computations and philosophical puzzles.
You are keeping the mind active, young human.
Artemis's consciousness realized that this thought was directed at him.
The warlock had felt his clumsy probe.
Artemis could feel a difference between his mind and the others. They had something different. An alien energy. It was difficult to explain a feeling without senses, but for some reason it seemed to be blue. A blue plasma, electric and alive. Artemis allowed this rich feeling to flow through his mind and was instantly jolted by its energy,Magic, he realized. Magic is in the mind. Now this was something worth knowing. Artemis retreated to his own mind-space, but he took a sample of the blue plasma with him. You never know when a touch of magic would come in useful.
They materialized on Hybras, inside the crater itself. Their arrival was accompanied by a flash of displaced energy. The group lay on the soot-blackened slopes, panting and steaming. The ground beneath them was warm to the touch, and the acrid stink of sulphur stung their nostrils. The euphoria of materialization soon dissipated.
Artemis breathed experimentally, the air from his mouth blowing up small dust eddies. Volcanic gas made his eyes water, and flat flakes of ash instantly coated every exposed patch of skin.
'This could be hell,' he commented.
'Hell or Hybras,' said No.1, climbing to his knees. 'I got some of this ash on a tunic before. It never comes out.'
Holly was up too, running a systems check on her equipment.
'My Neutrino is fine. But I can't get a lock on a communications signal.
We're on our own. And I seem to have lost the bomb.'
Artemis kneeled, his knees cracking through the ash crust, releasing the heat below. He glanced at his watch and caught sight of his own face.
His hair was grey with ash, and for a second he thought he was looking at his father.
A thought struck him. I look like my father, a father I may never see again. Mother. Butler. I have only one friend left.
'Holly,' he said. 'Let me look at you.'
Holly did not look up from her wrist computer.
'No time right now, Artemis.'
Artemis padded across to her, walking gingerly on the thin crust.
'Holly, let me look at you,' he said again, holding her shoulders.
Something in Artemis's voice made Holly stop what she was doing and pay attention. This was not a tone Artemis Fowl used very often. It could almost class as tenderness.
'I just need to make sure you're still you. Things get mixed up between dimensions. On my last trip, I switched fingers.'
He held up his hand for her to see. 'Strange, I know. But you seem to be fine. All present and correct.'
Something flashed in the corner of Artemis's eye. There was a metal case half buried in the ash further up the crater wall.
'The bomb,' sighed Artemis. 'I thought we'd lost it in transit. There was a flash when we landed.'
Qwan hurried across to the bomb. 'No. That was energy displacement.
Mostly mine. Magic is almost another being. It flows where it will. Some of mine did not flow back to me in time, and ignited on re-entry. I am happy to say that the rest of my power is fired up and ready to go.'
Artemis was struck by how much of this prehistoric being's language was similar to NASA jargon. No wonder we don't have a chance against the fairies, he thought. They were solving dimensional equations when we were still knocking stones together.
Artemis helped the warlock to heave the bomb from the ash's grip. The timer had been knocked for six by the time-jump and now read over five thousand hours. Finally, a stroke of luck.
Artemis used Butler's picks to examine the bomb's workings. Maybe he could disarm it if he had a few months, a couple of computers and some laser tools. Without those things, there was about as much chance of him disarming this weapon, as there was of a squirrel making a paper aeroplane.
'This bomb is perfectly operational,' he said to Qwan. 'Only the timer was affected.'
The warlock stroked his beard. 'That makes sense. That instrument is relatively simple, compared to the complexity of our bodies. The dimension tunnel would have no trouble reassembling it. The timer is another matter. It will be affected by any time-flares we run across here. It could blow at any second, or never.'
Not never, thought Artemis. I may not be able to disarm this thing, but I can certainly blow it, when I need to.
Holly peered at the deadly device. 'Is there any way we can dispose of it?'
Qwan shook his head. 'Inanimate objects cannot travel unaccompanied in the time tunnel. We, on the other hand, could get sucked back in at any moment. We need to get some silver on us immediately.'
Holly glanced at Artemis. 'Maybe some of us want to get sucked back in.'
'Maybe you do,' said Qwan. 'But under certain conditions. If you just let yourselves go, who knows where you'll end up. Or when. Your natural space and time will attract you, but with the spell deteriorating, you could arrive encased in rock a mile below the surface, or stranded on the moon.'
This was a sobering thought. It was one thing to have a quick tourist's look at the surface of the moon. It was quite another to be stuck there forever. Not that you would know anything about it after the first minute.
'So we're stuck here?' said Holly. 'Come on, Artemis. You have a plan.
You always have a plan.'
The others gathered round Artemis. There was something about him that made people assume that he was the leader. Perhaps it was the way he assumed it himself. Also, in this instance, he was the tallest person in the group.
He smiled briefly. So this is how Butler feels all the time.
'We all have our reasons for wanting to go back,' he began. 'Holly and I have left loved ones behind. Friends and family we would dearly love to see again. Number One and Qwan, you need to get your People out of this dimension. The spell is unravelling, and soon nowhere on this island will be safe. If my calculations are correct, and I feel certain that they are, then not even silver can anchor you here for much longer. Now, you can go when the spell dictates, or we can decide when to make the jump.'
Qwan did his sums in his head. 'Not possible. It took seven warlocks and a volcano to move the island here. To get us back I would need seven magical beings. Warlocks preferably. And of course, a live volcano, which we don't have.'
'Does it have to be a volcano? Wouldn't any energy source do?'
'Theoretically,' agreed Qwan. 'So, you're saying we could use the bomb?'
'It's possible.'
'Highly unlikely, but possible. I still need seven magical beings.'
'But the spell is already cast,' argued Artemis. 'The infrastructure is there. Couldn't you do it with fewer?'
Qwan wagged a finger at Artemis. 'You are a smart Mud Boy. Yes, maybe I could do it with fewer. Of course we would not know until we arrived.'
'How many?'
'Five. Five at the absolute least.'
Holly ground her teeth. 'We only have three, and Number One's a novice. So we need to find two demons with magic on this island.'
'Impossible,' snapped Qwan. 'Once an imp warps, that's the end of any magic they might have. Only warlocks, like myself and Number One, do not warp. So we keep our magic.'
Artemis brushed ash from his jacket.
'Our first priority is to get out of this crater and find some silver. I suggest we leave the bomb here. The temperature is not enough to ignite it, and if it does explode, the volcano will absorb some of the force. If we are going to find some other magical creature, we will undoubtedly have a better chance outside this crater. At any rate, the sulphur is giving me a headache.'
