But in spite of his distaste for the mission, Butler’s sense of loyalty forced him to share a fact that the park director had mentioned earlier, when Artemis was busy studying the alarm system.
“There is something that I know, which you may not know,” he said archly.
Artemis was not in the mood for games. “Oh, really. And what would that be?”
“Lemurs are tree creatures,” replied Butler. “That little guy is spooked, and he’s going to climb the biggest tree he can find, even if it isn’t actually a tree. If you see what I mean.”
Artemis saw immediately, which wasn’t difficult, as the huge structures cast a lattice of moonshadows over the entire compound. “Of course, old friend,” he said, his frown-crease disappearing. “The pylons.”
Things were going disastrously wrong for Artemis the elder. Mulch was injured, Holly was unconscious again, feet sticking out of the dwarf’s hole, and he himself was fast running out of ideas. The deafening clamor of a hundred endangered species going berserk was not helping his concentration.
The animals are going ape, he thought. Then: What a time to develop a sense of humor.
All he could do was prioritize.
I need to get Holly out of here, he realized. That is the most important thing.
Mulch moaned, rolling onto his back, and Artemis saw that there was a bleeding gash on his forehead.
He stumbled to the dwarf’s side. “I imagine you’re in great pain,” he said. “It’s to be expected with such a laceration.” Bedside manner was not one of Artemis’s strong suits. “You will have a rather large scar, but then looks are not really important to you.”
Mulch squinted at Artemis through a narrowed eye. “Are you trying to be funny? Oh my God, you’re not. That was actually the nicest thing you could think of to say.”
He dabbed at his bloody forehead with a finger. “Ow. That hurts.”
“Of course.”
“I will have to seal it. You know all about this dwarf talent, I suppose.”
“Naturally,” said Artemis, keeping a straight face. “I’ve seen it a dozen times.”
“I doubt it,” grunted Mulch, plucking a wiggling beard hair from his chin. “But I don’t have much choice now, do I? With the LEP elf in dreamland, I won’t be getting any magical help from that quarter.”
Artemis heard a rustling in the undergrowth at the rear of the cage. “You’d better hurry it up. I think the gorilla is overcoming his fear of fairies.”
Wincing, Mulch introduced the beard hair to his gash. It took off like a tadpole, poking through the skin, stitching the flaps together. Though he groaned and shuddered, Mulch managed to stay conscious.
When the hair had finished its work and the wound was tied up tighter than a fly in a ball of spiderweb, Mulch spat on his hand and rubbed the gooey mess onto the wound.
“All sealed,” he proclaimed; then, upon seeing the glint in Artemis’s eye, “Don’t get any ideas, Mud Boy. This only works on dwarfs, and what’s more, my beard hair only works on me. You poke one of my lovelies into your skin, and all you’ll get is an infection.”
The rustling in the undergrowth grew louder, and Artemis Fowl decided to forego further information, which for him was almost unheard of.
“Time we were off. Can you seal the tunnel behind us?”
“I can bring the whole lot down easy as pie. You’d better take the lead, though; there are better ways to go than being buried alive in . . . shall we say, recyclings. Need I say more?”
There was no need to say another syllable. Artemis jumped into the hole, grabbed Holly’s shoulders, and began dragging her down the tunnel, past the blobs of luminous spittle, toward the proverbial light at the end. It was like traveling through space toward the Milky Way.
The sounds of his own body were amplified. Gulping breath, drumming heartbeat, the bend and creak of muscle and sinew.
Holly rolled along easily, her suit hissing on the rough surface like a nest of vipers. Or maybe there were snakes down here, the way Artemis’s luck was going.
I am trying to do something good for a change, he reminded himself. And this is how the fates reward me. A life of crime was infinitely easier.
Surface noise was amplified by the tunnel’s acoustics. The gorilla sounded furious now. Artemis could hear the slap of fists on chest and an enraged huffing.
He realizes he has been tricked.
His theorizing was cut short by Mulch’s appearance in the tunnel, the spittle bandage on his forehead casting a zombie glow on his face.
“Gorilla coming,” he said as he gulped down lungfuls of air. “Gotta go.”
Artemis heard twin thumps as the gorilla landed on the tunnel floor. The huge simian roared a challenge down the hole, and the noise grew in ferocity with every foot it traveled.
Holly moaned, and Artemis pulled harder on her shoulders.
Mulch sucked down air as fast as he could, bundling Artemis and Holly deeper into the tunnel. Twenty yards to go. They would never make it. The gorilla was advancing, pulverizing each spittle lantern as he passed it, roaring with bloodlust. Artemis swore he saw a flash of teeth.
The tunnel seemed to shudder with each blow. Large sections collapsed. Mud and rock clattered down on Artemis’s head and shoulders. Dirt pooled in Holly’s eye sockets.
Mulch’s cheeks ballooned, and he opened his lips the merest fraction to speak.
“Okay,” he said in a helium voice. “The tank is full.”
The dwarf gathered Artemis and Holly in his burly Popeye arms and vented every bubble of air in his body. The resulting jet stream propelled the group down the length of the tunnel. The trip was short, jarring, and confusing. The breath was driven from Artemis’s lungs, and his fingers were stretched to cracking, but he would not let go of Holly.
He could not let her die.
The unfortunate gorilla was blown head-over-rump by the windstorm and yanked back up the tunnel as though tethered to an elastic cable. It whooped as it went, digging its fingers into the tunnel wall.
Artemis, Holly, and Mulch popped from the tunnel mouth, bouncing and skittering along the ditch in a tangle of limbs and torsos. The stars above them were speed-streaked, and the moon was a smear of yellow light.
An old famine wall halted their progress, crumbling under the impact of three bodies.
“For more than a hundred and fifty years this wall stood,” coughed Artemis. “Then we come along.”
He lay on his back, feeling thoroughly defeated. His mother would die, and Holly would soon hate him when she worked out the truth.
All is lost. I have no idea what to do.
Then one of the notorious Rathdown pylons sharpened in his vision—more specifically, the figures clambering along its service ladder.
The lemur has escaped, Artemis realized. And is climbing as
high as it can.
A reprieve. There was still a chance.
What I need to save this situation is a full LEP surveillance and assault kit. Perhaps I will have No1 send one back for me.
Artemis disentangled himself from the others and decided that underneath the pillar’s cornerstone would be a secure spot. He tugged off the remaining stones stacked on top, then wiggled his fingers under the final boulder, and heaved. It came away easily, revealing nothing but worms and damp earth. No package from the future; for whatever reason that particular trick would only work once.
So. No help. I must make do with what is available.
Artemis returned to where Holly and Mulch lay. Both were moaning.
“I think I split a gut getting rid of that wind,” said Mulch. “There was a bit too much fear in the mix.”
Artemis’s nose wrinkled.
“Will you be okay?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll be plenty strong enough to carry that huge amount of gold you promised me.”
Holly was groggy. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to pull herself together, and her arms flopped like fish out of water. Artemis did a quick pulse and temperature check. Slight fever but steady heartbeat. Holly was recovering, but it would be several minutes before she could control her mind or body.
I must do this on my own, Artemis realized. No Holly, no Butler.
Just Artemis versus Artemis.
And perhaps an omnitool, he thought, reaching into Holly’s pocket.
*** The Rathdown electricity pylons had been featured in Irish news headlines several times since their erection. Environmentalists protested vehemently that the appearance of the gigantic pylons blighted an otherwise beautiful valley, not to mention the possible detrimental effect the uninsulated power lines could have on the health of anyone or anything living below their arcs. The national electricity board had countered these arguments by pleading that the lines were too high to harm anything, and that to construct smaller pylons around the valley would blight ten times more land.
And so a half dozen of these metal giants bridged Rathdown Valley, reaching a height of three hundred feet at their zenith. The pylon bases were often ringed by protesters, so much so that the power company had taken to servicing the lines by helicopter.