Artemis had a single strand of defiance left in him.
“I could close it,” he grunted. “Given a few minutes.”
Opal was nonplussed. “You could…you could close it? Weren’t you listening? Didn’t I make it simple enough? No one can close it but me.”
Artemis seemed unimpressed. “I could figure it out. One more hour, ten minutes even. Holly is a fairy, she has magic. I could have used her hand and my brain. I know I could. How difficult could it be if you managed it? You’re not even as smart as Foaly.”
“Foaly!” screamed Opal. “Foaly is a buffoon. Fiddling around with his gadgets when there are entire dimensions left unexplored.”
“I apologize, Holly,” said Artemis formally. “You warned me, and I wouldn’t listen. You were our only chance, and I tricked you.”
Opal was furious. She skirted the Chinese warriors to where Juliet stood holding Holly, whose head was dangling.
“You think this ridiculous thing could ever have accomplished what I have accomplished?”
“That is Captain Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police,” said Artemis. “Show some respect. She beat you before.”
“This is not before,” said Opal emphatically. “This is now. The end of days for humanity.” She grabbed Holly’s hand and slapped it vaguely in the area of the handprint on the Berserker Gate. “Oh, look at that. The gate is not closing. Holly Short has no power here.” Opal laughed cruelly. “Oh, poor, pretty Holly. Imagine, if only your hand would activate the gate, then your suffering could end right now.”
“We could do it,” mumbled Artemis, but his eyes were closing, and it seemed as though he had lost faith in himself. His free hand tapped a distracted rhythm on the stone. The human’s mind had finally snapped.
“Ridiculous,” said Opal, calming herself. “And here I am, getting flustered by your claims. You vex me, Artemis, and I will be glad when you are dead.”
Two things happened while Opal was ranting at Holly. The first thing was that Opal had a series of thoughts:
Holly’s hand seems very small.
Opal realized that she hadn’t closely examined the elf since she’d appeared at the crater’s rim. Either she’d been lying down, or Artemis had shielded her body with his own.
But her face. I saw the face. It was definitely her.
The second thing to happen was that the small hand in question, which still rested on the Berserker Gate, began to crab spasmodically toward the handprint, feeling its way with fingertips.
Opal pulled back Holly’s hood to take a better look and saw that the face crackled a little on close inspection.
A mask. A child’s projection mask. Like the one used by Pip…
“No!” she screamed. “No, I will not permit it!”
She reached under Holly’s chin and wrenched off the mask, and of course it was not Holly underneath.
Opal saw her own cloned face beneath the mask, and she felt instantly traumatized, as though blindsided by a massive blow.
“It is me!” she breathed, then giggled hysterically. “And only I can close the gate.”
Two seconds of stunned inaction followed from Opal, which allowed Nopal’s fingers to arrange themselves perfectly in the handprint. The print turned green and radiated a warm light. The smell of summer emanated from the stone, and there was birdsong.
Artemis chuckled, showing his blood-rimmed teeth. “I would imagine that you’re vexed now.”
Opal sent a vicious magical pulse directly into the clone’s torso, twisting her from Juliet’s grip and sending her rolling away from the gate, but all she accomplished with her brutality was to let the ethereal light flood through faster. The emerald rays spiraled upward in a tight coil, then fanned out to form a hemisphere around the magic circle. The Berserkers sighed and bathed their upturned faces in the meadow-green glow.
“It is finally finished, Opal,” said Artemis. “Your plan has failed. You are finished.”
There were people in the light, smiling and beckoning. There were scenes from times gone by. Fairies farming in this very valley.
Opal did not give up so easily and recovered herself. “No. I still have power. Perhaps I lose these Berserker fools, but my magic will protect me. There are other fairies to be duped, and the next time you will not stop me.”
Opal slapped Oro hard to distract him from the light. “Make certain that clone is dead,” she ordered. “The magic may not take the soulless creature. Finish her off if need be. Do it now!”
Oro frowned. “But she is one of us.”
“What do I care?”
“But it is over, Majesty. We are leaving.”
“Do as I say, thrall. It can be your last act before you ascend. Then I am done with you.”
“She is innocent. A helpless pixie.”
Opal was enraged by the argument. “Innocent? What do I care about that? I have killed a thousand innocent fairies, and I will kill ten times that if I deem it necessary. Do as I command.”
Oro drew the dagger, which seemed as big as a sword in his hand. “No, Opal. Bruin released me from my bonds. You shall kill no more fairies.”
And with a soldier’s efficiency he pierced Opal’s heart with a single thrust. The tiny pixie dropped, still speaking. She talked until her brain died, mouthing foul vitriol, still refusing to believe that it was over for her. She died staring into Artemis’s face, hating him.
Artemis wanted to hate right back, but all he could feel was sadness for the waste of life.
Something that may have been a spirit, or a dark twisted shadow, flickered behind Opal for a moment like a fleeing thief, then dissolved in the magical light.
All this time. All this strife and nobody wins. What a tragedy.
The light glowed brighter and shards detached themselves from the corona to become liquid, congealing around the Berserkers inside the circle. Some left their bodies easily, as though slipping from an old coat; others were yanked out limb by limb, jerking into the sky. Oro dropped his dagger, disgusted by what had been necessary, then vacated Beckett’s body in a flash of green fire.
At last, he may have said, though Artemis could not be sure. On either side of him, the clay warriors disintegrated as the Berserker spirits vacated them, and Artemis dropped to the ground, coming face to face with Nopal.
The clone lay with her eyes uncharacteristically bright and what might have been a smile on her face. She seemed to focus on Artemis for a moment, then the light died in her eyes and she was gone. She was peaceful at the end and, unlike the other fairies, no soul detached itself from her body.
You were never meant to be, realized Artemis, and then his thoughts turned to his own safety.
I need to escape the magic as quickly as possible.
The odds were in his favor, he knew, but that was no guarantee. He had survived against all odds so many times over the past few years that he knew that sometimes percentages counted for nothing.
It occurred to Artemis that, as a human, he should simply be able to hurl himself through the walls of this magical hemisphere and survive.
With all the genius in my head, I am to be saved by a simple high jump.
He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the edge of the gate tower. It was no more than ten feet. Difficult, but not impossible from a height.
What I wouldn’t give for a set of Foaly’s hummingbird wings now, he thought.
Through the green liquid Artemis saw Holly and Butler cresting the hill, running toward the crater.
Stay back, my friends, he thought. I am coming.
And he jumped for his life. Artemis was glad that Butler was there to witness his effort, as it was almost athletic. From this height, Artemis felt as though he were flying.
There was Holly racing down the slope, outrunning Butler for once. Artemis could see by the shape of her mouth that she was shouting his name.
His hands reached the skin of the magic bubble and passed through, and Artemis felt tremendous relief.
&n
bsp; It worked. Everything will be different now. A new world with humans and fairies living together. I could be an ambassador.
Then the spell caught him as neatly as a bug in a jar, and Artemis slid down the inside of the magical corona as though it were made of glass.
Holly rushed down the hillside, reaching toward the magical light.
“Stay back!” Artemis shouted, and his voice was slightly out of synch with his lips. “The spell will kill you.”
Holly did not slow, and Artemis could see that she intended to attempt a rescue.