The Drosten's Curse

by A. L. Kennedy

  ‘Well, you are sly…I’ll say that. And do you serve, actually? Are you a servant, in fact – as you claim? I wonder if that’s quite right. You seem to control the ones you serve, as much as they control you…’

  The Doctor shivered again as another series of images ripped through him – this time a bright aerial display of vast, glittering spacecraft – part of a force he could create and control, one which travelled between planets bringing assistance, food, plants, teachers, doctors…Doctors were supposed to make people better, they were made for that kind of work…

  His hearts strained and ached.

  EVENTUALLY BRYONY HAD FIGURED out how to fill the bath. This had involved six taps, and temperature control had been a serious issue. But she’d had to admit – once she’d removed what was left of her clothes and slipped into the quite warm water – that the TARDIS did have a point. She’d felt better as soon as she’d started to feel the heat coddling her tired body.

  She also felt much more clearheaded already, after only a bit of soaking. And maybe a clear head was required. ‘You seem to want that, don’t you? And I haven’t felt as if that thing out there has been able to rummage about in my head since you saved us. You’re keeping it locked out, aren’t you?’ An unpleasant idea occurred to her. ‘Are you shrinking because it’s getting stronger? Is that the problem?’ There was, of course, no reply. Bryony pondered the unpleasant layer of sandy / weird stuff that had started forming as soon as she stepped into the bath and that was still floating on the surface of the water like a highly unpleasant blanket. ‘I’m happier without that all over me. So thanks. And thanks for keeping me…um…cosy…’

  But it’s not going to be wonderful if you end up keeping me cosy in here and defended but eventually the area being defended is the size of a…of a vol-au-vent…I won’t fit. And I never have liked finger food.

  Bryony was thinking of changing the water and having maybe a good wash down under the alarming-looking shower arrangement when that familiar voice interrupted her once again.

  ‘Ah, Bryony.’ The Doctor still sounded irritated, but also weaker. ‘I’ve been hanging about in the kitchen for ages waiting for you…like an abandoned birthday party balloon. Do you have the psy fluid yet?’

  At his first Ah, Bryony said something which sounded very much like ‘Whyark!’ before ducking under the filthy surface of the water. This meant she didn’t quite catch what the Doctor said after that and he had to repeat himself once she’d re-emerged.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, I don’t have time for all that. Do you have the…ow…psy fluid?’ The Doctor’s image wavered in quality while Bryony spluttered and blinked up at it while it drifted across the ceiling.

  ‘You can’t…’ She was concealed by a layer of gritty goo, but even so Bryony would have preferred to be wearing clothes while being nagged by a ghostly Time Lord. ‘I’m in the bath!’

  ‘Instead of…My dear girl, this isn’t some kind of holiday villa – it’s the TARDIS.’ The image winced and frowned, flickered.

  ‘Doctor, are you all right?’

  ‘The Bah-Sokhar is blocking me…’ He sighed. ‘I’m somewhere inside its matrix…If…’ He looked terribly tired. ‘I don’t think it’s unreasonable…more…unguided…With the psy fluid, I could…’ His face sharpened visibly. ‘Where is Putta?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m trapped in here – the TARDIS won’t let me go – and she’s…’ Bryony thought that maybe worrying the Doctor about the way his spaceship was behaving might not be the best idea right now. ‘The Bah-Sokhar is outside…It tried to eat us…And then it just stayed…I mean, maybe Putta got past it, though…’ There was another possibility that involved the cowardly but brave little man from Yinzill going outside and being caught in that sand…She tried to think that the TARDIS wouldn’t have let that happen. ‘He would try if he could. I told him you needed it. The psy fluid – I told him you needed it.’

  Above her, the image of the Doctor was fading. But with a groan of distress he seemed to force out a few more psychons worth of effort so that he could tell her, ‘Bryony, I have to talk to the Bah-Sokhar. I have to really talk to it…And it’s not listening – it’s scared, it doesn’t trust me. It doesn’t trust anyone. In a way, it’s a parasite – it feeds on negative mental energy, serves it and enlarges it…But there are other energies there now – it’s not quite the kind of monster it used to be. And, frankly, if I can’t use its own power to change it, I wouldn’t bet much on the ability of any other force on Earth or anywhere else to overwhelm it.’ The image shrugged slightly and tried a grin. ‘But…If I can really get through – if I can let it feel how I feel and…the TARDIS – she can increase the intensity of my thoughts, my emotional field, if I access her psychic core – but that’s not supposed to happen – she’s designed to defend against that – even to defend herself against me and I’m being blocked and shielded from her by the Bah-Sokhar – she may not even recognise me once I’ve worked my way in…if I can…You’re with her, though – and she trusts you and likes you and she’s used to humans…Plus, sometimes the small size of the human mind is really useful. You would act like a lens, concentrating the information that I can aim at the Bah-Sokhar. If Putta can boost the energy with that psy fluid and you can withstand it and I…if I do what I have to…Help me, Bryony. Help me reroute the TARDIS’s psychic energy, help me find out what the Bah-Sokhar needs – it’s been dealing with humans for a long time, it’s used to your configuration. Just…I need your help. It will be horribly dangerous, of course. We could both die. Probably we will.’

  ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘I knew you’d be terribly good at this.’ The Doctor gave her the impression that he’d have ruffled her hair if he could. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I do some of my best thinking in the bath.’ For a moment, he was the Doctor she remembered – the funny, wise, resourceful being from somewhere far away. He smiled and then winced. ‘Empty out the water, make yourself as comfortable as you can in the tub – you’ll know when it starts.’

  ‘When what starts?’

  ‘You’ll know.’

  ‘Can I get dressed?’ Bryony had the impression that the Doctor didn’t especially notice what people were or weren’t wearing, but if she was going to die of being used as a focusing lens for some kind of force – before she got squashed to death – then she’d prefer to be fully dressed – even if that did involve a candy-striped pair of dungarees.

  ‘What?’ The Doctor’s image frowned down at her as if she was mildly insane. ‘Of course you can get dressed. Earth people…they’re always going on about what they ought to wear – evening dress, suits of armour, Hazmat 15 Nanoprotective membranes. I can be on six different planets before breakfast – in fourteen different eras – am I obsessed about whether my shirt will match the wallpaper…? My dear girl, I need you to concentrate – literally. Humans…You were the same, even when you were living in caves – should it be this mammoth skin, should it be that mammoth skin…Just!’ He stopped himself playing the fool, blinked, soften his expression, ‘Bryony Mailer, humans shouldn’t meld with immensely complex biomechanical vessels – or with Time Lords, or with…Are you scared?’

  ‘Not really,’ lied Bryony, while thinking that either the water around her had turned chill, or that she was shivering at the thought of somehow facing this Bah-Sokhar – a creature that could make sand, or anything else, into a deadly weapon, a creature that could trap someone as resourceful as the Doctor.

  ‘You’re really not frightened?’

  ‘I want to help.’

  ‘Good.’ His image smiled. ‘I thought you would. Personally, I’m completely terrified – I’m so glad you’re not.’ He paused, tiny holes appearing in his representation. ‘The next time you hear from me, it will already have started.’

  ‘OK.’ Which didn’t sound like a big enough thing to say on such an occasion, but Bryony couldn’t think of anything else.

  ‘Be ready.’

>   ‘I will.’

  ‘And thank you. And do remember that—’

  But whatever she was supposed to remember shattered into pieces of light and colour and then disappeared.

  The bathroom lights – including the unlikely Hollywoodstyle bulbs set in strips around the big mirror – all shaded over into red for a moment and then shifted back to a yellowish dimness. Bryony couldn’t tell if this was because the TARDIS was concentrating, or sad, or just bewildered. The ceiling had crept another six inches closer and it was now possible to put out her hand and reach the towel rail with no trouble.

  ‘Well, everything is going to be conveniently close to hand before I’m killed for a number of reasons…’ Bryony had intended that as a joke to cheer herself, but it sounded only grim once she’d said it and she clambered out of the bath with heavy limbs.

  Once she’d dried herself and slipped into the shirt and overalls, she turned back to try and clean the worst of the muck off the bath, but discovered that it was apparently self-cleaning, or dirt-digesting. ‘Well, that’s one less thing to worry about…’

  She padded off in bare feet to the – much nearer – bedroom and took pillows, the quilt and the velvet cover from the bed. (She also borrowed the pair of lumpily thick bed socks tucked under one pillow – they were too big, but lent a sense of security to the proceedings, somehow.) Then she piled everything into the tub, climbed back in herself and tried to settle herself as if this wasn’t all completely alarming and horrible.

  But she was going to help the Doctor. She’d only really just met him – it had been this morning that he’d loped into the hallway at the hotel and apparently brought so many daydreams and nightmares with him. Still, she was absolutely sure that if the Doctor needed help then you provided it if there was any way you could. And when you needed help – one way or another – she knew he would help you back.

  PUTTA WAS FEELING COLD, wet and ridiculous.

  There’s no way I’m going to be able to find the flask – I just lobbed it in any old direction – I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve never liked the stuff and once the G50 stopped working I didn’t need it any more…Come to think of it, the G50’s in here somewhere. And it will have leaked the last little bit of its fluid into this lake thing…but it was only a bit. It’s not as if the water will now be full of telepathic fish, or anything…I think…Self-aware pond beasts…Yaagh.

  As he considered this unpleasant possibility, he naturally felt something drag and cling round his ankle. He knew it was just some kind of vegetation catching at him and he was simply alarming himself for no reason. In the same way, it’s easy for beings from Yinzill to imagine that something horrible is walking behind them and then to see weird shapes in the shadows under cliffs where, in actuality, there aren’t lurking heart raptors, or just the standard kind of raptors that eat all of you. Or in the way that it’s easy for Earth beings to imagine that a shark may be in their swimming pool and for them to then notice that big, dark shape approaching them in a way that suggests it isn’t just the fat teenager they saw earlier – the one who likes holding his breath underwater, a way that makes the Earth beings swim very fast in the other direction even though the pool is indoors and has no access to the sea, and human municipal bathing authorities rarely add huge carnivorous fish to their range of leisure facilities…

  Putta waded onwards, the light sinking fast in the west – which he thought was the least interesting direction for sunsets – and the water rapidly rising above his waist. The weed was now impeding his progress quite significantly – perhaps helped by the fact that he was scuffing his feet along the bottom of the lake in an attempt to find the flask. He hadn’t thought this part of the plan through – mostly because he hadn’t thought he would survive the earlier sections of his plan and even make it as far as the lake.

  The weed really was getting to be a problem. He’d probably have to shove his hands down into the water and pull some of it off…

  Which was when he did lean forward, his head dipping close to the surface of the lake and saw – dimly, but unmistakeably – the faces of Honor and Xavier looking up at him from beneath the cold water, their eyes unblinking, their expressions almost blank, apart from a terrible determination.

  They were drifting along on their backs: slim, pale shapes lazily kicking their feet and sculling occasionally with a free hand. They had no apparent need to breathe. And each of them was gripping one of Putta’s ankles – Honor to his left and Xavier to his right.

  Now that he knew they were there, they gripped harder and smiled up, their mouths wavering under the ripples into impossible forms.

  Then hands burst out of the wavelets and dragged him under before he could scream.

  INSIDE THE BAH-SOKHAR, THE Doctor was sitting with his back very straight and his legs folded into the Lombukso Position, as he’d been taught by the High Metallama of X45ZD.

  Actually, the Doctor could meditate in any position, but at least this felt familiar and comfortable and was something he’d done before without having his consciousness ripped apart, or being reduced to a dead-eyed shell, or simply evaporated.

  By contrast, the Doctor had never attempted to access the full psychon energy at the psychic core of the TARDIS. From everything he knew about trying that – which was a lot – being ripped apart from his shoes to his personality was the least he could expect as a result.

  He also hadn’t attempted to open his mind to the Bah-Sokhar, to let it all the way into his thinking. Which was equally unwise.

  The Doctor had also not ever considered trying to do both those utterly reckless things while also making sure that a very level-headed female human didn’t get harmed in the process and while relying on a nervy young fool from Yinzill to help him out with a boost from some psy fluid at a point no one could predict – if it happened at all – a flask which was lost somewhere, probably on a golf course.

  ‘Well, here goes then…’ he told himself encouragingly.

  He didn’t exactly feel encouraged.

  The Doctor closed his eyes, both his hearts galloping in his chest, his blood banging in his ears, his hands shaking as they held each other firmly clasped, at the required three centons’ distance above the crown of his head. He breathed in the recommended manner for the Lombukso Ultimate Meditation. The Doctor was guessing that beginning with this particular, almost impossible, procedure would be his best chance of calling to the depths of the TARDIS and to the heart of the Bah-Sokhar.

  The Lombukso Ultimate Meditation was usually only attempted after months of fasting and preparation, in the ideal peaceful conditions provided by the insulated cells of the High Retreat on Asdrak Island and with medically qualified attendants at the ready. The universe was a huge, wild place, after all, and the Ultimate was intended to clear the practitioner’s conscious identity, accelerate its artron energy, peel back their subconscious and then open their essence completely to exactly that hugeness and wildness of the universe.

  No one was meant to carryout such a severe and generally fatal ritual when they were tired, scared, unprepared and relatively full of cucumber sandwiches and cake.

  And you would have to be completely out of your mind to do this while you were actually inside the hugest and wildest consciousness in the huge, wild universe – the terrible Bah-Sokhar.

  The Doctor breathed, focused, pictured himself racing and sliding and burrowing along a vast tunnel, a plunging blue and silver and earth-coloured tunnel. He saw the dark at its centre – the emptiness which is not empty, the space which is more than space, the start of anything and everything. He let himself fall into it.

  And somewhere, distant but beautiful and like the scent of home, he could sense the presence of the TARDIS. He could understand her concern for him, her general flurry of alarm – and an undertow of joy that she was also aware of him in this new way. He just couldn’t quite reach her and he couldn’t tell her his plan. He was too afraid to speak clearly while the Bah-Sokhar might be listenin
g.

  And – crushing and burning, twisting who he was at the roots – here was the first touch of the Bah-Sokhar. It was pushing him away, it was fighting him, blocking him. There was fear here – and a vast anger. Loneliness, too, sustained at levels which would have killed a lesser being.

  For an instant the Doctor could feel the Bah-Sokhar deciding that he was a threat, that he should be erased from reality.

  But something distracted it, blurred its intentions.

  And in that moment, the Doctor was able to think as loudly as he could towards the TARDIS – Bryony is ready – the in-the-bath girl – she will be our bridge – she will care about you and be a light – I need you to let me in – override all safety protocols and allow me full access – I am in the dark – we will not like the dark, but there will be light – there will be the Bah-Sokhar, but there will be light and courage – let me in.

  And of course he told her. Please.

  PUTTA WAS STRUGGLING FOR his life. The two young creatures – for they surely couldn’t be Earth children – had fastened themselves around him like iron and were dragging him far out into the deep point of the lake. Although Yakts have a greater lung capacity than humans, his whole chest was aching and burning with a need to breathe. The water was freezing here and dark, and his clothes were weighing him down. It was hard to tell which direction led to the surface any more and Putta was losing hope. He decided that he would like his last thought to be of Bryony – the Earth woman he had completely failed, while also failing to save her whole planet from certain doom…and then the back of his head – and this meant the back of his head was being forced along the bottom of the lake – hit something which hurt a great deal and also moved slightly and clanked against what must be some kind of rock. It sounded like metal – a metal container – a partially empty metal container.