The Two Best Finder-Outers Ever

Fire, fire such fury like no other,

A Faerie's anger can be such,

More than even Hell's bowels may muster.

So true this renowned piece of ancient verse tells as we all can see here. A reviewer has asked a very good question there, and I shall answer it as I had forgotten in the ninth chapter. (silly me!)

Now, no one knew that Holly and Foaly had run off until Root, wanting to rub the news of two Howler's Peak convicts had escaped, bypassing the whiz-centaur's ultra-expensive-high-tech-This-Is-So-Much-Better-Than-That-Lying-Cheat-Of-A-Pixie's-security-system into Foaly's nose and found out that he was missing. And had left an extremely rude note that I shall now enclose:

To: Whom It May Concern & has the intelligence to read.

I am sick & tired of this job which offers no funding whatsoever, if you were to come upon this, I hope you shall sympathize with my being altogether too smart for this hole. Do excuse my leaving.

If you'd like to be in contact with me when I'm back, do contact my mother, just don't ask how.

Bye bye,

Insincerely Yours,

Foaly.

This is the complete and unabridged version of the mad centaur's note (do not ask me which grammar school he went to).

Well, Root yelled, (no prizes for guessing right) so loudly that he nearly caused another natural disaster and it led to great big tremors for a forty mile radius leaving all the pathetic Mud Men who were still reeling from the hurricane generously provided by Opal Koboi, quaking in their shoes. It also sent all the interns running to the tech room to see if someone was being, as a slightly ditzy pixie trainee with a face full of dwarf bum fat put it, "like, um, totally massa-massa-killed with a bread knife or something. Uh, uh, uh huh."

P.S. about how Holly and Foaly guessed whom it was who was blown away, that was just pure fairy intuition.

Well, actually, they guessed and then read the paper and got a major shock to see Angeline Fowl's face with smudgy mascara along with her disgruntled husband, Artemis-"no comment please"-Senior.

Now we can get on with my story.

We left off with Holly and Foaly rushing off to Ireland, St Bartleby's, at the Haven Airport, so let's get on with our yarn here.

Flight SQ905684

"Excuse me, Sir, your arm, move it left a bit please (get your filthy hands away from me you bly witless bas of a half-breed hairy gnome!!!!)." Holly turned to face the leering, bald-headed gnome decked out in a ghastly pizza-print Hawaiian shirt sitting next to her on the plane. Really, why in Frond's name did they have to put her next to this odious individual anyway? Was it some kind of sick prank bored flight staff played on passengers?

On the other side of the plane, Foaly wasn't having very much of a party either, he had been forced to sit next to a xenophobic Anti-Pagan, Dwarf-Mud Man mix-breed (don't ask me how it even happened) who was looking through Demon- dispelling manuals bought at the annual Fairy Fright-Night Fair on how to exorcise the Satanic Horse-Demon sitting right next to him.

"Mushroom, toadstool, Fairy Mugwort,

Protect Thyself with Magick Fort.

Dispell thy Demon by thy side,

Light come from where light may ride.

O! You demon, begone from thy sight,

Back, back, back to thy Night!"

The Dwarf screamed, making everyone look at him, then made big, ominous "Chomp, chomp" sounds at Foaly.

Foaly found himself staring, somewhat in awe at the Dwarf's huge granite-grey canines, and gulped. Scary. He vowed, right then and there, never to bump anyone off a flight again.

"Landing in 23 minutes, 44.5 seconds." The Flight Announcer's voice boomed through the slightly tinny speakers, and all the passengers could hear two very loud, very long sighs of relief from either side of the plane.

Ireland

"Whew, what a relief to get off that absolute hell-hole, and away from that awful touchy-feely gnome. Urrrgh!" Holly half laughed, half groaned, walking out of the Stonehenge Airport, this time carrying her own luggage.

"Really? You actually bore with that guy next to you? I'm so disappointed in you, wish you had zapped him with your buzz-baton."

"Look Foaly, I've got more sense than to attack someone and set off another one off those awful Mud Man terrorist alerts. Anyway, I don't have my buzz-baton with me, at least not in my hand carry, remember?"

"Yeah, you've got a point there, anyway I had a pretty bad time on the plane too, you know, there was this guy there trying to 'demon-begone' me by sprinkling salt all over me. Bath salts, prissy Lavender too" Foaly said in disgust.

"I heard."

And with that began their 'Eye-popping Ireland' stint as tourists.

Inquiry at St Bartleby's

"Oh, um, Miss Tour Guide Lady?" Holly said, doing her best Jessica Simpson imitation, "I've got to go to the, uh, bathroom. May I?"

The tour guide gave her a weird look, "A bathroom?" letting just a hint of incredulity slip into her smooth, well-oiled voice, that was not a question she had expected to come up on the tour bus while passing the recently flattened St Bartleby's School. "Here? (and just smack right in the middle of NoWheresville?)."

But just then, they passed (oh my goodness!) a portable toilet! (well, actually, a hologram of a port-o-loo that had just sprung up from the grassy knoll seconds ago, thanks to the other cranky, whiny, weird and slightly mad bona-fide American tourist aboard the bus).

"There's a toilet! Knew we were near one!" Holly gushed and strapping on her Moonbelt under her extra long hippie tunic, hopped right off the bus, bouncing on the field, right out of sight.

"Now we gotta go! Don't wait up!" Foaly said, scrambling off (after having strapped on his Moonbelt) after her, leaving a bus full of tourists shaking their heads and clucking their tongues at "young people these days" as well as a very bewildered tour guide who became quite convinced that "after all [her] years as a tour guide", she was going quite mad.

"Well, we're here" said Holly, taking off her Moonbelt and looking around. "This is it."

"This nowhere. The building's been flattened like a pancake, and there's red tape flapping all over the place like ribbons in the field, but I really don't see anything." Foaly remarked in a very flat, dispirited voice.

Still, Holly continued tramping about and looking. She walked around, lifting each foot high above the muddy remains of what used to be the battleground for weekly wars between opposing football teams, and them setting it down again gently, careful not to get any dirt on herself. Then they walked up to what used to be the dormitory building, a huge pile of obliterated concrete and stone, still uncleared, lying over the building foundations.

There was something somewhat curious about the foundations really, it was a dark crater filled with a multitude of collapsed, rusted metal poles reminiscent of fallen pillars of a palace trapped within a decadent, bygone kingdom, beneath the crushed, mangled metal though, was a row of rotting but dried and mud-caked wooden beams that looked to have been buried, a secret for centuries, until it had been uncovered by the hurricane.

And within that tangle of age-old wood, there was a piece of paper fluttering in the faintly blowing wind, like the wing of a yellow and red butterfly.

As if drawn by some irresistible force, Holly jumped in, leading to a series of spluttering declarations from Foaly about how he doubted her sanity, then, he was silenced by a yell from below.

"Hey, here Foaly! Found something!"

"Really? What?"

"Come down."

"Wh-what?! Are you mad?"

"No, you are, not to want to see this."

"Couldn't you bring it up?"

"Gee, I never thought of that."

"You're not bringing it up?"

"No, duh."

"Fine, but if I die climbing down this horrible pit then you've got to explain to my mum then." So saying, Foaly made his way down to join her.

"So? What'sit?"

"This." And she held up a scrap of old-looking parchment to face the light. It was old, and time yellowed, with slightly brown spots where it must have gotten wet, and written upon it was, in a strange script in a fading crimson ink, like old blood:

12th August 1445 in thy Year of Our Lord

Strange tidings to-day, in thy morning, I chanced upon a queerly clad traveler, in clothings of a heavy, dark blue material cut in a most bizarre manner. With thy help of a passing peasant, I carried him back to thy cottage where he later awoke in thy after noon. When he did so, he was disoriented, befuddled and his memory much clouded, even now he does not seem to remember anything at all.

Master, when he cameth back, was not surprised, nor was he angry in any way. I have a growing suspicion that he knoweth of what is afoot, but he will not say a word of thy matter. Well, the truth shall come out in its own time I suppose.

"Oh Gods, what do you think?"

Twinparadox: Sorry about the earlier inconvenience, an error occurred during uploading, so I've fixed it.