The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,54
look at this one. It’s an unmusical lock made of cacophonated steel.’
He took a piccolo from his pocket and played some discordant notes that stabbed Echo’s eardrums like needles. The padlock opened by itself.
‘Yes,’ said Ghoolion, ‘even bad piccolo-playing has to be learnt.’ He replaced the instrument in his cloak. ‘You have to play the right wrong notes, of course.’
He proceeded to open one lock after another, each in a different way, for instance by reeling off an interminable series of numbers or using an invisible key with which he fiddled for minutes on end. It was clear to Echo that anyone who attempted to break in would be doomed to fail. Once the last padlock had opened and the last chain had been released, Ghoolion thrust the heavy iron door open and ushered Echo inside.
The long, low-ceilinged chamber made quite a different impression from the rest of the castle’s dark, crumbling cellars. The walls, which had been neatly plastered and whitewashed, were far from dilapidated and entirely free from insects. The temperature was agreeably cool.
‘This is my fat store,’ said Ghoolion. He shone his lantern proudly over the numerous shelves, bathing them in a multicoloured glow. ‘It must once have been a wine cellar, but so immeasurably long ago that all I found here were empty bottles with crumbling corks and red-wine deposits inside. I renovated the chamber completely. I replastered, iodised, sterilised and ghoolionised it. Stored in here are the most precious alchemical ingredients in Zamonia - not even Zoltep Zaan owned such a collection. This is where I keep specimens of all the major elements, my assortment of gases and effluvia, rare minerals, and alchemical substances both ancient and state-of-the-art. The stuff in the laboratory upstairs is only what common-or-garden alchemists would use, but the material in here is beyond the dreams of those amateurs. And it’s all sealed in the fat of rare animals, ready for use in the cauldron at any time.’
The chamber looked quite unspectacular. Like a wine cellar, in fact, except that orange-sized balls of fat took the place of bottles. Tacked to the shelf beneath each ball was a small copper plaque engraved with the name of its contents. Before long, Echo reflected, there would be another ball whose plaque read ‘Crat Fat’.
Ghoolion was glowing with pride. ‘On this shelf here I keep the Zamonian elements: lithium, kalium, rubidium, onth, gophor, caesium, scandium, cnothium, zorphium, nickel, crypton, cnobalt, and so on and so forth. That’s nothing special in itself; it’s the syntheses I’ve created that are unique. Permium and xyloton, for instance, or zursium and hexamite - daring combinations of elements which no one had ever experimented with before me. It took me years to hit on the correct proportions - things didn’t always go smoothly, take it from me. There were laboratory fires and clouds of poisonous fumes, totally unexpected chemical reactions and, on one occasion, a violent explosion. Did you know I have a wooden leg?’
He rapped the leg in question with his knuckles. It sounded horribly hollow.
‘Those rare metals over there - you won’t find any of them in a traditional laboratory: lanthium, samarium, bluddumite, florinthium, gelfic silver, cronosite.’
He pointed to the relevant balls one after the other. They all looked identical except for minor differences in colour.
‘Those long rows of balls over there contain various scents: goblins’ pus and mummy’s sweat, impic effluvium and the autumnal musk of rutting Woodwolves. Seven times seven hundred smells of putrefaction arranged in alphabetical order: fresh, one day old, two days old, and so on. Then come all the fumes and gases: graveyard gas, sewer gas, laughing gas, marsh gas, intestinal gas - you name it. And those balls right at the back contain the really rare items such as volcanic ideas and arsonist’s dreams - and, of course, in the place of honour: zamonium, the rarest Zamonian element of all.’
Ghoolion turned and pointed to another shelf. ‘Those are the sighs of the dying. I’ve done my best to capture the final exhalations of all my victims. I haven’t always succeeded. It’s a very ticklish business, a fine art, capturing the very last breath of a creature on the point of death - it’s the most volatile and fleeting vapour there is! Sometimes you catch the penultimate breath and miss the last one. Sometimes you sit there for hours and the confounded creature simply refuses to kick the bucket. But I’ve been successful in many cases. Very many.’