And here's Chapter 3. I had quite a bit of fun writing this chapter!
Also, don't skip the first half of it - I'm *not* introducing an OC or anything, but this is my way of introducing the evil in this story. The evil guys. Y'know, since Opal is TOTALLY overused, and I love her anyway.
Disclaimer: All I own is the plot and the villains. Because it's nice to have some originality with the evil side of things. Everything else is Eoin Colfer's, and he's awesome.
Mark was tired. It was, what, 9 o'clock now? Yet, he was still on his shift. It would have ended thirty minutes ago, had the person after him actually bothered to turn up on time. He would've been back home by now, making a relaxing cup of tea and discussing the latest issue of Urban Freeflow's 'Jump' with his room-mate. As it was, he was stood behind a drab pub counter, polishing the same glass repeatedly and waiting for the rowdy group in the corner to order more drinks. He reminded himself that the job was only temporary, to tie up a couple of loose ends. He'd just have to bear it for now.
The evening was wet, and small trails of water erased each other down the windows, reminding him of trains on intermeshing tracks. He watched them with mild interest, leaning on the counter and finding them calming. As he watched, a particularly heavy raindrop gathered on the glass and began to travel downwards in an erratic motion, picking up more water on the way. It descended near to the bottom, about to fall, and he made to look away. That was when it stopped. What?
He stared at it, and as he stared, it quivered. Then, it did something even more absurd. It began to travel upwards. Mark blinked, and rubbed his eyes. No, it was still travelling upwards! It seemed undeterred by all the other globs of water descending down steadfast, as it continued to defy gravity. What was happening?
As sure as he was of his vision, the water droplet was crawling up the window. Mark was dimly aware of the raised voices of the group in the corner – they were probably trying to get his attention to order another round – but he was immersed.
As he watched intently, he made out a figure outside, through the blurred windows. It appeared large, mysterious even. Not in a good way. It approached the door of the bar, and he realised with a slight sense of relief that it was three figures and not one huge abomination. Not that things like that could exist. Right?
Yet, something didn't feel right. The droplet of water was vibrating violently now.
The door opened, and the three figures stepped inside. A man, young and dark-haired, in a leather jacket and wearing a very strangely-shaped rucksack on his back. He was accompanied by two striking women with similar rucksacks. Mark didn't understand why, but he felt some uneasiness unfurl and take flight in his stomach. It fluttered frantically as they neared the counter.
"Well, hello there!" The man had spoken. How had he gotten to the counter so fast? Mark put down the glass and pretended to smile. His tongue was frozen.
He blinked, and the two women were there too, equally bright smiles on their faces. One of them knocked on the air in front of him. "You in there?"
He flinched back, and picked up the glass again. "Yes. Yes, of course. Hello. Would you like anything to drink?"
"Oh, nothing in particular," said the man. "Anything will do."
The women nodded, and Mark was going to go to get them some water, when one of them leaned against the counter. "Oh, but- where are our manners? We haven't even introduced ourselves!"
The other one gasped. "Well, how rude of us!" She looked at the man.
"Yes, please excuse us for that," he said, still grinning. He indicated the first woman. "That's Mei."
The woman winked at Mark, and he stared, intrigued. And… somehow, a mist had descended upon them in the bar. How unlikely! And… he was finding it difficult to think straight. She had black, medium-length hair that hung down her neck, and seemed to him exactly like a void. And everything seemed so very out-of-focus – he couldn't really—
"-ight just take your breath away, if you're not careful..." The man was talking, softly. Mark blinked and wrenched his gaze away from Mei, with difficulty. His head seemed to clear at the same time, and he turned to look at the other woman, utterly befuddled.
"Hel. Pleased to meet you…" She reached over the counter and held out her hand. Mark looked at it for a second, and then grasped it nervously. She shook it, and he felt a curious sensation in his hand. He couldn't quite place it, but it wasn't a pleasant sensation. She let go almost as quickly as she'd shaken it, and the feeling vanished. But… his hand felt very… tired. Yes, it felt drained, almost. What was up with these people?
"And me? I'm Inp," the man said, shifting his rucksack slightly on his back. Mark nodded, but didn't dare to try and look him in the eye.
"Ah, well. I'm Mark." He forced a small smile, and then pointed behind him. "Well, I'll, er, go and get you some water." With that, he stumbled over through to the fridge where they kept the bottled water. Thankfully, he was obscured from view in here, and he set down the glass, releasing a breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding. Those three people were beyond strange – dangerous, even. He shuddered and took out the bottles of water as quickly as he could, half-expecting one of them to suddenly appear behind him at any moment. Damn, he shouldn't have even needed to be dealing with this kind of thing – his shift was supposed to be long over!
When he got back with the water, the three were still standing exactly as they had been. The group in the corner had gone very uncharacteristically quiet, for some reason, and an apprehensive silence had descended inside the bar. Mark could feel the tension, reverberating around the room –as if there hadn't already been enough. If he was unsettled before, he was now thoroughly spooked.
He set the bottles of water down, and swallowed. "Here's the water," he said, a tad unnecessarily. He stared fixatedly at Hel, since she was the least dangerous to look at.
Hel was frowning, and she turned to Inp. "We're out of time."
Inp nodded slightly. Mark busied himself in picking at a speck of nothing on the counter, glad that their attention was not on him. And perhaps they would leave, now. After this, he would close the bar and go home. Then, he would quit the job. There were other ways to 'tie up loose ends' – and besides, he'd heard that a vacancy had opened up at the local dry-cleaners.
"Well then, we'll pay, shall we?" Inp tapped the counter, and Mark nodded with a feeble smile.
"Erm, it'll be 4 euros."
"She has the money…" Inp jerked a thumb at Mei, and Mark instinctively looked at her. It was probably a mistake. No, it was a mistake.
Her eyes, to be specific. They attracted his gaze, and it was impossible to resist – well, how could he resist them? So dark and entrancing, they seemed to be like jewels, almost. Jewels in the fog. Everything was growing foggy now, and he couldn't see a thing, except those beautiful eyes. Thank the heavens he could still see those. He knew he'd wanted to look ever since he'd caught his first glimpse of them. It was like freedom, being able to stare freely.
He felt that they were the only thing clear to him. There was no bar anymore, there were no people, drinks or loose ends... just a milky emptiness. He was standing on nothing, but he wasn't falling because the eyes were keeping him fixed in place. So he stared at them, feeling delight in their unhindered image.
A body began to solidify around the eyes. White mist swirled, gaining opacity and colour until he was staring at the woman again. Ah, the black void of hair. The woman's name was Mei, he remembered vaguely.
"Submit," the mouth whispered, in a simple statement. The voice was angelic, exactly as he'd expected it.
"I submit," he said, the words bubbling out of his throat with ease. So she wanted him to submit - she needn't have asked! This woman's will was his will.
More fog was solidifying, faster now. He could make out the tables, the counter and the windows as the scene reappeared in front of him. He was back in the bar - but, he no longer cared.
He looked around him, and smiled a grateful smile. She'd led him out of the fog.
Mei folded her arms, and regarded Inp with disdain. "You play around too much."
"Yes, Foaly, they were young teenagers," Artemis said into his communicator, a little impatiently. They had decided to wait inside the wreckage that had previously been the comic-book shop, and decide their next course of action before leaving. Artemis had his finger to his mouth, explaining to a disbelieving Foaly and Holly the details of the attack.
"I still don't believe you," came Foaly's voice through the ring, accompanied with an indignant whinny. "And you say they looked about 14?"
"Yes, Foaly," Artemis said through gritted teeth, "but that's hardly the point here, is it? The pointis, we were attacked, and Softnoses were involved, which leads me to assume that the mesmer must have been involved somehow. That should clear that up. Shall we move onto more important details, now?"
"I'd say that's a pretty important detail. How can you be sure of who attacked you, anyway?"
Artemis ignored him. "Holly, were there any indicators of a shielded or invisible enemy in the surveillance footage?"
There was a pause as Holly checked. "Well, not that I can see… but the footage kind of sucks."
"What?"
Foaly's sheepish reply twinged through Artemis' finger. "Well… er, you know. Frame-rate problems. Ahem." He coughed.
Artemis frowned. "Slashed budget?"
"Yeah." Another cough.
"He's lying," Holly cut in. "He just spent most of it soundproofing, laser-proofing, sight-proofing, and a whole lot of other 'proofing' his little Paranoid Booth."
Foaly protested. "No, Trouble won't raise my budget!"
Butler, who was listening next to Artemis, spoke up. "Enough, Foaly. We've got more pressing matters to deal with right now."
"Yes, but I'm just clarifying the –OW! … Fine, fine, fine. Geez."
"You're welcome, Mud Boy."
Artemis smirked. "Now. The weapons were definitely Softnoses, I confirmed that. Therefore, obviously a fairy has either masterminded this, if it's any sort of a plan at all, or been a part of it at some stage. My guess is it is part of a plan, but either way, we're still at square one."
"So?"
Artemis continued. "Or we would be. As it was, I hacked into one of the teenagers' phones, and discovered a message."
"Short, to the point and in a simple code," Butler added. "The sort of thing a hitman receives from his employer."
"Did you trace it?" Foaly asked.
"Of course," Artemis replied crisply. "But I ran into a little… language problem."
"But you know fluent Gnommish," pointed out Holly, confused. "Better than most of the fairy population, in fact."
"I never said it was Gnommish." Artemis took out his years-advanced phone, opening up the foreign text he'd transferred from the teenager's device. "I'll send it to your system, Foaly. You have a wider knowledge of fairy dialects than I have, and while the format does resemble Gnommish, it's most definitely not."
He pressed the send button, and waited. "Also, Holly, try to see if you can read it with the Gift of Tongues."
A second passed, and a beep sounded from the communicator, presumably Foaly's computer. There was a short silence, and Artemis shot Butler a quick glance. "Do you think she can read it?"
"Quiet, Mud Boy, I'm concentrating."
Artemis winced. Still as upfront as ever.
"I… I can't. This is really strange. The Gift of Tongues isn't working. It just seems like your ordinary troll gibberish to me," Holly said.
Artemis sighed. "Well, I didn't expect it to be that easy. Foaly, I'm assuming you can't read it either at the moment. Why don't you run it through a translator database?"
"One step ahead of you, Arty-boy," came Foaly's reply. "I've already run through the database, and there's not even a single match. Also, I took the liberty of checking for codes and ciphers, but there's still nothing. If there was a code, my Ciphaur would have cracked it like a stinkbird's egg."
"Code? Codes don't work in Gnommish," said Holly, sounding amused. "You didn't know that, Foaly? The Gift of Tongues can automatically translate any code, so long as it actually says something."
"Centaurs don't have magic. And it's good to hear that the Gift of Tongues extends to things like that, when it excludes other important things, like actual languages..." Foaly whinnied, probably thinking he'd made a joke. Nobody laughed, but Butler's ever-stoic features hinted at slight amusement.
Artemis leaned into the communicator. "Well, this text is definitely not gibberish. Phones in the present world don't allow for anything but pre-programmed text, and in that phone's case, just Roman characters and numbers. Mundane, I know. Holly, can you think of any languages that the Gift of Tongues do exclude? It could be important."
"Exclude? Well, none, really. That's the point of the Gift of Tongues. We've had it since the ancient times."
There was a pause, then an overexcited whinny from Foaly. "Of course! I'll run a check through an outdated translator database! They do have the more ancient tongues in them – but we deleted them from the new database to avoid data corruption." There were sounds of rummaging, and the centaur's voice became somewhat muffled. "The files were incredibly big, and complex too. Every time we tried to store them in the universal database, something or the other would crash."
"Good, look into it." Artemis looked up from the counter for a second. It was dark, well into midnight, and a chilly night at that, he noticed. Butler had blocked up the entrance with rubble and shelves, so not much was visible outside, but the air did get in. Apart from that, the shop was exactly as it'd been when they'd come in. It wasn't an ideal place to spend the night, but they didn't have much choice.
"Brilliant!" Foaly's voice jolted him back to the task at hand. "There's ... hang on, there's only one match. And it's not direct. But it's a match, nevertheless."
At this, Butler leaned in too. "Well?"
"The system accounts for writing style and minor symbol characteristics too, together. That means even if the matches are indirect, there's got to be some sort of connection."
"No lectures," interrupted Holly, before he could start rambling.
"Sorry. Yes, there's a match. There's a part of the complicated symbols that matches up to the ancient dwarven language, Veragog. We can't extract an actual meaning from it, but whatever this language is, it's connected to Veragog."
Artemis frowned. "Dwarves?" He pictured an irate Mulch, waving a Softnose aboard a giant, moving clump of mud. Unlikely, to say the least. Disturbing, too.
"It doesn't mean they were dwarves – it just means the language is related to Veragog somehow," Foaly replied.
"That's not surprising, actually," said Holly, sounding pained. "Back in the bounty-hunting business, Mulch was telling me about dwarven origin. He said that they'd always been robbers, and that even their language consisted of bits and pieces scrounged off other ancient tongues."
"I can understand that," Butler nodded.
"What I don't understand, though, is why couldn't I read it with my magic? It should extend to all languages - that's how it's supposed to be."
"I think it might have something to do with the fact that the language files were to big and complicated to fit into our huge database," Foaly said. "It should, at any rate. The database is huge, you know. Anything that doesn't fit in it is ... a mystery."
Artemis pieced everything together in his head. "Alright. So, Foaly, do you have any research at all in these ancient languages?"
"No," came Foaly's reply. "But I know someone who does. A demon, to be exact."
Well, the plot is thickening nicely. I'm putting a lot of thought into this plot, I think you'll like it.
Some reviews would be nice.
Also, Inp, Hel and Mei are very unusual names. I don't do things like that for no reason. Does anyone notice something about them? ...;)
