The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,41

Away with it!’

He flung the glass casually over his shoulder, smashing it on the flagstones.

Echo marvelled at the Alchemaster’s growing exuberance. The old man had never behaved with such abandon before.

‘Shecondary aromash?’ said Echo. It puzzled him that so many of the words he uttered seemed to stick to his tongue.

‘Primary aromas are the intrinsic scents of the grape,’ Ghoolion pontificated. ‘Secondary aromas develop in the course of fermentation and tertiary aromas during development in the cask. They combine to form the wine’s bouquet.’

So wine had a bunch of flowers in it too, thought Echo. It really was a versatile drink. The more of the red juice he lapped up, the more pervaded he became by a feeling of inner serenity and relaxation agreeably reminiscent of bedtime. Except that he didn’t feel like going to sleep, he wanted to stay awake.

‘Now,’ said Ghoolion, ‘we come to the ear.’ He picked up another glass, eyed the labels of the bottles on the table with a judicial expression and helped himself to an exceptionally dark red.

‘Wine confides its most intimate secrets to the true wine expert,’ he whispered, tapping the glass with a fingernail. A high-pitched note rang out. Ghoolion held the glass close to his ear and listened intently.

‘This one comes from Grapefields, the biggest wine-growing area in Zamonia. More precisely, from a vineyard with a sinister local reputation.’

‘Did the wine tell you all that?’ Echo listened to one of his bowls but couldn’t hear a thing.

‘That and more besides!’ whispered Ghoolion. ‘This wine knows some dark secrets - bad, bad things. Its memories go back many hundreds of years. It’s said to be related to the legendary Comet Wine.’4

He clamped the glass even harder to his ear. ‘Listen, listen!’ he cried. ‘The depths of the vineyard from which it came are privy to a terrible secret.’

Echo edged so close to the edge of the table that he nearly fell off. His sense of balance wasn’t as good as usual. He retreated a step and pricked up his ears.

‘For a long time,’ Ghoolion went on in a low voice, ‘people in the locality had been wondering where so many grape-pickers disappeared to. No sooner had they started work than they seemed to vanish into thin air. Dozens of them went missing within a few years. They were reputed to be victims of the Ghastly Grappler, a cross between a plant and a predator, which was said to prowl the vineyard at dusk and pounce on defenceless grape-pickers. Half-filled baskets of grapes would sometimes be found, but never a trace of the workers themselves. So the local villagers tried to capture the Grappler. They set werewolf traps, dug pits lined with sharpened stakes and sent armed men to patrol the vineyard at dusk. All the caves in the neighbourhood were searched, but no Ghastly Grappler was sighted and no dead bodies came to light. A few Ugglies were burnt at the stake - that glorious tradition still prevailed in those days! - but to just as little avail. The grape-pickers continued to vanish without a trace.’

Ghoolion fell silent.

‘Well?’ Echo said eagerly.

‘Well nothing. End of story.’

‘But the secret? The terrible secret?’

‘One moment,’ said Ghoolion, fending off the question with an upraised hand. He listened to the glass some more. ‘The wine is just coming to that.’

He preserved a long silence, nodding gravely from time to time, then stiffened abruptly.

‘No!’ he exclaimed.

‘What is it?’ Echo gasped, shuffling excitedly from paw to paw. ‘What did it say? What is it?’

Ghoolion held a hand over his mouth, seemingly frozen with horror.

‘I don’t know if I should tell you,’ he said eventually. ‘It might give you nightmares.’

‘Oh, go on!’ Echo entreated. ‘Tell me, please!’

‘Very well, but only at your express request. Don’t say I didn’t warn you - it isn’t a pretty story.’

Ghoolion laid the glass aside and made no move to drink its contents.

‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘the secret of the accursed vineyard is known only to this wine here, because the vines that produced it were the vineyard’s memory. Its brain. Its nervous system. The vines themselves couldn’t see or hear a thing, but their grapes could sense every movement and their roots probed the bowels of the vineyard. They felt the hands of the workers who relieved them of the weight of the grapes they bore. They knew every earthworm in the soil. They recognised the touch of the winegrower who regularly stroked their leaves to check them for parasites and their roots