The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,42

drank the falling rain. Then, one day, they found they were drinking blood.’

‘Blood?’ said Echo.

‘Yes, blood. The vineyard was drenched in the stuff and strange things were happening to the grapes. Where they had once been harvested by busy hands, a sudden struggle took place.’

‘A struggle? What sort of struggle?’

‘Well … Bodies went crashing into the vines and hands clutched desperately at their tendrils. Although the vines couldn’t see or hear this, they could sense that someone was being murdered in the immediate vicinity of their foliage. Then came the blood - gallons of it.’

With a theatrical gesture, Ghoolion turned his back on Echo.

‘This went on for years. First a struggle, then blood seeping into the soil, then months of inactivity, then another struggle and more blood. Meanwhile the vines continued to do their vegetal duty. They grew, put out tendrils, filled their grapes with juice and drank rain - or, sometimes, blood. And their roots probed deeper and deeper into the soil until, one day, they came into contact with what had hitherto been the vineyard’s terrible secret.’

Ghoolion turned round again. His gaze was fixed and staring.

‘The vineyard harboured dozens of corpses in various stages of decomposition. The murdered grape-pickers had been buried there side by side.’

Echo sat down on his haunches. He was feeling queasy now.

‘The vines thought long and hard about this frightful mystery until another fight broke out in their midst. A pair of hands clutched their leaves and the vines recognised their owner as a grape-picker who had often relieved them of overweight grapes in the past. The hands clung on at first with a strength born of despair, then relaxed their grip and went limp. Another grape-picker had bitten the dust! Moments later a different hand took hold of the same bunch of leaves and the vines recognised it as the winegrower’s big, calloused paw. Everything fell into place: it was the winegrower, the owner of the vineyard himself, who was going around murdering people. Shortly afterwards, when blood began to seep into the soil, the vines guessed his motive: he was fertilising his vineyard with blood and decaying bodies to improve its yield.’

Echo was beside himself with excitement. ‘Go on!’ he exclaimed. ‘What happened then?’

‘Well,’ Ghoolion said grimly, ‘what were the vines to do? They were just harmless plants. All they did was produce grapes, put out tendrils and leaves and climb up stakes, but they brooded incessantly on ways of remedying the situation. They alone knew the true circumstances and might be able to end the cycle of violence and blood, because the murders continued unabated - in fact, they occurred at ever shorter intervals.’

Echo shut his eyes, trying to picture the vineyard, but his head swam and he quickly opened them again.

‘The more murders the winegrower committed, and the more he manured the soil with blood, the more clearly the vines sensed the changes taking place inside them. They grew faster and became more resistant to disease. Much to the satisfaction of their murderous owner, they produced ever more, ever finer and sweeter grapes. Their tendrils became ever stronger, their leaves ever bigger, their wine ever better and more abundant. Meanwhile, the winegrower became ever richer. Insane though it was, his scheme was working, thanks to the blood of the murdered grape-pickers pulsating inside his vines. What the murderer never guessed, however, was that his victims’ thirst for revenge was also growing stronger by the day. The vines now sprawled across the hillside like a jungle. Bigger and bigger stakes had had to be driven into the ground to keep pace with their growth, yet they continued to grow, sending their tendrils spiralling into the air and their roots burrowing into the soil. The paths between the rows became so overgrown that the workers had to part the foliage with their hands in order to make their way along them. Hidden from view in this way, the murderer found it even easier to kill and bury his victims. The workforce of his accursed vineyard, from which grape-pickers disappeared almost weekly, was now limited to the poorest of the poor, who had no alternative.’

Ghoolion broke off for a moment. He seemed to be summoning up the strength to recount some even more grisly details.

‘One night the winegrower went on the prowl again. He was the last person anyone would have suspected - his public complaints about the loss of his workers were all too believable. No one guessed the terrible connection between