The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,91
show how unnatural I find it myself. I mean, me and Ghoolion! It’s like a love affair between a frog and a stork.’
‘All right,’ said Echo, ‘so it’s crazy, but never mind. If that’s your minor change of plan, I can live with it. So you’ll brew this love potion?’
‘Just a minute! I said I can try. I’ll need various things, your help most of all.’
‘Of course. What do you want to know?’
‘Not so fast. We must visit my cellar first.’
‘Here we go again,’ thought Echo. ‘Everyone wants me to visit their cellar.’ But hey! He knew from Ghoolion’s books about the Ugglies that they were strictly forbidden to dig cellars beneath their houses. It was another of those spiteful, nonsensical restrictions the Alchemaster was so proud of.
‘I thought Ugglies’ houses didn’t have cellars.’
Izanuela merely grinned. ‘But first,’ she said, as if she hadn’t heard the implied question, ‘we must seal our pact in the traditional Ugglian manner.’
Echo braced himself for some barbaric ritual. ‘What’s that?’ he asked apprehensively.
‘We exchange a kiss. A proper one, though. Tongues and all.’
Echo briefly considered taking to his heels and running off down Uggly Lane. Then he pulled himself together and leapt on to the table to get it over as quickly as possible.
The Uggly leant on the table and extended her tongue. Incredibly long and greenish in colour, it protruded from between her crooked teeth like a snake peeking out of a jungle thicket. Echo edged closer, shut his eyes, opened his mouth and wished his own tongue would disappear the way it had when he sampled the invisible caviar. Izanuela clamped her lips to his and thrust her tongue into his mouth. It tasted like an old cleaning rag that had been left in a pickle barrel overnight, but he didn’t flinch. Izanuela withdrew it and he opened his eyes.
‘Now we’re a team,’ she cried. ‘Iza and Echo, the dauntless duo! Now let’s go down to the cellar.’
She took up her position in the middle of the kitchen and stamped her foot three times.
‘Alumbro, jeckel krapstropotznik!’ she cried, flinging up her arms dramatically.
Izanuela stared at him in surprise. ‘You speak Old Ugglian?’
‘There isn’t a language I don’t speak.’
‘Good heavens, what a little swot you must have been!’
‘I didn’t have to learn to speak them. I just can.’
The whole house shook and Echo thought she had conjured up an earthquake. Then the floor opened at his feet! But it wasn’t a natural disaster; the floorboards themselves had obediently parted to reveal a crooked, rickety staircase composed of tree roots. It led down into the darkness.
‘Is that … a mechanical device of some kind?’ Echo asked, filled with wonder. Not even Ghoolion’s spooky old castle possessed such a contrivance.
‘No,’ Izanuela replied curtly, as if that said it all. ‘Come with me.’ She set off down the uneven steps with Echo following timidly at her heels.
At the bottom of the steps she clapped her hands. Swarms of fireflies awoke and rose into the air, bathing the underground chamber in a multicoloured glow. It was at least five times as big as the kitchen overhead.
‘If Ghoolion knew about this place, he’d have grilled me on his Ghoolio-Ugglian Barbecue long ago, legitimately or not. This is my subterranean retreat. My garden. My secret kingdom.’
Echo gazed open-mouthed at the spacious cavern, whose damp mud walls and ceiling had roots growing through them. The paint was peeling off its multitude of worm-eaten tables, stools, shelves, chairs and benches. Old books and watering cans were lying around here and there, rakes and shovels stood propped against the walls. The pieces of garden furniture were laden with flowerpots and clay vessels, bowls and vases, terracotta jardinières and china mugs, wooden dishes and galvanised buckets. Most of the plants growing in them were unfamiliar to Echo. Although he could have quoted the correct botanical names of a few of them - wild roses, orchids, ferns and cacti - he had never before seen the vast majority of the fungi, berries, mosses, herbs and flowers growing in this subterranean garden. Their colours were as overwhelming as the many different scents that impregnated the air. Izanuela went on ahead, picking her way along the narrow paths between the luxuriant vegetation and pointing this way and that.
‘There are the usual plants that everyone knows,’ she trilled in the best of spirits. ‘Wild garlic and lily of the valley, woodruff and juniper, lavender and poppy, plantain and heptapleuron, saxifrage and soapwort,