The Alchemaster's Apprentice

The Fat Cellar


‘I know you helped yourself to some sustenance on the roof today,’ Ghoolion said as he strode along the passages with Echo slinking after him, ‘so I’ll forget about supper for once, if you don’t mind. However, I’d like to show you something before you retire to your basket.’

Echo, who was still bemused, didn’t reply. He couldn’t think what had happened, only that he’d done something against his will, and this filled him with a mixture of rage and alarm. He felt as if he’d temporarily lost his wits.

‘We’ll have to go down to the cellars,’ Ghoolion said firmly, setting off down a flight of stairs. ‘I don’t think you’re familiar with that part of the castle, are you?’

No, Echo had never visited it. He would never have descended that age-old staircase and plunged into the dank darkness on his own and of his own free will. Weren’t cellars an ideal place in which to be hit over the head from behind with a coal shovel? Or drowned in a cask of wine? Or walled up alive? Was Ghoolion’s overly pleasant manner just the prelude to an all the more unpleasant punishment for his attempt to escape?

Having reached the bottom of the stairs, the Alchemaster picked up a lantern and tapped on the glass with his fingernails. At this, the swarm of tiny will-o’-the-wisps inside it took wing and flitted around, producing a weird, multicoloured glow that made Echo feel uneasier still. They set off along cold, bare, vaulted passages inhabited by more creepy-crawlies than he liked. Black beetles fled into the darkness on powerful legs, protesting in their staccato insect language, when Ghoolion appeared with his ghostly lantern. Spiders sailed down from the ceiling and tottered sleepily across the uneven flagstones. Scorpions the size of king crabs disappeared into cracks in the wall, lashing their tails. The ancient pile overhead groaned as if tired of supporting its own weight after so many centuries.

‘Where are we going, Master?’ Echo asked anxiously.

‘First I want to show you the fat cellar,’ Ghoolion replied. ‘That’s where your fat will be stored until I process it.’

Echo felt as if he’d just walked over his own grave. The idea of ending up down here was unbearable. The Alchemaster’s brutal candour had rendered him speechless.

‘Here we are,’ said Ghoolion. He halted in front of a lofty stone archway enclosing a heavy iron door secured by seven padlocks. He put the lantern down and set to work on them.

‘You’re welcome to think me overcautious, installing all these locks, but this chamber contains the most precious possessions I’ve ever owned in my life. This, for instance,’ said Ghoolion, pointing to the uppermost padlock, ‘is an acoustico-elemental lock. It’s not unlike the open-sesame locks of ancient times, but it’ll only respond to the names of certain elements recited in the correct order. It’s also equipped with a phenomenal safety device that renders it unopenable even by someone who knows the formula. Listen!

‘Bismuth, niobium, antimony!’ he cried and the padlock sprang open. He locked it again and told Echo to copy him.

‘Vermouth, binomium, myoniant!’ cried Echo, although he had carefully memorised the correct words.

‘Try again,’ Ghoolion told him.

‘Mouthwash, gargle, cinnamon,’ cried Echo. ‘Damnation! I know the words but my tongue muddles them up.’

‘Even I don’t know how these things work,’ Ghoolion said with a laugh. ‘An alchemistic locksmith manufactures them in the Impic Alps, in the strictest secrecy. Bismuth, niobium, antimony!’

The lock clicked open again.

‘Try again now it’s open.’

‘Bismuth, niobium, antimony!’ Echo sang out. ‘That’s odd, I can say them now.’

‘Too late,’ Ghoolion said with a grin. ‘Now take a look at this one. It’s an unmusical lock made of cacophonated steel.’

He took a piccolo from his pocket and played some discordant notes that stabbed Echo’s eardrums like needles. The padlock opened by itself.

‘Yes,’ said Ghoolion, ‘even bad piccolo-playing has to be learnt.’ He replaced the instrument in his cloak. ‘You have to play the right wrong notes, of course.’

He proceeded to open one lock after another, each in a different way, for instance by reeling off an interminable series of numbers or using an invisible key with which he fiddled for minutes on end. It was clear to Echo that anyone who attempted to break in would be doomed to fail. Once the last padlock had opened and the last chain had been released, Ghoolion thrust the heavy iron door open and ushered Echo inside.

The long, low-ceilinged chamber made quite a different impression from the rest of the castle’s dark, crumbling cellars. The walls, which had been neatly plastered and whitewashed, were far from dilapidated and entirely free from insects. The temperature was agreeably cool.

‘This is my fat store,’ said Ghoolion. He shone his lantern proudly over the numerous shelves, bathing them in a multicoloured glow. ‘It must once have been a wine cellar, but so immeasurably long ago that all I found here were empty bottles with crumbling corks and red-wine deposits inside. I renovated the chamber completely. I replastered, iodised, sterilised and ghoolionised it. Stored in here are the most precious alchemical ingredients in Zamonia - not even Zoltep Zaan owned such a collection. This is where I keep specimens of all the major elements, my assortment of gases and effluvia, rare minerals, and alchemical substances both ancient and state-of-the-art. The stuff in the laboratory upstairs is only what common-or-garden alchemists would use, but the material in here is beyond the dreams of those amateurs. And it’s all sealed in the fat of rare animals, ready for use in the cauldron at any time.’

The chamber looked quite unspectacular. Like a wine cellar, in fact, except that orange-sized balls of fat took the place of bottles. Tacked to the shelf beneath each ball was a small copper plaque engraved with the name of its contents. Before long, Echo reflected, there would be another ball whose plaque read ‘Crat Fat’.

Ghoolion was glowing with pride. ‘On this shelf here I keep the Zamonian elements: lithium, kalium, rubidium, onth, gophor, caesium, scandium, cnothium, zorphium, nickel, crypton, cnobalt, and so on and so forth. That’s nothing special in itself; it’s the syntheses I’ve created that are unique. Permium and xyloton, for instance, or zursium and hexamite - daring combinations of elements which no one had ever experimented with before me. It took me years to hit on the correct proportions - things didn’t always go smoothly, take it from me. There were laboratory fires and clouds of poisonous fumes, totally unexpected chemical reactions and, on one occasion, a violent explosion. Did you know I have a wooden leg?’

He rapped the leg in question with his knuckles. It sounded horribly hollow.

‘Those rare metals over there - you won’t find any of them in a traditional laboratory: lanthium, samarium, bluddumite, florinthium, gelfic silver, cronosite.’

He pointed to the relevant balls one after the other. They all looked identical except for minor differences in colour.

‘Those long rows of balls over there contain various scents: goblins’ pus and mummy’s sweat, impic effluvium and the autumnal musk of rutting Woodwolves. Seven times seven hundred smells of putrefaction arranged in alphabetical order: fresh, one day old, two days old, and so on. Then come all the fumes and gases: graveyard gas, sewer gas, laughing gas, marsh gas, intestinal gas - you name it. And those balls right at the back contain the really rare items such as volcanic ideas and arsonist’s dreams - and, of course, in the place of honour: zamonium, the rarest Zamonian element of all.’

Ghoolion turned and pointed to another shelf. ‘Those are the sighs of the dying. I’ve done my best to capture the final exhalations of all my victims. I haven’t always succeeded. It’s a very ticklish business, a fine art, capturing the very last breath of a creature on the point of death - it’s the most volatile and fleeting vapour there is! Sometimes you catch the penultimate breath and miss the last one. Sometimes you sit there for hours and the confounded creature simply refuses to kick the bucket. But I’ve been successful in many cases. Very many.’

Ghoolion paused for effect, as if expecting Echo to commiserate with him on his victims’ failure to die quickly enough.

‘Ah,’ he said at length, ‘I could go on about my treasures for hours, but that’s far from all I want to show you. Let’s move on.’

If the truth be told, Echo had already had enough - enough of this cellar full of things only a demented alchemist would consider valuable or worth preserving. His arduous attempt to escape had left him weary, bemused and intimidated. All he wanted was to get into his basket and sleep the clock round, but he took care not to say so. He was happy for small mercies: at least Ghoolion showed no signs of wringing his neck. Echo couldn’t help remembering how he had laughed behind his paw at the Alchemaster not long ago. What a complete misjudgement on his part! Here in the cellar Ghoolion was showing his true colours. His mere presence and the courteous tone in which he’d been commenting on all his abominations - down here, that was quite enough to reduce Echo to a state of abject submission. So he trotted obediently after the Alchemaster, waited patiently for him to lock up his treasure chamber and followed at his heels as he penetrated still deeper into the maze of subterranean passages.

They now came to a spacious chamber littered with junk: barrels that had split open, ramshackle furniture, ancient oil paintings in dusty gilt frames, crates of smashed crockery, mouldering ledgers, rusty tools and firewood so old it was almost fossilised. To Echo, the chamber’s most remarkable feature was the number of doors that led off it - dozens of them.

‘You’ll be wondering what lies behind all these doors,’ said Ghoolion, ‘but I’ve lost the urge to open every last one. Many are better left unopened, believe me. When I tried that one over there, an enormous insect attacked me. It disappeared into the darkness and may still be lurking somewhere down here. Many of the doors conceal tombstones, others curiosities - skeletons and ancient taxidermal specimens, for example. One room is lined with seashells, none of which I could identify. Some of the taxidermal specimens I took upstairs and restored. I also discovered my first stuffed Demonic Mummies down here. The libraries to be found beyond some of the doors are small but select. The foremost antiquaries in Bookholm would give their eye teeth to possess them.’

To Echo’s relief, Ghoolion made no move to open any of doors. Instead, he strode straight across the big chamber and along another passage. ‘The attic of a house is said to be its memory and the cellar its digestive system,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘In the case of this building, their roles are reversed. These doors conceal the remnants of its sick and sinister past.’ He chuckled.

‘That’s extremely interesting,’ said Echo. ‘I know so very little about this castle. Theodore told me a bit about it, but …’ He bit his tongue. Damnation! The name had just slipped out.

‘Theodore?’ Ghoolion said suspiciously. ‘Who’s he?’

Echo racked his brains. ‘Oh, Theodore is … or rather, was … my mistress’s, er, manservant. Dead, I’m afraid. A terminal disease.’

‘I see …’ Ghoolion murmured. ‘This manservant, did he really know something of the history of my castle?’

‘Very little, as I said. Only old wives’ tales and ghost stories - the usual Malaisean gossip. You know the sort of thing.’

‘Yes, the townsfolk do a lot of talking, most of it nonsense. For instance, that this castle sprang from the ground overnight, like a mushroom. It was neither built by ghosts nor inhabited by dragons, and it isn’t a living creature. But I can’t tell you how it really came into being. The only certainty is that its builders knew quite a lot about constructing durable masonry. They were the first occupants. Very few traces of their presence have survived. Just a handful of primitive tools, some crude furniture and fragments of pottery. I don’t think they could write - there’s no documentary evidence of it, anyway. The next occupants were soldiers, probably mercenaries. Not very sensitive souls, that’s for sure. They stormed the building and killed all its occupants. Then they lived in the castle for several generations, together with their families, and used it as a base for wars, sieges and similar activities - anything mercenaries are hired to do. They brought back wagonloads of loot including works of art, weapons, jewellery, paintings, furniture and tableware. They also stacked their enemies’ heads down here to dry for use as skittles in summer and fuel in winter. Then, one day, they simply disappeared. They must have packed up all their belongings and gone off on a campaign which ended badly for them. Either that, or they drowned in some marsh or other.’

There was a door at the end of the passage. Ghoolion opened it to reveal a flight of stone steps leading into the bowels of the earth. He set off down them with Echo following reluctantly at his heels. No longer built of masonry, the walls were hewn out of the living rock. The steps clearly led still deeper into the crag on which the castle was perched.

‘The building then stood empty for a long time and became a temporary abode for crawling, flying creatures,’ Ghoolion went on, ‘because no one with an ounce of common sense would have moved into a place belonging to a horde of brutal mercenaries who might return at any moment. Not until enough time had gone by to preclude that possibility was it occupied by vampiric nomads, who settled down here.’

‘Great!’ thought Echo. ‘Vampires on top of everything else!’ He wished he could shut his ears as well as his eyes, then he simply wouldn’t have listened to the rest of Ghoolion’s gruesome story.

‘Like Ugglyism, vampirism was one of the biggest scourges of the Zamonian Middle Ages. It was practised by a widespread sect devoted to the belief that drinking other people’s blood rendered you immortal. The Thunderthirsts, an extended family so called because its members only went hunting for blood during thunderstorms, took possession of the castle for hundreds of years and terrorised the surrounding area. When thunder pealed and rain drummed on roofs, their victims failed to hear them force doors and smash windows as they broke into farmhouses in order to go about their grisly business. Becoming more and more demented and murderous with every succeeding generation, they eventually took to killing each other and wiped themselves out completely.’

Ghoolion had now reached the bottom of the steps. He set off along a dark passage flanked by low wooden doors with rusty locks.

‘These are the dungeons of the castle, he said, ‘its prison and cemetery combined. Almost every door conceals a skeleton. Many of the cells are so small, their inmates couldn’t stand, sit or lie down in them. Can you imagine being incarcerated like that, often for decades?’

No, Echo couldn’t, nor did he want to. What was the point of this spine-chilling guided tour?

‘The castle then stood empty for a century,’ Ghoolion continued relentlessly as he strode along the passage, ‘because it was believed to be haunted by the ghosts of the vampire clan. When a storm was brewing the farmers still bolted their doors and waited, armed to the teeth, until the last peal of thunder had died away. The town of Malaisea did not grow up around this ancient pile until the Thunderthirsts had become a distant legend. But the building retained its evil reputation. Nobody wanted to live in it of his own free will, so the townsfolk used it as a prison and lunatic asylum for exceptionally dangerous criminals and incurables. Hopeless cases from all over Zamonia were sent here to be locked up in these cells.’

By now, Echo was feeling ripe for a straitjacket himself. The flagstones beneath his paws were mossy and damp, and he kept treading in puddles. Occasionally, too, he startled some living creature, which flew off with a whirring sound or hissed as it wriggled away. The rows of subterranean cells seemed endless, even though Ghoolion strode briskly along as he continued his depressing recital.

‘What happened next was too crazy even for a lunatic asylum. Patients deemed to be incurable recovered their sanity overnight, whereas sane psychiatrists lost their reason. Notorious criminals considered to be mentally sound went suddenly mad and became more dangerous than ever. Guards and nurses unlocked the cells and fraternised with lunatics and murderers. Total chaos reigned. This was attributed to an unknown disease which cured the insane and drove the sane mad. Before long, it was difficult to tell the sane from the insane and criminals from their guards. Such nurses, doctors and guards as were still compos mentis ended by unlocking all the cells and running off, leaving the building and its inmates to themselves - with appalling consequences. Lunatics tried to cure the sane by unspeakable means. The building was ruled for years by a so-called King of the Crazies - I’ve read his autobiography, which he wrote with the severed hand of his favourite psychiatrist. It was he who had the glass removed from all the windows. This was to enable him to fly freely into outer space when commanded to do so by the inhabitants of Harpalyke, one of the moons of Jupiter. He remained firmly convinced of this until his death, which occurred the day he thought he’d heard the call and jumped out of a window. Instead of landing on Harpalyke, the King of the Crazies went splat on the cobblestones of Malaisea, where he left a stain that can still be seen to this day. It has gone down in the town’s annals as “the Harpalyke Stain”.’

Echo was mentally and physically exhausted. His legs were almost buckling under him and his brain was scarcely capable of absorbing any more of this ghastly tale, but Ghoolion showed no sign of bringing his tour to an end.

‘The rest of the inmates gradually died off,’ he continued, ‘and the building stood empty for another two-and-a-half centuries, largely because people were afraid the mysterious mental illness might still be lurking there. It was temporarily occupied by a pack of werewolves, but only until they were smoked out by what was, by Malaisean standards, an exceptionally efficient mayor. The townsfolk decided to seal the building and abandon it. Since it evidently brought its occupants no luck, it could be left to fall into decay.’

Ghoolion came to an abrupt halt. They were standing in front of an ancient, lichen-encrusted door that looked as if it might disintegrate at a touch.

‘And that was how this tough old pile came into my possession. The townsfolk thought I was crazy when I waived my salary in return for free accommodation on taking up my post as the municipal Alchemaster-in-Chief. They not only allowed me to live in the building rent free - they formally made it over to me. That took it off their hands, at least symbolically.’

Ghoolion gave a hoarse laugh. He depressed the latch and pushed the door open with his bony shoulder.