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PROLOGUE

ARTEMIS FOWL:

SO FAR, SO BAD

ARTEMIS was once an Irish boy who longed to know everything there was to know, so he read book after book until his brain swelled with astronomy, calculus, quantuy, a a hundred other subjects But his favorite book was a slim volume that he’d never once read himself It was an old hardback that his father often chose as a bedtime tale, entitled The Crock of Gold, which told the story of a greedy bucko who captured a leprechaun in a vain effort to steal the creature’s gold

When the father had finished reading the last word on the last page, which was Fin, he would close the worn leather-bound cover, sht idea A littleand he would have pulled it off,” which was an unusual opinion for a father to voice A responsible father, at any rate But this was not a typically responsible parent— this was Arteest criminal empires The son was not so typical either He was Artemis Fowl II, soon to becoht, both in the world of man and the fairy world beneath it

A little ht as his father kissed his forehead Just a little

And he would fall asleep and dreaold

As young Arteht about The Crock of Gold He even went so far as to do a little research during schooltime and was surprised to find a lot of credible evidence for the existence of the fairy folk These hours of study and planning were nothing but lighthearted distractions for the boy until the day his father disappeared in the Arctic following awith the Russian Mafiya The Fowl e out of the ork and debtors burrowing into it

It is up to me, Artemis realized To rebuild our fortune and find Father

So he dusted off the leprechaun folder He would catch a fairy and ransoold

Only a juvenile genius could make this plan a success, Arterasp the principles of coic

With the help of his uard, Butler, twelve-year-old Arte it captive in Fowl Manor’s reinforced basement But this leprechaun was a she not an it And reht of as te a lesser creature now seeirl

There were other complications too: these leprechauns were not the hokey fairies of storybooks They were high-tech creatures with attitude, members of an elite fairy police squad: the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Unit, or LEPrecon, to use their acronym And Artemis had kidnapped Holly Short, the first female captain in the unit’s history An act that had not endeared him to the well-armed fairy underworld

But in spite of a niggling conscience and LEP atteed to take delivery of his ill-gotten gold, and in return he released the elfin captain

So, all’s well that ends well?

Not really

No sooner had the earth settled from the first fairy– human standoff in decades than the LEP uncovered a plot to supply the goblin gangs with power sources for their softnose lasers Number one suspect: Artemis Fowl Holly Short hauled the Irish boy down to Haven City for interrogation, only to discover, to her a The two struck an uneasy bargain, where Arteoblins’ supplier if Holly would help hi that held him prisoner Both parties upheld their respective ends of the bargain, and in the process developed a respect and trust for each other that was underpinned by a shared sharp sense of humor

Or at least this used to be the case Recently, things have changed In some ways he is as sharp as ever, but a shadow has fallen across Artemis’s mind

Once upon a tis that no one else could see, but now he sees things that are not there

CHAPTER 1

COLD VIBES

Vatnajökull, Iceland

Vatnajökull is the biggest glacier in Europe, with an area of more than five thousand stark blue-white miles It is, for the most part, uninhabited and desolate and, for scientific reasons, the perfect place for Artemis Fowl to demonstrate to the Fairy People how exactly he planned to save the world Also, a little dramatic scenery never hurts a presentation

One part of Vatnajökull that does see human traffic is the Great Skua restaurant on the shores of the glacier lagoon, which caters to groups of ice tourists froed to meet the proprietor at this closed for the season establish of September first His fifteenth birthday

Arte coastline, where the glacier sloped into a black pool dotted with a crazy-paving pattern of broken ice plates The wind roared around his head like an excited crowd in a stadiu with it arrowheads of sleet that peppered his nose and , and Artemis knew that to be injured alone on this tundra would lead to a quick and painful death—or at the very least abject hu flashes of the tourist season’s tail end, which was slightly less painful than a painful death, but lasted longer

The Great Skua’s owner—a burly Icelander in proud possession of both a walrus span of a fair-sized cormorant and the unlikely na his fingers and sta the time to chuckle at

Arteoon’s frozen shore

“That was a ed to ra “Hell, harðurtried to eat his reflection”

Arte fun at his driving skills, or lack thereof “H the Ski-Doo as stiffly as a cowboy after three days on a cattle drive, whose horse had died, forcing him to ride the broadest cow in the herd

The old ”

It was not Artenified entrances, but without his bodyguard Butler on hand, he had been forced to rely on his own motor skills, which were famously unsophisticated One of the sixth-year wits at St Bartleby’s School, the heir to a hotel fortune, had nicknamed Artemis Left Foot Fowl, as in he had two left feet and couldn’t kick a football with either of the for about a week and then bought out the young heir’s hotel chain This choked the teasing off abruptly

“Everything is ready, I trust?” said Arteers inside his patented Sola-Gloves He noticed that one hand was uncomfortably warm; the thermostat must have taken a knock when he’d clipped an ice obelisk half a ed out the poith his teeth; there was not er of hypothermia, as the autumn temperature hovered just below zero

“And hello to you,” said Adamsson “Nice to finally meet you face-to-face, if not eye-to-eye”

Artee-a-relationship lure that Adamsson had tossed out He did not have room in his life at the moment for yet another friend that he didn’t trust

“I do not intend to ask you for your daughter’s hand in e, Mr Adamsson, so I think we can skip over any icebreakers youready?”

Adam Adamsson’s pre-prepared icebreakers melted in his throat, and he nodded half a dozen times

“All ready Your crate is around the back I have supplied a vegetarian buffet and goody bags frooon Spa A few seats have been laid out too, as bluntly requested in your terse e-h—nobody but you—after all my labors”

Artee box “Don’t you worry about that, Mr Adamsson Why don’t you head back to Reykjavík and spend soed e of your frankly third-rate restaurant and perhaps find a friendless tree stump to listen to your woes?”

A couple of hours Third-rate Two plus three equals five Good

Noas Adarunt, and the tips of his walrus htly

“No need for the attitude, young Fowl We are both men, are we not? Men are entitled to a little respect”

“Oh, really? Perhaps we should ask the whales? Or perhaps the mink?”