by Eoin Colfer
Mandrake root and rice wine. It won’t bring the sweet magic back, Captain, but each time you partake of these two, they’ll give you a spark. One hot spark at a time and that is all. Use this little trick wisely, my Captain, or the spark won’t be there when you most need it.
This pearl from an alcoholic sprite.
It was a trick he’d used in the past, but not since his arrest. Until now. And so for his birthday that year, Turnball had requested a dinner of puffer fish with fo-fo berries and mandrake shavings, followed by a carafe of rice wine and sim-coffee. This request was accompanied by the revelation of the whereabouts of a notorious group of arms smugglers, which would be quite a feather in the warden’s cap. Tarpon Vinyáya agreed to the request. When Vishby arrived with the meal, Turnball invited him to stay and talk. And while they chatted, Turnball picked at his meal, eating only the mandrake shavings and drinking only the wine, all the time subtly reinforcing Vishby’s opinion of the LEP.
Yes, my dear Vishby, they are unfeeling louts. I mean, what were you to do? That thug Diggums left you no option but to flee.
And when the moment was right, when Turnball felt a single spark of magic coalesce in his gut, he rested his hand lightly on Vishby’s shoulder, allowing his little finger to touch the water elf’s bare neck.
Usually neck touching is no big deal. Wars have rarely been fought over a neck touch, but this touch was malicious. For on the pad of his finger, Turnball had painted, in his own blood, a black-magic thrall rune. Turnball was a great believer in runes. Ideally, for maximum effectiveness, the person having the spell cast on them would be spread-eagled on a granite plinth, doused in oil fermented from the tears of unicorns, and tattooed from head to foot with symbols, and then given at least three minutes of magic full in the face. But you make do with what you have and hope for the best.
So Turnball touched Vishby on the neck and transferred his single spark of magic through the contact.
Vishby slapped his neck as if stung. “Ow! Hey, what was that? I felt a spark, Turnball.”
Turnball quickly withdrew his hand. “Static electricity. That always happens around me. My mother was afraid to kiss me. Here, Vishby, have some of this wine to make up for the shock.”
Vishby eyed the contents of the carafe greedily. Alcoholic beverages were not usually allowed in the prison, as with prolonged use they cause the magical receptors to atrophy. But some fairies, much like humans, cannot resist what is bad for them.
“I’m your fairy,” he said, eagerly accepting a cup.
Yes, Turnball thought. Yes, you are now.
Turnball knew it would work. It had before, on stronger minds than Vishby’s.
And so Vishby found that he could never say no to Turnball Root. It started out with simple harmless requests: an extra blanket, some reading material not in the prison system. But soon Vishby found himself inextricably bound up in Turnball’s escape plans, and what was more, he didn’t seem to mind being involved. It seemed the sensible thing to do.
Over the following four years, Vishby had gone from guard to accomplice. He had made contact with several inmates who were still loyal to Turnball and prepared them for the great escape. He made several raids on what was then Koboi Laboratories and used his security code to access their sensitive recycling plant, where he found, among other things, the scrambler wafer and the infinitely more valuable control orb for the Mars probe. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Vishby knew that eventually someone would find out about these thefts, but he couldn’t seem to make himself care.
Most of what he had found at Koboi Labs was of absolutely no use or was too far gone to be fixed, but the control orb needed only a slight descaling and the insertion of a new omni-sensor. These were such simple tasks that Vishby, at Turnball’s request, did them at home, with a little webcam supervision, naturally.
Once Turnball had a working original control orb in his possession, it was a relatively simple matter to sync with the Mars probe before take-off and begin the arduous task of reprogramming its mission parameters. This was not a task he could complete before the spacecraft actually left the Earth, but off the top of his head he could think of a dozen ways a rogue spaceship might prove useful. But not on Mars.
Mars? Oh no, no, Leonor. That’s too far away, and of no use to me. Let’s wait until it takes off on its mission and then turn this big fellow around.
His original plan for the probe had been simplicity itself: use it as a very big and very loud distraction on its return from Mars. But, as Leonor’s communications became terser and somehow colder, Turnball realized that he would have to accelerate his schedule and refine his plot. It was vital that he escape, but it was even more important that he strengthen his hold over Leonor before her humanity completely reasserted itself. Her aging was now so rapid that it would take some very special magic to reverse it. And there was only one place to get such magic. If Julius had been alive, Turnball would have worried about his little brother stumbling into his deception, but even with Julius gone, there was still the entire LEP to worry about. He needed to damage the force, cut off the head of the snake, and maybe its tail too.
And so Turnball monitored Warden Vinyáya’s communications, using the password Vishby had stolen for him. He was especially interested in the calls to the warden’s sister, Commander Raine Vinyáya of the LEP.
The snake’s head.
Commander Vinyáya was a hard fairy to kill, especially if your weapon was a blunt instrument in space, and the commander seemed reluctant to go topside, where she was vulnerable.
And then, only last month, she had made a video call to her brother informing him, in giddy tones, that she would never allow anyone else to hear of her trip to Iceland to meet the Mud Whelp Artemis Fowl. Apparently the boy was planning to save the world.
The infamous Artemis Fowl, Commander Vinyáya, and Holly Short too, together in one place. Perfect.
Turnball had activated his control orb and fed an entirely new set of mission parameters to the Mars probe, parameters that the probe never even questioned because they came from its own orb. To paraphrase: Come back to Earth and crush the commander and as many of her elite team as possible. Crush them, then burn them, then electrocute the cinders.
What fun.
Then there was Artemis Fowl. He had heard of the boy, and by all accounts, this particular human was a little brighter than most. Better to study up a little just in case the human had a little treachery planned himself. Turnball used the warden’s code to access the LEP surveillance feed from more than two hundred camera bugs planted in Fowl Manor and found to his utter delight that Artemis Fowl seemed to be developing Atlantis Complex.
Atlantis is the magic word for this mission, he thought.
Turnball was equally concerned about the Mud Boy’s gigantic bodyguard, who seemed just the kind of person to hunt down and kill his master’s murderer.
The famous Butler. The man who had taken down a troll.
Luckily, Artemis himself took Butler out of play when his paranoia flared up, and he invented a reason to send the bodyguard to Mexico.
Even though it complicated his plans a little, Turnball decided to have a little fun with the Butlers, just to cut off any vengeful loose ends.
I know you would not approve of all these deaths, Leonor, Turnball thought as he sat at his computer, sending instructions through to Vishby’s terminal. But they are necessary if we are to be together forever. Those people are unimportant compared to our eternal love. And you will never know the price of our happiness. All you will know is that we are reunited.
But in truth, Turnball knew that he enjoyed all the machinations tremendously and was almost sorry to send the kill orders. Almost but not quite. Even better than scheming would be all the time to be spent with Leonor, and it had been too long since he had seen his wife’s beautiful face.
So he’d sent the kill orders to the probe and loaded up on mandrake and rice wine.
Luckily, it only took the b
arest spark of magic to mesmerize humans.
Because they are weak-willed and stupid. But funny, like monkeys.
When Vishby arrived on that final day in prison, Turnball was sitting on his hands, trying hard to contain his excitement.
“Ah, Mr. Vishby,” he said when the door dissolved. “You’re early. Is there some irregularity I should be concerned about?”
Vishby’s impassive fish face was a little more emotional than usual. “The warden’s sister is dead. Commander Vinyáya and a whole shuttle of LEP blown apart. Did we do that?”
Turnball licked the blood rune on his finger. “Whether we did or not is unimportant. You shouldn’t be concerned.”
Vishby absently fingered his neck, where a faint outline of the rune still glowed. “I’m not concerned. Why should I be? It was nothing to do with us.”
“Good. Fabulous. I imagine we have bigger fish to fry.”
Vishby flinched at the fish reference.
“Oh. Oops, sorry, Mr. Vishby. I should be more sensitive. Come now, tell me, what news?” Vishby flapped his gills for a moment, getting the sentences together in his head. Captain Root did not like stammering.
“There’s a space probe heading directly for Atlantis, so we have to evacuate the city. It’s likely that the craft won’t actually penetrate the dome, but the Council can’t take the chance. I’ve been called up to pilot a shuttle, and you’re one of my . . . eh . . . p-passengers.”
Turnball sighed, disappointed. “Oh . . . p-passengers? Really?” Vishby rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Captain. Passengers, of course, one of my passengers.”
“It’s so unprofessional, the stammering.”
“I know,” said Vishby. “I’m working on it. I bought one of those . . . eh . . . au-audio books. I’m nervous now.”
Turnball decided to go easy on Vishby; there would be plenty of time for discipline later when he was killing the water elf. The ultimate punishment.
“It’s only natural,” he said magnanimously. “First day back in the pilot’s chair. Then there’s this mysterious probe, plus you have to transport all of us dangerous prisoners.”
Vishby seemed even more nervous. “Exactly. Well, the thing is . . . I don’t want to do this, Turnball, but . . .”
“But you have to cuff me,” finished Turnball. “Of course. I understand completely.” He thrust out his hands with wrists upturned. “It’s not as if you have to fasten the cuffs, is it?”
Vishby blinked and touched his neck. “No. Why would I fasten them? That would be barbaric.”
The water elf laid a set of standard ultralight plastic polymer cuffs across Turnball’s wrist.
“Comfy?” he asked.
Again, Turnball was feeling generous. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. You concentrate on the shuttle.”
“Thanks, Captain. This is a big day for me.”
As Vishby dissolved the door, Turnball was struck by how the guard’s subconscious dealt with betraying all that he believed in. Vishby simply pretended that everything was as it should be, until the moment when it was not. The water elf somehow managed to keep two lives running simultaneously side by side.
Amazing what a person will do to avoid guilt, thought Turnball, following Vishby through the doorway and taking his first breath of free recycled air in years.
Atlantis was a small city by human standards. With barely ten thousand residents, it wouldn’t even qualify as a city to the Mud Men, but to the fairies it was their second center of government and culture, the first being the capital, Haven City. There was a growing lobby to demolish Atlantis altogether, as the upkeep cost a fortune in taxpayers’ money and it was only a matter of time before the humans sank one of their submarine drones in the right spot and got a shot of the dome. But the budget for such a massive relocation and demolition project was so huge that continued maintenance always seemed the more attractive option to the politicians. It was more expensive in the long term, but the politicians reasoned that by the time the long term came around, somebody else would be in office.
Vishby led Turnball Root along a corridor tube with Perspex walling through which he could see dozens of crafts lining up at the various dome pressure-lock tollgates, waiting to swipe their credit chips for exit. There didn’t seem to be any panic. And why would there be? The Atlanteans had been preparing for a dome breach ever since the last one, more than eight thousand years ago, when an asteroid had superheated a two-mile-long tube of ocean before spending its last gasp of energy knocking a crunchball-sized chunk out of the dome, which in those days had not been shatterproof. In less than an hour the entire city had been submerged with more than five thousand casualties. It had taken a hundred years or so to build the new Atlantis on top of the foundations supplied by the ruins of the old Atlantis, and this time an evacuation strategy had featured large in the city blueprints. All of which meant that in case of emergency, every male, female, and child fairy could be out of the city in less than an hour. Drills were held every week, and in nursery school the first rhyme every student learned was:
The blue dome
Protects our home;
If it should crack,
Prepare for evac.
Turnball Root recalled this ditty as he followed Vishby along the corridor.
Crack, evac? What kind of rhyme was that? Evac wasn’t even a real word, just a military contraction. Exactly the kind of word Julius might have used.
I am so glad Leonor never had to endure meeting my boorish brother. If she had, no amount of magical persuasion could have enticed her to marry me.
A part of Turnball knew that he kept Leonor away from the People in general because a ten-minute conversation with any fairy under the world would have shown Leonor that her husband was not quite the noble revolutionary that he pretended to be. Luckily, this was a part of himself that Turnball had become quite adept at ignoring.
Other prisoners were shambling from their cells across narrow bridges onto the main walkway. Each was shackled and dressed in a lime green Deeps prison jumpsuit. Most were laying on the bravado, rolling swaggers and obvious sneers, but Turnball knew from experience that it was the ones with the placid gazes you had to worry about. Those ones were beyond caring.
“Come on now, convicts,” called a particularly Cro-Magnon-looking jumbo pixie, a breed that sometimes popped up in Atlantis due to the pressurized environment. “Keep moving there. Don’t make me buzz you.”
At least I am wearing my full dress uniform, thought Turnball, ignoring the guard, but he did not feel much consoled. Uniform or no, he was being paraded down this walkway like a common prisoner. He soothed himself with the decision that he would definitely kill Vishby as soon as possible and maybe send an e-mail to Leeta, congratulating Vishby’s sweetheart on her new single status. She would probably be delighted.
Vishby raised a fist, bringing the procession to a halt at an intersection. The prisoners were forced to wait like cattle while a large metal cube, secured with titanium bands, was floated past them on a hover trolley.
“Opal Koboi,” explained Vishby. “She’s so dangerous they’re not even letting her out of her cell.”
Turnball bristled. Opal Koboi. People down here spent their days gossiping about Opal Koboi. The current rumor was that there was another Opal Koboi around somewhere who had come out of the past to rescue herself in the present. People might get more done if they stopped obsessing over Opal-blooming-Koboi. If anyone should be concerned about Koboi, it was Turnball. After all, she had murdered his little brother. Then again, better not. Dwelling on the past could cause his ulcer to return.
It took the cube an age to float by, and Turnball counted three doors on the side.
Three doors. My cell has a single door. Why does Koboi need a cell so big that it has three doors?
It didn’t matter. He would be out of here soon enough and then he could treat himself like royalty.
Leonor and I shall return to the island where we first met so dramatically.
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As soon as the intersection was clear, Vishby led them on toward their shuttle bay. Through the clear plastic, Turnball noticed crowds of civilians walking briskly but without apparent panic toward their own rescue pods. On the upper levels, groups of Atlantis’s more affluent citizens strolled to private evacuation shuttles that probably cost more than Turnball could steal in a week.
Ruffles are back in, Turnball noted with some pleasure. I knew it.
The corridor opened out into a loading bay, where groups of prisoners were waiting impatiently by air locks that opened directly on to the sea.
“This is all so unnecessary,” said Vishby. “The water cannons are going to blast this probe thing to smithereens.
We’ll all be back here in a few minutes.” Not all of us, thought Turnball, not bothering to conceal a smile. Some of us are never coming back.
And he knew in that instant that it was true. Even if his plan failed, he was never coming back here. One way or another, Turnball Root would be free.
Vishby beeped the shuttle door with his keys, and the manacled prisoners filed inside. Once they were seated, Vishby activated carnival-ride-style safety bars, which also acted as very effective restraints. The convicts were pinned to their seats, still cuffed. Totally helpless.
“You got ’em, Fishby?” asked the Cro-Magnon pixie.
“Yes, I got ’em. And the name’s Vishby!”
Turnball smirked. Office bullying; another reason he had been able to turn Vishby so easily.
“That’s what I said, Frisbee. Now, why don’t you pilot this bucket out of here and let me keep watch on these scary convicts?”
Vishby bristled. “Just you wait a minute . . .”
Turnball Root did not have time for a showdown. “That’s an excellent idea, Mr. Vishby. You put that pilot’s licence to good use and let your colleague here watch over us scary convicts.”
Vishby touched his neck. “Sure. Why not? I should get us out of here like I’m supposed to.”
“Exactly. You know it makes sense.”
“Go on, Fishboy,” scoffed the big guard, whose name tag had been altered to read k-max. “Do what the convict tells you.”