The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,101
colleague, Sister Crapanthia Urgel, is sending me some Goat’s Gristle and Old Man’s Scurf from Florinth,’ she said. ‘The Treacletuft and the Toadpipe I’m getting direct from the Impic Alps. The Devil’s Clover is coming from Grailsund.’
‘Are you really planning to get them from so far away?’ Echo was shocked. ‘It’ll take weeks. I don’t -’
‘- have that much time left!’ Izanuela broke in, casting her eyes up to heaven. ‘I know, I know. They’re coming by airmail.’
‘Airmail?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s one of the advantages of being on good terms with Zamonia’s flora and fauna. We Ugglies have an efficient airmail service at our disposal. Pigeons and seagulls mainly, but also eagles, vultures and swallows. Sparrows for short-haul flights, condors for freight.’
‘Our birds aren’t trained,’ she said indignantly. ‘They work for us on a voluntary basis.’
‘You don’t say!’
‘Yes, a long-standing relationship of mutual trust with the natural world can sometimes pay off,’ said Izanuela. ‘We refrain from polluting the birds’ air space with sulphurous fumes from alchemical furnaces, provide them with medical treatment free of charge and hang up bird feeders in the woods in winter. In return, they deliver an occasional express letter or parcel. I’m expecting those consignments as early as tomorrow morning.’
Echo looked relieved. ‘Oh, that’s all right, then.’
‘Meantime, you can make yourself useful. I need your help.’
‘Of course, that’s why I’m here. What shall I do? Do you need some alchemistic advice?’
‘Not yet. I haven’t got enough chattified Toadmoss, but I don’t have time to roam around in the Toadwoods. You could do that for me.’
‘You want me to fetch some moss from the Toadwoods?’
‘Not just any old moss, Toadmoss. As much as you can carry in your mouth.’
Echo swallowed hard. ‘I’ve never been that far from town.’
‘The Toadwoods are still inside the city limits,’ Izanuela said. ‘They’re quite civilised, really. People only avoid them because the Incurables live there.’
The Incurables … Echo felt uneasy. You didn’t venture into the Toadwoods unless you had some fell disease: you went there to die.
‘“You’re feeling terminally sick? Off to the Toadwoods with you, quick!”’ Izanuela recited. ‘You know the poem by Knulf Krockenkrampf?’ She gave a hoarse laugh. ‘I told you this wouldn’t be a stroll in the park, my friend, but we need that Toadmoss badly.’
‘All right,’ said Echo, ‘I’ll go. How do I recognise it?’
‘By its smell: it smells of toad.’ Izanuela removed the lid from a clay pot and held it under Echo’s nose. The Toadmoss floating in the Crocodiddle’s tears stank appallingly.
‘Got it,’ he said with a shudder. ‘I’ll find some.’
Izanuela laid the pot aside. ‘Pooh!’ she said. ‘I could do with a break. A little snack wouldn’t come amiss, either. Like to join me?’
‘What have you got?’ he asked.
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘Cheese, of course, what else?’
Echo wrinkled his nose. ‘Cheese is for mice,’ he said disdainfully. ‘I never eat the stuff.’
She went stomping up the stairs to the kitchen. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘What possible objection could anyone have to cheese?’
‘It stinks. Besides, it’s all much of a muchness.’
‘Cheese doesn’t stink,’ she retorted. ‘It’s fragrant. It isn’t all much of a muchness, either; it’s possibly the most varied food there is. Do you know how many varieties of Zamonian cheeses there are?’
‘No.’
‘Nor do I. That’s because there are so many, nobody has ever tried to count them, and new varieties are appearing every day. Me, I eat nothing but cheese.’
‘Really?’
Izanuela nodded proudly. ‘I’m a fanatical Caseinian. We Caseinians are convinced that cheese contains all the essential nutrients. Fat, salt and calcium, that’s all one needs.’
She drew herself up.
‘Look at me! I’ve been on a strict cheese diet nearly all my life. Does my physique give you the impression that it may have been impaired in some way?’
Echo had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from making some injudicious remark that might have jeopardised their budding friendship.
‘Do you eat no meat?’ he asked instead. ‘No fish? No vegetables? No fruit?’
‘I could never eat an animal,’ said Izanuela, shaking her head vigorously. ‘As for vegetables … Being a holder of the Green Thumb, how could I bring myself to eat plants? They’re rational, sentient beings like you and me.’
‘How about bread? Or cakes?’
‘They both contain flour. Flour is a product that comes into being when innocent vegetable matter is ground to death between millstones. Can you conceive of a more barbarous method of execution? No, I eat nothing but cheese. We Caseinians worship it almost like