by Gary Russell
If nothing else it might reunite her with the Doctor, who could answer some of her questions.
Exactly what the game was became blatantly clear. She had tried playing chess with both the Doctor and Adric more than once. She was hopeless at it and, in exasperation, Adric had tried to teach her something played on the same board -
draughts. ‘Even you might grasp that,’ he had said in his usual brusque way. Nyssa hadn’t. She simply wasn’t a games-type person.
‘Good morning,’ said a man behind her, in a voice which suggested it was anything but.
Nyssa whirled round to be greeted by two grey-suited figures, a man and a woman. Neither of them smiled.
The dour couple introduced themselves as George and Margaret, the judges for the ‘great chess tournament, upon which the fate of thousands rests’.
‘Why is that?’
The woman frowned and dug a piece of paper out of her pocket. ‘Because it says so. Here.’
She passed Nyssa the pink slip - an invitation to the tournament. Nyssa scanned down it, noting that it did indeed proclaim that the fate of thousands rested upon its outcome.
Representing the Red Team are Sir Henry Rugglesthorpe And Family (And Friends).
Whoever they were. Nyssa had a suspicion they weren’t playing by choice. The White Team were:
The Outer Space Rocket People Who Are Still Awaiting Their Queen.
Nyssa passed the paper back to George and Margaret but they ignored it.
‘Keep it. It’s your invitation.’
‘I don’t want an invitation.’
‘Oh dear. What a shame. Never mind. It’s still your invitation.’
Nyssa sighed at the couple’s unreasonable attitude. She looked at the invitation again, intending to see when the tournament would begin. It now read:
When you’re ready, 0 Queen of the White Team
‘But I’m not the white queen,’ Nyssa exclaimed.
George finally cracked a smile. ‘You are now.’
And everything went mad.
5
Very Close to Far Away
The Doctor stared at the jigsaw - it was almost impossible to do. The pieces were double-sided, so each was effectively two pieces which would go on different sides of the puzzle.
Oh, and there was one other thing the Toymaker had omitted to mention - every time the Doctor put a wrong piece in place, it fell out, bringing with it half a dozen more.
‘I wish you’d chosen something more appealing,’ he moaned, hoping to bait the Toymaker into using up a bit more energy. Whatever was occurring between him and Rallon, the Toymaker’s grip on reality - both inside and outside his mind - was lessening. The Doctor saw Stefan and LeFevre shoot the odd look in their master’s direction, confirming that the Toymaker was occasionally lapsing into his internal struggle.
Excellent.
‘Oh, look at the memory mirror, Doctor.’
The Doctor turned as the Toymaker waved an ornate ring in front of the mirror. An aerial view of the chess board materialised. The viewpoint was rarely still, however, and the Doctor began to feel nauseous trying to stay focused. The Toymaker was shaking his head.’
‘I fear, dear Gaylord, that our pilot may not be all she was cracked up to be.’
‘I fear not, Lord,’ LeFevre admitted.
‘Dreadful at cribbage, too, Doctor. Bit of a time-waster I feel. Ah well. Let’s change the camera.’
The Doctor watched. The chess board could now be seen from the point of view of one of the players.
I’m using the red king’s perspective, Doctor, as I wish you to see how your team, the white ones naturally, do.’
‘White representing the force for good. A guardian thing, I suppose.’
The Toymaker shrugged. ‘That hadn’t crossed my mind, old friend. No, I chose white because I thought of the little flag they wave on Earth to signal surrender.’ He gazed back at the screen. ‘Oh, this is very tedious, all very traditional.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Go to move queen’s rook four.’
Suddenly the picture blurred. When it refocused, the pieces had moved, some quite significantly.
‘Oh dear, I appear to have lost a couple of pawns and a rook. And why, Doctor, how delightful for you. You’ve lost no one.
Yet. Oh, let me introduce your team.’ He tapped on the mirror with his ring, against the image of a pawn. Carved into its front was Braune’s face.
To the Doctor’s horror, it blinked.
The ring touched the king’s rook. Etched into that was Townsend’s face, twisted into a scream of fear. The bishop was Dieter and the knight was young Desorgher.
‘Oh, who might your queen be? I wonder if it’s... oh yes, so it is. Tell me, Doctor, do they play chess on Traken?’
‘Are they... are they dead?’
‘Oh no. Well, not yet. But if rooks, knights or bishops fall, then yes. Ditto the pawns - poor Mr Braune. Lots of chances but, like all good security men, he’s in the front line. That’s what he gets paid for. As for Nyssa and your king, as there is only one of them... yes, they get zapped more quickly.’
‘Adric?’
Is the king, yes. And that’s probably why your team are doing so well. He’s instinctively good at playing. His mathematical skills make him an ideal strategist, organising his players. He’s far better than my man, dear old Sir Henry.’
The Toymaker shot the Doctor a quick grin. ‘Doctor, would you mind awfully if I hung on to Adric when the game is over? He could be very useful around here.’
‘I’d like him back, please.’
‘Oh look, Doctor! Adric has sacrificed a bishop to get a pawn to put Sir Henry in check. Oh, that’s so clever. King moves to king’s bishop one I think, Sir Henry.’ The camera moved, suggesting the move was being made. ‘Of course, Doctor, that was a bluff on our part. Dear Queen Nyssa is now exposed to my rook. Eliza I think she’s called.’
The Doctor watched in mute horror, impotent to do anything but stare as Adric tried to configure a way to save Nyssa.
He did so by moving his remaining bishop directly in front of the queen. The rook would have to take it, and, in turn, the queen could take the rook without placing herself in further danger.
But the Doctor realised that Adric was in a quandary. He was down a bishop Arcady - when he lost this one, Dieter would be gone too.
The bishop moved into position.
‘Adric…’
‘Oh, sorry, another thing I forgot.’ The Toymaker was enthralled by the game. ‘The players don’t actually know the fate that befalls the lost players. Whoops - there goes Nurse Dieter and Eliza the maid in one fell swoop.’
Nyssa had indeed taken the rook.
Then a red pawn came forward. The white pawn that had put the red king in check moved forward on to the first line of the red team’s side of the board.
‘Oh, well done, Adric,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘I think we get a man back for that, Toymaker!’
The Toymaker looked dark again but slowly smiled. ‘If you say so, Doctor. Anything to spice this up. I take it you’d like a new bishop?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Done. Oh, but one thing, Doctor. Observe.’
On the memory mirror, the new white bishop swivelled round and the Doctor could see its face. It wasn’t Dieter. It was Oakwood.
‘Bored yet, Doctor?’
‘No,’ he replied and glanced back at the jigsaw. He had done rather well until recently - he might finish the puzzle, but he had to time it for when the chess match ended.
Assuming Adric won.
‘Lord!’ There was a sharp cry from LeFevre, which caught everyone’s attention.
The chess match was interrupted by a sudden flash.
Nyssa sat up as the world went even crazier around her. She was no longer inside a chess piece, or attached to it, or melded to it, or...
Instead, she was sitting next to Adric as the dreamscape around them wobbled and fluctuated, bits breaking away into mist then re-for
ming, but as other things. Parts of a cathedral.
‘We’re on Dymok!’
Tegan was there - standing next to that old man, the Observer, and behind them were loads of the Dymova she had last seen asleep. They were now wide awake, linking hands and staring forward, chanting.
‘I say, this is not on!’ George and Margaret stepped forward. ‘You have interfered with the lord’s game! You cannot -’ As one, the Dymova turned and stared at the couple.
And they were gone - replaced by a book. Nyssa reached over to it and saw a picture inside - a drawing of two figures, a man and a woman in undergarments. Ranged around the double-page spread was a series of possible costumes for them, with dotted lines to cut and little tabs to fold over the bodies.
Her attention was next caught by the drone of a model aeroplane diving towards them. Another glance from the Dymova stopped that in midair and it dropped like a stone to the ground, bouncing away before breaking in half.
Adric picked the bits up. It was made of balsawood and there was no sign of the little pilot figurine.
Tegan turned to the Observer.
‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly, then called out ‘Now, brethren. It is time!
Back in the realm, the Doctor was frantically putting the jigsaw together. ‘You’re running out of time, Toymaker. With the chess game abandoned, your own rules of fair play mean we have to go free.’
‘Only when that jigsaw is complete, Doctor. And you know what happened last time. Remember the trilogic game?’
And the Doctor did. That earlier encounter. By winning, he would have actually lost. Yes, his then companions, Steven and Dodo, would have escaped in the TARDIS but he would have been sacrificed, would have had to stay behind as the Toymaker’s plaything.
That fate faced him again, unless he could play for time.
On the memory mirror, the image of the countryside dreamscape had gone and was replaced by the sight of Dymok hanging in space, Little Boy II far above it.
And Dymok was juddering.
In the celestial toyshop, the clocks still ticked but no one was present to listen.
The area by the arched doorway where George and Margaret usually stood was vacant, although a book lay closed on the floor.
And beside an overturned pine table was a chess board, a set of red pieces scattered around the floor. Of the white pieces the only sign was two bishops, both snapped in half.
And hanging from the rafters was the shattered tail of a balsawood aeroplane.
Directly below it, lying on a black lacquered Chinese chair was the fuselage, a tiny toy pilot twisted and broken in the wreckage.
And sitting amid a mah-jong set on another table was a string puppet, dressed in burgundy robes. Its normally expressionless painted face seemed to be smiling...
In the realm the Toymaker held up a hand to stop LeFevre and Stefan moving forward.
Facing them across the room were Tegan, the Observer and the Dymova.
‘Now,’ hissed the Observer, and the Dymova turned on their god - the Doctor could see blue crackles of mental energy pouring out of them. They used the Observer as a focus to group it into one single blast.
As the energy hit the Toymaker, he returned it and a battle began.
‘Tegan...’
‘No, Doctor,’ she yelled. ‘Stay back. I know what I’m doing.
Trust me!’
‘I do trust you! But are you sure?’
Tegan shot him a look. A look that needed no verbal back-up.
‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘You are sure.’
But, unseen by anyone, he crossed his fingers.
The Toymaker suddenly seemed to take command of the battle, drawing the Dymova’s mental energy into himself. ‘You created them,’ Tegan yelled. ‘Can you take what they dish out?’
‘I created...? I... created nothing...’ He staggered slightly, then regained his concentration.
The Doctor saw Tegan smile. What was she up to? The Toymaker was winning... Why was that good?
But he had to trust her.
She was the backbone of his team - ‘the co-ordinator’, he had once dubbed her. He had to trust in her because this time the upper hand had slid away from him.
He turned back to the jigsaw, frantically trying to complete it
- to get to the stage where it only needed one last piece. And then he would -
‘Victory!’ screamed the Toymaker and the Doctor looked on aghast.
The Observer had dropped to his knees, and in the memory mirror, Dymok shuddered violently and then simply ceased to exist.
A wave of pure mental energy seemed to emanate from the nothingness that replaced the planet, washing over Little Boy II before dissipating.
The Dymova vanished soundlessly, obliterated.
The Toymaker turned to face the Doctor. His face was replaced by the panorama of stars, but his delight was evident in his voice as it boomed throughout the realm.
‘I have won!’
6
Love and Hate You
‘Victory is mine, Doctor. At long last, you face destruction!’
With Stefan to one side, LeFevre to the other, the Toymaker, his face slowly returning, was staring maniacally at the Doctor as he stood beside the jigsaw. ‘Look, I’ll even return your pawns!
They can share your misery!’
From behind him stepped Nyssa and Adric. Tegan still stood alongside the Observer, who fixed the Doctor with a hard stare.
Was he trying to tell him something? The Doctor glanced at the faces of his companions. His friends. What had the Toymaker done to them?
Stefan roughly shoved Adric forward.
‘Look at this specimen, Doctor. The most travelled of your current crop of hangers-on,’ the Toymaker intoned. He was quieter now, but harder. Indeed, his whole persona seemed to have lost its joie de vivre. He was currently just an enigmatic extra-dimensional being, filled with hate and loathing, all of it aimed at the Doctor - his oldest foe.
The Doctor suddenly understood the change. This was the real Toymaker - the side he had never seen before. In all their previous encounters the Toymaker had been partly Rallon, the Doctor’s friend and colleague from the Prydon Academy. But Rallon was gone now, his temperament, his life energies and his morality apparently erased from existence.
This was the Toymaker triumphant. His face was already fading again - in its place, the images of stars and planets -
and he was losing any semblance of humanity. The Toymaker was nothing more than an empty shell, a physical vessel for the powers at his command.
The Doctor’s consciousness rose up a plane - he was no longer in the Toymaker’s white realm, no longer constrained by his body. He felt his lives stripped away from him until he stood amid the galaxies, immune to the vacuum, ethereal and insubstantial, but wearing the body he had when he first encountered the Toymaker.
Beside him stood Rallon, unchanged, and as innocent as he had been before the Toymaker absorbed him centuries earlier.
‘The clues are around you, Doctor.’ Rallon didn’t catch the Doctor’s eye. ‘You’ve become lazy recently, expecting others to pick up the slack when you’ve allowed the sands of truth to slip through your fingers. If you are to survive this and the traumas to come, you must adapt. Harden. Change. But not as I... we did. The Toymaker cannot be completely contained but I can weaken him enough for you to escape him again. It won’t be a victory - but it will be survival.’
‘You’re still in there, aren’t you, old friend?’
‘Just Doctor. Thete. Snail. Just hanging on. I’ve always been there for you. Before. Helping you defeat him, getting him to make mistakes,’ Rallon tried to touch the Doctor’s astral form. ‘I didn’t call for you consciously but I think the bit of him that is me realised I was dying and requested help.
That’s why Dymok was created - and all those sleepers, dreaming of him, making him their god. He needed them to replace the bits of
me that have died. I tried to give you hints.
You spotted the trilogic game on the surface of Dymok? I thought that would be as good a clue as I could give, without alerting the Toymaker to what I was doing.’
‘He knew,’ the Doctor said, and then paused. ‘But he thought he did it.’
Rallon smiled the smile a condemned man gives when he knows his time is up. ‘Ah, my last stratagem. Tell me, did you become a Time Lord, Doctor?’
The Doctor nodded, ‘I’m on my fifth body now.’
Rallon grasped his shoulders. ‘You did? Well done! Oh Doctor, I’ve so many questions and no time to find out the answers. I can’t keep him at bay for much longer. I’ve missed you, my friend.’
‘And I you. Rarely a day has gone by without me thinking of you and what I... I did. You were already a Time Lord and I effectively stole from you all the experiences which were due to you.’
Rallon gasped. ‘Guilt? Oh Doctor, no. Please don’t. It was an accident. Millennia and I chose to accompany you, so you have nothing to feel guilty about. Besides, no matter how evil the Toymaker is, I can’t say I haven’t seen a few things. Learned a few things that would put Delox into apoplexy! How are the others by the way? I know of a few... Koschei for instance. And we had a run-in with Mortimus once. I think the Toymaker quite liked him - they’re two of a kind and... What is it, my friend?’
‘Rallon, I’m sorry, but I need to know how to stop the Toymaker.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Why stop him? He’s a universal force, Doctor. He’s one of the guardians! You can’t stop him. You can’t defeat him. You must just win this round.’
And how do I do that?’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘I’m fresh out of ideas.’
‘You don’t have to stop him, Doctor. That’s the whole point
- I needed you here to distract him. The answer is staring you in the face, Doctor. That’s all I can say.’
