The Alchemaster and the Ugglies
E
very sizeable town in Zamonia has a municipal alchemist responsible for dealing with Ugglian affairs. He issues Ugglies in transit with fortune-telling permits (or withholds them, whichever), checks the account books of resident Ugglies, inoculates them against Ugglyitis (a disease exclusive to Ugglies that sends them into a weeks-long prophetic trance in which they foretell disasters nobody wants to hear about), delouses them annually and collects their soothsaying taxes. In Malaisea, Ghoolion performed all these tasks with the utmost zeal. He would regularly lock up a few Ugglies in the municipal jail, just for the hell of it, and torment them for days on end with musical renditions on the migrainophone and screamatina.
Ghoolion was also a fanatical advocate of Ugglian incineration, the barbaric but long-eradicated medieval custom that had cost the lives of many innocent Ugglies. Although Zamonian legislation precluded Ghoolion from practising it, much to his indignation, he addressed an incessant stream of requests for its reintroduction to the Zamonian Ministry of Justice in Atlantis, organised petitions signed by Uggliophobes and had even founded a political party whose only member was himself. One of its main objectives was the installation in every town of a cast-iron grill especially designed to reduce Ugglies to ashes. This he proudly christened the Ghoolio-Ugglian Barbecue.
Succubius Ghoolion had written one book on the correct construction of such a grill and its incineration techniques (he was particularly proud of the riddling device that enabled the Ugglies’ charred remains to be sieved into an ashpan) and another on methods of interrogating Ugglies, which far surpassed medieval inquisitors’ techniques in cruelty and ingenuity. This contained exhaustive descriptions of Ghoolion’s numerous instruments of torture, which ranged from the Uggliopress and the Electric Interrogator (powered by an alchemical battery) to the aforementioned Ghoolionic Confessionator, an airtight sack of otterskin filled with thistles and nettles in which Ugglies were sewn up together with a pregnant viper, a rabid fox and a gamecock, and left there until they pleaded guilty. Quite a few of Malaisea’s more enlightened citizens found it outrageous that an avowed Uggliophobe like Ghoolion should hold the post of municipal alchemist in charge of Ugglian affairs, but they were outnumbered by those who advocated that the itinerant fortune tellers be ruled with a rod of iron.
And Ghoolion made sure they were. In no other Zamonian town was it so difficult for Ugglies to live and practise their profession. Only in Malaisea were they subject to the Ugglian Code, a list of eight hundred regulations bristling with insidious bureaucratic and juridical pitfalls devised by Ghoolion himself. Among other things, they specified the hours of the day during which Ugglies could ply their trade and the penalties they could expect to incur in the event of an infringement. They could not, for example, prophesy at night, nor at midday, nor late in the afternoon, nor in fog, nor when the moon was full, nor on public holidays, nor in sub-zero temperatures, nor in buildings other than the houses in Uggly Lane, which possessed no cellars. They were further required to submit a quarterly tax return of such intricacy and complexity that it would have driven a qualified Zamonian tax consultant to distraction. Finally, they were not only forbidden to go shopping except at certain times, all of which fell within their prescribed working hours, but prohibited from entering a shop at those same times.
Penalties ranged from drastic fines to months of solitary confinement in the dark, exile to the Graveyard Marshes, or forced labour in the sulphur mines at Demon’s Gulch. All the Ugglies in Malaisea were skating on the thin ice of illegality, for Ghoolion’s regulations were so sophisticated that he could prove them to have been broken by any one of the female soothsayers at any hour of the day or night, even if she was asleep in bed. The result was that, having begun by containing fewer Ugglies than any other town in Zamonia, Malaisea eventually became almost Uggly-free, because most Ugglies preferred to live in other towns or even in the dangerous wilderness. And that, in turn, relieved Ghoolion of nearly all his municipal duties and enabled him to concentrate even more wholeheartedly on his sinister research projects - as he had always intended from the first.
Invisible Caviar and Sewer Dragon’s Knilch
‘C
ooking is alchemy and alchemy is cooking,’ said Ghoolion as he proceeded to serve up Echo’s first meal. ‘Blending familiar things together and creating something entirely novel - that’s the essence of the culinary art, just as it is in alchemy. Heat plays a vital role in both disciplines. They both necessitate harmonising carefully gauged ingredients, reducing substances and combining the long familiar with the epoch-makingly new. Minute quantities of ingredients and a second or two more or less on the stove can make all the difference between success and failure. To me, cooking a good meal is as important as concocting a new poison. Every meal is an antidote to death, after all, and isn’t a nice bowl of chicken soup the best remedy for many an illness?’
Ghoolion had moved to his kitchen for the rest of the evening. This was on a lower floor and looked to Echo like the diametrical opposite of his weird, chaotic laboratory. Everything here was scrupulously neat and clean, bright and unintimidating. There were no sinister taxidermal specimens, no mysterious contraptions, no mildewed old books or Anguish Candles. In the middle stood a big black cast-iron stove with gleaming copper kettles, frying pans and saucepans on it. The huge kitchen table, which was surrounded by numerous chairs and draped in an appetisingly spotless linen tablecloth laden with plates, silverware and wine and water glasses, looked as if a big dinner party was planned.
More pots and pans and kitchen utensils of all kinds - egg whisks, ladles, cleavers, skimmers, sieves, rolling pins and the like - were hanging from hooks on the wall or suspended from the ceiling. Handsome oak dressers were stacked with crockery of every size, shape and colour, and the snow-white sink was full of freshly washed plates. Numerous jars of dried herbs shared a big kitchen cupboard with cookbooks and bottles of wine. Another cupboard contained little drawers with handwritten labels reading ‘Flour’, ‘Sugar’, ‘Cocoa’, ‘Vanilla’, ‘Cinnamon’ and so on.
The furniture and objects in this room were devoid of evil or dangerous intent. They served only one purpose: the preparation of food.
Food … What a nondescript, almost insultingly prosaic word for the meal with which Ghoolion regaled Echo that night! The little Crat hadn’t fared badly at his former mistress’s home, but his meals there were always the same: plenty of milk plus the occasional sardine or morsel of chicken. That was why Echo had until now believed that the grilled mouse bladders she’d once dished up were the acme of culinary delight. He’d had no idea that cooking could be promoted to the realm of high art, as Ghoolion was now demonstrating.
The first course consisted of a tiny little dumpling afloat in a bowl of clear, orange-tinted broth. Echo, who had casually perched on the table, bent an inquisitive nose over the bowl as it was slid towards him.
‘Saffronised essence of tomato,’ Ghoolion said softly. ‘It’s obtained by skinning the finest sun-ripened tomatoes and placing them in a cloth suspended over a bowl. For the next three days, terrestrial gravity alone ensures that the tomato pulp deposits its liquor in the bowl, filtered through the clean linen drop by drop. That’s how one extracts the essential flavour - the very soul of the fruit. Then add some salt, a few grains of sugar and a dozen threads of saffron - precisely a dozen, mark you! - and simmer over a low flame for one whole day. The broth must never boil, or it will dissipate the soul of the tomato and taste of nothing at all. That’s the only way to obtain this orange shade.’
Echo marvelled at Ghoolion’s patience and the trouble he had taken, just to produce a bowl of broth. It smelt wonderful.
‘Now for the dumpling. The meat it contains comes from salmon living in the most limpid rivers in Zamonia, the ones that flow into the Muchwater Marshes. Their waters are extremely dangerous - so clear that many people fail to see them until they’ve already fallen in and are drowning. As for the salmon, they’re reputed to be so happy, you can hear them laughing when the moon is full and they leap up the rapids in a vain attempt to reach it. They feed on nothing but little freshwater crayfish, which are considered a delicacy in themselves - they’re almost worth their weight in gold during the season. They taste fruity, almost sweet, and give off an aroma of apricots.’
Ghoolion smacked his lips and shut his eyes as if savouring the crayfish in retrospect.
‘I mash up the salmon meat,’ he went on, ‘season it with a pinch of salt and some herbs, add some minuscule cubes of candied onion, mould the mixture into a dumpling, and roll it up in a sheet of rice paper no thicker than a puff of breath on a frosty windowpane. Then I suspend the dumpling on a string above a gently simmering saucepanful of delicious Blue Tea. The salmon dumpling dangles in that pale-blue steam for the space of exactly seven thousand heartbeats, then it’s
à point.
I remove it from the rice paper, submerge it in the essence of tomato and it’s ready! Go on, try it.’
When Echo bit into the fragrant dumpling, something truly astonishing happened: the world around him disappeared. Ghoolion and his laboratory had dissolved - no, not into thin air, into
water
! Echo could feel it all over his body, see bubbles rising in front of his eyes, glimpse pebbles on the river bed beneath him and big fat salmon swimming along beside him. The water was not only all round him, it was
inside
him - inside his mouth, his throat. He was actually
breathing
it. And then, all at once, he knew he was a salmon. The realisation was so vivid and startling, he emitted a miaow of surprise that expelled some bubbles from his mouth and obscured his vision. A moment later, just as suddenly as it had vanished, everything reappeared: the familiar world, the kitchen and the Alchemaster. Echo was so flabbergasted, he shrank away from the soup bowl and tried to shake the water from his fur. Except that there wasn’t any water; he was bone dry.
‘You were a fish for a few moments, am I right?’ Ghoolion didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Not just any old fish, either: you were a salmon! You could feel the water in your non-existent gills, couldn’t you?’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Echo, still bewildered. ‘I was as much of a fish as a fish can be. I was
breathing
water.’ He tried to extract a drop of water from his right ear with his forepaw, but it was as dry as the rest of him.
‘In that case, I followed the recipe correctly. It was devised by the greatest salmon chef in Muchwater. He refused to cook anything but salmon throughout his career, and this was his favourite recipe. Go on, help yourself!’
Echo hesitated for a moment, then finished off the rest of the dumpling. Instantly, he was back underwater - not the pleasantest place for a Crat to be. This time, however, he knew it was only an illusion, so he even managed to enjoy Ghoolion’s culinary conjuring trick. He shot some rapids, was sucked down into a raging whirlpool of river water and air bubbles, surfaced for long enough to see a sunny blue sky - and found himself back on Ghoolion’s kitchen table once more.
‘That was terrific!’ he exclaimed delightedly, giving himself another shake. ‘To think a dumpling can do all that!’ He proceeded to lap up the delicious tomato consommé straight from the bowl.
‘It’s what is known as a metamorphotic meal,’ Ghoolion explained, ‘an alchemical offshoot of the culinary art. It used to be practised in the dawn of alchemy but is now prohibited by the Zamonian Ministry of Health - I hope you won’t report me to the authorities!’ Ghoolion grinned. ‘The hallucinogenic effect stems partly from a very rare variety of Blue Tea found only on the outskirts of the Demerara Desert, and partly from the herbs in the salmon filling, which only alchemists can grow these days - Sleepwort, Hypnothyme and Phantasage, among others. If I increased the dosage of tea and herbs you could feel like a fish for hours on end.’
‘Really?’
‘No problem, but it would defeat the object of the exercise if you wriggled around on the table for hours, under the impression that you were a fish. The dosage is what matters. After all, you can over-season anything.’
‘I see.’ Echo nodded. ‘Does it only work with salmon?’
‘Oh no, all kinds of fish, all kinds of animals. Chickens, rabbits, wild boar - anything edible. It even works with plant life. I could turn you into a mushroom if I wanted.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Echo. ‘You promised a great deal, but this surpasses all my expectations.’
‘You’ve seen nothing yet.’ Ghoolion made a dismissive gesture. ‘This was just a modest prelude. Just a starter - one of many.’
He cleared away the bowl, which the little Crat had licked clean, and replaced it with another. It was empty. Echo couldn’t understand why an empty bowl should give off such an irresistible aroma.
‘Invisible caviar,’ Ghoolion explained, ‘from the Cloak-of-Invisibility Sturgeon, the rarest and most expensive source of caviar in the world. Try catching an invisible fish with your bare hands, the only method permitted by the Zamonian Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I managed to obtain only one tiny egg, and even then I had to make use of my most disreputable contacts in the Florinthian underworld. There’s blood adhering to it.’
Echo shrank away from the bowl.