beginning on a sour note.’
‘Best of all, however,’ Ghoolion went on, ‘he preferred to eat nothing at all. He was as tall and thin as a beanpole.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ thought Echo.
‘By the way,’ said Ghoolion, using a cut-throat razor to dissect an apricot into slices so thin one could have read a book through them, ‘I forgot to mention that my story takes place in Ingotville.’
‘Ingotville?’ Echo exclaimed in surprise.
‘Yes,’ said Ghoolion. ‘Anything wrong with that?’
‘Yes,’ Izanuela chimed in, ‘what’s wrong with Ingotville?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ Echo said hastily. ‘Please go on.’
‘Well, Ingotville, as everyone knows, is the ugliest, dirtiest, most dangerous and unpopular city in the whole of Zamonia. It consists entirely of metal, of rusty iron and poisonous lead, tarnished copper and brass, nuts and bolts, machines and factories.’
‘Strange,’ thought Echo. ‘Those are precisely the words I used in my own description of Ingotville.’
The Alchemaster was now stewing some green tomatoes in a cast-iron saucepan, together with raisins, orange peel, brown sugar and sherry vinegar.
‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘the city itself is even said to be a gigantic machine that’s very, very slowly propelling itself towards an unknown destination. Most of the Zamonian continent’s metalworking industry is based there, and even the products it manufactures are ugly: weapons and barbed wire, garrottes and Iron Maidens, cages and handcuffs, suits of armour and executioners’ axes. Most of the inhabitants dwell in corrugated-iron huts black with coal dust and corroded by the acid rain that falls there almost incessantly. Those who can afford to - the gold barons and lead tycoons, arms dealers and arms manufacturers - live in steel fortresses, in constant fear of their starving and discontented underlings and workers. Ingotville is a city traversed by streams of acid and oil, and perpetually overhung by a pall of soot and storm clouds in which shafts of lightning flash and thunder rumbles. The grimy air is forever filled with the pounding and hissing of machinery, the squeak of rusty hinges and the rattle of chains. Many of its inhabitants are machines themselves. It’s a vile city, perhaps the vilest in all Zamonia.’
‘Those are my own words, syllable for syllable,’ thought Echo. It was amazing how well the old man had memorised them. Where was this leading?
‘Well, one day, in the midst of this hideous city, our ill-natured hero encountered the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.’
‘Ah,’ Izanuela exclaimed, clapping her hands, ‘a love story!’
‘This sounds familiar too,’ thought Echo, but he said nothing.
‘Picture to yourself the most beautiful girl imaginable!’ said Ghoolion. ‘She was so beautiful that there would be no point, in view of my meagre talent for storytelling, in even trying to put her beauty into words. That would far exceed my capabilities, so I’ll refrain from mentioning whether she was a blonde or a brunette or a redhead …’
‘He’s telling another story but in my words,’ mused Echo. ‘What’s he up to?’
‘… or whether her hair was long or short or curly or smooth as silk,’ Ghoolion pursued. ‘I shall also refrain from the usual comparisons where her complexion was concerned, for instance milk, velvet, satin, peaches and cream, honey or ivory. Instead, I shall leave it entirely up to your imagination to fill in this blank with your own ideal of feminine beauty.’
Echo inferred from Izanuela’s downcast eyes and stupid smirk that she had substituted her own likeness for that of the beautiful girl.
‘If he’s memorised it to this extent,’ he reflected, ‘my story must have left a far deeper impression on him than I thought.’
Ghoolion was now, with the deft and graceful movements of a head waiter, serving the first course. A warm salad of gossamer-thin slices of apricot on a bed of puréed green tomatoes, it was topped with a remarkably firm dollop of whipped egg white flavoured with vanilla. He gave Izanuela a fiery glance that would have melted the ice in the Cold Caverns of Netherworld, then went on with his story.
‘Well, it was widely known that, besides being the loveliest creature in Ingotville, this beautiful girl had an absolute mania for sweet things. She adored bonbons and pralines, chocolate and marzipan, nougat and Turkish delight. She was crazy about pastries and whipped cream, millefeuilles and lemon cheesecake.
‘The ill-natured young man cursed his lot. “I work in a vinegar factory,” he grumbled, “where I skim the scum off the gherkin tubs. How can someone like me win the affections of so sweet a girl?”’
Echo felt relieved. ‘He’s getting around to it at last,’ he