The Alchemaster's Apprentice

Night Music


‘I’ve boiled Throttlesnakes the length of tree trunks in this cauldron,’ Ghoolion said as he reheated the big copper vessel. ‘I’ve disposed of a Red Gorilla that awoke from its anaesthetic and an octopus that tried to drag me into the cauldron with it, but no creature has ever given me as much trouble as you have today. You, a harmless little Crat.’

‘Many thanks,’ said Echo. He was once more sitting on the floor beside the alchemical furnace. The Alchemaster had removed him from it and put him there, but without unchaining him.

‘That wasn’t intended as a compliment,’ Ghoolion said, shooting an angry glance at his prisoner. ‘I simply meant that the fun’s over as far as you’re concerned. I’ve never been as close to death as I was just now.’

He took a pair of bellows and pumped fresh oxygen into the flames, which blazed up brightly.

‘What was that deal you made with the Snow-White Widow?’ Echo asked. ‘How did you manage to gain control of such a powerful creature?’

‘I found her down below the castle,’ said Ghoolion, adding some more logs to the flames. ‘In the catacombs beneath the cellars. She was very ill, terminally ill, but I knew of a remedy for her condition. In return she had to sign a contract that made her my prisoner for ten years. She was weak at first, but when she gradually regained her strength I took the precaution of putting her under a spell while she was asleep. I also built her an escape-proof prison.’

‘You like doing deals,’ Echo remarked. ‘Even with the most dangerous creatures.’

‘One never knows when a Snow-White Widow will come in handy,’ Ghoolion said with a laugh. ‘It paid off, too. You benefited from the deal yourself and for that you should be duly grateful to me. What I have in mind for you will be a picnic compared to what those demons would have done to you.’

He turned away from the cauldron, took a scalpel from the table and advanced on Echo.

‘We’ve wasted enough time,’ he said.

Echo’s instinctive reaction was to run for it, but the chain brought him up short. He tugged at it desperately but only succeeded in choking himself. It was useless.

‘Make it quick,’ he said.

‘That I promise you,’ said Ghoolion.

All of a sudden, music could be heard - the strangest music. Loud, intrusive and disconcerting, it came drifting in through the windows from one moment to the next.

Ghoolion stopped in his tracks and listened.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

Echo knew the music. It was familiar to him, but not played at this tempo. There had been something tranquil about it - something almost danceable - the first time he heard it. What had Izanuela called it?

Of course: Twitchstik, the Song of the Ugglian Oaks …

It now had a rather menacing ring, like the music with which armies impress their grim determination on the enemy. Campaigns were conducted to the strains of such music. It was music for marching to - for killing to.

‘I know what it is,’ Echo said.

‘You do?’

‘You need only look out of the window.’ Echo’s heart was beating wildly again. He fervently hoped he had drawn the right conclusion from the music; his life might well depend on it. He listened closely. There was something in addition to determination in that music. It was the saddest sound he had ever heard: a funeral march.

Ghoolion had dashed to the window and was looking out.

‘Damnation!’ he exclaimed, clutching his chest. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘It’s Izanuela’s house, isn’t it?’ said Echo. ‘It’s Izanuela’s house from Uggly Lane. Its music is unmistakable.’

‘It’s all the houses from Uggly Lane!’ Ghoolion yelled. ‘There must be over a hundred of them. They’re all round the castle.’

All of them? Echo was surprised. Still, why not? Izanuela had mentioned that all the houses in the street were alive, but she hadn’t said anything about their being so alive they could move from the spot. They must have come to avenge her.

‘All the houses, of course,’ Echo amended. ‘I know. I simply meant Izanuela’s house would be there too. It’s their leader, isn’t it?’

Once again, he could only hazard a guess and hope he was right. He cursed his confounded chain.

As if unable to believe his eyes, Ghoolion snatched up a telescope.

‘How should I know?’ he said. ‘They all look alike.’

‘Izanuela’s house is bigger than the others.’

‘What?’ Ghoolion squinted through the telescope again. ‘Yes, one of them is bigger than the rest. What sort of creatures are they? Are they plants? I’ve seen plants that can move, but none as big as these.’

‘They’re Ugglian Oaks,’ Echo said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘The oldest plants in Zamonia.’

How desperately he yearned to look out of the window at that moment! What did the oaks look like when they were in motion? Did their roots act as legs and their branches as arms? Were they rolling those mournful eyes in their knotholes? No matter, he must take advantage of Ghoolion’s discomfiture.

‘So the Uggly fulfilled our agreement,’ he said coolly.

‘What agreement?’ Ghoolion asked without averting his gaze from the astonishing scene.

‘Izanuela was also fond of striking bargains with natural phenomena,’ Echo said slowly, ‘with animals and plants.’ He had to choose his words carefully. ‘But not with a view to skinning them and extracting their fat.’

‘What are you getting at?’ Ghoolion demanded. He put the telescope down on the windowsill and gave Echo a piercing stare,

‘What you can see down there is Izanuela’s curse!’ Echo cried. ‘Your duel with her isn’t over, Alchemaster, it has only just begun. Her power extends beyond the grave. That’s something you’ll never achieve!’

‘What are you blathering about?’ Ghoolion snapped. ‘What curse?’

‘His hands are trembling,’ thought Echo. ‘I’ve unsettled him, but I mustn’t rush things.’

‘Those trees down there have come to fetch me,’ he lied boldly. ‘Izanuela told them what to do if something happened to her. That was what we agreed. The houses in Uggly Lane heard her scream as she fell. That was the signal. They’ve come to fulfil her last wish.’

Ghoolion didn’t answer. He stared out of the window, listening to the mournful music, then turned back to Echo.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Ugglian Oaks, singing plants. I dealt with far worse things today. Let them sing! They’re too big to get past the door and they’re welcome to besiege the building, I don’t intend to leave it. I’ve enough stores in here to last till doomsday. Besides, if I want to leave the castle I know of other ways out than the front door. Let’s get on.’

Ghoolion went over to the cauldron and inspected the contents. Judging by the contented way he clicked his tongue, he seemed pleased with what he saw. He took a big spoon and gave the brew a leisurely stir, even though the music was growing steadily louder. Then he laid the spoon aside and picked up the scalpel.

‘The soup is ready,’ he called. ‘So are you.’

The music continued to swell as he crossed the room, becoming so loud and piercing that every glass vessel in the laboratory began to rattle.

‘That’s right, sing!’ he shouted. ‘Sing away! Yours is just the music to skin a Crat by.’

Boom! The whole building shuddered. Plaster trickled from the ceiling and the laboratory floor gave a lurch. Taken aback, Ghoolion stopped short. It was all he could do to keep his feet.

‘Hey!’ he cried.

Echo was also thrown off balance. What was this, an earthquake?

Boom! Another impact! A glass retort wobbled, fell to the floor and smashed.

Boom! And another! Books toppled off shelves, dust went swirling into the air.

Boom! A lunar globe fell from the ceiling and went rolling across the laboratory.

‘Hell’s bells!’ Ghoolion bellowed. ‘What’s going on?’

The floor and walls shuddered again and again. Timbers creaked and cracks appeared in the masonry. Ghoolion reeled around like a drunk.

Boom! The fireplace belched a dense cloud of soot.

Boom! The alchemical furnace rocked precariously.

Ghoolion spun round and tossed the scalpel on to a workbench. He ran to a window and leant out as far as he could.

‘It’s those infernal great trees!’ he fumed. ‘They’re pounding the castle walls with their huge wooden fists and using uprooted tree trunks as battering rams!’ He took a closer look through the telescope. ‘They’re wrenching rocks out of the ground and hurling them! They’re going berserk!’ His voice broke with fury.

Echo was also feeling uneasy now. No one was safe in this crumbling old pile. He simply had to get rid of this confounded chain.

‘You must show me to them!’ he shouted above the din. ‘That’s all they’re after. That’ll calm them down.’

Ghoolion didn’t react. He stood silently at the window, clinging to the sill and staring out.

Boom! A whole bookcase toppled over, spilling hundreds of ancient volumes across the floor.

Boom! The Ghoolionic Preserver clinked and rattled. Gas came hissing out of a fractured valve.

Boom! Fist-sized stones fell out of the walls and landed on alchemical vessels, shattering them.

Ghoolion tore himself away from the window at last. Having lurched across the laboratory to Echo, he bent down and removed his collar.

‘But I warn you!’ he growled. ‘One false move and I’ll throttle you!’

He gripped Echo by the scruff of the neck and carried him over to the window, where he held him up and shouted, ‘Here he is! Here’s what you’re after! Now stop that!’

Echo got his first sight of the Ugglian Oaks clustered around the castle. What a spectacle they presented! Izanuela had told him they never lost their temper. They had certainly lost it now! Some were stomping around on their big black roots, massive trunks swaying to and fro as they pummelled the ancient building with their gnarled wooden fists. Others were prising huge boulders out of the ground and hurling them at the castle like trebuchets. The old eyes in their knotholes were blazing with anger. Their mournful music was almost drowned by the ear-splitting creaks and groans they made in their frenzy. They were so engrossed in their display of brute force that none of them paid any attention to Ghoolion or what he had shouted.

‘Pure pandemonium,’ Echo whispered to himself. He didn’t know whether to be delighted or horrified. The giant trees hadn’t come to liberate him; they were bent on sheer destruction.

‘They aren’t calming down!’ Ghoolion exclaimed. ‘They’re getting wilder and wilder!’ He tightened his grip on Echo.

Instead of replying, Echo twisted his head round and bit Ghoolion’s hand - bit it harder than he’d ever bitten anything or anyone before. The skin split open like paper and his teeth sank in up to the bone. Even the Alchemaster couldn’t ignore pain of such intensity. He uttered a yell and relaxed his grip. Echo promptly took advantage of this to squirm and struggle, hiss and scratch. He raked Ghoolion’s face with his claws and inflicted four deep scratches on his cheek. One claw on his other paw caught the Alchemaster’s long nose and laid it open from bridge to tip. And still Echo raged on, biting and lashing out in a fury. Ghoolion suddenly found himself holding a wildcat armed with a hundred teeth and a thousand claws. He dropped Echo, who landed on the windowsill, and retreated a few steps.

‘Never touch me again!’ hissed Echo. He arched his back in a way that made him look twice as big. His eyes gleamed belligerently. ‘Never again, you hear?’

There was a massive jolt and a long crack appeared in the laboratory floor. Ghoolion went staggering backwards, caught his foot in it and fell headlong.

‘You little devil!’ he yelled as he scrambled to his feet. ‘You said they’d stop this if you showed yourself.’

‘I lied!’ Echo shouted back above the din. ‘I learnt that from you! You should have listened to the Snow-White Widow! Never put your faith in someone else’s honesty!’

This remark seemed to hurt the Alchemaster more than all the bites and scratches he’d sustained. The anger in his face gave way to a look of bewilderment.

‘You mean they haven’t come to set you free?’ he said. ‘Why, then?’

‘To avenge Izanuela!’ Echo shouted. ‘And to send you to perdition. She’s too powerful for you. She’s defeating you after her death.’

Another violent jolt brought down a beam that grazed the Alchemaster’s head. He swayed and clutched his bleeding ear but stayed on his feet. A second beam came crashing down on the Ghoolionic Preserver, smashing numerous glass vessels and spattering the room with chemical fluids. The stone lintel above the door became dislodged and fell with another crash. Within moments, a heap of collapsing rubble had precluded any chance of escape.

‘Then you’ll go to perdition with me!’ Ghoolion yelled, pointing to the blocked exit. ‘Those Ugglian Oaks don’t seem too eager to save your life.’

Echo was prepared to fight if the Alchemaster went for him again, but Ghoolion displayed no sign of aggression. Bereft of all his authority, he simply stood there, swaying under the impact of the blows his castle was receiving. It was as if he himself were being struck.

Yet another violent jolt upset the cauldron. The alchemical soup flowed out across the floor and disappeared down the cracks.

Ghoolion staggered over to Floria’s corpse. Taking it by the shoulders, he hoisted it into a sitting position. ‘Floria!’ he sobbed. ‘What am I to do?’

The Alchemaster was begging a cadaver for help! Echo would have liked to revel in his triumph, but this wasn’t the moment. The castle was disintegrating around them. If the building was done for, so were they. Ghoolion’s question to a dead woman wasn’t unjustified. What could they do?

There were three possible routes out of the laboratory. One was the doorway, which was hopelessly obstructed. The second was the cauldron, the gateway to another world, but that held little appeal. The third was a window, through which anyone so minded could leap to his death in the town below.

Izanuela’s route …

Echo opted for the last-named exit. He looked over at the Alchemaster. Floria’s skeleton rattled as he shook it, but that was her sole response: a shake of the skull.

‘Floria!’ he cried again. ‘What am I to do?’

Ghoolion’s alchemical universe was going up in smoke. The whole laboratory was a mass of crackling flames fed by volatile liquids escaping from shattered retorts. Stones were falling from the ceiling, powdered chemicals swirling into the air, glass vessels exploding, gases hissing. More and more cracks were appearing in the walls. The castle was doomed. It would soon collapse with an almighty crash.

Echo exchanged a final glance with the Alchemaster. Ghoolion’s expression conveyed none of his former majestic malevolence, just fear and consternation. That was how Echo wanted to remember him: as a pathetic madman.

Then he turned and leapt off the windowsill.

‘No!’ Ghoolion called after him.

But he was already in free fall.

Izanuela’s Route


It was over very quickly - far more quickly than Echo had expected. Wind whistling in his ears, the world rotating around him, four or five aerial somersaults and that was it: the roofs of Malaisea were already gleaming in the moonlight just below him. Izanuela’s route … He shut his eyes.

Then came the impact and a terrible pain in his neck.

Strangely enough, though, the pain not only persisted but grew worse. How could it, if he was dead? Would this final pain accompany him to the grave?

He opened his eyes. Fluttering overhead were Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth and Vlad the Twelfth - he knew this even though the Leathermice hadn’t introduced themselves. They were gripping him by the scruff of the neck and carrying him ever higher.

‘Ouch!’ he said. ‘Many thanks. This is the second time you’ve saved my life. Where are you taking me?’

‘This you must see!’ said Vlad the Twelfth. ‘It’s not a sight one sees every day of the week!’

‘Our lovely home is going up in smoke,’ sighed Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth.

They carried Echo even higher - higher than he’d ever been before. He gazed down at Ghoolion’s castle, which now looked as toylike as the town that lay at its foot. Hundreds of Leathermice were fluttering up here in the night air, many of them silhouetted against the full moon.

Some of the castle’s windows were belching soot and its walls were wreathed in long plumes of dark dust. It was collapsing, subsiding into the ground like a sinking ship. Lit by intermittent flashes, dense clouds of powdered stone were billowing into the air. The building seemed to be howling with pain as its ancient timbers burst asunder and its subterranean tunnels and chambers filled up with rubble. Chemicals exploded, demolishing walls, and stones rained down on Malaisea. Flames spurted from open windows and mushroom clouds of brown smoke blossomed on all sides.

‘I told you it was a sight worth seeing,’ croaked Vlad the Twelfth.

‘Our lovely home …’ Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth said again.

The castle now turned into a many-armed kraken and its turrets into flexible tentacles that flailed around helplessly before being sucked into the depths. For a moment Echo thought he glimpsed the Alchemaster’s face in the midst of the collapsing ruins, a mask of black tiles contorted with stark terror. Then it folded in on itself and was swallowed up. Storey after storey came crashing down: the mother of all roofs; the Leathermousoleum; the laboratory; the wonderful kitchen; the secret treasure chamber; the galleries containing Ghoolion’s pictures; the lunatic asylum’s deserted wards; the libraries; the labyrinthine cellars; the Alchemaster’s fat collection; the Snow-White Widow’s prison. All these disappeared within the space of a few seconds. It was as if one of Ghoolion’s disaster paintings had come to life, a masterpiece that had devoured its own creator. All that remained was a smoking crater with the town of Malaisea clinging to its lip, miraculously unscathed.

‘We’ll never find another loft like that,’ Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth said sadly. ‘We’ll have to vegetate in barns and caves.’

Echo couldn’t make out where the Ugglian Oaks had got to, the smoke was too thick, but their music had ceased. Had they withdrawn in good time, or had they shared the castle’s fate?

‘We must say goodbye now,’ said Vlad the Twelfth.

‘Yes,’ said his companion, ‘we must find ourselves a new abode.’

‘Of course,’ said Echo. ‘Just put me down in the town. Anywhere will do.’ The pain in his neck was becoming unbearable.

‘No,’ said Vlad the Twelfth, ‘we must say goodbye here and now. Right away.’

He let go of Echo’s neck. Only one of the Leathermice was supporting him now.

‘Hey!’ cried Echo. ‘What are you doing?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Vlad the Twelfth, ‘not exactly.’

‘You’ve saved my life twice and now you’re going to let me fall to my death?’ Echo protested. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘No, we aren’t,’ the Leathermice replied in unison.

‘But this is crazy!’ Echo cried. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nobody understands the Leathermice,’ Vlad the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Fourth said darkly, and let go.

‘Not even the Leathermice!’ added Vlad the Twelfth.

‘Nobody!’

‘Nobody!’

And the vampires flew off giggling as Echo plummeted earthwards.

This time his fall really did take a long time. They had carried him high, high into the sky to a point just short of the clouds. He somersaulted again and again. The full moon and the night sky gyrated around him until he couldn’t stand it any more and shut his eyes.

But instead of the darkness he was expecting, he saw a golden glow brighter than the interior of Ghoolion’s treasure chamber and, in its midst, regarding him with an amiable smile, was the Golden Squirrel. He could also hear the soothing hum that had accompanied their previous encounter.

‘This time we’re really in a fix,’ said the squirrel. ‘I’m here to bring you your third and last insight.’

‘I’d forgotten all about you in the excitement,’ Echo replied. He had suddenly become quite calm, nor had he any sensation of falling. Was he still falling? He didn’t care.

‘The Cogitating Eggs have developed a special interest in your fate,’ the squirrel went on. ‘They’re hard at work on a plan to make things turn out all right.’

‘Really?’ said Echo. The soothing hum was more audible than the last time, he noticed. ‘Why are they so interested?’

‘Because you’ve recently become a valuable Crat - the most valuable Crat in Zamonia. The knowledge you’ve gained could prove useful some day.’

‘Then the Cogitating Eggs had better be quick,’ said Echo. ‘I shall soon be landing splat on that town down there.’

‘I’ll worry about that in due course. Time is standing still while you’re absorbing your last insight. The Cogitating Eggs achieve this by holding their mental breath, or something of the kind. Can you feel the wind in your fur or the irresistible pull of gravity?’

‘No.’

‘You see? Relax and enjoy your third insight.’

Echo really did feel relaxed. With the reassuring hum of the Cogitating Eggs in his ears, he was happy to put his fate in their hands. The golden glow and the squirrel’s friendly voice enhanced the pleasant atmosphere. He was on the point of purring.

‘Well, what exactly is this insight?’ he asked serenely.

‘This one isn’t like that. It can’t be summarised in a single sentence. It’s a vision.’

‘A vision? What of?’

‘Ah, to know that you must see it. Visions have to be seen, that’s why they’re called visions. The Cogitating Eggs are currently at work on a way of redirecting your destiny. But I can make no promises! All their work is a mixture of the accurate and the accidental, of precision and pure chance. One can never tell what the end result will be.’

‘So how do I get to see this vision?’ Echo asked.

‘The way one sees any vision: by opening your eyes.’

Echo did so and was dazzled. It was broad daylight suddenly. He was still falling, but something strange had happened: the castle was below him once more. Added to that, he was completely enveloped in the scent of Cratmint and surrounded on every side by flowers: red and black roses, marguerites and poppies, flame-red orchids and blue violets, daisies and plum blossom, snowdrops and orange lilies. A long trail of them was streaming out behind him and marking the course of his descent. At last he understood: he was seeing what the Uggly had seen in those last few seconds. This was Izanuela’s downward route!

The roofs of the town were getting close; soon she would crash into them. That shabby little street down there behind the crematorium: that would be her point of impact. Izanuela drew one more breath, filling her lungs as full as possible with the scent of Cratmint. She held it for a moment, then breathed out - and left her body in its company. Her mortal remains hit the ground somewhere below her, whereas she herself went soaring over the rooftops as light and free as air. Ahead of her lay Uggly Lane, her true destination! Cheerful, contented and intoxicated by her own scent, she swooped down and dived into the lane’s muddy surface, sank through it and mingled with the soil beneath. The countless roots of the Ugglian Oaks absorbed her scent at once. They sucked it in and sent it flowing through their veins.

A crack appeared in the roadway. It extended from the mouth of Uggly Lane to Izanuela Anazazi’s house. Only an inconspicuous crack, barely a thumb’s breadth wide, but soon more cracks were running off it. Dozens of them at first, then hundreds, they zigzagged in all directions. With a subterranean rumble the ground began to quake and its creeping, crawling inhabitants, alarmed by this phenomenon, fled for their lives.

Izanuela’s house was the first to arise. It creaked and groaned as its mighty roots freed themselves from the moist earth with a sucking sound. All the houses in Uggly Lane followed suit. One after another, they detached themselves from the places where they had stood for so many years. It was a long time - night had already fallen - before the last of them was free of the ground. Then they struck up their mournful song and set off.

To avenge Izanuela …

And then Echo was high in the air again. His vision was at an end. Reality had reclaimed him. No Uggly, no Golden Squirrel. No more sympathetic vibrations or golden glow to lull him into a sense of security.

It was night-time once more. Echo could feel the rush of air and the pull of gravity. He was very near the rooftops now - as near as Izanuela had been when she left her body - but there was no chance he would cheat death by dissolving into a scent. He would crash into that roof down there, the roof of a nondescript house with a small garden where he had once … Echo suddenly realised that it was the house in which he’d spent his early days: the house that had belonged to Floria of Ingotville. Fate might be cruel, he reflected, but it did have a sense of humour.

‘Ouch!’ Something had gripped him painfully by the scruff of the neck. Falling no longer, he was being borne aloft into the night air.

‘The Leathermice are back!’ he thought. ‘It was just a joke in poor taste.’

He turned his head. Sure enough, some powerful talons were gripping him by the neck, but they didn’t belong to a Leathermouse. Their owner was Theodore T. Theodore.

‘You simply aren’t safe on your own,’ the Tuwituwu said as he skimmed the rooftops with Echo dangling beneath him. ‘I burn my tack for a couple of days and what happens? You’re up the peek again without a craddle.’

Love at First Sight


‘Where have you been all this time?’ Echo asked as they flew over

Malaisea’s municipal park. Instead of putting him down at once, Theodore had headed straight for that part of town.

‘You’ll see soon enough,’ Theodore said breathlessly. ‘Phew, you may have shed a few pounds, my friend, but you’re still no wightleight.’

Just beside the pond in the middle of the park was a big weeping willow. With Echo still dangling beneath him like a sack of potatoes, Theodore flew into its overhanging branches and released him. Echo landed heavily on a large, well-upholstered nest.

‘This is my nest,’ Theodore explained as he touched down beside him, panting hard. He spread his wings. ‘My new adobe.’

Echo sat up and looked around. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘what a big place. Far bigger than the chimney. You live here all by yourself?’

‘Er, not exactly,’ said Theodore. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’

‘You’ll see soon enough, you’ll see soon enough,’ Echo parroted. ‘What will I see soon enough? Why so secretive? What have you been up to all this time?’

‘Well, for one thing I built this nest,’ Theodore said sheepishly. ‘Then came the billing and cooing and brooding. The miracle of love, et cetera. You’ll see soon enough.’

He gave Echo a piercing stare. ‘What’s more to the point, tell me what’s been going on here. I fly off to the Blue Mountains for a few hours’ hunting, I come back and the castle has vanished. Then you appear out of the blue - or the clouds, to be more precise. Come on, out with it! Where’s Ghoolion?’

‘Ghoolion’s dead. He and his castle have gone to perdition. The Uggly … the Snow-White Widow … It’s a long story. Let me get my breath back first.’

‘You went to see the Uggly? Did she help you?’

‘Yes. No. Well, in a way …’ Echo tried to marshal his facts in the right order. So much had happened.

There was a whirring sound overhead. He looked up. Two Tuwituwus were coming in to land, a big one and a very small one. Catching sight of Echo, they applied their air brakes and hovered.

‘Don’t worry,’ Theodore called to them, ‘he’s a friend. Come down here!’

The two birds landed on the edge of the nest. The smaller Tuwituwu nestled against the bigger one’s leg.

‘Allow me to indrotuce my friend Echo,’ said Theodore. ‘Echo, meet my wife Theodora.’ He indicated the bigger of the two Tuwituwus, whom he treated to a look of adoration.

‘So she’s a female,’ thought Echo.

‘And this is my son, Theodore T. Theodore the Second.’ His breast swelling with pride, Theodore pointed to the little bird, which inclined its head politely.

Echo bowed likewise. ‘A pleasure and privilege to make your acquaintance,’ he said.

The little bird turned to its mother. ‘He can hold a conservation,’ it whispered.

Theodore T. Theodore put a wing round Echo’s shoulder and drew him aside. ‘Pretend not to notice,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Junior has a broplem with long words - can’t think who he gets it from.’

‘So you’ve founded a family,’ said Echo. ‘That explains everything.’

‘Yes,’ said Theodore, ‘the call of nature. You have to obey it when it comes. In my case it came late, but it came. My giobolical clock was reading five to twelve. We met in the Toadwoods. It was love at first sight.’

He gazed ardently at Theodora, who was climbing down into the nest with her son. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s put you in the picture. Now it’s your turn.’

Echo complied. He told of his meeting and friendship with the last Uggly in Malaisea, of his adventures as a Leathermouse and a Demonic Bee, of the brewing of the love potion and distillation of the Cratmint. Of the Cooked Ghosts and the demons’ awakening. Of how he believed he’d eaten Theodore. Of the Snow-White Widow’s lethal dance. Of Izanuela’s death and her resurrection in the Ugglian Oaks. Of the castle’s destruction and the terrible end of Succubius Ghoolion, Malaisea’s erstwhile Alchemaster-in-Chief. It wasn’t until he’d finished that he realised how much he’d been through in the last few weeks.

‘Good heavens!’ Theodore exclaimed. ‘What a tanfastic story - well worthy of a place in Zamonian lorefolk. So you weren’t just a Meatherlouse, you were a Bemonic Dee as well. By a curious coincidence, I nearly swallowed a Bemonic Dee the other day.’

‘Really?’ said Echo.

‘Yes, it was while I was hunting for mice in a lovely, lush summer meadow. By the time I noticed it was a Bemonic Dee it was almost too late - I already had it in my beak. I managed to spit it out just in time. Do you know what a Bemonic Dee’s sting in the gullet can do to you?’

Echo grinned. ‘I do indeed.’

Meanwhile, Theodora had fed the little Tuwituwu. She was now rocking it to sleep beneath her wing and humming softly. The tension was gradually draining from Echo’s limbs. He was among friends in a safe, warm nest. The Alchemaster was dead, the spell lifted at last. He felt very tired suddenly.

‘Tell me,’ he said, resting his head on a soft pillow of grass, ‘how do you account for the fact that you were there to catch me?’

‘Pure chance,’ said Theodore. ‘I was returning from a hunting trip in the Blue Mountains, as I told you. I had a dead mouse in my talons, a prize specimen. I was on course for Lamaisea when something suddenly came over me …’

‘Something came over you?’ Echo raised his head again.

‘Yes, a strange feeling of … of confidence, I can’t describe it any other way. And I heard, well, a humming sound … a kind of, er …’

‘Sympathetic vibration?’

‘Exactly, a sempathytic bivration! I seemed to be flying along a beam of golden light that guided me to my nestidation through all the chimneypots in Lamaisea. At the same time I was puzzled that the castle has disappeared during my absence and worried about my family - a strange state of mind. And then you came falling out of the sky. I just managed to drop the mouse and grab you. It was a combination of chance and precision.’

‘Exactly,’ Echo said with a smile. ‘Chance. Chance and precision.’ His head subsided on to the grassy pillow and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Malaisea’s Awakening


Echo was thoroughly rested when he awoke the next morning. Theodore T. Theodore and his family had been considerate enough not to wake him and flown off, possibly on a hunting trip. Echo, who wanted to spare himself and them a sentimental farewell, seized the opportunity to depart without more ado. He climbed down the tree, left the municipal park and set off on a last stroll through the streets of the town that had hitherto been his world.

Malaisea had just begun to stir. The full moon was still visible in the paling sky. The town and its inhabitants were waking the way people wake after a long illness, when a last night of fever has sweated their remaining symptoms out of them: still unsteady on their trembling legs, with dark rings round their eyes and chalk-white cheeks, but filled with renewed hope and certain that the worst is over.

They emerged from their homes and stared in disbelief at the place where Ghoolion’s sinister castle used to stand. All that marked the spot was a heap of rubble and a thin haze of grey dust. An ancient and unloved building had collapsed with a crash in the middle of the night. A row of deserted houses had vanished. The shattered remains of an Uggly had been found in a side street. Who cared? Before long, it would all seem no more than a bad dream.

Bandages and handkerchiefs were tossed into gutters to be washed away by the next shower of rain. Pharmacists stood helplessly outside their shops, waiting for non-existent customers. The usual smells of ether and antiseptic, pus and iodine, sickness and death were overlaid by new scents of all kinds: thyme and garlic, pan-fried bacon and chicken soup, chips and tomato ketchup, roast pork and bouillabaisse, pancakes and toast, sage and lemon, coriander and curry, saffron and vanilla. The Malaiseans were busy cooking, for what was the first thing people did after recovering from a long illness? They cooked themselves their favourite meal. That was why all the pedestrians in the streets, far from being on their way to the doctor or pharmacy, hospital or dentist, were off to the butcher or baker, grocer or greengrocer. No more camomile tea, sticking plasters or cough syrup for them; they were after fresh pasta, ripe cheese and olive oil.

They paid scant attention to the little Crat threading his way between their legs. The townsfolk of Malaisea knew nothing about a contract, about Crat fat and Cooked Ghosts, Prima Zateria and the biggest treasure chamber in Zamonia. They hadn’t sampled any nuts from the Tree of Nutledge and were ignorant of Anguish Candles and Demonic Mummies, Shadow Ink and metamorphotic meals.

Echo didn’t care. He was wholly indifferent to the town and all who lived there. His connection with Malaisea was at an end. Every step took him a little further from the sickest town in Zamonia. Malaisea was now on the road to recovery, but without him. Echo was the only creature there that wasn’t hungry. He didn’t intend to eat again until the next full moon. Till then he would go without - he still had enough fat on his ribs to last him.

He didn’t pause until he reached the outskirts of town. Ahead of him lay the unpredictable wilds of Zamonia. Strangleroots by the roadside, wild dogs in the fields, poisonous snakes and scorpions in the long grass. Rabid foxes, Woodwolves and Corn Demons. Raging torrents and treacherous bogs. Mistwitches, Voltigorks and Snow-White Widows. All those dangers were said to be out there.

But so was that other kind of Crat, the one of which Theodore had told him. Echo set off in the direction of the Blue Mountains. Awaiting him somewhere beyond them must be the miracle of love.

The End





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