‘The Leathermice said that too,’ Echo thought dazedly. He was covered in toad slobber from head to foot, but he still had the Toadmoss in his mouth.
‘So I haven’t been missing anything,’ said the toad. ‘I apologise, my friend. Don’t take it personally, it was only an experiment.’
Echo retreated a few steps for safety’s sake.
‘Best of luck with that moss!’ he heard the toad call. ‘And look in on me again some time. I could use a massage like that occasionally. It would be nice to see you again.’
Echo turned and made his way out of the forest as fast as his paws would carry him.
Alchemy and Ugglimy
‘Now the Alchemist’s away
I’m at liberty to play,
and shall now, for good or ill,
bend his spirits to my will.
Having marked his words and ways
carefully these many days,
ready to perform am I
miracles of alchemy.’
The old poem by Aleisha Wimpersleak, which Izanuela was now reciting, could not have been more appropriate to the occasion. Echo had returned to the Uggly’s house late that night to assist her in preparing the love potion.‘Copious streams of sweat shall flow
from my overheated brow,
as I brew the magic broth
that will help me plight my troth,’
said Echo, who had been reminded of another poem.
‘Ah!’ Izanuela exclaimed. ‘You’re familiar with the Zamonian classics, I see. That was from “Love Soup” by Wamilli Swordthrow, wasn’t it? We’re really getting into the swing of things! There’s nothing more essential to Ugglimical potion-brewing than sympathetic vibrations.’
They were standing beside the distillation plant in the secret underground garden, where Izanuela had installed an apparatus quite the equal of any in Ghoolion’s laboratory. Echo jumped up on to the big table by way of a chair. Translucent coloured liquids - green, yellow, red, orange, blue and violet - were standing or bubbling away in glass balloons. The vessels were linked by thin tubes of copper, silver or glass, and methane-fed flames were burning brightly. Echo was surprised to see a pair of bellows pumping away steadily, apparently under its own power.
‘It contains earthworms in peat,’ Izanuela explained in a low voice. ‘It pays to harness the energy of Mother Earth. By the way, thanks for the Leyden Manikin formula. I’ve already animated one. We’ll be able to test the efficacy of the love potion on it.’
The Leyden Manikin was seated in a big-bellied flask, apathetically dabbling its feet in nutrient fluid. Echo took little notice of the creature, being far too eager to inspect Izanuela’s apparatus. He darted here, there and everywhere, sniffing and marvelling. Violets and rose petals were floating in pale-pink liquid, clumps of eelgrass waving around in alcohol. Some treacly dark-green substance was bubbling over a Bunsen burner. The air was filled with a smell reminiscent of flower gardens in springtime and stormy nights in the jungle, poppies and freshly mown grass, intoxicating orchids and poisonous tropical fungi, roses in full bloom, lemon balm and rosemary, fresh peat and wet straw.
Incandescent red Lava Worms wriggled along a spiral glass tube, heating up a flask in which a solution of chlorophyll was simmering. A column of big, black soldier ants marched across the table, transporting fragments of leaves and roots to a mortar. Stag beetles dragged whole flower heads over to a copper and dropped them in.
‘I see we’ve got plenty of busy little assistants,’ Echo remarked.
‘Oh,’ Izanuela said dismissively, ‘they’re just being neighbourly - paying me back for pinching my sugar and eating my spinach.’
The roots growing out of the floor and walls were unusually animated. The eyes in the knotholes kept opening and shutting as if aware that some crucial event was in the offing. For the first time, Echo took a closer look at the colourful butterflies fluttering through the subterranean vegetation.
‘What are all these butterflies doing down here?’ he asked when one of them settled on his head.
‘Generating atmosphere,’ said Izanuela, tossing a handful of pollen into the air. ‘Can you imagine brewing a love potion without any butterflies around? I can’t.’
‘You’ve really thought of everything,’ Echo said admiringly. ‘When does the balloon go up?’
‘Soon,’ she said. ‘I’ve still got to regulate my hop dispenser.’ She adjusted the control knobs on a big wooden box in which something was rumbling around and banging against the sides. ‘There,’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands. ‘All we need now is some twitchstik.’
‘Music?’ Echo translated.
The weird, rhythmical humming he’d heard on his first visit to the Uggly’s house started up again. He now realised that its source was the house itself, the roots and vegetation all around them.
‘The Song of the Ugglian Oaks,’ Izanuela said enthusiastically. ‘There’s nothing better.’ She put a jar on the table. At once, the Twitching Terebinth inside it began to sway ecstatically to and fro in time to the music. The Leyden Manikin also came to life. It stood up and started drumming on the side of its glass container.
‘Atmosphere is all!’ cried Izanuela. ‘Now let’s get down to work.’
She took various flasks filled with liquid from beneath the table and put them down beside a small cast-iron saucepan.
‘First we must dispense the vegetable essences in the correct quantities,’ she said.
‘Have they been chattified?’ Echo asked sternly.
‘With a vengeance,’ Izanuela replied with a grin. ‘More chattified than them you can’t get.’
She added minute amounts of the essences to the saucepan, consulting her Ugglimical Cookbook as she did so.
‘One ugg of Gristlethorn … two uggs of Treacletuft … five uggs of Clubfoot Toadstool … twenty-four uggs of Twelve-Leafed Clover … Yes, we can use some good luck …’
‘Why so little?’ Echo put in. ‘Why not tip the lot in? The more the merrier, no?’
‘Keep out of this!’ Izanuela hissed. ‘It’s over your head. Everything depends on the correct dosage. One ugg too many or too few and it’s completely ruined, so don’t distract me!’
Echo bit his tongue.
‘Eighteen uggs of Arctic Woodbine … two uggs of Old Man’s Scurf … four-and-a-half uggs of Pond Scum … one ugg of Sparrowspit … two uggs of Funnelhorn … one hundred and seventy-one uggs of Tuberous Stinkwort …’
And so it went on until all the essences had been added in the quantities prescribed. Izanuela placed the saucepan over a low flame and suspended a thermometer from the rim. ‘Now we heat it to exactly seventy-seven uggs,’ she said. ‘It mustn’t boil under any circumstances!’
‘What is an ugg?’ Echo asked.
‘An ugg can equate to a gramme or a degree - sometimes to a millimetre. It all depends,’ said Izanuela. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Echo. Having already gained the impression that Ugglimy wasn’t a particularly exact science, he was now, for the first time, struck by the disturbing thought that Izanuela might merely be blinding him with science.
‘Seventy-seven uggs on the button,’ she muttered after a glance at the thermometer. She consulted the cookbook again. ‘Now for the infusion of Witch’s Purslane.’ She produced a big, rusty syringe from a cupboard and went over to a glass container. Once there, she froze. The syringe hit the ground with a clatter.
‘By all the … Oh, no!’ she exclaimed.
Echo hurried over to her. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked anxiously.
‘The Witch’s Purslane essence,’ she groaned, ‘it’s gone off. How could that have happened?’
The liquid in the glass container looked brackish and slimy. Fat bubbles of gas were rising to the surface, on which limp, greenish-brown leaves floated like victims of drowning. The rhythmical music ceased.
‘Oh dear,’ Izanuela wailed, ‘I turned off the filter by mistake and left it overnight. The essence has be
come polluted.’
‘So?’ said Echo. ‘It’s only a salad vegetable. I’m sure you can get some more.’
‘That’s just it. This was a very rare variety from a farm on Paw Island. Have you any idea how far away that is? It would take a week to get hold of another batch and by then the other essences would have lost their potency. Don’t you understand? This is the moment to brew the potion. Here, today, tonight! It’s now or never! Damnation!’ She thumped the glass container.
Echo feverishly searched his knowledge of alchemy for a solution. ‘What is in the plant?’ he asked.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘nothing special, really. Iron, zinc, alkaloids - the stuff plants usually contain. But this was Witch’s Purslane and it contained an exceptionally effective kind of mucilago. That’s a gum designed to bind the ingredients of our potion tightly together. It’s like a soufflé, my young friend. Unless you follow the recipe exactly …’ Izanuela subsided weakly on to a chair.
Gastropoda, Echo heard the Alchemaster saying. Fossaria modicella. Radix auriculata. Stagnicola caperata. Aplexa elongata. Physella vigata. Gyraulus deflectus. Planorbula trivolvis. Planorbula armigera …
‘Planorbula armigera!’ he exclaimed.
‘What?’
‘It’s a snail. A very rare one.’
‘What about it?’
‘Ghoolion rendered one down and preserved its fat.’
‘Well?’
‘The fat of Planorbula armigera contains remnants of the slime the snail excretes and leaves behind it, and this slime has the same chemical composition as mucilago.’
The Uggly looked astonished. ‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s part of the alchemical knowledge Ghoolion has been drumming into this.’ Echo raised a forepaw and tapped his head.
‘Off you go, then!’ cried Izanuela. ‘Run back to the castle and fetch some of this snail fat. In the meantime, I’ll -’
‘No can do,’ said Echo.
‘Why not?’
‘There are several locks on the door of the cellar where the fat is stored. I can’t get them open by myself.’
Izanuela rose from her chair and drew herself up. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, folding her arms, ‘not again. Count me out.’
‘I went into the Toadwoods all by myself,’ said Echo, ‘and you didn’t warn me about the toad. You owe me one.’
‘No, I don’t!’ she said defiantly.
‘They’re pretty sophisticated locks,’ Echo said thoughtfully, ‘but we should be able to open them between the two of us.’
The Uggly had fallen silent.
‘Have you forgotten what you said just now? “This is the moment to brew the potion. Here, today, tonight! It’s now or never!”’
Izanuela groaned.
‘“Copious streams of sweat shall flow from my overheated brow …”’ Echo reprised.
‘Yes, yes,’ she groaned again, ‘“as I brew the magic broth that will help me plight my troth!”’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Echo. ‘Do you by any chance have a flute in the house? And a picklock? We’ll be needing a candle, too.’
The Burglary
Having satisfied himself that the Alchemaster was busy in his laboratory, Echo hurried back to the castle entrance, where Izanuela was already waiting for him. Then they set off for the cellars.
‘There’s something else I should tell you,’ Echo whispered as they were creeping down the long, dark stairs.
‘What’s that?’
‘There’s a Snow-White Widow down there.’
The Uggly stopped short. ‘He’s got a Snow-White Widow?’ she hissed. ‘In the cellars?’
‘She’s shut up in a glass cage.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen her.’
‘That’s very reassuring. Thanks for telling me, I feel much better now.’
‘It’s all right, we won’t be going anywhere near her,’ Echo whispered. ‘She’s in a remote part of the cellars.’
Izanuela reluctantly continued to descend the stairs. ‘A Snow-White Widow on top of everything else!’ she grumbled. ‘A few days ago I was leading a peaceful Ugglian existence. A client would occasionally complain that one of my predictions hadn’t come true, but that was the worst that could happen. Now I’m breaking into Ghoolion’s castle and working on a love potion. I steal plants, I almost fall to my death, I break one regulation after another, I risk my life as well as my fortune teller’s licence. And who am I doing all this for? A stray Crat. Can you give me one good reason why I should?’
They had reached the foot of the stairs.
‘We need some light,’ said Echo.
Izanuela lit the candle she had brought with her. To Echo, the dark, vaulted ceilings looked as menacing and close to collapse as they had the first time. He had never thought he would pay another visit to this loathsome part of the castle, still less of his own volition.
They made their way in silence through the series of underground chambers, which teemed with insects that shunned the light of their candle. Echo couldn’t help recalling Ghoolion’s memorable account of the ancient building’s gruesome history, but he refrained from sharing it with the Uggly, who strangely kept a bridle on her tongue for once. Whether this was because of their oppressive surroundings or the Alchemaster’s proximity, he couldn’t tell. It was probably a mixture of both - of awe and unrequited love - that had reduced Izanuela to silence. When they came to the door of the fat store, as they eventually did, she shone the candle on its numerous padlocks.
‘The one at the top is an acoustico-elemental lock,’ Echo said in a whisper, although no one could possibly have heard him. ‘That’s probably the hardest.’
‘Oh, I know those things of old,’ Izanuela said with a grin. ‘The Grailsund University authorities used one to secure the door of the room in which they kept their coveted Ugglimical diplomas. They’re child’s play to open.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Echo. ‘Are you telling me you stole your diploma?’
Izanuela blushed furiously. ‘Whoops!’ she said. ‘It just slipped out.’
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ Echo promised, ‘but only if you get that thing open.’
‘If you recite the correct names of the elements in the correct order - and you must know them if he opened the lock in your presence - it’s quite simple.’
Echo whispered the names in her ear.
‘Bismuth, niobium, antimony!’ cried Izanuela, and the lock sprang open.
‘Hey,’ said Echo, ‘how did you do that? The words kept getting twisted up on my tongue.’
‘The trick is to use your tongue to rearrange the individual syllables,’ she said. ‘I expect you remember what a talented tongue I have, don’t you?’ She extended the long green thing in question and Echo gave a reminiscent shudder.
‘Oh dear,’ she said, rattling the next padlock, ‘this is a numerical lock. I’ve no head for figures.’
‘This one’s mine,’ said Echo. ‘I made a note of the numerals Ghoolion spoke into it. Eighteen … twelve … six hundred and sixty-six … four thousand one hundred and two … seventeen million eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand five hundred and sixty-four …’
He reeled off the long series of numerals effortlessly. The padlock sprang open just as he finished.
‘You really do have a fabulous memory,’ Izanuela said admiringly. ‘You could make money out of it. Me, I can hardly remember my own birthday.’
‘Ghoolion used an invisible key for the next lock,’ Echo recalled. ‘Where are we going to get an invisible key?’
‘No need. Pedlars sell them to gullible yokels at country fairs. They’re rubbish. The key is invisible so no one can see it only has two wards, that’s all. I’ll get it open with the picklock.’
She produced the burglar’s tool from her cloak and poked around in the padlock. It sprang open almost at once.
‘Great,’ said Echo. ‘Now we need the flute. The next one is an unmusical lo
ck made of cacophonated steel.’
‘Child’s play,’ Izanuela said scornfully. She brought out the flute and played exactly the same discordant notes as Ghoolion. The padlock opened by itself.
‘Well, I never!’ Echo exclaimed. ‘How come you knew that frightful tune? I thought you’d have to toot away for ages.’
‘It wasn’t hard to guess,’ said Izanuela. ‘Ghoolion has given me earache more than once by playing that tune. It’s his favourite way of tormenting Ugglies.’
She applied herself to the next lock. ‘Hm,’ she muttered. ‘A Florinthian shamlock with triple tumblers. This is another kettle of fish altogether.’ Methodically, she set to work with the skeleton key and had it open within minutes.
‘Wow!’ said Echo. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’
‘Listen, my friend,’ Izanuela said sombrely, fixing him with the piercing gaze that had unnerved him once before, ‘I’m an Uggly. My sisters and I belong to a downtrodden race. People have always found fault with us. Once upon a time they used to lock us up or put us in the stocks - in fact they even burned us at the stake, although no one likes to mention that nowadays. Over the centuries, we were forced to acquire certain skills that aren’t in full conformity with the laws of Zamonia. Picking locks is the most innocuous of them. Now … Do you want me to get this door open, or would you prefer to go on asking stupid questions?’
‘All right,’ said Echo, thoroughly intimidated, ‘I’ll keep quiet.’
The Uggly gave him another piercing stare and went back to work. Sometimes she manipulated the picklock, sometimes she used a hairpin or a piece of wire conjured from the depths of her cloak. Padlock after padlock yielded to her deft touch.
‘That’s it,’ she said when the last one sprang open. ‘The way is clear.’
They entered the fat cellar. It was as dry, cool, clean and tidy as it had been the first time. The Alchemaster’s balls of fat were neatly arrayed in long rows.
‘This’, Echo said as he walked past the shelves, ‘is where Ghoolion stores the fat and the death rattles of the rare animals he tortures and renders down. How do you feel about him now you’ve seen this place?’