The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,135
Bite! Scratch! Resist to the last!’
Just then, something white and transparent interposed itself between him and Ghoolion like a curtain being slowly raised on invisible threads. For a moment Echo thought that he was losing consciousness - that his eyesight was failing and he would pass out any minute. Then he realised that the Cooked Ghost was slowly seeping up through the cracks between the floorboards like a luminous mist from the world hereafter.
Revolution
The Alchemaster was looking dumbfounded. Echo could see his astonished face through the Cooked Ghost’s transparent, wavering form. Ghoolion involuntarily recoiled a few steps but retained his hold on the scalpel.
Echo’s heart leapt for joy. The Cooked Ghost had come to his rescue! Or had it? Whatever the truth, he was filled with new hope by the realisation that he was no longer facing the Alchemaster all on his own. But what could this insubstantial being achieve in a world where physical intervention was denied it?
‘What’s the Cooked Ghost doing here?’ Ghoolion demanded irritably. ‘I thought it had disappeared long ago.’
Malaisea was being stabbed from the clouds by dazzling shafts of lightning, thunder was rumbling around the laboratory and rain lashing in through the windows. Unimpressed by all this, the uninvited guest was hovering a hand’s breadth above the floor with wavelets of light rippling through it. The Cooked Ghost reminded Echo of a flag fluttering in a breeze.
Ghoolion quickly recovered from his shock. ‘Well,’ he said loudly, ‘whatever you’re doing here, you’ve chosen the wrong time and place. We’re busy, so push off!’
Then he laughed and smote his brow with the flat of his hand. ‘What am I doing, talking to a thing that can neither hear nor speak?’
He took a step towards the ghost and flapped his hands.
‘Shoo!’ he cried. ‘Be off with you!’
But the ghost didn’t budge. It continued to hover protectively in front of Echo.
Ghoolion hesitated. Then he put his hands on his hips and turned to Echo with a broad grin.
‘So you’ve forged yet another friendship behind my back, have you? First Izanuela, now a Cooked Ghost? A lovesick Uggly and a hoary old alchemistic conjuring trick? What powerful allies you’ve chosen!’
Echo deemed it wiser not to reply. Ghoolion took another vigorous step forwards - and the ghost moved too. However, instead of retreating as the Alchemaster had intended, it came straight for him and expanded to twice its original size. Simultaneously, it displayed the fearsome countenance Echo had glimpsed more than once, except that this time it was so big and awe-inspiring that it occupied almost all of the ghost’s expanse. Its effect was not lost on Ghoolion, who staggered backwards with his hands in front of his face. The sight was almost unendurable, even for an Alchemaster.
For several seconds they both stood their ground like actors in some theatre of the absurd. The thunderstorm had receded, but rain was still hissing down outside the windows. At length the ghost’s face gradually faded and it shrank to its original dimensions.
Echo’s heart sank once more. Was that the most this harmless ghost could do in the world of the living, give someone a fright? That would never be enough to deter the Alchemaster from putting his plans into effect.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ Ghoolion said, chuckling. ‘That was impressive. Congratulations, you really put the wind up me!’ He clutched his chest. ‘Phew, you belong in a chamber of horrors.’
Echo was surprised to see a flickering glow appear behind Ghoolion’s back. Faint at first, it grew steadily brighter until Ghoolion himself became aware of it. He uttered a sharp cry, dropped the scalpel and leapt in the air. His cloak was ablaze! He cursed and yelled and tried to tear it off, but he became entangled in it and his frantic contortions only fanned the flames.
Echo now saw how it had happened. The Cooked Ghost had manoeuvred Ghoolion to a spot in the laboratory where half a dozen Anguish Candles had crawled on top of one another, waiting to set his cloak on fire.
Suddenly, more fires flared up all over the laboratory. The Anguish Candles ignited bundles of parchments and tinder-dry books, a birchwood besom and a stack of old firewood. They clustered around a glass retort filled with alcohol until their combined heat cracked it. The spirit escaped and caught fire. A wide, blazing stream of it flowed across the workbench and engulfed several jars containing Leyden Manikins, which promptly exploded.
One exceptionally heroic Anguish Candle leapt off a shelf into a tub of powdered