Chapter Four
1
The world was white. Sky and landscape merged into one horizonless snowy backdrop so that all there was felt enclosed in a glass ball and beyond existed only mystery. They exited down the ramp at the back of the plane where soldiers in parkas struggled to unload crates and military equipment.
The squaddies averted their eyes when Hunter walked by. Laura thought how lonely he looked, though he hid it well behind the cocky, rakish facade that irritated as many people as it charmed. She didn’t like that; they were too much alike.
Stamping her boots in the snow, she half-considered folding a chunk of ice into snow to throw at Tom, but the cold was eating its way into her bones despite the Arctic gear Hunter had procured for them from the quartermaster.
‘You know my flawless complexion is going to look as if someone’s been at it with a wire brush in about five minutes,’ she said. ‘That’s not a good look.’
‘Better get used to it.’ Hunter scanned the desolate airfield; no other planes were visible. ‘With the wind-chill factor, temperatures drop to minus thirty. Touch any metal and you’ll leave flesh behind.’
‘I bet you like it. Prove what a big man you are by taking the pain.’
‘Nothing to prove there.’
‘Run along now. Catch us a caribou or whatever it is you do. I’m very hungry.’
‘Can we get a move on?’ Tom said irritably. ‘While you two carry out your little dance of sexual attraction, the rest of us are slowly going numb.’
‘We’d never be able to tell the difference with you, old man.’ Laura looked past the small, run-down terminal buildings to the wall of white. ‘You could have brought us somewhere where there was, you know, actual life.’
‘We’re in Oppland, north of Bergen and Oslo, south of Trondheim, about an hour outside Dombas.’ Hunter struck out for the terminal, head bowed against the howling wind. ‘Back during the Cold War, this was considered a major NATO line of defence against a possible Russian invasion. And, yeah, you’re right, Tom — let’s get somewhere warm to make plans.’
2
Night had fallen by the time they reached the hotel burning with light in the empty landscape. No other dwellings lay in sight, and even the road was lost beneath drifting snow. Stark black pines were the only contrast against the sweeping white plain.
The hotel was modern, glass and pine with roaring log fires for a traditional feel. It was clearly a venue for tourists exploring the high country, but it appeared to be almost deserted.
While Hunter ordered them food — reindeer steaks and rice and a vegetable stew for Laura — and bottles of beer, Shavi flirted briefly with the barman, a tall, muscular man in his early twenties with long brown hair and a shy demeanour. They made a connection that Shavi was determined to follow up later.
They consumed their meal at the comfy chairs in front of the fire, next to their unruly pile of parkas and boots.
‘Couldn’t we have stayed somewhere a bit more lively?’ Laura complained.
‘Depends if you want to still be alive in the morning,’ Tom snapped. ‘A ley line runs through here. It’ll buy you a little more time.’
Church turned to Shavi, who was eyeing the barman. ‘You got us here, but can you see the way forward?’
‘Flashes, here and there. I am attempting to make sense of what they mean, but so far it has been too confusing.’
‘What I don’t get,’ Ruth said to Church, ‘is why your friend the Puck doesn’t actually give you some help you can use. A hint here, half a clue there — it’s all game-playing. Are you sure he’s on our side?’
‘Robin Goodfellow is on no one’s side.’ Tom removed a tin from his haversack and began to construct a roll-up. ‘He moves things around to his own ends, whatever they may be. He cannot be trusted.’
‘I don’t trust him,’ Church said, ‘but I think at the moment his aims and ours coincide, and for now that’s good enough for me.’
Shavi sipped his beer thoughtfully as he watched the flames leap up the chimney. ‘It seems to me from what you have said that the Puck has been playing a long game, for millennia. There has always been purpose in his mischief.’
‘What’s that? Leading humanity off the edge of a cliff?’ Laura finished her beer and took Tom’s when he wasn’t looking.
‘A creature of wild magic like the Puck could not be content living in a universe ruled by the Void,’ Shavi mused. ‘Those other figures you saw, Church — the Caretaker, the man and woman with the cauldron — they appear to represent powers above and beyond gods like the Tuatha De Danann. An alliance, perhaps, against darkness and despair.’
‘But we’re just pawns to them,’ Ruth said. ‘They don’t care if we live or die as long as we serve their ends.’ The bitterness in her voice surprised them all.
‘If there is one thing we have learned,’ Shavi began soothingly, ‘it is that there are currents of meaning all around us, shifting forces that we cannot comprehend but which guide us in a subtle way. I do not know what those forces are, but I do know we are not alone in this battle.’
‘Listen to him,’ Tom grunted. ‘He’s the only one of you lot that talks any sense.’
‘None of it makes any sense to me!’ Ruth’s voice cracked and she stalked off in the direction of their rooms.
‘Looks like Miss Frosty’s got the painters and decorators in.’ Laura sniffed. ‘I’m going to have her beer.’
3
As midnight approached, Tom and Shavi went out to sit on the hotel porch. Gas heaters roared but did little to dispel the bitter cold. They braved the temperature for the view: the moon transformed the frozen landscape into a shimmering white dream.
Shavi took a deep breath that filled his lungs with ice. ‘Do you know why I have such hope for us?’ he said softly.
‘Because you’re deluded?’
‘This world is too amazing to be ruled by the essence of despair. Everywhere I look I see wonder — resting beneath the gentle drift of snow, in a city street steaming in the summer sun, in October rain on a factory window. Magic, just waiting for us to release it.’
‘Very poetic. Now, have you turned that incisive human eye on your own comrades?’ The ember of Tom’s roll-up glowed red as he inhaled.
‘What do you mean?’
