Fully aware that he was probably the first human in several thousand years to decode the magical words, Artemis switched on his desk light and began to read.
The Booke of the People.
Being instructions to our magicks and life rules Carry me always, carry me well.
I am thy teacher of herb and spell.
I am thy link to power arcane.
Forget me and thy magick shall wane.
Ten times ten commandments there be.
They will answer every mystery.
Cures, curses, alchemy.
These secrets shall be thine, through me.
But, Fairy, remember this above all.
I am not for those in mud that crawl.
And forever doomed shall be the one,
Who betrays my secrets one by one.
Artemis could hear the blood pumping in his ears. He had them.
They would be as ants beneath his feet. Their every secret would be laid bare by technology. Suddenly the exhaustion claimed him and he sank back in his chair. There was so much yet to complete. Forty-three pages to be translated for a start.
He pressed the intercom button that linked him to speakers all over the house.
'Butler. Get Juliet and come up here. There are some jigsaws I need you to assemble.'
Perhaps a little family history would be useful at this point.
The Fowls were, indeed, legendary criminals. For generations they had skirmished on the wrong side of the law, hoarding enough funds to become legitimate. Of course, once they were legitimate they found it not to their liking and returned almost immediately to crime.
It was Artemis the First, our subject's father, who had thrown the family fortune into jeopardy. With the break-up of communist Russia, Artemis Senior had decided to invest a huge chunk of the Fowl fortune in establishing new shipping lines to the vast continent.