The Alchemaster's Apprentice

Ghoolion Gets Busy


While the moon was growing steadily rounder, night after night, Echo’s strict diet and his recent exertions enabled him to shed another few pounds. He and Izanuela had agreed to wait until the day before the moon was full. They wanted to catch the Alchemaster at a moment when he was at his busiest. That would make it easier for Echo to administer the love potion unobserved.

So all that remained for him to do was to kill time in a state of anxious suspense. He wandered around the castle with the Cooked Ghost and roamed the roof by himself or sat at the foot of Theodore’s chimney, waiting in vain for him to return. But his favourite diversion was secretly watching the Alchemaster at his many and various activities. Ghoolion hurried to and fro between the laboratory and the cellar with increasing frequency, fetching balls of fat and boiling them up, concentrating or mingling elements and gases, vital essences and dying sighs. Echo could scarcely endure the smells that prevailed in his laboratory, so caustic and poisonous were the substances he processed there. Ghoolion himself didn’t seem to mind them. On the contrary, the more stifling and unhealthy the atmosphere, the livelier he became. His feverish condition developed into a frenzy, his passion for work into a kind of ecstasy. Having formerly waltzed around his pans in the kitchen, he now danced a tarantella around the alchemical equipment in his laboratory. Sometimes he would abruptly clutch his head or his heart, reeling around and trembling as if about to measure his length on the floor. Whenever Echo saw this he hoped the Alchemaster was about to have a stroke or a heart attack, but Ghoolion recovered every time, pulled himself together and resumed his frantic activities.

It became ever clearer to Echo that a life’s work was nearing its culmination just as the moon was coming to the full. Ghoolion had spent a lifetime hunting and collecting things, killing and mummifying them, preserving and hoarding them, arranging them systematically and possessing his soul in patience. Now the moment was at hand: a narrow window of opportunity which had to be opened in order to weld his collection together correctly and condense it into the one true substance: Prima Zateria. Ghoolion was every inch the master chef once more, but the soup he was preparing would be anything but wholesome, least of all from Echo’s point of view.

The fat store, which Echo now visited more often because Ghoolion left the door open all the time, was steadily emptying. The Alchemaster kept hurrying upstairs with basketloads of balls of fat for processing in the laboratory. To Echo, the most terrible times of all were when he boiled up the sighs of the dying. It broke the little Crat’s heart to hear the sounds that then arose from the bubbling saucepans, but to Ghoolion’s ears they were the sweetest music, and he danced to it more and more ecstatically. The old alchemist had always got by on a minimum of sleep, but he now needed none at all. The more recklessly he squandered his energies, the more abundantly strength seemed to flow into him. He drove himself on with various beverages including coffee and tea, wine and bitter mineral water. Often, too, he brewed a black, treacly concoction which he drank greedily, only to work twice as hard thereafter. Echo had sniffed it once, and a mere whiff had made his heart race for hours. It smelt of eucalyptus and resin, ether and petroleum.

The Alchemaster scarcely noticed his prisoner any more. He plunked Echo’s meals down in front of him, usually tinned food or precooked stuff from the larder, and didn’t seem to care whether he ate it or not. This helped Echo to discipline himself and stick to his diet. Although he wasn’t quite down to his old, ideal weight, he had considerably improved his agility and staying power.

One night, as he was sitting on the roof and looking down at Malaisea just as the lights were coming on in the houses, he thought: ‘Those people have no inkling of the drama in progress up here. On the other hand, I have no inkling of the dramas in progress in their living rooms. People die every day and they all get buried in the Toadwoods. Where’s the sense in that?’

His eyes strayed to the forest itself, which looked from up above like a huge, sleeping beast. Somewhere in its depths a plump toad was lurking in a grave, waiting for him. ‘You’re in for a long wait!’ Echo called down from the roof. ‘I’m not going to wind up in the Toadwoods, nor in Ghoolion’s cellar! I’m going to the Blue Mountains and far beyond them!’

He shouted the words as loudly and confidently as he could, but his voice trembled all the same.

Green Smoke


One morning Echo saw a thin plume of green smoke rising into the air from Izanuela’s chimney. This was the prearranged signal that the day had come. He set off at once for Uggly Lane.

‘We can’t wait any longer,’ Izanuela told him as she strapped the little wineskin to his body. ‘Tomorrow is full moon. You must find an opportunity to slip the potion into his wine before the day is out. When you’ve done that, come back here and I’ll release you from the wineskin. And don’t get caught, my young friend, not by Ghoolion or anyone else!’

‘I feel sick,’ Echo said plaintively, ‘sick with fear. Don’t pull that strap so tight.’

‘How do you think I’m feeling?’ said Izanuela. ‘I didn’t sleep a wink all night, and sheer nerves made me eat a whole slab of Troglotroll cheese. What if Ghoolion sets eyes on me and the perfume doesn’t work?’

‘Now you tell me!’ said Echo. ‘You were so certain before.’

‘Nothing in life is certain, especially when you’re dealing with someone like Ghoolion. Oh dear, what have I let myself in for? We’ll both end up grilling on that barbecue of his.’ She waggled her ears nervously.

‘You really know how to buoy a person up,’ said Echo. ‘Hold yourself in readiness and don’t leave the house. I’ve no idea when I’ll be back. Possibly in an hour’s time, possibly not till tonight. If the worst happens, never.’

Echo left Uggly Lane and turned off down the next street. This time, on the spur of the moment, he decided to take a short cut. He was less likely to encounter any wild dogs on the longer route through the busier streets, but the wineskin was heavy and conspicuous - someone might take a fancy to it and try to catch him. That being so, he went by way of the backyards in Hospital Lane, where the stench of disease was so repulsive that few people cared to linger.

That this was a mistake did not dawn on Echo until he had turned into the alleyway adjoining Hospital Lane. He rounded the corner and there they were: the pack of wild dogs he’d harassed as a Leathermouse - all of them except the one that had run full tilt into a wall. Perhaps it had given up hunting little animals.

‘Look, boys,’ said the leader of the pack, a jet-black bull terrier as chunky as a blacksmith’s anvil. ‘Our meal has brought us the wine to go with it.’ The other three tykes yapped appreciatively.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Echo turned tail and sprinted back down Hospital Lane.

‘Come on,’ barked the black dog, ‘after him!’ And the whole pack set off in pursuit.

Echo felt as if the wineskin had ceased to exist. It amazed him how nimbly he could run and what good shape he was in. His training had clearly paid off. He no longer needed to pretend to be chased by wild dogs; he really was being chased by wild dogs.

The lane ran downhill. Echo went bounding along it, then paused for an instant and drew a deep breath. Vaulting over the kerb, a dustbin and a low wall, he disappeared into an overgrown garden. The dogs, who had been brought to a halt by the wall, milled around barking angrily. Then it occurred to them to look for another way in.

Echo looked around. He was in the hospital garden. Refuse bins brimming with bloodstained dressings were standing in the tall grass. A few patients were hobbling about on crutches. There! The hospital’s rear entrance. No use, locked. He was trapped.

The mongrels had found their way into the garden. They came crashing through the hedge and got caught up in some bramble bushes, which made them twice as furious. Echo heard human voices and a creaking sound. He looked back at the rear entrance. Two orderlies were carrying someone out on a stretcher. The door was wide open. Now was his chance!

A few vigorous strides took him out of the long grass and on to the gravel path. Keeping low, he darted under the stretcher, between the orderlies’ legs and into the hospital. In his Leathermouse guise he had found the smell that hit him thoroughly inviting; now it almost made him turn back and provide the dogs with a free meal. Blood, ether, iodine, ammonia … Nauseating! Heedless of the screams and groans issuing from the wards and threading his way between patients on crutches, Echo pressed on into the hospital.

The dogs continued to pursue their quarry. They knocked over the orderlies, together with the stretcher and its badly injured occupant, and rampaged along the corridors like a gang of noisy drunks. Patients hurled themselves aside in panic, a nurse shouted for help.

Following a powerful scent of blood, Echo went racing up some stairs with the dogs in hot pursuit. A patient hobbling towards them on a stick went flying. Just then, a door opened and a nurse came out. Echo stopped dead, then darted between her legs and into the big room beyond.

He had guessed correctly: it was the hospital’s operating theatre. He came to a halt. Even before any of the surgeons and nurses engaged on the current operation had time to notice him, pandemonium broke out.

The dogs upended the nurse in the doorway and stormed into the hospital’s holy of holies. Hadn’t they seen the notice on the door, which strictly forbade unauthorised persons to enter, or couldn’t they read? Echo grinned to himself.

Confronted by several surgeons with bloodstained scalpels and scissors in their hands, the dogs suddenly stopped barking. Before they could gauge the full extent of their mistake, orderlies armed with broomsticks came rushing in. One of them was even carrying a fire axe.

Echo took advantage of the tumult to slip between their legs and escape through the nearest door. He heard the dogs howling in pain as he scampered down a flight of stairs to the main entrance, which was wide open.

He went out into the street and looked down at his chest. The wineskin containing the love potion seemed to be intact. And so was Echo himself.

Red Wine


Ghoolion was in his laboratory. There were several old tomes lying open on the workbenches and he was consulting them all in turn. He bustled from one book to another, muttering arithmetical calculations and alchemical formulae. Echo watched him from the doorway without showing himself. The Alchemaster wasn’t drinking wine at present, but it would have been unusual for him to do so at this time of day.

Echo went off to a room Ghoolion seldom visited and lay down on the threadbare carpet. He would have to be patient and wait for a more opportune time. The Crat hunt had tired him out. He shut his eyes. A minute later he was asleep.

He dreamt that he himself was the Alchemaster’s castle and that all the Ugglies in Zamonia had moved into it in order to hold a curious celebration of some kind. They tore off their clothes and went cavorting along the passages, which were his own intestines, tickling the inside of his tummy with their dancing feet until he was awakened by his own laughter.

The sun was already low in the sky. ‘Oh dear,’ he thought, ‘I’ve slept through half a day’s worth of opportunities to slip the potion into his drink.’

He hurried back to the laboratory and peered in. It stank abominably of sulphur and phosphorus. Ghoolion was nowhere to be seen, but there beside an open book on a workbench stood a glass of red wine. It was half full.

What should he do? It was growing late and this might be his last chance of the day. Perhaps Ghoolion hadn’t liked the wine and wouldn’t touch it again. Where was he, anyway, and when would he return? In an hour? Any minute? A hundred questions raced through Echo’s mind. What would Izanuela do in his place? That was beside the point, though, it was up to him to decide. Why hadn’t she brewed enough of the potion for more than one attempt? Now it was all or nothing!

He jumped up on the workbench and circled the glass irresolutely. Was there anything wrong with the wine’s appearance? Not that he could see. He went closer and sniffed it. Hm, not bad. Or was it? He didn’t possess Ghoolion’s powers of discrimination, his nose or palate, his familiarity with the noble juice. This might be absolute rotgut or a superb vintage wine. He didn’t know.

He sat up on his haunches and rested his forepaws on the rim of the glass. They had practised this manoeuvre often enough. Right, now to remove the stopper from the wineskin with his teeth. Careful now … Pop! Done it!

The potent effect of the love potion caught Echo wholly unprepared. He’d forgotten all about it! The strangest sensation came over him. Must he really waste this precious nectar on an old bogeyman like Ghoolion? Out of the question! It was his alone!

His head swam. He swayed, the glass wobbled, the wine slopped to and fro. He came within an ace of falling over complete with the glass and the unstoppered wineskin, but he let go and came down on all fours. A drop or two of the precious fluid splashed the tablecloth.

‘That’s a good start,’ he thought. ‘I nearly botched the whole thing. Pull yourself together! This potion is for Ghoolion, nobody else.’

There! He could hear the Alchemaster’s clattering footsteps - he was coming up the stairs already! ‘Start again from scratch!’ he told himself. ‘Up on your haunches, one forepaw on the rim of the glass, the other on the wineskin. Now squeeze!’ A thin, arcing jet of clear liquid spurted into the glass.

‘But not all of it, surely?’ he thought. ‘Surely I’m allowed a taste? Just a taste?’

He put out his tongue and craned his neck. Instantly, everything went haywire again: Echo himself, the glass, the whole of their well-laid plan. He thrust himself away, and the last few drops of potion spurted into the air. The glass wobbled on its circular base, the wine sloshed against the rim. Then the glass came to rest in its original position.

Echo listened with a pounding heart. Ghoolion was just outside the door now. Mission accomplished! Only a little of the love potion had been wasted, but it was too late for him to beat a retreat. He mustn’t be seen with the wineskin strapped to his body, so he would have to hide somewhere in the laboratory itself. He jumped down off the table and darted over to a bookcase he knew Ghoolion seldom used. Squeezing between two thick tomes, he lay down flat in the space behind them. Then he cautiously peered through the crack between the books. The Alchemaster was just coming in - with a bottle of wine in his hand.

‘Damnation,’ thought Echo, ‘he didn’t like that wine. I knew it! He’s gone and fetched himself another bottle.’

Ghoolion went over to the wine glass. Held it up to the light of an Anguish Candle. Sniffed it.

‘Surely his sensitive snout won’t detect the love potion?’ Echo thought. ‘Please not!’

Ghoolion’s face betrayed no reaction of any kind. He put the glass down again. Held the bottle up to the light. Read the label. Put the bottle down beside the glass. And came straight over to the bookshelf where Echo was hiding.

‘He’s spotted me!’ thought Echo. He only just suppressed an urge to make a dash for it.

Ghoolion bent down, took hold of a thick book just in front of Echo’s hiding place and pulled it out. If he had bent a little lower, they would have been looking into each other’s eyes. But he turned away, browsing through the old encyclopedia.

In the hours that followed Ghoolion made no move either to drink the wine or to leave the laboratory. He checked the temperature of his bubbling cauldron with a thermometer several times, studied some slides under the microscope, walked up and down reciting numerical tables, and made notes. He also drank all kinds of beverages. Tea, water, coffee, his revolting slimy black concoction. But no wine.

The longer Echo persevered in his hiding place, the more exasperated he became. ‘Drink that confounded wine, you old devil!’ he felt like shouting. ‘You’re only doing all this to torment me. You know perfectly well I’m here.’

But he controlled himself with difficulty. He endured the disgusting stench Ghoolion created by boiling up his balls of fat. He endured the sighs of the dying, his uncomfortable position, his fear and uncertainty. An hour went by. Two hours. Three. Now he was having to fight off fatigue. The stifling atmosphere and his physical immobility were making him sleepy.

‘For goodness’ sake don’t go to sleep!’ he commanded himself. Nobody snored louder than a sleeping Crat.

There! Ghoolion was going over to the wine glass at last. He picked it up again and put it to his lips. Then he had a sudden idea. He put the glass down and hurried over to a blackboard. Quickly covered it with formulae. Wiped them out and scrawled some more in their place. Stepped back and submitted them to lengthy scrutiny. It was enough to drive anyone mad! Echo writhed with impatience in his hiding place.

Then Ghoolion walked briskly back to the wine glass. Picked it up. Put it to his lips. And drained it at a gulp!

Echo gave a delighted start and hit his head on the shelf above. A book fell over. Ghoolion pricked up his ears. His face registered no reaction to the love potion. He took a ball of fat and tossed it into a saucepan. Picked up a basket and hurried out to fetch some more supplies from the cellar.

With a groan, Echo scrambled stiffly out of his hiding place.

The Wedding Gown


Rather than risk another encounter with feral dogs, Echo returned by way of the busiest streets in Malaisea. A few passers-by stared uncomprehendingly at the empty wineskin strapped to his chest, but most were too preoccupied with themselves, their aches and pains, heartburns and gastric disorders, coughs and colds. Not for the first time, Echo realised how little he had missed these universally diseased surroundings.

When he reached Izanuela’s house he found the entrance to the cellar open. The usual weird music could be heard, but this time it had taken on a solemn, uplifting quality.

‘Down here!’ Izanuela called. ‘Come and kiss the bride!’

‘But no tongues!’ Echo insisted as he made his way down the stairs. ‘Good news! Mission accomplished! I managed to administer the love potion!’

‘I expected no less,’ she said. ‘Mind you, I haven’t been idle in the meantime.’

A long cord had been suspended below the roof of the subterranean garden, and draped over it like a curtain was a big length of red cloth. Izanuela had concealed herself behind this.

‘Just a moment,’ she trilled. ‘I’m nearly ready.’

‘Ready for what?’ Echo demanded. What had the demented creature dreamed up this time?

‘Twitchstik!’ she cried, and the Song of the Ugglian Oaks rose in a dramatic crescendo. The curtain was drawn aside and Izanuela stood revealed.

‘Tadaaa!’

She wasn’t dressed in her usual attire. Instead of her shabby old cloak she now wore a gown like none that Echo had ever seen before. It was completely woven out of flowers and other plants: red and black roses, white and yellow tulips, marguerites and poppies, pale-pink marbled carnations, flame-red orchids, blue violets and violet hyacinths, daisies and plum blossom, snowdrops and lilies, asters and bleeding heart, lavender and lotus blossom, deadly nightshade and eyebright. Also woven into the gown’s elaborate ornamentation were herbs, grasses and foliage: celandine and love grass, clover and cardamine, myrtle and melissa, oat grass and silver sage. On her head Izanuela wore a shady, broad-brimmed hat woven out of white waterlilies. Butterflies were fluttering round her and settling here and there to sip at a blossom. To Echo, it looked as if an entire meadow were advancing on him. She smelt like a day in springtime.

‘Well, what do you think?’ she demanded coquettishly, performing a pirouette that made the leaves rustle. ‘Is it worthy of the occasion? I originally intended to make my wedding dress out of red cabbage leaves, but cabbage smells so strong.’

Echo couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. She was still the same old Uggly underneath, admittedly, but she seemed transformed. She smelt better. Her movements were more majestic. She radiated a kind of inner beauty. The glorious flowers blinded the eye to all her shortcomings.

‘You’re a knockout,’ said Echo.

‘Thank you. And I still haven’t put any perfume on.’

‘You’ll bowl the old man over.’

‘How did he react to the love potion?’ she asked, patting her dress down.

‘Hard to say. He didn’t react at all, to be honest, but I scarcely had time to watch him. He drank it and left the room at once.’

‘The potion takes time to develop its full effect. An hour or so should do the trick.’

Izanuela proceeded to relieve Echo of the wineskin. ‘Was it difficult?’ she asked as she unbuckled the straps.

‘He took an age to drink the stuff,’ Echo replied, ‘but then he downed it in one.’

‘That’s good.’ She shivered ecstatically. ‘I’m so excited.’

‘It’s all gone swimmingly up to now.’ Echo stretched and yawned, glad to be rid of the cumbersome wineskin. ‘Still, we ought to be prepared for any eventuality. What if the potion doesn’t work?’

‘I’ve given the matter some thought,’ said Izanuela. ‘If Ghoolion doesn’t react to my appearance as we hope he will, I’ll simply tell him I’ve come to pay my respects. On the occasion of the … er, full moon. An old Ugglian custom which I’d like to revive, hence my ceremonial attire. Something along those lines. He can hardly grill me on his barbecue for that, can he?’

‘That would let you off the hook,’ said Echo. ‘Where would it leave me, though?’

‘Hm …’ she said. An awkward silence fell.

Her ‘Hm …’ hung in the air for a moment or two. Then she threw up her hands and cried, ‘No more dire imaginings, everything’s going to be fine! I only have to titivate myself a bit more and put on some perfume.’

She vanished behind the curtain, humming to herself like a beehive, while Echo waited patiently. Izanuela looked even more attractive when she reappeared. Her glossy lips were a dark shade of red, the worst of her warts had been masked by make-up and she was wearing a pair of long, silky eyelashes Echo had never seen before. Her cheeks were a healthy pink.

‘There,’ she said brightly, ‘now comes the finishing touch. The icing on the cake, so to speak!’

She took the flask of Cratmint perfume and dabbed a few drops on her cleavage.

Echo was suddenly overcome by a feeling of boundless affection for her. He wound round her legs the way he’d always wound round the clump of Cratmint on the roof, purring and miaowing with delight.

‘Off we go, then!’ she cried. ‘Let’s storm Ghoolion’s castle!’

The unusual spectacle presented by the strange pair created quite a stir in the streets of Malaisea. The crowds of gawping, uncomprehending pedestrians grew steadily thicker as they walked down Apothecary Avenue, but Izanuela refused to quicken her pace and strode on with head erect. Unlike Echo, she seemed to be enjoying the attention.

‘Take no notice of them, my friend,’ she said. ‘They’re nothing but ignorant boors.’

No one ventured to follow them up the lane to the castle.

‘They’re gutless, too,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Heavens,’ she went on, clutching her bosom, ‘my heart’s in my mouth.’

They didn’t stop till they reached the castle entrance. Izanuela gazed up at the building, which looked even more dilapidated at close range than from a distance.

‘Where do you think he is?’ she asked.

‘Ghoolion? In his laboratory, at a guess,’ Echo replied.

‘Then let’s get it over.’ Izanuela’s throat was so dry that she could only utter the words in a hoarse croak.

The Proposal


All the pride and self-assurance Izanuela had displayed in the streets of Malaisea swiftly evaporated in the atmosphere of the castle. She climbed the stairs on trembling legs and stared fearfully at the stuffed mummies like a little girl on her first ride in a ghost train. Sweat streamed down her cheeks, dissolving her make-up and washing it into her cleavage.

Halfway up the stairs she stopped abruptly.

‘I can’t,’ she wailed. ‘I can’t go through with it.’

‘Come on,’ Echo said encouragingly, ‘we’ve got this far.’

‘But I’m scared.’

Echo thought feverishly. How could he reassure her?

‘What score would you give your fear on a scale of one to ten?’ he asked.

‘A hundred. No, a thousand. No, a million. No, a hundred million.’ She was breathing heavily.

He wouldn’t get anywhere like that this time, he could tell. ‘Come on,’ he said again. ‘We’ll make it. You look ravishing.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I can understand why you’re bound to believe that, it’s your only hope. But I don’t have to do this. I need only go back home and everything will be the way it was.’

‘But you’ve got Plan B in case things go wrong. You simply spin him that yarn about an old Ugglian custom and make yourself scarce.’

‘It’s nothing to do with that. You think I’m scared of Ghoolion or those gruesome figures there? Bah!’ She made a dismissive gesture.

‘What do you mean?’

She gave him a long look of genuine despair. There were tears in her eyes.

‘It’s myself I’m afraid of,’ she said in a trembling voice.

‘You’re talking in riddles. This isn’t the time.’

Echo was bewildered. She infuriated him, yet he felt sorry for her.

‘I’ve only just realised,’ she went on. ‘It’s like my acrophobia on the roof, don’t you understand? This isn’t just your last chance, it’s mine as well.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Do you know how old I am? No, you don’t, thank goodness, and I’m not going to tell you. Nor am I going to tell you how many chances of romance I’ve ruined in my lifetime. There’s only one certainty: this is the last.’

She wiped away her tears.

‘This time I’m staking all I possess: the love potion, the perfume, this gown, myself. If I fail to conquer a man’s heart this time, I shall never pluck up the courage to try again.’

Echo was beginning to understand.

‘If I go home now,’ Izanuela whispered, ‘at least I can always tell myself I might have succeeded. Surely that’s better than the bitter certainty of failure?’

‘I can’t judge,’ said Echo. ‘I don’t have the experience. I’ve never ruined a chance of romance because I’ve never had one.’

A long, melancholy silence ensued.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘let me wear the perfume. Just tip it over my fur and push off. I’ll risk it.’

‘You know that won’t work, he’ll be twice as anxious to keep you at his side. And when the effect of the perfume wears off, tsssk!’ She drew a long fingernail across her throat.

Another awkward silence.

‘Very well,’ she sighed at last. Her bulky frame came to life with a jerk that made her leafy gown rustle. ‘I’ll do it, but don’t imagine I’ll lift a finger to help you if it all goes pear-shaped.’ She went stomping up the stairs with Echo at her heels.

When they got to the laboratory he cautiously peered inside. The cauldron of fat was bubbling away. No sign of Ghoolion, though.

Izanuela peeped round the corner.

‘Oh, he isn’t here!’ she exclaimed in relief. ‘Too bad. Come on, let’s go.’

‘Not on your life, we’ll wait. He’s bound to be fetching some more balls of fat from the cellar. He’ll be back any minute.’

Echo went into the laboratory and Izanuela reluctantly followed him.

‘Where do you think I should stand?’ she asked. ‘Where would I look my best?’

‘Stand beside the window. The smells aren’t as bad over there, so they won’t overwhelm the perfume.’

Izanuela went over to the window and carried out some running repairs. She mopped her sweaty face and applied some more rouge. Then she took out the flask of Cratmint perfume and sprinkled herself liberally with it.

‘Just to be on the safe side,’ she said with a nervous laugh.

‘You’re being very extravagant with that stuff,’ said Echo. ‘What’ll you do when it’s all used up?’

‘It’ll last for a while yet. Meantime, I’m hoping to obtain some more Cratmint. I’ve already asked my colleagues to keep their eyes open.’

Echo pricked his ears. ‘I can hear him coming. He’s halfway up the stairs.’

Izanuela tweaked her gown straight.

‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘When should I ask him to let you go?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Echo replied. ‘Let’s wait and see what he does. We don’t want to rush things before we’re absolutely sure you can twist him round your little finger.’

Ghoolion’s metallic tread could be heard in the passage.

‘There he is!’ Echo whispered. ‘Now for the moment of truth.’

The Alchemaster appeared in the doorway. And froze.

‘Er, good evening, Sir Alchemaster,’ Izanuela blurted out. ‘Please forgive me for barging in here uninvited, but it’s an ancient Ugglian custom which has fallen into disuse, and I’d very much like to revive it. That’s to say, it’s not an ancient Ugglian custom to barge in uninvited, but to call at the castle on the eve of the full moon and pay our respects to the Alchemaster in ceremonial attire. Hence this floral gown of mine.’

It looked for one moment as if she were about to faint. The Alchemaster stood there transfixed, staring at her like a snake mesmerising a rabbit. He didn’t spare so much as a glance for Echo. As if towed across the laboratory on a string, he walked slowly, very slowly, over to Izanuela, who was swaying unsteadily beside the window. To Echo, those few seconds seemed longer than all the hours he’d endured in the bookcase. Ghoolion came to a halt just short of the Uggly, gazing at her with an expression Echo dared not interpret. Then he fell to his knees, bowed his head and whispered: ‘Will you marry me?’

‘Yes,’ Izanuela whispered back. So saying, she lost consciousness and subsided into the Alchemaster’s outstretched arms.