The Alchemaster's Apprentice (40 page)
Read The Alchemaster's Apprentice Online
Authors: Walter Moers
Izanuela laid the pot aside. ‘Pooh!’ she said. ‘I could do with a break. A little snack wouldn’t come amiss, either. Like to join me?’
‘What have you got?’ he asked.
She stared at him in astonishment. ‘Cheese, of course, what else?’
Echo wrinkled his nose. ‘Cheese is for mice,’ he said disdainfully. ‘I never eat the stuff.’
She went stomping up the stairs to the kitchen. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘What possible objection could anyone have to cheese?’
‘It stinks. Besides, it’s all much of a muchness.’
‘Cheese doesn’t stink,’ she retorted. ‘It’s fragrant. It isn’t all much of a muchness, either; it’s possibly the most varied food there is. Do you know how many varieties of Zamonian cheeses there are?’
‘No.’
‘Nor do I. That’s because there are so many, nobody has ever tried to count them, and new varieties are appearing every day. Me, I eat nothing but cheese.’
‘Really?’
Izanuela nodded proudly. ‘I’m a fanatical Caseinian. We Caseinians are convinced that cheese contains all the essential nutrients. Fat, salt and calcium, that’s all one needs.’
She drew herself up.
‘Look at me! I’ve been on a strict cheese diet nearly all my life. Does my physique give you the impression that it may have been impaired in some way?’
Echo had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from making some injudicious remark that might have jeopardised their budding friendship.
‘Do you eat no meat?’ he asked instead. ‘No fish? No vegetables? No fruit?’
‘I could never eat an animal,’ said Izanuela, shaking her head vigorously. ‘As for vegetables … Being a holder of the Green Thumb, how could I bring myself to eat plants? They’re rational, sentient beings like you and me.’
‘How about bread? Or cakes?’
‘They both contain flour. Flour is a product that comes into being when innocent vegetable matter is ground to death between millstones. Can you conceive of a more barbarous method of execution? No, I eat nothing but cheese. We Caseinians worship it almost like a god.’ She flung open both doors of the kitchen cabinet and performed an elaborate bow.
Echo was totally unprepared for the tidal wave of odours that burst from the interior and surged over him. The garden cupboard containing the ‘more evil-smelling’ plants had smelt like a perfumery in comparison. But this was not a wholly disgusting smell like that of Ghoolion’s banqueting table. What came wafting out of Izanuela’s cheese cupboard was of a quality and variety all its own. It smelt not of death and decay, but of life. A very peculiar form of life, admittedly.
‘In this cupboard,’ Izanuela declared in a tremulous voice, ‘three hundred and sixty-five cheeses are ripening to perfection. One for every day of the year, yet this choice assortment is far from complete. It’s a very subjective selection. Cheese is a matter of taste, you know.’
His curiosity aroused, Echo peered into the cupboard. He saw big rounds of cheese, plump balls, pointed cones and pyramids, and countless wedges. Many were wrapped in greaseproof paper, others dipped in ash or sealed with varnish, and still others encrusted with mildew or mustard seeds. It was a veritable cheese museum.
The Uggly clapped her hands in anticipation and craned far into the cupboard.
‘What shall we have today? Some Gloomberg Gorgonzola? A smidgen of Cape Coldfinger Camembert? A Bookholm Blue? Some creamy goat’s cheese from the Impic Alps? A slice of Murkholmian Mumblecheek? A tasty Florinthian Slithercurd, which melts on the tongue like butter when ripe? Or would you prefer something more powerful, for instance a Double Magma from the slopes of Mount Molehill, which is rolled in volcanic ash? Some Demon’s Gulch Gouda? Some Druid’s Delight, complete with wax coating? Or how about some Dullsgard Diarrhoeic?’
Izanuela grinned at Echo over her shoulder.
‘Didn’t you just tell me that all cheeses were much of a muchness? Quote me another food that exists in as many different varieties.’
Echo shrugged. ‘All right, you win. Cheese is the greatest.’
She reached into the cupboard and brought out a small glass jar with a screw cap.
‘This is Grailsundian Miner’s Breath,’ she said reverently. ‘Look at it.’ She held the jar under Echo’s nose.
‘I can’t see anything. The jar’s empty.’
‘But it’s in there. You can’t see it, that’s all.’
‘You mean it’s invisible, like the caviar Ghoolion gave me once?’
‘No. I should make it clear that Grailsundian Miner’s Breath exists only in Grailsund, and there’s only one example of it - a pretty big one, mark you. Grailsund is Zamonia’s cheese capital, the fragrant metropolis of Caseinism.’
Izanuela lowered the jar and stared into space.
‘Ah, Grailsund! Every Caseinian has to make a pilgrimage there once in his or her lifetime, to pay homage to the great Grailsundian Miner’s Breath. A cheese of monumental proportions, it’s as big as several houses piled on top of one another.’
She made a sweeping gesture, and Echo pictured a cheese towering into the sky.
‘Miner’s Breath has to ripen in a mine, of course, so the Grailsundians dug the deepest cheese mine ever excavated. The cheese has been maturing down there for over a thousand years and is still far from fully ripe. No one may eat any - it’s prohibited on pain of death! - but one can smell it. And believe me, that’s quite enough for anyone.’
Izanuela smiled ecstatically.
‘I was only permitted to sniff it for a few brief moments when I made my own pilgrimage to Grailsund, but I was completely glutted for several days. I even put on a pound or two. I couldn’t so much as look at a cheese for a whole week, I was so full.’
She unscrewed the lid.
‘Although it’s forbidden to eat any Grailsundian Miner’s Breath, every pilgrim is permitted to fill a preserving jar with its aroma and take it away. Here, have a sniff!’
Echo reluctantly sniffed the jar and Izanuela promptly screwed the lid on tight again.
For a moment he thought he would choke. The smell was so intense, so physically palpable, it threatened to cut off his air supply. Then the alarming sensation subsided and he felt as if his stomach were full of hot olive oil. He became as warm and sleepy as he did after one of Ghoolion’s lavish meals.
‘Phew!’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot. You’ve ruined my diet for at least a week.’
Izanuela smiled. ‘Yes, quite something, isn’t it? Mind you, it’s really only for special occasions.’ She replaced the jar. ‘I think I’m going to treat myself to a little Ornian Crumblecrust.’
She removed a primitive-looking farmhouse cheese from the cupboard. As she did so, Echo thought he glimpsed a movement on one of the shelves inside.
‘What was that?’ he asked.
She instantly slammed the cupboard doors.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I saw something move in there.’
Echo noticed only now that the worm-eaten cupboard itself resembled a gigantic cheese.
Izanuela gave a little cough. ‘You’re imagining things.’
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘what are you hiding in there?’
She blushed. ‘Nothing,’ she mumbled. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Something moved. I saw it with my own eyes.’
Izanuela shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘But you must promise never to tell anyone,’ she said.
‘I promise.’ Echo raised one paw.
She deposited the Crumblecrust on the kitchen table, opened the cupboard again and reached for the shelf on which Echo had seen something moving.
‘Come here, you …’ Izanuela made several attempts to grab something, but it appeared to evade her every time. Could it be a mouse?
‘Got you at last!’ she cried eventually.
Turning round, she held out a cheese the size of a clenched fist. It had numerous legs, all of which were waggling furiously.
‘A…a
live
cheese?’ Echo looked dumbfounded.
live
cheese?’ Echo looked dumbfounded.
Izanuela shrugged her shoulders.
‘All cheeses are alive, strictly speaking. They mature like other living creatures. I simply give the process a helping hand - in a spirit of Caseinian fun, so to speak.’
She held the kicking cheese close to her face. It emitted a fretful whine.
‘I’ve christened it Inazuelan Brie - in my own honour. It’s my personal Caseinian creation. Live yoghurt cultures are partly responsible for its animation, as you can imagine, but I also use some Ugglimical essences strictly prohibited under the provisions of Ghoolion’s Municipal Ordinance No. 52736.’ She laughed.
‘What put the idea into your head?’
Izanuela sighed. ‘If you abstain as rigorously as I do from foods that used to be alive, you sometimes feel the urge to eat something that moves as much as possible while you’re eating it. It’s like that with me, anyway.’
‘I understand.’
‘If that brings me down to the level of a Demon’s Gulch Cyclops, so be it. But I should point out that the cheese feels nothing while you’re eating it. It resembles a Leyden Manikin in possessing no nervous system, so it can’t feel pain.’
As though in contradiction of the last statement, the cheese uttered a high-pitched whimper. Izanuela stuffed it into her mouth and devoured it in a few bites.
‘Mmm!’ she said, looking at Echo. ‘Yes, I know it’s a blot on my Ugglian escutcheon.’ She shrugged. ‘But who is free from guilt?’
‘So everything is alive in this place,’ he said. ‘Even the cheeses.’
‘Would you like one?’ Izanuela asked. ‘There are some more in the cupboard. They taste really delicious.’
‘No thanks,’ he said, ‘that Miner’s Breath was quite enough for me. Besides, I’d like to get my trip to the Toadwoods over before dark. It’s getting late.’
Izanuela recited again in vibrant tones:
‘You’re feeling terminally sick?
Off to the Toadwoods with you, quick!
All alone you there will be,
with no one else around to see.
So dig yourself a grave to fit
and then, my friend, lie down in it.’
Echo left the house as fast as he could.
The Toadwoods
T
he foliage in the Toadwoods was so dense that a kind of permanent twilight prevailed at ground level. Moreover, visibility was further reduced by the thin skeins of mist forever rising from expanses of marshland and drifting around the blackened trunks of the ancient trees.
he foliage in the Toadwoods was so dense that a kind of permanent twilight prevailed at ground level. Moreover, visibility was further reduced by the thin skeins of mist forever rising from expanses of marshland and drifting around the blackened trunks of the ancient trees.
‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to press on,’ Echo said to himself. ‘I opened my trap too wide, so I deserve to have it stuffed with Toadmoss. I can already smell the stuff, fortunately. I must head in the direction of those fallen tree trunks.’
The fallen tree trunks resembled the backs of gigantic lizards lying in wait for him in the grass. His progress was hampered by the prickly weeds and stinging nettles proliferating everywhere. Izanuela had a nerve, sending a little Crat off into a wilderness like this. Still, she’d risked her life on the mother of all roofs and he wanted to repay her. It would be shameful to return with nothing to show for his trip. He sniffed the air again.
‘I must go deeper into the woods. I’d better follow that mist.’
A wisp of vapour was drifting ahead of him. It reminded him of the Cooked Ghost and their joint excursions along the passages in Ghoolion’s castle. Ah, the castle! The Alchemaster’s sinister old ruin seemed like a luxury hotel out here. The trees appeared to be drawing ever closer together the further he went. He could see plump beetles and outsize ants and spiders crawling around on their bark.
It was Echo’s first time in a forest. ‘I suppose I’m the urban type,’ he thought. ‘Forests aren’t my bowl of milk.’ Twigs snapped, leaves rustled. Trees bent over him like hunchbacks, groping for him with their gnarled branches. The agonised cry of some animal rang out in the distance. Something drummed on a hollow tree trunk. Then absolute silence returned. ‘I can’t understand what people see in forests,’ Echo muttered to himself. ‘Personally, I’d sooner have a nice, well-kept municipal park.’
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