The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,116

Leathermouse - all of them except the one that had run full tilt into a wall. Perhaps it had given up hunting little animals.

‘Look, boys,’ said the leader of the pack, a jet-black bull terrier as chunky as a blacksmith’s anvil. ‘Our meal has brought us the wine to go with it.’ The other three tykes yapped appreciatively.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Echo turned tail and sprinted back down Hospital Lane.

‘Come on,’ barked the black dog, ‘after him!’ And the whole pack set off in pursuit.

Echo felt as if the wineskin had ceased to exist. It amazed him how nimbly he could run and what good shape he was in. His training had clearly paid off. He no longer needed to pretend to be chased by wild dogs; he really was being chased by wild dogs.

The lane ran downhill. Echo went bounding along it, then paused for an instant and drew a deep breath. Vaulting over the kerb, a dustbin and a low wall, he disappeared into an overgrown garden. The dogs, who had been brought to a halt by the wall, milled around barking angrily. Then it occurred to them to look for another way in.

Echo looked around. He was in the hospital garden. Refuse bins brimming with bloodstained dressings were standing in the tall grass. A few patients were hobbling about on crutches. There! The hospital’s rear entrance. No use, locked. He was trapped.

The mongrels had found their way into the garden. They came crashing through the hedge and got caught up in some bramble bushes, which made them twice as furious. Echo heard human voices and a creaking sound. He looked back at the rear entrance. Two orderlies were carrying someone out on a stretcher. The door was wide open. Now was his chance!

A few vigorous strides took him out of the long grass and on to the gravel path. Keeping low, he darted under the stretcher, between the orderlies’ legs and into the hospital. In his Leathermouse guise he had found the smell that hit him thoroughly inviting; now it almost made him turn back and provide the dogs with a free meal. Blood, ether, iodine, ammonia … Nauseating! Heedless of the screams and groans issuing from the wards and threading his way between patients on crutches, Echo pressed on into the hospital.

The dogs continued to pursue their quarry. They knocked over the orderlies, together with the stretcher and its badly injured occupant, and rampaged along the corridors like a gang of noisy drunks. Patients hurled themselves aside in panic, a nurse shouted for help.

Following a powerful scent of blood, Echo went racing up some stairs with the dogs in hot pursuit. A patient hobbling towards them on a stick went flying. Just then, a door opened and a nurse came out. Echo stopped dead, then darted between her legs and into the big room beyond.

He had guessed correctly: it was the hospital’s operating theatre. He came to a halt. Even before any of the surgeons and nurses engaged on the current operation had time to notice him, pandemonium broke out.

The dogs upended the nurse in the doorway and stormed into the hospital’s holy of holies. Hadn’t they seen the notice on the door, which strictly forbade unauthorised persons to enter, or couldn’t they read? Echo grinned to himself.

Confronted by several surgeons with bloodstained scalpels and scissors in their hands, the dogs suddenly stopped barking. Before they could gauge the full extent of their mistake, orderlies armed with broomsticks came rushing in. One of them was even carrying a fire axe.

Echo took advantage of the tumult to slip between their legs and escape through the nearest door. He heard the dogs howling in pain as he scampered down a flight of stairs to the main entrance, which was wide open.

He went out into the street and looked down at his chest. The wineskin containing the love potion seemed to be intact. And so was Echo himself.

Red Wine

Ghoolion was in his laboratory. There were several old tomes lying open on the workbenches and he was consulting them all in turn. He bustled from one book to another, muttering arithmetical calculations and alchemical formulae. Echo watched him from the doorway without showing himself. The Alchemaster wasn’t drinking wine at present, but it would have been unusual for him to do so at this time of day.

Echo went off to a room Ghoolion seldom visited and lay down on the threadbare carpet. He would have to be patient and wait