by Doctor Who
‘Always has been,’ Bill said. ‘No mines in the maze, if you didn’t put them there.’
‘But keep to the path on the way,’ Bott told her. ‘It should be OK, but the mines were cleared by GA Sappers.’
‘What are they?’
‘They’re robots,’ Bill said, a hint of disdain in his electronic voice.
The same disdain was in Bott’s tone as well. ‘Never trust robots,’ he said.
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The woman Martha followed the little girl into the garden. She wasn’t sure where she had
gone.
From the main gate, Martha could look down over the grounds and gardens spread out before her. They sloped gently away to the abrupt horizon where the small world ended. Formal lawns, rose garden, and the hedges that she knew from seeing it from above formed the maze.
She shielded her eyes from the harsh light as she sought out the girl, Janna.
There was no point in running off into the gardens – even if there were no lurking landmines to avoid. She’d do better to watch for any sign of Janna. Shielding her eyes from the light of the bright floodlights high above, Martha looked out across the beautiful landscape, searching for any sign of movement.
She didn’t have to wait long. There – among the trees that lined the far side of the lawn. Something moved. Was it Janna?
It was worth a look. Provided she kept to the path she would be all right.
Martha kept telling herself that she would be all right. She didn’t know if the mines were buried or if you’d be able to see the tips of the detonators poking through the ground. But she kept a careful eye on where she was putting her next step every inch of the way.
Somewhere ahead of her, someone laughed. A high-pitched tinkle of sound, evaporating into the air as Martha looked round for its source.
As she did so, she caught sight of the girl – a flash of fair hair catching the light. At the edge of the maze – just for a moment.
Then gone, vanished behind one of the tall hedges. How had she got over there so fast? And without Martha seeing her.
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She saw her by the trees, and then entering the maze. Or rather she thought she did.
The laughter came again. And again, it seemed to emanate from the trees ahead of her. A trick of the acoustics, she decided. Maybe the planet – or asteroid or whatever the lump of rock floating in space was called – maybe it was so small that Janna’s laughter had travelled right round it and so seemed to be coming from the opposite direction.
‘Walk away from it to get there,’ Martha murmured, reminded again of Alice and her adventures in the looking glass.
She set off carefully towards the maze.
There was a wide, gravel pathway that led from the trees and the rose garden beyond across to the maze. Martha kept to the path, right to the middle of the path, scouring the ground in front of her, and feeling more nervous with every step. She’d be happy once she was in the maze. The maze would be fine.
Gonfer had said it would be fine. And Janna was in there.
What could possibly happen to her in a garden maze?
The Doctor turned the thin, brittle pages slowly and carefully as he read. And with every page he became increasingly worried.
‘This diary is old,’ he told his reflected self – who fortunately agreed in every corresponding movement. ‘It was walled up for a hundred years or more. It feels old. Yet . . . ’ He turned another page. ‘Yet this is an entry for today. How can that be?
Could he foretell what was the future when he wrote it?’
The words on the page were clear in the mirror as the Doctor read. As the Doctor felt the beats of his hearts quicken.
The woman Martha followed the little girl into the garden. She wasn’t sure where she had
gone. She shielded her eyes from the harsh light as she sought out the girl, Janna. She saw her 114
by the trees, and then entering the maze. Or rather, she thought she did.
The maze: it was just as originally planned in the drawings that Krunberg had made all those years ago. Planted by the Henderson brothers, it had grown so high that Martha could not see over the hedges. Which was always the
intention, of course.
Inside the maze, Martha stopped, uncertain which way to go. She turned, and was startled to see
The Doctor held his breath as he turned the glass page, and held it up to see its reflection in the mirror.
As soon as she entered the maze, the hedges seemed to close in around Martha. The quality of the light was somehow different. Dappled green shadows played across the ground ahead of her. She now had no idea which way to go.
There was some theory about always turning left, wasn’t there? Or was it that you kept your left hand always in contact with the hedge?
Martha reached out, and found the hedge was surprisingly soft. So – start by going left.
As she turned, a figure stepped into the maze beside her.
The cloaked and hooded figure of a monk. He turned slowly towards Martha, the space under his hood a dark emptiness.
His cloak dappled green like the ground.
‘Who are you?’ Martha said, her voice quieter and more nervous than she’d intended. She took a step back as the monk approached.
When the monk spoke, his voice was also quiet. It was ragged and sharp and rasping, as if he was talking through 115
broken glass.
But it wasn’t the monk’s voice that made
Martha’s blood run cold and her throat go dry. It was what he said to her:
‘Greetings, Time Traveller.’
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Martha backed away from the cloaked figure. Something gleamed in the darkness under the hood as the figure stepped towards Martha.
She turned and ran.
‘Left, always go left,’ she told herself as she ran.
She had no idea who the monk was, or what he wanted. But he’d been stalking her and the Doctor, and he’d bashed Gonfer on the head. She wasn’t sure quite what she had seen glinting under the hood, but she wasn’t about to wait around and find out.
She had to find Janna – maybe the girl would know what was going on.
But where was she?
Martha pulled up, gasping for breath. She’d not heard the monk following her, not seen him behind her. She struggled to control her breathing, and listened.
The tinkling sound of laughter came from the other side of a hedge. The foliage was dense and leafy, but Martha forced her hands into it and pulled aside small branches to try to see 117
through. She could make out the shape of Janna on the other side. Her fair hair was shining gold in the light from the huge lamps in the sky above.
‘Janna!’ Martha called through the hedge. ‘Janna, I need to talk to you. Stay there.’
But the girl was already running off, and Martha was unable to hold the hedge apart for any longer. The branches were straining to regain their shape. The leaves closed over the view of the little girl skipping off along the green corridor.
The hedge was too high to climb, and too thick to push through. So Martha had to follow the maze. She caught a glimpse of Janna peeping back at her from round a corner. But by the time she got there the girl had gone.
Almost immediately, Martha heard a laugh from behind her.
She spun round – and there was Janna again. This time at the other end of the hedge. Again, a glimpse, then she was gone, leaving only the faint echo of her laugh. How had she done that? How could she get from one end of the hedge to the other so fast? Martha ran to look, but there was no path on the other side between the two points.
Unless she could somehow get through the maze. Remembering the hidden door in the wall of the castle, Martha pushed at the hedge. But it was just a hedge, and all she gained from the effort was a series of scratches across her hands.
Never mind. She’d ask Janna what she’d done – and how she’d done it – when she caught up. It seemed to be a
game to the girl. A cross between Hide and Seek and Follow the Leader.
‘Dip red white blue,’ Martha murmured. Then she set off deeper into the maze.
The further into the maze Martha went, the more lost she became. Her only hope was to find the little girl, who might be able to show her the way out again. But she was aware too 118
of the strange hooded figure who had tried to speak to her.
And it seemed to Martha that it was not only the little girl she was following. It seemed to Martha that perhaps – just perhaps – the girl’s dead sister was there in the maze with them. A ghostly figure behind the hedges, laughing and plying. Close to where she had died . . .
The Doctor shut the diary. That was the last entry. And if what was written somehow reflected what was actually happening out in the gardens, then that was a worry.
Walking briskly, the Doctor pushed the diary into his pocket. It was a worry on so many levels, he thought. How could an old diary – and it was certainly old, he could feel it was old – how could it describe events that were happening right now? How could it mirror – and he chose the word deliberately – reality?
Without making a conscious decision, the Doctor broke into a run. He needed to find Martha. He needed to get to the maze.
Another thing that was odd about the book, he thought as he pelted through the castle corridors, his rapid footsteps echoing off the stone walls, was that the style changed. There was a distinct difference between what was written by Grieg when he was trapped in the mirror, and what was written about the current events inside the castle. They became less personal, related in the third person, as if by an observer rather than the central character. Had they been written by someone else? Or did Grieg think his role in the unfolding of his own story had changed?
Nearly there now – nearly at the door out into the castle courtyard.
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The Doctor rounded a corner, and almost slammed into Defron coming the other way.
‘Excuse me!’ the Doctor announced loudly as he executed an impressive sidestep. ‘Coming through!’
‘Doctor – wait,’ Defron said, grabbing his sleeve.
The Doctor pulled up. ‘Is it urgent?’
‘Well, yes.’
Then I can give you ten seconds. No more. Martha’s in trouble.’
Defron nodded as he took this in. ‘Ten seconds, er – right.
The Galactic Associated Press Corps ship is about to arrive.
General Orlo and Lady Casaubon have agreed to hold a press conference in the Great Hall. Announce good progress on the treaty, show how willing both sides are to make this work.’
‘Feel the hand of history on their shoulders?’ the Doctor suggested. ‘Good stuff. And what about the small matter of a murderous assassin being on the loose?’
‘The official line is that Chekz died suddenly and tragically of natural causes. Colonel Blench will keep everything locked down and secure.’
‘Fine. Great.’ The Doctor was bouncing on the balls of his feet. ‘That it?’
‘I’d like you to be there,’ Defron said. ‘In case of any, you know, awkward questions.’
‘Incognito.’
‘Absolutely. Visiting expert or something.’
The Doctor frowned. ‘Ye-es . . . ’ There was something stir-ring at the back of his mind, but there was no time right now to tease it out and see what it was. ‘Keep us good seats,’ he called over his shoulder as he ran on. ‘Near the ice cream queue.’
Although Martha struggled to understand how it was possible, she realised that the explanation was simple.
She also realised that despite her intention of keeping to the left, the glimpses of Janna and the tantalising echoes of her 120
laugh had led Martha to stray from that intention. There was no way she could confidently retrace her path to the entrance of the maze, so she might as well keep going after Janna and hope to catch her up.
After all, if this was just a game, maybe Janna would tire of it and come and find Martha.
The path she was on led to a dead end. Martha could see the blank green wall of the hedge in front of her. Just as she was about to turn and try another way, she saw that there was an opening just ahead of her. Hedges behind hedges – it meant that you had to be close to the openings before you even saw they were there.
She stepped through and found herself in a large square.
The centre of the maze. The middle was paved with a che-quer board of stone slabs, alternately polished white and deep red. The focal point was a weathered statue on a large square plinth. The carved shape of a massive Zerugian warrior looked down disdainfully. The reptilian creature was clothed in battle armour and brandishing a fearsome-looking gun. Its teeth were chipped and worn, and the base of the statue was crumbling with age.
As she approached, Martha saw a shadow emerging from behind the statue. Not the shadow of the statue itself, it was the wrong shape, it was in the wrong place. And it was moving –slowly disappearing out of sight as someone hid behind the massive stone base.
‘Got you!’ Martha declared, and sprinted round the statue.
She expected to find Janna hiding there, laughing, hand pressed to her face in a mixture of amusement and embarrassment at being caught.
Instead, the cloaked figure of the monk stepped forward, blocking Martha’s line of escape to the gap in the hedge.
‘Oh,’ Martha said. ‘It’s you again. What do you want?’ she demanded, defiant.
In reply, the monk unfolded his arms from the sleeves of 121
the cloak. He held something up – something that glinted and shone as it caught the light.
Martha gasped in astonishment. But the sound was lost in the blast of the explosion.
The Doctor sprinted down the causeway leading from the castle’s main gates into the grounds.
‘Maze, maze, maze,’ he said to himself, shielding his eyes and scanning the landscape until he saw it.
If he stuck to the path, he would have to head off towards the rose garden, then double back. Much further than the direct route across the lawn and past the edge of the lake.
He didn’t hesitate. Sonic screwdriver in hand, he set off at a jog. The tip of the screwdriver glowed blue as he angled it at the ground ahead of him. It bleeped rhythmically.
Suddenly, the rhythm changed. It became more insistent, higher in pitch, as it detected a hidden mine. The Doctor changed course slightly, and the rhythm returned to the steady pace it had originally had.
Halfway there. Another change of rhythm, and another change of course.
Over halfway.
Then an insistent, sudden, rapid beeping. Changing course seemed to make no difference, and the Doctor stopped abruptly. He swept the screwdriver in an arc in front of him.
There was no way through.
With a sigh, the Doctor adjusted a setting, and aimed the sonic screwdriver.
The air was split with the deafening roar of the explosion as the mine detonated.
The ground shook with the force of the blast from somewhere outside the maze. Martha staggered, and almost fell.
The monk clutched at the base of the statue for support, almost dropping the glass book he was holding. The diary.
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‘How did you get that?’ Martha demanded as the sound of the explosion died away. ‘What have you done to the Doctor?’
‘You ask me how I got it?’ the monk countered in his rasping voice.
There was another explosion.
The monk was knocked backwards as the ground shook. He clutched the book tight, and struggled to keep his balance. But the movement shook his hood back from his face.
His gleaming, broken face.
Martha stared in horrified disbelief at the old man. His thinning white hair was like ice, moulded to his head. His face was lined and worn – every facet of it catching and reflecting the light from above. A thin crack ran from his forehead down to his chin, and there was a chip out of his nose,
another gouged from his chin. A hole scooped from his cheek.
Just a glimpse. A nightmare moment before the monk pulled his hood forward again.
‘Have you read the diary?’ the monk asked. He stepped towards Martha. ‘Have you been into the mirror?’
‘Who are you?’ Martha said. Her throat was dry and it was an effort to swallow. ‘What do you want? Keep away from me!’
The monk hesitated. The head turned in a quizzical manner.
He seemed to be about to speak again.
Then Janna ran from the entranceway, from behind the monk, and hurled herself at him. The girl’s shoulder cannoned into the back of the cloaked figure, sending him sprawling. His foot caught and twisted, and he fell.
Martha grabbed Janna. The monk had fallen between them and the way out, so she dragged the girl behind the statue, gesturing at her urgently to keep quiet. The monk’s hood had fallen forward over his face, so he had not seen Martha and Janna hide.
Peeping out cautiously from behind the plinth, Martha saw the monk haul himself to his feet. He had one hand pressed to 123
his face as he staggered away, out of the central area and back into the maze.
‘Why did you run away from me?’ Martha hissed to Janna.
The girl’s eyes were wide in surprise. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Why didn’t you stop, or come when I called to you?’
Janna shook her head in surprise. ‘I followed you,’ she said.
‘I saw you go into the maze. That monk man too. I thought you might need help, so I followed.’
‘But you came in here first,’ Martha insisted.
Janna looked back at her, impassive. ‘You are so strange,’ she said. Then she skipped out from behind the statue and across to the paving where the monk had fallen. ‘What’s this?’
Martha could see it too – something on the ground, where he had fallen. Something that caught the light and shimmered and gleamed and shone.
Janna picked it up. She held it out to Martha.
‘It’s glass.’
