In fairness, dwarfs didn’t know this either. All they knew was that on the rare occasions when they found themselves accidentally burrowing into the open sea, the bends did not seem to affect them.
Mulch thought about it for a moment and realized that there was a way to combine all of his talents and get out of here. He had to put his ‘on the hoof plan into effect immediately before they went into the deep Atlantic trenches. Once the sub-shuttle went too deep, he would never make it.
The craft swung in a long arc until it was heading back the way it had come. The pilot would punch the engines as soon as they were outside Irish fishing waters. Mulch began to lick his palms, smoothing the spittle through his halo of wild hair.
Vishby laughed. ‘What are you doing, Diggums? Cleaning up for your cellmate?’
Mulch would have dearly loved to unhinge his jaw and take a bite out of Vishby, but the mouth ring prevented him from opening his mouth far enough to unhinge. He had to content himself with an insult.
‘I may be a prisoner, fishboy, but in ten years I’ll be free. You, on the other hand, will be an ugly bottom-feeder for the rest of your life.’
Vishby scratched his gill-rot furiously. ‘You just bought yourself six weeks in solitary, mister.’
Mulch slathered his fingers with spittle, spreading it around the crown of his head, reaching as far back as the manacles would allow. He could feel it hardening, clamping on to his head like a helmet. Exactly like a helmet. As he licked, Mulch drew great breaths of air through his nose, storing the air in his intestines. Each breath sucked air out of the pressurized space faster than the pumps could push it back in.
The marshals did not notice this unusual behaviour, and even if they had, the pair would doubtless have put it down to nerves. Deep breathing and grooming: classic nervous traits. Who could blame Mulch for being nervous — after all, he was heading back to the very place criminals had nightmares about.
Mulch licked and breathed, his chest blowing up like a bellows. He felt the pressure fluttering down below, anxious to be released.
Hold on, he told himself. You will need every bubble of that air.
The shell on his head crackled audibly now, and if the lights were dimmed, it would glow brightly. The air was growing thin, and Vishby’s gills noticed even if he didn’t. They rippled and flapped, boosting their oxygen intake. Mulch sucked again, a huge gulp of air. A bow plate clanged as the pressure differential grew.
The sprite noticed the change first. ‘Hey, fishboy.’
Vishby’s pained expression spoke of years enduring this nickname. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’
‘OK, Vishby, keep your scales on. Is it getting hard to breathe in here? I can’t keep my wings up.’
Vishby touched his gills; they were flapping like bunting in the wind. ‘Wow. My gills are going crazy. What’s happening here?’ He pressed the cabin intercom panel.
‘Everything all right? Maybe we could boost the air pumps?’
The voice that came back was calm and professional, but with an anxious undertone that was unmistakable. ‘We’re losing pressure in the holding area. I’m trying to nail down the leak now.’
‘Leak?’ squeaked Vishby. ‘If we depressurize at this depth, the shuttle will crumple like a paper cup.’
Mulch took another huge breath.
‘Get everyone into the cockpit. Come through the airlock, right now.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Vishby. ‘We’re not supposed to untie the prisoner. He’s a slippery one.’
The slippery one took another breath. And this time a stern plate actually buckled with a crack like thunder.
‘OK, OK. We’re coming.’
Mulch held out his hands. ‘Hurry up, fishboy. We don’t all have gills.’
Vishby swiped his security card along the magnetic strip on Mulch’s manacles.
The manacles popped open. Mulch was free… as free as you can be in a prison sub with three thousand crushing metres of water overhead. He stood, taking one last gulp of air.
Vishby noticed the act.
‘Hey, convict, what are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Are you sucking in all the air?’
Mulch burped. ‘Who, me? That’s ridiculous.’
The sprite was equally suspicious. ‘He’s up to something. Look, his hair is all shiny. I bet this is one of those secret dwarf arts.’
Mulch tried to look sceptical. ‘What? Air sucking and shiny hair? I’m not surprised we kept it a secret.’
Vishby squinted at him. The marshal’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his speech was slurred from oxygen deprivation. ‘You’re up to something. Put out your hands.’
Getting shackled again now was not part of the plan. Mulch feigned weakness. ‘I can’t breathe,’ he said, leaning against the wall. ‘I hope I don’t die in your custody.’
This statement caused enough distraction for Mulch to heave one more mighty breath. The stern plate creased inwardly, a silver stress-line cracking through the paint.
All over the compartment red pressure lights flared on.
The pilot’s voice blared through the speaker. ‘Get in here!’ he shouted, all traces of composure gone. ‘She’s gonna fold.’
Vishby grabbed Mulch by the lapels. ‘What did you do, dwarf?’
Mulch sank to his knees, flicking open the bum-flap at the rear of his prison overalls. He gathered his legs together under him, ready to move.
‘Listen, Vishby,’ he said. ‘You’re a moron, but not a bad guy, so do like the pilot says and get in there.’
Vishby’s gills flapped weakly, searching for air. ‘You’ll be killed, Diggums.’
Mulch winked at him. ‘I’ve been dead before.’
Mulch could hold on to the gas no longer. His digestive tract was stretched like a magician’s animal balloon. He folded his arms across his chest, aimed the coated tip of his head at the weakened plate and let the gas loose.
The resultant emission shook the sub-shuttle to its very rivets, sending Mulch rocketing across the hold. He slammed into the stern plate, smack in the centre of the fault line, punching straight through. His speed popped him out into the ocean, perhaps half a second before the sudden change in pressure flooded the sub’s chamber. Half a second later, the rear chamber was crushed like a ball of used tinfoil. Vishby and his partner had escaped to the pilot’s cockpit just in time.
Mulch sped towards the surface, a stream of released gas bubbles clipping him along at a rate of several knots. His dwarf lungs fed on the trapped air in his digestive tract, and the luminous helmet of spittle sent out a corona of greenish light to illuminate his way.
Of course they came after him. Vishby and the water sprite were both amphibious Atlantis dwellers. As soon as they jettisoned the wreckage of the rear compartment, the marshals cleared the airlock, finning after their fugitive. But they never had a prayer. Mulch was gas-powered; they merely had wings and fins. Whatever pursuit equipment they’d had was at the bottom of the ocean, along with the rear compartment, and the cockpit’s back-up engines could barely outrun a crab.
The Atlantis marshals could only watch as their captive jetted towards the surface, mocking them with every bubble from his behind.
Butler’s mobile phone had been reduced to so many plastic chips and bits of weiring by the jump from the hotel window. This meant that Artemis could not call him if he needed immediate assistance. The bodyguard double-parked the Hummer outside the first Phonetix store he saw, and purchased a tri-band car-phone kit. Butler activated the phone on the way to the airport and punched in Artemis’s number. No good; the phone was switched off. Butler hung up and tried Fowl Manor. Nobody home, and no messages.
Butler breathed deeply, stayed calm and floored the accelerator. The drive to the airport took less than ten minutes. The giant bodyguard did not waste time returning the Hummer to the rental-agency car park, preferring to abandon it in the set-down area. It would be towed, and he would be fined, but he didn’t have time to worry about it now.
The next plane to Ireland was fully booked, so Butler paid a Polish businessman two thousand euro for his first-class ticket, and in forty-five minutes he was on the Aer Lingus shuttle to Dublin Airport. He kept trying Artemis’s number until they started the engines, and switched his phone on again as soon as the wheels touched down.
It was dark by the time he left the Arrivals terminal. Less than half a day had passed since they had broken into the safety deposit box in Munich’s International
Bank. It was incredible that so much could happen in such a short time. Still, when you worked for Artemis Fowl II, the incredible was almost a daily occurrence. Butler had been with Artemis since the day of his birth, just over fourteen years ago, and in that time he had been dragged into more fantastic situations than the average presidential bodyguard.
The Fowl Bentley was parked in the prestige level of the short-stay car park.
Butler slotted his new phone into the car kit and tried Artemis again. No luck. But when he remote accessed the mailbox at Fowl Manor, there was one message. From Artemis.
Butler’s grip tightened on the leather steering wheel. Alive. The boy was alive at least.
The message started well enough, then took a decidedly strange turn. Artemis claimed to be unhurt, but perhaps was suffering from concussion or post-traumatic stress, because Butler’s young charge also claimed that fairies were responsible for the strange missile. A pixie, to be precise. And now he was in the company of an elf, which was apparently a completely different animal from a pixie. Not only that, but the elf was an old friend who they had forgotten. And the pixie was an old enemy who they couldn’t remember. It was all very strange. Butler could only conclude that Artemis was trying to tell him something, and that hidden inside these crazed meanderings was a message. He would have to analyse the tape as soon as he returned to Fowl Manor.
Then the recording became an unfolding drama. More players came within range of Artemis’s microphone. The alleged pixie, Opal, and her bodyguards joined the group.
Threats were exchanged and Artemis tried to talk his way out. It didn’t work. If Artemis had a fault, it was that he tended to be very patronizing, even in crisis situations. The pixie, Opal, or whoever it really was, certainly didn’t take kindly to being spoken down to. It appeared that she considered herself every bit Artemis’s equal, if not his superior.
She ordered Artemis silenced in mid-lecture, and her command was obeyed instantly.
Butler experienced a moment of dread, until the pixie stated that Artemis was not dead, merely stunned. Artemis’s new ally was similarly stunned, but not before she learned of their planned theatrical demise. Something to do with the Eleven Wonders, and trolls.
‘You cannot be serious,’ muttered Butler, pulling off the motorway at the exit for Fowl Manor.
To the average passer-by it would seem as though several rooms in the manor at the end of the avenue were occupied, but Butler knew that the bulbs in these rooms were all on timers and would switch on and off at irregular intervals. There was even a stereo system wired to each room that would pump talk radio into various areas of the house. All measures designed to put off a casual burglar. None of which, Butler knew,
would put off a professional thief.
The bodyguard opened the electronic gates and sped up the pebbled driveway.
He drew up directly in front of the main door, not bothering to park it in the shelter of the double garage. He pulled out his handgun and clip holster from a magnetic strip under the driver’s seat. It was possible that the kidnappers had sent a representative who could already be inside the manor.
Butler knew as soon as he opened the main door that something was wrong. The alarm’s thirty-second warning should have begun its countdown immediately, but it did not. This was because the entire box was covered in a case of some shiny, crackling,
fibreglass-like substance. Butler poked it gingerly. The stuff glowed and seemed almost organic.
Butler proceeded along the lobby, sticking to the walls. He glanced towards the ceilings. Green lights winked in the shadows. At least the CCTV cameras were still working. Even if the manor’s visitors had left, he should get a look at them on the security tapes.
The bodyguard’s foot brushed against something. He glanced down. A large crystal bowl lay on the rug, the remains of a sherry trifle slopping in its base. Beside it lay a wad of gravy-encrusted tinfoil. A hungry kidnapper? A little way on, he found an empty champagne bottle and a stripped chicken carcass. Just how many intruders had been here?
The remnants of food formed a trail that led towards the study. Butler followed it upstairs, stepping over a half-eaten T-bone steak, two chunks of fruit cake and a pavlova shell. A light shone from the study doorway, casting a small shadow into the hall. There was someone in the study. A not very tall someone. Artemis?
Butler’s spirits rose for a second when he heard his employer’s voice, but they sank just as quickly. He recognized those words: he had listened to them himself in the car. The intruder was playing the taped message on the answering machine.
Butler crept into the study, stepping so lightly that his footfalls would not have alerted a deer. Even from the back, this intruder was a strange fellow. He was barely a metre tall, with a stocky torso and thick, muscled limbs. His entire body appeared to be covered with wild wiry hair that seemed to move independently. His head was encased in a helmet of the same glowing substance that had incapacitated the alarm box. The intruder was wearing a blue jumpsuit with a flap in the seat. The flap was half unbuttoned, giving Butler a view of a hairy rear end that seemed unsettlingly familiar.
The taped message was coming to an end.
Artemis’s abductor was describing what lay in store for the Irish boy. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I had a nasty little scenario planned for Foaly, something theatrical involving the Eleven Wonders. But now I have decided that you are worthy of it.’
‘How nasty?’ asked Artemis’s new ally, Holly.
‘Troll nasty,’ responded Opal.
The Fowl Manor intruder made a loud sucking noise, then discarded the remains of an entire rack of lamb.
‘Not good,’ he said. ‘This is really bad.’
Butler cocked his weapon, aiming it squarely at the intruder.
‘It’s about to get worse,’ he said.
Butler sat the intruder in one of the study’s leather armchairs, then pulled a second chair round to face him. From the front, this little creature looked even stranger.
His face was basically a mass of wire-like hair surrounding eyes and teeth. The eyes occasionally glowed red like a fox’s, and the teeth looked like two rows of picket fencing. This was no hairy child, this was an adult creature of some sort.
‘Don’t tell me,’ sighed Butler. ‘You’re an elf.’
The creature sat up straight. ‘How dare you!’ he cried. ‘I am a dwarf, as you very well know.’
