Chapter Seven
Leoht wanted to go north, Wealdan and Heort wanted to go west.
"NO!"
"Doctor, we've learned to trust them." Lib didn't like the idea much either, but the horses were their guides.
"I don't like being separated. I don't trust it."
Peral said, "I don't trust it'll be anything, but a long ride. Probably, with something unpleasant at the end of it. Probably, something somebody needs help getting rid of. I trust your path will be approximately the same."
"We'll see you soon. If you need us, use the ring." Lib blew him a kiss.
"Yes, Doctor. If you need us, use the ring."
The Doctor watched them ride off a moment, then mounted Leoht. He said, "Well, what are you WAITING for. This was YOUR idea." Leoht trotted north.
He traveled for ten days. Leoht seemed to need as little rest as he did. He spent one night at an inn. He'd spent the evening with a jeweler's loupe working on the ruby. He had to work on his right hand with his left, but he'd found an access panel to the microcircuitry in the setting. He'd have gotten more done, but he'd had to spend so much time discouraging the landlord's daughter. "Do you MIND not HOVERING over me?" On the eleventh day he came to a castle. Four women met him at the gate. One told him they'd learned they had a part to play. The Doctor still wished he were with Lib and Peral, but Leoht trotted past him into the courtyard. For six days he waited and worked on the ruby. Winter was coming to the north.
Peral and Lib rode three days before they found an inn. They spent two nights in a lean-to shelter in the rain. They were very glad to see the light shining from a low window. They took the horses to the stables, groomed them, then made their way into the cheery common room. They'd long ago gotten over difficulties with the smell of many unwashed bodies, packed into badly ventilated rooms. A hush fell over the room as they entered. An old man walked forward and bowed. "The tales have been true. The Turime walk among us. How may we serve you?"
"Actually, a little dinner, a warm fire, a dry place to sleep..." Peral sounded like he might run on for awhile.
Lib stepped in, "And a little pleasant conversation. Hi, I'm Lib. The sybarite is my brother Peral." She smiled at him and Peral stuck out his hand and grinned. Lib caught the old man when he fainted.
"One is not prepared for living myths to be friendly." His name was Jaco and he was headman of the village near the inn.
"We've been friendly lots longer than we've been myths." Lib smiled. Peral smiled too, but noticed it didn't have the same effect on the old man.
"Why don't you tell us about the myth we're supposed to be." Peral wasn't sure Jaco had heard. He was wearing a rather foolish grin and looking at Lib.
"We really would like to hear it." Peral was glad Lib had decided to help.
The story went: The Turime would ride the north, a great fearsome beast would come, the Turime would defeat it. The Turime would need aid. The great champion would touch them from afar. They would return to him. It would be time to follow the Turime to the east to battle what arose there.
"That's the first we've heard anyone mention a battle in the east." Lib watched Peral pace. Peral didn't take up as much space as the Doctor, but the room was still too small. "I'm worried about the part 'will reach out and touch them'. It sounds like the rings, but backwards."
"Peral, I'm a bit worried about this fearsome beast we're supposed to 'need aid' after defeating."
They waited for the fearsome beast to show up. They waited thirteen days. Lib had started classes in staff and bow. She wondered what the Doctor would say about the few small improvements she had accidentally made. She'd made a bow for herself and, well, the laethans were right, it did shoot much farther. Peral got bored and joined in the teaching.
On the fifth day a pair of young noblemen showed up and asked to be taught the sword. The inn became a training camp. By the ninth day, the more advanced were teaching other students. The school had become self-perpetuating.
On the fourteenth day word came of a beast. The hill people fled to the valleys with tales of a monster knocking off roofs to get at the people within.
Peral and Lib rode into the hills. The school would continue and the horses were ready to leave. No one mentioned what the beast was. It was just as well. Lib wasn't particularly fond of bugs.
"It's impossible. Nothing that big can fly." Lib knew aerodynamics, but, evidently, the bug didn't. It kept trying.
"I don't think it's actually flying. I think it leaps into the air like a grasshopper and uses its wings to extend the leap."
"Either way, it's a moving target and it moves a lot faster than we can."
"Come on! It's on the ground!"
They chased it. Every time it hopped, they followed. Eventually the hops got shorter. They finally got their horses near enough to climb on.
It wasn't easy staying on, but it was a hairy bug and they managed. After the second hop, they started having to dodge feelers and legs. Lib got herself braced and drove her sword between the upper segments. Peral drove his into one of its eyes. They pulled their swords out and readied for another strike and the beast gave its last hop. Into a chasm. It struggled to fly, but was near dead. Peral saw a ledge coming, grabbed Lib's hand, and jumped for it. They made it and watched the bug stop trying to fly and plunge into the raging river below. They heard the horses whinny and looked up, and up, and up...
Down was only the river. They would have to climb. Nearly a kilometer. Straight up. With no equipment. They decided to get started and began climbing. Then came the snow and the wind. And the darkness.
"Peral, we've got to find a place out of the wind. I can't hold on much longer. I'm getting numb. I can't feel the next handhold."
"We can't stop. There's no shelter and no ledges. Hang on. You've got to. If we have to hang here for days, we will."
Lib smiled and hung on. If the wind wanted to pull her off and throw her into the river, it would have to work to do it. She held to the cliff and the hours passed and it got colder. Peral and Lib began to freeze to death, but they held on. They would go up or they wouldn't go at all.
The Doctor pushed the little probe in and something happened. He pushed a little further and... He was freezing. He was cold and tired and... Lib and Peral! He'd reversed the rings circuits! The ruby now used the sapphire and the emerald to feed his strength to them. He could feel their weakness by the ring's demands. He fell to the floor and gave them what they needed.
Lib felt warmth and strength flow into her. "Peral! He's reversed the rings."
"Hang on! Use as little energy as possible. He's hooked himself to us. If we make it, he makes it. If we give up and die, he dies. So, shut up and hang on."
The four women carried the Doctor to a chaise. They would watch over him and wait. It was their part. And they would keep him warm. He was unaware of being moved or cared for. He was fighting the ruby again. It wasn't easy to reverse the normal direction of the flow. He held the circuit open with an act of will and drove his strength through it.
"Peral, I can see to move. I've found the handhold."
"Go. I doubt the storm's over, but we need to get as far as we can between blows. We're living on his strength. Ours might have lasted the night. He's as helpless as we were. The ruby will take everything we need from him."
The Doctor had realized what was happening instantly or it wouldn't have worked. The rings were designed for other species. They just weren't equipped to TAKE anything from him. He was a Time Lord. He must force his strength through it. He ignored what was happening and fought the ruby.
For three days the blizzard raged and they held on and climbed and held on and climbed. Wealdan and Heort called down encouragement. Peral smiled to himself. He was pretty far gone. He felt encouraged every time Wealdan whinnied at him. Each time, he was just a little closer.
The Doctor
held on. He felt the end of his strength approaching. If he lost consciousness, Peral and Lib would lose the strength he was pouring into them. He knew from the rate at which they used it, they'd had no rest. They were totally dependent on him. He pushed himself to his limits, then began to tap his body's reserve. The reserve only Time Lords had. The energy held within them. The power to regenerate. He held to consciousness and fought the ruby. And used himself.
Peral pulled himself above the edge and grabbed Wealdan's reins. Wealdan backed and pulled him over. He grabbed a rope from the saddlebag and threw it to Lib, tied it off, and let Heort pull her up. Now they would draw on the Doctor only to find their way to shelter. Only to keep from freezing and stay on the horses.
The Doctor felt the need lessen. It was good that it did. He had very little left. His right heart was laboring. He held on and fought the ruby.
It took the horses sixteen hours to reach the inn through the deep snow. They walked into the common room and Peral said, "Take care of our horses. They're in the yard. And us." He and Lib lay down on the common room floor and went to sleep.
The innkeeper and his guests carried them gently up the stairs to their room and laid them in bed, then went to care for the fabulous beasts they rode.
The Doctor was dying. He knew it, but he also knew Lib and Peral were not. He allowed the circuit he'd held open to close. He prepared himself to fight, to keep the ruby from drawing on them, until he died and they were freed, but the rings deactivated. A voice whispered, "You cannot die. They'll need you again. They will be absorbed by the evil if they must face it alone. You cannot die."
He was so tired. Tired of the fight. Tired of the journey. Tired of the endless years. It would be so simple, so simple to stop fighting. "You cannot die. They will need you again." He fought on.
He began to gain strength. Strength enough to rest. Strength enough he would not die in his sleep. The women cared for him while he rested. He had used all of his strength, then found the strength to cling to life. He would be needed.
The women lifted him and gave him food and drink. In the many days to follow they helped him sit, then stand. Then rebuild his strength of arm and speed of reaction. They learned to use the staff so they could help him. They watched and waited. Their part was not done. He lived by an act of will, because he was needed. He must live because he wanted to.
When he was strong enough to become restless, to resent the chest deep snow that held him there, they began to teach him to laugh again. They coaxed him and begged him to help them pass the long winter. They coaxed him to play hide-and-seek and tag, and other children's games common to all the worlds. He wasn't easy to coax, but he didn't really care and they were very persistent, so they succeeded.
The day came when they played tag and he chased them as they ran through the hall squealing. He slid and fell on his back and began to laugh. "I'm a NINE hundred-year-old TIME LORD. And I'm playing TAG with four giggling women." He realized what the women had done.
He said good-by to each of them and prepared to leave. The snow was receding and Leoht was restless. He left at daybreak. He had never learned their names. He'd given them ones he liked.
They smiled at one another, took their things from the castle, and began their journeys to four points scattered across the continent. They had done their parts, but they would do more. They would meet again in the east.
The Sultan of Karishdan's daughter hurried toward the warm south. The Doctor had not recognized her. She wondered if he'd know her when she led one third of her father's armies at his back. When they all met. In the east.
Knight Progenitor Page 15
