A/N: Hello, everybody! I hope you'll like this chapter and don't get discouraged waiting for the resolution in a week's time. The few translations for this chapter are available on the bottom. Enjoy!
Brynn
x
Part Four: Memento Morix
Artemis came to with the realisation that he was unbearably cold. Short observation yielded an unpredictable result: he was naked, bleeding, lying in snow, in the middle of a night illuminated by aurora polaris.
An examination of his surroundings docked his survival chances even lower. He could still move, despite the post-rough-sex pain, but that movement wouldn't get him far – the snow plane stretched further than eye could see.
He had nothing. He didn't know where he was… It had been a long time since he had felt this helpless. This was worse than the Twelve Wonders Park; there might not have been any crazed trolls here, but there was also no way out, no instruments to use, no one coming to save him…
"Domovoi?!" he shouted, voice tinged with desperation.
No response.
Snow twinkled and glowed; blues, greens and violets played like in a narcotic dream. Artemis kept moving up the slope and tried to find a logical solution. This was not his world – he could tell. It had the same feel as his recurrent dreams, except that in those he had always been warm and never in pain and never alone…
Thinking again, this did resemble reality.
"I knew I said I was going to die," he spoke, going on the logic that if there was something that could hear him, it would be stupid of him to freeze because he had not made himself heard, "but I didn't expect it to be quite this fast…"
Again, the universe gave him its universal answer.
He sank into the snow and dug himself deeper, creating an improvised shelter that would, with time, warm up with his body heat. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of a coffin, but it would give him time to think. If there was a chance to survive, he would.
If there wasn't…
x
There was no doubt Myles had expected this to happen, and it was similarly obvious that he had alerted Beckett to the possibility, but Artemis and Angeline Fowl reacted with the expected shock-horror-accusations sequence Domovoi anticipated.
"Artemis is missing," he repeated simply.
Their words – harsh, even vulgar words – washed over him, tumbling into wells of despair and sinking into the mire of his conscience. There was nothing they could say that would hurt him, not compared to the cutting – clawing – burning pain of being left behind.
He knew it wasn't because he had failed. He had been good enough, he had done all that he could, regardless of whether it was 'right', simply because that was what Artemis wanted. He had invested all of himself, and…
Artemis (had) loved him, Domovoi believed, loved him childishly and obsessively and wouldn't have given up on him… if it had been possible.
"…irresponsibility and incompetence…" Artemis the First raged until spittle flew from his mouth.
"My poor baby-" Angeline wailed, wiping her tears with a monogrammed handkerchief.
Myles briefly looked up from his book, but dove back into it with haste, informing everyone that: "I told you so."
"You're fired!"
Domovoi shook his head (he had a life-long contract and, as far as he was concerned, his principal was alive), and let them aim their fear and anger at him. This was all part of the job.
x
"Don't move!" a female voice commanded as soon as Artemis was conscious enough to understand speech.
He wasn't going to oblige, but then the paralysing pain registered and he reconsidered. His mind (affected by agony) finally identified the language spoken.
"Who are you?" he asked, also in Old Icelandic. His position – of utter helplessness – was still novelty to him. He would have been afraid, but all his worry was being directed at Domovoi. Had he remained behind as Artemis had predicted? Had he coped?
"My name is Skuld."
"Like the Norn," Artemis mused.
Deep, rumbling laughter finally motivated him to open his eyes. His first, rather absurd, thought was to how unlike Tolkien's fiction this was: arches of rough stone, furs on the floor and on the walls, faint stink of urine and dogs and unwashed human bodies, frigid air, a cauldron with burning coals underneath it an arm's reach from his position.
Skuld was a woman so large that the only comparison he could have drawn would have been to Domovoi. She had a wide, unfortunate scar across her face, but far more interesting were her shining blue eyes, two thick braids of blonde hair and partial armour designed for ample female chest. She was fierce.
"I am the Norn, little mortal," she said, smiling as if to reassure him that there was no danger. "You impressed many by finding your way onto our Earth, barn, even if you nearly paid for it with your life. You also angered many more… but do not fear. Rest for now."
Artemis fell back into hazy dreams of the life he had abandoned.
x
"Not a trace of him," Foaly grumbled, scratching the back of his head, stumped by his unprecedented failure.
Domovoi nodded.
"He's either advanced a century in technological evolution in under a year and developed something that made him untraceable – which is not possible, take my word on it – or he's not within hundred miles of this planet." The centaur seemed sad – lately everybody Domovoi met seemed either sad of angry – and he shrugged helplessly. "I've done what I could."
"Thank you," Domovoi said simply.
"You didn't think we would find him, did you?" Holly asked, and there was a scuffle while she wrestled the communicator away from Foaly. Her face, pinched and frowning, appeared on the display. "He's gone and done something stupid again, I bet – like raising the Four Riders of Apocalypse-"
"He had mentioned-" Domovoi stopped himself from saying anything incriminating.
"Mentioned what?!" Holly demanded, echoed by Foaly, who used his greater strength to regain possession of the device.
"The possibility of other worlds existing," Domovoi replied vaguely, hoping that they would accept his reply. They seemed to.
"D'Arvit!" Holly could be heard cursing. "We're going to have an inter-dimensional crisis now!"
Foaly exchanged a commiserating look with Domovoi across half the world, and logged out.
x
"Allow me to repeat so I can assure myself I understand your request correctly," Artemis said slowly, stirring the soup-like food in the cauldron. He had been relegated to the easiest work around once his captor-slash-protector ascertained that he did not have any 'useful skills'. He had managed to keep his head down and do his reconnaissance in the meantime, but this had still come as a complete shock.
"I request nothing, little one," Skuld said, with her customary cheer. "It is a simple fact. It is your duty. You will start training tomorrow, with Göndul and Hildr." She beckoned to the two massive, armed and armoured young women standing to the side. They were watching Artemis with the same amount of interest they might have given to the food he was helping prepare.
"I am a man," Artemis pointed out in a feeble effort to get himself out of this bind. "If anything, I ought to be-"
"Shutting up and listening to your betters," Hildr rumbled in a house-shaking alto.
"I can see into your dreams," Skuld said almost conversationally.
Artemis felt blood draining from his face. There was no way he would get out of it now.
"Do not fret so," she chided him. "You will learn many a useful skill. In the end, it might be the correct road to your most secret goals."
Artemis lowered his head in a gesture of submission – a new but not entirely uncomfortable position for him – and let his hair fall in front of his eyes.
"Have a productive day, little mortal," Skuld said.
Artemis considered himself a bio-psycho-thaumo-social being, and strongly suspected that being called 'mortal' amounted to discrimination, but he held his mouth shut, because compared to Skuld he really was 'little'.
"Bless," he replied. She was a little sensitive about the niceties, and it was in Artemis' interest to remain in her good books. So far it appeared that she was the only one keeping a horde of bloodthirsty Vikings from making mince-meat of him.
He glanced to the side through the curtain of his fringe: the two she-warriors were considering him with disdain that promised pain.
x
"I remember you," Miss Paradizo – soon to be Mrs O'Boyle-Paradizo – narrowed her eyes at Domovoi. "I always thought it was strange you were so old."
Domovoi bit his tongue; he was neither rich not influential enough to be able to afford speaking with this woman with any kind of equality. She reminded him a little of Artemis when he was ten, except that she was much less willing to compromise her ideals.
"My principal is not someone who would be removed from any place he wishes to occupy," Domovoi said, implying at the same time that her accusation of his failure was false, and that Artemis was alive.
"He outsmarted himself, in the end," Miss Paradizo said, flicking manicured fingers in the direction of the limousine. "He should have taken his own advice and cease contact with the subnatural elements. I did, and I am satisfied with my steady rise in the world."
She passed by Domovoi, heels clicking. Her bodyguard – a young Caucasian male in a black suit – held the car-door open for her, and then shut it.
The window rolled down and Miss Paradizo peered through blue-tinted lenses of her fashionable glasses. "If he ever deigns to grace us mere mortals with his presence, tell him I said 'hello'."
x
Script meant writing and writing meant some kind of archive, and Artemis was quick to weasel out information. It helped – no matter how much it stomped on his ego – that he was continuously disregarded due to his small stature and lack of exuded aggression.
He had manipulated out answers that his 'trainers' never recalled giving, and he had learnt more yet once he had successfully detected the library. The runes gave him a bit of a pause, but in the end they weren't that different from what he had encountered in libraries of his 'home world'.
"You are much cleverer than you look," Skuld told him in the middle of one night, having returned after weeks of absence to monitor his progress. "But you still have eons to go before you get the better of me."
Then she gave him a heavy wrought chest, which she had, apparently, carried in. Artemis couldn't move it an inch, and would have to resort to tricking Hrund into relocating it for him, which fortunately wasn't going to be problematic. He was finally acclimatised enough to start plotting in the pursuit of his goals.
"These are gifts for you, barn," Skuld said, "not that you have deserved them. The test that awaits you will be difficult enough. You must consult your cold heart and choose if you are selfless enough to live for another. Ráðgríðr assures me that you are not. I wish to believe otherwise."
Artemis watched as she waited for his response and then, disappointed, left in silence. He tugged on his pony-tail. He could hazard a guess that the contents of the chest were delivered straight from Freya – and he did shiver at the thought, but he had had to come to terms with gods being reachable and tangible, which naturally put a limit of the amount of respect he could muster. He should not have had the slightest clue about what the contents were, either (and he wouldn't but for his looting the archive), but had Skuld not been certain he needed no more instruction, she would have provided some.
"Selfless?" Artemis muttered, and then he laughed. He had never been and never would be selfless. He was an eternal egoist, and he wanted for himself the man he loved – and he wanted him for longer than a measly few years. If that meant giving up his freedom, or, indeed, his right to exist if he was rejected, then so be it.
He spent two minutes determining how to unlock the chest, and then chugged down the sweet-smelling liquid in the vessel he found inside. It went to his head anon. His knees folded and he had to struggle to crawl over to the pile of furs that was his bed. The hellish dress he had been forced to wear dragged over the floor.
"Aut vincere…" he tried to persuade himself, but then consciousness became impossible to hold onto.
x
"It's been two years, brother," Juliet repeated for the third time. "You know as well as I do that your pretended search is completely pointless. You are needed here-"
"I'm tired, Juliet," Domovoi said into the cell-phone. He was walking past the tax-free shops on the airport, glancing left and right to keep track of the mass of people. He missed the times when flying was comfortable – the Cesna always ready for take-off and Artemis as competent as any certified pilot (more so, he suspected). International airports were a hassle.
"You've spent twenty-four months running around all over the globe," she retorted. "Chill out for a bit! Here's a steady job for you, and the little one has at least a decade to go before she's any trouble. Come and see her. She's lovely. Dark hair, a little curly, and blue eyes. She's going to be a heart-breaker."
Domovoi sighed. "I can't be a bodyguard anymore."
"You wouldn't be a bodyguard per se. I'm not one, either. Just a member of the security. Come on, brother," she needled.
Domovoi paused in front of his gate. He thought of tiny Marilyn Fowl, barely three months old today. Would she ever meet her eldest brother? He doubted he could do much for her, but he wanted to – anything was better than this listless drifting.
"You know you want to," Juliet said.
He nodded. "Alright."
x
"Do my eyes deceive me?" Ráðgríðr exclaimed, galloping on her stallion. Hoofs kicked up showers of snow behind them, but Ráðgríðr's naked arms glistened with sweat. She slowed her horse down to ride alongside Artemis, and said: "It seems as if you weren't completely useless, strákur!"
Artemis was of the opinion that neither of his companions or teachers would have survived a day in Midgard, but he refrained from pointing it out. Instead, he concentrated on not falling off his horse. He had thought himself a very good rider, until he had tried to saddle one of Sleipnir's descendants. These animals didn't believe in horse-trappings.
"It is a good day when I surpass your expectations, Ráðgríðr," Artemis replied. He would never be truly humble, but he was older than he had believed he could grow, and proportionally mature; he had learnt to admit that there were beings so powerful that intellect on its own could not stand up to them. "I shall endeavour to bring about more days like this."
The woman laughed, and they raced across the plain of virginal snow. Artemis let himself be infected by his companion's motherly merriment and laughed with her, but his mind rarely strayed off his goal. He had learnt to submit, had learnt to wear women's clothes and armour, learnt to accept that his genius meant little to nothing to these ethereal creatures, but he never stopped missing the reliable presence at his shoulder. He kept turning his head trying to spot Domovoi out of the corner of his eye; sometimes he called out of his dream, or vainly searched for him when he returned to his cell-like room tipsy on mead (mead was ceremonial – they had never heard the word 'abstinent' here).
Votor, Artemis' horse, came to a halt on top of what amounted to a snow dune. In the distance in front of them – and in the distance behind – towered Valhalla, white and blinding, with stalwart Heimdall guarding the gates and a perpetual feast going on inside.
"You are not so bad," Ráðgríðr grudgingly allowed. "For a mortal."
Artemis inclined his head; the tip of his pony-tail brushed his neck and slid over his collarbone, tickling. If Skuld had not informed anyone that he wasn't mortal anymore, she would have had a reason, and Artemis knew a superior mind when he met one.
Not that he intended to let her get the best of him forever, no. She simply presented a limit to reach and breach.
x
Domovoi accepted his underlings' unenthusiastic reports – it was half past three in the morning – and took off the headset. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair.
"No trouble here either?" Juliet asked, with her head stuck in the door.
"No," Domovoi replied. "Young Master Myles is quite intimidating." There was no denying that the Fowl heir had a similar amount of power as his brother had once held, and made his acquaintances wary, but he tended to display it more ostensibly than Artemis ever had. Artemis had always believed in functionality over appearance…
"We'll wrap it up, brother," Juliet said. "Go get some sleep."
Domovoi lifted himself from the seat, joints popping, feeling his almost seventy physical years in his bones. He was just pushing fifty-two, but no one could tell from looking at his face. He was wrinkled and frailer than he wished. He looked more like Juliet's grandfather than her brother – and she was still radiant, but much calmer, and undeniably competent at her work.
"Did you eat?" Juliet asked as he passed her. She didn't wait for a response and pressed a plastic container into his hand. "There was enough left to feed an army," she said disdainfully.
"A prerogative of the rich," Domovoi replied, and they shared a wan smile.
He left the security centre and pretended not to see Young Master Myles smuggle one of the more inebriated guests into his bedroom. The boy was sixteen now, and Domovoi couldn't help but be amused at how he kept being compared to his elder brother. Certainly, they were both genii, but that was where all similarity ended.
Bitterly, with the door of his designated room closed behind himself, Domovoi noted that Artemis had been fifteen when he had plotted out his first seduction, and where he had set his eyes. The encounter was more of a fact than a true memory, blotted out by time, drugs, stress, other encounters…
Domovoi pressed his forehead to the cold windowpane and stared at the rear-lights of the last departing guests vanishing into the distance. His breath fogged the glass, and he became aware of wetness on his sunken cheeks.
When had he cried for the last time? He couldn't recall.
It left him feeling wrung, terminally tired, fed up with the world and its cancerous decay. He wanted out, desperately. He wanted Artemis, and obliviousness and escape.
x
Artemis' mind analysed the watching crowd and the hall itself, and he focused very hard on his objectives to keep from being intimidated. Valaskjálf was a part of his home and, yes, he did feel an adequate measure of contempt for it, but this was his first audience with the top guy.
Óðinn didn't do much day-to-day ruling, but he was the one everybody deferred to and – as Artemis realised, meeting the single eye not covered by an eye-patch – the one who did have sufficient ability to maintain order. There weren't many men who could dream of putting Skuld into her place.
Artemis had, so far, managed to win over Ráðgríðr on one, memorable, occasion. It made life interesting.
"And you believe the rules shall be disregarded in your case, due to your being a mortal?" Óðinn asked, carding his fingers through his magnificent fox-grey beard. It was, naturally, a trick question.
Artemis stood straighter. "In some cases, stringent application of rules becomes impractical, and it is a mark of a flexible system that it can adapt," he said, counting on Óðinn's alleged omniscience when he used Midgard wording. "As to my argumentation, I would hardly present obviously false information as the core of my defence. With Freya's blessing upon me, I cannot count myself amongst mortals."
Óðinn's eye twinkled as he gazed down from his throne.
Artemis was certain that he had observed all the traditions and the unwritten etiquette of Hlidskjalf, the throne hall, but now the decision was up to the whim of the god. He was also aware of the commotion behind his back: the majority of the audience was puzzled by the unfamiliar terms and not entirely certain as to what was going on. They were, however, quick to anger and prone to violence-
"A breath of fresh air, you are, insolent child," Óðinn said, amused. "You scarcely require my permission."
As a matter of fact, Artemis knew enough about the workings of this world that he was more than willing to attempt to act around the gods, and possibly move on to Alfheim if he encountered insurmountable resistance.
"I see no reason to stand in your way, child of Man," Óðinn finished, waving his hand and gesturing for the next auditioned to step up.
x
"-don't give a damn about us!"
"Of course I do."
"Yes, you even asked what kind of tombstone we'd like when your business will go belly-up and your 'friends' will come kill us all." The voice – Beckett's – paused, and then added: "Beckett wants Phrygian marble. It's got pretty colours."
Domovoi raised his hand to rub the bridge of his nose, but his glasses were in the way. His breath grew shorter week by week, too, and his spine was beginning to curl up, giving him a permanent stoop – that was not to mention the arthritis.
"Why don't you make a survey with the family and submit it to my assistant?" Myles asked calmly. His brother's concern failed to touch him.
"Marilyn will want Tennessee marble," Beckett replied candidly. "The pink variation."
"Should I survive all the rest of the family," Myles said, and finally the two brothers came within sight, so different from one another that it was hard to believe they were twins, "which has only about eighteen percent chance of occurring, I will provide all the proper treatment for your dead bodies."
"Beckett would appreciate more, if you made sure our bodies remained alive," the other boy retorted, contemplative rather than scornful. He was strange, and Domovoi had never come even close to understanding him, but Juliet cared for him as though he was 'her' Fowl – a little more than would be prudent, perhaps, but she remained professional about it.
Myles rolled his eyes and glanced at Domovoi as they passed him. "That's the Butlers' job, idiot."
x
Artemis rode alongside Skuld, disgruntled and staring to the horizon with longing he didn't wish to name. This endless waiting was getting the better of him. He had hurried to finish his training as soon as possible (and managed in less than half of the usual time), because he had wanted to be ready when the time came.
The time did not seem to be coming anytime soon.
A horn sounded somewhere in the distance – a long, plaintive sound. Skuld lifted her hand to shield her eyes – the wind gripped her hair and played tug-o-war it – and gazed at the skies-
-which split. A ray of something akin to sunlight melted the snow wherever it landed, and meandered up and down the plain in search of something. Artemis covered his face with his forearms a second before it localised him and stopped. Votor was suddenly standing on short, vividly green grass.
"That's it," Skuld said, smiling at him.
Artemis took a deep breath. It hurt. Yes, he had been waiting for the moment, but the knowledge that Domovoi was dead… He choked and then smoothed out his face.
"You know what to do," Skuld encouraged him.
Artemis nodded. Yes, he knew.
"Bless," he told his patron, kicked his horse, and rode into the light.
x
Translations from Icelandic (according to unreliable sources):
barn = kid, child
strákur = boy
bless = goodbye