Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

“This can never work, Captain. How can it possibly work? I am human, after all, and you are most certainly not.”

And quick as a flash, he took her hands in his and said: “Love can break down any barriers. Love and magic.”

That was when he made her love him.

Leonor jumped a little but didn’t remove her hands.

“I felt a spark, Turnball,” she said.

He joked, “I felt it too,” then explained, “Static electricity, that always happens to me.”

Leonor believed it and fell for her captain.

She would have loved me soon enough anyway, thought Turnball crossly. I simply hurried the process.

But he knew in his heart that he had bolstered Leonor’s emotions with magic, and now that she was so far beyond her natural end, his hold on her was slipping.

Without magic, will she love me as I love her? he wondered a thousand times a day, and knew that he was terrified to find out.

To keep his vital signs steady, Turnball turned his thoughts once more to his thrall, Mr. Vishby.

Vishby was undeniably a repulsive dolt, and yet Turnball Root had a soft spot for the lad, and would perhaps even decide to let him live when this was all over, or at least kill him quickly. Of all the great schemes and impossible heists that Turnball had been involved in as a crooked cop, fugitive, or inmate, the simple-sounding act of turning Vishby had been the most ambitious. It had required perfect timing, audacity, and months of grooming. Turnball often thought of this plan, which he had set into motion almost four years previously. .

It wasn’t as if Vishby were a human with an already treacherous and self-serving nature. Vishby was a fairy, and most fairies, with the exception of goblins, were just not inclined toward the criminal life. Common lawbreakers, like that Diggums character, were common enough, but intelligent, foresighted criminals were rare.

Vishby’s downfall was that he was a moaner, and as the months had rolled by, he’d gradually let down his guard with Turnball Root and told him all about his demotion following Mulch Diggums’s escape. He’d also expressed a bitterness toward the LEP for the reprimand and wished he could do something to get back at them.

Turnball saw his chance-his first real chance of escape since his arrest. He’d formulated a plan to recruit Vishby.

The first stage was to feign sympathy for the water elf, whereas in reality, had he been in charge, he would have flushed him out of an airlock for his performance in the Diggums episode.

I so enjoy our chats , he had said. How I wish we could talk more freely.

Vishby had clammed up immediately, remembering that every word was on tape.

On his next visit, Vishby had entered with a smug tilt to his fishy head, and Turnball knew his plan would succeed.

I switched off your mike , the prison warder had said. Now we can talk about whatever we like.

And then Turnball knew that he had him. All it would take was a little Turnball Root magic to make Vishby his slave.

Except that Turnball Root didn’t have magic. That was the one irrevocable price that criminals paid: loss of magic, forever. This was one forfeit that there was no coming back from, and exiled criminals had been trying for centuries. They bought potions, tried spells, chanted in the moonlight, slept upside down, bathed in centaur dung. Nothing worked. Once you had broken the fairy rules, your magic was gone. It was partly a psychological thing, but mostly it was the result of age-old warlock hexes that successive administrations did not feel like unlocking.

This denial of his basic fairy rights had always irked Turnball, and during his years as a fugitive he had spent a fortune on dozens of witch doctors and quacks who all claimed they could have him running hot, brimful of magic, if only he would take this potion or recite that spell backward in the dead of night while holding a grumpy frog. Nothing worked. Nothing until, a century ago, Turnball found an exiled sprite living in Ho Chi Minh City who had somehow managed to maintain a tiny spark of power, just enough to remove the occasional wart. For a huge price, which Turnball would have paid a million times over, she revealed her secret:

Mandrake root and rice wine. It won’t bring the sweet magic back, Captain, but each time you partake of these two, they’ll give you a spark. One hot spark at a time and that is all. Use this little trick wisely, my Captain, or the spark won’t be there when you most need it.

This pearl from an alcoholic sprite.

It was a trick he’d used in the past, but not since his arrest. Until now. And so for his birthday that year, Turnball had requested a dinner of puffer fish with fo-fo berries and mandrake shavings, followed by a carafe of rice wine and sim-coffee. This request was accompanied by the revelation of the whereabouts of a notorious group of arms smugglers, which would be quite a feather in the warden’s cap. Tarpon Vinyáya agreed to the request. When Vishby arrived with the meal, Turnball invited him to stay and talk. And while they chatted, Turnball picked at his meal, eating only the mandrake shavings and drinking only the wine, all the time subtly reinforcing Vishby’s opinion of the LEP.

Yes, my dear Vishby, they are unfeeling louts. I mean, what were you to do? That thug Diggums left you no option but to flee.

And when the moment was right, when Turnball felt a single spark of magic coalesce in his gut, he rested his hand lightly on Vishby’s shoulder, allowing his little finger to touch the water elf’s bare neck.

Usually neck touching is no big deal. Wars have rarely been fought over a neck touch, but this touch was malicious. For on the pad of his finger, Turnball had painted, in his own blood, a black-magic thrall rune. Turnball was a great believer in runes. Ideally, for maximum effectiveness, the person having the spell cast on them would be spread-eagled on a granite plinth, doused in oil fermented from the tears of unicorns, and tattooed from head to foot with symbols, and then given at least three minutes of magic full in the face. But you make do with what you have and hope for the best.

So Turnball touched Vishby on the neck and transferred his single spark of magic through the contact.

Vishby slapped his neck as if stung. “Ow! Hey, what was that? I felt a spark, Turnball.”

Turnball quickly withdrew his hand. “Static electricity. That always happens around me. My mother was afraid to kiss me. Here, Vishby, have some of this wine to make up for the shock.”

Vishby eyed the contents of the carafe greedily. Alcoholic beverages were not usually allowed in the prison, as with prolonged use they cause the magical receptors to atrophy. But some fairies, much like humans, cannot resist what is bad for them.

“I’m your fairy,” he said, eagerly accepting a cup.

Yes, Turnball thought. Yes, you are now.

Turnball knew it would work. It had before, on stronger minds than Vishby’s.

And so Vishby found that he could never say no to Turnball Root. It started out with simple harmless requests: an extra blanket, some reading material not in the prison system. But soon Vishby found himself inextricably bound up in Turnball’s escape plans, and what was more, he didn’t seem to mind being involved. It seemed the sensible thing to do.

Over the following four years, Vishby had gone from guard to accomplice. He had made contact with several inmates who were still loyal to Turnball and prepared them for the great escape. He made several raids on what was then Koboi Laboratories and used his security code to access their sensitive recycling plant, where he found, among other things, the scrambler wafer and the infinitely more valuable control orb for the Mars probe. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Vishby knew that eventually someone would find out about these thefts, but he couldn’t seem to make himself care.