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Chapter 9: Forbidden Love

TURNBALL Root had met Leonor Carsby on the remote Hawaiian island of Lehua in the summer of 1938. Leonor was there because she had crash-landed her Lockheed Electra into the northern slope of the island’s volcanic ridge and freewheeled into the oddly shaped natural canal known as the Keyhole, which cut through the island. Turnball had been there because he’d maintained a winter residence on the otherwise uninhabited island, where he liked to drink wine and listen to jazz recordings while he planned his next heist.

They were an unlikely couple, but their first meeting took place in the kind of extreme circumstances that often cause hearts to beat faster and believe themselves in love.

Leonor Carsby was a human Manhattan heiress, but also a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of women in aviation first presided over by Amelia Earhart. When Earhart was lost in the Pacific, Leonor Carsby vowed that she herself would complete the journey that her friend and hero Amelia had begun.

In April 1938 she took off from California with a navigator and extra-large fuel tanks. Six weeks later, Leonor Carsby arrived in the Keyhole with neither, having lost both to Lehua’s cruel crescent-shaped ridge. It was a miracle she herself survived, improbably protected only by the Lockheed’s bubble cockpit.

On his daily patrol, Unix had come across the heiress spread-eagled on a flat rock at the water’s edge. She was not in good shape: dehydrated, one leg badly broken, delirious, and on the edge of death.

The sprite called it in, expecting to be given the execution order, but something about the human woman’s face on his screen interested Turnball. He instructed Unix not to do anything, but to wait for his arrival.

Turnball took the trouble to shave, draw his hair back into a ponytail, and put on a fresh ruffled shirt before taking the lift from the subterranean cave to the surface. There he found Unix squatting over the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen. Even twisted unnaturally and covered with blood and bruises, it was clear to Turnball that she was an exquisite beauty.

As he stood over Leonor, with the sun behind him, casting long shadows across his face, the aviatrix opened her eyes, took Turnball in, and said two words: “My God.” And then she was lost to delirium once more.

Turnball was intrigued. He felt a thaw around a heart, which had been frozen for decades. Who was this woman who had fallen from the skies?

“Bring her inside,” he told Unix. “Use whatever magic we have to make her well.” Unix did as he was told without comment, as was his way. Many other lieutenants might have questioned the wisdom of using the gang’s dwindling supply of magic on a human. There was a newbie in the group who still had half a tank in him. When that was gone, who knew how long it would be before they had power again?

But Unix did not complain, and neither did the others, as they were all aware that Turnball Root did not handle moaning well, and moaners tended to find themselves stranded somewhere uncomfortable, waiting for something extremely painful to happen to them.

So Leonor Carsby was taken into the subterranean cave and nursed back to health. Turnball did not involve himself too much during the early stages, preferring to show up when Leonor was on the point of waking up so he could pretend he had been there the whole time. Initially, Leonor did nothing but heal and sleep, but after some weeks she began to speak, hesitantly at first, but then questions tumbled out of her so quickly that Turnball could hardly keep up.

“Who are you?”

“What are you?”

“How did you find me?”

“Is Pierre, my navigator, alive?”

“When will I be fit to travel?”

Generally, Turnball handled questions about as well as he handled moaning, but from Leonor Carsby, every question caused him to smile indulgently and answer in detail.

Why is this? he wondered. Why do I tolerate this human instead of simply tossing her to the sharks in the normal fashion? I am spending time and magic on her in extravagant amounts.

Turnball began thinking about Leonor’s face when he wasn’t looking at it. Water chimes reminded him of her laugh. Sometimes he was sure he could hear her call to him, though he was on the far side of the island.

Grow up, you fool, he told himself. Yours is not the heart of a romantic.

But the heart cannot lie, and Turnball Root found himself in love with Leonor Carsby. He canceled two raids on federal bullion sites to be by her side, and moved his office to her room so he could work while she slept.

And, for her part, Leonor loved him too. She knew he was not human, but still she loved him. He told her about everything but the violence. Turnball styled himself as a revolutionary on the run from an unjust state, and she believed it. Why wouldn’t she? He was the dashing hero who had saved her, and Turnball made sure none of his cronies shattered this illusion.

When Leonor was well enough, Turnball took her to Mount Everest in his shuttle, and she cried tears of amazement. As they hovered there, shrouded by the cold white mist, Turnball asked the question he had been wanting to ask for two months.

“That first moment, my dear, when your eyes met mine, you said, ‘My God.’ Why did you say that?” Leonor dried her eyes. “I was half dead, Turnball. You’ll laugh and think me silly.” Root took her hand. “I could never think that. Never.”

“Very well. I shall tell you. I said those words, Turnball, because I thought I had died and you were a fierce, handsome angel come to take me to heaven.” Turnball did not laugh, and he did not think it was silly. He knew at that moment that this gorgeous petite woman was the love of his life and he had to have her.

So when Leonor began talking of her return to New York, and how Turnball would be the sensation of the city, he pricked the ball of his thumb with a quill, drew a thrall rune with the blood, and prepared himself a supper of mandrake and rice wine.

Venice, Italy; Now

The giant amorphobot bore Turnball Root to his beloved, who waited for him at the basement dock to their house in Venice. The house stood four stories high and had been commissioned by Turnball himself in 1798 and built from the finest reconstituted Italian marble mixed with fairy polymers, which would absorb the gradual shift of the city without cracking. It took several hours to make the journey, during which time the amorphobot kept Turnball and his men alive by periodically surfacing to replenish its cells with oxygen and spiking their arms with saline drips for nourishment. As they traveled, Turnball logged on to the computer in the amorphobot’s belly to ensure that all was ready for the next stage of his plan.

Turnball found that he was very comfortable working in this sheltered environment with the world flashing by. He was insulated yet in control.

Safe.

From the corner of his eye, through the bleary mask of gel, Turnball was aware that Bobb Ragby and Ching Mayle now regarded him with something approaching worship, following the spectacular nature of their escape. Worship. He liked that.

As they approached the Italian coast, Turnball felt his calm smugness desert him, as a nervous serpent crawled into his stomach.

Leonor. How I have missed you.

Since Turnball had acquired a computer, there had been barely a day when they had not written to each other, but Leonor refused to participate in video calls, and of course Turnball knew why.

You will always be beautiful to me, my darling.

The amorphobot thrummed the length of Venice’s Grand Canal, skirting the mounds of rubbish and corpses of murdered princes, until it stopped in front of the only subaquatic gate with an omni-sensor. The bot winked at the sensor, and the sensor winked back, and now that everyone was all pally, the gate opened without blasting them with the recessed Neutrino lances on its pillars.

Turnball winked at his crew. “Thank goodness for that, eh? Sometimes that gate is a little unfriendly.” It was difficult to talk with the slow surge of gel over one’s teeth, but Turnball felt the comment was worth it. Leonor would like that one.

Turnball’s crew did not answer; their accomodation inside the gel bot was a little more cramped than their captain’s. They were squished together like salted slugs in a cone.

The bot elongated itself to flow easily down the narrow channel to Turnball’s underground dock. Strip lights glowed in the gloom, drawing them underneath the house. Deeper and deeper they went, until at last the bot expelled Turnball gently onto a sloping slipway. He straightened his coat, tightened his ponytail, and walked slowly along the ramp toward the slight figure waiting in the shadows.

“Put the others to sleep,” he told the bot. “I need to talk to my wife.” A plasma charge crackled through the bot, knocking out the fairies inside. Unix barely had time to roll his eyes before passing out.

Turnball took a halting step, nervous as a teenage elf about to take his first moon flight.

“Leonor? Darling. I have come home to you. Come and kiss me.”

His wife hobbled forward from the blackness, leaning heavily on an ivory-topped cane. Her fingers were gnarled, with glowing rheumatoid knuckles, her body was angular and unnatural, with sharp bones stretching the heavy lace of her skirt. One eye drooped, and the other was closed completely, and the lines on her face were scored deep by time and black with shadows.

“Turnball. As handsome as ever. It is so wonderful to see you free.” Leonor’s voice was a mere rasp, labored and painful.

“Now that you are home,” she said, haltingly, “I can allow myself to die.” Turnball’s heart lurched. He had palpitations, and a red band of heat tightened about his forehead. Everything he had ever done suddenly seemed all for nothing.

“You cannot die,” he said furiously, rubbing the pad of his thumb, heating the rune. “I love you, I need you.” Leonor’s eyelids fluttered. “I cannot die,” she repeated. “But why not, Turnball? I am too old for life. Only my longing to see you again has kept me alive, but my time has passed. I regret nothing, except that I never flew again. I wanted to, but I didn’t. . . . Why was that?” My hold is weakening. The old spell has died.

“You chose a life with me, my darling,” he said, rushing the last steps to her side. “But now that I have found the secret to eternal youth, you can be young again, and soon you will fly wherever you want to go.” Turnball felt the tiniest pressure as her fragile hand squeezed his fingers. “I would like that, my dear.” “Of course you would,” said Turnball, steering his wife to the basement elevator. “And now you should rest. I have a lot to organize before we leave.” Leonor allowed herself to be led, feeling, as always, powerless to resist her charismatic husband.

“That’s my Turnball. Always coming to my rescue. One of these days I will rescue you.” “You do rescue me,” said Turnball sincerely. “Every day.”

A barb of guilt pricked his heart, as he knew he could never allow Leonor to fly again. For if she could fly, then she might fly away.

Turnball was shocked and frightened by how feeble Leonor had become. Somehow, the simple act of marrying a fairy had slowed down her aging process, but now it seemed that he could delay her decline no longer. Turnball took his fear for his wife, turned it into rage, and pointed it at his crew.

“We have a historic opportunity here,” he shouted at the small group, who were assembled in the second-story library, “to strike a blow at the heart of our ancient enemy and also secure a supply of magic that will never run dry. If one of you useless jail rats fails in his task, there will be nowhere on this earth you can hide from me. I will hunt you down and peel the skin from your head. Do you understand?” They understood. Historically, Turnball’s threats were usually vague and stylish—when he got down to specifics, then the captain was close to the edge.

“Good. Good.” Turnball took a breath. “Is everything ready, Quartermaster?” Quartermaster Ark Sool stepped forward. Sool was an unusually tall gnome who had, until quite recently, been an internal affairs officer for the LEP. Having been demoted to private following an investigation into the ethics of his own methods, Sool had cashed in whatever years he had and decided that he would use the accumulated knowledge of decades of criminal investigation to make himself some of the gold that gnomes were almost hypnotically attracted to. He’d advertised his services at the Sozzled Parrot and had soon been picked up by Turnball, anonymously at first, but now they were meeting face-to-face.

“Everything is ready, Captain,” he said, tones clipped, back straight. “The shuttle we acquired from the LEP pound has been fitted out as an Atlantis ambulance. And I managed to trim the budget quite a bit and took the liberty of ordering a few new dress suits for you.” “Excellent work, Quartermaster,” said Turnball. “Your share has just gone up three percent. Initiative pays. Never forget that.” He rubbed his hands. “How soon can we leave?”

“As soon as you give the word, Captain. The ambulance is on the jetty and ready for push-off.” “The laser?”

“Modified as requested. Small enough to fit in your pocket.”

“I find myself liking you quite a bit, Sool. Keep it up and soon you will be a full partner.” Sool bowed slightly. “Thank you, sir.”

“Any casualties while you were doing the shopping?”

“Not on our side, sir,” said Sool.

“And who cares about the other side, eh?”

Turnball liked the idea of blood being spilled. It made the entire exercise seem worthwhile.

“Now, we all know I am a selfish fairy—that’s what’s kept us alive and prospering, apart from our recent stint at the Council’s pleasure. If I get what I want, then we all flourish. And what I want is a source of magic strong enough to make my wife young again. And if that source of magic can also make your dreams come true, so much the better. Until recently, there was no everlasting source, but now the demons have returned from Limbo, bringing a mighty warlock with them. A young demon who has taken the unusual name of No1.” “A smarmy little upstart,” said Sool. “Won’t salute or wear a uniform.” “I’m taking one percent of your share back for interrupting,” said Turnball gently. “Do it again and I’ll take an arm.” Sool opened his mouth to apologize, but on consideration decided that another little bow would suffice.

“You’re new. You’ll learn. And if you don’t, at least Mr. Ragby will have a nice meal. He loves limbs.” Ragby made the point by gnashing his large teeth.

“So, to continue uninterrupted, there is now a demon warlock in Haven. If we can take him, then he shields us forever and he brings my Leonor back to me. Questions?” Bobb Ragby raised a finger.

“Yes, Mr. Ragby?”

“Won’t this No1 be hard to get to?”

“Ah, excellent question, Mr. Ragby. Not quite as stupid as you appear, after all. And you are right. Generally, a person of this importance would be hidden away like the last stink worm at a dwarf sludge pool party, but in the event of a disaster at sea, where the medical staff are stretched to their limits, such a powerful warlock will be pressed into service by the medical warlocks. So we will find him in the aquanaut Nostremius, the floating hospital.” A broad smile spread across Ragby’s face. “And we have a fake ambulance.” “We do indeed, Bobb. You put things together quickly.”

Ching had a question too. “A person like that, with all this power, surely the LEP are going to come after a person like that?” This was exactly the question Turnball wanted asked. He was delighted by how this presentation was going. “Let me answer your question with one of my own, just to get your mind working, because I have faith that you’re not just a stupid goblin. Do you know why I had the space probe crash into the prison shuttle?” Ching’s reptilian face wrinkled in concentration, and he absently licked his eyeballs as he thought. “I think you done that so the Leppers would assume we were dead.” “Correct, Mr. Mayle. I orchestrated a huge catastrophe so everyone would believe we had been killed.” Turnball shrugged. “I don’t feel bad about that. We are at war with the Leppers, as you call them. If you take sides in a war, then you can expect to be a target. I might feel a little bad about the next catastrophe. I’m a little sentimental about hospitals: I was born in one.” Bobb raised the same finger again. “Uh, Captain, was that a joke?”

Turnball beamed a charming smile. “Why, yes it was, Mr. Ragby.”

Bobb Ragby started to laugh.

The Atlantis Trench; Now

Artemis Fowl felt the tentacles of the giant squid tighten around him. Saucer-sized spherical suckers latched on to his pressure suit, slobbering on the surface, searching for purchase. Each cup was lined with rings of razor-sharp chitin teeth, which gnashed viciously on Artemis’s protected limbs and torso.

Eight arms, if I remember correctly, thought Artemis. Which is two fours. Die! Die!

Artemis almost giggled. Even in the death grip of the biggest squid ever to be seen by a man, he was persisting with his compulsive behavior.

It won’t be long now before I am counting my words again.

When the squid’s biting suckers could not gain access to the tender meat inside, it held Artemis away from the giant mantle.

The next stage of the squid’s assault was to batter Artemis with one of its two longer tentacles, which it swung like a mace. Artemis felt the jarring blow, but his suit did not rupture.

“One two three four five,” shouted Artemis defiantly. “Wear the suit and stay alive.” Number poetry. Back to square one.

Three times more, the squid struck and then it drew Artemis close in circling bands of fat tentacle and took his entire head inside its gnashing beak. The noise was exactly what Artemis had always imagined it would sound like if a giant squid tried to crack his sea helmet.

If I get out of this, I will start thinking about girls like a normal fifteen-year-old.

After several heart-stopping minutes, the squid apparently gave up and dashed Artemis down in a nest of bones and sea junk that it had assembled on a high shelf at the side of an underwater cliff.

Artemis lay on his back and watched as the creature expanded its mantle cavity, filled it with hundreds of gallons of seawater, then contracted the mantle, shooting itself into the near pitch black of deep water.

Artemis felt that in the circumstances, a slang word was justified.

“Wow,” he breathed. “Of all the things that have almost killed me, that was the most fearsome.” After several minutes, Artemis’s heart rate slowed enough to extinguish the flashing heart readout on his suit, and he felt that he could move without throwing up.

“I’ve moved position,” he said into his helmet, in case Foaly’s phone, which was stuck into the helmet over his forehead, was still actually functional. “I intend to try and take some bearings so you can come and rescue me.” “Moved position?” said Foaly’s voice, which was transmitted faintly by vibration through the helmet’s poly-mer, so that it seemed to come from everywhere. “That’s an understatement. We’re going to try to catch up.” “Look for landmarks,” said another voice, Butler. “We can use them to triangulate with Foaly’s phone and pinpoint your position.” This was a hopeful plan at best, but Artemis felt that it was better to have something to do other than just wait for his air to run out.

“Actually, how much air do I have?”

Foaly, of course, was the one to answer that technical question. “The suit has functioning gills that draw oxygen from the ocean, so it will keep breathing long after you’re dead, so to speak. Not that you’re going to die.” Artemis turned over and raised himself onto all fours. Any difficulty he experienced was due to his body being in shock from the cephalopod attack, and not the pressure suit, which was functioning perfectly and which would later go on to win an industry award for its performance that day.

Take five steps, Artemis urged himself. Just five. What-ever you do, don’t stop at . . . one less than five.

Artemis took five shuffling steps, feeling his way along the ledge, carefully avoiding shuffling off into the abyss. He could probably survive the drop, but he had no desire to have to climb back up again.

“I’m on a long flat ledge, on the lip of the trench,” he said softly, anxious not to disturb any vibration-sensitive creatures—sharks, for example.

He realized that the squid had dropped him into some kind of nest. Perhaps the creature did not actually sleep here, but it seemed to feed in the spot and collect things that interested it. There were several skeletons, including the gigantic ribbed remains of a sperm whale, which Artemis first mistook for a shipwreck. There were small boats, huge brass propellers, great chunks of gleaming quartz, phosphorescent rocks, various crates, and even a mangled orange deep-sea submarine with grinning skeletons inside.

Artemis moved quickly away from the craft, even though his intellect assured him that the skeletons could not harm him.

Pardon me if I don’t completely trust my intellect these days.

He noticed that in all this rubble there did not appear to be any fairy-made articles, even with Atlantis just over the crest.

Then Artemis saw that he was mistaken. There was, no more than thirty feet from him, a small, slick, metallic computer cube with unmistakable fairy markings which seemed to float just above the surface of the ledge.

No, wait, not floating. Suspended in gel.

Artemis poked the gel gingerly, and when there was no reaction apart from a gentle fizzling spark, he plunged his sheathed hand into the gel up to the shoulder, grasping the cube by a corner. With the aid of the suit’s servo motors, he easily pulled it free.

Wreckage from the probe, perhaps, he thought, then said aloud, “I have something. It could be pertinent. Are you seeing this, Foaly?” There was no reply.

I need to get back to the ship, or into the crash crater. Somewhere away from the giant squid, which wants to nibble my flesh and suck my marrow.

Artemis immediately regretted thinking the suck-my-marrow bit, as it was far too graphic, and now he felt like throwing up again.

I don’t even know which way to go, he realized. This entire venture was ill-advised. What were the chances I would find a clue at the bottom of the ocean?

An ironic statement, as it would turn out, because he held a vital clue in his hands.

Artemis swung his head this way and that, to see if whatever was caught in the beams of his helmet could spark off an idea. Nothing. Just an almost transparent fish propelling its bloated body with stubby fins, and filtering plankton through its circular nostrils.

I need something to happen, thought Artemis a little desperately. The idea had occurred to him that he was lost alone underneath six miles of crushing ocean with not much of an idea of what to do next. Artemis had always performed well under pressure, but that was usually the intellectual pressure a person might experience at the end of a taxing chess match, not the kind of pressure that could splinter a person’s bones and squeeze every bubble of air from their lungs. Actual water pressure.

As it turned out, something did happen: the squid came back, and it bore in the grip of its larger tentacles what appeared to be the space probe’s nose cone.

I wonder what he wants that for? wondered Artemis. It’s almost as if he’s actually manipulating a tool.

But to what end? What nut would a giant squid wish to crack?

“Me,” Artemis blurted. “I’m the nut.”

Artemis could have sworn the squid winked at him before bringing the five-ton chunk of spacecraft swinging down toward the morsel of meat in its blue shell.

“I’m the nut!” Artemis shouted again, a little hysterically, it must be said. He backpedaled along the ledge, the suit’s motors lending him a little speed. Just enough feet per second to feel the force of the swing, but not the metal itself. The probe’s prow cut through the rock like a cleaver through soft meat and carved a V-shaped trench that ran between the soles of Artemis’s feet.

So much for being a genius, thought Artemis bitterly. One grand gesture and I’m fish food.

The squid yanked its weapon free from the rock and raised it high, pumping its mantle cavity full of water for the next effort. Artemis’s back was literally against the wall. He had nowhere to go, and made an easy target.

“Butler!” called Artemis, purely out of habit. He had no real expectation that his bodyguard could miraculously materialize at his side, and even if he did, it would just be to die there.

The squid closed one huge eye, taking careful aim.

These things are smarter than scientists think, thought Artemis. I do wish I had been able to write a paper.

The prow came hammering down, compressing water then pushing it aside. Metal filled Artemis’s vision, and it occurred to him that this was the second time this particular prow had almost crushed him.

Except this time it’s not almost.

But it was to be almost. An orange circle pulsed in Artemis’s helmet readout, and he prayed that it was a sign that an electromagnetic connection had been established between his suit and the ship.

It was. Artemis felt a gentle tug, then a fierce one that yanked him off the ledge straight up toward the hovering mercenary craft. In the light of his suit beams he could see a magnetic plate in the ship’s belly. Underneath him the squid abandoned its improvised mallet and bunched itself for pursuit.

I’ll probably slow down before I hit that plate, Artemis thought hopefully.

He didn’t, but the impact hurt a lot less than a blow from an armed giant squid.

Generally, the diver would be taken inside immediately, but in this case Holly decided that it would be best to leave Artemis where he was, and put a little distance between them and the squid, which Artemis would later agree was the correct decision even though at the time he was screaming.

Artemis craned his head around to see the massive dome of the squid’s head jetting after him, tentacles behind rippling like skipping ropes—skipping ropes with razor-lined suckers and enough power to crush an armored vehicle, not to mention the ability to manipulate tools.

“Holly!” he shouted. “If you can hear me, go faster!”

Apparently she could hear him.

Holly took the ship deep into the impact crater, and when she was absolutely sure the squid was off their scopes, she flipped the magnetic plate, and Artemis was dumped into the air lock, still clutching the fairy box to his chest.

“Hey, look,” said Mulch, once the air lock had drained. “It’s the nut.” He ran in small circles around the bay, squealing, “I’m the nut. I’m the nut.” The dwarf stopped for a laugh. “He cracks me up, really.” Butler hurried to Artemis’s side. “Cut him some slack, Diggums. He just tangled with a giant squid.” Mulch was not impressed. “I once ate one of those things. A big one, not a minnow like that fellow.” Butler helped Artemis with the helmet. “Anything broken? Can you move your fingers and toes? What is the capital of Pakistan?” Artemis coughed and stretched his neck. “Nothing broken. Digits all mobile, and the capital of Pakistan is Islamabad, which is noteworthy for having been built to be the capital.” “Okay, Artemis,” said Butler. “You’re fine. I won’t ask you to count to five.” “I would rather count in fives, if you don’t mind. Foaly, congratulations on building such a sturdy phone with an excellent tracking program.” Holly hit the water flaps to slow the ship’s forward motion. “Did you find anything?” Artemis held out the hardware cube. “Wreckage from the probe. This was covered in some kind of gel. Interesting texture, loaded with crystals. Something of yours, Foaly?” The centaur clopped over and took the small metal box. “It’s the heart from an amorphobot,” he said fondly. “These little guys were the perfect foragers. They could absorb anything, including each other.” “Maybe they absorbed this Turnball guy and his buddies,” said Juliet, half joking.

Artemis was about to explain in patronizingly simple terms exactly why this wasn’t possible, when it occurred to him that it was indeed possible—not only that, it was probable.

“They weren’t programmed to act as rescue vehicles,” said Foaly.

Holly scowled. “If you tell me one more time that those amorphobots weren’t programmed to do something, then I will have to shave your hindquarters while you sleep.” Artemis crawled to the steel bench. “Are you saying that you people knew about these amorphobots all the time?” “Of course we did. They attacked us in Iceland. Remember?”

“No. I was unconscious.”

“That’s right. Seems like ages ago.”

“So I endured trial by squid for nothing?”

“Oh no. Not for nothing. It would have taken me minutes to make the connection, and even then it would only have been a theory.” Foaly typed a code into his phone, releasing it from the pressure suit’s helmet. “Whereas now we can check the programming.” Foaly hooked his phone to the bot’s brain and was delighted to see its readout light up. He ran a few checks and was easily able to pinpoint the shadow program. “This is a little puzzling. The bot was sent new mission para-meters by the control orb. Charmingly enough, it’s actually telling its gel to kill us all right now. That’s why we never detected any outside interference—there was none. It’s a simple little shadow program, a few lines of code, that’s all. Simple to kill.” He did so with a few taps of the keyboard.

“Where is this control orb?” asked Artemis.

“It’s in my lab, in Haven.”

“Could it have been tampered with?”

Foaly didn’t have to think about this for long. “Impossible, and I’m not just being typical me and denying that my equipment is responsible. I check that thing most days. I ran a systems check yesterday, and there was nothing out of the ordinary in the orb’s history. Whoever set this up has been feeding the probe instructions for weeks, if not months.” Artemis closed his eyes to blot out the shining fours that had appeared in his vision, floating around the craft’s interior, hissing malignantly.

I manage to survive a giant squid attack, and now I’m worried about hissing fours. Great.

“I need everyone to sit in a line, on the opposite bench, small to tall.” “That’s the Atlantis Complex talking, Mud Boy,” said Holly. “Fight it.” Artemis pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Please, Holly. For me.” Mulch was delighted with this game. “Should we hold hands, or chant? How about: five keeps me alive, four makes my bottom sore?” “Number poetry?” said Artemis skeptically. “That’s ridiculous. Please, sit where I ask.” They did, reluctantly and grumbling, Foaly and Mulch arguing for a moment over who was smaller. There was no argument over who was tallest. Butler sat hunched at the end, chin almost between his knees. Beside him sat Juliet, then Foaly, then Mulch, and finally Holly, who had set the ship on neutral.

Five, thought Artemis. Five friends to keep me alive.

He sat, still clad in the pressure exoskeleton suit, watching his friends and taking strength, letting his ideas build.

Finally he said, “Foaly, there must have been a sec-ond orb.”

Foaly nodded. “There was. We always grow a backup. In this case we used the clone, because the original was damaged. Only minor damage, true, but you can’t take chances with space travel. The first was sent off to be incinerated.” “Where?”

“Atlantis. Koboi Labs got the contract. This was obviously before we realized how deranged Opal is.” “So, if we accept that Turnball Root got hold of the second orb and had it repaired by Vishby, or whoever else worked for him, then would the probe obey commands from that orb?” “Of course. No questions asked. They could be sent by any computer with a satellite link.” Butler raised a finger. “Can I say something?”

“Of course, old friend.”

“Foaly. Your security sucks. When are you guys going to learn? A few years ago the goblins built a shuttle, and now you have convicts running your space program.” Foaly stamped a hoof. “Hey, pal, less of the judgmental attitude. We’ve stayed hidden for thousands of years. That’s how good our security is.” “Five ten fifteen twenty,” shouted Artemis. “Please. We need to work quickly.” “Can we tease you about this later?” said Mulch. “I have some great material.” “Later,” said Artemis. “For now, we need to work out where Turnball is going and what his final objective is.” When there was no argument, he continued. “If we assume that Turnball used his orb to control the probe, and used these amorphobots to carry him away, can we track the amorphobots?” Foaly’s head movement was somewhere between a nod and a shake. “Possibly. But not for long.” Artemis understood. “The gel dissipates in salt water.”

“That’s right. The friction between the water and the bots wears down the gel, but as soon as it separates from the brain, it begins to dissolve. No charge, no cohesion. I’d say with a melon-sized bubble, you might get a few hours.” “It’s already been a few hours. How much longer do we have?”

“It may already be too late. If I was allowed out of my school desk, I might be able to tell you.” “Of course, please.”

Foaly swung his arms forward, lifting himself from his awkward seated position, and clopped into the cockpit, where he quickly entered the gel’s chemical makeup into the gyro’s rudimentary computer and dropped a filter over the portholes.

“Luckily for us, the mercenaries decided to leave the scanners intact. Everyone pick a window. I’ve run a scan for a specific radiation, and the gel trail should show up as a luminous green. Shout if you see something.” They all took a porthole, except Holly, who sat in the pilot’s chair, ready to take off in whichever direction the trail led.

“I see it!” said Mulch. “No, wait. It’s a really angry squid looking for his little nut. Sorry. I know that was inappropriate, but I’m hungry.” “There,” called Juliet. “I see something, portside.”

Artemis switched to her porthole. Winding from the depths of the crater was a wispy stream of shining bubbles that disappeared as they watched it, the lower bubbles separating into smaller blobs, then toward the end of the trail, some were disappearing altogether.

“Quickly, Holly,” said Artemis urgently. “Follow those bubbles.”

Holly opened the throttle. “Now there’s an order I never thought I’d hear from you,” she said.

They sped after the bubble trail in the mercenaries’ gyro, though Foaly did argue that technically they were not bubbles but globules, for which information he received a punch on the shoulder from Juliet.

“Hey, don’t punch me,” protested the centaur.

“Technically, that was a rap, not a punch,” corrected Juliet. “Now this . . . this is a punch.” The trail grew fainter before their eyes, and Holly quickly programmed in a projected course whenever the globules changed direction, just in case they disappeared altogether.

Artemis sat in the copilot’s chair with a hand over one eye and his second hand in front of his face.

“The thumb is generally acknowledged to be a finger,” he told Holly. “In which case we’re safe, because that makes five fingers. But some experts argue that the thumb is completely different and is one of the things that sets us apart from the animals, and in that case we only have four fingers on each hand. And that’s bad.” He’s getting worse, thought Holly anxiously.

Butler was stumped. If someone were threatening Artemis, the correct protective action was usually pretty obvious: Clobber the bad guy and confiscate his weapon. But now the bad guy was Artemis’s own mind, and it was turning him against everyone, including Butler.

How can I trust any order Artemis gives me? the bodyguard wondered. It could simply be a ruse to get me out of the way. Just like Mexico.

He squatted beside Artemis. “You do have faith in me now, don’t you, Artemis?” Artemis tried to meet his eyes but couldn’t manage it. “I’m trying, old friend. I want to, but I know that soon I won’t have the strength. I need help, and soon.” They both knew what Artemis wasn’t saying: I need help before I go out of my mind entirely.

They followed the gel trail eastward through the Atlantic and around the tip of Gibraltar into the Med. In the early afternoon the trail died suddenly. The last green bubble popped, and suddenly they were fifty feet underwater, two miles outside the Golfo di Venezia with nothing but yachts and gondolas in the gyro’s scopes.

“It has to be Venice,” said Holly, bringing the ship to periscope depth, taking the opportunity to fill the air tanks and equalize. “It’s right in front of us.” “Venice is a big city,” said Butler. “And not an easy place to search. How are we going to find these guys?” The amorphobot brain in Foaly’s hand suddenly beeped as it established a link with its brethren. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. They’re close. Very close. Very, very close.” Artemis was not happy with his melodramatic statement. “Very, very close? Really, Foaly? You’re a scientist. How close, exactly?” Foaly pointed to the gyro’s hatch. “That close.”

The next minute or two were frantic and seemed to have an entire day’s worth of happenings compressed into a few moments. To Artemis and Foaly, the whole thing was just flashes of color and blurred movement. Butler, Holly, and Juliet saw a little more, being trained soldiers. Butler even managed to get off the bench, which did him absolutely no good whatsoever.

The gyro’s hatch made a sound like a giant plastic bottle being stepped on by a giant foot, then simply disappeared. Rather, it appeared to disappear. It was actually torn backward with great force then hurled into the sky. The hatch eventually lodged in the shaft of the bell tower of San Marco Piazza, which caused quite a bit of consternation in the city, especially for the painter whose rope was severed by the spinning hatch, and who plummeted a hundred feet to land on his brother’s back. The brothers were already fighting, and this didn’t make things any better.

Back in the gyro, water immediately began flooding the ship’s interior, but most of the available space was filled by the rolling forms of six amorphobots, which flowed into the bay, chittering as they selected their targets. It was all over in less than a second. The bots pounced on their targets, quickly engulfing them in turgid gel, and spirited them into the azure blue of the Mediterranean.

As they were whisked toward the murky form of a fairy ship in the depths, each prisoner had his or her own thoughts about what had happened.

Artemis was stunned by how much this abduction reminded him of his time spent battling through the mindscreen in his own brain.

Holly wondered if her weapon would work inside the gunk, or if it had been disabled yet again.

Foaly couldn’t help feeling a little fondness for the amorphobot that held him prisoner; after all, he had grown it in a lab beaker.

Juliet tried to keep Butler in sight. So long as she could see her brother, she felt reasonably safe.

Butler thrashed for a moment, but quickly realized that his efforts were futile, and so drew himself in like a newborn, conserving his energy for one explosive movement.

Mulch was also considering an explosive movement. Maybe he couldn’t escape, but he could certainly make this blobby thing regret picking him up. The dwarf pulled his knees slowly to his chest and allowed the gas in his tubes to collect into long bubbles. Eventually he would have enough force to blast through, or else he would be left floating in what would look like the world’s largest lava lamp.

Turnball Root was having a reasonably good time. He would have been having a wonderful time but for the fact that his darling Leonor was not in the condition he would like her to be, and he was worried that if he was able to restore Leonor’s faculties, she would quickly tumble to the fact that he was not quite the principled revolutionary he had always pretended to be, and he would lose her love. Leonor had a strong sense of morality, and she would definitely kick up a fuss at the idea of him imprisoning a demon warlock to keep her forever young. Turnball glanced at the thrall rune on his thumb. The intricate set of spirals and characters that had kept Leonor on the hook, but the power of which was weakening all the time. Would she have left him without it? Maybe. Probably.

Turnball was possibly the world’s foremost expert on runes. They suited his situation, as they only required a tiny spark of magic to kick-start them, and thereafter operated on the power of the symbols themselves. Different people reacted differently to rune control. Some could be controlled for decades while others would reject the black magic and go instantly insane. Leonor had been the ideal thrall because a large part of her wanted to believe what Turnball told her.

With his modified laser, Turnball could enslave anyone he wished, for as long as he wished, no matter how they felt about him, and without the need for a single spark of magic.

Like these new prisoners, for example. A veritable treasure chest of talents at his disposal. One never knew when a teenage mastermind would come in handy, or a technical centaur, especially when it was well known that the little demon trusted them both. With those two and the warlock, he could start his own principality if he chose to.

Yes, I am having a reasonably good time, thought Turnball. But soon I will be having an excellent time. Just one more set of people to kill. Maybe two.

The amorphobots had entered the ambulance through the air lock and morphed into one in the ambulance’s only cell. Actually, the bot holding Mulch Diggums was excluded from the morph, as the other bots could not identify the chemical spectrum of the gas bubbles inside the dwarf’s body, and did not frankly like the look of Mulch anyway, and so, though it tried to meld with the others, the bot was repulsed and wobbled lonely in the corner.

Turnball Root descended the spiral staircase from the bridge and literally swaggered into the cell to gloat.

“Look here,” he said to Unix, who stood at his shoulder, grim as ever. “The finest fairy and human minds all gathered together in one cell.” They hung before him suspended in smart gel, unable to do much besides take shallow breaths and move like sleepy swimmers.

“Don’t even bother making the effort to call for help or shoot your way out,” Turnball continued. “I am jamming your phones and weapons.” He leaned close to the bot’s shimmering surface. “Here’s one of Julius’s little pups. Didn’t we shoot her already, Unix?” A leery smile tightened the sprite’s jaw, though it did not make him seem like a nicer person.

“And the great Foaly. Savior of the People. Not anymore, my little pony. Soon you will be my thrall, and delighted to be so.” Turnball wiggled his thumbs at the captives, and they could see the red runes painted there.

“And what have we here?” Turnball stopped in front of the Butlers. “Crazy Bear and the Jade Princess. I missed you once before, but it won’t happen a second time.” “What about me?” Mulch managed to say, and the bot translated the vibrations of his larynx into sound.

“What about you?”

“Don’t I get a description? I’m dangerous too.”

Turnball laughed, but softly so the noise would not awaken Leonor, who slept in the berth upstairs. “I like you, dwarf. You have spirit, but nonetheless I shall kill you, as you are of no use to me, unless you fancy a position as jester. A fat, smelly jester. Obviously I am assuming that you smell bad. You certainly look as though you might.” Turnball moved on to Artemis. “And, of course, Artemis Fowl. Ex-criminal mastermind and current psychotic. How is the Complex going, Artemis? I bet you have a bad number. What is it, five? Four?” Artemis must have flinched because Turnball knew he had guessed correctly. “Four, then. And how do I know you suffer from Atlantis? You should ask your friend Foaly. He’s the one who supplies me with pictures.” Artemis was not at all surprised to find that some of his paranoia was actually justified.

Turnball paced along the line like a general delivering a prebattle pep talk. “I am delighted that you are all here, genuinely delighted. Because you can be useful to me. You see, my wife is very old, and to save her life and bring her youth back, I need a very powerful magician.” Artemis’s eyes widened. He got it straightaway. All of this to lure No1 out of Haven.

“Your friend No1 will be helping out with the injured on the Nostremius, and we were going to go in there, masquerading as patients, and bring him out with my super-duper modified lasers, but there was always going to be the niggly problem of the little fellow perhaps getting a magical bolt off before I enthralled him. But now, Holly Short, one of his best friends in the whole world, is going to fetch him for me.” Turnball turned to Unix. “Tell the bot to spit out Captain Short.”

Unix consulted a computer rendering of the bot and its contents on a wall screen. With a flick of his finger, he dragged Holly from the gel. Almost instantaneously, the bot did the same. Holly felt as though she were being vomited from the belly of a beast onto the cold metal floor. She lay there gasping as her lungs accustomed themselves to breathing pure air once more. She opened her eyes to see a grinning Turnball looming over her.

“I’m remembering more and more about you as time goes by,” he said, and kicked her hard in the ribs with one black boot. “And I remember that you put me in prison. But never mind, eh. Now you can make up for it by doing me a good turn.” Holly spat a blob of gel onto the deck. “Not likely, Turnball.”

Turnball kicked her again. “You will address me by my rank.”

Holly spoke through gritted teeth. “I doubt it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Turnball, and put his boot on her throat. From his pocket he pulled what looked like a penlight.

“This looks like a penlight, doesn’t it?”

Holly could not speak, but she was guessing the slim cylinder was something more sinister than a light.

“Yet it is quite a bit more than that. You may have guessed that black-magic runes are something of a hobby of mine. Illegal, yes, but almost everything I do is illegal, so why start worrying now? What this little laser does is burn the rune directly into the skin of the person I wish to enslave. No magic necessary. So long as I have the corresponding rune on my person, then you are in my thrall forever.” Turnball showed his thumb to Holly, the one with Vishby’s rune still inscribed on the pad, the magic of which could be transferred to her now that Vishby was dead. “And guess what, my dear? A free slot just opened up in my organization.” Root activated the laser and hummed for a moment until the tip turned red, then he jammed it into Holly’s neck, branding her with his binding rune.

Holly bucked and screamed in a black-magic fit.

“Not so gentle as the touch,” noted Turnball, stepping out of puke range just in case.

The fit lasted less than a minute, leaving Holly rigid on the floor, breathing abnormally fast, eyelids fluttering.

Turnball licked the blood rune on his own thumb.

“Now, Miss Short, what say we go and kidnap a warlock?”

Holly stood, arms stiff by her side, eyes unfocused.

“Yes, Captain,” she said.

Turnball clapped her on the back. “That’s more like it, Short. Isn’t it liberating not to have a choice? You just do what I say, and nothing is your fault.” “Yes, Captain. Most liberating.”

Turnball handed her a Neutrino. “Feel free to kill anyone who gets in your way.” Holly checked the battery level expertly. “Anyone who gets in my way, I kill them.” “I like these lasers,” said Turnball, twiddling the rune pen. “Let’s do someone else. Tell the bot to pop young Fowl out of his bubble, Unix. It will be nice to have a pet genius.” Unix dragged his finger across the touch screen, and Artemis flopped gasping to the floor like a fish out of water.

The Aquanaut Nostremius, Atlantis Trench; Now

The young demon warlock who chose to call himself No1 was feeling extremely sad. He was a sensitive little fellow—though you would not think it to look at his gray armor-plated hide and the squat head that seemed to push its way out of his lumpy shoulders—but he felt others’ pain, and this trait, according to his master, was what made him such an excellent warlock.

There was a lot of pain in the fairy world today. The Martian probe disasters in Iceland and the Atlantis Trench were the worst fairy disasters to have occurred in recent times. To the humans, injury on this scale would probably not even make it onto the big news stations, but the fairy folk were small in number and cautious by nature, so to have two probe-related disasters in one cycle was horrific. But at least a larger catastrophe had been averted by the efficient evacuation of Atlantis.

No1 had barely begun to grieve for the loss of his friends in Iceland, when the LEP had informed him that Holly, Foaly, and Artemis had actually survived.

Commander Trouble Kelp asked him to go to Atlantis on the Nostremius hospital ship to help heal those injured by the probe’s blast wave. The little demon had immediately agreed, hoping that he could distract himself for a short period at least by using his powers to help others. And now news had filtered through that Holly’s escape pod had gone down at sea, and all hands were presumed lost. It was too much to process: dead, alive, then dead again. If Holly had had some magic in her system, No1 might have been able to sense her out there somewhere, but he could feel nothing.

So for the past several hours No1 had worked himself ragged, laying hands on the injured. He had knitted bones, sealed gashes, repaired ruptured organs, drawn salt water from lungs, draped veils of calm over hysteria, and, in some extreme cases, wiped the entire pileup from people’s memory. For the first time since he had blossomed as a warlock, No1 was actually feeling a little depleted. But he could not leave right now, as word had just come over the aquanaut’s speakers that yet another ambulance had docked.

I need to sleep, he thought wearily. But not to dream. I would only dream of Holly. I cannot believe she’s gone.

And something made him look up at that moment, and he saw Holly Short walking down the corridor toward the quarantine door. The sight was so unexpected that No1 was strangely unsurprised.

It’s Holly, but she’s moving weirdly. As though she’s under-water.

No1 finished the bone knit he was working on, then left the cleanup to a nurse. He shambled toward the security door, where Holly was having her retina scanned. The computer accepted her LEP credentials and popped open with a pneumatic hiss.

No1 skipped outside to prevent Holly entering.

“We have to keep that area germ free,” he said, sorry these had to be the first words he uttered to his resurrected friend. “And you look like you just escaped from toxic garbage.” Then he hugged her tightly. “You smell like a toxic dump too, but you’re alive. Thank goodness. Tell me, did Foaly survive? Please say he did. And Artemis? I couldn’t bear it when I heard you were all gone.” Holly did not meet his eyes. “Artemis is sick. I need you to come.”

No1 was immediately desolate, his mood swinging rapidly like a small child’s. “Artemis is sick? Oh no. Bring him in and we can take care of him here.” Holly turned back the way she had come. “No. He can’t be moved. You need to follow me.” No1 jogged after his friend Holly without a moment’s hesitation. “Is it a broken bone, is that it? Artemis can’t be moved? Is Foaly okay? Where did you guys go?” But there were no answers for the little demon, and all he could do was follow Holly’s square shoulders through the throngs of walking wounded, past the cots that had been erected in the hallways. The smell of disinfectant burned his nostrils, and the cries of the injured seared his heart.

I’ll just fix Artemis quickly. Maybe lie down for a minute, then get back to work.

No1 was a good soul, and it never for a moment occurred to him to probe Holly a little to make sure she was fully herself. It never crossed his mind that one of his closest friends could be leading him into a life of servitude.

Turnball sat by Leonor’s bed in the stolen shuttle ambulance, holding her hand while she slept. He felt a little giddy about changing his plan at the last minute. It was quite the cavalier move, and the rush of adrenaline reminded him of his younger days.

“It was all seat-of-the-pants stuff before I went to prison,” he confided to the sleeping Leonor. “I was a captain in the LEP and running the underworld at the same time. To be honest, there wasn’t much of an underworld before I came along. In the morning I would chair a meeting of the task force that was trying to apprehend me, and in the evening I would be doing black-market deals with the goblin gangs.” Turnball smiled and shook his head. “Good days.” Leonor did not react, as Turnball had thought it best to give her just a drop of sedative until the warlock had restored her youth. He knew from her talk of death that he was losing his grip on his wife, and she was not strong enough to survive another thrall rune.

So sleep, my darling. Sleep. Soon, all will be as it was.

As soon as Captain Short returned with the demon. And if she did not? Then he would board the Nostremius and take the warlock by force. Perhaps he would lose a crew member or two, but they should be glad to die for their captain’s wife.

One level down, in the brig, Bobb Ragby was on guard duty, a duty that he was enjoying immensely, as he considered it payback for all the years he himself had been lorded over by guards. It didn’t matter to Bobb that his gel-bound prisoners weren’t actually the people who’d watched over him: that was just their bad luck. He was taking special pleasure in teasing Mulch Diggums, whom he had long considered a competitor in the top criminal dwarf competition that he’d played in his head during the long hours spent on the toilet, thanks to a diet of processed food.

Turnball had ordered him to split the amorphobots for safety, and now one hung in each corner of the cell like a giant wobbling egg sac.

If any of them act up, then use the shocker feature at your own discretion, Turnball had said. And if they try to shoot their way out, make sure we get that on video so we can have a good laugh later.

Ragby had decided he would definitely use the shocker at the first provocation, maybe before the first provocation.

“Hey, Diggums, why don’t you try to eat some of the gel so I have an excuse to electrocute you?” Mulch did not waste his energy talking: he simply bared his enormous teeth.

“Yeah?” said Ragby. “They ain’t so big. The more I look at you, Diggums, the less I believe all that junk your little groupies spew back at the Sozzled Parrot. You don’t look like much of a burglar to me, Diggums. I think you’re a phony. A fraud, a tale-spinning liar.” Mulch brought a hand up to his face. Yawn.

Artemis had been returned to the grip of his amorphobot once the branding had been completed, and with nothing to do but think in its clammy folds, he could feel whatever was left of his battered personality slipping away. The rune on his neck had taken hold of his willpower in a viselike grip, and while he could think and speak at the moment, it took a lot of effort, and he guessed that he only had those rudimentary functions because Turnball hadn’t given him any specific instructions yet. Once he had his orders, then he would be powerless to resist.

Turnball will be able to order me to do anything, he realized.

Through the distorting field of gel, Artemis could see Ragby taunting Mulch, and thought that perhaps it would be a good idea if he joined the argument.

Speaking through the gel was a tricky affair that involved forming the words through clenched teeth, which kept the gel out but allowed it to pick up vibration in the throat.

“Hello, Mr. Ragby,” he said. The amorphobot sprouted a gel speaker and translated the vibrations into words.

“Hey, look,” said Ragby. “The thrall speaks. What do you want, Mud Boy? A little shock, is that what you want?” Artemis decided that highbrow intellectual argument was not the way to go with this person, and chose to go straight for the personal insult.

“I want you to have a bath, dwarf. You stink.”

Ragby was delighted to have a little diversion. “Wow. That’s like actual grown-up fighting talk. You do know that your bodyguard is out of action?” If Butler had been equipped with laser eyeballs, Bobb Ragby would have had holes bored right through his skull.

What are you up to, Artemis? wondered Butler. This kind of insult is not your style.

“I don’t need a bodyguard to dispose of you, Ragby,” continued Artemis. “Just a bucket of water and a wire brush.” “Funny,” said Ragby, though he sounded a little less amused than previously.

“Perhaps some disinfectant, so your germs would not spread.”

“I have a fungus,” said Ragby. “It’s a real medical condition and it’s very hurtful of you to bring it up.” “Awww,” said Artemis. “Is the big tough dwarf in pain?”

Ragby had had enough. “Not as much pain as you,” he said, and instructed the bot to pass a charge through its gel sac.

Artemis was attacked by shards of white lightning. He jittered for a moment like a marionette in the hands of a toddler, then relaxed, floating unconscious in the gel.

Ragby laughed. “Not so funny now, are you?”

Butler growled, which would have been menacing had his bot speakers not translated it as a robotic purr, then he began to push. It should have been impossible for him to make any impact without traction, but somehow he actually managed to distend the gel, causing the bot to chitter as though being tickled.

“You guys are hilarious,” said Ragby, and allowed Butler to wear himself out for a few minutes before he grew bored and shocked the bodyguard. Not enough to knock the big human out, but certainly enough to calm him down a little.

“Two down,” he said cheerily. “Who’s next?”

“Me,” said Mulch. “I’m next.”

Bobb Ragby turned to find Mulch Diggums rolled into a ball, rear end pointed directly at Bobb himself. The rear end was not covered by material, or, in other words, it was a bare bottom and it meant business.

Ragby, as a dwarf himself and a subscriber to Where the Wind Blows monthly, knew exactly what was about to happen.

“No way,” he breathed. He should shock Diggums, he knew, but this was too much entertainment to pass up. If things got out of hand, he could press the button; until then no harm in watching. Just in time, he remembered to press RECORD on the security cameras, in case the captain wanted a look later.

“Go on, Diggums. If you actually break free, then I’ll present my own backside for a good kicking.” Mulch did not reply: breathing was too difficult inside the gel to go wasting any precious energy trading insults with Bobb Ragby. Instead he wrapped his forearms around his shins and bore down on his colon, which was inflated like a very long balloon snake.

“Go, Mulch!” whooped Ragby. “Make your people proud. Just so you know, this will be up on the Ethernet in about five minutes.” The first bubble to emerge was cantaloupe sized. These big bubbles were known among dwarf tunnelers as corkers, from back in the days when corks were used to cap bottles. Often a corker had to be cleared before the main flow could begin.

“Good-sized corker,” Bobb Ragby admitted.

Once the corker was out of his system, Mulch followed it with a flurry of smaller squibs, which emerged into the gel with an initial speed that was quickly arrested by the bot’s gel.

“Is that it?” called Bobb, a little disappointed, truth be known. “Is that all you got?” That was not all Mulch had got. A hundred more assorted squibs quickly followed, some spheres, some ellipsoids, and Ragby swore he saw a cube.

“Now you’re just showing off!” he said.

The bubbles just kept on coming in various sizes and shapes. Some were transparent, some suspiciously opaque, and a few had wisps of gas inside that crackled when they hit the gel.

The bot chittered nervously, the metal hardware heart flashing orange as its built-in spectrometer struggled to analyze the gas’s components.

“Now that I have never seen,” said Bobb, his finger hovering over the shocker button.

Still the bubbles flowed, inflating the amorphobot to twice its original size. Its chitterings climbed the octaves until eventually they shattered nearby medical beakers and climbed to ultrasonic wavelengths, too high for the humans and fairies to hear.

The shrieking has stopped, thought Bobb. That must mean the danger is past.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Mulch was virtually invisible now behind the bubbles, his image twisted and refracted by their curved surfaces. More and more bubbles were produced. Mulch seemed to be the dwarf equivalent of a clown’s car that could hold more passengers than would seem to be allowed by the laws of physics. The amorphobot was stretched to its limits, and its surface was dappled by the pressure. It began bouncing on the spot, venting bursts of the mysterious smoky gas.

“Well, Mulch, it’s been fun,” said Bobb Ragby, and reluctantly pressed the shocker button, which, as it turned out, was the wrong thing to do. Even the amorphobot tried to refuse the order, but Ragby insisted, jabbing the button again and again until the familiar crackling sparked from two nodes on its metallic heart.

Any first-day chemistry student could have told Ragby never to put sparks near a mystery gas.

Unfortunately, Ragby had never met any first-day chemistry students, and so it came as a total surprise to him when the gas passed by Mulch Diggums ignited, bubble after bubble, in a chain reaction of mini explosions. The bot expanded and ruptured, gel jets erupting from its surface. It bounced from floor to ceiling then pinballed across the cell, running Ragby over like a giant tire. It was a testament to Foaly’s design and standards that the amorphobot held its integrity even under such extreme circumstances. It transferred gel from unscorched sections and grafted them onto ruined areas.

Ragby lay stunned on the deck while the bot came to rest across the hatch, shuddering and heaving. In cases like this, it had a deep-rooted self-preservation order that Turnball had not thought to override. In the event that a sample collected by one of the amorphobots proved dangerous to the bot’s systems, then that subject was to be immediately ejected. And this pungent dwarf was definitely dangerous, and so the damaged amorphobot hawked Mulch Diggums onto the blackened deck, where he lay, smoking.

“I should never have had all that vole curry,” he mumbled, then passed out.

Bobb Ragby was the first dwarf to recover.

“That was something,” he said, then spat out a lump of charred gel. “You got out, darn it if you didn’t, so I suppose by rights I should present my behind for a kicking.” Ragby lowered his wide bottom toward Mulch’s unconscious face, but got no reaction.

“No takers?” he said. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t offer.”

“Here,” said a voice behind him. “Let me kick that for you.”

He twisted his neck around just in time to see an enormous boot heading for his behind, and behind that boot there was an angry head, which, in spite of being a little out of focus because of Bobb’s perspective, unmistakably belonged to the human Butler.

Mulch had never believed he would actually get out of the amorphobot’s belly, but he had hoped to distract Bobb Ragby for a few moments so that Foaly could come up with one of his genius techy plans.

And that was exactly what had happened. While Ragby had been occupied watching the gastrobatics of his fellow dwarf, Foaly had been busy syncing the bot core Artemis had picked up at the impact site with the core in his own amorphobot. In a laboratory it would have taken him about ten seconds to connect and send a string of code to shut out the instructions from the stolen control orb, but, suspended inside an amorphobot, it took the centaur at least half a minute. As soon as the readout flashed green, Foaly networked with the remaining bots and instructed them to dissolve.

Half a second later, Juliet and Foaly flopped to the floor, tears in their eyes, gel in their windpipes. Artemis lay unmoving, still unconscious from his electrocution.

Butler landed on his feet, spat, and attacked.

Poor Bobb Ragby never had a chance, not that Butler did much to him. All it took was one kick, then the dwarf’s terror took hold and jetted him straight into the lip of a metal bunk. He collapsed with a surprisingly childlike moan.

Butler turned quickly to Artemis and checked his pulse.

“How’s Artemis’s heart?” asked Juliet, bending to check on Mulch.

“It’s beating,” replied her brother. “That’s about all I can tell you. We need to get him over to that hospital ship. Mulch too.” The dwarf coughed then muttered something about beer and cheese pies.

“Do you mean beer, and cheese pies? Or beer-and-cheese pies?” Juliet glanced at her brother. “Mulch may be delirious—it’s hard to tell.” Butler took Bobb Ragby’s gun from his belt, then tossed him bodily onto Foaly’s broad back.

“Okay. Here’s the strategy. We take Artemis and Mulch across to the Nostremius’s sick bay, then I retrieve Holly if necessary.” Juliet’s head snapped back. “But Foaly can do—”

“Get moving,” thundered Butler. “Go immediately. I do not want to talk about it.” “Okay. But if you’re not with us in five minutes, I’m coming after you.” “I would appreciate that,” said Butler, propping Mulch on Foaly’s back, then the unconscious Artemis. “And if you could bring any troops you find along the way, that would be great.” “Troops on a hospital ship?” said Foaly, trying his best not to smell what was on his back. “You’ll be lucky.” Mulch’s tongue lolled out, resting on the centaur’s neck. “Mmm,” he mumbled around his tongue. “Horse. Tasty.” “Let’s go,” said Foaly nervously. “Let’s go right now.”

The ambulance was a small ship compared to the massive aquanaut that loomed over them. The little craft had two levels: a sick bay and cell downstairs and on top of the spiral staircase a bridge with a small trucker’s cabin, and apart from a couple of nooks for storage and recycling, and the room in which they’d been imprisoned, that was it. Luckily for Butler and the others, the umbilical across to the Nostremius was on the bottom level.

Ching Mayle was peering across through the umbilical, obviously waiting for Holly’s return with the demon warlock.

“Please,” whispered Juliet, when they saw the goblin at the hatch, “allow me.” Butler was holding both Artemis and Mulch steady on Foaly’s back; Bobb Ragby he was not so worried about. “Knock yourself out,” he said. “Or, rather, knock the other guy out.” Being a wrestler, Juliet could not simply run at Ching Mayle and knock him out—she had to add a little drama.

She ran down the corridor crying hysterically, “Help me, Mr. Goblin. Save me.” Ching removed his fingers from the bite marks on his skull he was forever scratching, which of course meant that they never healed properly.

“Uh . . . save you from what?”

Juliet sniffled. “There’s a big ugly goblin trying to stop us from leaving the ship.” Mayle reached for his gun. “There’s a what?”

“A big ugly guy, with all these septic dents in his head.”

Ching licked his eyeballs. “Septic dents? Hey, wait a minute. . . .”

“Finally,” said Juliet, and pirouetted like an ice skater, whacking Ching Mayle with her signature jade ring. He tumbled into the umbilical passage, sliding down to the low point. Juliet caught his weapon before it hit the deck.

“One more down,” she said.

“You couldn’t just punch him in the head,” grumbled Butler, leading Foaly past her. “Boo-hoo. Help me, I’m a girl. What kind of modern woman are you?” “A smart one,” said Juliet. “He never even got a shot off.”

Butler was not impressed. “He should never have got a hand to his gun. Next time, just hit the goblin. You’re lucky he didn’t blast you with a fireball.” “Oh no,” said Foaly, pushing through a rope curtain that seemed to be coated with disinfectant, and into the umbilical passage. “No flame near the umbilical. This is a pressurized tube with an oxygen-helium mix, heavy on the oxygen because of the pressure. One spark in here and first we explode, then the tube ruptures and the ocean squashes us flat.” One by one they stepped into the umbilical. It was an incredible construction. A double-skinned tube of transparent super-tough plastic, strengthened with a wrap of octagonal wire mesh. Air pumps hummed loudly along its length, and light orbs drew deep-sea creatures to it, including Artemis’s giant squid, which had wrapped itself around the umbilical’s central span and was gnawing the wire frame with its beak. Its chitin-lined suckers scraped the plastic, smearing long welts along the tube.

“Don’t worry,” said Foaly confidently. “That creature can’t get through. We’ve done a thousand stress tests.” “With actual giant squid?” asked Juliet, understandably concerned.

“No,” admitted Foaly.

“So just computer tests, then?”

“Absolutely not,” said Foaly, offended. “We used a normal squid and a tiny umbilical model. It worked quite well until one of my dwarf lab assistants fancied some calamari.” Juliet shuddered. “It’s just that I have a thing about giant squid.”

“Don’t we all?” said Foaly, and clopped past her down the umbilical.

The passage was fifty yards long with a slight incline at either end. The walkway beneath their feet was coated with a slightly tacky substance to prevent any accidental sparking, and there were fire-extinguishing scatter bombs at regular intervals that would automatically coat the tube with powder in the event of a fire breaking out.

Foaly pointed at one of the fire-extinguishing bombs. “In all honesty, those are for show. If so much as a spark gets loose in here, not even the squid is going to survive.” They proceeded across to the aquanaut, feeling the cold of the ocean radiate through the walls, breathing the sharp oxygen-rich air. The Nostremius hospital ship loomed above, four stories high, curved green walls dotted by a thousand glowing portholes, anchored to the seabed by a dozen bus-sized anchors. Umbilicals stretched from several ports, and shadowy figures could be seen shuffling across from their ships to the Nostremius. It was a somber, surreal image.

Foaly led, carrying Artemis, Mulch, and a snoring Bobb Ragby, complaining every step of the way.

“Passengers. Centaurs don’t carry passengers. Just because we have a horse’s back doesn’t mean we have a horse’s temperament. This is demeaning, that’s what it is.” Neither Juliet nor Butler took any notice. They were in a dangerous stretch right now, and any confrontation had to be quickly contained or it could mean a watery grave for them all.

On Foaly’s back, Artemis moaned and stirred. Butler patted his shoulder.

“You just stay asleep, young man. No need to wake up now.”

As much respect as Butler had for Artemis’s abilities, he couldn’t think how they could help in this situation, especially with that angry-looking rune burned into his neck.

They were two-thirds of the way across when the hatch on the Nostremius slid open, and Holly stepped through, followed by No1.

There was no emotion in Holly’s eyes, but she calmly assessed the situation and drew the Neutrino from her holster, taking a quick bead on Butler’s forehead. From the look on her face, she could have been about to shoot a dart at a fairground target.

“No, Captain Short,” said Turnball’s voice from behind Butler. “No guns in here.” Turnball stood at the entrance to the ambulance with Unix, as ever, at one shoulder, and Ark Sool hovering at the other.

Juliet was on rear-guard duty. “It’s the jolly pirate,” she called to her brother. “And his merry idiots. I think that without guns we’re in pretty good shape. Should I go over there and beat some respect for life into them?” Butler held up two fingers. Wait.

This was a nightmare scenario for any bodyguard: stuck in the middle of a transparent tube, several miles underwater, with a murdering band of fugitives at one end and an enthralled but still highly skilled police officer at the other.

Poor No1 had no idea what kind of drama he had stepped into.

“Holly, what’s going on? Are we in the middle of one of your big adventures? Should I zap someone?” Holly stood impassively waiting for instructions, but Butler heard what No1 had said. “No magic, No1. One spark could blow up this entire platform.” No1 sighed. “Can’t you people ever just go on a picnic or something? Do there always have to be explosions?” Artemis moaned again, then slid from behind Mulch off Foaly’s back onto the walkway.

Standing in the doorway of the stolen shuttle ambulance, gazing down the umbilical toward Butler, Turnball realized he had a few marked cards in the deck. “Ah,” he said. “My little genius awakes. This should make our game interesting.” Butler turned sideways to make himself a smaller target. There were to be no guns in this showdown, but there could be blades. “Go back inside,” he called to No1. “Go in and shut the hatch.” The demon warlock tapped Holly’s shoulder. “Should I go in, Holly? Would that be the best thing to do?” Holly did not answer, but with that touch, No1 felt the rune spell that squatted like a parasite on her mind. It seemed purple to him, and malignant, and somehow aware. In his imagination, the reptilian rune crouching on Holly’s brain snarled at him and nipped with venomous teeth.

“Oh,” said No1, withdrawing his finger sharply.

I could undo the spell, he thought. But it would be delicate work to avoid brain damage, and there would definitely be sparks.

He took a slow step backward, but Holly quickly walked around him and smashed the heel of her hand into the door mechanism, sealing it for as long as it took for maintenance to get a fairy down there. Which would be way too long.

“No running away, young Master Demon,” called Turnball. “I have need of your magic.” My magic, thought No1. There must be something I can do. The mesmer doesn’t require any sparks.

“Listen to me, Holly,” said the demon warlock, his voice multilayered with magic. “Look into my eyes.” Which was as far as he got before Holly brought the edge of her hand down in a chopping motion that hit No1 accurately in the gap between the armor plates on his chest and neck. Right in the windpipe. The demon collapsed to the ground, gasping. It would be minutes before he could do as much as squeak.

Turnball laughed cruelly. “Rune trumps mesmer, I would say.”

Butler tried to ignore the more extreme circumstances, such as the explosive gas they were breathing and the giant squid giving him the evil eye from outside the umbilical tube, and treat the situation as a common alley brawl.

I have been in this situation a dozen times. Admittedly, we are flanked, but Juliet and I could take these and a dozen more. Holly can fight, but she is mesmerized, and that will slow her down. Why is Turnball so confident with only a gnome and a sprite by his side?

“Ready, sister?” he said.

“Say the word.”

“I’ll take Turnball and his friends. You contain Holly without doing any damage if you can manage it.” “Okay, brother.”

“What should I do?” asked Foaly, trying to keep the whinny out of his voice.

“Stand over Artemis and Mulch. Keep them safe.”

“Very well, Butler,” said the centaur, feeling utterly helpless, as he always did in violent situations. “You can count on me.” Butler and Juliet switched sides, touching hands briefly on the way past.

“Be careful. Holly is quick.”

“You too. I don’t trust that Turnball guy.”

Both of these statements would shortly prove themselves true. Unfortunately, Butler had formulated their plan of action without two vital pieces of information. First of all, Holly was not mesmerized, she was enthralled by a rune, and where the mesmer slowed the enchanted person down, runes certainly did not. In fact, they gave the victim access to more life force than they would normally have, which is why long-term thralls must not be allowed to get too excited for too long or they will literally burn themselves out. The second piece of information Butler did not have was the fact that Turnball had anticipated he might have to fight his way through an umbilical, and so was armed accordingly.

The Butlers went down within seconds of each other. Juliet ran full tilt for Holly, no chatter or exaggerated wrestling moves—Holly was a serious opponent. The serious opponent stood listlessly, arms dangling until the last possible moment, then she ducked low, so quickly that it seemed a ghost image hung in the space where she had been, and swept Juliet’s legs from under her. Juliet banged her head hard on the walkway, and by the time her vision cleared, Holly was on her chest with her Neutrino leveled at Juliet’s head.

“No sparks,” panted Juliet. “No sparks.”

“No sparks,” repeated Holly dully, then stuffed the gun barrel down the front of Juliet’s Jade Princess leotard and pulled the trigger. Juliet spasmed once, then collapsed. There were no sparks.

At the other end of the conduit, Butler had not rushed forward with quite so much gusto. If things were as they seemed, he could easily defeat Turnball and his little henchfairies. Perhaps a menacing approach would be enough to scare them into running away.

Turnball seemed a little irritated and not at all scared. “Mr. Butler, as a manservant to a great strategist, didn’t it occur to you that another great strategist such as myself might have anticipated this moment, or one like it?” Butler’s stomach sank. Turnball is armed.

Butler’s only option was to cover the remaining distance before Turnball managed to aim his weapon. He almost made it, but then almost in a fight is about as useful as rubber needles in a knitting contest.

Turnball unclipped the stumpy weapon on a lanyard behind his back and shot Butler eight times in the chest and head. The bodyguard’s eyes rolled back in his head, but his momentum drove him forward, and Turnball had to skip smartly to one side to avoid being crushed. Ark Sool and Unix were not so lucky. Butler landed on them like a meteor, driving every last gasp of air from their bodies and breaking several ribs.

“Olé!” said Turnball, who had made a point of attending the bullfights whenever he was in Spain, not seeming too upset by the loss of his crew.

The vibrations set off one of the fire-extinguisher powder packs, which must have been on a hair trigger, and filled the umbilical with floating white powder.

“’Oh, the weather outside is frightful,’” sang Turnball, pointing his gun at Foaly, who was trying to at least look brave. “Do you like my weapon? It was developed for crowd control during the first goblin riots. Purely chemical. Shoots Zolpidem tartrate knockout pellets. Gas powered, with dissolvable shells. No sparks. Sometimes low-tech is the way to go.” Artemis suddenly drew a lungful of air, as though he had just breached the ocean’s surface.

“Ah, my genius surfaces. Stand up, Artemis. I command you.”

Artemis lurched to his feet, his head and clothes matted with white powder.

“Choke that centaur for me, would you?”

There followed an uncomfortable minute while Artemis tried to find some purchase on Foaly’s broad neck, then squeezed with all the power in his fingers, which was not very much. Foaly was more embarrassed than hurt.

Turnball wiped a tear from his eye. “Oh, this is too much. But I indulge myself—Leonor is waiting. Come here, Artemis, and you too, Captain Short. Bring the demon. We must be gone from here before the ambulance generator blows.” Artemis and Holly did as they were told with the emotion of automatons. Holly yanked poor, gasping No1 along by the collar of his tunic, and Artemis stepped past Foaly without a glance. Outside the conduit, the fish and squid paid close attention to this fascinating diversion from the dreariness of everyday subaquatic life.

Suddenly, Turnball was impatient to be off.

“Come now, my thralls. Where is the speed you are famous for?”

Artemis did speed up, showing a nimbleness that anyone who knew the boy would not associate with him.

“That’s more like it,” said Turnball. “I may keep you, Artemis.”