The Alchemaster's Apprentice (57 page)

Read The Alchemaster's Apprentice Online

Authors: Walter Moers

Ghoolion staggered over to Floria’s corpse. Taking it by the shoulders, he hoisted it into a sitting position. ‘Floria!’ he sobbed. ‘What am I to do?’
The Alchemaster was begging a cadaver for help! Echo would have liked to revel in his triumph, but this wasn’t the moment. The castle was disintegrating around them. If the building was done for, so were they. Ghoolion’s question to a dead woman wasn’t unjustified. What
could
they do?
There were three possible routes out of the laboratory. One was the doorway, which was hopelessly obstructed. The second was the cauldron, the gateway to another world, but that held little appeal. The third was a window, through which anyone so minded could leap to his death in the town below.
Izanuela’s route …
Echo opted for the last-named exit. He looked over at the Alchemaster. Floria’s skeleton rattled as he shook it, but that was her sole response: a shake of the skull.
‘Floria!’ he cried again. ‘What am I to do?’
Ghoolion’s alchemical universe was going up in smoke. The whole laboratory was a mass of crackling flames fed by volatile liquids escaping from shattered retorts. Stones were falling from the ceiling, powdered chemicals swirling into the air, glass vessels exploding, gases hissing. More and more cracks were appearing in the walls. The castle was doomed. It would soon collapse with an almighty crash.
Echo exchanged a final glance with the Alchemaster. Ghoolion’s expression conveyed none of his former majestic malevolence, just fear and consternation. That was how Echo wanted to remember him: as a pathetic madman.
Then he turned and leapt off the windowsill.
‘No!’ Ghoolion called after him.
But he was already in free fall.
Izanuela’s Route
I
t was over very quickly - far more quickly than Echo had expected. Wind whistling in his ears, the world rotating around him, four or five aerial somersaults and that was it: the roofs of Malaisea were already gleaming in the moonlight just below him. Izanuela’s route … He shut his eyes.
Then came the impact and a terrible pain in his neck.
Strangely enough, though, the pain not only persisted but grew worse. How could it, if he was dead? Would this final pain accompany him to the grave?
He opened his eyes. Fluttering overhead were Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth and Vlad the Twelfth - he knew this even though the Leathermice hadn’t introduced themselves. They were gripping him by the scruff of the neck and carrying him ever higher.
‘Ouch!’ he said. ‘Many thanks. This is the second time you’ve saved my life. Where are you taking me?’
‘This you must see!’ said Vlad the Twelfth. ‘It’s not a sight one sees every day of the week!’
‘Our lovely home is going up in smoke,’ sighed Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth.
They carried Echo even higher - higher than he’d ever been before. He gazed down at Ghoolion’s castle, which now looked as toylike as the town that lay at its foot. Hundreds of Leathermice were fluttering up here in the night air, many of them silhouetted against the full moon.
Some of the castle’s windows were belching soot and its walls were wreathed in long plumes of dark dust. It was collapsing, subsiding into the ground like a sinking ship. Lit by intermittent flashes, dense clouds of powdered stone were billowing into the air. The building seemed to be howling with pain as its ancient timbers burst asunder and its subterranean tunnels and chambers filled up with rubble. Chemicals exploded, demolishing walls, and stones rained down on Malaisea. Flames spurted from open windows and mushroom clouds of brown smoke blossomed on all sides.
‘I told you it was a sight worth seeing,’ croaked Vlad the Twelfth.
‘Our lovely home …’ Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth said again.
The castle now turned into a many-armed kraken and its turrets into flexible tentacles that flailed around helplessly before being sucked into the depths. For a moment Echo thought he glimpsed the Alchemaster’s face in the midst of the collapsing ruins, a mask of black tiles contorted with stark terror. Then it folded in on itself and was swallowed up. Storey after storey came crashing down: the mother of all roofs; the Leathermousoleum; the laboratory; the wonderful kitchen; the secret treasure chamber; the galleries containing Ghoolion’s pictures; the lunatic asylum’s deserted wards; the libraries; the labyrinthine cellars; the Alchemaster’s fat collection; the Snow-White Widow’s prison. All these disappeared within the space of a few seconds. It was as if one of Ghoolion’s disaster paintings had come to life, a masterpiece that had devoured its own creator. All that remained was a smoking crater with the town of Malaisea clinging to its lip, miraculously unscathed.
‘We’ll never find another loft like that,’ Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth said sadly. ‘We’ll have to vegetate in barns and caves.’
Echo couldn’t make out where the Ugglian Oaks had got to, the smoke was too thick, but their music had ceased. Had they withdrawn in good time, or had they shared the castle’s fate?
‘We must say goodbye now,’ said Vlad the Twelfth.
‘Yes,’ said his companion, ‘we must find ourselves a new abode.’
‘Of course,’ said Echo. ‘Just put me down in the town. Anywhere will do.’ The pain in his neck was becoming unbearable.
‘No,’ said Vlad the Twelfth, ‘we must say goodbye here and now. Right away.’
He let go of Echo’s neck. Only one of the Leathermice was supporting him now.
‘Hey!’ cried Echo. ‘What are you doing?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Vlad the Twelfth, ‘not exactly.’
‘You’ve saved my life twice and now you’re going to let me fall to my death?’ Echo protested. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’
‘No, we aren’t,’ the Leathermice replied in unison.
‘But this is crazy!’ Echo cried. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Nobody understands the Leathermice,’ Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth said darkly, and let go.
‘Not even the Leathermice!’ added Vlad the Twelfth.
‘Nobody!’
‘Nobody!’
And the vampires flew off giggling as Echo plummeted earthwards.
This time his fall really did take a long time. They had carried him high, high into the sky to a point just short of the clouds. He somersaulted again and again. The full moon and the night sky gyrated around him until he couldn’t stand it any more and shut his eyes.
But instead of the darkness he was expecting, he saw a golden glow brighter than the interior of Ghoolion’s treasure chamber and, in its midst, regarding him with an amiable smile, was the Golden Squirrel. He could also hear the soothing hum that had accompanied their previous encounter.
‘This time we’re really in a fix,’ said the squirrel. ‘I’m here to bring you your third and last insight.’
‘I’d forgotten all about you in the excitement,’ Echo replied. He had suddenly become quite calm, nor had he any sensation of falling.
Was
he still falling? He didn’t care.
‘The Cogitating Eggs have developed a special interest in your fate,’ the squirrel went on. ‘They’re hard at work on a plan to make things turn out all right.’
‘Really?’ said Echo. The soothing hum was more audible than the last time, he noticed. ‘Why are they so interested?’
‘Because you’ve recently become a valuable Crat - the most valuable Crat in Zamonia. The knowledge you’ve gained could prove useful some day.’
‘Then the Cogitating Eggs had better be quick,’ said Echo. ‘I shall soon be landing splat on that town down there.’
‘I’ll worry about that in due course. Time is standing still while you’re absorbing your last insight. The Cogitating Eggs achieve this by holding their mental breath, or something of the kind. Can you feel the wind in your fur or the irresistible pull of gravity?’
‘No.’
‘You see? Relax and enjoy your third insight.’
Echo really did feel relaxed. With the reassuring hum of the Cogitating Eggs in his ears, he was happy to put his fate in their hands. The golden glow and the squirrel’s friendly voice enhanced the pleasant atmosphere. He was on the point of purring.
‘Well, what exactly is this insight?’ he asked serenely.
‘This one isn’t like that. It can’t be summarised in a single sentence. It’s a vision.’
‘A vision? What of?’
‘Ah, to know that you must see it. Visions have to be seen, that’s why they’re called visions. The Cogitating Eggs are currently at work on a way of redirecting your destiny. But I can make no promises! All their work is a mixture of the accurate and the accidental, of precision and pure chance. One can never tell what the end result will be.’
‘So how do I get to see this vision?’ Echo asked.
‘The way one sees any vision: by opening your eyes.’
Echo did so and was dazzled. It was broad daylight suddenly. He was still falling, but something strange had happened: the castle was below him once more. Added to that, he was completely enveloped in the scent of Cratmint and surrounded on every side by flowers: red and black roses, marguerites and poppies, flame-red orchids and blue violets, daisies and plum blossom, snowdrops and orange lilies. A long trail of them was streaming out behind him and marking the course of his descent. At last he understood: he was seeing what the Uggly had seen in those last few seconds. This was Izanuela’s downward route!
The roofs of the town were getting close; soon she would crash into them. That shabby little street down there behind the crematorium: that would be her point of impact. Izanuela drew one more breath, filling her lungs as full as possible with the scent of Cratmint. She held it for a moment, then breathed out - and left her body in its company. Her mortal remains hit the ground somewhere below her, whereas she herself went soaring over the rooftops as light and free as air. Ahead of her lay Uggly Lane, her true destination! Cheerful, contented and intoxicated by her own scent, she swooped down and dived into the lane’s muddy surface, sank through it and mingled with the soil beneath. The countless roots of the Ugglian Oaks absorbed her scent at once. They sucked it in and sent it flowing through their veins.
A crack appeared in the roadway. It extended from the mouth of Uggly Lane to Izanuela Anazazi’s house. Only an inconspicuous crack, barely a thumb’s breadth wide, but soon more cracks were running off it. Dozens of them at first, then hundreds, they zigzagged in all directions. With a subterranean rumble the ground began to quake and its creeping, crawling inhabitants, alarmed by this phenomenon, fled for their lives.
Izanuela’s house was the first to arise. It creaked and groaned as its mighty roots freed themselves from the moist earth with a sucking sound. All the houses in Uggly Lane followed suit. One after another, they detached themselves from the places where they had stood for so many years. It was a long time - night had already fallen - before the last of them was free of the ground. Then they struck up their mournful song and set off.
To avenge Izanuela …
And then Echo was high in the air again. His vision was at an end. Reality had reclaimed him. No Uggly, no Golden Squirrel. No more sympathetic vibrations or golden glow to lull him into a sense of security.
It was night-time once more. Echo could feel the rush of air and the pull of gravity. He was very near the rooftops now - as near as Izanuela had been when she left her body - but there was no chance he would cheat death by dissolving into a scent. He would crash into that roof down there, the roof of a nondescript house with a small garden where he had once … Echo suddenly realised that it was the house in which he’d spent his early days: the house that had belonged to Floria of Ingotville. Fate might be cruel, he reflected, but it did have a sense of humour.
‘Ouch!’ Something had gripped him painfully by the scruff of the neck. Falling no longer, he was being borne aloft into the night air.
‘The Leathermice are back!’ he thought. ‘It was just a joke in poor taste.’
He turned his head. Sure enough, some powerful talons were gripping him by the neck, but they didn’t belong to a Leathermouse. Their owner was Theodore T. Theodore.

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