“I know when.”
“Very well,” said No1, rubbing his hands together. “Time to send you on your way.”
Holly remembered something. “I haven’t completed the Ritual,” she said. “I’m low on magic, and without weapons, that could be a problem. We don’t have an acorn.”
“Not to mention a bend in the river,” added Artemis.
No1 smirked. “Those things could be problems. Unless . ..”
A spiral rune on the demon’s forehead glowed red and spun like a Catherine wheel. It was hypnotizing.
“Wow,” said Holly. “That’s really . . .”
Then a pulsing beam of crimson magic blasted from the center of the rune, enveloping Holly in a cocoon of light.
“Now you’re full to the brim,” said No1, bowing low. “Thank you very much. I’m here all week. Don’t forget to tip your goblins and bury those acorns.”
“Wow,” said Holly again when her fingertips stopped buzzing. “That’s a neat trick.”
“More than you know. That’s my own signature magic. The No1 cocktail, if you like, which makes you a beacon in the time stream.”
Artemis shuffled self-consciously. “How long do we have?”
No1 gazed at the ceiling while he ran some calculations. “Three hundred years . . . No, no, three days. Holly can bring you back at any point before that simply by making herself open to my power, but after three days the link grows weaker.”
“Is there anything we can do about that?”
“Let’s face facts: all-powerful I may be, but I’m a novice at this, so taking off from where you landed is vital. If you go beyond three days, then you are stuck in the past.”
“If we do get separated, couldn’t Holly come back and get me?” wondered Artemis.
“No, she could not,” said No1. “It would be impossible for you to meet at a point neither of you had experienced. This is a one-time deal only. It will take everything I have to hold you together for this trip. Any more and your atoms would lose their memory and simply forget where it is they are supposed to go. Both of you have already been in the time stream twice. I can transport objects forever and a day, but living beings break down without a warlock in the stream to shield them.”
Holly asked a very pertinent question. “No1, have you done this before?”
“Of course,” said the demon. “Several times. On a simulator. And two of the holograms survived.”
Artemis’s determination barely flickered. “Two survived. The last two?”
“No,” admitted No1. “The last two were trapped in a time wormhole and consumed by quantum zombies.”
Holly felt her pointy ears tingle, always a bad sign. Elfin ears could sense danger.
“Quantum zombies? You’re not serious.”
“That’s what I said to Qwan. He wrote the program.”
“This is irrelevant,” said Artemis sharply. “We have no option but to go.”
“Very well,” said No1, flexing his fingers. He bent his knees and rested his entire body weight on the tip of his tail.
“Power posture,” he explained. “I do some of my best work in this position.”
“So does Mulch Diggums,” muttered Foaly. “Quantum zombies. I need to get a copy of that program.”
A red haze blossomed around the demon warlock, tiny lightning bolts crackling across his horns.
“He’s powering up,” said Foaly from the screens. “You’ll be off any second. Remember, try not to touch anything you don’t have to. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t contact me in the past. I have no desire not to exist.”
Artemis nodded. “I know. Make as little impact as possible, in case the time paradox theory has some merit.”
Holly was impatient to get going. “Enough science. Just blast us into the past. We’ll bring the monkey back.”
“Lemur,” said Artemis and Foaly together.
No1 closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were pure crimson.
“Okay, ready to go,” he said conversationally.
Artemis blinked. He was expecting No1’s voice of power to be a bit less squeaky. “Are you sure?”
No1 groaned. “I know. It’s the voice, isn’t it. Not enough gravel. Qwan says I should go for less airy and more fairy. Trust me, I’m ready. Now hold hands.”
Artemis and Holly stood there in their underwear, gingerly locking fingers. They had crossed space and time together, weathered rebellions, and tangled with demented despots. Coughed blood, lost digits, inhaled dwarf fumes, and swapped eyeballs, yet they found holding hands awkward.
No1 knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t resist a parting crack.
“I now pronounce you . . .”
Neither hand-holder was amused, but before they had time to do more than scowl, twin bolts of red energy crackled from No1’s eyes, blasting his friends into the time stream.
“Man and elf,” he said, finishing his joke, then chuckling delightedly.
On screen, Foaly snorted. “I’m guessing you’re laughing to cover your anxiety?”
“Exactly right,” said No1.
Where Artemis and Holly had been standing, there were flickering copies of them both, mouths open to object to No1’s comment.
“That really freaks me out, the ghost images. It’s like they’re dead.”
Foaly shuddered. “Don’t say that. If they’re dead, we all could be. How soon will they be back?”
“In about ten seconds.”
“And if they’re not back in ten seconds?”
“Then never.”
Foaly started counting.
CHAPTER 6
I TO I
There is a moment of confusion when a land animal enters the water. Beast, human, or fairy, it doesn’t matter. The surface is broken and every sense is suddenly shocked. The cold stings, motion slows, and the eyes are filled with smears of color and the snap of bursting bubbles. The time stream is like that moment sustained.
That’s not to say that traveling through the time stream is a consistent experience. Never the same journey twice. The demon warlock Qwan, who was the planet’s most experienced time-traveling fairy, wrote in his best-selling autobiography, Qwan: My Time Is Now, that riding the time stream is
like flying through a dwarf’s intestine. There are very nice free-flowing stretches, but then you turn a corner to find the thing backed up and putrid. The problem being that the time stream is largely an emotional construct, and it absorbs ambient feelings from the real time it flows around. If you happen across a stretch of foul-smelling gunk, you can bet that the humans are killing something.
Artemis and Holly were being dragged through a foul-smelling stretch that corresponded with an entire ecosystem being destroyed in South America. They could sense the animals’ terror and even smell the charred wood.
Artemis felt too that Holly was losing herself in the maelstrom of emotions. Fairies were so much more sensitive to their environments than humans. If Holly lost concentration, her atoms would dissipate and be absorbed by the stream.
Focus, Holly, Artemis broadcast into the stream. Remember who you are and why we are here.
It was difficult for them both. Their particle memory had already been weakened by the Limbo journeys, and the temptation to meld with the stream was strong.
Artemis conjured a picture of his mother in his consciousness to bolster his determination.
I know when and where I want to be, he thought. Exactly when and where . . .
Fowl Manor, Almost Eight Years Ago
Artemis and Holly exited the time stream and entered ten-year-old Artemis’s study. Physically this was a gentle enough experience, like jumping from a low wall onto thick carpet, but emotionally this particular trip was like a ten-minute blitz of the worst memories of their lives. The time stream: never the same ride twice.
Holly cried for her mother for a minute, but eventually the persistent chiming of a grandfather clock reminded her of where and when she was. She stood shakily and looked around her to find Artemis lurching toward the wardrobe. The sight of him cheered her a little.
“You have really let yourself go,” she said.
Artemis was rummaging through the clothes on the rail.
“Of course nothing will fit,” he muttered. “All too small.”
Holly elbowed past him. “Not for me,” she said, pulling a dark suit from its hanger.