The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,47

in an empty room? If someone locked the door there would be no escape from this windowless dungeon. Echo was feeling more and more uneasy about the direction the evening was taking. He wondered whether to get out of the game by pretending to feel sick.

But Ghoolion soon returned, dragging a chair behind him. He put it in the middle of the room, produced an Anguish Candle and some matches from his cloak, stood the candle on the chair and lit it. It broke into subdued sobs at once.

‘We need the flickering light of an Anguish Candle,’ Ghoolion explained. ‘Shadow Ink does the rest.’

He reached into his cloak again and brought out something that resembled a miniature tub of butter, which he deposited beside the candle.

Echo circled the chair, eyeing Ghoolion’s paraphernalia with suspicion.

‘There,’ said the Alchemaster, hands on hips. ‘We’ve got all we need to stage a proper shadow play.’

A shadow play! Echo felt highly relieved. Harmless childish fun. Birds fluttering on the wall, a rabbit waggling its ears, a dog turning into a swan - that sort of thing. His dislike of the empty chamber promptly subsided.

Ghoolion plunged his hands in the little tub and smeared them with the dark paste it contained. They were pitch-black within seconds.

‘I call this substance Shadow Ink,’ he said. ‘I extracted it from the stones in the dungeon walls. I should explain that, when subjected to the incredibly low temperatures only an alchemical furnace can generate, those stones begin to melt and remain liquid in perpetuity. That’s the origin of Shadow Ink. I strongly advise you never to touch the stuff, it’s as cold as outer space! It took me quite a time to become inured to the pain.’

Yes, of course, thought Echo. A furnace that generates freezing temperatures, stones that melt when subjected to them. Coming from Ghoolion, the craziest things sounded plausible. It was probably common-or-garden ink. Or shoe polish.

Ghoolion looked at his hands. ‘It’s a very peculiar, unearthly pain, as if my hands had gone insane. Believe me, right now I’m tempted to cut them off.’ His face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. ‘But I’ve learnt to ignore the sensation.’

He turned his hands over in the candlelight, and Echo could now see that the black substance really was something special. He had never seen such utter blackness.

‘You should bear in mind that the rock from which this ink is made was mined in the heart of the Gloomberg Mountains, which are said to have originated on the very outskirts of the universe. It may be a mineral from some alien planet, even from another dimension.’

Ghoolion bent over the Anguish Candle and proceeded to wring his hands in its fitful light. A big, amorphous shadow appeared on the opposite wall.

‘Let’s see,’ he muttered. ‘What shall we make? Something big? A rhinoceros? A Midgard Serpent? A mastodon?’

He waved his hands and stuck out a forefinger. The shadow sprouted a trunk and two huge ears.

‘Oh no!’ he sighed. ‘Too ponderous. Too bulky. Let’s have something light and airy.’

He positioned his hands crosswise and linked his thumbs. The silhouette of a butterfly took shape on the wall. He wiggled his hands and the butterfly started fluttering. ‘Or is that too innocuous, eh? How about something bigger? Something with feathers, perhaps?’

He spread his fingers a trifle and held his hands nearer the flame. The shadow expanded and turned into a bird.

Echo was entranced. The old man really knew his stuff. The shadowy bird looked extremely lifelike.

Quick as a flash, Ghoolion removed his hands from the flame. To Echo’s great astonishment, the bird’s silhouette remained where it was. It might have been painted on the wall.

‘Hey!’ he exclaimed. ‘How did you do that?’

‘Me?’ Ghoolion grinned. ‘I did nothing, that’s the Shadow Ink.’ He clicked his pitch-black fingers three times. ‘Fly, bird!’ he called. ‘Fly!’

The shadow started to quiver like a puddle ruffled by the wind. Then the bird began to flap its wings and fly back and forth along the whitewashed wall. Echo could even hear the sound of its wingbeats.

‘That’s incredible!’ he gasped. ‘It’s magic!’

‘Not magic,’ Ghoolion retorted, ‘alchemy. Alchemy of the first order.’

He clapped his hands twice and the bird landed on the mantelpiece, where it started to twitter and warble like a nightingale in love.

‘What kind of bird is it?’ Echo asked.

‘Hm,’ said Ghoolion, ‘I don’t really know. You decide. It’s a nightingale at present, but would you sooner have a seagull?

He clicked his fingers and the shadow disintegrated into black streaks. They

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