The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,48

reassembled themselves into the shape of a powerful seabird with a hooked beak. The seagull emitted an avid screech.

‘Oh no!’ he exclaimed. ‘Seagulls are vulgar, annoying creatures with discordant voices. They’re disgusting carrion that peck out the eyes of dead sailors. What about something more dignified? Something majestic?’

He clicked his blackened fingers again. Having dissolved once more, the shadow expanded to many times its original size. The next moment a gigantic eagle sat perched on the mantelpiece. Its head swivelled slowly, imperiously back and forth as if it were scanning a boundless plain in search of prey.

Echo gasped involuntarily. The eagle was huge. Up to now, the little Crat had been the hunter and birds his quarry. In the case of this monarch of the air, their roles were reversed. He had never before been so close to such a big bird.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Ghoolion, as if he had read Echo’s thoughts. ‘It’s still just a shadow.’

Before Echo could work out what he meant by ‘still’, Ghoolion cried, ‘But that’s enough stupid birds. We need some variety. When it comes to entertaining my honoured guest, nothing is too much trouble.’

Bending over the flame again, he kneaded his hands together. This time, however, he held them below the edge of the chair, which projected the shadow on the base of the wall. The first thing Echo saw was a hen. It soon metamorphosed into a rabbit, then into a chimpanzee and finally into a fidgety rodent.

‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, ‘a mouse.’

‘No,’ said Ghoolion, ‘a rat. If you thought it was a mouse, I must have made it a bit too skimpy.’

He held his hands closer and closer to the candle flame. The shadow expanded to three, four, five times its original size.

‘There,’ he said contentedly, ‘that’s far more impressive.’ He whipped his hands away as quickly as he had the first time and the shadow remained where it was. Next, he clicked his fingers and a tremor ran through the rat, which was now the size of a bull terrier. He clapped his hands and it emitted a snarl, then ran to and fro along the skirting board as if imprisoned in a cage.

It astonished Echo to see that the rat was almost twice his own size. Ghoolion had introduced an unpleasant note into this harmless game. Still, it was only a shadow, seemingly plastered to the wall on which it had come into being.

The Alchemaster clasped his long, blackened fingers together once more. ‘Now, how about an animal the very sight of which makes one’s heart beat faster?’ he whispered. ‘A creature that inspires such terror that it has no natural enemies? Something really dangerous?’

Echo had meant to get on Ghoolion’s nerves. The Alchemaster was now giving him a dose of his own medicine. His only recourse was to show as little fear as possible.

‘By all means,’ he said calmly. ‘Something really dangerous, why not? What can you offer?’

‘What can I offer?’ Ghoolion muttered. ‘Let’s see …’

He crossed his hands and linked the thumbs again. Then he twisted his wrists in such an unnatural way that it almost occasioned Echo physical pain. He put his contorted hands nearer the candle and long, thin shadows began to dance on the wall like the legs of some outsize insect, eight of them in all. They encircled the chamber like the bars of a cage, making Echo feel as if the walls were slowly closing in on him. The shadowy creature’s dark, menacing body, a loaf-shaped torso, brushed the ceiling high overhead. It was impossible to tell which way it was facing.

Again Ghoolion whipped his hands away from the candle flame, and again the shadowy figure clung to the walls and ceiling as if it had always been imprinted on them.

‘I’ve taken a few liberties with this creature, I must admit,’ Ghoolion remarked. ‘That’s because my knowledge of Nurns5 is limited to medieval depictions and descriptions of them. Very few people have come across them in the wild and even fewer have survived such encounters sufficiently unscathed to give an account of them.’

Echo hadn’t a clue what a Nurn was, but its mere shadow was enough to inspire mortal terror. The only reason why he didn’t flee from the chamber, spitting and snarling, was that Ghoolion was barring his route to the door.

The Alchemaster clapped his hands and the shadow began to totter around on its stiltlike legs. The chamber was filled with a sound like the rustle of countless leaves - like a