by Gary Russell
The Doctor did not have to ask if it was the real TARDIS or one of the Toymaker’s twisted creations. He knew it was real -
he hadn’t travelled throughout time and space in the same craft for most of his adult life without knowing instinctively when his TARDIS was nearby.
‘Of course,’ the Toymaker laughed, ‘getting to it is probably harder than it initially seems. I’d hate you to think I’d lost my touch.’
‘Just let us go!’ Nyssa cried, subconsciously trying the Tegan approach.
‘Don’t bother trying to appeal to his better nature, Nyssa.
He doesn’t have one.’
‘Oh Doctor,’ cried the Toymaker, ‘you wound me with your churlish, dismissive statements. Surely you should be encouraging your young friend here to see the universe with open eyes, not a closed mind. How can she judge me fairly when one such as yourself - one so beyond reproach, so beyond anything other than wholesome goodness and charity -
casts such aspersions upon me?’
‘Nyssa doesn’t need to know you to see that your amorality is an anathema to everything she... we... believe in.’
‘Is that so?’ The Toymaker turned and smiled directly at Nyssa. ‘Is that so, Nyssa of Traken? Is the Doctor now your all-new, all-shiny-bright father-figure? Are your hopes and dreams that fickle?’
Nyssa opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. Instead she looked at the Doctor. Of course she trusted him. He was her friend. He was a wonder. He was life itself - she had seen that first-hand - life born from death. The ultimate in good.
The one nothing and no one could truly conquer. They had a name for such as he on Traken: Serkur - one who is truly free of the sins.
So why did she hesitate? Why was she suddenly more intent on listening to this Toymaker? Clearly he was a foe of the Doctor’s - a foe to be defeated. Banished from this universe.
But there had been another foe of the Doctor’s which she had feared. Which she had loathed. And yet could she bear to see the Master banished from this place? Lose him, and with him all hope of rescuing her father, for ever?
‘Doctor…’
‘You see!’ the Toymaker bellowed, triumphantly. ‘You see, Doctor. She wants to know the truth. Not your truth, Doctor.
Nor even mine, for both are by definition subjective. No, she needs the universal truth. Why are we here Doctor?’
The Doctor smiled at the Toymaker. ‘Oh, do you mean practically or philosophically?’
Nyssa saw the Toymaker smile back. And realised in that smile a sign of victory - somehow he had determined that he had the upper hand in whatever battle of wits was occurring before her.
‘Oh, Doctor... let us talk about practicality. Let us discuss purposeful meetings. Let us question your motives.’
Suddenly the Toymaker threw back his head and shouted something indecipherable. The world went dark - the sky blackened, the ground seemed to coat itself in shadow and even the colours in his mandarin costume seemed to dull to a matt finish.
‘Why are you here, Doctor?’
The Doctor was looking defiant, but somehow Nyssa sensed it was just that - a look. Behind his eyes there was something else... something weaker? Something scared?
‘I am here because…’
‘Because I asked you here, Doctor,’ thundered the Toymaker, suddenly aggressive. ‘Because I demanded it! And because you, with your oh-so-imperfect past, your oh-so-cloying self-doubt and guilt had to come here and set right your conscience.’ He pointed at the Doctor’s chest. ‘You made me, Doctor! You caused all this. You caused me!’
‘Doctor?’
‘Be quiet, Nyssa,’ the Doctor hissed, but the Toymaker laughed.
‘No, Doctor, let her ask. Let her question you. Let her see you for what you really are!’ He clicked his fingers and, as if from nowhere, the bulky toy robot started walking towards them, hydraulic limbs hissing with each step.
Nyssa saw its chest monitor sparkle into life, swirling mists giving way to a dim, flickering monochrome image. As she watched, the screen seemed to enlarge, swallowing the robot, swallowing the Toymaker’s darkened realm. Swallowing the Toymaker, the Doctor and ultimately Nyssa herself.
It was as if she had become part of the monitor - as if the images coalescing upon it were actually around her - as if she were a weightless, invisible field of energy, whose sole purpose was to observe.
‘Watch and learn, Nyssa of Traken. And prepare to challenge your preconceptions…’
All around her, Nyssa could see a room. A room with a
wooden floor covered in hundreds of rag dolls, wooden toy soldiers and metal robots, all motionless.
And lying amid them was a puppet, wooden, with rosy painted-on cheeks, strung lifelessly from the ceiling. It wore a burgundy robe.
‘Millennia,’ breathed the Doctor. ‘Then this is about...’
They were back in the realm. The Toymaker was back to his colourful self again.
‘The past. And the lack of future.’
That voice! It was...
‘Particularly my future.’
At first the Doctor thought Rallon had walked out from behind the Toymaker, as Nyssa had done, but he quickly realised that he had emerged from deep within him.
Immediately, the Toymaker looked weaker.
‘Rallon? What is going on here?’
Rallon looked displeased to see the Doctor. He was frowning at him.
Or concentrating on something perhaps?
‘Hello, old friend.’ The way Rallon said ‘friend’ implied he felt directly the opposite. ‘I’m glad you remember me. I assumed that, as you never sought to rescue me or Millennia, we had been forgotten. Or ignored. Just an embarrassing expedition from your past that you’d rather sweep under the carpet? No doubt Cardinal Borusa rewrote the history books to erase us from the records, the APC Net containing no acknowledgement of our exist-’
‘If you’ve brought me here to spout rubbish, Rallon, don’t bother.’ The Doctor was tart, to say the least. ‘I’d really rather not have to listen. You told me earlier you wanted my help.
Why?’
‘Because,’ Rallon continued, ‘it was you that got me... us...
into this mess.’
‘I was a discorporeal entity, Doctor,’ the Toymaker said quietly. ‘Oh, I could assume forms for brief periods as it suited me, but not for ever. My natural form is -’
‘A collective consciousness, possessing neither form nor substance,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’ve studied things, you see.
You, like the other Great Old Ones, exist between the dimensions, creating universes, planes... whatever... to suit yourselves. I know all that. I have encountered a few of you, you know.’
‘And you know of the Guardians of the Universe?’
‘The upper echelons of the Great Old Ones. In effect a pantheon within a pantheon. The Guardian of Chaos, the Guardian of Light, both using the Key to Time to balance all things.’
The Toymaker nodded, although he seemed to find the movement a strain. ‘You collected the key, I understand. Six segments, Doctor. Not an arbitrary number.’
‘Indeed. According to the legends, there are six guardians.’
‘Six gods,’ added Rallon.
‘I have yet to be convinced of the other four.’ The Doctor smiled suddenly. ‘So, if the history lesson is over, I’d like to collect my companions, leave Dymok or wherever we are, and go back to my TARDIS.’
‘All sentient races perceive something greater than themselves, Doctor,’ said Rallon. ‘It’s a factor that keeps them progressing, reaching out. Take your favourite planet, Doctor. Earth. Sol 3. Whatever you want to call it. Each civilisation throughout its history had its own pantheon.
Greeks, Romans, Norse, Christian, Hindu... Who knows whether they existed? Probably somewhere along the line, they did. Or do. A binding force that brings people together, gives them a reason to exist, to strive. They form their morality, their culture around these gods. Dymok is the same.’
>
‘I found the people on Dymok hundreds of years ago, Doctor,’ said the Toymaker. ‘Aimless, they needed a god. And, as a telepathic race with no material needs, they saw me as their god. I never claimed to be one - I am a guardian, Doctor. All races dream, aspire and hope. As there must be a Guardian of Light and a Guardian of Chaos, so there must be a Guardian of Dreams. That is why I am in this universe, Doctor. Throughout the multiverse, everyone has dreams. I shape them. That is my part.’
Nyssa spoke up. ‘And the games you play? The torments you inflict?’
‘The Guardian of Chaos creates wars to justify his existence. The Guardian of Justice creates conflict to justify his. I create my mental games to justify mine, my dear.
Without me, without what I do, dreams would become stale, the need to learn, to advance, would desert so many species overnight. They would stagnate, wither and die. Without the peoples of the universe, I cannot survive. Without me, they cannot survive.’
The Doctor laughed hollowly. ‘So you’re saying that sentient life is just a parasitic symbiosis, that both feed off each other, is that right?’ The Toymaker nodded. ‘All right.
Light, Chaos, Justice and Dreams - that’s four guardians. Who are the other two?’
The Toymaker smiled. ‘One day, Doctor, you shall meet them.’
‘But for now, you are here to solve a problem,’ said Rallon.
‘If you accept that the Toymaker has a role to play in the balance of the universe, you must acknowledge that it is imperative he be able to continue his role.’
‘Go on.’ said the Doctor, noncommittally.
‘The Toymaker, the Guardian of Dreams, is unwell, Doctor.
You brought me here, you deliberately or otherwise enabled him to use me as a template for a physical form. However, guardians, and indeed the Great Old Ones, don’t need permanent physical form.’
‘I have been unable to rid myself of Rallon,’ the Toymaker said. ‘I had no idea of this, of course. Over the aeons we had effectively become one, I was unaware that he even existed. But it has taken its toll upon me. The tides of time are catching up with me - having even the essence of Rallon within me is causing me traumas. We cannot separate - I am locked in a physical state that, unknown to me, began to degenerate over the years.’
‘Like a virus,’ the Doctor said. ‘Your existential self has tried to expunge the disease, but can’t.’ He folded his arms. ‘I see your problem.’
The Toymaker nodded. ‘As a result, not only am I in danger of... well, dying - which I need not remind you would be catastrophic for the balance of the universe - but our minds are fragmenting.’
‘A schizoid god.’ The Doctor thought about this. ‘I don’t see where I come in?’
Rallon reached out to him, but the Doctor stepped away.
‘You, Doctor, must find a way to separate us. You brought us together - it is your place in the universal balance to separate us.’
‘And if I can’t?’
‘Can’t, or won’t,’ the Toymaker smiled, ‘then the very least I can do is take you down with me. Observe.’
From nowhere, his robot appeared, its chest monitor showing a picture of Tegan and the Observer surrounded by the chanting Dymova. Finally it showed Adric, in a cell on Little Boy II.
‘Oh, and one last thing.’ The Toymaker clicked his fingers and they were inside the TARDIS. But the walls shuddered and began warping outwards, stretching and distorting, the interior dimensions fluctuating.
‘Everything has a breaking point, Doctor. Even your TARDIS.’
And they were back in the realm. But the TARDIS was now beside Rallon, its exterior shell also fluctuating, as if it were being sucked into a vortex at the centre of the craft, every so often resuming its normal shape before being warped again.
‘You, your TARDIS and your friends. As I said - all have a breaking point but, as you know, I have certain powers.
Imagine, Doctor, if I stretched each of you to whatever point it takes to completely destroy you, but kept you on the very edge of oblivion, then brought you back to start again.’
The Toymaker’s face twisted into a snarl. ‘And I will do that, Doctor. Believe me. Unless you release me from this physical prison of a body, get Rallon out of my system, you will know suffering beyond that which even you could imagine.
And remember, as the Guardian of Dreams I know exactly how powerful imagination can be.’
Rallon nodded. ‘It might be an idea to think on what we have said, Doctor. You have thirty minutes!’
‘And if I can find a way of separating you?’
‘Then you have our eternal gratitude.’ The Toymaker put his head on one side. ‘Of course, others may ask you why, if you can help your old friends, you can’t help theirs.’
The Doctor frowned, then took in what the Toymaker had said. He looked at his companion.
‘Nyssa, it’s not...’
But she was staring at him, in horror. ‘You told me... you told me it would be impossible to help my father. That he was lost for ever with the Master.’
‘That’s different...’
‘Oh, but of course it is,’ taunted the Toymaker. ‘After all, Rallon has only been trapped within me for centuries, while poor Nyssa’s papa has been caught in his little prison for oh, it must be what... weeks now? Maybe a couple of months? That’s a world of difference.’
He turned to look at Nyssa, but she couldn’t take her gaze off the Doctor. ‘Think on that, Nyssa, and reconsider questions of amorality, good natures and, above all, loyalties and see if you can work out where the Doctor truly stands on such universal concepts.’
And the Doctor found himself back on Dymok, in the great chamber with all the others from Little Boy II.
‘Where have you been?’ Oakwood asked.
‘I might ask you the same thing,’ the Doctor replied slowly, looking around. ‘I take it you all remember each other now?’
He could see from their blank faces that they had no idea what he was talking about.
Around them, the Dymova were comatose again.
‘How long have we been awake?’ the Doctor asked.
A couple of minutes,’ Desorgher said. ‘Nyssa wandered off, you said to look for her and then you vanished for a few seconds.’
The Doctor breathed out deeply. ‘Ahh... yes, Nyssa...’
She walked back into the chamber at that precise moment, ignoring the others, and went straight up to the Doctor. ‘You pig,’ she said as forcefully as she could.
And then she slapped him hard around the face.
‘Nyssa?’
‘No more games, Doctor. Not now. Not ever.’
The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘Look, Nyssa, whatever the Toymaker implied -’
‘You will try to dismiss. Yes, Doctor, I’ve seen you in action before. Tell me, can you separate Rallon and the Toymaker? Do you even want to?’
The others watched this curious exchange with some trepidation. Something had clearly occurred of which they knew nothing. Something that had upset the normally placid and introverted young Nyssa.
‘I… I honestly don’t know.’
‘Do you want to?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. He was my friend...’
Nyssa stepped back, almost as if the Doctor had hit her like she had hit him. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You… you’ll try to find a way, won’t you. Knowing you, you’ll do everything you can to help separate him.’
The Doctor clearly didn’t know what to say to mollify her.
He opted for what probably seemed to him to be the best route - the truth.
‘Yes I will. And then, maybe I can use that skill to try and help your father...’
Nyssa waved her hands uselessly around, tears trickling down her face, her eyes confused. She didn’t know what to say, couldn’t form a sentence. ‘Maybe...? Maybe? You told me it was impossible! You told me to think of him as dead and now, because a friend of yours is in trouble, you think maybe you might do something later o
n if you can be bothered and there isn’t an alien race to save or a super-villain to lock away that day!’
She backed away, gripping the door jamb for support. ‘I trusted you, Doctor. I believed in what you said. But it was all lies, wasn’t it? Hollow stories, because the truth is you simply weren’t interested in saving my father. You’d rather have the Master out there justifying your oh-so-heroic place in life than actually doing some real good and rescuing Father!’
With a choking sob, she turned away and ran back into the darkness.
The Doctor made to follow her, but Dieter held him back.
‘Let her go, Doctor. I don’t hope to understand what that was about, but I know enough to see that you are the last person she needs right now. Let me go after her.’ She patted his arm and headed off after the young girl.
The Doctor turned to the others - he simply didn’t know what to say.
And then he gasped. ‘The Dymova! Where’ve they gone?’
The slabs were empty. Nothing, it seemed, was going very well.
It should have been dark in the corridor, but Dieter could see reasonably clearly, albeit everything had a dull green glow.
Some kind of phosphorus perhaps? But if it was, why hadn’t she seen it when the Observer had led them to the chamber? Come to think of it, none of this looked at all familiar.
‘Nyssa?’
Dieter could make out a figure ahead sitting...
No! That was impossible!
She was sitting on an old-fashioned wooden stile, and beyond was a field, with a tree and a sunny sky and...
‘Nyssa?’
The figure turned, beckoning her, and as Dieter got closer to the impossibility she realised the figure wasn’t Nyssa at all. ‘She’s gone home,’ said the figure in a male American drawl. ‘Very tired and emotional.’
Dieter half wanted to run away, back to Commander Oakwood and the others, but her curiosity got the better of her.
‘Who on earth are you?’
The man jumped off the gate, and now stood on the other side. He was oddly dressed - old-fashioned. Even his moustache seemed anachronistic and vaguely silly.
