CHAPTER 2

TRANSLATION

Before Artemis decoded the book, he had to check on his mother. He walked up the boreen, then threw open steel inforced double doors, and his feet fell onto a flagstone floor leading through the hall of stone block walls lined with paintings of his ancestors. Most of them were notorious.

He whistled in an Irish accent—this is entirely possible—as he entered Fowl manor, a medieval building like an old castle, big and drafty with armour and tapestries displaying the Fowl crest—a graceful bird. He turned down a narrow hall to the staircase under two swords crossing, and climbed the polished staircase to her room.

Angeline Fowl had been bedridden since her husband's disappearance a year ago. Artemis opened arched double doors. "Mother? Are ye awake?"

A vase hit him on the forehead, dousing him in water. "Of course I'm awake! How can I sleep in this blindin' light?"

Artemis wiped the blood trickling from his nose. He quickly applied a tissue. There were glass pieces on the floor. An antique four-poster bed sat underneath a window with velvet curtains, and Angeline Fowl was hunched on the bed like a monkey. "Artemis, where have ye been, lad?" she asked.

"Skiin'," he lied.

"I miss skiin'. Maybe we'll go when yer father returns. Close the curtains, won't ye?" She covered her eyes. "The light's scorchin' me eyes."

Artemis felt his way across the dark room, twisting his foot in a blanket and tripping. Soon his fingers curled around the drapes.

"I hear things all night," complained Angeline. She was slim with long, tangled dark hair that fell over her face, and wore an emerald-coloured, silk nightgown, which reached embroidered, white slippers. Her dark blue eyes searched the corners. "They crawl along the pillows, into me ears, the wee devils."

"Perhaps we should open the curtains, Mother."

"No," his mother sobbed. "No. Because then I could see 'em. Never open the curtains!" She pulled the quilt under her chin.

"Yes, Mother."

"Get me some cucumber slices and water."

"Yes, Mother."

"And stop callin' me Mother. I don't know who ye are! Don't come back here again, or I'll have my husband take care of ye. He's a dangerous man."

"Very well, Mrs. Fowl. This is the last ye will see of me." Artemis ran away.

In the hallway, he bumped into one of his younger twin brothers, Myles, a clone of his older brother, but with round glasses that made him look like an insect. "Tis almost Christmas, Artemis!" he said, a string of Christmas lights in his hands. "Want to help us decorate?"

"Leave off! Can't ye see I'm busy?" Artemis shoved past him. "I don't have time for that."

No matter which programme Artemis ran the book through, the computer came up blank. The programmes needed some frame of reference. He compared the text to English, Gaelic, Swedish, Welsh, and Latin.

By midnight, Artemis had successfully drawn similarities to Gnommish, and pressed Decode. What emerged was a long string of gibberish.

The letters were right, but the order was wrong. Artemis scanned the pages for some common factor. On each page was a tiny spearhead in the corner of one section: an arrow.

The computer programme wasn't built to handle something like this, so Artemis used a knife and ruler to dissect the first page of the book and reassemble it in the traditional order for Western languages.

He rescanned the page and fed it through the translator. The file converted, and Artemis clicked Print. There were mistakes, but it was legible.

LEPRECHAUNS LAWS

I am not for they that crawl in mud instead of wing

We obey in the house of hosts, however after burying a fresh acorn, a leprechaun may disobey one of their orders.

Our distorting innocent minds stops when we are defeated in a fight.

"Finally, we can learn their secrets with technology."

The Fowls were legendary criminals. They'd hoarded funds over generations that had eventually become legitimate, but still preferred a life of crime. The only one who disagreed had been Artemis' father.

Artemis Senior had invested a chunk of the Fowl fortune into a toy store. "I'd rather do somethin' meaningful, or just sit back an' have fun, rather than risk goin' to jail like me father,'' he'd said before he'd died.

The big toy companies didn't like him butting into the market, and launched a missile at the Fowl Toy Emporium with Artemis Senior inside as he was stocking a shipment of stuffed penguins to give away free for the Christmas season.

Artemis the Second vowed not to be like his father. If he could get gold from the faeries, the Fowls could regain their billionaire status.