The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,62

its ghostly countenance again and again. Echo grasped that it was urging him to put the candles out of their misery.

He set to work at once. He clambered over mounds of old books, mounted chairs and tables, lecterns and bookshelves, and extinguished one candle flame after another with a swipe of the paw. Although it was a laborious task in his bloated, breathless condition, the library became steadily darker and the moans of agony gradually died away, to be replaced by sighs of relief. In the end only one flame remained. Just as Echo was bending over it he caught sight of yet another Anguish Candle he’d overlooked until now. A moment later he realised that it wasn’t a real candle at all, only its reflection in a silver tray propped against a bookshelf. And in that dusty, makeshift mirror Echo saw himself for the first time in days.

He was far from gratified by the sight that met his eyes. On the contrary, he felt appalled and ashamed. He resembled a caricature come to life - an inflated balloon of a creature, not a Crat. Was it a distorting mirror? He recoiled in horror.

‘Good heavens,’ he gasped, ‘do I really look like that?’

The next moment the room was filled with a dazzling glare. Echo flinched. For an instant he thought the library had suddenly burst into flames, except that the light produced no heat, did not emanate from a fire of any kind and was accompanied by a low, soothing hum. Standing in the middle of the room was a squirrel as luminous as molten gold. It favoured Echo with a friendly smile.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ it squeaked, ‘but I can set your mind at rest right away. Logical though such an idea might seem in these surroundings, I’m not the product of some mental illness to which you’ve just succumbed. This place used to be a madhouse, didn’t it?’

Echo nodded. He was feeling utterly bemused.

‘No, I’m just a temporary hallucination; more precisely, a telepathic projection generated by an extremely powerful source of intellectual radiation: the Valley of Cogitating Eggs, in other words. Well, are you starting to see the light? I’m the first insight you’ve been granted by your consumption of a nut from the Tree of Nutledge.’

Echo strove to recover his composure. He’d completely forgotten about the nuts from the Tree of Nutledge.

‘It would be going too far at this stage’, the squirrel prattled on, ‘to explain the precise function of the Cogitating Eggs. For one thing, the Cogitating Eggs defy explanation; for another, this is about you, not them.’

‘I see,’ said Echo.

‘No, you don’t see. Kindly refrain from interrupting and let me have my say. That’s why I’m here, to explain everything sufficiently for you to understand it. The thinking that goes on in the Valley of Cogitating Eggs is more exhaustive and concentrated than in any other location in Zamonia, even a Nocturnomath’s brain - in fact, thinking isn’t really the appropriate word for what those giant eggs do, it’s far too insubstantial. Their thoughts are so profound and ponderous that they should really be called thunks. The eggs aren’t thinkers, they’re thunkers. It doesn’t matter where they came from. What matters far more is where they’ll go once they’ve concluded their telepathic discussions and philosophical deliberations, for that will decide the fate of Zamonia, nothing more nor less.’

Echo did his best to look suitably impressed.

‘That was my primary piece of information,’ said the squirrel, waving its little paws in the air. ‘Now to your special case. The Cogitating Eggs are aware of everything - absolutely everything! - that is happening, has happened and will happen in Zamonia. And that includes your own little personal problems.’

Echo didn’t consider his personal problems as little as all that, but he felt it was the wrong moment to contest the squirrel’s assertion.

‘One look at that mirror has demonstrated that you’ve not only put on weight but undergone a fundamental change. Am I right?’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’ Echo dropped his gaze.

‘Yes, it is. But that would be putting it far too diplomatically. Let me be blunt: you’ve turned into another person, and not for the better. You look like a sausage on legs, a caricature of a Crat. Everything that used to distinguish your physical characteristics from those of other living creatures - your almost preternatural elegance, your streamlined physique, your agility and sense of balance - all this has been replaced by a ponderous mass, a