Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
About the Author
Una McCormack is a New York Times bestselling author. She has written four Doctor Who novels: The King’s Dragon and The Way through the Woods (featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory); Royal Blood (featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara), and Molten Heart (featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham). She is also the author of numerous audio dramas for Big Finish Productions.
Prologue
Birinji – The Dawn of the Dark Times
Once, a long time ago, before you or I (or anyone else, really) was even thought of, there was a world so old, so calm, so perfect, that telling you about this now I can hardly believe it was true. This world was called Birinji and the people there were the wisest ever to live and breathe. They were peaceful, and reasonable, and knowledgeable, and temperate, and wise. Can you believe that such a place ever existed? Pretend that you can.
How had they performed this miracle, the people of Birinji? How did they live this way? The trick was that time moved slowly there. They had learned that, to live life to the full, one must be slow. One must savour every second. Take the time, to watch the dawn creep across the sky, to watch the bud unfurl, to see life quicken and awaken. They had learned that, to live, one must pay attention. And as they learned to do this better, and took their time, and watched, and contemplated – their heartbeats slowed, almost to nothing. Each pulse of the world would be as long as a lifetime to us – longer! – but not to these thoughtful, watchful people. Slowly, ever so slowly, they became ancient – and yet there still seemed to them to be so much yet to see, so much to know, so much to understand. And this was how they lived, on Birinji, slowly and in peace, and millennia passed, and surely nothing could ever want to disrupt the peace of this judicious world.
Then they came. They thought, at first, on Birinji, that they were hearing the wings of birds, beating hard against the huge blue sky. The sky seemed to fill with mist. And then, faintly, coming from over the hill, they heard the screams of the first of them to be slaughtered. Death – held so long at bay upon Birinji – had come here at last, brought by the Kotturuh.
The people of Birinji had no answer to this. What answer is there to mindless slaughter? There is no reasoning sometimes, with certain kinds of people. One can only flee. Some of them did not realise this soon enough: they greeted their murderers; tried to speak to them; believed that they could reason with them, and persuade them to a better way. They died, in pain. Others, grasping now the nature of this enemy, took flight – but there is no escaping such singlemindedness. Except …
Except.
There was one old woman (her name was Yinji, I believe), old even by the standards of her world, and vastly ancient by the standards of those of us who have come later. She had by now seen much of everything, and she knew what it meant when she heard the Kotturuh were coming. So she did what she could, and she slipped away, and gathered up as much as she could, and hid it all away. Then she sat and waited for the end …
Birinji – The Day the Kotturuh Came
They were curious at first. They were often curious. They would come – full of questions, full of trust – and make their approach. Some had no language: they would trot up, and snuffle about, wrinkling up their snouts at the strange new scent, and then they would be touched – and you would see in their eyes, the puzzled betrayal, the new fear. ‘Hush,’ she would say to these creatures. ‘This is the order of things. This is how it must be.’
Others could speak. Some greeted them; offered them food and shelter and welcome. Others were warier; others saw only threat. For a long time, she did not understand this. She brought such great gifts! She brought meaning to life. All life, now, brought meaning. The snufflers, the speakers – and everything else, from the tiniest organism to the greatest of trees.
And then she came to Birinji.
Sunlight, through her shroud. A soft fresh wind. She knelt down and took off her glove. Her fingertip hovered above a blade of grass. She studied it closely: its dance in the wind; the way its colour shifted under the sun’s caress. She knew everything about it: its name, its molecular structure, its chemical composition. She thought about all the types of grass she had met over the long years, and she marvelled at how so many worlds had evolved such varied yet similar forms, and how many of them provided food, and she wondered – as she often wondered – if anyone had determined the point where grass becomes wood …
But that was not her purpose. She was here for another reason. Lightly, she tapped her fingertip against the slender blade, condemned it …
And knew at once that something was wrong.
She looked up. She said, ‘We’re here too soon …’ And she saw – for the first time, she truly saw – what it was the Kotturuh did. She rose from the ground, skirts swirling around her, and she called to her people: ‘Stop!’
But they would not stop.
And she would not let them continue.
The war between the Kotturuh was terrible – and there were no winners. By the time the others left, everything on Birinji was dead – except for her. Exiled; expelled; left to rule over her dead realm.
And then she found the biodome, and the treasure hidden within …
Birinji – Now
And now Birinji rests in peace. A dead world; insensate. Nothing to taste, or see, or hear, or smell. The wind moves, yes, stirring the ashes. You might walk a thousand miles, a hundred thousand miles, and see nothing but trails left in the dust, and you might try to persuade yourself that there was meaning in the patterns, that someone was trying to communicate – but how could that be? Death came to Birinji ages ago. There is nothing left.
Walk a little further. Crest the hill. Shield your eyes against the fierce glare of a bitter sun. Look at what nestles in the valley below. Bright metal; clear glass; four huge bubbles lying impossibly in the middle of nothing. A biodome, rising from the ash. Is it a mirage?
Walk a little closer. Hear the hum of power systems. Touch the surface of the dome – does it feel warm? Does it feel … alive? How is that possible? Who – or what – could live here, in the waste land? Here – here is the door. Press your palm against the keypad. Step into the airlock. A whoosh of air; a green light telling you that you are safe. Take off your helmet. Taste air, again. Walk into the habitat, and see –
Life. Teeming, flourishing, crowding life. Lush plants that trail down, forming jungly tunnels. Huge bright flowers spreading outwards; tiny sparkles of blossom near the ground. Rare sweet fruit. Insects with many wings and shiny carapaces, chittering and clattering, bottle green or jewelled blue. In the north dome, the butterflies, rising and swirling in bright waves of colour … And underneath, the soft and steady drone of the systems that keep this place running.
But how can this be? How can a place such as this not only survive, but thrive? Who takes care of it all? How do they live? Because life flourishes in this garden, but there is only one solitary sentient creature. She is old now; unspeakably, unimaginably old. Her memories are myths. Once she travelled with her people across systems, galaxies, and whole species wept at her approach. Now she spends each day walking around the biodome. She waters the plants, that breathe and sigh and flower. She talks to the insects, who chatter and click, but do not communicate. She watches th
e colours come and go; watches the seasons rise and fall. She used to talk to herself, sometimes, to hear a voice, but aeons have passed since that brought her comfort.
Who is she, this lonely gardener? Her name is Inyit. Millennia ago, she came here, pale herald of Death, and when she and her people arrived, Birinji – the wisest, most peaceful world that the universe has ever known; that had lasted for a million years – was turned to ash in a matter of hours. All its wisdom, and knowledge, and pity, and sorrow – dust trails in the wind. But what happens, after Death has passed over? What remains?
Inyit remains. She lives alone, here, and tends her lonely paradise, and waits for deliverance.
She is the Last of the Kotturuh.
Chapter One
The Tenth Doctor was many things – an adventurer, a scholar, a perpetual child in a sweet shop. Right now, he was in charge of an army and it was not going well. It did not help that there was an itch in his ceremonial collar.
He looked at the people on the flight deck, all eager to die for him, and he tried not to blame them for getting him into this mess.
Now he came to think about it, the Doctor hadn’t planned on being here, on the flight deck of a battlecruiser, with a fleet of mercenaries hanging off his every word. It had sort of happened. He had a brief moment of sympathy for all those villains he’d faced over the years. There they were, getting along quite happily in their battlecloaks on the battledecks of their battleships, and then – oops! On their battlescreens would pop up the Doctor and – oops, again! – their life would fall apart. Did they too wonder how it had all gone wrong? Did they too know the torment of an itchy battlecollar?
Still. The Doctor was doing the right thing. He knew he was. Absolutely, definitely doing the right thing.
The right thing, it turned out, was to wage war on Death, here in the Dark Times. These were the glory days of the Kotturuh, the self-styled ‘Bringers of Death’. This was the time when they swept from the skies, assessed a species’ past and future, and allotted it a lifespan. Really, when you came to think about it, they were accountants with delusions of grandeur who’d awarded themselves too much power. Only fools decided when other people died.
This was why the Doctor had put on the collar. The Time Lords didn’t exist yet (the people of Gallifrey were still banging rocks together and shooting vampires with giant bolts from their bowships), so he figured they wouldn’t mind him using his ceremonial robes to give the Kotturuh a moment’s pause. Etched with the Seals of the Great Houses, cast in a compound of marble and metal, the collar in particular was very impressive. But it did itch terribly.
The Doctor had begun to suspect he was overcompensating. The worst he’d intended to give the Kotturuh was a taste of their own medicine – he’d found a way to reflect their judgement back at them. He’d thought he could bargain with them. Instead, they’d attacked, destroyed two souls on his side, for no other reason than because they could. And when they acted like this was nothing – like he was nothing – something snapped in him. Maybe something snaps in all great men at the head of an army. Instead of granting the Kotturuh a lifespan, he’d given them a death sentence. Unleashed a wave of dread energy that mirrored their own, that had left them literally falling apart.
They started it, he told himself.
Yes, yes, so he’d changed history – but he was the Time Lord Victorious and there was no one around to tell him not to. The universe would just have to adjust to existence without the Kotturuh deciding its lifespans.
The last of their craft were below him now, on their planet Mordeela.
Mordeela was where the Kotturuh’s energy came from. It was where they’d mapped out their Design, their assessment of all life in the galaxy. For all the cloaks and nano-magery, they were census takers. No, they were tax inspectors. The universe wouldn’t miss them.
But still, here he was, aware of the eyes of everyone on him, working out whether or not to seal off Mordeela and destroy the Kotturuh Design, and itching at his collar.
And then a face appeared on the screen.
The Doctor.
The Tenth Doctor suddenly realised how absurd this all was. His Eighth self, all curls and cravat, had popped up on the screen and was telling him to stop. How dare he? Especially since the Eighth Doctor was on a ship full of Daleks. Daleks. Actual Daleks. The Eighth Doctor could get on with anyone, but even so, what was he thinking? Quite a cheek turning up in the Dark Times with Daleks and telling him he was on the wrong side.
Which was when another face appeared on the screen.
Another Doctor.
The Ninth Doctor, crew cut, battered leather jacket soaked in attitude, and – wait, was he really in a Coffin Ship? Were those figures behind him the undead? Was his Ninth self seriously popping over from fighting the Great Vampires to wag a finger?
Suddenly, the Tenth Doctor felt more resolute. He remembered none of this happening – memory always got jumbled when your timelines crossed, and they were all a long way back here with no one keeping an eye; kids playing in the empty house and the parents never coming back. What did his former selves know? Vampires and Daleks, they were the bad guys, they’d twisted his mind – their minds.
‘Don’t do it!’
‘Stop. Seriously, stop now.’
Well then. The Tenth Doctor tried to turn round to see what his crew, his army, thought of all this, but his collar wouldn’t let him. So. It was up to him.
He looked at the screen. At the planet Mordeela below. At a pleading Doctor surrounded by Daleks. At a desolate Doctor on a coffin full of vampires.
But he’d lived through more and worse than either of them and it was long past time to make things better.
‘Fire!’ he ordered.
The smell of the Daleks was getting to him.
The Eighth Doctor worried he was being xenophobic, but sharing space with Daleks was unsettling. Normally he ran from them, or observed them sourly from inside a cell, or witnessed them panicking on a screen as things blew up. Now here he was at close quarters.
Close quarters with Daleks. Squat metal killing machines, each one with a crazed mutant screaming inside. The Daleks paraded their cool rational logic, but at any moment one of them could cut him down on a whim.
It was not the easiest of alliances. The Daleks needed him to get back to the Dark Times to find out how history had changed. The Dalek Time Commander clearly took his orders directly from the Emperor, and was surrounded by an over-eager Executioner, a painfully loyal Scientist, and rows of Dalek Drones who glided around looking lethally busy as only Daleks could. They were even making a show of ignoring him. So far, so Dalek.
The exception was the Dalek Strategist. The Dalek Strategist terrified the Doctor. It was the least impressive Dalek he’d ever seen – battered like old luggage, its rusting ancient casing patched like a pair of worn socks. The Daleks prided themselves on not having a sense of pride, but there was something unsettling about the Strategist’s old casing. It was clearly a conscious decision not to upgrade. The Strategist was showing off.
This was one of the things that made the Strategist so frightening. The other thing was the way that it stood too close. The smell oozed out of the Strategist, an unpleasant stench of offal stewing in cabbage. Everywhere the Eighth Doctor went, however subtly he tried reading a setting on a control panel, the Strategist was there. Something in the dim glow of its eyestalk told the Eighth Doctor that it knew more than it was letting on.
He found out what exactly when they located the source of the alteration of history and realised the extinction of the Kotturuh was causing it, and his future self was causing that. The penny finally dropped.
The Eighth Doctor turned to the Strategist. ‘Me. That’s me. You knew!’
The Strategist pushed in stiflingly, cabbagingly close. ‘Correct. The Dalek Emperor assessed you were the likely cause.’
‘But–’ The Eighth Doctor found that his arms were waving around. He rammed them back in his frockco
at pockets. ‘You could have told me. Then I could have worked out what to say to him.’
‘Improvise,’ the Strategist grated. ‘That is what the Doctor does.’ It whirled away.
The Eighth Doctor found himself gibbering at the screen. Ordering his future self: think about what you’re doing! Because it wasn’t too late. The Eighth Doctor always believed it was never too late.
Then the screen split and another Doctor turned up. Another future Doctor. Also on the same mission. Also clearly doing a good job of not being fazed by the situation. (Although the Eighth Doctor noticed the newcomer’s eyes slide over to his.
Daleks?
You can talk. Vampires?
Yeah. OK. But what about that collar, eh?
I know!
Bet that itches.
Sometimes Time Lords don’t need telepathy.)
The Eighth Doctor realised that this was going to be a terrible disappointment to the Dalek Strategist. Two Doctors going up against a third would put the universe to rights. They didn’t even need to issue threats. Because their future self – look at him, so young and frightened and sad – would be bound to listen to reason. Good people always listened to reason …
And the Tenth Doctor blew up Mordeela.
The Eighth Doctor took a step back in horror, bumping into the Dalek Strategist. Before he could stop himself, he said, ‘But – he did it – he blew it up – he can’t have done! There must have been a mistake!’
Don’t gabble, Doctor. Never gabble. Not in front of a Dalek.
The Eighth Doctor pulled himself together.
‘What do we do now?’
The Strategist regarded the Eighth Doctor. There are times, the Doctor realised, when it must be nice being a Dalek. All that certainty.
‘Exterminate.’
Exactly.
The hand of the vampire was cold. It was resting on the Ninth Doctor’s shoulder and he could feel it pulling the heat through his jacket. He resisted the urge to flinch.
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