by Doctor Who
‘What?’ Martha gasped.
The monk took a step forward. ‘Forgive me if I frightened you earlier,’ he said to Martha. ‘I am Manfred Grieg – the Man in the Mirror.’
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‘I’vereadyourdiary,’theDoctorsaid. ‘Quiteenjoyedit. But if you want a few pointers I can help you with your prose style and grammar.’
‘Maybe later,’ Martha told him. ‘So, who are you and what do you want?’ Martha asked Grieg. ‘Are you really made of glass? Glass people – I’ve seen it all now.’
‘The mirror isn’t just a portal, a doorway to another universe,’ the Doctor said. ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? Once you’re inside you’re made of light – or potentially made of light. And if anyone sees you, perceives you as a light wave or a series of protons or whatever, then that rewrites your DNA as a translucent matrix based on the silicon that runs the computer chips that make the whole thing work. Probably,’ he added. ‘Is that it?’ he asked Grieg.
The man made of old, chipped glass considered. ‘Perhaps,’
he said at last. ‘I confess, such explanations are a little beyond me. All I know is that the mirror is not a prison. It is a trap.
And that is how you must see it, Doctor – if you are to succeed.
If you are to stop General Orlo.’
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The girl who wasn’t Janna was shifting nervously on her feet, desperate to say something. Now she blurted it out: ‘Why does my sister run away from me?’
Martha crouched down so she was at eye level with the girl.
‘She doesn’t know who you are. She’s afraid of you. She thinks you’re a ghost.’
The girl laughed nervously. ‘That’s silly.’
‘Is it any more silly than a reflection running about the place?’ the Doctor asked gently. ‘She’ll get there. Give her time. Like Martha says, she’s frightened and nervous. And since Tylda died –’
‘But Tylda didn’t die!’ the girl said. ‘She’s still here, she’s me and I’m her.’
‘What do you mean?’ Martha asked. She glanced at the Doctor, but he shook his head.
‘I’m Tylda,’ the girl insisted. ‘It was Janna who died. It should have been me, but it was my sister. It’s my fault, all my fault and now even my own self can’t bear to look at me.’
Manfred Grieg put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Calmly, my little friend,’ he said. ‘Time for all that later. First, we must help the Doctor and Martha stop General Orlo.’
‘You’re sure he’s behind all this?’ Martha said. ‘I mean, Thorodin killing Chekz and everything.’
‘He’s the most likely suspect, Martha,’ the Doctor said. ‘For all his talk about diplomacy and being tired of war, it was Orlo who brought the mirror here. The real Mortal Mirror that his family saved and preserved. It’s no copy.’
‘Bill and Bott knew,’ Grieg said.
‘They said it was the same,’ Martha recalled.
‘They meant exactly the same,’ Grieg said. ‘They hung the original mirror, remember. So they knew this one was exact in every dimension, in every measurement, even its weight.
The same mirror.’ He held out his arms. ‘I am proof, if it were needed.’
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‘You said that Orlo doesn’t understand what the mirror is,’
the Doctor said. ‘I’m paraphrasing, but you said it’s a trap not a prison.’
‘You were imprisoned inside it though,’ Martha said. ‘In the story.’
‘Oh, the story is true. As far as it goes.’
‘I like stories,’ the girl said. ‘Tell us a story.’
‘We don’t have time for stories,’ Martha pointed out. ‘We need to get to the Great Hall in case Stellman can’t stop the ceremony.’
‘He won’t,’ Grieg said. ‘Orlo won’t let him stop it now. You see, Orlo thinks he has won. He thinks his soldiers will emerge from the mirror and he will take and hold Castle Extremis. The galaxy will witness his triumph and none will dare oppose him again.’
‘Well, maybe he’s right,’ Martha said.
‘But Orlo thinks the mirror is a prison. He thinks he has found a way to open the door to that prison, so he can hide soldiers inside and bring them out through the door when they are needed.’
‘Well, yes,’ Martha said.
The Doctor put his hand on her arm. ‘You’re saying he’s wrong?’
‘The door was always open,’ said Grieg. ‘The mirror is not a prison but a trap. Not a trap that holds you in one place and allows no freedom of movement.’
‘Then, what?’
‘A trap that holds you for the rest of your life. A trap that allows no escape no matter how you come and go through the portal. A trap that, once you understand it, will destroy Orlo’s dreams for ever.’ Grieg’s eyes gleamed as he leaned forwards.
‘Do you want to understand it, Doctor?’
The Doctor returned Grieg’s stare. Then he dropped to the floor, landing cross-legged, patting the stone slab beside him.
‘Sit down, Martha. It’s story time.’
∗ ∗ ∗
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It was called the Mortal Mirror in honour of the Mortal Monks of Moradinard, who originally built Castle Extremis. But the monks had nothing to do with the mirror. They were men of peace and valued their solitude. They built this place as a retreat from the rest of the galaxy. But they built it in the wrong place.
When the Anthium fleet ventured out beyond the Visonic Belt, they realised that the star debris and asteroids in this area formed a natural barrier. The only safe route through was past the Monastery.
Fleet Admiral Karloff devised a plan – the Extremis Strategy – to buy the monastery from the Mortal Monks and turn it into an armoured fortress that would defend Anthium from any aggressor that tried to come through. And, of course, Karloff knew too that the monastery would make an ideal forward base for any attack Anthium wished to press home.
Zerugma had just been discovered. We considered the reptilian race there to be warlike and aggressive. We feared they would make war on us – and they feared we would attack them.
And the Mortal Monks refused to sell up and move on. Some argued that the Monastery was a better defence than a fortress – peace and understanding ends wars more effectively that military might and force of arms. Sure enough, as soon as Anthium moved against the Monks, so too did Zerugma. Extremis – as it was renamed – became the first battlefield. And the Mortal Monks, so aptly named, became the first innocent casualties. But by no means the last.
By the time I was appointed Chief Minister, the war was old and we were all weary. I felt that peace had at last become an option, and pressed for Anthium to negotiate with Zerugma. But we had to do that from strength, and they held Extremis. My first task on the road to peace was to take it back, and that was what I did. An act of aggression that would, I hoped, pave the way to a lasting peace.
But the Lord High Advocate for Anthium and later the Governor of Castle Extremis was a man called Kendal Pennard. And he had very different thoughts. He welcomed the stalemate created when I took back Extremis for him. And it was in his interest to prolong the status quo.
When things change, then the people expect a change of leaders too. And 150
Pennard was so very ambitious, so hungry for power.
He couldn’t believe that my dreams were purely for peace, for an end to the war and the death. Especially as it was I who had devised the strategy to recapture Extremis after the Second Occupation. He thought it must be a ploy, political manoeuvring for my own gain. He thought I was after his job, and he would defend that more fiercely than he would ever defend this castle.
He thought long and hard about how he could puncture the bubble of public opinion that was growing in my favour as my part in the government and in the recapture of Castle Extremis became known. He considered reopening hostilities, but ultimately even Pennard realised that was madness. The people, now getting used to an uneasy peace, would ne
ver tolerate that.
Which gave him an idea. What if he could prove that I – Marifred Grieg – was the one who wanted war, who really hated the Zerugians and was desperate to take the fight back to them?
But it was not enough to denounce me. For all his failings, Pennard knew he needed me if he was to maintain the peace. From my negotiations and diplomacy, the Zerugians had recognised my very real desire for peace: As a result, I was the only man the Zerugians would even begin to trust. So Pennard’s challenge was to strip me of my status and popularity while keeping me as an adviser. He needed a way of forcing me to work for him, to keep the Zerugians in check, while giving up all my ambitions and aspirations – as he saw it – for power. Without my help, Zerugma might again wage war and strive to capture Castle Extremis.
A prison wouldn’t work. I told you the mirror was not just a prison.
I was no use to him in prison, so he devised a trap. He went to the Darksmiths of Karagula and told them what he needed. They can bend any material to their will – metal, wood, plastic, glass, and even light itself. They created the Mortal Mirror – named Mortal after the Mortal Monks, and also because that was the trap. Mortality.
You know, of course, of the great feast. You know how Pennard pretended he was about to honour me and instead forced me into the Mortal Mirror. Everyone saw me – inside, cut off, hammering on the glass and 151
screaming to be let out.
And when the feast was over and everyone was gone, I was still there, trapped in the glass. And Pennard came and spoke to me. He took a chair, and he sat in front of the mirror and he explained what he had done, and how the mirror worked. And the trap.
He told me how I could escape from the mirror. Any time I liked, I could come out and he would protect me if I worked for him. But always, I would live in fear of my own mortality. I would remember how brittle and fragile my life would be. I would live from second to second knowing that at any moment . . .
Grieg stopped. He stared off into space as he remembered his past.
Martha and the Doctor were sitting opposite him. The glass girl was beside them. No one had said a word as Grieg told his story.
‘But, I don’t understand,’ Martha said. ‘If you could escape from the mirror at any time, what was the point? Was he threatening to put you back in for good, or what?’
Grieg turned his head to look at her. He held up his hand so that the light was behind it, shining through and illuminating the cracks and chips and blemishes in the coloured glass. ‘This is the point.’
‘They’d all seen him in the mirror,’ the Doctor said. ‘Just as Janna saw her own reflection.’
‘I had the last laugh,’ Grieg said. ‘Though there was no mirth in it. Only death. I refused to come out of the mirror. He shouted and screamed, and finally begged me to come out.
But I retreated into the darkness beyond the reflection, a world that reflects our own but which grows progressively darker the further you move from the light admitted by the mirror. But despite the darkness, the loneliness, I vowed never to set foot again in the real world.’
‘And once you were gone,’ the Doctor said, ‘Zerugma went to war with Anthium.’
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He nodded. ‘They saw my fate – my death as it seemed –as an indication that Anthium had turned aside from the road to peace. Without me there to mediate, the war started again.
Zerugma took Extremis again, and Orlo’s great grandfather took the Mortal Mirror.’
‘But he didn’t destroy it,’ Martha said.
‘No. He kept it safe, until now.’
‘And why have you come out of the mirror now?’ Martha asked. ‘After all this time?’
‘Because once again there is – finally – a chance for peace.
If we stop General Orlo. If the treaty negotiations go ahead in good faith.’
‘You can have peace at last,’ Martha realised.
But Grieg shook his head. ‘Oh no. Not me. I shall never have peace. That was Pennard’s trap, the curse of the mirror. As the Doctor said – I have been seen in the mirror. And so, thanks to the light-fusing technology of the Darksmiths, I am made of glass. Brittle, delicate, fragile glass. Every moment I spend in this world, I risk cracking, chipping, breaking, shattering. Our lives are fragile at the best of times. But now I am more fragile than ever. Every step I take, I grind down my own foot. Every moment I am here I risk my life. That was the trap.’
He stood up, and Martha saw how carefully he planned every moment. How cautiously he moved.
‘Now you know.’ Grieg turned to the Doctor, who was also getting to his feet. ‘Now you know what to do, how to end this madness. Get to the ceremony and stop General Orlo.’ He held up his hand, clenching it into a fist so tight that Martha could hear the glass cracking like ice. Grieg’s features contorted in obvious pain as he held up his clenched fist. ‘Make this all worthwhile,’ he said.
Hurrying back to the Great Hall, Martha knew what they had to do: ‘We must stop the ceremony.’
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‘Oh no, no, no,’ the Doctor told her. ‘That’s just what we mustn’t do. Don’t you see? Orlo doesn’t understand. His plan’s based on a false premise. We have to let the ceremony go ahead. We have to finish this, flush them out, expose the truth.’
‘Doctor, Martha – thank goodness!’ Stellman came running up to them. ‘I couldn’t persuade Defron to postpone the ceremony. He’d already announced it at the press conference and won’t lose face by changing the schedule. It’s going ahead in a few minutes in the Great Hall.’
‘Brilliant!’ the Doctor said. ‘That’s terrific. The more people there to see what happens, the better.’
‘But I thought –’ Stellman started, hurrying to keep up.
‘That was minutes ago,’ Martha told him. ‘He’s changed his mind a dozen times since then.’
Bill and Bott were clearing away the remains of the shattered glass that had once been Thorodin as they neared the Great Hall.
‘Coming through!’ the Doctor yelled.
The two robots moved quickly aside. Bill had a vacuum attachment fixed to the end of one spindly arm. The Doctor leaped over it as he passed.
‘Might need you in the Great Hall soon,’ he called back over his shoulder.
Then he skidded to a halt. ‘Might well need you actually.’
Martha and Stellman waited while the Doctor ran back to Bill and Bott and talked urgently to them. ‘Is the sound system all set up?’
‘Set up and tested,’ Bott said proudly.
‘Latest technology,’ Bill added.
‘With a top-end range amplifier and tonal distortion matrix built in?’
‘As standard,’ Bill agreed.
‘State of the art,’ Bott said. ‘And finished in chrome and black.’
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The Doctor beamed. ‘That is fantastic. Definitely going to be needing you.’ He lowered his voice as he explained to them what he wanted. ‘Soon as you can,’ he finished. ‘They’ll be starting in a minute.’
‘Happy to help,’ Bott called after the Doctor, Martha and Stellman.
‘Just so long as there’s no mess,’ Bill said.
‘Maybe there aren’t really any Galactic Alliance agents,’ the Doctor said as they neared the Great Hall. ‘Maybe it’s a bluff, or Defron got the wrong end of the stick, or they haven’t arrived yet.’
‘Don’t knock it,’ Martha said. ‘So long as everyone thinks it’s us.’
Stellman looked from Martha to the Doctor and back again as Martha spoke. ‘So, just who are you?’
‘That’s a very good question,’ the Doctor said. ‘Let’s save it for later. When I can think of a very good answer.’
‘We’re here to help,’ Martha said.
‘That’s a comfort,’ Stellman told her. He didn’t sound convinced.
The doors to the Great Hall were standing open, and there was a GA soldier on either side of them. The soldiers snapped to attention as the Doctor, Ma
rtha and Stellman passed.
Inside, the Doctor led them to empty seats near the back of the crowded hall. It had been turned into an auditorium, with a raised area at the end, in front of the Mortal Mirror. Massive speakers were arranged along the sides of the hall, and Martha could make out the tiny microphones the dignitaries on the dais were wearing. Behind her, just inside the doors, was a large sound-mixing desk like she’d seen at the back of theatres and nightclubs. Bill and Bott had sneaked into the hall and were watching from behind the desk.
‘Aren’t we going to stop them, or say something?’ Martha asked.
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Defron was on his feet, pressing his hands down on the air to gesture for quiet. The assembled press – a mixture of humans and reptilian Zerugians, as well as various other ‘people’ that Martha wasn’t sure counted as either – became hushed.
‘I’m glad I ordered ice cream for the interval,’ the Doctor said. ‘Where’s Stellman gone?’
‘Over there.’ Martha pointed to where the man was walking up the aisle in the middle between the rows of chairs to take his seat on the dais. Lady Casaubon looked relieved to see him.
General Orlo’s expression was unreadable, but Martha was relieved to see he cast a reflection – the back of his head visible above the back of his chair in the huge mirror.
‘Right,’ Defron announced, ‘now that we are all here, I think we can begin. I do apologise for the slight delay, which was due to circumstances beyond my control.’ His eyes sought out the Doctor as he said this. The Doctor waved. Defron did not wave back.
Along the sides of the hall, GA soldiers stood impassive. The press waited expectantly. What looked like a video camera hovered silently in front of the dignitaries on the dais.
‘It is no exaggeration to say,’ Defron went on, ‘that today marks a turning point in the history of two great nations – Anthium and Zerugma. Today, here, now, history will be made.’
He gestured to a small table at the side of the room. A velvet cloth hung down almost to the stone floor, and on it was an open book.
