by Doctor Who
‘Jude!’ exclaimed Saul, running forward with blind fatherly concern. ‘What are you doing out here?’
The girl struggled against Saul’s embrace, pointing in wordless terror as a vast creature pushed its way into the clearing. It moved with surprising grace for all its bulk, hugging close to the ground.
Martha gulped – it was the creature they had glimpsed when Saul had freed the Doctor from the iron trap. If you put a dragon and a spider in a blender, she decided, and then gave the result to Dracula as a pet. . . That would be the result. It had an emaciated, lizard-like face and body, and huge bat wings, though the skin between the bones was tattered and grey. Its legs tapped against the ground when it paused, as if it were feeling its way towards its prey. Arched above its head was a great spiked tail.
Before anyone could shout a warning the tail came smashing downwards, right into the centre of the clearing where Saul and Jude sat.
Saul moved his daughter to one side and himself to the other, just as the bony spikes thudded into the decayed tree trunks beneath them.
The rotting wood shattered, sending splinters high into the air – but at least the two were safe.
Jude went running immediately towards the Doctor and Martha, but Saul stood his ground. A sword in each hand now, he crossed the blades in front of his face, as if daring the beast to come closer.
He twisted his head to one side. ‘Look after Jude.’ The tail came down again, glancing off an upright tree. In any event, Saul was taking no chances, leaping into the air like a gymnast, then running through two of the creature’s legs. He arced his swords upwards as he ran. Both bit deep into the creature’s flesh. Then he positioned himself behind the creature, where he could not be seen.
‘Run!’ he shouted, risking a great cut to the creature’s rump while 80
avoiding its feverishly flailing tail. The monster was swinging round in an attempt to bring its great, snapping jaws into play, its attention entirely focused on Saul.
‘Come on!’ breathed the Doctor, holding Jude’s arm and almost pushing Martha out of the clearing. ‘I think it’s this way!’
‘Daddy!’ shrieked Jude.
‘He’ll be all right,’ said the Doctor. ‘Promise!’
‘We can’t just leave him!’ shouted Martha, half-turning.
‘Of course we’re not going to leave him!’ exclaimed the Doctor.
They were some metres beyond the clearing now, and he stopped suddenly. Facing the many-legged creature, he pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, adjusted the settings with nimble fingers, and then held it high in the air.
The end of the screwdriver glowed brightly and Martha heard a shrill whine, which ascended in pitch and soon became completely inaudible – but a moment later its effect on the monster was all too clear to see.
It ceased its attack on Saul, its scaly head turning towards the Doctor.
‘Doggy whistle!’
he announced proudly, still holding the sonic screwdriver over his head.
‘Can’t you kill it?’ asked Martha.
‘Why should I want to do that?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Hasn’t done anything to hurt us. . . ’
‘Yet.’
‘When I say “run”. . . ’ the Doctor breathed as the monster scuttled towards them on its spine-covered legs.
He turned, to find himself on his own. Martha and Jude were thundering down a natural path between the trees.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right.’
He sprinted away, still gripping the screwdriver tightly. The beast announced its departure from the clearing by swiping down as many trees as it could. From Saul’s shouts and curses, it seemed that the hunter was, in turn, pursuing the creature – and he didn’t much approve of the Doctor’s bravery.
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‘You’ll thank me later, Saul,’ said the Doctor, under his breath. Behind him, the dragon seemed to be getting closer all the time. Though the creature remained stoically silent, the Doctor could hear the flap of its wings, the hiss of its tail through the air – and the sound of still more trees being smashed to the ground. Each noise was getting louder, like a grim orchestra swelling to a finale.
He risked a glance over his shoulder – just as the monster’s tail flew through the air like a wrecking ball against a derelict building.
The Doctor threw himself to one side, then jumped the opposite way – another thud! as the spikes impacted only against tree and soil
– all the while running as fast as he could after the fleeing figures of Martha and Jude.
‘Not far now,’ he said, probably for the umpteenth time that day.
‘Just hope we get there in one piece!’
Even over the noise of the pursuing creature, even over the fevered survival instinct that was threatening to swamp all her senses, Martha tried to keep a clear head and work out where she was going. She forced herself to look at the trees and bushes as they disappeared past her in a blur of grey shadow. She knew there was no point just running aimlessly through the trees – they had to find the clearing that seemed to lead back to the research station.
Jude ran feverishly at her side, whimpering under her breath – in terror, or in fear for her father, Martha couldn’t tell which – but not once did she fall or stumble or put a foot wrong.
‘This is it!’ exclaimed Martha, skidding to a halt and almost falling to her knees. ‘Look!’ She jogged forward, pointed to the tree that bore the faintest of impressions of a hard metal door. Jude simply stared, uncomprehending and silent.
The Doctor, sonic screwdriver between his teeth, thundered into the clearing, knocking Martha over. ‘Turned it off,’ he said, dropping the screwdriver into a pocket and helping Martha to her feet. ‘Doesn’t seem to have made any difference,’ he added pointlessly, as the noise of trees being torn asunder made it quite clear that the dragon-thing was almost upon them. ‘Seem to have over-egged the pudding a 82
touch,’ he added, with a grin.
Martha pointed at the tree with the shadow of the door seemingly stamped onto its trunk. ‘There,’ she said, still panting.
The Doctor brandished the sonic screwdriver, waving it in front of the tree and changing its settings all the time.
The creature edged into the clearing, but its back was towards them now. It looked like Saul had started to irritate it once again, dancing in front of the monster like a frantic, diminutive manikin, shouting and slashing when the opportunity arose.
‘Dad!’ exclaimed Jude, about to run towards her father, but Martha held her tight.
‘Hurry!’ Martha hissed at the Doctor, then tried to soothe the struggling child. ‘It’s OK, we’re all going to get out of here. . . ’
Suddenly the very trees around them began to flicker. Like two random images pasted one on top of the other, Martha glimpsed the enclosed, almost featureless corridor of the space research station Castor stretching into the distance beside her. The Doctor seemed to be succeeding in overlaying the reality of the spaceship over the illusion of the forest. But then the vast and forested vista returned, apparently even more solid, even more real, than the glimpsed metal corridor.
‘Almost there!’ shouted the Doctor, still adjusting the screwdriver.
Martha glanced down at Jude, who paused in her struggles. Martha wondered if the collision between twin realities was only visible to her and the Doctor, or if the girl could see the space station too.
The dragon-beast, however, seemed momentarily disturbed, pausing in its attack. It swung its head from side to side, distracted.
Martha turned to the Doctor – just as Jude wriggled free and shot across the forest clearing towards her father – in the direction of the metal corridor that had been visible a few moments before. ‘No! Come back!’ cried Martha, but it was too late.
And then the forest disappeared, entirely replaced by the space station corridor – and the huge airlock-style door that Martha remembered coming through to get into the forest in the first place. Of the beast
, of Jude and Saul, there was suddenly no sign. They had faded with the forest.
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It was utterly silent, and the Doctor and Martha were absolutely alone on the space station.
‘Where did they go?’ asked Martha.
‘Still in the forest,’ said the Doctor quickly. ‘It’s here, all around us, in another part of reality – a world all of its own which we can’t see any more.’ He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the huge door, and the screwdriver emitted an ear-shredding whine. ‘But the forest world might reassert itself at any time, and then we will be trapped inside it again. We’ve got to get this door open. We’ll be safe on the other side.
The space station is stable through there – the forest doesn’t reach beyond this door.’
‘What about Saul and Jude?’
‘They are exactly where they were – where we used to be. We can help them from here! Trust me. If you stay and the forest world comes back, you might die!’
‘I might not!’
The door began to roll open, showing another bland stretch of corridor beyond. Safety, away from the possibility of encroaching forest.
But then the walls around Martha began to flicker again – the trees coming back into view all around them. Only the area beyond the door was clear and safe. Looking back, Martha could see the creature on the far side of the clearing, but Saul seemed to have fallen to the ground. For the first time, the beast was making a triumphant, hissing sound – its huge mouth stretched open, its spiked tail ready to strike.
Of Jude there was absolutely no sign.
‘Doctor, we’ve got to help them!’
The Doctor had fully opened the door now and was stepping through. He reached out a hand to encourage Martha to follow him.
‘Everything you see could cease to exist at any moment,’ he observed.
‘But you’ve got to go through this door to where it’s safe. I can’t keep the link between the worlds open much longer!’
Martha looked at the Doctor, then stared back at Saul, crumpled before the might of the squealing beast. Around her, the corridor kept slamming into focus, and then blinking away again. Corridor. Forest.
Corridor. Forest.
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The dragon swung its tail up over its head one last time.
‘Sorry!’ she breathed, letting go of the Doctor’s hand and running as fast as she could towards Saul.
If the Doctor made a sound, she could not hear it over the noise of the door grinding shut. She glanced back, over her shoulder – the space station had entirely vanished, leaving only the faintest imprint on the trees and ground around her.
She was back in the forest. She was on her own.
And the creature was about to kill Saul.
85
Jens rolled uncertainly out of the inn, torch in hand. In the last hour, the fog had thickened and clotted until it gripped the edge of every building and pathway, dulling them and replacing familiar lines and spaces with subtle gradations of grey. Even more alarming was the change in temperature. It had seemed quite mild when Jens had staggered into the warm, embracing bosom of the inn – he’d left his scarf and his thickest cloak at home, partly because he was sure he’d not need them, and partly because speed had been of the essence and he’d wanted to get away as quickly as possible. But now the air was as keen as a shard of ice.
Jens shivered, fumbling at the torch with his great, gloved hands, while a voice nagged in his mind. I told you it was going to turn cold, but did you listen? No, nothing must come between the big man and his drink – not storm, not cold, not common sense! I sometimes wonder why I put up with you, Jens, really I do. . .
He paused, wondering for a moment if there was time to duck back into the inn and order one last flagon, but shuffled footsteps and scraped chairs from within indicated that Shih and her diminutive husband had decided to call it a night. Torch now sullenly lit, Jens started to walk away; he did not turn and bid the others farewell, nor 87
did they call good wishes after him. Almost all had sat within the inn simply to escape from the outside world; none of them now seemed pleased to be returning to it.
Soon Jens was on his own, treading familiar streets in fogged silence. The alcohol sat heavy in his stomach, and he struggled desperately to control his runaway thoughts; it was ironic, he supposed, that he drank to forget, and all it did was make the memories and the guilt ever stronger. ‘Why don’t you come back?’ he found himself whispering – or maybe he was shouting like a drunkard and the sound was simply muffled by the fog.
Cursing his own stupidity, he paused for a moment, breathing heavily. He’d have to creep in discreetly, not crash through his home like a fat skittle knocked aside by a ball. ‘Shh,’ he told himself. ‘Nice and easy does it.’
He looked around – he was close to the metalsmith’s workshop, its precise walls studded with windows and flaps that helped the big, brutish fellow keep the furnace at just the right temperature. But there was no illumination within the place now, and precious few other lanterns or discernible objects to help Jens work out where he was. Moments later, he paused, scratching his head – had he gone too far? It was hard to be sure, the fog seeming to dull his senses as much as his vision. Should he double back and make sure he turned left at the marble fountain that overlooked the green?
Before Jens could decide, a tiny, delicate noise began to wrap itself around the cotton-wool silence. The noise grew louder, but never became shrill or overbearing. It seemed indistinguishable from the mist and the darkness, coming from every direction at once – and nowhere.
It was a girl, singing.
Where the water flows round and round
The crooked tree that we found –
Where I found you and you found me,
And brothers, sisters, find not one of three –
We shall meet there and tread soft,
And let hat and coat and shoe be doffed,
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Lest bird and animal hear our call
And one by one, unpitied, fall.
It was a childish rhyme, of course, an almost tuneless play on words that Jens remembered his mother singing to him when he couldn’t sleep. She used to embellish and add words and fall over herself in a desperate attempt to follow the rhythm of the thing. Jens in turn had sung it to. . .
‘Shiga?’
He turned on the spot, desperate to hear the voice again, desperate to discover another reason to hope, to imagine, to believe. . .
‘Is that you, girl?’ he called out into the unreal silence – it was as if he stood alone in a void, with nothing around him but a bank of fog, and a memory – or an echo – of the girl’s voice.
‘Shiga?’ he called out, more loudly this time, but no reply came back to him.
Jens shook his head and, cursing the ale he’d had, he started to stumble back towards his house – though unsure of the direction now, he was sure he’d soon see something he recognised.
Without warning the ethereal singing began again.
Where the water flows round and round
The crooked tree that we found –
Where I found you and you found me,
And brothers, sisters, find not one of three. . .
A tiny, drained, grey figure stepped from the shadows and into the sputtering light of the torch. Hair that was once burned like ripe cornfields fell about the child’s shoulders like silver chains; eyes and cheeks that had been bright with life were as pale as the enveloping mist.
But the features, the voice that chimed like tiny bells – they were unmistakeable.
‘Shiga!’ Without thinking, Jens took a step forward – and the girl sank back into the fog, as if keeping her distance. She resolutely finished her song, her voice cracking with emotion.
We shall meet there and tread soft,
And let hat and coat and shoe be doffed,
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Lest bird and animal hear our call
And one by one, unpitied, fall
. . .
A single tear tracked a serpentine line down her cheek.
‘Father,’ she said formally, half-bowing in the breath between words,
‘why did you let me fall?’
‘My love, I would never. . . ’
She interrupted him, a sound like gathered wind. ‘You let me fall!
You let me down, day by day, and you were too fond of drink to see it!’
‘No, my love. . . I only started drinking when you. . . When you left.’
‘You were drinking long before that!’ The girl’s eyes were pearls no longer, but dark, compressed stone. ‘I lost you years ago – and only recently have you lost me. . . ’
Jens paused, deep in thought. Had it really been like that? Was she right – had the long nights in the inn, staring into a muddled succession of tankards and glasses, started before she had been snatched away in the fog?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, the words tumbling without thought or pretence.
‘I’m so sorry. . . ’ And his own tears fell now, burning against his skin.
The girl seemed unsure of herself, as if, of all possible reactions, this was the one she had least expected. ‘Father,’ she said, in a voice as quiet as an infant’s sigh. ‘Dad. . . ’
‘Yes, my love?’ Jens looked up, though he could hardly bear to look at her – she seemed so pale, so fragile, he feared she would fade away before his eyes.
‘Know this!’ she suddenly exclaimed, her lips pulled back, her face tight to her skull like a death mask. ‘The children shall return – and we will all be destroyed!’
And she swept over and through him like a dark angel, and Jens stumbled, then ran, into the grey heart of the fog. His screams and cries were soon swallowed up, and silence gripped the village once more.
∗ ∗ ∗
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Emerging from a void of sleep and shadow, Jude became aware of something hard and unyielding under her back, and something damp on one side of her face.
She struggled into a seated position, holding herself tight, trying to stop her teeth chattering. She was in some sort of building – the ground beneath her was as smooth and as flat as wood, but felt like iron or steel – and it was almost completely dark. And the moisture she felt on her skin was a small patch of blood, just beginning to thicken and clot.
