The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,114

heart or genuine feelings. Imagine what our potion could do to a real, live, sentient person!’

‘This is fantastic!’ Echo cried enthusiastically. ‘It works!’

‘Of course it works,’ Izanuela said loftily. ‘I told you it was silly to waste the stuff on the manikin. Now I’ll show you what I’ve made for you to use when emptying the potion into Ghoolion’s wine glass.’

It was a little wineskin which the Uggly had adapted by sewing two leather straps to it. These would be secured round Echo’s body. He would have to support himself carefully with his forepaws on the rim of the glass, then remove the cork with his teeth and apply pressure with one paw, squirting the potion into the wine. It became clear to him that this would entail a feat of acrobatics for which a Crat was not exactly predestined. There was a risk that the wine glass might fall over and spill its precious contents, so they practised this technique until he had mastered it perfectly.

It was early morning by the time Echo was ready to return to the castle at last. It occurred to them that they had completely forgotten about the Leyden Manikin.

They bent over the jar together. The little creature was floating on its back in the nutrient fluid, motionless. Its tiny mouth was wide open.

‘It must have fractured its skull,’ said Echo.

‘It loved me too much,’ Izanuela said with a sigh.

Echo couldn’t decide whether the Uggly’s tone of voice was dictated by compassion or pride.

‘Well,’ she said, straightening up, ‘I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain. I’ve brewed the love potion and distilled the Cratmint perfume. Now it’s up to you to keep your promise.’

Echo nodded. ‘That’s only fair,’ he said.

‘Off you go, then.’ Izanuela flopped down on a chair. ‘But first,’ she commanded, ‘tell me about the distillation of thoughts that rotate clockwise and the preservation of volatile substances. I want to learn all of Ghoolion’s alchemical secrets. All of them!’

Ghoolion Gets Busy

While the moon was growing steadily rounder, night after night, Echo’s strict diet and his recent exertions enabled him to shed another few pounds. He and Izanuela had agreed to wait until the day before the moon was full. They wanted to catch the Alchemaster at a moment when he was at his busiest. That would make it easier for Echo to administer the love potion unobserved.

So all that remained for him to do was to kill time in a state of anxious suspense. He wandered around the castle with the Cooked Ghost and roamed the roof by himself or sat at the foot of Theodore’s chimney, waiting in vain for him to return. But his favourite diversion was secretly watching the Alchemaster at his many and various activities. Ghoolion hurried to and fro between the laboratory and the cellar with increasing frequency, fetching balls of fat and boiling them up, concentrating or mingling elements and gases, vital essences and dying sighs. Echo could scarcely endure the smells that prevailed in his laboratory, so caustic and poisonous were the substances he processed there. Ghoolion himself didn’t seem to mind them. On the contrary, the more stifling and unhealthy the atmosphere, the livelier he became. His feverish condition developed into a frenzy, his passion for work into a kind of ecstasy. Having formerly waltzed around his pans in the kitchen, he now danced a tarantella around the alchemical equipment in his laboratory. Sometimes he would abruptly clutch his head or his heart, reeling around and trembling as if about to measure his length on the floor. Whenever Echo saw this he hoped the Alchemaster was about to have a stroke or a heart attack, but Ghoolion recovered every time, pulled himself together and resumed his frantic activities.

It became ever clearer to Echo that a life’s work was nearing its culmination just as the moon was coming to the full. Ghoolion had spent a lifetime hunting and collecting things, killing and mummifying them, preserving and hoarding them, arranging them systematically and possessing his soul in patience. Now the moment was at hand: a narrow window of opportunity which had to be opened in order to weld his collection together correctly and condense it into the one true substance: Prima Zateria. Ghoolion was every inch the master chef once more, but the soup he was preparing would be anything but wholesome, least of all from Echo’s point of view.

The fat store, which Echo now visited more often because Ghoolion left the door open all the