‘I am Moyaanisqui, sometimes called the White Walker. I search for the Cailleach Bheur. She has unleashed the Fimbulwinter in anticipation of the End-Times. She is near. Have you seen her?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Thanks for saving me and all, and not that I’m ungrateful, but I need to get out of here.’ Hunter could feel his strength returning with each passing moment; it felt like a trickle of electricity bringing life to his limbs and his thought processes. There was something so clearly unnatural about the sensation that he paused to reflect once more on what had happened. ‘What did you just say… the Pendragon Spirit?’
‘The Blue Fire. It burns within you.’
Hunter examined his hands. A scratch he had seen moments before had now disappeared. ‘What’s happened to me?’
‘I met one of your kind in recent times,’ the White Walker said, ‘in the Far Lands. But she had ice inside her, where in you the fire burns clearly.’
‘What do you mean, “one of my kind”? A human? The Far Lands… is that… the Otherworld?’ His mind raced even faster.
‘Yes, a Fragile Creature. She was the first of your kind I had met. But she was not like the others with her. She was special — like you.’
In the deep caverns of Hunter’s subconscious, something stirred. The information the White Walker was imparting was something he already knew instinctively, although he had no idea how.
‘Since my encounter with her, I have learned more of your kind,’ the White Walker continued. ‘Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. You are one of the Five.’
Blue sparks flared in Hunter’s mind, and for a second he thought he might black out again. Impossible, he thought. Coincidence, and a score more denials, but he knew it was true. Suddenly the world looked a different place, his whole life turned on its head. He needed time to think about what it all meant. Glancing rapidly around, he searched the bleak hillsides. All roads had been obscured; there was no sign of life.
‘Can you help me to get out of here?’ he asked.
‘I need to find the Cailleach Bheur,’ the White Walker said hesitantly.
Hunter struggled to pull himself up the rocks to his feet. He wouldn’t be able to get far in his current condition.
The White Walker reached forward with fingers that resembled hoar-frosted icicles and grabbed Hunter’s hand. The touch was so cold that Hunter felt it sink deep into his bones. ‘Come, then,’ the White Walker said. ‘I will take you, for how could I refuse such a source of wonder?’
Hunter found himself lifted effortlessly on to the White Walker’s back. Flickers of frost crusted Hunter’s eyelashes. The cold infused every part of his body until it seemed as though the whole world had turned white.
The White Walker set off down the slope with a fast, loping gait. The Scottish countryside fell by in a blur. Hunter clung on as tightly as he could with fingers he couldn’t feel, yet inside, mysteriously, his soul had started to soar.
They hadn’t gone far when Hunter saw a figure standing on a hilltop nearby. It was indistinct at first, but gradually Hunter made out an old woman with wild hair, like a black crow hunched over against the wind. Clinging on to a tall staff for support, lightning danced around her so that it seemed as if she was at the heart of a storm.
‘That is the Cailleach Bheur, known by some as the Blue Hag,’ the White Walker called above the wind. ‘The one I seek. I will return to beg her to stop the Fimbulwinter.’
In that instant, the cryptic comments the White Walker had made earlier fell into place. ‘She’s causing this weather,’ Hunter noted aloud. ‘And it’s not going to stop, is it?’
‘Not until all the worlds are white, and the only ones left are the Cailleach Bheur and me. As Existence falls into the dark, the winter shall go on for ever.’
Hunter closed his eyes against the knives of the wind and clung on tightly, urging the miles to fall away quickly. Events were turning bad faster than anyone had realised.
‘It was here,’ Hal stressed when he saw the condescendingly weary expression on Manning’s face. She wore a long fur coat with a muffler and a tall fur hat, like some Russian aristocrat out of Doctor Zhivago. Hal had watched her warily since the night he had seen her talking to an invisible companion, but since then she had exhibited no other unusual behaviour. In the background, four bag carriers and advisors in suits shifted uncomfortably in the biting cold.
‘Mister Kirkham?’ Reid stamped his feet as he indicated the bare brick wall on the side street where Hal had said The Hunter’s Moon had been situated. Reid, at least, had taken Hal seriously. When Hal had turned up at his office at 9.00 a.m., he had quickly arranged for a visit to the site.
Kirkham examined the wall carefully. He had an ultrasound probe, a Geiger counter and an EMF monitor, which he proceeded to set up in the thick snow that had been falling all morning. ‘I have to say, in all our research we’ve never come across any buildings translocating, or the appearance of any clear portals to the Otherworld through which a mortal could travel,’ he said.
‘Doesn’t mean it can’t happen,’ Reid said. ‘Bloody hell, in this world right now, anything can happen.’ He clapped hands clad in expensive leather gloves. ‘When is this weather going to turn? I swear it’s even colder than yesterday.’
‘One degree lower, according to the latest figures,’ Kirkham muttered as he examined a swinging needle on a display.
‘We can’t stay here too long,’ Manning said, checking her watch. ‘You haven’t forgotten the emergency Cabinet session?’
‘How could I?’ Reid snapped. ‘But after what happened up north, any information we find here could be even more essential.’
Hal sensed a tension between Reid and Manning that had escalated since the last time he had seen the two of them together. Since he had joined the civil service, Hal had been aware of politicians jockeying for power and influence, something that had, if anything, grown more intense since the Fall. But there was an added dimension to Reid and Manning’s rivalry that he couldn’t fathom.
‘I can’t find anything,’ Kirkham said. ‘We could always put this position under surveillance in case it reappears.’
‘Or in case this young man gets drunk again and hallucinates another experience,’ Manning added tartly. She turned on her heels and marched back in the direction of the main thoroughfare, with the four assistants slipping and sliding to keep up.
While Kirkham packed up his equipment, Reid said quietly to Hal, ‘Ignore her. Probably her period. Look, I think this is vitally important information and I think you should take it to the highest level.’
‘Me?’
‘The PM needs to know about this and it should come from the horse’s mouth, not be buried in the middle of some report that he only has ten seconds to read. Or from some lackey he probably doesn’t trust anyway. This could be a turning point.’
Hal was taken aback. The chain of command had always kept him well away from any minister not directly involved in his particular sphere, and certainly never allowed him near the PM. But Reid appeared sincere; whatever had happened in Scotland clearly had everyone rattled.
‘How do I go about getting an appointment?’ Hal said.
‘Leave that to me. I’ll find a slot in his diary. Difficult at the moment with the war on, of course, but the sooner we can get you in there, the better.’ As Kirkham finished packing up, Reid leaned in to Hal and said, even more quietly, ‘Just keep this to yourself. Everyone’s plotting at the moment and I don’t know who I can trust.’ He searched Hal’s face. ‘I think I can trust you. Is that right?’
‘Of course,’ Hal replied.
Reid nodded curtly, then strode away before Kirkham noticed his interaction with Hal. Hal was concerned by the spy’s parting words. Why didn’t Reid know who to trust? Surely everyone was pulling together with the crisis looming. As Hal trudged back towards Magdalen, he had an uneasy sensation of movement behind the scenes, and threads being drawn closer together.
Hal found Samantha on his office doorstep, her face unnaturally pale. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked with urgency.
