bunches of medicinal herbs, and itinerant physicians loudly offered to take people’s temperature or listen to their heartbeat at minimal expense, on-the-spot diagnoses included. These quacks were obviously in league with the chemists, judging by the suspicious frequency with which their patients, after being briefly examined, made a panic-stricken dash for the nearest pharmacy to stock up on expensive medicines.
Echo slalomed between the shoppers’ shuffling, limping legs. He soon realised how shockingly out of shape he was and began to regret having filled his belly so full. People kept treading on his tail or catching him with their heels or toes. It would never have happened in the old days. On the contrary, Echo had become extremely skilful at threading his way through the townsfolk of Malaisea. Now, however, he was kicked and trodden on like a punctured rubber ball. He was too slow and he could no longer squeeze through the narrow openings available to a Crat amid the milling throngs of pedestrians on Apothecary Avenue. A boot clouted him on the head, a horse trampled on his tail and a fat woman kicked him full in the stomach. He went sprawling and three people marched right over him as if he were a doormat.
He let out a yowl, rolled over sideways into the lee of a wall and lay there with his heart pounding like a steam hammer. ‘I’m planning to trek across deserts and forests, and I can’t even get down Apothecary Avenue,’ he thought. ‘I’ll have to look for a quieter route via the outskirts of town.’
But he knew only too well what that meant: dogs. Roaming the outer districts were the packs of wild mongrels not tolerated in the city centre, and he’d had many a brush with them in the past. In his present condition he wouldn’t stand a chance of giving them the slip. The emaciated tykes were fast on their feet and he was incapable of climbing a drainpipe.
It was no use, though, he could make no headway, so he took the next turning and made for the quieter streets. His route took him past the bronze monument to the Philanthropic Physician, who had died of hypothermia while trudging through a blizzard to get to a patient, down the Via Dementia, where the psychiatrists were based, across Septicaemia Square and along Lumbago Lane. Still no dogs? Splendid. Perhaps they were engaged in one of their brain-dead forms of entertainment, like squabbling among themselves on a rubbish tip or chasing some unfortunate cat through the municipal sewers.
At last he reached the long, desolate avenue of weeping willows that led straight to the south gate. Only a handful of townsfolk passed him now and the shop lights were going out one by one. Echo heaved a sigh of relief. He would soon be outside the Alchemaster’s sphere of jurisdiction. As for the wilds of Zamonia, he would have to wait and see. Perhaps they owed their reputation simply to gruesome stories spread by travellers showing off. Nomads’ legends, old wives’ tales, campfire folklore - the sort of thing people told their children to scare them into remaining at home and tending the cows when their parents became too old to do it themselves. Strangleroots? He’d have to keep clear of trees. Woodwolves? They certainly wouldn’t be interested in a little Crat. Echo turned off down the lane where the night doctors practised - they were just opening their consulting rooms - even though it would take him in the opposite direction, away from the outskirts of town. Why was he making this detour? He didn’t know, he simply felt like it. His new route took him along the street in which the bandage-weavers worked - their looms were still clattering away, even at this hour - and across Monocle Square, where the oculists and opticians had their practices and business premises. This was familiar territory, his old home district. And there was his street and the house in which he’d grown up. The lights were on, so the new owners seemed to have made themselves at home. But he felt an irresistible urge to press on. Where to? Back to the city centre again? That was odd. And where exactly was he making for? The Phlebotomist’s Scalpel, an inn whose dustbins sometimes yielded tasty scraps? No, not there. Gallstone Hospital, the source of those incessant, blood-curdling screams? No, he really didn’t feel like lingering there either. He made his way swiftly along Incisor Alley,