The Seventh Dwarf (Artemis Fowl 1.5)

Root crossed the ruined kitchen in three paces. He ripped open a fallen cupboard searching among the foodstuffs. He grabbed a jar of instant coffee and spun the lid off. In two more paces he was kneeling beside his fallen brother, forcing handfuls of coffee grains down his throat.

'It's not going to be that easy,Turnball. You are a common criminal, and you will go to jail like one.'

After a moment Turnball stopped jerking. The spider was dead. The old elf was hurt, but alive. Root quickly zipped him up in a pair of cuffs, then hurried to Trouble's side.

The captain was already sitting up. 'No offence, Commander, but your brother hits like a pixie.'

Root nearly smiled. 'Lucky for you, Captain.'

Holly rushed down the garden path, through what had once been a parlour, and into the kitchen.

'Is everything alright?'

Root had had an unusually stressful day, and unfortunately Holly caught some of the overspill.

'No, Short, everything is not alright,' he barked, brushing dust from his lapels. 'My exercise has been hijacked by a notorious criminal, my captain has allowed himself to be tied up like a prize pig, and you have disobeyed a direct order and flown a shuttle. This means that our entire case is blown.'

'Just this case,' said Trouble. 'He still has several lifetimes to serve for past crimes.'

'That is beside the point,' continued Root, unrelenting. 'I cannot trust you, Short. You saved us, it's true, but Recon is all about stealth, and you are not a stealthy person. It might seem unreasonable after all you've done, but I'm afraid there is no place for you in my squad.'

'Commander,' objected Trouble. 'You can't flunk the girl after all this. If it wasn't for her I'd be biodegrading right now.'

'This is not your decision, Captain. Nor is it your fight. This squadron is all about trust, and Corporal Short did not earn mine.'

Trouble was flabbergasted. 'Pardon me, sir, but you haven't given her a fair chance.'

Root glanced sharply at his officer. Trouble was one of his best fairies, and he was putting his neck on the block for this girl.

'Very well, Short. If you can do anything to change my mind, now is your chance. Your only chance. Well, can you do anything?'

Holly looked at Trouble, and she could have sworn that he winked at her. This gave her the courage to do something unthinkable, ridiculously impertinent and insubordinate given the circumstances.

'Just this, Commander,' she said.

Holly drew her paintball pistol and shot Commander Julius Root three times in the chest. The impact knocked him back a step.

'You tag me before I tag you, and you're in,' mumbled Holly. 'No questions asked.'

Trouble laughed until he threw up. Literally. The magic sickness had left him nauseous. 'Oh gods,' he panted. 'She got you there, Julius. That's what you said. That's what you've been saying for the past hundred years.'

Root ran a finger through the congealing paint on his chest plate.

Holly stared at her toes, convinced that she was about to be slung out of the force altogether. To the left, Turnball was calling for his lawyer. Flocks of protected birds were whirling overhead, and out in the fields Unix and Bobb would be wondering what had hit them.

Holly finally risked an upward glance. The commander's features were twisted with conflicting emotions. Anger was in there, and disbelief too. And maybe, just maybe, a touch of admiration.

'You did tag me,' he said finally.

'That's right,' agreed Trouble. 'She did.'

'And I did say ...'

'You certainly did.'

Root rounded on Trouble. 'What are you? A parrot? Will you shut your trap, I'm trying to swallow my pride here.'

Trouble locked his lips, throwing away the imaginary key.

'This is going to cost the department a fortune, Short. We're going to have to rebuild here, or generate a localized tidal wave to cover the damage. That's six months of my budget right there.'

'I know, sir,' said Holly humbly. 'Sorry, sir.'

Root drew out his wallet, taking a set of silver acorns from a compartment. He tossed them to Holly, who almost missed the catch in her surprise.

'Put them on. Welcome to Recon.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Holly, clipping the insignia to her lapel. It caught the rising sun and flashed like a satellite.

'The first female in Recon,' groaned the commander.

Holly lowered her face to hide a grin that she couldn't contain.

'You're going to wash out in six months,' continued Root, 'and probably cost me a fortune.'

He was wrong about the first, but right about the second.

The Seventh Dwarf

CHAPTER 1: Lady Fei Fei's Tiara

Below the Fleursheim Plaza. Manhattan. New York City.

Dwarfs dig tunnels. That's what they are born to do. Their bodies have adapted over millions of years to make them efficient tunnellers. A dwarf male's jaw can be unhinged so that he can unhook it at will in order to excavate a tunnel with his mouth. The waste is jettisoned at the rear end to make way for the next mouthful.

The dwarf that concerns us is the notorious fairy felon Mulch Diggums. Mulch found burglary much more suited to his personality than mining. The hours were shorter, the risks were less severe, and the precious metals and stones that he took from the mud men were already processed, forged and polished.

Tonight's target was the tiara of Lady Fei Fei, a legendary Chinese diplomat. The tiara was a masterpiece of intricate jade and diamond arrangements in a white gold setting. It was priceless, though Mulch would sell it for much less.

The tiara was currently on tour as the centrepiece of an Oriental art exhibition. On the evening our story begins, it was overnighting in the Fleursheim Plaza on its way to the Classical Museum. For one night only, Fei Fei's tiara was vulnerable and Mulch did not intend to miss his chance.

Incredibly, the original geological planning survey for the Fleursheim Plaza was freely available on the Internet, allowing Mulch to plot his route from the comfort of the East Village where he was holed up. The dwarf discovered, to his delight, that a narrow vein of compacted clay and loose shale ran right up to the basement wall. The basement where the Fei FeiTiara was being stored.

At that moment, Mulch was closing his jaws around five kilos of earth per second as he burrowed ever closer to the Fleursheim basement. His hair and beard resembled an electrified halo as each sensitive fibre tested the surface for vibrations.

It wasn't bad clay, Mulch mused as he swallowed, taking shallow breaths through his nostr

ils. Breathing and swallowing simultaneously is a skill lost by most creatures once they leave infancy, but for dwarfs it is essential for survival.

Mulch's beard hair detected vibration close by. A steady thrumming that usually indicated air-conditioning units or a generator. That didn't necessarily mean he was nearing his target. But Mulch Diggums had the best internal compass in the business, plus he'd programmed the precise coordinates into the stolen Lower Elements Police helmet in his knapsack. Mulch paused long enough to check the 3D grid in the helmet's visor. The

Fleursheim basement was forty-eight degrees north-east. Ten metres above his present position. A matter of seconds for a tunnel dwarf of his calibre.

Mulch resumed his munching, scything through the clay like a fairy torpedo. He was careful only to expel clay at the lower end, and not air. The air may be needed if he encountered any obstacles. Seconds later he encountered the very barrier he had been saving up for. His skull collided with six inches of basement cement. Dwarf skulls may be tough, but they cannot crack half a foot of cement.

'D'Arvit!' swore Mulch, blinking cement flakes from his eyes with long dwarf lashes. He reached up, rapping a knuckle against the flat surface.

'Five or six inches, I reckon,' he said to no one, or so he thought. 'Should be no problem.'

Mulch backed up, compacting the earth behind him. He was about to employ a manoeuvre known in dwarf culture as the cyclone. This move was generally used for emergency escapes or for impressing dwarf females. He jammed the unbreakable LEP helmet over his wild hair, drawing his knees to his chin.

'I wish you could see this, ladies,' he muttered, allowing the gas in his insides to build. He had swallowed a lot of air in the past few minutes, and now individual bubbles were merging to form an increasingly difficult to contain, tube of pressure.

'A few more seconds,' grunted Mulch, the pressure bringing a glow to his cheeks.

Mulch crossed his arms over his chest, drew in his beard hair, and released the pent-up wind.

The result was spectacular and would have earned Mulch the girlfriend of his choice, if anyone had been around to see it. If you imagine the tunnel to be the neck of a champagne bottle, then Mulch was the cork. He shot up that passageway at over a hundred miles per hour, spinning like a top. Ordinarily when bone meets cement, the cement wins, but Mulch's head was protected by a stolen fairy Lower Elements Police helmet. These helmets are made from a virtually indestructible polymer.