It is the story of Echo the crat, who is like a cat except it can speak all languages and has two livers. Echo isn't having a good time in Malaisea, a town known for it's sickness and ill health. In fact, Echo is slowly starving in the streets. That is until he meets Ghoolion the Alchemaster of Malaisea and author of most of the town's sorrow. The evil Alchemaster makes Echo a proposition; One month of the best dining and incredible entertainments. The catch is on the full moon, little Echo must give up his fat to the Alchemaster, and we can all guess that won't leave Echo alive afterwards.
From there the story is just a whirlwind of little adventures and fancy feasts. Of course Echo seeks to sneak out of his side of the bargain, but he finds that a very hard thing to do. Meanwhile he make allies with the vampiric leather mice, a ghost, a one eye'd owl like bird, and an Uggly. As he searches for a way out Ghoolion lives up to his bargain with feasts no one could have imagine and entertainments like being turned into a leather mice for a night, or viewing the only thing to scare death the venomous White Widow.
Really there's no way to describe the writing so here's a bit to give you a proper feel for the insanity within in:
"Rootkins are so small that they can't even be termed dwarfs. They belong to the Dwurf family, which embraces all life forms smaller than a chestnut: Piplings, Nutkins, Antlets, Skwirts and so on. But Rootkins are the smallest of the lot. They're only knee-high to a Skwirt and know how small a Skwirt is."
"No," said Echo, "I don't"
"Well a Nutkin is smaller than a Pipling but bigger than an Antlet, and a Skwirt is half the size of the latter. Stand all three on top of each other and they would be as tall in relation to a dwarf as a chicken is to an elephant."
Oh, and dare I mention this book is wonderfully illustrated. It has a nice Charles Addams feel to the illustrations that perfectly match the story of cat and alchemaster. Truly a great read!
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