The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,133

positive effort to push her off. Believe it or not, I would sooner have taken her in my arms - her, an Uggly! That’s really saying something, so to that extent I pay tribute to her. A toast to Izanuela!’

He picked up a glass of his black slime and drained it at a gulp. The windows were illuminated by a first flash of lightning, closely followed by a peal of thunder. He raised the glass on high.

‘This was my antidote, a concentrate of Leathermouse blood. I draw it off when they’re in the midst of their digestive slumbers. It awakens the vampire in you! Reinforces your dark side! Numbs your emotions! A Leathermouse out hunting can’t afford to feel love or pity. It’s also the finest aid to staying awake all night long. The taste is nauseating and it has certain side effects, but if you overcome them, Cratmint loses its effect on you.’ He put the glass down and proceeded to heat the cauldron.

‘On a normal person the potion would undoubtedly have worked,’ he went on, ‘but I’m not a normal person. The perfume I might have withstood even without an antidote. I inhale toxic substances day in, day out. Ether, acids, solvents, spirits, hypnotic oils, chloroform, putrescent gases. If they could affect me, I’d have been dead long ago, but they seem to have an exactly opposite effect. A hundred sword thrusts in the Gloomberg Mountains failed to kill me. None of the diseases I spread has ever made me ill. I scarcely eat, I sleep little, I squander my energies, I drink alcohol and smoke the strongest tobacco, but I’m as strong and healthy as a dray horse. I’m not immortal, but I’m far less vulnerable and prone to infection than the average person. And today I shall take the final step that still separates me from total invulnerability: from immortality!’

Ghoolion went over to a table on which lay something covered with a black cloth, possibly a new alchemical gadget or machine. A brilliant flash of lightning momentarily outshone the Anguish Candles, followed instantly by thunder. The Alchemaster struck a pose and declaimed:

‘Let my magic brew revive

that which used to be alive!’

Then he whipped off the cloth and looked down, grinning, at what he had revealed. It wasn’t an alchemical gadget, as Echo had surmised, but a half-decayed corpse. The face was no longer recognisable and bare bones were showing through in places, but he knew at once who it was from her favourite gown: Floria of Ingotville, his late mistress. Hence the cloying smell of decay that filled the laboratory.

Ghoolion threw up his arms and cried:

‘Let my bubbling cauldron seethe

till the creature starts to breathe.

Brought to life it then shall be

by the power of alchemy!’

He lowered his arms and looked at Echo. ‘As you’re doubtless horrified to note, I’ve long ceased to shrink from anything. I’ve even joined the ranks of the grave robbers! Yes, I went to the Toadwoods armed with spade and pickaxe. Many thanks for your tip about the giant toad, by the way. While I was at the cemetery, I took the opportunity to capture the creature. The smell of Toadmoss made it easy enough to find. What a whopper! It took me a whole night to render it down.’

‘You’re totally insane,’ said Echo.

Ghoolion smiled. ‘You’re repeating yourself,’ he said. ‘I know you think I’m crazy but it doesn’t offend me, it makes me proud. It merely demonstrates your inability to think in my terms. My thought processes are several sizes too big for your feline brain. You can only store facts, not rearrange them and create something wholly different. Only I can do that. It’s an essential requirement if one is to take on the toughest of all opponents. Death, in other words.’

He caressed the corpse with his bony fingers.

‘I’m sure you thought I was claiming immortality for myself alone, but I want it for Floria as well. I want to extricate her from Death’s chill embrace this very night, and for that I need your help.’

Taking a pair of scissors, he cut off a strand of Floria’s white hair and dropped it into the cauldron.

‘Hearken, ghost, to what I say,

and my potent spell obey!

Quit your home in Death’s domain,

realm of sorrow and of pain,

hasten through the nameless portals

that divide the dead from mortals.’

The wind was blowing ever harder through the windows and the light was steadily fading. Ghoolion was getting the thunderstorm he had predicted. Sheets of parchment went flying,