The Alchemaster's Apprentice

Revolution


The Alchemaster was looking dumbfounded. Echo could see his astonished face through the Cooked Ghost’s transparent, wavering form. Ghoolion involuntarily recoiled a few steps but retained his hold on the scalpel.

Echo’s heart leapt for joy. The Cooked Ghost had come to his rescue! Or had it? Whatever the truth, he was filled with new hope by the realisation that he was no longer facing the Alchemaster all on his own. But what could this insubstantial being achieve in a world where physical intervention was denied it?

‘What’s the Cooked Ghost doing here?’ Ghoolion demanded irritably. ‘I thought it had disappeared long ago.’

Malaisea was being stabbed from the clouds by dazzling shafts of lightning, thunder was rumbling around the laboratory and rain lashing in through the windows. Unimpressed by all this, the uninvited guest was hovering a hand’s breadth above the floor with wavelets of light rippling through it. The Cooked Ghost reminded Echo of a flag fluttering in a breeze.

Ghoolion quickly recovered from his shock. ‘Well,’ he said loudly, ‘whatever you’re doing here, you’ve chosen the wrong time and place. We’re busy, so push off!’

Then he laughed and smote his brow with the flat of his hand. ‘What am I doing, talking to a thing that can neither hear nor speak?’

He took a step towards the ghost and flapped his hands.

‘Shoo!’ he cried. ‘Be off with you!’

But the ghost didn’t budge. It continued to hover protectively in front of Echo.

Ghoolion hesitated. Then he put his hands on his hips and turned to Echo with a broad grin.

‘So you’ve forged yet another friendship behind my back, have you? First Izanuela, now a Cooked Ghost? A lovesick Uggly and a hoary old alchemistic conjuring trick? What powerful allies you’ve chosen!’

Echo deemed it wiser not to reply. Ghoolion took another vigorous step forwards - and the ghost moved too. However, instead of retreating as the Alchemaster had intended, it came straight for him and expanded to twice its original size. Simultaneously, it displayed the fearsome countenance Echo had glimpsed more than once, except that this time it was so big and awe-inspiring that it occupied almost all of the ghost’s expanse. Its effect was not lost on Ghoolion, who staggered backwards with his hands in front of his face. The sight was almost unendurable, even for an Alchemaster.

For several seconds they both stood their ground like actors in some theatre of the absurd. The thunderstorm had receded, but rain was still hissing down outside the windows. At length the ghost’s face gradually faded and it shrank to its original dimensions.

Echo’s heart sank once more. Was that the most this harmless ghost could do in the world of the living, give someone a fright? That would never be enough to deter the Alchemaster from putting his plans into effect.

‘Well, I’m damned!’ Ghoolion said, chuckling. ‘That was impressive. Congratulations, you really put the wind up me!’ He clutched his chest. ‘Phew, you belong in a chamber of horrors.’

Echo was surprised to see a flickering glow appear behind Ghoolion’s back. Faint at first, it grew steadily brighter until Ghoolion himself became aware of it. He uttered a sharp cry, dropped the scalpel and leapt in the air. His cloak was ablaze! He cursed and yelled and tried to tear it off, but he became entangled in it and his frantic contortions only fanned the flames.

Echo now saw how it had happened. The Cooked Ghost had manoeuvred Ghoolion to a spot in the laboratory where half a dozen Anguish Candles had crawled on top of one another, waiting to set his cloak on fire.

Suddenly, more fires flared up all over the laboratory. The Anguish Candles ignited bundles of parchments and tinder-dry books, a birchwood besom and a stack of old firewood. They clustered around a glass retort filled with alcohol until their combined heat cracked it. The spirit escaped and caught fire. A wide, blazing stream of it flowed across the workbench and engulfed several jars containing Leyden Manikins, which promptly exploded.

One exceptionally heroic Anguish Candle leapt off a shelf into a tub of powdered sulphur, which sent up a tall jet of flame and ignited the taxidermal specimen of a twin-tailed Crocodiddle mounted on the ceiling.

Echo skipped excitedly to and fro on the end of his chain. Chaos, panic - a palace revolution! Great! Some of the smallest of Ghoolion’s victims were rising in revolt, spurred on by the Cooked Ghost, which fluttered overhead like a rebel flag in a gale. The Alchemaster hadn’t expected this for a moment. Scores were being settled here. He was paying for all his cruelty to the Anguish Candles, and they were showing their gratitude to Echo for having put some of them out of their misery. Hadn’t Ghoolion himself said that the greatest solutions should be sought in the smallest of objects?

The liberated Leyden Manikins also joined in. They knocked over jars and retorts whose liquid and powdered contents ignited or exploded. They opened valves and released gases that turned into hissing jets of flame as soon as they came into contact with the general conflagration. Splinters of glass went flying through the air, which was thick with coloured fumes and stank of sulphur. The hisses and bangs were reminiscent of a firework display. This was a coup d’état, an insurrection! And in the midst of it all, on fire, dancing around and crying blue murder, was the Alchemaster. He eventually dashed out of the room like a living torch.

Echo couldn’t help coughing and sneezing all at once. Smouldering immediately beside the alchemical furnace was some red powder whose fumes were almost asphyxiating him. He tugged vainly at his chain, realising only now how dangerous his own predicament was. The entire laboratory was likely to go up in flames and turn into a blazing inferno. It would be only a matter of a few seconds before some even more dangerous substances ignited: phosphorus, petroleum and gunpowder, a mixture capable of sending the whole castle sky-high. Resin from the smouldering Crocodiddle on the ceiling was dripping on Echo’s head.

And then Ghoolion returned, smoking like an extinguished bonfire. His face was black with soot. He had divested himself of the remains of his cloak and armed himself instead with a sodden blanket. Eyes glinting murderously, he used this to belabour any object that was burning or smouldering.

‘Take that! And that!’ he yelled as he brought the blanket whistling down on the smaller fires. ‘And that! And that!’ He worked his way methodically across the laboratory, extinguishing one after another. Then he flung the coal-black blanket aside, seized a shovel, and smothered the bigger flames with sand from a fire bucket. The blazing sulphur barrel he simply hurled out of the window, the Crocodiddle he knocked off the ceiling and disposed of likewise.

‘Now for you lot,’ he said, meaning the Anguish Candles and the Leyden Manikins. He proceeded to hunt them down, mercilessly smashing one little creature after another with his shovel or trampling them beneath his iron-soled boots. ‘There, take that, you confounded rabble!’ He dispatched every last one. All that remained of them were motionless splodges of wax or little mounds of peat from the Graveyard Marshes of Dullsgard, the Leyden Manikins’ principal ingredient.

In the end he stood panting in the midst of a battlefield of debris and splintered glass from which plumes of grey, black and poisonous yellow smoke were rising. He looked around. The laboratory was badly damaged but not completely wrecked. The Alchemaster had quelled the rebellion with a sodden blanket and a shovel.

‘You!’ he bellowed, his voice shaking with anger. He aimed his forefinger at the Cooked Ghost, which was still fluttering overhead. ‘Now it’s your turn!’

He flung the shovel at it like a spear, but it darted aside and the shovel crashed into a shelf laden with test tubes.

‘You!’ Ghoolion yelled again, and he went for the Cooked Ghost with his bare hands. To Echo, the Alchemaster’s malign energy, boundless fury and thirst for revenge were almost physically palpable. The Cooked Ghost flinched away as if Ghoolion had struck it with a whip. Then it flew round him in a wide arc and soared up to the ceiling, where it hovered for a moment, trembling. Finally, it swooped down and dived into the bubbling cauldron of fat from which it had once arisen. It did not reappear.

A Temporary Reprieve


Echo’s execution was temporarily postponed. Ghoolion proceeded to restore order in the laboratory, substitute more instruments and chemicals for the ones that had been destroyed, repair the damaged tubes and piping, and remix the spilt liquids. His victim’s reprieve lasted for some hours. Meanwhile, the thunderstorm had moved on, to be replaced by a cheerless, continuous downpour.

The Alchemaster did not address a single word to Echo. All that needed to be said between them had been said. The ceremonial atmosphere Ghoolion had conjured up was no more; that, at least, rebellion had dispelled. The old man was in a black mood. He grumbled and swore as he carried out his laborious repairs. Echo refrained from making any remarks that might darken his mood still more. He crouched beside the alchemical furnace and awaited developments. What else could he do?

Ghoolion eventually rekindled the stove, which had gone out, and reheated the cauldron. It was growing steadily darker, so he lit some candles - ordinary ones this time. His pathological delight in tormenting Anguish Candles was a thing of the past.

‘There,’ he said when he had completed his running repairs. ‘Order has been restored. Those little brutes almost robbed me of the fruits of all my labours. One should never turn one’s back on anyone!’ So saying, he left the room.

Echo was feeling really frightened now. His temporary reprieve was over and the laboratory back in action. The full moon was shining brightly in the sky, which had cleared. The irrevocable moment had come. All his trumps had been played and none had proved effective. All his friends and allies had either fled or bitten the dust. He could expect no more help from any quarter.

Ghoolion returned. Every inch the Prince of Darkness, he had washed off the soot and put on his ceremonial red velvet robe and hat of ravens’ feathers. He gave the coals beneath the cauldron a poke and went over to Floria’s corpse.

‘This time it will work, my beloved.’ He whispered the words as if speaking to a living person. ‘By shedding Echo’s blood I shall renew your own. Until now I was just a puppet on life’s stage like any other, but from this night onward I shall help to rewrite the book of destiny. I and the universe will meet on equal terms, and Death will be no more than a cur that comes to heel when I whistle.’

He hurried over to the Ghoolionic Preserver and opened all the valves. ‘Combine, you juices and acids, fats and lyes!’ he cried. ‘Let the dance of the elements begin! Before long, my spirit will flow into you and reign supreme!’

The liquids in the piston chambers and glass retorts began to seethe once more, and the more violently the chemicals boiled and bubbled, the more intoxicated Ghoolion became. He went over to a table, took a ball of fat from a receptacle and tossed it into the cauldron.

‘Toad fat!’ he cried in triumph as it melted. ‘The penultimate ingredient. All that’s missing now is the fat of a Crat.’

The laboratory was pervaded by the giant toad’s unmistakable odour. Echo gagged despite himself.

‘It would be nice to see you again,’ the old amphibian had called after him.

‘So this is the form our reunion has taken,’ thought Echo. The toad was just a smell, an invisible effluvium. He felt guilty for having drawn Ghoolion’s attention to the unfortunate creature. He could still see it in his mind’s eye, wedged tightly into its grave below ground.

Quit your home in Death’s domain,

realm of sorrow and of pain,

hasten through the nameless portals

that divide the dead from mortals …



Why had those lines occurred to him at this particular moment? The nameless portals … Were they the toad’s grave? A still unoccupied, anonymous grave … What better division between the dead and the living than a grave? There was some element in the smell of the toad, something emanating from the cauldron of fat, that was prompting him to recite those lines.

‘Quit your home in Death’s domain …’ Echo declaimed loudly.

‘What?’ said Ghoolion.

‘… realm of sorrow and of pain …’ Echo went on.

‘Why are you reciting those lines?’ The Alchemaster looked mystified. The cauldron’s contents had suddenly begun to seethe more fiercely than before. Bubbles of fat were rising to the surface and bursting with a series of explosive pops. The smell of the toad grew stronger and stronger.

‘… hasten through the nameless portals,’ cried Echo, ‘that divide the dead from mortals!’

There was a loud rumbling sound from inside the cauldron. The brew bubbled up and boiled over the lip. It streamed down the vessel’s blackened sides and into the flames below, hissing loudly. Echo had never seen this happen before. Neither had Ghoolion, it seemed, because he dashed over to the cauldron and circled it with a look of alarm.

‘What’s going on here?’ he yelled. ‘Substances are going to waste! Precious substances!’

‘Zamonium and Spiderfat, oil of toad and graveyard peat!’ Echo improvised.

‘Hold your tongue!’ snarled Ghoolion. He tore off his hat and hurled it at the floor. ‘You’ll spoil everything!’

‘Quit the cauldron and arise,’ Echo declaimed at the top of his voice. ‘Don once more your former guise!’

‘Stop it at once!’ Ghoolion bellowed. ‘Not another word or I’ll slit your throat!’ He retrieved the scalpel but hovered irresolutely between Echo and the cauldron, too alarmed by what was going on inside it to act on his threat right away.

‘Leave your world and enter mine!’ cried Echo, undaunted. ‘It henceforward shall be thine!’

More and more of the brew was flowing over the rim of the cauldron. It changed colour several times, giving off iridescent bubbles that drifted across the laboratory as they had when the Cooked Ghost materialised.

‘It’ll all be ruined!’ Ghoolion screamed, dancing desperately round the cauldron. ‘All of it!’

The brew bubbled up more fiercely still. There was a rumble like the eruption of a submarine volcano and every glass vessel in the laboratory started to rattle. The whole room vibrated, small objects danced across the workbenches in time to the tremors and a book fell off a shelf. The air was rent by a shrill, high-pitched note that hurt Echo’s ears. Somewhere in the room, he realised suddenly, a channel connecting the laboratory to another world was opening up. Visitors from the hereafter were announcing their presence.

And then the Cooked Ghost arose from the foaming brew, brighter than ever before. It did not have to detach itself from the surface with an effort, as it had the first time, but simply turned into a wisp of luminous vapour and floated across the laboratory. Following it just as effortlessly came another equally luminous ghost. And another. And another. And another.

Ghoolion shrank away from the cauldron, which continued to disgorge a succession of shimmering forms. They congregated on the ceiling and encircled the laboratory like a dome of ghostly light.

‘What have you done?’ the Alchemaster demanded in a trembling voice.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Echo replied.

The Demons


The contents of the cauldron had subsided. The variety of smells that filled the laboratory was exceptional, even for surroundings like these. Although Echo was completely unacquainted with them, he could identify every one.

‘I smell Cralamander,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And Snowswallow. And Voltigork. Ubufant and Zamingo, too.’

‘You’re right,’ Ghoolion whispered. He was gazing gravely up at the strange aerial procession circling below the ceiling. ‘I can also smell the many other creatures I’ve rendered down. They’ve returned as ghosts the same way they left: via the cauldron.’

‘What are they doing here?’

‘I don’t know. I only know they can’t hurt me.’

‘Then why are you trembling?’

Ghoolion didn’t answer. Echo continued to enumerate the smells in the air: ‘A Platinum-Tongued Adder. An Ursine Muskrat. A Ferric Eagle. A Bicephalous Hukkan. A Zinoceros. A Yagg.’

‘Be quiet!’ Ghoolion hissed. Echo fell silent.

One of the Cooked Ghosts detached itself from the rest. It went spinning down like a sycamore leaf and did a sudden nosedive into the stuffed Nanofox that had scared Echo so much on his first visit to the laboratory. The fox glowed brightly and crackled like an alchemical battery. Then the ghost emerged from the stuffed animal and rejoined its circling companions.

‘What was that?’ Echo whispered. ‘Why did it do that?’

Ghoolion’s gaze was riveted on the ceiling. ‘No idea. Stop asking silly questions.’

The ghosts began to circle so fast that it made Echo dizzy just to watch their gyrations. At length they peeled off, one after another, and flew out into the passage. The Crat and the Alchemaster were alone together once more.

Ghoolion rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m going to find out what’s up,’ he said. ‘I trust they don’t intend to move in. My castle isn’t a dovecot for Cooked Ghosts.’ He gathered his cloak around him and hurried after the luminous apparitions.

What struck Echo as almost more astonishing than the recent course of events was the fact that he was all alone in the laboratory once more. He should really have been dead by now - rendered down into a ball of fat. He tugged at his chain, but it was as immovable as ever. What now? He pricked his ears and listened. Ghoolion’s clattering footsteps had died away. Nothing could be heard but the monotonous hiss of the rain.

No, wait, there was something else! Echo cocked his head and listened more intently. It wasn’t outside in the passage, it was here in the laboratory. Where had he heard that crackling sound before? When the Cooked Ghost nosedived into the stuffed fox. He looked over at it - and the fur on the back of his neck stood on end!

The creature was stirring. Slowly at first, it turned its head with a sound like gravel crunching beneath someone’s feet. The glow in its eyes intensified, then faded, but its brush was waving gently. It closed its gaping jaws and lifted its left forefoot from the base on which it had been mounted. An electrical crackle ran through its fur, which gave off sparks. Then it leapt down and landed in the middle of the laboratory.

‘This is too much,’ thought Echo. ‘Any more of it and I’ll pass out.’

The creature took three or four steps and came to a halt, sniffing the air. Having conducted an appraisal of all the strange scents in the room and homed in on the most interesting, it turned its head in Echo’s direction, bared its teeth and emitted a low growl.

‘Steady!’ Echo said involuntarily. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

But the fox displayed no interest in conversation. It slunk slowly closer, eyes aglow with a ghostly light and saliva dripping from its chops. Whatever had brought it to life had also filled it with murderous intent.

Echo strained in all directions, but the chain brought him up short every time. ‘I haven’t survived until now, only to be torn to pieces by a canine of the lowest order,’ it flashed through his head. ‘Not here! Not at this stage!’

Now only a few feet away, the fox was getting ready to pounce. It flexed its hind legs and bared its teeth still more. Its eyes had narrowed to slits.

Echo arched his back, lifted his tail and fluffed it out. He bared his teeth likewise and contorted his features into a mask of grim determination, looking twice his actual size. Then he hissed as loudly as he could.

Deterred by this sight, the fox uttered a terrified yelp and shot out of the door like a streak of red lightning. Echo relaxed, but only for a moment.

There, Ghoolion’s metallic footsteps were approaching once more! Echo could also hear other, unidentifiable sounds. Strange and alarming noises that might have been made by dangerous wild beasts.

Ghoolion burst in. ‘Quick!’ he said, more to himself than his prisoner. ‘We must hurry!’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Echo, skipping excitedly to and fro. ‘That fox the ghost dived into came to life.’

‘Only the fox?’ Ghoolion said breathlessly as he hurried across the room. ‘You’ve no idea what a can of worms you’ve opened!’

The Alchemaster darted over to the only wall in the laboratory not lined with shelves. He pressed some of the black stones and the masonry began to move as it had in the case of his golden treasure chamber.

‘The ghosts can’t achieve anything in the world of the living,’ said Ghoolion, who was now hurrying over to Echo, ‘but they evidently can in the world of the dead. They’re roaming all over the castle, awakening one mummy after another.’

‘You mean they’re bringing all your stuffed demons to life?’ Echo became more agitated still.

‘Yes, it’s enough if one ghost enters them. Sometimes two or three do, but they all wake up, and each of the creatures I stuffed has designs on my life!’

Echo didn’t know what to make of the situation. Ghoolion was frightened. That was good. Woodwolves and Hazelwitches were roaming around the castle. That wasn’t so good.

The Alchemaster opened the door of the alchemical furnace.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ Echo demanded.

‘You may not believe me,’ said Ghoolion, picking him up, ‘but I’m not running away, I’m saving your life - temporarily. I refuse to be beaten so easily.’ And he thrust Echo into the cold furnace. ‘Hide in there and keep as quiet as you can.’ He closed the furnace door as tightly as the chain permitted.

‘Why not unchain me and take me with you?’ Echo asked anxiously through the bars. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I alone can do what I have in mind,’ Ghoolion said. ‘Just keep still and nothing may happen to you. And pray that I succeed.’

He went back to the wall, which had opened to reveal a small chamber.

‘What’s that little room,’ Echo asked, ‘a hiding place?’

‘It isn’t a room,’ Ghoolion replied, ‘it’s a lift. Wish me luck!’

The stones began to close up again. It looked as if the Alchemaster were being walled up alive by some unseen agency. Then he disappeared from view.

Echo crouched down on the floor of the alchemical furnace, which stank of cold ashes, sulphur and phosphorus. He dreaded to think of all the creatures Ghoolion had burnt alive in there. Tensely, he peered into the laboratory through the bars.

The room was suddenly bathed in light. A whole flock of ghosts had come flying in, casting a silvery glow over everything in sight. Having made a few circuits of the ceiling, they proceeded to dive into the cauldron one by one.

‘Snowswallow,’ thought Echo. ‘Voltigork. Ubufant. Zamingo. Cralamander …’ There they went, back to their ‘home in Death’s domain’.

In the end only one was left: his taciturn friend the Cooked Ghost. It slowly revolved in the air as if looking for someone. Then, with a final flash of light, it dived into the cauldron and disappeared.

‘Good luck,’ Echo said under his breath and strained his ears again. He wished he had bidden the Cooked Ghost a less cursory farewell, but the menacing noises - the panting and growling, hissing and whispering - had now become so loud that he had other concerns. He listened with bated breath.

Then in they came. In the lead was a hunchbacked Hazelwitch with limbs of gnarled timber and a costume of green leaves. Her long wooden fingers were clasped together and her yellowish tongue kept darting in and out of her mouth like a snake’s.

The Corn Demon that glided in after her seemed to consist of nothing but a mouldering shroud. A dark hole yawned in its cowl where a face should have been and it made a sound reminiscent of the gusts of wind that sometimes moaned in the castle chimneys.

The next figure to appear was entirely swathed in a winding sheet. A Cyclopean Mummy, it smelt so abominable that Echo shrank away from the bars. Its movements were slow, like those of a sleepwalker, but Cyclopean Mummies were said to possess immense physical strength. They were further reputed to break every bone in their victims’ bodies and watch them as they slowly expired.

A Grim Reaper entered the laboratory. The bald head protruding from its grey robe gleamed in the candlelight, and Echo couldn’t have said whether the horrific visage beneath it was a mask or its actual face.

Accompanying it was a Woodwolf, one of the most dangerous creatures to be found in the Zamonian outback. It walked beside the Reaper on all fours with resin dripping from its jaws. The Woodwolf was the source of the intimidating growls Echo had heard.

Last of all came a Golden Gondrag. An amphibious creature from the Graveyard Marshes, with golden scales and ice-green, saurian eyes, it left a long trail of slime behind it.

These creatures had terrified Echo even when dead. Now his fears were truly justified. Having come to tear the Alchemaster to pieces with their claws and fangs, throttle him with their tentacles, poison him with their lethal breath and send him to his death in every conceivable manner, they now found the laboratory deserted. Furiously, they proceeded to look for their quarry. They overturned tables and workbenches, hurled bookshelves to the floor and rummaged in cupboards, but all to no avail. The longer they searched, the more enraged they became.

Crawling on his belly and taking care not to rattle his chain, Echo retreated as far as he could. The floor at the back of the alchemical furnace was littered with charred bones and teeth, but he didn’t care. It would be only a matter of time before they opened the furnace door and discovered him.

At least he didn’t have to see the frightful creatures any more, but he could still hear them only too distinctly. The sounds they made were not of this world - they were the stuff of nightmares. Snarls alternated with hoarse giggles and menacing grunts. When two of them bumped into each other, as they did from time to time, they exchanged indignant hisses and growls. Echo couldn’t imagine what they would sound like if they really came to blows.

He wondered how Ghoolion proposed to deal with half a dozen of the most vicious creatures in Zamonia, not to mention all the others that must still be roaming the castle. Impossible! The Alchemaster had probably lied to him and made good his escape long ago, leaving him as bait for these brutes. He was duplicitous enough to have played such a rotten trick.

Something was scratching the metal side of the alchemical furnace. The twiglike fingers of the Hazelwitch? The Woodwolf’s claws? There, something was tugging at his chain! They had discovered him!

Echo braced all four paws against the unknown force that was dragging him towards the door of the furnace by the chain round his neck, but it was no use, he kept sliding further forward. The grille was opened, candlelight flooded in, and he found himself looking into the Corn Demon’s empty cowl: a gaping black hole. The creature breathed on him and the putrid but icy gust of air almost robbed him of his senses.

‘It’s all over,’ he thought.

The Corn Demon exhaled a second time, enveloping him in a smell of ether as cold as the grave. Echo’s legs buckled.

He felt not only dizzy but as weary as he had after his wild fandango and drinking bout with Ghoolion.

‘I want to go to sleep,’ he thought. ‘Just to go to sleep at last.’

The Corn Demon drew a deep breath and prepared to expel its third, and final, death-dealing blast of air.

Suddenly, pandemonium broke out. High-pitched screams in the passage outside mingled with growls and snarls from the creatures in the laboratory itself. The Corn Demon turned away, restoring Echo’s view of the room. Hazelwitch, Woodwolf, Grim Reaper and Golden Gondrag - all were staring in the direction of the door.

More despairing cries rang out. Cries of mortal agony? If so, whose? Who was dying, who was doing the killing? Echo ventured to poke his head out of the furnace. The demons had lost interest in him in any case.

Their attention was no longer focused on him or the absent Ghoolion, but on the being that had suddenly, as if by magic, come drifting across the threshold. It was the Snow-White Widow.

The Dance of Death


Echo flattened himself on the floor of the furnace. Ghoolion had unleashed the Snow-White Widow and she was now, at his behest, hunting the demons down. Having slaughtered one after another, she had come here to complete her work. But where was the Alchemaster?

Eager to see what would happen, Echo plucked up the courage to peer cautiously through the bars. Had as many dangerous creatures ever been assembled in one room before? He doubted it. It must be a record and he was in their midst!

The Snow-White Widow seemed to be enjoying the attention she was attracting. She performed a coquettish pirouette that sent her white hair flying. She danced up and down in the doorway, first to the left, then to the right, then back again. Pulsating like a jellyfish, she rose into the air and drifted, light as a cloud of vapour, to the middle of the laboratory.

‘How sure of herself she must be, to venture into the midst of these demons,’ Echo thought. What had Ghoolion said of her?

‘If she stings you, you’re done for. There’s no antidote to her venom because she changes it daily. As for its effects on your body, they’re unique in the annals of toxicology. Death at the hands of the Snow-White Widow is the loveliest and most terrible, most pleasurable and painful death of all. She’s the Queen of Fear.’

The Queen of Fear … Even the demons seemed to sense her majestic self-assurance, because they preserved a respectful distance from her. Like Echo, they were mesmerised by the sinister beauty of her dancing - by the motions of a unique creature that appeared to be exempt from the laws of nature. It was as if the laboratory were filled with some invisible fluid in which she floated up and down. Her white tresses bunched together or dispersed, formed a dense curtain or separated into thousands of individual strands that rippled in all directions.

It was the Woodwolf that broke the spell. Wanting to know what a Snow-White Widow tasted like, the savage but stupid beast leapt at her. Its progress through the air was abruptly halted. The Snow-White Widow got to the Woodwolf before the Woodwolf could get to her. Before it knew what was happening, she had encircled its throat and jaws with her hair and perforated its body with hundreds of stings. That done, she floated majestically back to the middle of the room. The whole thing had taken only a heartbeat or two.

The Woodwolf rose on its hind legs as if to prove that it was master of the situation, apparently believing that it had withstood the attack. But its movements were clumsy and it tripped over its own feet. It clung to the edge of a table, fighting for breath. The other demons watched it spellbound.

The creature doubled up in agony, uttering howls that would have melted a heart of stone. The howls changed to groans of pleasure and its eyes filled with tears. Again it doubled up, with green froth oozing from its jaws. It gazed around with a bewildered, helpless expression, trembling all over. The leaves that clothed it from head to foot turned slate-grey and some fell off. It doubled up and groaned yet again, shaken by violent convulsions and howling like a whipped cur. Its leaves lost their last vestiges of colour and turned white. They fell off one by one, covering the floor of the laboratory like snowflakes. All that now remained of the huge predator was a bare skeleton with grey organs pumping and pulsating away inside it. Then it subsided on to its knees with a faint sound like ice splintering in the distance. Its bones and organs disintegrated into white flakes until nothing was left of it but a mound of what looked like freshly fallen snow.

The Golden Gondrag, which was nearest the door, was the first to attempt to escape, but the Snow-White Widow was seated on its back almost before it had taken a step. Wrapping her strands of hair round its limbs like an octopus capturing its prey, she bore it up to just below the ceiling. There she constricted the creature to such an extent that its body bent like a bow and its spine snapped with a horrific sound. The Gondrag screamed at the top of its voice, whereupon the Snow-White Widow simply released her grip and let it fall to the floor in a twitching heap. Then she floated slowly down and performed a graceful dance on her victim’s body, whirling on the spot and impaling it at every step with the venom-laden tips of her hair. Finally, light as thistledown, she resumed her place in the middle of the laboratory.

The Gondrag could now move nothing but its arms. It waved them convulsively and uttered falsetto screams. Its scaly skin dulled, becoming pale yellow, then grey and white. Before long nothing was left of it, too, but a skeleton that swiftly disintegrated into flakes.

The Corn Demon was next in line. The Snow-White Widow cut off its retreat in a flash, dived through the hole in its cowl - and disappeared. This was the Snow-White Widow’s most astonishing feat to date, and the remaining demons made noises expressive of consternation.

Now it was the Corn Demon’s turn to perform a dance. It heaved several of its terrible sighs, which were this time so fraught with pain that they conveyed some idea of the havoc the Snow-White Widow was wreaking inside it. Its whole body twitched and the mouldering grey cloth that enshrouded it became ever paler and more threadbare. The material split open in many places and each rent emitted a hissing jet of green vapour. Eventually, what was left of the shroud also disintegrated into white flakes. All that remained on the spot where the Corn Demon had been standing moments earlier was the deadly Snow-White Widow. She swayed gently to and fro, doubtless debating who her next victim should be.

Echo, who had seen more than enough by now, withdrew his head and crawled to the back of the furnace. He shut his eyes, but that didn’t prevent him from hearing the gruesome sounds that accompanied the rest of the Snow-White Widow’s settlement of accounts: the snapping, crunching noises as she broke every bone in the Cyclopean Mummy’s body and the Grim Reaper’s demented screams.

Silence fell at last.

Echo opened his eyes but lay absolutely still. Dissected by the bars over the furnace door, the flickering candlelight danced across the floor of his iron prison. That was all he could see.

Where in the world had Ghoolion got to?

Echo listened for his clattering footsteps, but there was nothing to be heard. No wind, and even the rain had stopped. Utter silence. What was the Snow-White Widow doing? Was she still in the laboratory, or had she moved on in search of other victims? She might be perched on top of the furnace itself or floating along the castle’s labyrinthine passages. She might be lying in wait for him just outside, or she might be quite uninterested in him. Whatever the truth, he had better remain as quiet as a mouse for the time being.

Where was Ghoolion?

It wasn’t fair of a creature not to make a sound. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t detect the Snow-White Widow’s scent. No sound, no smell. Zamonian fauna of that kind should be prohibited.

Where was the Alchemaster?

‘What makes me think the old man is still alive?’ he wondered suddenly. Perhaps he’d been the first to be killed by the Snow-White Widow after her release. It was highly probable, in fact, for how could such a creature be tamed? She was subject to no laws, natural or otherwise. Ghoolion himself had thought his plan dangerous. He was probably down in the cellar, right beside the Snow-White Widow’s glass cage, reduced to a little mound of white flakes. Or perhaps he was floating along the passages to the castle’s sinister music, in company with the dust to which the demons had also been reduced. He might be a tough old bird, but not even he was immune to the Snow-White Widow’s venom.

Something was wriggling up the furnace bars like a tendril of ivy. No, it wasn’t ivy, nor was it a snake. It was a strand of the Snow-White Widow’s hair!

Echo tried to retreat, but he was already up against the rear wall of the cast-iron chamber. The silvery strand insinuated itself between the bars and groped its way inside, then writhed across the floor, making straight for him. A second strand came snaking through the bars. And a third.

‘She knew I was in here all the time,’ thought Echo. ‘She’s just been toying with me.’

The third strand wound itself round one of the bars and pulled. The door creaked open and candlelight came flooding in. Then the Snow-White Widow herself rose slowly into view. Her veil of silvery hair looked as soft and fragile as the finest silk, but Echo wasn’t deceived; he now knew what she was capable of. He stood up, legs trembling. Even if an attempt to escape had had any prospect of success, his fear was so intense that he would probably have remained rooted to the spot.

The curtain of silver hair abruptly parted and Echo found himself looking once more at that one, terrible eye. Although it didn’t scare him quite as much the second time because he knew what to expect, he found it hard to withstand its gaze.

‘I know you,’ the Snow-White Widow said, addressing him telepathically.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I know you too.’

‘I’m glad we’ve met again,’ she said. ‘It’s nice that we can talk at last. The prison Ghoolion built me was made of antitelepathic glass. Not a single thought could penetrate it.’

‘You want to talk to me?’ Echo asked in a quavering voice.

‘No, not really, I want to kill you. That’s my most pressing desire, but whenever I get an opportunity for some civilised conversation I try to control my murderous impulses. I try to exchange a few words with most of my victims.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, when time permits. But they all say more or less the same things, like “No, please don’t! I don’t want to die! Ooh, you’re hurting me! Ooh, I’m in agony!” And so on. Nothing of real interest.’

‘I’ve got a wide range of conversational topics,’ Echo said quickly. ‘What would you like to talk about?’

‘That’s nice for you,’ said the Snow-White Widow, ‘but I’m too impatient for long conversations. I generally allow my victims to ask one question and try to answer it to the best of my ability. Then I get down to business.’

‘Only one question?’ Echo would have gulped, but his throat was too dry.

ʻYes, just one. You can ask yours now.’ The Snow-White Widow closed her curtain of hair. Echo registered this with relief because it spared him the sight of her terrible orb. He didn’t take long to think of his question.

‘Where’s the Alchemaster?’ he asked. He might have abandoned all hope, but he wanted some definite information on that point at least.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said the Snow-White Widow. ‘He was outside my cage the last time I saw him. After he’d opened it.’

‘You didn’t kill him?’

‘That’s your second question. Still, I think it’s important enough to answer. You mustn’t imagine I was merciful to Ghoolion in any way. I’m absolutely merciless, but I’m under contract to him.’

‘Really?’ said Echo. ‘I’m also under contract to him.’

‘You don’t say! That’s interesting. What’s the contract about?’

‘Well, to cut a long story short …’ Echo hesitated. He still found it hard to utter the words. ‘It entitles him to kill me before the night is out.’

‘How nice for him,’ said the Snow-White Widow. ‘However, it won’t come to that. Why not? Because I’ll kill you first.’

Echo tried to steer her away from this ticklish subject. ‘What’s your contract with him about?’

‘That’s three questions you’ve asked me,’ she said coldly. ‘It’s getting to be too much of a good thing. I’ll have to kill you now, and I’m sorry to say it, but yours will be an extremely painful death.’ She broke off. ‘Pah! Of course I’m not sorry, I couldn’t care less.’

Echo had another try. ‘But only Ghoolion has the right to kill me,’ he said. ‘He’s kept his part of the bargain.’

‘There’s nothing about that in my contract with him. First come, first served. He should have acted sooner. I don’t suppose he thought I’d be so quick off the mark.’

‘You really are quick,’ Echo said. ‘I’ve never seen anything or anyone quicker.’

‘Good of you to say so,’ she said, flattered. ‘There are times when I wish I could hold myself in check a little. I’d get more pleasure out of it.’

‘Then do so!’ Echo urged her.

‘Do what?’

‘Slow down, of course.’

The Snow-White Widow seemed to be considering this. ‘Slow down? When? Now, you mean?’

‘Exactly. You’ve got to start some time.’

‘You really are a cunning little fellow. I’ve never spent so long chatting with any of my victims. But you’re wrong if you think your gift of the gab can dissuade me from doing what I do best. Listen carefully: I’m addicted to death. I can’t help it, I enjoy seeing other creatures die. It makes me feel alive. That’s why I’m now going to say what all addicts say when someone urges them to kick the habit.’

‘Which is?’ Echo asked anxiously.

‘They say: Yes, I will. Definitely! Tomorrow without fail! But today I’m going to make a real pig of myself for the last time.’

Echo had run out of ideas.

‘Well, it’s been nice chatting with you,’ she said. ‘But watching you die will be even nicer.’ Several strands of her hair descended on him. ‘I’m sure white will suit you,’ she added.

The strands of hair penetrated his fur. They reached the skin and felt around for some throbbing veins that would help her venom to permeate his body in the shortest possible time.

‘I can’t make up my mind which vein to choose,’ she mused. ‘Your heart is beating so fast, they’re all throbbing away like mad.’

‘Stop!’ A thunderous voice shook the laboratory. ‘He’s mine!’

At lightning speed, the Snow-White Widow withdrew her hair from the furnace and spun round.

‘Phew!’ Echo expelled the air from his lungs in a rush. How long had he been holding his breath? The sound of Ghoolion’s harsh voice was music to his ears.

‘What do you want?’ hissed the Snow-White Widow.

Echo tottered to the mouth of the furnace and craned his neck to see what was happening outside.

The Alchemaster was standing in the doorway to the lift, which was open again. The Snow-White Widow, who was hovering in front of the alchemical furnace, had transferred all her attention to him. Ghoolion gathered his cloak around him and strode briskly across the laboratory.

‘With all due respect, Queen of Fear,’ he said, ‘you’ve had plenty of chances to assuage your hunger. You’ve exterminated a whole host of demons. Their powdered remains are floating all over the castle - it looks like a blizzard. At least leave me this little Crat.’

The Snow-White Widow turned slowly on the spot. Ghoolion halted a few paces from her. He, too, thought it best to preserve a respectful distance.

‘Very well,’ said the Snow-White Widow, ‘I’ll spare the little creature. He’s hardly worth killing in any case. I’ll let him live, then you can have your fun with him.’

‘Many thanks,’ said Ghoolion.

‘On one condition,’ she added.

‘What’s that?’ Ghoolion demanded. ‘Name it!’

‘I know I can run as far away from you as I like, but I also know I’ll always return to my prison because you whispered it to me in my sleep.’

‘So she’s also under a spell!’ it flashed through Echo’s mind.

‘And I also realise I can’t kill you for the same reason,’ the Snow-White Widow went on.

‘My life insurance policy,’ Ghoolion said with a grin.

‘That’s just the point. I want you to annul our contract and release me.’

Ghoolion was taken aback. ‘But that’s impossible,’ he protested. ‘If I annul the contract you’ll not only be free, you’ll be free to kill me. I can’t take that risk.’

‘All right, then I’ll kill the Crat. Our contract doesn’t preclude me from doing that.’

The Snow-White Widow whirled round. A strand of her hair darted into the furnace and encircled Echo’s neck like a hangman’s noose.

‘Urgh!’ was all Echo could get out.

‘Stop that!’ snapped Ghoolion.

‘If you’re as worried about the little fellow as that, he must be worth a lot to you. Well, he won’t be worth a thing in a minute; he’ll be dead.’

She tightened the noose. White sparks danced before Echo’s eyes.

‘All right,’ said Ghoolion, ‘it’s a deal. I’ll annul the contract. Let go of him.’

‘You agree? Very well.’

She released the noose and withdrew the strand of hair. Echo could breathe again. Panting hard, he subsided on to the floor of the furnace.

‘I’ll annul the contract,’ Ghoolion repeated, ‘but on one condition.’

‘So you’ve got a condition too?’ The Snow-White Widow laughed. ‘When it comes to negotiating contracts, you really do drive a hard bargain. Well, go on, what do you want?’

‘If I tear up the contract and lift the spell, you’ll be free to kill anything or anyone that crosses your path,’ said Ghoolion.

She uttered a groan of delight.

‘With three exceptions,’ he said. ‘Me, for one.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Secondly, the Crat.’

‘Yes, yes, who else?’

‘The inhabitants of Malaisea - all of them. In this town I do the killing.’

The Snow-White Widow groaned again, but not with delight this time. She sounded dismayed.

‘That’s a tough one,’ she said. ‘I’m absolutely famished after all this time. But all right, I’ll restrain myself until I’m on the other side of the Blue Mountains.’

Ghoolion looked out of the window and up at the milk-white moon.

‘I don’t know if you’ve got such a thing as a sense of honour,’ he said gravely, ‘but I’m assuming there’s at least a glimmer of one in every living creature, even a Snow-White Widow.’

He tore the contract into little pieces and threw them into the fire beneath the cauldron of fat. They hissed and gave off blue sparks as the flames reduced them to ashes.

‘Now lift the spell,’ she demanded.

Ghoolion clapped his hands three times.

‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it,’ he replied. His voice was shaking, his forehead beaded with sweat. The Snow-White Widow didn’t move.

‘Now it’s your turn to fulfil your obligations,’ Ghoolion said impatiently. ‘Just go!’

She didn’t budge an inch.

‘My obligations?’ she said in a scornful tone after a long, tense silence. ‘What obligations do you mean? I don’t have any to fulfil. Promises at most.’

It resembled an illusionist’s trick. One moment she was hovering in front of the alchemical furnace, the next she had wound a thick strand of hair round Ghoolion’s neck and pulled it tight. That done, she rose slowly into the air, taking the gasping, struggling Alchemaster with her.

‘There’s nothing, absolutely nothing to prevent me from killing you this instant,’ she said. ‘You and your little friend here, followed by every accursed inhabitant of your accursed, disease-ridden town. Because believe me, I’m totally unacquainted with what you call a sense of honour. What’s it supposed to be? Fear of admitting that one has told a lie? Self-respect? Those are sentiments worthy of children or lunatics.’

Ghoolion’s face had turned blue. His legs were kicking vainly in mid-air.

‘You must remember I’ve a reputation to uphold. What’s your name for me? Queen of Fear? Well, noblesse oblige, my friend. Only the merciless merit a reputation for mercilessness.’

Ghoolion’s eyes were protruding and blood was trickling from his nose. He had almost stopped kicking, his strength was giving out. The Snow-White Widow carried him a little higher.

‘I could hang you now, but I could also inject you with my venom like all the rest. I could simply throw you out of a window like rubbish. Smash you against the walls of your laboratory like a wet rag. Tear you into little strips or render you down in that cauldron. The choice is yours. Which would you prefer?’

Ghoolion’s body went limp. He had ceased to struggle. His spindly hands were quivering a little, but that was all.

‘Yes, I could kill you in any number of ways - torture and torment you to my heart’s content. Instead, I’m going to put you down.’

The Snow-White Widow deposited Ghoolion on the floor like a child discarding a doll it was tired of. His legs gave way. He went down on all fours, gasping for breath. Echo had never seen him so humiliated.

‘I’m going to let you live,’ said the Snow-White Widow. ‘What do you say to that?’

Ghoolion said nothing at all, just sucked in great, greedy gulps of air.

‘You needn’t thank me. I’m not doing it out of pity, I’m doing it out of love.’

‘What?!’ croaked the Alchemaster. He gripped the edge of a workbench and hauled himself erect, seized a cloth and wiped the blood from his nose, striving to regain his composure.

‘I’ve developed something of a crush on you, that’s why. After all, you saved my life, shamelessly exploited my hopeless predicament and used me for your own ends. You’re the first and only person capable of emulating my capacity for evil. Emulating it, mark you, not matching it, still less surpassing it. I’m the Queen of Fear! As for you, you could be my prince consort.’

The Snow-White Widow floated over Ghoolion’s head to one of the windows and landed on the sill. She was trembling almost imperceptibly, as if chilled by the warm summer night.

‘But we’re too dissimilar, alas, and our objectives are diametrically opposed. You want to create new life; I want to destroy all life. That would only lead to arguments, so we must go our separate ways.’

The Alchemaster had been standing there in silence the whole time. Echo continued to lie low. They were both thinking the same thing: was this another trick on her part? Would she fly at their throats again at any moment? What was to stop her?

‘You owe your life to love,’ she whispered, ‘love, not mercy. Never forget that and never again put your faith in someone else’s honesty. Goodbye!’

She performed a graceful leap out of the window and allowed herself to be borne away by the gentle evening breeze, as weightless and aimless as an innocent seed head detaching itself from a dandelion clock.