The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,137

liquids. His victim’s reprieve lasted for some hours. Meanwhile, the thunderstorm had moved on, to be replaced by a cheerless, continuous downpour.

The Alchemaster did not address a single word to Echo. All that needed to be said between them had been said. The ceremonial atmosphere Ghoolion had conjured up was no more; that, at least, rebellion had dispelled. The old man was in a black mood. He grumbled and swore as he carried out his laborious repairs. Echo refrained from making any remarks that might darken his mood still more. He crouched beside the alchemical furnace and awaited developments. What else could he do?

Ghoolion eventually rekindled the stove, which had gone out, and reheated the cauldron. It was growing steadily darker, so he lit some candles - ordinary ones this time. His pathological delight in tormenting Anguish Candles was a thing of the past.

‘There,’ he said when he had completed his running repairs. ‘Order has been restored. Those little brutes almost robbed me of the fruits of all my labours. One should never turn one’s back on anyone!’ So saying, he left the room.

Echo was feeling really frightened now. His temporary reprieve was over and the laboratory back in action. The full moon was shining brightly in the sky, which had cleared. The irrevocable moment had come. All his trumps had been played and none had proved effective. All his friends and allies had either fled or bitten the dust. He could expect no more help from any quarter.

Ghoolion returned. Every inch the Prince of Darkness, he had washed off the soot and put on his ceremonial red velvet robe and hat of ravens’ feathers. He gave the coals beneath the cauldron a poke and went over to Floria’s corpse.

‘This time it will work, my beloved.’ He whispered the words as if speaking to a living person. ‘By shedding Echo’s blood I shall renew your own. Until now I was just a puppet on life’s stage like any other, but from this night onward I shall help to rewrite the book of destiny. I and the universe will meet on equal terms, and Death will be no more than a cur that comes to heel when I whistle.’

He hurried over to the Ghoolionic Preserver and opened all the valves. ‘Combine, you juices and acids, fats and lyes!’ he cried. ‘Let the dance of the elements begin! Before long, my spirit will flow into you and reign supreme!’

The liquids in the piston chambers and glass retorts began to seethe once more, and the more violently the chemicals boiled and bubbled, the more intoxicated Ghoolion became. He went over to a table, took a ball of fat from a receptacle and tossed it into the cauldron.

‘Toad fat!’ he cried in triumph as it melted. ‘The penultimate ingredient. All that’s missing now is the fat of a Crat.’

The laboratory was pervaded by the giant toad’s unmistakable odour. Echo gagged despite himself.

‘It would be nice to see you again,’ the old amphibian had called after him.

‘So this is the form our reunion has taken,’ thought Echo. The toad was just a smell, an invisible effluvium. He felt guilty for having drawn Ghoolion’s attention to the unfortunate creature. He could still see it in his mind’s eye, wedged tightly into its grave below ground.

Quit your home in Death’s domain,

realm of sorrow and of pain,

hasten through the nameless portals

that divide the dead from mortals …

Why had those lines occurred to him at this particular moment? The nameless portals … Were they the toad’s grave? A still unoccupied, anonymous grave … What better division between the dead and the living than a grave? There was some element in the smell of the toad, something emanating from the cauldron of fat, that was prompting him to recite those lines.

‘Quit your home in Death’s domain …’ Echo declaimed loudly.

‘What?’ said Ghoolion.

‘… realm of sorrow and of pain …’ Echo went on.

‘Why are you reciting those lines?’ The Alchemaster looked mystified. The cauldron’s contents had suddenly begun to seethe more fiercely than before. Bubbles of fat were rising to the surface and bursting with a series of explosive pops. The smell of the toad grew stronger and stronger.

‘… hasten through the nameless portals,’ cried Echo, ‘that divide the dead from mortals!’

There was a loud rumbling sound from inside the cauldron. The brew bubbled up and boiled over the lip. It streamed down the vessel’s blackened sides and into the flames below, hissing loudly. Echo had never seen this happen before.