The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,140

stones began to close up again. It looked as if the Alchemaster were being walled up alive by some unseen agency. Then he disappeared from view.

Echo crouched down on the floor of the alchemical furnace, which stank of cold ashes, sulphur and phosphorus. He dreaded to think of all the creatures Ghoolion had burnt alive in there. Tensely, he peered into the laboratory through the bars.

The room was suddenly bathed in light. A whole flock of ghosts had come flying in, casting a silvery glow over everything in sight. Having made a few circuits of the ceiling, they proceeded to dive into the cauldron one by one.

‘Snowswallow,’ thought Echo. ‘Voltigork. Ubufant. Zamingo. Cralamander …’ There they went, back to their ‘home in Death’s domain’.

In the end only one was left: his taciturn friend the Cooked Ghost. It slowly revolved in the air as if looking for someone. Then, with a final flash of light, it dived into the cauldron and disappeared.

‘Good luck,’ Echo said under his breath and strained his ears again. He wished he had bidden the Cooked Ghost a less cursory farewell, but the menacing noises - the panting and growling, hissing and whispering - had now become so loud that he had other concerns. He listened with bated breath.

Then in they came. In the lead was a hunchbacked Hazelwitch with limbs of gnarled timber and a costume of green leaves. Her long wooden fingers were clasped together and her yellowish tongue kept darting in and out of her mouth like a snake’s.

The Corn Demon that glided in after her seemed to consist of nothing but a mouldering shroud. A dark hole yawned in its cowl where a face should have been and it made a sound reminiscent of the gusts of wind that sometimes moaned in the castle chimneys.

The next figure to appear was entirely swathed in a winding sheet. A Cyclopean Mummy, it smelt so abominable that Echo shrank away from the bars. Its movements were slow, like those of a sleepwalker, but Cyclopean Mummies were said to possess immense physical strength. They were further reputed to break every bone in their victims’ bodies and watch them as they slowly expired.

A Grim Reaper entered the laboratory. The bald head protruding from its grey robe gleamed in the candlelight, and Echo couldn’t have said whether the horrific visage beneath it was a mask or its actual face.

Accompanying it was a Woodwolf, one of the most dangerous creatures to be found in the Zamonian outback. It walked beside the Reaper on all fours with resin dripping from its jaws. The Woodwolf was the source of the intimidating growls Echo had heard.

Last of all came a Golden Gondrag. An amphibious creature from the Graveyard Marshes, with golden scales and ice-green, saurian eyes, it left a long trail of slime behind it.

These creatures had terrified Echo even when dead. Now his fears were truly justified. Having come to tear the Alchemaster to pieces with their claws and fangs, throttle him with their tentacles, poison him with their lethal breath and send him to his death in every conceivable manner, they now found the laboratory deserted. Furiously, they proceeded to look for their quarry. They overturned tables and workbenches, hurled bookshelves to the floor and rummaged in cupboards, but all to no avail. The longer they searched, the more enraged they became.

Crawling on his belly and taking care not to rattle his chain, Echo retreated as far as he could. The floor at the back of the alchemical furnace was littered with charred bones and teeth, but he didn’t care. It would be only a matter of time before they opened the furnace door and discovered him.

At least he didn’t have to see the frightful creatures any more, but he could still hear them only too distinctly. The sounds they made were not of this world - they were the stuff of nightmares. Snarls alternated with hoarse giggles and menacing grunts. When two of them bumped into each other, as they did from time to time, they exchanged indignant hisses and growls. Echo couldn’t imagine what they would sound like if they really came to blows.

He wondered how Ghoolion proposed to deal with half a dozen of the most vicious creatures in Zamonia, not to mention all the others that must still be roaming the castle. Impossible! The Alchemaster had probably lied to him and made good his escape long ago, leaving him as bait for these brutes. He was duplicitous