The wind grew stronger as they ran. Sandra looked behind them. Nobody seemed to follow. Why did they continue to run? She slowed her pace, before stopping. The man stopped a few meters in front of her.
"Why do we continue to run?" Sandra asked in a loud voice to make herself heard.
"Andernilwen's after us!" the man shouted. "Come on, we have to reach a safe place!"
"Nobody's following us!" Sandra shouted back.
"The storm's her work!" the man bellowed. "If we do not continue, we'll freeze to death!"
Sandra wrinkled her forehead in surprise, before a powerful wind hit her. Her ears rang and she felt that she was losing her toes and fingers to the cold.
"Maybe you're…" she began, before realising that the man had vanished. Frightened she stepped forward through the deep snow to the place where he had been and she saw that the man had made him fall into the white. With the strength she had left she managed to help him sit up. He was pale.
"We're… we're not… not…"
His teeth chattered so much that he couldn't speak.
"What direction?" Sandra called.
"S-south-w-we-west", the man managed to say.
"What direction? I have no idea where southwest is!"
The man raised a trembling finger, pointing the way. Sandra blew some air into her hands, before helping the man to his feet and placing one of his arms over her shoulders.
"We have to continue, you said it yourself!" she called in the wind. The man nodded and stumbled forwards. During a couple of minutes they fought the wind, before halting again.
"You're sure this is the right way?" Sandra called. The man looked worried. He didn't know anymore. Sandra let him down, her shoulders ached. Then she raised a finger. When she knew where the wind came from, she started to dig in the snow.
"It might give us some shelter!" she said in a loud voice. The man nodded and carefully began to help her get rid of the white. A small cave was shaped in the snow and they crept inside. Still the wind rang in their ears, but not as much as before.
"You've… done this… before?" the man managed to say as he warmed his hands.
"Only as a practice", Sandra answered. "I doubt Norwich will ever have this amount of snow."
"Norwich?" the man said in surprise. "You're from England?"
"Yes, do you know that land?" Sandra asked, also surprised.
"Just a part of it", the man answered. "I lived outside London for some time, but it's a long time ago. Long time before this dreadful winter."
"Let me guess", Sandra said. "Andernilwen has put a curse on this land making it always winter but never Christmas."
"How did you know?" the man asked, surprised.
"I read it in a book some time ago", Sandra answered.
"That Andernilwen…"
"No, some witch who put such a curse on a land", Sandra interrupted. "There was nothing about Andernilwen."
The man nodded.
"I'm Remus Lupin, by the way", he said.
"Sandra Roberts", Sandra answered and took his hand. He smiled at her, before they both pulled back and looked out into the storm.
"How long will it take before it goes away?" Sandra wondered.
"Maybe days, until Andernilwen believes we're dead", Remus answered solemnly. "No one knows when that happens."
Sandra nodded. The snow blew past them. She was glad she'd been on that survival course two years ago, otherwise they would be dead.
"Why did they lead you to the castle?" she asked after a while.
"I'm a magician", Remus answered solemnly. "Andernilwen hunts us."
"Why?" Sandra asked and looked at him.
"By using her own magic she can make us magicians do things, if we're close to her. She can make us kill our own friends. The only thing she hasn't been able to do yet is to find out where the Alliance is hiding."
"The Alliance?" Sandra said in surprise.
"We go against Andernilwen", Remus explained. "Yet we haven't won too much, I guess we need some more help."
Sandra wrinkled her forehead. Her dreams came back. Someone had called for her help. Then, when she had passed through the Universe's Door, someone had been talking about getting help. She had heard the name of one of the brothers. What was it again?
"Olórin", she said after a while.
"What?"
Sandra looked at Remus.
"One of the Alliance's members, is he called Olórin and also has a brother?" Sandra asked.
"How did you know that?" Remus asked, surprised.
"He…"
She hesitated. The snow above them moved. A low rumble was heard.
"Take a deep breath!"
Both of them took a deep breath, before the snow fell down over them. First everything was white, then it slowly turned black.
The snow-white stallion snorted in the wind. His rider had been at one of the farms and left some weeds, but now they where on their way home. Something made him worried. The storm had come quickly, which could only mean that it was Andernilwen who had made it. It was who it had been after that worried the stallion. Before they had only had a few storms of this power, when a magician had fled from Andernilwen's jaws. Suddenly the stallion halted. He drew in a smell through his nostrils, a smell that somehow felt familiar.
"What is it?" the old man on his back asked. The stallion shook his head, before he sniffed in the snow before his hoofs. The man on his back wrinkled his forehead, jumped off and took a few steps forward. Before them was a small hollow in the snow. It hadn't been there when they left for the farms.
"What may have shaped it?" the man wondered thoughtfully, before he noticed that the stallion kept sniffing in the snow.
"Is there someone here?" he asked. The stallion lowered his head, which made the man begin digging in the snow with his hand. When he had dogged about ten centimetres down into the hollow he discovered golden-blond, thick wavy hair embed in the snow.
"There's someone here!" he exclaimed. The stallion snorted, before he once again sniffed in the snow. With one of his front hoofs he pulled away some snow, making another head showing up.
"There are two of them!" the man exclaimed. "Come on, dig!"
The stallion kept pushing away snow, while the old man continued in front of him. He wondered who it was that lay here, knocked over by the snowstorm that now begun to diminish. The stallion snorted again and the man looked up. The person that the stallion had managed to dig up was familiar for both of them.
"Remus!" the old man said in surprise. "I though he had been…"
He hesitated. The face of the person in front of him was now visible in front of him. It was a young girl, totally non-familiar to him. He wrinkled his forehead and continued digging. The stallion had managed to dig out Remus. How he had done it without harming the younger man with his sharp hoofs was a riddle that would remain unsolved until the end of time.
"We'll put them both on your back, Shadowfax", the man said and lifted the girl out of the snow. "Then we'll have to walk the rest of the way."
The stallion snorted, irritated. He wanted to come home quickly, not be led like some kind of a pack-ass.
"We have no choice, Shadowfax", the old man said as he placed the girl across the snow-white horseback. "You can't carry three persons."
Shadowfax snorted once again.
"Oh, so you think you can carry three persons?" the man said with a raised eyebrow. "We can try it for a while, but don't you dare blame me for muscular pain during the next few days."
He placed Remus on the horseback, before getting up behind them. The stallion moaned beneath them, before he straightened himself and began to walk forward. The old man shook his head. Shadowfax could be really stubborn sometimes. Even though the old man knew that this stallion was the strongest of all horses here, he sometimes made his burden too heavy. While they walked forward through the snow the man looked at the girl in front of him. Who was she? Why had she and Remus been hidden beneath the snow? Had she something to do with the storm?
"Shadowfax!" he called out. "Can you manage to canter?"
The stallion responded with going forward in higher speed. The old man held on tight to the unconscious individuals in front of him, while he felt a shiver down his spine. The girl in front of him came with a change.