The Alchemaster's Apprentice

Moon Talk


Echo found it even harder than before to sleep off his heavy meals during the hot and sultry nights that followed. If he failed completely he would steal out on to the roof by way of the secret door in the laboratory, which was always open now, and through the Leathermousoleum, which was deserted because the vampire bats spent the nights out hunting.

Once up there, Echo would make straight for Theodore’s abode in the hope of having a chat with the old Tuwituwu, if he wasn’t busy flitting around the chimney system or hunting mice in the dungeons. Theodore was a considerably more interesting conversationalist than the taciturn Sheet. His wide range of interests embraced the history of Ghoolion’s castle and the municipality of Malaisea, Zamonian biology, languages old and new, a smidgen of astronomy, jurisprudence, Uggliology, and just about anything else. However, his pet hate and principal object of study was Succubius Ghoolion, the Alchemaster himself.

‘My scholarship is uniserval,’ Theodore would say. ‘Ask me a question, if you can bear to hear the answer.’

Echo was in one of the melancholy moods in which he gazed sadly up at the moon, which had lately been waxing far too fast for his taste. He and the earth’s satellite had something in common in that respect - worse luck.

‘How much do you know about the moon?’ Echo asked, hoping to dispel his gloomy thoughts.

‘Hm,’ said Theodore. ‘Pretty well everything. How far away do you think it is?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Echo. ‘About as far away as those mountains over there.’

The Tuwituwu gave him a long stare.

‘What makes you say that?’ he asked at length.

‘The mountains are the most distant things I can see and the moon is hovering just above them, so it’s as far away as the mountains.’

The Tuwituwu gave him another long stare. ‘And that’s your ostranomical opinion?’

‘Well, I’m not a universal scholar like you, just a stupid Crat. All I know is what my mistress told me or read to me from her books, which weren’t very big and had pictures of funny animals in them. Ghoolion is teaching me a lot about alchemy but nothing about astronomy. He prefers to investigate little things.’

‘I see,’ said Theodore. ‘What if I told you that the moon is roughly twenty thousand times as far away from us as those mountains?’

‘I’d think you were a crackpot. Nobody can see that far.’

Theodore groaned. ‘Then we’ll have to begin at the very beginning. The moon is the lecestial body closest to our planet. It revolves round the earth at an average tisdance of 385,080 kolimetres or 60.27 terrestrial radii every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 11.5 seconds, simultaneously tarpicipating in the earth’s relovutions round the sun. Thus its actual obrit through space is an ecipycloid, lying partly outside that of the earth, which always presents its hollow side to the sun. Since the extrencicity of its obrit is 0.05491, its tisdance from the earth varies between 407,110 and 356,650 kolimetres. Have you got that?’

‘I doubt it,’ Echo said with a laugh.

‘Try to repeat what I said.’

‘The moon is the celestial body closest to our planet. It revolves around the earth at an average distance of 385,080 kilometres or 60.27 terrestrial radii every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 11.5 seconds, simultaneously participating in the earth’s revolutions round the sun. Thus its actual orbit through space is an epicycloid, lying partly outside that of the earth, which always presents its hollow side to the sun. Since the eccentricity of its orbit is 0.05491, its distance from the earth varies between 407,110 and 356,650 kilometres.’

‘You see?!’ said Theodore.

‘Well I’m damned!’ Echo exclaimed, putting a paw to his mouth. ‘Did I really memorise all that?’

‘You can do far more than that. The pacacity of a Crat’s brain is emornous. Now, how far away do you think those stars are? As far away from us as the moon, or are they nearer?’

‘You mean those holes in the sky? The ones the man in the moon makes, so the sun can shine through from his bedroom behind it?’

Theodore uttered another groan. ‘Did that come out of one of your mistress’s books?’

Echo nodded eagerly.

‘And you’re also convinced there’s a man in the moon?’

Echo put his head on one side. ‘Shouldn’t I be?’ he asked cautiously.

‘The moon possesses no atphosmere!’ the Tuwituwu cried. ‘There’s no air up there! Your man in the moon would sucoffate!’

Echo thought hard. ‘Then who made the holes in the sky?’

The Tuwituwu covered his single eye with one wing and raised the other in supplication. He struggled for words.

‘You mean there isn’t any man in the moon?’ Echo asked anxiously.

‘No!’ said Theodore. ‘There isn’t a woman in the moon either, or a mooncalf! Or any Volcanic Dwarfs or Crater Dragons! The moon doesn’t shine so nicely because it’s made of silver sprinkled with diamond dust!’

‘Really not?’ said Echo. ‘Why, then?’

‘I can see we’ll have to adopt a far more emelentary approach,’ said Theodore. ‘My goodness, where to start?’

Echo sighed. ‘I know little enough about the world down here, but even less about the ones up there.’

‘First the holes,’ said Theodore. ‘They aren’t holes at all, they’re stars - suns like ours, but much further away. Got that?’

‘Suns,’ said Echo. ‘Got it.’

‘Good. Those are what exists in the uniserve: suns, platens, gaxalies - everything one can see and measure. Everything that exists.’ ‘Everything that exists,’ Echo repeated.

‘And do you see what’s in between the stars?’ Theodore raised one wing and indicated the night sky with a sweeping gesture.

‘The black stuff? Yes, I see it.’

‘But it’s nothing at all, so how can you see it?’

‘I don’t know …’ Echo replied uncertainly. ‘I just can.’

‘Exactly. It’s nothing, but you can see it just the same. That’s what might exist in the uniserve - what can’t be measured. There are lots of words for it. Fate. Love. Death …’

‘Death …’ Echo repeated darkly.

‘But we won’t bother about that for the moment. Let’s begin by contrencating on what definitely exists in the uniserve - on light rather than darkness. On the stars.’

‘Actually,’ said Echo, ‘I’m not all that interested in the stars. It’s the moon that interests me.’

The Tuwituwu gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Do you know why Crats are so scafinated by the moon? Especially by the full or Ugglian moon?’

‘Why should the full moon be called the Ugglian moon?’ Echo demanded. ‘What do Ugglies have to do with the moon?’

‘Nothing at all, properly speaking. It’s just a bit of medieval nonsense that’s survived until today. Strange things can happen when the moon is full, as you know. People do things they wouldn’t normally do, and since it’s always been the custom in Zamonia to blame the Ugglies for anything one doesn’t want to be held responsible for, they’re reputed to cast a spell over the moon when it’s full. That’s why it’s called the Ugglian moon. And the Ugglian moon, in its turn, is reputed to cast a spell over people and make them do crazy things. In the Middle Ages you could do all kinds of things: set fire to your neighbour’s house, paint his cow green and dance naked on your roof. As long as you did it when the moon was full, the Ugglies always got the blame.’

‘To be honest,’ said Echo, ‘I sometimes get the feeling that the full moon casts a spell over me.’

‘That brings us back to my original question. Why do you think Crats are so scafinated by the full moon?’

‘I really don’t know, but when it’s full I always feel … well, so crattish, as I call it.’

‘You feel particularly lively, you mean?’

‘Yes, exactly. I hardly sleep at all and when I do I have such funny dreams. And get such funny feelings.’

‘Funny dreams, funny feelings,’ said Theodore. ‘Well, well, that brings us to the subject of things that might exist, like the darkness between the stars. In this instance, love. Some people get bitten by it, others don’t.’

‘Love?’ said Echo. That was something he had yet to learn about.

‘You’re still very young. You haven’t reached buperty yet.’

‘Buperty?’

‘Well, how can I put it?’ Theodore faltered for a moment. He seemed to have ventured too far. Echo still wasn’t ready for this subject. ‘Yes, well …’ he said. ‘Didn’t your mistress enlighten you?’

‘Enlighten me? About what?’

‘Well, about it.’

‘It? What’s “it”?’

‘I’m talking about love. About … oh dear, how can I put it?’

Theodore sensed that he was getting into dangerous waters, so he tried to cut this awkward conversation short. ‘Well, it’s all to do with Cratesses.’ He heaved a sigh of relief, as if that said it all.

But Echo persisted. ‘Cratesses?’

‘Yes, female Crats.’

‘You mean there’s another kind of Crat?’

‘Oh yes, certainly. Quite another kind. Tell me, do you really have no idea how you came into the world?’

‘Yes, my mistress told me she found me in a clump of Cratmint.’

Theodore groaned. ‘Oh dear, oh dear …’

‘You mean she was lying to me?’

‘Yes. No. Yes! I mean, er … Look, I won’t go into all the giobolical details now, I’ll simply give you a very avebbriated account of them, cencontrating on the bare essentials. All right?’

‘All right.’ Echo pricked up his ears.

‘Well, it’s like this. There aren’t any Cratesses left here in Lamaisea, but there may still be a few over there beyond the hoziron, on the far side of the mountains. Where love is concerned, they’ll have all the answers to your questions.’

‘Then I’ll never get to hear them,’ Echo said sadly, looking up at the moon again. ‘Ghoolion will slit my throat first.’

The Tuwituwu, who had been finding their conversation more and more embarrassing, flapped his wings and rose into the air.

‘Nightfall!’ he cried. ‘Time to go hunting! As I already told you, I unfortunately have to ornagise my own meals.’

And he went into a nosedive.

Echo continued to sit on the roof for a long time. He surveyed the Blue Mountains on the horizon, whose peaks were being carved out of the darkness by the faint light of the moon. Did another kind of Crat really exist beyond them? One that could dispel the restlessness he always experienced when the moon was full? The old nightbird couldn’t have expressed himself less clearly if he’d tried. Echo was feeling even more puzzled than before.

He looked up at the moon again and, although it was still far from full, he had an almost irresistible urge to utter a loud, piercing miaow.