantly close shut behind them but no one cared, they were just glad to be out of the Dark Elves' reach now as none of them fancied being turned into a statue permanently.
They all looked around the room. Great stalactites hung down from the ceiling like giant fangs and enormous stalagmites perturbed from the floor as well as massive boulders of rock littering the space. They cautiously began to step forward, unsure if any danger awaited them.
"Did you hear that?" Jack asked as he stopped and stood still.
"Not this again," moaned Phia though now both Phenix and Charlie had stopped too, noticing the odd sound.
It sounded like heavy breathing and it was growing louder. They could also feel the ground starting to vibrate beneath their feet as a great shadow moved across the wall of the cavern. Something was heading towards them.
"I think we were better off with the Elves," Jack said as he began to tremble in fear.
They all stared off in to the distance, waiting to see what was making the gigantic shadow as the floor began to shake more and more and rocks and debris fell from the roof of the cavern. Phenix was about to shout for them all to run and take cover but before he could a huge, scaled head emerged into the light. It was dark red in colour, with huge yellow eyes, two big nostrils and a great, big mouth full of huge, jagged teeth and it let out a deafening roar that shook the whole cave. It was a ferocious dragon and it didn't look happy to see them.