The Alchemaster's Apprentice

The Mother of All Roofs


When Echo came out on the roof, he felt he had entered a new and far bigger world. The wind was so strong, it ruffled his fur and nearly blew him over. He had never been so high up before and the view was breathtaking. Ghoolion’s castle served as a monumental observation tower. The whole of Malaisea lay spread out below. What had looked to Echo at ground level like a gigantic labyrinth flanked by insurmountable walls dwindled at this altitude to the size of a miniature plaything, a disorderly jumble of dolls’ houses and building bricks traversed by tiny carriages and horse-drawn wagons, and inhabited by creatures that scuttled around like the busy inmates of an anthill.

All at once Echo realised how pathetically little he knew of the world in which he lived. He experienced a fierce desire to explore the regions beyond the horizon above which the sun was shining so brightly. The countryside between the town and the distant Blue Mountains on the skyline was a hundred shades of green, a patchwork quilt of woods, fields and meadows that would certainly have taken him months to reconnoitre in every detail. Possibly years. Possibly a lifetime.

And that was when Echo’s woes caught up with him again. Months? Years? A lifetime? He had only a week or two left. Thirty days - no, only twenty-nine now. He looked up at the ghostly, waning moon. Horrified to think that it would hover up there for a month like a portent of his approaching death, he banished the dismal thought - shook it off as though ridding his fur of raindrops - and proceeded to explore the roof.

It was indeed the mother of all roofs, an architectural marvel that tapered to a point and consisted of gables of varying sizes, stone walls and stairways that served no obvious purpose.

Although it wasn’t the first roof Echo had climbed around on, it was certainly the biggest, the highest and the most dramatically complex. Dozens of chimneys jutted from it like stone mushrooms with metal caps. Most of the tiles were as correctly laid as any tiler could have wished, but elsewhere they stuck out awry like huge, neglected teeth, buffeted and dislodged by centuries of wind. Where one or more were missing, having been washed away by the rain, the gaps were occupied by little wild gardens of thistles, buttercups and daisies.

The tiles themselves looked almost indestructible, being composed of an iron-hard slate that had defied the passage of time. The fine cracks and cavities in their rough exterior provided Echo’s paws with excellent footholds. One false step, one slip, one trip, and he would have fallen like a stone, down past the windows of Ghoolion’s abode and ever onwards, down and down, until his bones shattered into a thousand splinters on the castle forecourt below. It wouldn’t matter which way up he landed because his flexible bone structure and padded paws would never be proof against a fall from such a height.

The stairways had also suffered from the wind and weather, having cracked and crumbled away in places, and Echo was often obliged to leap boldly across the gaps. But it was the sheer danger that generated much of the thrill it gave him to tiptoe from tile to tile and leap from gable to gable. He burnt with ambition to gauge each step with the utmost care, adjust his position accordingly and find his point of balance. This was the essence of Cratdom; he and his kind might have been created solely for this one purpose: to roam across roofs with feline grace. Echo had progressed in this manner throughout his life, whether along wide streets or narrow walls: as if balancing on a tight-rope above a chasm miles deep. He now felt it had all been a preparation for this moment. The roof of Ghoolion’s castle was a masterpiece of the roofer’s art, as perfect as if it had been constructed by some fanatical Crat lover of long ago and left to weather picturesquely, just so that Echo could promenade across it. Now and then he cautiously trod on a tile to check its stability. If it creaked or gave way he stopped short, memorised the spot and looked for another route; if it seemed to offer a firm foothold, he would walk on with resolute tread. Sometimes he would risk a little leap, then stand motionless with his ears pricked, listening intently and sniffing the air. Hey, just a moment - could that be Cratmint? He took another sniff. Yes, no doubt about it, that was the captivating scent of Cratmint, the finest herb in the world! Echo promptly lost his head and cast caution to the winds. He went bounding up the roof to the narrow ridge, where he paused and peered down at the flight of steps on the far side. Sure enough, perched on a landing halfway down them was a big clay flowerpot containing a luxuriant Cratmint bush in full bloom, with bumblebees buzzing all round it.

It is still one of Zamonian biology’s unsolved mysteries that Crats should be so enraptured by Cratmint that they become transformed, from one moment to the next, into purring bundles of bliss. At all events, Echo displayed the behaviour typical of his breed when confronted by that miraculous herb: he slithered lithely down the slope and circled the flowerpot with head erect and nostrils quivering. Then he leapt into the Cratmint, burrowed deep into its foliage and ecstatically sniffed every stem, leaf and flower, purring like a humming top. Next, he miaowed at the plant for minutes on end as if singing it a love song. Finally, feeling refreshed and inspired, he strode proudly on, his movements more balletic than ever, his tail contorting itself into a series of elegant curlicues.

So the Alchemaster hadn’t been lying to him. This roof harboured delicacies other than that glorious mint. Echo not only guessed at their presence; he could actually smell them: roast pigeons and honey-flavoured milk! An invisible but lavishly provided banqueting table came wafting through the air towards him. The mint had been merely an olfactory appetiser; the edible delicacies awaited him elsewhere. But where? He continued to climb, higher and higher, until he came to a mossy terrace. Dozens of tiles must have slid off like toboggans hurtling down a mountainside, and someone, presumably Ghoolion, had installed a garden in their place. It was a regular little wilderness extending deep into the roof space, with tall grasses and weeds sprouting from a lush, mossy floor. Echo picked his way silently through the undergrowth at a crouch, every inch a hunter stalking his quarry. The two predominant scents were those of milk and honey.

Thistles barred his path like levelled lances, but he brushed them aside with his claws extended. Nothing could keep him from his prey, which must now be very near. He parted a luxuriant clump of yellow grass with both paws, and then he saw it for the first time: a snow-white expanse gently ruffled by the wind - a lake of milk! Floating on it were some little boats woven of reeds, and the passengers in them were crisply roasted pigeons and grilled trout. They were sitting up dressed in dolls’ clothes and were equipped with little paper parasols. Echo was entranced.

He crawled to the edge of the milky pool and proceeded to lap some up with his nimble tongue. Sure enough, it was laced with honey! He drank his fill, then fished a roast pigeon out of one of the boats with his paw, stripped off its doll’s attire and devoured the whole bird, crisp skin and all. Having eaten the breast, drumsticks and wings, he licked off every last shred of meat with his rough little tongue until nothing was left but bare bones.

Then, with a contented grunt, he stretched out on the moss for a brief digestive siesta. As he contemplated the pigeon’s pale skeleton with a meditative eye and rolled it playfully to and fro with his paws, his mood darkened. It horrified him to think of the trouble Ghoolion was taking to fatten him up. The Alchemaster had actually hauled a bathtub all the way up here, possibly at the risk of his own life. He had embedded it in the moss and filled it with bucket after bucket of milk. He had not only roasted that delicious pigeon but obtained the dolls’ clothes and fashioned the little boats. How deadly serious he must be, and how eager to see his victim’s scrawny frame put on weight! Echo sprang to his feet, suddenly wide awake again.

Feeling uneasy and shivering a little, he climbed still higher. It was quite impossible to explore the roof systematically. The stairways would sometimes lead upwards or downwards for no apparent reason, then turn a corner and end abruptly in a sloping expanse of tiles. When that happened there was nothing for it but to retrace one’s steps or scale the precipitous slope. Echo occasionally peered in through the triangular window embrasures that gaped everywhere, but all he could see was total darkness. Were the Leathermice in there, or was there another loft beneath this confounded roof, the real loft that shielded the vampires from wind and weather? Now and then he came across strange carved ornaments, bizarre stone sculptures and grotesque gargoyles. He felt like an explorer discovering the ruins of a vanished civilisation.

There! Yet another appetising aroma in the air! Fried sausages? Fishcakes? Grilled chicken? In search of its source, Echo stole round a corner and came upon another spot where Ghoolion had created an artificial paradise for Crats. Protruding from a smallish, flattish expanse of roof was a tall red brick chimney, which the Alchemaster had transformed into a travesty of a Christmas tree with the aid of florist’s wire and sprigs of fir. Suspended from them on thin strings were some rib-tickling titbits: crisp-skinned fried sausages, dainty little fishcakes, lamb cutlets scented with garlic, breaded chicken drumsticks and crispy wings. Beneath them stood a pot of fresh, sweetened cream.

Echo inhaled deeply. His dark thoughts promptly evaporated, his mouth started watering. He proceeded to knock the little snacks off the ‘tree’ with his paw and devour them. Far from as simple and unsophisticated as it had seemed at first sight, the cuisine displayed definite expertise. The sausages were stuffed with tiny shrimps, chopped onions and grated apple, and seasoned with sage; the drumsticks had clearly been marinated for days in red wine, with the result that their pale-pink meat dissolved on the tongue like butter. The lamb cutlets had been wrapped in raw ham, studded with rosemary and then fried. Everything tasted superb.

‘Well?’ a voice said suddenly. ‘Enjoying it?’

Echo was so startled that the lamb cutlet he was eating fell out of his mouth. He looked left and right but couldn’t see a soul.

‘Up here!’ called the voice.

Echo looked up at the chimney. Poking out of it was the head of a Cyclopean Tuwituwu, which was staring at him with its single piercing eye.

‘I asked if you were enjoying it.’ The Tuwituwu had a deep, resonant voice. ‘I sope ho, anyway.’

Sope ho? Had the bird said ‘sope ho’?

‘Many thanks,’ Echo replied cautiously. ‘Yes, I am. Is this your food I’ve been eating?’

‘Oh, no,’ said the Tuwituwu, ‘I never touch the stuff, I just live here. The chimney is my desirence.’

‘I didn’t realise anyone lived up there.’

‘Well, now you know. But keep it to yourself, I wouldn’t like it pade mublic. Permit me to indrotuce myself. My name is Theodore T. Theodore, but you may call me Theo.’

Echo didn’t venture to ask what the T between the two Theodores stood for. Theodore, perhaps.

‘Delighted to meet you,’ he said. ‘My name is Echo. You really live in this chimney?’

‘Yes, it’s never used. It has a little roof of its own, that’s good enough for me.’ The Tuwituwu stared at Echo in silence. ‘If you can conummicate with me,’ it said at length, ‘you must be a Crat.’

‘That’s right,’ Echo replied, ‘I am.’

‘You’ve got two livers, did you know that? I’m something of an expert on gioloby.’

‘Biology, you mean.’

Theodore behaved as if he hadn’t heard.

‘It would scafinate me to know how you got past the Meatherlice,’ he went on. ‘You’re the first creature to set foot on this roof that didn’t wossess pings.’

Scafinate? Wossess pings? Echo was becoming more and more puzzled by Theodore’s speech patterns. ‘I simply talked to them,’ he replied.

‘Ah, the art of genotiation,’ said Theodore. ‘I understand now. You’re a born miplodat.’

Echo caught on at last: Theodore obviously had a problem with words. Or a broplem, as he would have put it.

‘I’d sooner use my brains than my claws.’

‘So you conummicated with them instead of fighting. You’re a facipist!’ Theodore exclaimed. ‘That’s splendid - we couldn’t be more alike in our views. Any disagreement can be resolved by dational riscussion.’

‘You know a lot of long words,’ said Echo.

‘You can say that again,’ Theodore replied, fluffing out his chest a little. ‘I’m a molypath, a walking endyclocepia, an autorithy of the first order. However, I’m not interested showing off my uniserval brilliance, just in guinlistic precision. You don’t need to have gone to uniservity for that. Personal itiniative is enough.’

‘Are you another of Ghoolion’s tenants?’

‘I’ll ignore that question! I’ve nothing to do with that crinimal invididual! I occupied this chimney in tropest against Ghoolion’s evil chaminations.’

‘You aren’t too fond of him, then?’

‘I’m not the only one, either! He’s a despot, a social rapasite. He infects and tancominates the whole town. As long as he continues to modinate it the inhabitants will never be free. What we need is a relovution! A relovution of the trolepariat of Lamaisea!’

Echo involuntarily glanced around to see if anyone was listening.

‘Aren’t you being a little rash, sounding off like this?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘I mean, I’m a total stranger, and you -’

‘No, no, not a stranger,’ the Tuwituwu broke in soothingly, ‘I know all about you. You’re a victim of Ghoolion’s almechistic aspirations. He plans to slaughter you and fat you of your strip.’

‘How did you know?’

‘In the first place, because he does that to all kinds of creatures except Meatherlice. I know everything - everything! I’ve had this building under vurseillance for many years. I know every chimney, every pecret sassage. I’ve seen the animals in their cages. I’ve seen him reduce them to falls of bat. Now, only the cages are left.’

‘You creep around inside the chimneys?’ said Echo. ‘Why?’

‘To keep an eye on Ghoolion and his doings. I’m everywhere and nowhere. Nobody sees me, but I see everything. I’ve eavesdropped on many of Ghoolion’s molitary sonologues. I know his ambitious plans, his tatolitarian dreams.’

‘Isn’t that rather risky?’ asked Echo. ‘I mean, if he caught you …’

Theodore ignored this question too. He leant over, opened his one eye wide, and whispered: ‘Listen, my friend. You’re in great danger. Ghoolion aims to be the creator of life and master of death, no less. Megalomaniacal though it sounds, he’s on the verge of filfulling that ambition and you’re the last little mog in his cachine.’

‘How do you know that?’

The Tuwituwu fluffed out his chest again.

‘Just an above-average pacacity for working things out, perhaps, or a flair for tedection, or a stininctive feeling. Call it initution, if you like. There have lately been many incidations that an acopalyptic miclax, a sidaster of uncepredented gamnitude, is in the offing! And things have speeded up since your arrival. Ghoolion has never been so cheerful. You should have seen him at his exmeripents last night. He was in the heventh seaven!’

Echo was becoming suspicious. How could he be sure that this bizarre bird was telling the truth? Perhaps it was a confederate of Ghoolion’s under orders to test him.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘Because you’re the only one who can stop him,’ the Tuwituwu whispered.

‘Meaning what?’

‘For some siconderable time now, the Master Almechist has been skimming off and preserving the fat of rare animals - their olfactory soul, so to speak. He blends these fats and fragrances again and again in the lebief that this will produce a masic baterial from which he can create new life. I lebieve him to be so close to that goal that he hopes to attain it at the next full moon. All he needs is the fat and the soul of one last animal: a Crat, as your presence here implies. The way I see it, you’re the last meraining emelent in his master plan. Your fat is the one missing indegrient. Only you can put the bikosh on the whole idea.’

‘Really?’ said Echo. ‘How, exactly?’

‘It’s quite simple: run away. Bill your felly for a few days, then disappear into the blue. Deprive him of your Crat fat and you’ll hash his dopes completely.’

‘But we’ve got a contract.’

‘A cantroct?’ The Tuwituwu stared at Echo in horror. ‘A legal codument? Really? That’s bad.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Echo, ‘and contracts have to be kept.’

‘Nonsense, cantrocts are made to be broken! But a cantroct with Ghoolion … That’s another matter.’

‘What do you mean?’

Now it was the bird’s turn to look around apprehensively.

‘Ghoolion has ways of enforcing your cantroct with him.’

‘What ways are you talking about?’

‘You’ll soon find out if you try to break it.’

‘That’s more or less what the Leathermice told me. So you also believe I’ve no hope of getting out of here alive?’

‘I didn’t say that. I’m potimistic by nature, but yours is an expectionally rare case. I shall have to give it a little more thought.’

The foliage of the artificial Christmas tree rustled in a sudden gust of wind. Echo looked round. Some big fat storm clouds in the distance were drawing nearer.

‘The clamitic conditions are about to undergo a drastic fortransmation, ’ said the Tuwituwu. ‘The otmasphere is charged with electricity, the beromatric pressure is falling - that means a stunderthorm. Cindotions up here will become pretty unpleasant. I shall retire to my cellar to catch a mouse or two. I still have to ornagise my own meals, alas.’

‘Why not help yourself to some of these sausages?’ Echo said invitingly.

The Tuwituwu looked indignant.

‘Absolutely not! I never touch anything that comes from Ghoolion’s biadolical kitchen. It’s an iron-cast principle of mine.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Echo, ‘but you don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘You’d better find yourself a nice dry spot somewhere,’ said Theodore.

‘I will. Many thanks for the conversation and the good advice.’

‘That wasn’t a conservation, it was a cansporitorial get-together. I didn’t advise you, either, I simply made some stragetic suggestions. From now on we’re a team.’

‘A team?’

‘An alliance forged by fate. We’re brothers in spirit, camrodes-in-arms. See you again soon.’

Theodore T. Theodore shut his single eye and disappeared slowly down the chimney.

Echo turned and scanned the heavens. Big-bellied rain clouds were towering over the Blue Mountains and the moist, warm wind was steadily increasing in strength. He was beginning to feel uneasy out there on the roof; being at the mercy of a thunderstorm really didn’t appeal to him. Theodore’s topsy-turvy utterances had left him bemused. Besides, he was sleepy after gorging himself, so he resolved to go inside and have a little nap to help him digest what he’d heard and eaten. It had been a thoroughly eventful morning.