by Eoin Colfer
“It was fine, Mother. Wonderful, in fact. I asked Mister Diggums here for dinner. He is one of the performers and a fascinating fellow. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Mister Diggums, make the house your own.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” muttered Butler under his breath. He escorted Mulch through to the kitchen while Artemis lingered to talk with his mother.
“How are you, Arty, really?”
Artemis did not know how to respond. What was he to say? I am determined to follow in my father’s criminal footsteps, because that is what I do best. Because that is the only way to raise enough money to pay the numerous private detective agencies and Internet search companies that I have employed to find him. But the crimes don’t make me happy. Victory is never as sweet as I think it will be.
“I am fine, Mother, really,” he said eventually, without conviction.
Angeline hugged him close. Artemis could smell her perfume and feel her warmth.
“You’re a good boy,” she sighed. “A good son.”
The elegant lady straightened. “Now, why don’t you go and talk to your new friend. You must have a lot to discuss.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Artemis, his resolve overcoming the sadness in his heart. “We have a lot to discuss before tonight’s show.”
The Circus Maximus
Mulch Diggums had cleared himself a hole just below the dwarfs’ tent and was waiting to spring into action. They had returned to Wexford for the late-night performance. Early enough for him to dig his way under the tent from an adjacent field. Artemis was inside the main tent right now keeping a close eye on Sergei the Significant and his team. Butler was hanging back by the rendezvous point, waiting for Mulch’s return.
Artemis’s scheme had seemed plausible back in Fowl Manor. It had even seemed likely that they could get away with it. But now, with the circus vibrations beating down on his head, Mulch could see a slight problem. The problem being that he was putting his neck on the line, while Mud Boy was sitting in a comfy ringside seat eating cotton candy.
Artemis had explained his scheme in Fowl Manor’s drawing room.
“I have been keeping close tabs on Sergei and his troupe ever since I discovered their little outfit. They are a canny group. Perhaps it would be easier to steal the gem from whoever they sell the stone on to, but soon the school holidays will be over, and I will be forced to suspend my operations, so I need the blue diamond now.”
“For your laser thing?”
Artemis coughed into his hand. “Laser. Yes, that’s correct.”
“And it has to be this diamond?”
“Absolutely. The Fei Fei blue diamond is unique. Its precise hue makes it one of a kind.”
“And that’s important, is it?”
“Vital, for light diffraction. It’s technical. You wouldn’t understand it.”
“Hmm,” droned Mulch, suspecting that something was being held back. “So how do you propose we get this vital blue diamond?”
Artemis pulled down a projection screen. There was a diagram of the Circus Maximus taped to the surface.
“Here is the circus ring,” he said, pointing with a telescopic pointer.
“What? That round thing, with the word ring in the middle? You don’t say.”
Artemis closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He was unaccustomed to interruptions. Butler tapped Mulch on the shoulder. “Listen, little man,” he advised in his most serious voice. “Or I might remember that I owe you an ignominious beating, like the one you gave me.”
Mulch swallowed. “Listen, yes, good idea. Do continue, Mud Boy … uh, Artemis.”
“Thank you,” said Artemis. “Now. We have been observing the dwarf troupe for months, and in all that time they have never left their own tent unguarded, so we presume that this is where they keep their loot. Generally the entire group is there, except during a performance, when five of the six are needed for the acrobatic routine. Our only window of opportunity is during this period when all but one of the dwarfs are in the ring.”
“All but one?” enquired Mulch. “I can’t be seen by anybody. If they so much as catch a glimpse of me, they’ll hunt me down forever. Dwarfs really hold a grudge.”
“Let me finish,” said Artemis. “I have put some thought into this, you know. We managed to obtain some video one evening in Brussels from a pencil camera that Butler poked through the canvas.”
Butler turned on a flat-screen television and pressed PLAY on a video remote. The picture that appeared was gray and grainy, but perfectly recognizable. It showed a single dwarf in a round tent, lounging in a leather armchair. He was dressed in the Significants’ leotard and mask and was blowing bubbles through a small wand.
The earthen floor began to vibrate slightly in the center of the tent where the ground looked disturbed, as though a small earthquake were disrupting that spot only. Moments later a three-foot-diameter circle of earth collapsed entirely, and a masked Sergei emerged from the hole. He vented some gas, and gave his comrade the thumbs-up. The bubble-blowing dwarf immediately ran out of the tent.
“Sergei has just tunneled out of his box, and our bubble-blowing friend is needed in the ring,” explained Artemis. “Sergei takes over guard duty until the end of the act, when all the other dwarfs return and Sergei reappears in the new box. We have approximately seven minutes to find the tiara.”
Mulch decided to pick a few holes in the plan. “How do we know the tiara is even there?”
Artemis was ready for that question. “Because my sources tell me that there are five European jewelery fences coming to tonight’s show. They are hardly here to see the clowns.”
Mulch nodded slowly. He knew where the tiara would be. Sergei and his significant friends would hide everything a few yards below their tent, safely buried beyond the reach of humans. That still left hundreds of square yards to search.
“I’ll never find it,” he pronounced eventually. “Not in seven minutes.”
Artemis opened his laptop. “This is a computer simulation. You are the blue figure. Sergei is the red figure.”
On screen the two computer creatures burrowed through simulated earth.
Mulch watched the blue figure for over a minute.
“I have to admit it, Mud Boy,” said the dwarf. “It’s clever. But I need a tank of compressed air.”
Artemis was puzzled. “Air? I thought you could breathe underground.”
“I can.” The dwarf grinned hugely at Artemis. “It’s not for me.”
So now Mulch sat in his underground hole with a diver’s tank of air strapped to his back. He squatted absolutely silently. Once Sergei entered the earth, his beard hair would be sensitive to the slightest vibration, including radio transmissions, so Artemis had insisted on radio silence until they were in phase two of the plan.
To the west, one high-frequency vibration punched through the ambient noise. Sergei was making his move. Mulch could feel his brother dwarf scything through the earth, possibly toward his secret cache of stolen jewelery.
Mulch concentrated on Sergei’s progress. He was tunneling east, but on a downward tangent, obviously heading directly for something. The sonar in Mulch’s beard hair fed him constant speed and direction updates. The second dwarf proceeded at a steady pace and incline for almost a hundred yards, then stopped dead. He was checking something. He hoped it was the tiara.
Following half a minute of minimal movement, Sergei made for the surface, almost directly for Mulch. Mulch felt a sheen of sweat coat his back. This was the dangerous part. He reached slowly into his leotard, pulling out a ball the size and color of an orange. The ball was an organic sedative used by Chilean natives. Artemis had assured Mulch that it had no side effects, and would actually clear up any sinus problems Sergei might have.
With infinite care, Mulch positioned himself as close to Sergei’s trajectory as he dared, then wiggled the fist containing the sedative ball into the earth. Seconds later, Sergei’s scything jaws c
onsumed the ball along with a few pounds of earth. Before he had taken half a dozen bites, his forward motion slowed to a dead halt, and his chewing grew sluggish. Now was the dangerous time for Sergei. If he were left unconscious with a gut full of clay, he could choke. Mulch ate through the thin layer of earth separating them, he flipped the sleeping dwarf onto his back, feeding an air tube deep into the black depths of his cavernous mouth. Once the tube was in place, he twisted the tank’s nozzle, sending a sustained jet of air through Sergei’s system. The air stream ballooned the little fairy’s internal organs, flushing all traces of clay through his system. His body shook as though connected to a live wire, but he did not awaken. Instead he snored on.
Mulch left Sergei curled in the earth, and aimed his chomping jaws toward the surface. The clay was typical Irish, soft and moist, with low-level pollution, and teeming with insect life. Seconds later, he felt his questing fingers break the surface, cool air brushing across their tips. Mulch made sure that the circus mask covered the upper half of his face, then pushed his head aboveground.
There was another dwarf sitting in the armchair. Today he was playing with four yo-yos. One spinning from each hand and each foot. Mulch said nothing, though he felt a sudden longing to chat with his fellow dwarf. He simply gave a thumbs-up signal. The second dwarf coiled in his yo-yos wordlessly, then, pulling on a pair of pointy toed boots, bolted for the tent flap. Mulch could hear the sudden roar of the crowd as Sergei’s box exploded. Two minutes gone. Five minutes left.
Mulch upended his rear and plotted a course for the exact spot where Sergei had stopped. This was not as difficult as it would seem. Dwarfs’ internal compasses are fantastic instruments, and can lead the fairy creatures with the same accuracy as any GPS system. Mulch dived.
There was a small chamber hollowed out below the tent. A typical dwarf hidey-hole, with spitslickened walls providing low-level luminescence in the darkness. Dwarf spit is a multifunctional secretion. Apart from the normal uses, it also hardens on prolonged contact with air to form a lacquer that is not only tough but also slightly luminous.
Sitting in the center of the small chamber was a wooden chest. It was not locked. Why would it be? There would be no one down here but dwarfs. Mulch felt a stab of shame. It was one thing robbing from the Mud Men, but he was ripping off brother dwarfs who were just trying to make an honest living stealing from humans. This was an all-time low. Mulch made up his mind to somehow reimburse Sergei the Significant and his band once the job was over.
The tiara was inside the chest, the blue stone on its crown winking in the light of the spittle. Now there was a real jewel. Nothing fake about that. Mulch stuffed it inside his leotard. There were plenty of other jewels in the box, but he ignored them. It was bad enough taking the tiara. Now all he had to do was haul Sergei to the surface, where he could recover safely, and leave the same way he had come. He would be gone before the other dwarfs realized anything was wrong.
Mulch headed back toward Sergei, collected his limp form and ate his way back to the surface, dragging his sleeping brother dwarf behind him. He rehinged his jaw, climbing from the hole.
The tent was still deserted. The Significants should be well over halfway through their act by now. Mulch dragged Sergei to the lip of the hole, and took a dwarf flint dagger from his boot. He would cut some strips from the chair and secure Sergei’s hands, feet and jaws. Artemis had assured him that Sergei would not wake up, but what did the Mud Boy know about dwarf insides?
“Sorry about this, brother,” he whispered almost fondly. “I hate to do it, but the Mud Boy has me over a barrel.”
Something shimmered in the corner of Mulch’s vision. It shimmered and then spoke.
“First I want you to tell me about the Mud Boy, dwarf,” it said. “And then I want you to tell me about the barrel.”
CHAPTER 5: RINGMASTER
Over the Italian Coast
HOLLY Short flew north until she came to mainland Italy, then turned forty degrees to the left over the lights of Brindisi.
“You are supposed to avoid major flight routes and city areas,” Foaly reminded her over the helmet speakers. “That is the first rule of Recon.”
“The first rule of Recon is to find the rogue fairy,” Holly retorted. “Do you want me to locate this dwarf or not? If I stick to the coastline, it will take me all night to reach Ireland. My way, I’ll get there by eleven P.M. local time. Anyway, I’m shielded.”
Fairies have the power to increase their heart rate and pump their arteries to bursting, which causes their bodies to vibrate so quickly that they are never in one place long enough to be seen. The only human ever to see through this magical trick, pardon the pun, was, of course, Artemis Fowl, who had filmed fairies on a high-speed camera and then viewed the frames still by still.
“Shielding isn’t as foolproof as it used to be,” noted Foaly. “I have sent the helmet’s tracker pattern to your helmet. All you have to do is follow the beep. When you find our dwarf, the commander wants you to …”
The centaur’s voice faded out in a liquid hiss of static. The magma flares beneath the earth’s crust were up tonight, whiting out LEP communications. This was the third flare since she started her journey. All she could do was proceed according to plan, and hope the channels cleared up.
It was a fine night, so Holly navigated using the stars. Of course her helmet had a built-in GPS unit triangulated by three satellites, but stellar navigation was one of the first courses taught in the LEP academy. It was possible that a Recon officer could be trapped aboveground without science, and under those circumstances the stars could be that officer’s only hope of finding a fairy shuttle port.
The landscape sped by below her, dotted by an ever growing number of human enclaves. Each time she ventured topside, there were more. Soon there would be no countryside left, and no trees to make the oxygen. Then everyone would be breathing artificial air aboveground and below it.
Holly tried to ignore the pollution-alert logo flashing in her visor. The helmet would filter out most of it, and anyway she had no choice. It was either fly over the cities, or possibly lose the rogue dwarf. And Captain Holly Short did not like to lose.
She enlarged the search grid in her helmet visor, and zeroed in on a large, circular, striped tent. A circus. The dwarf was hiding in a circus. Hardly original, but an effective place to pose as a human dwarf.
Holly dipped the flaps on her mechanical wings, descending to twenty feet. The tracker beep pulled her off to the left, away from the main tent itself, toward a smaller adjacent one. Holly swooped lower still, making sure to keep her shield fully buzzed up since the area was teeming with humans.
She hovered above the tip of the tent pole. The stolen helmet was inside, no doubt about it. To investigate further, she would have to enter the structure. The fairy bible, or Book, prevented fairies from entering human dwellings uninvited, but recently the high court had ruled that tents were temporary structures and as such were not included in the Book’s edict. Holly burned the stitches on the tent’s seam with a laser burst from her Neutrino 2000, and slipped inside.
On the earthen surface below were two dwarfs. One had the stolen helmet strapped across his back, the second was jammed down a hole in the ground. Both wore upper face masks and matching red leotards. Very fetching.
This was a surprising development. Dwarfs generally stuck together, yet these two seemed to be playing for different teams. The first appeared to have incapacitated the second, and perhaps was about to go even further. There was a glittering flint dagger in his hand. And dwarfs did not generally draw their weapons unless they intended to use them.
Holly toggled the mike switch on her glove. “Foaly? Come in, Foaly? I have a possible emergency here.”
Nothing. White noise. Not even ghost voices. Typical. The most advanced communications system in this galaxy, and possibly a few others, all rendered useless by a few magma flares.
“I need to make contact, Foaly. If you can record t
his, I have a crime in process, possibly murder. Two fairies are involved. There is no time to wait for Retrieval. I’m going in. Send Retrieval immediately.”
Holly’s good sense groaned. She was already technically off active duty, so making contact would bury her Recon career for certain. But ultimately that didn’t matter. She had joined the LEP to protect the People, and that was exactly what she intended to do. She set her wings to descend, floating down from the tent shadows.
The dwarf was talking, in that curious gravelly voice common to all male dwarfs.
“Sorry about this, brother,” he said, perhaps making excuses for the impending violence. “I hate to do it, but the Mud Boy has me over a barrel.”
Enough, thought Holly. There will be no murder here today. She unshielded, speckling into view in a fairy-shaped starburst. “First I want you to tell me about the Mud Boy, dwarf ” she said. “And then I want you to tell me about the barrel.”
Mulch Diggums recognized Holly immediately. They had met only months previously in Fowl Manor. Funny how some people were fated to meet over and over. To be part of one another’s lives.
He dropped both the dagger and Sergei, raising empty palms. Sergei slid back down the hole.
“I know what this looks like, Ho—officer. I was just going to tie him up, for his own good. He had a tunnel convulsion, that’s all. He could hurt himself.” Mulch congratulated himself silently. It was a good lie and he had bitten his tongue before he could utter Holly’s name. The LEP thought he had died in a cave, and she would not recognize him with the mask on. All Holly could see was silk and beard.
“A tunnel convulsion? Dwarf kids get those, not experienced diggers.”
Mulch shrugged. “I’m always telling him. Chew your food. But will he listen? He’s a grown dwarf, what can I do? I shouldn’t leave him down there, by the way.” The dwarf put one foot into the tunnel.
Holly touched down. “One more step, dwarf,” she warned. “For now, tell me about the Mud Boy.”
Mulch attempted an innocent smile. There was more chance of a great white shark pulling it off. “What Mud Boy, officer?”