The Time Paradox

by Eoin Colfer

  The smell was repulsive.

  Animal fat, she realized with a spasmodic shudder of horror. Pure rendered fat with a few hexes stirred into it.

  Animal fat had been used as a magic suppressor for millennia. Even the most powerful warlock was helpless when dipped in rendered fat. You throw a warlock in a barrel of fat, seal it with woven willow bark, and bury it in a consecrated human graveyard, then that warlock is as helpless as a kitten in a sack. The experience would be made even more terrible by the fact that most fairies are devout vegetarians and would be perfectly aware of how many animals had to die to produce an entire barrel of fat.

  Who told Butler about this? Holly wondered. Who is controlling him?

  Then No1 was jammed in beside her, and the fat level rose to cover their heads. Holly surged upward, clearing her eyes just in time to see a lid bearing down on the barrel mouth, eclipsing the ceiling light.

  No helmet, she lamented. I wish I had my helmet.

  Then the lid was on and sealed. The fat found the neck hole in her one-piece and wormed inside, probing her face and invading her ears. Hexes swirled like malevolent snakes, keeping her magic at bay.

  Lost, thought Holly. The worst death I can imagine. Sealed in a small space. Like my mother.

  No1 convulsed beside her. The little warlock must feel like his soul was being sucked right out of him.

  Holly panicked. She kicked and fought, bruising her elbows and tearing the skin from her knees. Where magic tried to heal her wounds, the hex snakes zoomed in, swallowing the sparks.

  She almost opened her mouth to scream. The merest thread of reason stopped her. Then something brushed against her face. A corrugated tube. There were two.

  Breathing tubes . . .

  With frantic fingers, Holly felt her way to the end of a tube. She fought her natural instinct to jam it into No1’s mouth.

  In the event of an emergency, always take care of yourself first before you attend to civilians.

  So Holly used her absolute last puff of air to clear the pipe as a diver would clear his snorkel. She imagined blobs of fat spraying the room outside.

  I hope Butler’s suit is ruined, she thought.

  No choice now but to inhale. Air whistled down to her, mixed with wormy slivers of fat. Holly blew again, clearing the last traces of gunk.

  Now for No1. His wriggling grew weaker as his power waned. For someone with such power, this dunking must be almost intolerable. Holly blocked her own tube with a thumb, then cleared the second one before twisting it into No1’s slack mouth. For a moment there was no reaction, and she thought it was too late; then No1 jerked, spluttered, and started, like an old engine on a frosty morning.

  Alive, thought Holly. We are both alive. If Butler wanted us dead, then we already would be.

  She braced her feet on the base of the barrel and hugged No1 tightly. Calm was needed here.

  Calm, she broadcast, though she knew No1’s empathy would be muted. Calm, little friend. Artemis will save us.

  If he is alive, she thought but did not broadcast.

  * * *

  Artemis backed away from the nightmare version of his mother that hovered before him. Jayjay screeched and bucked in his arms, but Artemis held him tightly, automatically scratching the tiny brush of hair on his crown.

  “Hand over that creature,” demanded Opal. “You have no choice.”

  Artemis circled Jayjay’s neck with his thumb and forefinger.

  “Oh, I think I have a choice.”

  Opal was horrified. “You wouldn’t kill an innocent creature.”

  “I did it before.”

  Opal studied his eyes. “I don’t think you would do it again, Artemis Fowl. My fairy intuition tells me that you are not as coldhearted as you pretend to be.”

  It was true. Artemis knew he couldn’t harm Jayjay, even to derail Opal’s plans. Still, no reason to tell Opal that.

  “My heart is cold, pixie. Believe it. Use some of that magical empathy to search my soul.”

  His tone gave Opal pause. There was steel there, and he was hard to read. Perhaps she should not gamble so recklessly with him.

  “Very well, human. Hand over the creature and I will spare your friends.”

  “I have no friends,” Artemis shot back, though he knew it was a transparent bluff. Opal had been here for a few days at least. She had doubtless highjacked the manor’s surveillance and security.

  Opal/Angeline scratched her chin. “Hmm, no friends. Apart from the LEP elf who accompanied you to the past, and of course the demon warlock who sent you back. Not to mention your big burly bodyguard.”

  Alliteration, thought Artemis. She’s toying with me.

  “Then again,” mused Opal/Angeline, “Butler is not really your friend anymore. He’s mine.”

  This was a worrying statement, and perhaps true. Artemis, usually an expert interpreter of body language and telltale tics, was flummoxed by this crazed version of his mother.

  “Butler would never willingly befriend you!”

  Opal shrugged. It was a fair point. “Who said anything about willingly?”

  Artemis paled. Uh-oh.

  “Let me explain what happened,” said Opal sweetly. “I scrambled the brains of my little helpers somewhat, so they could not report on me, then had them fly the shuttle back to Haven. Then I hitched a ride on your time stream before it closed. Oh so simple for someone with my skill set. You didn’t even leave a hex at the hole.”

  Artemis snapped his fingers. “I knew I had forgotten something.”

  Opal smiled thinly. “Amusing. Anyway, it became obvious to me that I was, or would be, responsible for this entire affair, so I dropped out of the stream a few days early and took my time getting to know your group. Mother, father, Butler.”

  “Where is my mother?”shouted Artemis, anger punching through his calm exterior like a hammer through ice.

  “Why, I’m right here, darling,” said Opal in Angeline’s voice. “I am really sick, and I need you to go into the past and fetch a magic monkey for me.” She laughed mockingly. “Humans are such fools.”

  “So this is not some kind of shapeshifting spell?”

  “No, idiot. I was perfectly aware that Angeline would be examined. Shapeshifting spells are only skin-deep, and even an adept such as myself can only hold one for short periods.”

  “This means that my mother is not dying?” Artemis knew the answer, but he had to be certain.

  Opal ground her teeth, torn between impatience and the desire to explain the brilliance of her plan.

  “Not yet. Though soon the damage to her system will be irreversible. I have possessed her from a distance. An extreme form of the mesmer. With power like mine, I can manipulate her very organs. Imitating Spelltropy was child’s play. And once I have little Jayjay I can open my own hole in time.”

  “So you are nearby? Your real self?”

  Opal had enough of questions. “Yes, no. What does it matter? I win, you lose. Accept it, or everyone dies.”

  Artemis edged toward the door. “This game is not over yet.”

  Footsteps outside and a strange rhythmic squeaking. A wheelbarrow, Artemis guessed, though he did not have much experience with gardening aids.

  “Oh, I think this game is over now,” said Opal slyly.

  The heavy door bounced in fits as it was butted from the outside. Butler pushed the trolley into the room, stumbling after it, hunched and shivering.

  “He is strong, this one,” said Opal, almost in admiration. “I mesmerized him, but still he refused to kill your friends. The stupid man’s heart almost burst. It was all I could do to force him to construct the barrel and fill it with fat.”

  “To smother fairy magic,” Artemis guessed.

  “Obviously, idiot. Now the game is absolutely over. Finished. Butler is my ace in the hole, as you humans might say. I hold all the aces. You are alone. Give me the lemur and I will go back to my own time. Nobody has to suffer.”

  If Opal gets the lemu
r, then the entire planet will suffer, thought Artemis.

  Opal snapped her fingers. “Butler, seize the animal.”

  Butler took a single step toward Artemis, then stopped. Shudders racked his broad back, and his fingers were claws wringing an invisible neck.

  “I said get the animal, you stupid human.”

  The bodyguard dropped to his knees and pounded the floor, trying to drive the voice from his head.

  “Get the lemur now!” shrieked Opal.

  Butler had enough strength for three words. “Go . . . to ...hell.”

  Then he clutched at his arm and collapsed.

  “Oops,” said Opal. “Heart attack. I broke him.”

  Stay focused, Artemis ordered himself. Opal may hold all the aces, but perhaps there is a hole in one of those aces.

  Artemis tickled Jayjay under the chin. “Hide, little friend. Hide.”

  And with that he tossed the lemur toward a chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Jayjay flailed in the air, then latched on to a glass strut. He pulled himself nimbly into the hanging light and hid behind sheets of dangling crystal.

  Opal immediately lost interest in Artemis, concentrating on levitating Angeline’s body to the level of the chandelier. With a squeal of frustration she realized that such remote elevation was beyond even a being of her power.

  “Doctor Schalke!” she called, and somewhere her real mouth was calling it too. “Into the bedroom, Schalke!”

  Artemis filed this information, then ducked below Opal to his mother’s bedside. A mobile JumpStart defibrillator cart was parked among the row of medical equipment ranged around the four-poster, and Artemis quickly switched it on, dragging the entire contraption to the limit of its cord, to where Butler had collapsed.

  The bodyguard lay faceup, hands thrown back as though there were an invisible boulder on his chest. His face was stretched with the effort of moving the great stone. Eyes closed, sweat sheened, teeth clenched.

  Artemis unbuttoned Butler’s shirt, exposing a barrel chest hard with muscle, scars, and tension. A cursory examination told him that there was no heartbeat. Butler’s body was dead; only his brain was left alive.

  “Hold on, old friend,” murmured Artemis, trying to keep his mind focused.

  He pulled the defibrillator paddles from their holsters and peeled back their disposable safety covers, leaving a thin coating of conductive gel on the contact surfaces. The paddles seemed to grow heavier as he waited for the unit to charge, and by the time the GO light flashed green, they felt like rocks in his hands.

  “Clear!” he called to no one in particular, then positioned the paddles firmly on Butler’s chest and hit the shock button under his thumb, sending three hundred and sixty volts of electricity into his bodyguard’s heart. Butler’s body arched, and the sharp smell of burning hair and skin assailed Artemis’s nostrils. Gel crisped and sparked, burning twin rings where the pads had made contact. Butler’s eyes flew open and his massive hands gripped Artemis’s shoulders.

  Is he still Opal’s slave?

  “Artemis,” breathed Butler, but then frowned in confusion. “Artemis? How?”

  “Later, old friend,” said the Irish boy brusquely, mentally progressing to the next problem. “Just rest for now.”

  This was not an order he would have to repeat. Butler sank immediately into exhausted unconsciousness. But his heart beat strongly inside his chest. He had not been dead long enough to have suffered brain damage.

  Artemis’s next problem was Opal, or more specifically, how to get her out of his mother’s body. If she did not vacate soon, Artemis had no doubt that his mother would not recover from the ordeal.

  Gathering his nerve with several deep breaths, Artemis switched his full attention to his mother’s hovering body. She was twirling below the chandelier as though suspended from it, clawing at Jayjay, who appeared to be taunting her by waving his hindquarters in her direction.

  Can this situation get any more surreal?

  Just then Dr. Schalke entered the room brandishing a pistol, which seemed too large for his delicate hands.

  “I am here, you creature. Though I must say, I don’t like your tone. I may be spellbound, but I am not an animal.”

  “Do shut up, Schalke. I can see I will have to fry a few more of your brain cells. Now, please, fetch that lemur!”

  Schalke pointed four fingers of his free hand toward the chandelier. “The lemur is at a considerable height, yes?

  How do you suggest I fetch him? Perhaps I could shoot him dead?”

  Opal swooshed low, arms and legs twirling like a harpie. “No!” she shrieked, striking him around the head and shoulders. “I would shoot a hundred of you, a thousand, before I let you harm one hair of that creature’s fur. He is the future. My future! The world’s future!”

  “Indeed,” said the doctor. “Were I not mesmerized, I suspect I should be yawning.”

  “Shoot the humans,” commanded Opal. “The boy first; he is the most dangerous.”

  “Are you certain? The man mountain looks more dangerous to me.”

  “Shoot the boy!” howled Opal, frustration sending tears streaming down her cheeks. “Then Butler and then yourself.”

  Artemis swallowed. This was cutting things a bit fine; his accomplice had better get a move on.

  “Very well,” said Schalke, fiddling with the safety on Butler’s Sig Sauer. “Anything to escape these theatrics.”

  I have seconds before he figures out that catch, thought Artemis. Seconds to distract Opal. Nothing to do but to reveal the hole in her ace.

  “Come now, Opal,”Artemis said with a calmness he did not feel. “You wouldn’t shoot a ten-year-old boy, would you?”

  “I absolutely would,” said Opal without a heartbeat’s hesitation. “I am considering cloning you so that I can kill you over and over again. Heaven.”

  Then all of what Artemis had said registered.

  “Ten? Did you say you were ten years old?”

  Artemis forgot all about the danger surrounding him, lost in the sweet moment of triumph. It was intoxicating.

  “Yes, that is what I said. I am ten. My real mother would have noticed immediately.”

  Opal chewed the knuckles of Angeline’s left hand, thinking.

  “You are the Artemis Fowl from my time? They brought you back!”

  “Obviously.”

  Opal reared backward through the air, as though taken by the wind.

  “There is another one. Here somewhere, another Artemis Fowl.”

  “Finally!” said Artemis, smirking. “The great pixie genius sees the truth.”

  “Find him,” shrieked Opal. “Find him immediately. At once.”

  Schalke straightened his glasses. “At once and immediately. This must be important.”

  Opal watched him go with real hatred in her eyes.“When this is over, I am going to destroy this entire estate just for spite. And then, when I return to the past, I shall—”

  “Don’t tell me,” interrupted ten-year-old Artemis Fowl. “You will destroy it again.”

  Almost Eight Years Ago

  When fourteen-year-old Artemis had a moment to consider things, sometime in between scaling pylons and outwitting murderous Extinctionists, he realized that there were a lot of unanswered questions about his mother’s illness. He had supposedly given her Spelltropy, but who had passed it to him? Holly’s magic had permeated his body in the past, but she herself was hale and hearty. Why wasn’t she sick? Or for that matter, how had Butler escaped infection? He had been healed so many times that he must be half-fairy by now.

  And of all the thousands of humans healed, mesmerized or wiped every year, his mother was the one to fall ill. The mother of the only human on Earth who could do something about it. Very coincidental. Too coincidental by far.

  So, either someone had deliberately infected his mother, or the symptoms were being magically duplicated. Either way, the result was the same:Artemis would travel back in time to find the antidote. The lem
ur, Jayjay.

  And who would want Jayjay found as much as Artemis did? The answer to that question lay in the past. Opal Koboi, of course. The little primate was the last ingredient in her magical cocktail. With his brain fluid in her bloodstream, she would be literally the most powerful person on the planet. And if Opal couldn’t nab Jayjay in her own time, she would get him in the future. Whatever it took. She must have followed them back through the time stream, jumped out early, and organized this whole affair. Presumably once she had Jayjay’s brain fluid, navigating her way back would not be a problem.

  It was confusing even for Artemis. Opal wouldn’t even be in his present if he hadn’t gone back in time. And he had only gone back in time because of a situation she had created. It had been Artemis’s own attempts to cure his mother that had led Opal to infect her.

  But one thing he now felt sure of was that Opal was behind this. She was behind them and in front of them. Chasing their group into her own clutches. A time paradox.

  There are two Opals in this equation, thought Artemis. I think there should continue to be two Artemis Fowls.

  And so a plan began to take shape in his mind.

  Once the young Artemis had been apprised of all the details and convinced of their accuracy, he had at once agreed to accompany them to the future, in spite of Butler’s vocal objection.

  “It’s my mother, Butler,” he said simply. “I must save her. Now I charge you to stay by her side until I return. Anyway, how could they hope to succeed without me?”

  “How indeed,” Holly Short had wondered, then taken more pleasure than was necessary in watching that arrogance drain from the boy’s features when the time stream opened in front of them, like the maw of some great computer-generated serpent.

  “Chin up, Mud Boy,” she’d said as Artemis the younger watched his arm dissolve. “And watch out for quantum zombies.”

  The time stream had been difficult for Artemis the elder. Any other human would have been torn apart by such repeated exposure to its particular radiation, but Artemis held himself together by sheer willpower. He focused on the high end of his intellect, solving unprovable theorems with large cardinals and composing an ending for Schubert’s unfinished Symphony No 8.