The Christmas Conclave Read online

  THE CHRISTMAS CONCLAVE

  BY HODGO HODGESON

  ZERO CHARISMA BOOKS

  Copyright © 2022 Hodgo Hodgeson

  ZERO CHARISMA BOOKS

  Cover design © Dominik Nawrocki 2022

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.

  ISBN 978-0-6456131-1-7

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  Prologue

  The Arctic Ocean

  May 12th, 1926

  Sixteen-year-old Spencer Sullivan looked out at the icy vista in silent wonder. Just a fraction of an inch of glass separated him from the paralyzingly cold air outside.

  The airship Norge, of which Spencer was the least important crew member, was sailing over some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth. Its flight across the endless ice fields of the Arctic had been smooth for the first thousand miles. Her hydrogen filled bulk soaring through the air carrying her precious cargo of explorers as they sought to become the first men to pass over the North Pole.

  There had been several serious attempts at reaching the Pole in recent decades. Commander Peary had claimed the prize back in 1909 only a year after his fierce rival Frederick Cook had claimed the same. Both of their claims were discredited when the data they collected to calculate their location was found to be incomplete. War intervened, and it wasn’t until the 1920s that further attempts were made. Richard Byrd had made a recent attempt by air and now this expedition–launched by South Pole explorer Roald Amundsen and American Lincoln Ellsworth, was seeking the same.

  The plan was simple–fly an airship across the pole from Oslo, Norway to Nome, Alaska and ensure detailed charts would be kept to make sure no one could dispute that they had indeed passed over the pole.

  Spencer’s job, for which he had been selected by his Uncle Lincoln (not a real uncle but a close friend of the family), was as map boy. His responsibility was to keep the vast array of maps being used to plot the journey in a systematic order. The maps were in an open position on the long table in the centre of the bridge being pored over by the senior members of the expedition.

  Spencer had very little to do.

  Except gaze out at the endless white and write his observations in a notebook his teacher had astutely asked him to take along since he was “missing so much school for this opportunity.”

  The Norge was a vast craft, dwarfing any contemporary airship with a width of twenty-three metres and a length of over one hundred. Its crew of sixteen men and one boy (and one dog) were expecting a dull journey (for a history making expedition) with nothing but the vast whiteness of sea ice for hundreds of miles.

  Spencer had been dozing, not really asleep but not fully awake, next to the window when he heard one of the crew exclaim that they were nearing the pole. The wind, which had been breezy but containable, now picked up speed and Spencer could hear the ship’s engines straining against the onslaught. The Norge slowed from a cruising speed above sixty miles an hour to a scant thirty as the headwinds pushed hard against the ship.

  This was a discouraging change for a crew who were already dealing with fatigue and sleeplessness. It was after midnight now, but still bright daylight, as was normal in the summer in this part of the world. This meant the crew were losing track of what time of day it was.

  Which made them feel uneasy.

  The plan was to drop flags on the ice when they reached the geographic North Pole. Since the ice shelf was constantly moving, the explorers knew the flags would not stay where they were for long.

  It would be enough to have done so. To have proven without a doubt that man had flown across the top of the world.

  However best laid a plan may be, a person can never account for all variables.

  Such as the sudden appearance of a mountain where one should not, by any stretch of modern geographical understanding, be.

  The stronger winds funnelled around the summit were the first clue.

  The second was a jolt as the airship sailed into unstable air currents.

  The third and decisive clue was the mountain itself, covered in snow with black rock showing through on only the sheerest sides.

  Helmsman Oscar Wisting cried out in both surprise and wonder.

  “Hold on gentlemen, I need to make a sharp turn!”

  He threw the wheel to port and the giant vessel turned hard to avoid the looming mountain bearing down on it. Unlike a similar incident at sea fourteen years earlier, this ship cleared the obstacle in time.

  All the crew and passengers rushed to the windows with mouths agape at the spectacle unfolding below them.

  Spencer, snapped out of his daydream by the sharp turn, strained for a view of the unexpected obstacle.

  The mountain protruded majestically out of the ice, its steep sides ending at an enormous crater, which suggested a chaotic and destructive past.

  The mountain which should not exist wasn’t the only thing that had grabbed their attention.

  Because there was also the completely impossible, yet entirely real, town at the base of the mountain.

  Snow covered houses. Streets. Even some larger buildings in the centre of town, including a church.

  From up here, they looked like toys.

  But they were real. And by the looks of it, hundreds, if not thousands, of people might live there.

  But how?

  There was nothing around here for a thousand miles but ice shelves, the Arctic Sea and the occasional polar bear.

  How could anyone survive here?

  The ship’s photographer was sent for. He rushed to grab his bulky equipment from the storage space.

  The windows were crowded now, with crew members marvelling at the site beneath them. Team leader, Roald Amundsen, the veteran polar explorer, was standing at the wheel, facing back towards the rest of the group.

  He wasn’t smiling.

  Nor was he looking out the window.

  Instead, he stepped towards the photographer, who was setting up his equipment and held up his hands.

  “No.” he said in his strong Norwegian accent, “there will be no photographs.”

  “But Sir there’s…”

  He shook his head, “no photographs. Not now. Not ever.”

  The energy in the room shifted, from a fascination with what was out of the window to curiosity about what was happening in their midst.

  And what truths had been kept from them.

  “What is that place?” said Ellsworth, looking at his co-expedition leader with fresh eyes.

  Amundsen looked to his expedition partner. Their eyes met.

  “What place?” he said, “the hallucination you mean? The mirage of the ice, trick of the sun.”

  A few of the crew protested. But Amundsen had not finished speaking.

  “I have arranged the funding for this expedition. I am paying all your wages and you will do me the courtesy of listening carefully.”

  He sat dow
n in a chair.

  “You have seen nothing below us but ice–understand?”

  He paused.

  “Regardless of what you think you saw–and men are always entitled to their personal opinion–you saw nothing but ice. We passed over the pole rather uneventfully…” he pulled out his pocket watch and checked it, “five minutes ago. When we did so, we dropped the flags of our respective nations to mark the spot. It even caused a heated discussion up here…” he turned to Umberto Nobile, the ship’s designer and pilot, “… because the Italian flag you bought along is larger than the Norwegian and American flags we are carrying.”

  The men looked at each other.

  “Nothing of what you think you saw will be written about. You will not speak about it. It will not make its way into any newspaper articles, magazine articles or even private diary entries.”

  He looked around.

  “And you will NOT tell your families.”

  Spencer felt a definite chill in the room.

  “Do you understand?”

  There was a reluctant murmur of agreement.

  As the men returned to their posts, their shoulders slumped, Spencer noticed Ellison step over and stand next to Amundsen to have a quiet conversation.

  “You’ve been keeping secrets, old friend.”

  Amundsen sighed.

  “Not by choice,” he replied. “I was given secret orders before we boarded. I couldn’t make head or tail of them until ten minutes ago. But now I understand.”

  He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to Ellison, whose face showed no emotion as he read.

  Ellison finished and turned to Amundsen.

  “By whose authority?”

  Amundsen betrayed no emotion.

  “The highest authority,” he said.

  Ellison looked at his partner for a moment, then nodded.

  “I’ll make sure your orders are followed.”

  “Thank you,” said Amundsen, “and happy birthday.”

  Then Ellison turned and walked away.

  Spencer, sitting at the window this whole time, had been sketching. Through his skilled hands, a black mountain emerged from the page with the roughest impressions of the town below. Then, aware of the change of tone in the room, Spencer snapped his book shut and tucked it away inside his jacket.

  The rest of the voyage continued without fuss but with less joy.

  Never-the-less, the voyage was a resounding success. They had proof now that they had found the North Pole and Amundson, Nobile and Ellsworth all received the proper adulation from their respective peoples for the achievement.

  Their smiling faces in the newspaper betraying nothing of what they had found.

  Spencer, meanwhile, never completed his account of the journey and never handed his notebook to his teacher. Instead, he tucked it away at the back of the bookshelf in his room, the pencilled label ‘Norge expedition–May 1926’ the only clue to the contents.

  Spencer would grow up and become a teacher, retiring in the early 1960s after a long career and enjoying his last years with his children and grandchildren until he died in 1984.

  Like the rest of the crew, he never spoke of what happened that day in 1926.

  Chapter 1

  Santa Klaus, The North Pole

  Not so many years ago.

  October

  The mood in the great man’s bedroom was sombre but respectful. The curtains were shut against the soft summer light, not that it would matter much–his eyes were closed now and would not re-open.

  For most of those in attendance, this was their first death vigil. His life had been so long and well lived that an entire generation of his faithful subjects had known no one else sitting in the chair.

  That was soon to change.

  His long life was drawing to a close and there were certain rituals and traditions which must be adhered to.

  Now it was a time of reflection, and of love, for they loved him. Not just in the abstract sense, like so many of his predecessors, but all who knew him. Especially in his twilight years, as disease and old age were ravaging his once powerful body, yet he still insisted on carrying out all the tasks his role required.

  It was early evening when he breathed his last. The soft snow fell outside and with no official announcement, the word spread among the population of that remotest of towns. The old man was gone.

  For the first time in over fifty years, a successor would be chosen.

  And so, in the time-honoured way, word went out.

  There would be a conclave. A funeral would be held, and they would make a new selection.

  The logistics of this operation were huge. For the first time, candidates would come from every continent in the world, excluding Antarctica. Travel would need to be arranged and the whole thing would have to operate with the discretion required of such an event, but also at speed.

  The world may run on bandwidth, Wi-Fi, and social media clicks, but some traditions remain ironclad. They printed the invitations on prepared parchment and sent them via a discreet courier service.

  Now all they could do was wait for the candidates to arrive. One of whom would pick up the mantle and lead them onward.

  Meanwhile, the snow fell.

  New South Wales, Australia.

  November

  Ben was in his room playing Fortnite when the invitation arrived. Of course, it didn’t matter to him. It was addressed to his Pop who had stayed with them last summer while his house was being rebuilt and had never bothered changing his mailing address back.

  The game was so engrossing that Ben didn’t hear the doorbell ring, he never saw the courier standing on the porch holding the envelope and he never saw his Mum wondering what would come for her father-in-law in such a fancy piece of packaging.

  The envelope was gold embossed; the address was written (with proper ink) in a fancy old-fashioned script and it was sealed with wax. Actual wax.

  All of which Ben knew nothing about because he was still upstairs in his room playing Fortnite against his mate, Alex. With headphones on and involved in the game, there was a lot that could have happened around him and Ben wouldn’t have noticed. At twelve years old, he wasn’t as obsessive as some of his mates, but he when he could play, he ended up fully immersed.

  And today being Friday, he was allowed to play after school. Every other weekday afternoon, the answer was no. He had chores to do and homework. On Friday, things were a bit more relaxed, so he got a couple of hours of gaming before being called for dinner.

  Which is what he thought his mum must be saying when she opened the door and stood there speaking.

  “Hang on,” he said to Alex over the mic, “Mum needs something.”

  Then he took off the headset.

  “Sorry Mum, I couldn’t hear?”

  “I was saying,” said Mum, “some mail came for your pop. Any chance you could jump on your bike and take it over to him?”

  Ben glanced out the window. It was still light enough.

  “Sure,” he said, getting to his feet, “can I play a little after dinner?”

  His Mum thought for a moment.

  “After dinner AND your shower and only for an hour.”

  “Thanks Mum.”

  He didn’t mind that arrangement. It was a good deal.

  Mum handed Ben the envelope. He turned it over in his hands for a moment and wondered whether Pop had friends in the Royal family. Was there perhaps a Royal Wedding coming up that they had invited him to?

  “Mum?”

  “Yeah honey?”

  “Is Pop friends with the Queen or something?”

  His Mum smiled, “looks that way, doesn’t it? I guess you’ll have to ask him.”

  Ben headed downstairs and out into the yard to get his bike out of the shed, stopping to put on some thongs on the way.

  It was too chilly for thongs. Despite being November, it hadn’t really warmed up into summer weather yet. The evenings were cool. But Ben was
also lazy, and he didn’t want to be bothered putting on shoes and socks.

  He wheeled the bike past the kitchen window.

  “See you in a bit!” he called through the window. Mum was busy preparing dinner.

  “Don’t dawdle,” she said. “You need to get back while it’s still light.”

  “Yup!” Ben responded. He tucked the envelope into the back waistband of his footy shorts and hopped on his bike.

  “Helmet!!” his mum called through the window.

  Ben took it off his handlebars and put it on his head… until he was out of sight of the house. Then he put it back on the handlebars.

  The bike helmet made him sweat too much.

  Pop’s house was only a couple of kilometres away. He lived there on his own now, and Ben enjoyed spending time there. Pop was old school. He had worked for the fire department for years until he retired and now he volunteered his time at the Salvo’s store in town, fixing things up people donated. He also worked part time at a fruit and veg shop and every December he was Santa at the local shopping centre. His wife, Ben’s grandma, had died a decade earlier in a nasty car accident which also claimed Ben’s father. It wasn’t a subject that was discussed very often, and Ben was too young to remember either of them, so he didn’t bring it up.

  But it meant he was quite close to Pop. Every year he and Pop would go on a big fishing trip, just the two of them, either camping by a river or camping by the ocean and renting a boat to do some deep-sea fishing.

  Pop came to all his footy games and, as Ben had become more aware as he grew older, he had tried to do a lot of the things that Ben’s dad should have been alive to do.

  Five minutes after leaving, Ben pulled into Pop’s driveway. He was in the shed working on his car.

  “Hey Ben, what’s up? I didn’t think I’d see you until tomorrow.”

  “Got some mail for you, Pop.”

  Pop grinned and wiped his hands on a rag sitting on the workbench.