Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

Opal scampered along the wing, punching an armoured fist into the fuselage itself. More panels were obliterated and tiny fist-sized dents buckled the polymer over Artemis’s shoulder. Tiny cracks ran along the dents, slit by the wind.

Opal’s voice was loud in the speaker. ‘Land, Fowl. Land and I may not return to the manor when I have finished with you. Land! Land!’

Each order to land was emphasized by another blow on the cockpit. The windscreen exploded inwards, showering Artemis with jagged chunks of plexiglass.

‘Land! Land!’

You have the product, Artemis reminded himself. So you have the power. Opal cannot afford to kill Jayjay.

The wind screamed in Artemis’s face, and the readings from his flight instruments made no sense unless Opal was scrambling them with the LEP suit’s field. But Artemis still had a chance. There was fight left in this Fowl.

He pointed the nose downwards, banking sharply left. Opal kept pace easily, tearing strips from the fuselage. She was a destructive shadow in the dimming dusk light.

Artemis could smell the sea.

He was too low. Too soon.

More red lights on the instrument panel. The power supply had been cut. The batteries were breached. The altimeter whirred and beeped.

Opal was at the side window. Artemis could see her tiny teeth grinning at him. She was saying something. Shouting. But the radio was not operational any more. Just as well probably.

She is having the time of her life, he realized. Fun, fun, fun.

Artemis struggled with the controls. The sticky flaps were the least of his worries now. If Opal decided to snip a few cables, then he would lose whatever say he had over the plane. Though it was too early, Artemis lowered the tricycle landing gear. If Opal sabotaged the mechanism now, the wheels should stay down.

They plummeted earthwards, locked together. A sparrow on an eagle’s back. Opal smashed her armoured head through the door window’s plexiglass, still shouting inside the helmet, spittle spraying the visor. Issuing orders that Artemis could not hear and could not spare enough time to lip-read. He could see that her eyes glowed red with magic and it was clear from her manic expression that any threads connecting her to rationality had been severed.

More shouting. Muffled behind the visor. Artemis cast a sardonic gaze at the radio, which sat dead and dark in its cradle.

Opal caught the look and raised her visor, shouting over the wind, too impatient for the helmet PA.

‘Give me the lemur and I will save you,’ she said, her voice mesmerizing. ‘You have my-’

Artemis avoided her gaze and pulled the emergency flare gun from under the seat, sticking it in her face.

‘You leave me no choice but to shoot you,’ he said, voice cold and certain. This was not a threat, it was a statement of fact.

Opal knew the truth when she heard it and for one second her resolve wavered. She pulled back, but not quickly enough to prevent Artemis from firing the flare into her helmet, then reaching up to flick down the visor.

Opal spun away from the Cessna, trailing black smoke, red sparks swarming round her head like angry wasps. Her wing smashed into the Cessna’s, and neither survived intact. Solar-cell splinters flashed like stardust and tail feathers from Opal’s flying rig helicoptered slowly earthwards. The aeroplane yawed to starboard, moaning like a wounded animal.

I need to land. Now.

Artemis didn’t feel guilty about what he’d done. Flare burns would not hinder a being of Opal’s regenerative power for long. Already the magic would be repairing her skin damage. At best he had bought himself a few minutes’ reprieve.

When Opal comes back, she will be beyond furious. A true maniac. Perhaps her judgement will be clouded.

Artemis smiled grimly, and for a moment he felt like his old conniving self, before Holly and his mother had introduced him to their pesky moral codes.

Good. Clouded judgement may give me the advantage I need.

Artemis levelled the craft as much as he could, slowing his descent. Wind slapped his face, tugging his skin. Shielding his eyes with a forearm, he peered downwards through the blur of propeller spin.

Hook Head peninsula jutted into the blackness of the sea below him like a slate-grey arrowhead. A cluster of lights winked on the eastern curve. This was the village of Duncade, where Butler had awaited his young charge’s return from Limbo. A magical inlet which had once sheltered the demon isle of Hybras. The entire area was a magical hotspot and would set LEP spectrometers buzzing.

Dark blue night was falling quickly, and it was difficult to tell hard ground from soft. Artemis knew that a carpet of meadow ran from Duncade to the Hook Head lighthouse, but could only see the grass strip once every five seconds when it flashed emerald in the tower’s beam.

My runway, thought Artemis.

He dragged the Cessna into the best possible approach line, descending in uneven, stomach-lurching swoops. Solar panels frittered away from the nose and wings, streaming behind the craft.

Still no sign of Opal.

She’s coming. Make no mistake about it.

With each flash of green, the hard earth rushed up to meet him.

Too fast, thought Artemis. I am coming in too fast. I will never get my legal pilot’s licence flying like this.

He clenched his jaws and held the stick tightly. Touchdown was going to be rough.

And it was, though not bone-shatteringly so. Not the first time. It was on the second bounce that Artemis was shunted forward into the console and heard the left side of his collarbone snap. A horrible sound that brought bile to his throat.

No pain yet. Just cold. I am going into shock.

The Cessna’s wheels skidded on the long grass, which was coated with sea-spray and slicker than ice. Artemis scowled, not because of his injuries but because his fate was in the hands of chance now; he had no control. Opal would be coming for Jayjay and he must do his utmost to distract her.

The outside world continued to intrude most violently on Artemis’s thoughts. The front wheel strut glanced off a sharp rock, shearing away completely. For several seconds the wheel continued to roll alongside the plane, until it veered off into the darkness.

Another bump and the Cessna collapsed on to its nose, propeller ploughing furrows in the earth. Sheaves of grass fanned the air and clods of muck rained through the holes in the windscreen.

Artemis tasted earth and thought, I don’t see what Mulch makes all the fuss about. It’s not exactly lobster mousse.

Then he was out of the plane and stumbling towards the rocky shoreline. Artemis did not call for help and none would have come if he had. The rocks were black, treacherous and deserted. The sea was loud and the wind blew high. Even if the lighthouse beam had pinned the falling plane’s image to the sky, it would be a long while before unarmed, unsuspecting villagers arrived to offer assistance. And by then it would be too late.

Artemis stumbled on, his left arm hanging low. His good hand cupped the furry head poking from the front of his jacket.

‘Almost there,’ he panted.

A pair of sea stacks jutted from the waters like the last teeth from the gums of a tobacco chewer. Thirty- metre-high hard-rock columns that had resisted the erosive power of wind and wave. The locals called them The Nuns because of their sisterly appearance. Head-to-toe habits.

The Nuns were quite the local attraction and sturdy rope bridges spanned the chasms from shore to Little Sister and on to Mother Superior. Butler once told Artemis that he had spent many lonely nights on the second sea