by Dan Abnett
The Doctor and Amy watched the locals muttering about them.
‘You’re freaking them out, and they’ve got the pointy forks,’ Amy whispered to the Doctor.
‘Yes, they have,’ he mused. ‘Am I?’
‘You really are,’ said Amy. ‘Could we just play along for now?’
She was shivering slightly, her arms folded tight across her chest. ‘On the bright side, they might take us in the warm before they stab us to death with gardening implements.’
The leader of the community council beckoned, and the two visitors were escorted across the snowy yard into the assembly. Firebuckets had been lit, and the solamps turned on. The hall was warm and brown: worn wood beams and seats, polished from years of use and care, floorboards gleaming from a history of footsteps. The nails and pegs that had been used in the building of the assembly were made of shipskin.
Amy stood as close to one of the sputtering firebuckets as she could, basking. She took off her mittens. They were looped inside the sleeves of her duffel coat on a piece of elastic.
The Doctor looked around. He gazed up at the beamed roof. He looked at the circular inlays of metal patterning the worn wooden floor, the metal seams in the beams and ceiling posts.
‘This is old,’ he said. ‘Beautifully made.’
Amy watched him. He crouched down beside one of the wooden guard rails that surrounded the open space they had been led into. He ran an appreciative fingertip along it, like an antiques expert.
‘Those nails,’ he murmured.
Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘The nails matter? Really? Now? Do they really?’
The Doctor stood up. ‘They might,’ he said.
‘Rory’s out there. On his own. Looking for us,’ said Amy. ‘Can we get a move on, and persuade them to let us go?’
Jack Duggat’s men took up a guard position at the assembly doors. Some Morphans filed in and took their seats. Bill Groan and other plantnation council members sat in the semicircle of chairs at the head of the chamber.
‘Who are you?’ Bill Groan asked.
‘I’m the Doctor,’ said the Doctor.
‘You’re a doctor?’ asked Old Winnowner. ‘Of what? Physic? Medicine?’
‘All sorts of things,’ said the Doctor.
There was a murmur. The council conferred.
‘This is Amy Pond,’ said the Doctor.
‘An honest Morphan name,’ noted Chaunce Plowrite.
‘Thank you,’ said Amy. ‘I think.’
‘Is she your wife?’ asked Old Winnowner.
‘Oh no!’ declared the Doctor.
‘No need to sound so outraged. I could be,’ Amy hissed at him. ‘I’m not, though,’ she said to the council.
‘We’re all kind of friends, really,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s very informal. We don’t stand on ceremony, do we, Pond?’
‘Almost never,’ said Amy.
‘But this is a more formal occasion,’ the Doctor went on, pointing an expressive, flexible forefinger at Bill Groan. ‘And you’re in charge of this community, aren’t you?’
‘It’s been my honour to serve Beside as Nurse Elect of the council for eight years,’ said Bill Groan. ‘It’s not a burden I take lightly, as these people know.’
‘Of course not, of course not,’ said the Doctor. ‘And Nurse, such an interesting word. From the Latin, nutricius, person who nourishes. Nurse as in nursery, as in a place where plants and animals are fostered and bred.’
The council members started talking to each other animatedly.
‘What are you doing?’ Amy asked the Doctor, sidling up to him and whispering through the fixed grin she was aiming towards the council.
‘Just establishing some context,’ he replied. ‘Nurse Elect. It’s a high-status title. A leader. He’s the chap with the beard.’
‘They’ve all got beards, Doctor,’ said Amy.
‘Be fair. She hasn’t.’
‘Wait,’ said Amy. ‘That bloke’s job title derives from Latin? How?’
‘The usual way.’
‘But Rory was right. This isn’t Leadworth,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t even Earth. So how can they have a Latin name for something?’
‘Wherever we are, it’s Earth-ish,’ said the Doctor. ‘Very Earth-ish, in fact. My guess is it’s getting more Earth-ish with every passing day. And these people are very much human.’
‘Why are we wasting time with this chit-chat?’ Bel Flurrish asked, her voice louder than any other in the hall. The place fell quiet. She stood up from her seat in the congregation, and glared at the council and the three visitors.
‘Come now, Arabel,’ said Bill Groan.
‘As Guide is my witness, Elect,’ said Bel, ‘you’re just chattering while time runs away. Why don’t you ask them a proper question?’
‘Oh, good idea!’ said the Doctor enthusiastically. ‘I like getting down to the nitty-gritty. Like what?’
Bel glowered at him, not at all warmed by his charm.
‘Like where do you actually come from? You’re not from Beside, so which plantnation are you from?’
Amy looked at the Doctor. ‘Plant nation?’ she mouthed.
The Doctor pulled a face and shrugged in a slightly convulsive way.
‘That’s… hard to answer, Bel,’ he said.
‘Really?’ asked Bel. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was. There are only three plantnations on Hereafter, so it’s not difficult to choose.’
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Next?’
‘Very well,’ said Bel. ‘What have you done with my sister?’
CHAPTER 3
IF THOU KNOWST THY TELLING
‘I think we should try to smooth things out,’ said the Doctor, opening his hands in a gentle, calming gesture. He turned slowly so that, one by one, he caught the eye of everyone in the assembly and shared a moment of his reassuring smile.
He fixed his gaze on Jack Duggat. Jack Duggat was a big man, tallest of all the Beside Morphans, and the hoe in his fists was big too. It looked substantial enough to skewer a humpback whale.
‘I’m going to reach into my pocket and take something out, all right?’ the Doctor told Jack.
Jack Duggat hesitated. The Doctor began to slide a hand into his tweed jacket.
‘Careful!’ Amy whispered.
‘Tell him that,’ replied the Doctor. He produced the travel pass wallet that contained his psychic paper, and showed it to Jack Duggat. ‘I think that clears things up,’ he said.
‘It says he’s from Seeside,’ Jack Duggat announced, studying the wallet. ‘It says he’s come to wish us well for the season, as is traditional, and extend the hand of friendship from Seeside Plantnation. It also says he is here to offer expertise and assistance.’
Bill Groan rose to his feet.
‘On behalf of the Beside Plantnation, I welcome you then as friends at this time of festival,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry we mistook you. These are troubled times.’
‘I can tell,’ said the Doctor.
‘Wait,’ said Jack Duggat. ‘There is one thing.’
‘What’s that, Jack?’ asked Bill Groan.
‘You know it yourself, Elect,’ said Jack. ‘I haven’t got my letters. I can’t read. So how come I’m reading this?’ He held the wallet out. No one seemed to want to touch it.
‘Obviously, I can explain that,’ the Doctor began.
Old Winnowner got up and came down to the front. She took the wallet from Jack Duggat’s massive hand and looked at it.
‘It is a letter,’ she said. ‘Guide help me, just like Jack said. A letter from the Nurse Elect of Seeside. It looks… genuine.’
‘How could I read it?’ asked Jack, sounding distressed.
Old Winnowner looked at Bill Groan in horror.
‘Unguidely!’ she breathed.
‘I’m sure—’ Bill began.
‘It’s unguidely, Elect!’ Winnowner said. ‘It’s conjury! You know what Guide teaches us about conjury!’
‘It’s a Ca
t A wrong,’ said Chaunce Plowrite.
‘I know it is,’ said Bill Groan heavily. ‘Jack, take them to the compter and lock them in while we work out what to do.’
‘It’s… it’s just paper,’ said the Doctor, looking rather wrong-footed. ‘It’s just an innocent trick—’
‘Conjury tricks,’ said Old Winnowner. ‘See, he admits it.’
The men began to jostle Amy and the Doctor away. Amy glared meaningfully at him.
‘I can’t take you anywhere,’ she said.
The compter was a cell under the assembly hall. Earth-cut steps led down into a cold, artificial cave lit by a couple of solamps. A firebucket had been stoked. The cell had a cage wall with a sliding door. The bars were made of dull, bluish metal. The interior of the cell was a sawdust floor furnished with a bench and a soil-pot.
Jack Duggat locked them in and went back up the steps jangling the keys.
Amy sat down on the bench.
‘Great,’ she said.
The Doctor grinned at her. He flipped out his sonic screwdriver.
‘A lock,’ he said. ‘I can do locks. They’re easy-peasy. Easier than trying to bluff a hall full of frightened people.’
‘Why are they frightened?’ asked Amy.
‘Because we’re strange,’ he said. ‘And anyway, wouldn’t you be if you’d never seen a proper winter before?’
Amy shrugged.
‘OK, open the lock,’ she invited. ‘Then what? We’ve got to get past all those blokes with pitchforks. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll light torches and form a mob to chase us back to our castle.’
‘You’re upset,’ said the Doctor. ‘I can see that.’
‘Top marks to you,’ she replied. ‘I’m worried about Rory. He’ll be worried about me. About us. He could be walking into anything.’
Bel stared fiercely at the Nurse Elect of Beside. ‘Just like that, Bill Groan? Just like that? You lock them up? You don’t even ask the questions you should ask?’
‘He will, Arabel,’ said old Winnowner.
‘I will,’ Bill Groan agreed. He was thinking hard and studying the stranger’s wallet. Part of him was worried that its unguideliness might rub off and contaminate him, but it was too intriguing to set aside. The letter contained in the wallet was exactly the sort of letter that he would have issued as Nurse Elect of Beside. It bore Guide’s stamp, and the crest of the Hereafter plantnations. It was the very form of words he would compose. It even looked like his handwriting.
‘Perhaps it is real. Perhaps they are who they say they are,’ said Bel.
‘It’s not real,’ said Bill Groan.
‘Then they could have took it!’ snapped Bel. ‘Took it from some poor Seesider who was coming here with good intentions. Took it, and left him for dead in a ditch—’
‘It’s not real!’ Bill snapped back. ‘Jack could read it, remember?’
‘So stop looking at it, and go and—’
‘Arabel Flurrish!’ Bill Groan exclaimed. ‘Take yourself back to your seat!’
‘Go ask them where my sister is!’ Bel shouted.
‘I know you’re worried, Arabel, but you show some common courtesy,’ said Bill Groan. He looked back at the wallet and his voice grew smaller. ‘The stars, and the cold, and now this,’ he said. ‘Guide help me, I don’t know what to do. Nothing like this has ever happened to us. I don’t even know how to start to think about it.’
‘It’s conjury,’ said Winnowner softly. ‘It’s a blight of conjury that’s brought the harsh winter upon us, and those two strangers are the cause. It’s their doing.’
‘I don’t believe in conjury,’ said Bill.
‘It’s their work,’ said Winnowner. ‘A blight of conjury.’
‘No,’ said Bill, shaking his head.
‘Did you see her hair?’ asked Chaunce. ‘I never seen hair like that before.’
‘The colour of blood,’ said Jack Duggat.
‘Not blood,’ murmured Samewell Crook.
Bill Groan looked at Old Winnowner. Her brow was furrowed with concern like an acre after the plough, but her thin smile was trying to reassure him.
‘What if it is conjury?’ he asked. ‘What if it is an unguidely thing?’
‘Then Guide will show us what to do,’ the old woman said. ‘Chapter and verse, we’ll find the passage that applies to our situation, and follow Guide’s words, and be delivered. Like we always are with all things.’
Bill didn’t look convinced. He turned the wallet over in his hand, thoughtfully.
‘But Jack, who I’ve known since we were boys, he could read the words of this when he can’t read a word otherwise,’ he said. ‘That’s something that should not happen. It should not be possible, not under Guide’s laws. And if it’s something to which Guide’s laws do not apply, how do we fight that?’
Bel Flurrish held out her hand.
‘Can I see it, please, Elect?’ she asked.
Bill Groan hesitated. Old Winnowner looked particularly dubious. After a moment, he handed the wallet to Bel.
She looked at its outside first, turning it around and around before opening it.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘What?’ asked Bill.
Bel was staring at the open wallet. Words didn’t seem to want to form.
‘It’s—’ she began.
‘It’s highly convincing, isn’t it?’ asked Bill Groan.
Bel closed the wallet and handed it back to the Nurse Elect. ‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘Please, Elect. Please go down and ask them about my sister. The day is passing and night is coming again.’
‘I will, Bel, as soon as I have discussed what best to do.’
‘Don’t delay, Elect!’ Bel said in despair.
‘I will consult the council,’ Bill replied. ‘An hour, no more. Just so I know what to do in the face of further conjury. Then I will get some answers out of them.’
Bill Groan asked the council to take their seats again, and they quickly fell to talking.
Bel Flurrish watched for a while, fidgeting and anxious. When she could bear it no more, she got up.
Everyone was too busy discussing the issue to notice her slip out of the back of the assembly.
Rory ran.
He was running about as fast as he’d ever run in his life. He was certainly running as fast as he had ever run in heavy snow. More than once, the soft depth of it took his feet out from under him, or stole away his balance, and he went sprawling.
Each time, he got up and started running again.
He had no idea where he was running to. He had no idea which way the TARDIS was any more. All he knew for certain was which direction he was running from.
There had been something quite dreadful about the figures he had seen, something that had shaken him. There had been four or perhaps five figures, and they’d simply been walking in his direction. The figures had been green, as though they were wearing suits or uniforms. They hadn’t been doing anything sinister or threatening. They hadn’t shouted at him, or shot at him.
Nevertheless, there had been something disturbing about the way they were advancing: slow, steady, relentless, utterly untroubled by the snow. He’d never seen anything as simple as walking look scary before, and that was saying something, because he’d seen Cybermen march. Cybermen moved with chilling, machined discipline. The way they walked matched the way they thought, and that was the terrifying part about them: the clinical precision.
The figures Rory had just seen had been lumbering. They had displayed a relentlessness born not out of mechanical rhythm, but brutal, unwavering, physical determination.
They’d been big people, whoever they were. Stupidly big. For a second, Rory wondered if they were wearing extensive and heavyweight cold-weather gear. He thought he caught a flash of red from goggles or a visor. But even cold-weather gear wouldn’t have explained their size. They were towering, bulky humanoids, broad-bodied and slope-shouldered. They reminded him unpleasantly of the proper bruisers that w
ere taken into A&E on a Saturday night, veterans of fights in pub car parks and brawls with doormen. Those blokes weren’t athletically large: no broad shoulders and round biceps, like the Hollywood idea of a super hero. They were always real world big: thick through the chest and waist, with forearms like hams, and wrists as wide as their fists. Their flesh was dense. They had a scary, unglamorous strength, a genuine power, bred not from a gym and a personal trainer, but from graft and life. Those were the ones you were wary around when you were on shift, the sullen ones who loomed, and looked at you from under drink-lowered eyelids, the ones who could suddenly turn and cripple you with a punch.
Rory knew, simply knew as a certainty, that the men he had seen were to be avoided. His first thought of hiding had been dashed. The plodding figures were too close. If they hadn’t seen him already, they would be about to, and he had no desire to cower behind a tree while they caught up with him. He’d started to run instead.
Besides, if there were things like that, giant things like that, blundering around in the woods, Rory would prefer they were chasing him rather than bearing down on Amy and the Doctor.
He could draw them off, perhaps, and then circle back to look for his friends… And then get the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 4
THOUGH THE FROST WAS CRUEL
‘Someone’s coming!’ hissed Amy.
The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver had been poised over the cage door’s lock. He quickly put it behind his back.
Bel Flurrish came down the shadowy steps into the lamplight. She stared at them through the bars. ‘Where is my sister?’ she asked.
‘We don’t know,’ the Doctor assured her gently.
‘You do know,’ said Bel, approaching the bars. Her expression was fierce.
‘We don’t!’ Amy insisted. ‘How’s about you let us out of this stupid cage?’
‘I know you know,’ said Bel. ‘How else would you have a picture of her?’
‘A picture?’ asked Amy, baffled.
‘In that wallet!’ Bel exclaimed. ‘That wallet full of conjury! I saw it!’
Amy looked at the Doctor.
‘Psychic paper,’ murmured the Doctor. He turned to face Amy. ‘Awkward. One of the drawbacks. It keys into the thing you most want to see, the thing you’ll find most compelling or convincing. Sometimes a strong emotion can imprint, with rather unfortunate consequences.’
