The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,56

heads down here to dry for use as skittles in summer and fuel in winter. Then, one day, they simply disappeared. They must have packed up all their belongings and gone off on a campaign which ended badly for them. Either that, or they drowned in some marsh or other.’

There was a door at the end of the passage. Ghoolion opened it to reveal a flight of stone steps leading into the bowels of the earth. He set off down them with Echo following reluctantly at his heels. No longer built of masonry, the walls were hewn out of the living rock. The steps clearly led still deeper into the crag on which the castle was perched.

‘The building then stood empty for a long time and became a temporary abode for crawling, flying creatures,’ Ghoolion went on, ‘because no one with an ounce of common sense would have moved into a place belonging to a horde of brutal mercenaries who might return at any moment. Not until enough time had gone by to preclude that possibility was it occupied by vampiric nomads, who settled down here.’

‘Great!’ thought Echo. ‘Vampires on top of everything else!’ He wished he could shut his ears as well as his eyes, then he simply wouldn’t have listened to the rest of Ghoolion’s gruesome story.

‘Like Ugglyism, vampirism was one of the biggest scourges of the Zamonian Middle Ages. It was practised by a widespread sect devoted to the belief that drinking other people’s blood rendered you immortal. The Thunderthirsts, an extended family so called because its members only went hunting for blood during thunderstorms, took possession of the castle for hundreds of years and terrorised the surrounding area. When thunder pealed and rain drummed on roofs, their victims failed to hear them force doors and smash windows as they broke into farmhouses in order to go about their grisly business. Becoming more and more demented and murderous with every succeeding generation, they eventually took to killing each other and wiped themselves out completely.’

Ghoolion had now reached the bottom of the steps. He set off along a dark passage flanked by low wooden doors with rusty locks.

‘These are the dungeons of the castle, he said, ‘its prison and cemetery combined. Almost every door conceals a skeleton. Many of the cells are so small, their inmates couldn’t stand, sit or lie down in them. Can you imagine being incarcerated like that, often for decades?’

No, Echo couldn’t, nor did he want to. What was the point of this spine-chilling guided tour?

‘The castle then stood empty for a century,’ Ghoolion continued relentlessly as he strode along the passage, ‘because it was believed to be haunted by the ghosts of the vampire clan. When a storm was brewing the farmers still bolted their doors and waited, armed to the teeth, until the last peal of thunder had died away. The town of Malaisea did not grow up around this ancient pile until the Thunderthirsts had become a distant legend. But the building retained its evil reputation. Nobody wanted to live in it of his own free will, so the townsfolk used it as a prison and lunatic asylum for exceptionally dangerous criminals and incurables. Hopeless cases from all over Zamonia were sent here to be locked up in these cells.’

By now, Echo was feeling ripe for a straitjacket himself. The flagstones beneath his paws were mossy and damp, and he kept treading in puddles. Occasionally, too, he startled some living creature, which flew off with a whirring sound or hissed as it wriggled away. The rows of subterranean cells seemed endless, even though Ghoolion strode briskly along as he continued his depressing recital.

‘What happened next was too crazy even for a lunatic asylum. Patients deemed to be incurable recovered their sanity overnight, whereas sane psychiatrists lost their reason. Notorious criminals considered to be mentally sound went suddenly mad and became more dangerous than ever. Guards and nurses unlocked the cells and fraternised with lunatics and murderers. Total chaos reigned. This was attributed to an unknown disease which cured the insane and drove the sane mad. Before long, it was difficult to tell the sane from the insane and criminals from their guards. Such nurses, doctors and guards as were still compos mentis ended by unlocking all the cells and running off, leaving the building and its inmates to themselves - with appalling consequences. Lunatics tried to cure the sane by unspeakable means. The building was ruled for years by a so-called