The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,76

also came upon the skeletons of a race of dwarfs with rust-red beards. They were strangely equipped with copper belts on which they wore outlandish tools the like of which he’d never seen before. Lying beside many of them were books filled with columns of figures and designs for mysterious mechanical contraptions.

Echo discovered that the ventilation shafts ran not only through the castle walls but deep into the ground - deeper even than the creepy cellars. There, in small subterranean caves, he found more skeletonised red-bearded dwarfs and signs of their presence, including strange little machines of wood or metal whose purpose remained obscure. When he set one in motion by nudging it with his paw, as he sometimes did, it would come briefly to life and go creaking and trundling along until it fell to bits from sheer decrepitude. One machine continued to pound away for a whole hour, churning out metal disks adorned with wonderful patterns. Another marched off and drilled holes in a wall of rock. Yet another went on counting out loud in a robotic voice until it emitted a sort of death rattle and expired.

The deeper Echo went, the eerier and more uninviting his surroundings became. Warm currents of air ascended from the bowels of the earth, fraught with odours that boded no good. He heard noises that aroused his deepest-rooted, most atavistic fears. The subterranean passages led to a world that promised to be even more dangerous than the one above, and he had no wish to venture down there.

Ghoolion continued to dish up fattening meals, but Echo simply threw them out of the window as soon as the Alchemaster had left the room. He took to hunting and catching his own food, so the mice in the ventilation system found him a positive pest. Having previously led a peaceful existence devoid of natural enemies and regularly sustained by the contents of Ghoolion’s well-stocked larders, those rodents had now become the quarry of a monster armed with claws.

One night, when crawling along a particularly narrow shaft in the ancient ventilation system, Echo discovered a hole through which he could see almost every corner of Ghoolion’s kitchen. The Alchemaster was preparing an elaborate meal. Echo could smell a spicy soup, grilled fish with mushroom sauce and roast pork with crackling. There was a soufflé in the oven and a vanilla blancmange simmering on the stove.

Ghoolion had served Echo’s supper only an hour or two earlier. For whom could he be preparing such a lavish meal? Certainly not for himself. Was he expecting guests? No, he never had any.

The Alchemaster clearly thought he was unobserved because he was talking to himself. Echo couldn’t catch what he was saying, the words were drowned by the bubbling saucepans, sizzling fat and clatter of his iron-soled boots. Then he turned so that Echo could see his face. Echo gave a violent start when he saw the old man’s demented expression: he was looking hopelessly confused.

Ghoolion continued his mysterious activities nonetheless, and Echo had to creep on because the air shaft was alive with loathsome insects. As for the meal the Alchemaster was preparing, he never saw it again.

Echo was losing weight and getting into better shape. His wits were sharper too, because the less blood his body required for digestive purposes, the more was available for brainwork. He devoted a lot of thought to the possibility of escape instead of wondering what there would be for supper. And that was how it occurred to him to give the Uggly another try. He wouldn’t go barging in like the last time, nor would he go there empty-pawed.

The Last Uggly in Malaisea

Walking along Uggly Lane in the dark seemed just as unnerving to Echo as it had before. This time, however, he had a definite objective in view. He also had something in the way of a plan, and this encouraged him to run the gauntlet of the ancient houses and climb on to the veranda of the last Uggly in Malaisea.

‘What is it this time?’ demanded a deep, unfriendly voice from inside the house.

Echo shrank back. How had she known he was there? He’d tiptoed up the veranda steps without uttering a word. Did she really have second sight, or was she simply watching him through the keyhole?

‘I’d like to make you an offer,’ he said as loudly and firmly as he could.

‘An offer? Like what?’

‘Well, my dear madam, when you showed me out the other night, I didn’t have