The Alchemaster's Apprentice

Escape


Echo slunk back to his basket and lay awake brooding half the night. Why had Ghoolion placed him in such a dire predicament for a mere trifle? Sheer spite? Calculation? Plain insanity? There were really only two plausible possibilities. One was that the shadows could never have harmed him because they were merely projections of his own fears. Alchemistic hocus-pocus, as innocuous as a Cooked Ghost. Hallucinations generated by fumes given off by the black paste Ghoolion had rubbed into his hands. The other possibility: the Alchemaster was simply off his rocker and even more unpredictable than he’d feared.

He didn’t fall asleep until dawn. When he awoke a few hours later, his mind was made up: he would try to escape that very day.

Echo stole up to the roof to fill his belly with one last drink from the pool of milk. A drink so big that it would be several days before he had to wonder where his next meal was coming from. Then he made his ponderous way downstairs through the Leathermousoleum and laboratory. He was relieved not to bump into Ghoolion. He neither detected the Alchemaster’s scent nor heard his clattering footsteps.

Having reached the castle gate, he paused to analyse his feelings. Was he scared? Scared of freedom? Scared of his own temerity? Of course he was. He would be leaving Malaisea, his home town, and going out into the wide world for the first time in his existence. He was an urban creature. Until now he had spent his entire life in Malaisea without ever questioning that fact. He was used to paved streets and footpaths, sheltering walls and roofs, stoves and warm milk, street lights and crowds of people. Leaving the town was like throwing himself into a raging torrent without being able to swim. A cosseted, domesticated Crat completely dependent on himself, he proposed to exchange civilisation for the unpredictable wilds of Zamonia. A wilderness teeming with dangers of the most diverse kinds, with vicious life forms and animals, poisonous plants and malignant natural phenomena. All those hazards were reputed to lie in wait outside - he had only to venture beyond the town walls to come face to face with them. The wild dogs that prowled the fields were far more brutal and dangerous than the dogs of the town - he had often heard them howling. Snakes, scorpions, rabid foxes, Woodwolves, Lunawraiths - these were no mythical beasts but real-life denizens of the Zamonian outback.

He would first have to traverse the municipal rubbish dumps, which were probably alive with rats. Then would come grain fields patrolled by Corn Demons, which stuffed all the living creatures they caught into black sacks and drowned them in ponds. Next he would have to wade through the Strangleroot-infested mangrove swamps and make his way across the Murderous Marsh, in which a Golden Goblin was said to lurk. Only then would he come to the mountains, with their vultures and predators, ravines and crevasses, Mistwitches and Gulch Ghouls.

And after that, the unknown. Echo hadn’t even the faintest idea what awaited him beyond the mountains - if he ever got that far. A waterless desert, perhaps, or a boundless sea, or a bottomless abyss.

Was he scared?

Of course he was.

Did that deter him?

No. All at once, in obedience to a sudden, reckless impulse, he darted out of the castle gate, down the winding lane and into the heart of the town.

Malaisea … How long was it since he’d been there? He hadn’t missed them overmuch, the town’s unwholesome atmosphere and chronically diseased inhabitants, the germ-laden air, the incessant hawking and spitting, the bloodstained handkerchiefs and pus-sodden wads of cotton wool in the gutters.

Ah, Apothecary Avenue, the town’s main shopping street! In this throbbing thoroughfare could be found all that the typical inhabitant of Malaisea could desire: one pharmacy after another, window after window filled with bottles of cough syrup and cold cures, vitamin tablets and throat pastilles, thermometers and catheters, eardrops and laxatives, poultices and ointments for treating Leathermouse bites. The townsfolk pressed their noses to the windows or emerged carrying baskets laden with medicines, showed each other their latest abscesses or surgical scars, and discussed new remedies between coughs and sneezes. Pedlars dispensed hot lemonade or camomile tea, Druidwarfs sold bunches of medicinal herbs, and itinerant physicians loudly offered to take people’s temperature or listen to their heartbeat at minimal expense, on-the-spot diagnoses included. These quacks were obviously in league with the chemists, judging by the suspicious frequency with which their patients, after being briefly examined, made a panic-stricken dash for the nearest pharmacy to stock up on expensive medicines.

Echo slalomed between the shoppers’ shuffling, limping legs. He soon realised how shockingly out of shape he was and began to regret having filled his belly so full. People kept treading on his tail or catching him with their heels or toes. It would never have happened in the old days. On the contrary, Echo had become extremely skilful at threading his way through the townsfolk of Malaisea. Now, however, he was kicked and trodden on like a punctured rubber ball. He was too slow and he could no longer squeeze through the narrow openings available to a Crat amid the milling throngs of pedestrians on Apothecary Avenue. A boot clouted him on the head, a horse trampled on his tail and a fat woman kicked him full in the stomach. He went sprawling and three people marched right over him as if he were a doormat.

He let out a yowl, rolled over sideways into the lee of a wall and lay there with his heart pounding like a steam hammer. ‘I’m planning to trek across deserts and forests, and I can’t even get down Apothecary Avenue,’ he thought. ‘I’ll have to look for a quieter route via the outskirts of town.’

But he knew only too well what that meant: dogs. Roaming the outer districts were the packs of wild mongrels not tolerated in the city centre, and he’d had many a brush with them in the past. In his present condition he wouldn’t stand a chance of giving them the slip. The emaciated tykes were fast on their feet and he was incapable of climbing a drainpipe.

It was no use, though, he could make no headway, so he took the next turning and made for the quieter streets. His route took him past the bronze monument to the Philanthropic Physician, who had died of hypothermia while trudging through a blizzard to get to a patient, down the Via Dementia, where the psychiatrists were based, across Septicaemia Square and along Lumbago Lane. Still no dogs? Splendid. Perhaps they were engaged in one of their brain-dead forms of entertainment, like squabbling among themselves on a rubbish tip or chasing some unfortunate cat through the municipal sewers.

At last he reached the long, desolate avenue of weeping willows that led straight to the south gate. Only a handful of townsfolk passed him now and the shop lights were going out one by one. Echo heaved a sigh of relief. He would soon be outside the Alchemaster’s sphere of jurisdiction. As for the wilds of Zamonia, he would have to wait and see. Perhaps they owed their reputation simply to gruesome stories spread by travellers showing off. Nomads’ legends, old wives’ tales, campfire folklore - the sort of thing people told their children to scare them into remaining at home and tending the cows when their parents became too old to do it themselves. Strangleroots? He’d have to keep clear of trees. Woodwolves? They certainly wouldn’t be interested in a little Crat. Echo turned off down the lane where the night doctors practised - they were just opening their consulting rooms - even though it would take him in the opposite direction, away from the outskirts of town. Why was he making this detour? He didn’t know, he simply felt like it. His new route took him along the street in which the bandage-weavers worked - their looms were still clattering away, even at this hour - and across Monocle Square, where the oculists and opticians had their practices and business premises. This was familiar territory, his old home district. And there was his street and the house in which he’d grown up. The lights were on, so the new owners seemed to have made themselves at home. But he felt an irresistible urge to press on. Where to? Back to the city centre again? That was odd. And where exactly was he making for? The Phlebotomist’s Scalpel, an inn whose dustbins sometimes yielded tasty scraps? No, not there. Gallstone Hospital, the source of those incessant, blood-curdling screams? No, he really didn’t feel like lingering there either. He made his way swiftly along Incisor Alley, identified by the huge teeth and forceps over its doors as the place where dentists plied their agonising trade. But this wasn’t his destination either. Already feeling dizzy, he skirted the ether factory, where the air always smelt so stupefying, and made his way past the naturopaths’ herb garden, which smelt considerably more fragrant. Before he knew it he had set off up the long, winding lane that led to the Alchemaster’s castle. He was now running as fast as he could, he was so eager to get there.

Home at last! Ghoolion was standing in the entrance, holding a lantern.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said as Echo slipped past him.

It wasn’t until he was inside that he stopped short and looked around in bewilderment.

‘What am I doing here?’ he asked, like someone awaking from a dream.

‘Keeping your part of our bargain,’ said Ghoolion and he blew out the lantern.