by Doctor Who
100
‘No,’ Gonfer and Janna both said.
‘No,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Not sure I do either. But if we see Martha in the mirror, actually inside it – then she’ll never get out. It’ll fix the refraction. Just observing her changes the world she’s in, and imprisons her inside. That’s what happened to Manfred Grieg,’ he realised. ‘Even if you did get out, you’d be . . . ’ He wiggled his lower jaw as he considered. ‘Actually, I don’t know what you’d be. But it wouldn’t be good, that’s for sure. One way or another you’d be trapped.’
‘I still don’t understand how she got in there,’ Gonfer said.
‘If she is in there.’
‘I don’t know where else she’d be. Someone set the mirror, primed it to allow one person through then it shut down again.’ His eyes widened. ‘And they put the diary in there.
Someone came and took it and put it in the mirror world knowing we’d see it. I’d see it. Oh Martha,’ he realised, ‘it was a trap. A trap for me. I am so, so sorry.’
‘But we’ll get her back,’ Janna said.
‘We will. And then I’ve got a few questions for General Orlo.’
‘Orlo?’ Gonfer said.
‘Starting with,’ the Doctor said, ‘did he know when he offered it that this is the actual real Mortal Mirror and not a copy?
Or is he being duped like the rest of us?’ He adjusted the sonic screwdriver and turned to face Gonfer and Janna. ‘Right, you two get out of here. Shut the doors and don’t let anyone in.
No one must see what happens in the mirror or we’ll both be trapped inside, right?’
‘Right,’ Gonfer said. ‘But what about you – won’t you see Martha before you step through?’
‘I’ll close my eyes,’ the Doctor decided. ‘That’s desperately dangerous for a man with only one shoelace, but sacrifices have to be made. I’m hoping only sentient recognition will trap us inside. I mean, some dust mite or spider or even a mouse or something is bound to see us in the mirror. But so long as they don’t know what they’re looking at we should be OK.’
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‘What if you’re not?’ Gonfer asked.
‘Well, if we’re not out and calling for you in half an hour then you might want to think about getting some tea. Then do as Janna said, and get Bill and Bott to smash the mirror.’
‘But you said that would trap you inside,’ Janna told him.
The Doctor nodded. ‘And not just us, I suspect. If we’re not back, it might be best if nothing came out of the mirror ever again.’
Beyond the patch of corridor visible through the doors, there was nothing. Or so it seemed. As Martha peered into the darkness, though, she realised there was something – vague shapes in the gloom.
She felt her way carefully along, glancing back to the doors and what light there was, afraid that at any moment she might be swallowed up by the shadows and cease to exist. With every tentative step she took she could hear the sound of her own breathing echoing rhythmically in her ears.
She was in a corridor – just like the corridor outside the real Great Hall in the real castle Extremis. Only shrouded in darkness. She felt her way along, hand on cold stone wall, feet scuffing on the flagstone floor. Her breathing seemed to be getting louder.
Her hand felt the change from stone to wood, the give as the door she was pressing on swung slowly open. Martha stepped carefully, tentatively into the dark room. The air seemed to breathe round her – sighing and blowing like a breeze.
Shapes loomed either side like pews in the nave of a darkened church. She gingerly reached for the nearest of the shapes. It was angular and hard to the touch. Wood. The end of a bed.
Martha froze. Realisation crept over her, cold and unpleasant – it wasn’t only her own breathing she could hear. She could hear breathing coming from the bed. From all the beds.
She was in some sort of dormitory.
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Her eyes were adjusting now and she could make out the space between two of the beds – a low cabinet. Something hanging from a rail . . . An armoured tunic that glinted as it caught a sudden flare of light.
Not a dormitory. A barracks.
Scaly reptilian skin caught the flickering light.
A great yellow-eyed head rose from the nearest bed. Sharp teeth flashed as the great jutting jaw moved.
‘Is that you, Sastrak?’ a voice growled. ‘Is it time?’
Martha backed slowly away, retracing her steps. The light behind her blinked out. The Zerugian’s eyes continued to glow in the dark, turning, searching Martha out.
Then a hand came down on her shoulder, twisted her round.
Another clamped across her mouth before she could cry out.
The Doctor pulled her gently back into the corridor, and Martha let out a sigh of relief as soon as he removed his hand.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t think we want to wake them up. Must be pretty boring for them hiding out here. In the dark. Can’t even play cards, poor things.’
‘That light – sonic screwdriver?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s keeping the mirror open so we can get out again. It was a match.’
‘It burned for a long time.’
‘Everlasting match,’ he said, as if there could be no other sort. ‘There’s not a lot of light here. Which is sort of how it works, of course. The mirror takes light energy from the protons on the way through.’
There was faint, flickering light coming from down the corridor, from the open doors to the Great Hall. The Doctor’s dark, silhouetted shape licked his finger and held it up as if testing for a breeze.
‘And we’re actually inside the mirror?’
‘We’re actually inside the mirror. You want time to reflect on that?’
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‘As much as you need time to think up some new jokes.’ But she was grinning back at him in the dim light. ‘Weird how there’s no smell, isn’t it?’
He let her go into the Great Hall first. ‘Is this a new joke coming?’
‘Let’s just get out of here,’ Martha said.
Across the Great Hall, Martha could see there was now a mirror hanging in the alcove – exactly where there had not been one earlier. In it, or through it, she could see the Great Hall, the real Great Hall.
The Doctor took her hand. ‘Come on. Just remember, as we go through, keep your eyes closed. We mustn’t look at each other.’
‘Right. Why not?’
‘If either of us sees the other one in the mirror, they’ll be trapped here for ever. Or what comes back through the mirror won’t be the real thing. I’d rather not find out which theory is correct.’
‘Oh great.’
‘You go first,’ the Doctor hissed. ‘And whatever you do, don’t look back. Even this side, once we’re in the light from the mirror, once we’re close to the threshold, it might make a difference. Just walk forward, and whatever you do, whatever happens, don’t look back.’
Martha started slowly towards the mirror, straining to hear the Doctor’s footsteps behind her. ‘Why not hold hands?’
‘Not sure if it can cope with the mass of two people at once.’
He sounded further away. Wasn’t he following her? ‘Another theory I’d rather not put to the test.’
‘Right,’ she muttered. ‘You still there?’
‘Right behind you. I’ve just got something to do. Won’t be a minute.’
‘What?’ She almost turned round, but forced herself not to look.
‘Don’t look!’
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‘Doctor – what are you doing?’
No reply.
‘Doctor?!’
Still nothing. Or was that the sound of footsteps? Of claws scraping on stone? Heavy Zerugian breathing? The first sharp touch of a cold claw on the back of her neck?
‘Don’t turn round – don’t turn round,’ Martha said to herself, over and over. Out loud, but not too loud: ‘Doctor!’
Still nothing. Just a
strange, shuffling sound – a foot dragging on the floor. Like some misshapen ghoul lumbering after Martha. Anything – it could be anything behind her . . .
Martha reached the mirror. She looked out into the Great Hall beyond. Saw how the image rippled and distorted as she reached into and through it. Heard the tearing of the fabric of space as she stepped out into the Great Hall. The real Great Hall.
‘Can I turn round yet?’
Silence.
‘Doctor – can I turn round?’
Then a rippling tearing sound as something came through the mirror behind her.
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The something landed just behind Martha. ‘It’s only me,’ it said. ‘Nearly lost my shoe there. That’ll teach me to take the lace out. Still, I remembered to pick this up.’ The Doctor was holding the glass book, the diary Martha had gone into the mirror for in the first place.
Martha almost sobbed with relief. ‘Thank God for that.
Thank God it’s you. I thought . . . ’ She hugged him tight for a moment.
‘What’s that for?’
‘For being you.’
In the mirror, the Doctor and Martha watched the embrace.
Standing separate. Reflections that did not mirror the action in the room.
‘Ah,’ the Doctor said seriously, disentangling himself.
‘Should have thought of that.’
He reached up quickly for the sonic screwdriver, attached to the frame of the mirror by his shoelace. The reflected Doctor reached up too.
But not for the sonic screwdriver. A hand rippled out of 107
the surface of the mirror, grabbing the Doctor’s wrist. The reflected Doctor’s face was contorted in rage. His voice was a vicious snarl – the Doctor’s, and yet not the Doctor’s: ‘Let me out!’
‘No,’ the Doctor gasped. His fingers clutched desperately at the sonic. Scrabbled, caught it. Wrenched it away from the mirror.
Martha caught the Doctor as he stumbled back. He was still aiming the sonic at the mirror, the tip of the device glowing blue. The surface of the mirror shimmered and the protruding hand of the mirror-Doctor disappeared with a tearing scrape of sound.
The images in the mirror stared out at the Doctor and Martha. The mirror Doctor was still enraged. The reflection of Martha hurled herself at the mirror. The real Martha flinched as her reflected self crashed into the surface, like hitting a glass window. She staggered back.
‘They’re trying to get out,’ Martha said.
‘Mmm,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘I’ve closed the gateway between the worlds. Just need to sort out the osmosis damper.’
The Doctor in the mirror was hammering furiously, sound-lessly, on the other side of the looking glass.
‘Can they break the glass?’
‘Hope not,’ the Doctor said. But he didn’t sound very sure.
Martha in the mirror crouched down, trying to push through – her palms hard against the glass. Her mouth was moving – pleading silently with her real self.
‘Let me out . . . Let me out!’
She looked frightened more than anything.
‘Why are they trying to get out?’ Martha said. ‘They’re just reflections, aren’t they?’
‘They don’t know that,’ the Doctor said. ‘Dark reflections.
Distillations of aspects of our character – anger and fear, by the look of it. The mirror focuses what we felt when we were 108
inside, like a lens. It’s as true a reflection as a distorting mirror at a funfair. That said . . . ’ He sounded almost sad as he watched the figures in the glass. ‘. . . If you were trapped in there, wouldn’t you want to get out?’
Martha knew the answer without having to think about it.
A life inside the dim, odourless, restrictive world she had so recently experienced?
The Doctor aimed the sonic at the mirror. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
And, abruptly, the image in the mirror changed. The piti-ful sights of Martha trying to push through the mirror, of the Doctor hammering on the glass, were gone. The Doctor was aiming the sonic. Martha was standing, mouth open, a tear welling up in the corner of one eye.
‘It’s just a mirror,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’
Gonfer was visibly relieved when Martha followed the Doctor from the Great Hall. She thought for a second he was going to hug her, but he shuffled awkwardly and restrained himself. So she hugged him instead.
‘Thanks for your help.’
‘It was nothing. No problem, really,’ he said, embarrassed.
The Doctor was looking round the corridor, peering into alcoves and turned to stare at shadows. ‘Where’s Janna?’
‘I think she got bored,’ Gonfer said.
‘I told you both to stay here.’
‘That’s all right. I told her I could manage.’
‘No, no, no – that’s not the point. I wanted to talk to her. I hadn’t finished. There’s stuff I need to ask her. Like, tons and tons of stuff.’
‘What about?’ Martha asked.
‘She saw a man come out of the mirror. Well, that’s not good. Not a man, probably either.’
‘A Zerugian?’
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‘Maybe. But something that used the reflected light to make an image for itself. If she saw it in the mirror and it still came out . . . ’ The Doctor turned back to Gonfer. ‘Definitely need to talk to Janna. So, where did she go?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She has hidey holes and dens all over the place. Or the gardens.’
‘Try her den,’ the Doctor said to Martha. ‘Then the gardens.
But keep to the paths, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Martha agreed. She looked at Gonfer.
‘The paths are safe,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You’ll stay here, like I asked,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Keeping watch. I haven’t finished in there yet.’ He turned back towards the Great Hall. ‘There’s a lot I haven’t finished. Haven’t finished talking to Janna, haven’t finished sorting out that mirror. And before I can do that I have to finish reading the diary.’
‘And why is the diary important?’ Martha asked.
‘It’s Manfred Grieg’s account of how he was trapped in the mirror.’
‘So? We know that, don’t we?’
‘Do we? If he was trapped in the mirror, why didn’t we meet him? Why wasn’t he there with the red carpet and brass band keen to welcome us and make our stay long and enjoyable?’
‘Who says he wasn’t? Maybe we just didn’t see him.’
‘And how,’ the Doctor went on without pausing, ‘did his diary find its way out of the mirror and so conveniently behind a stone in the castle?’
‘Maybe it was never in the mirror,’ Gonfer said.
‘Yes,’ Martha agreed. ‘Maybe it’s just a story, or a fake.’
‘It’s not a fake,’ the Doctor said quietly.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you can only read it when it’s reflected in the mirror.’
‘Even so . . . ’
‘And because it’s made of glass.’
110
There was no sign of Janna in her hidden den, or anywhere nearby. Martha stood in the passage outside the secret door and listened. She knew the girl liked to hide and watch what was going on, and she seemed to have enjoyed following them.
But there was no sign of her now.
Martha thought she glimpsed one of the guides, face hidden beneath his monk’s hood, but when she looked again there was no one there.
She made her way back out into the castle courtyard. Beneath the starry sky, she found Bill and Bott replacing one of the stone steps on the stairs leading up to the battlements.
‘We only did this one a couple of hundred years ago or so,’
Bill complained.
‘Tell me about it,’ Bott said.
‘OK. It was about ten in the morning, and we’d just .
. . ’
‘I don’t mean tell me about it tell me about it,’ Bott said. ‘I mean, like, tell me about it.’
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Martha said before Bill could respond.
‘But have you seen Janna?’
‘Frequently,’ Bill said.
‘Often,’ Bott agreed.
‘I actually mean recently.’
‘You’re looking for her?’ Bill asked.
‘Obviously.’
‘We’ll help,’ Bott offered. ‘Got to be better than replacing steps that we only did a couple of hundred years ago anyway and shouldn’t need it for another couple of hundred.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Bill said.
‘No – don’t start that again. I’ll be fine,’ Martha told them.
‘The Doctor wants a word with her, that’s all. So, if you know where she is . . . ?’
‘Do we know where she is, Bill?’ Bott asked.
‘We might do, Bott,’ Bill said.
‘Good.’
‘And there again we might not,’ Bill went on.
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‘Oh, do me a favour,’ Martha sighed in frustration.
‘What sort of favour?’ Bott asked. ‘Normally we don’t do favours.’
‘Normally it’s work,’ Bill said. ‘Not favours. Favours implies choice.’
‘No one gives us a choice.’
‘I’ll give you a choice,’ Martha said. ‘All right? The choice is do me a favour and tell me where Janna is – if you know.’
‘Or?’ Bill asked.
‘Got to be an “or”,’ Bott said. ‘Not a choice without an “or” is it?’
‘Or don’t.’
Bill looked at Bott, and Bott looked at Bill. Each nodded at the other.
‘She’s in the garden,’ Bill said.
‘Looked like she was heading for the maze.’
‘Thank you.’ Martha hurried towards the main gates out into the castle grounds.
Then she had a thought, and turned back to the robots. ‘Is the maze mined?’
‘I didn’t mine it,’ Bill said. ‘You, Bott?’
‘Not me, Bill. Who mined the maze?’ Bott asked Martha.
‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe no one. I just want to know – is it safe?’
