A/N: Not too much here. But it'll be going on.
Note: the Doctor mentions that Jamie had been "influenced by Time Vortex". It's a reference to the story Prisms of No Color by Crystal Rose of Pollux. Check it out - you won't regret it!
"I wish there were cabs here", Jamie complained when the village was left behind. "Look at my knees, they are bright blue".
The Doctor, paying almost no attention to these words, headed on in the probably-required direction. They had re-checked the location of the missing girl's DNA pattern in the TARDIS, but the time machine had refused to move any further, so now they had to rely only on their feet.
Pretty soon a completely new sight opened in front of them. It was a tall building on the top of the highest hill around, surrounded by a circle of snow pyramids, each nearly one-and-a-half meters high, their bottom parts touching. In fact, it was more of a castle than of a temple or something, but the strangest thing was that it had no doors. Some narrow windows high over the ground, and this was all.
"Now that's what is called the Temple of Nobility", the Doctor muttered. "Jamie! Where are you going? Stop!"
"Those are just snow piles... ouch!" Jamie jerked his hand away from the closest snow pyramid immediately after touching it - his fingertips were covered with blood now.
"Not just them. See?"
"What's in there? It bit me!" Jamie complained.
"Hold it". The Doctor pulled a ball of wires from his pocket, straightened a piece of wire and tentatively inserted it into the closest snow pyramid. There was a screeching sound, and the wire was twice shorter than at first. "See? A reliable protection. There's something highly omnivorous mixed in those figures. And I suspect that this 'something' is not going to let go things it had already tried".
"You mean me?"
"Yes. I guess if we don't touch those snow piles, we'll enter unharmed... and we'd better hurry. The snowfall isn't going to end as far as I see".
"Understood. So we'll just hop over them?"
"Right".
The Doctor's "leap of faith" was clumsy (no matter, in such coat!), but with the needed result, no disturbance. Jamie was less lucky: though his feet didn't touch the pyramids during the moment of flight, he ploughed the snow behind them with his nose in the end.
"And how are we going to enter? Fly?" he asked, standing up and shaking the snow off his clothes.
"That's a good idea..." the Doctor muttered. "Banal as it can sound, but I'm certain that there's a lot of traps and secrets here. Give me a couple of minutes".
For some minutes he was walking along the castle's walls, scanning every brick with the sonic screwdriver and murmuring. Finally he whistled in a satisfied way and waved to Jamie, having found a hidden entrance, which was masked by two walls, one of which was behind the other, so they formed a narrow path - so narrow that the Doctor got nearly stuck in the middle.
Inside the Temple of Nobility was even less similar that on the outside. Bare walls. Light was coming from the torches fixed on the walls, and those torches were burning with strange fire - golden white and not hot at all.
"So that's what inside those boxes", the Doctor concluded. "Small bits of Time Vortex mixed with pure energy emitted by a living creature".
"Why are you so sure about that?" Jamie asked.
"Put your fingers into the fire".
"What?!"
"Do it".
Jamie obeyed, expecting anything - though he knew that the Doctor wished hi nothing wrong, it remained eerie. But it turned out even eerier when the flames appeared not to be hot. Warm and slightly tickling.
"See... I mean - feel?"
"And why didn't you do it?" Jamie asked mockingly.
"Have you forgotten that we belong to different species? Yes, I remember how you got influenced by Time Vortex, but here your human nature protects you. If I touched it, I would've turned the alarm on..."
"How do you know?"
"It's a web", the Doctor explained. "The energy in torches forms a line, which leads to the center. And I am very very very very suspicious that this center is our lost girl... I just know it. I'm sure that Frey Laureus is around here somewhere as well".
Jamie wouldn't complain about the growing feeling of dread. Another thing worried him: there were less and less torches along the way, until the corridor got almost pitch black. Yeah, it was fine for the Doctor, he saw everything in any conditions...
"Jamie?"
"Oi?"
"The amount of time energy in here is growing".
"And what does that mean?"
"That means we're close".