Illustrated Scene: The Bottomless Bottle of Beer

Entering the Beer Alcove

Terrance Lindall

Above, in Terrance Lindall's imaginative depiction of Mr. Em and the naive hero entering the beer cellar with a bottomless bottle of beer, you see Mr. Em pointing to the bottles. The catlike Behemoth and the 'cleric' Azazello stand behind Mr. Em, waiting. Here's the passage to which this generally corresponds:

[Mr. Em] extended the torch into what seemed a nook, but a nook within what, I was unable to determine. We entered the small alcove, where Mr. Em located a hole in the wall at arm’s length above our heads and slipped the torch handle in. Apparently, it was designed for that. I then saw lining the walls of this small room hundreds, maybe thousands of bottles, each one corked, like wine.

"Wines?" I guessed.

"Why, no," Mr. Em softly murmured, as though reluctant to contradict. "These are corked beers."

I peered more closely in the flickering torch light. What he said was true. Not only were the bottles stubbier than most wine bottles, their labels identified them as beers in the broadest sense: ales, wheats, porters, stouts, whatever sort one might care to tally.

As you see, Terrance has artistic freedom to render as he wishes, which will make the book issue of my novella more interesting for readers, I think.

I reckon we'll find out . . .