Doctor Who: Plague of the Cybermen

by Justin Richards

  ‘Hang about,’ the Doctor said. ‘This has been broken into, not out of. From below.’

  His last word became a ‘Woah!’ as his foot disappeared through the bottom of the coffin, most of his leg following. ‘Well, that answers that.’

  ‘What answers what?’ Klaus asked. ‘You’re making no sense.’

  The Doctor struggled to free his leg, kicking off a section of wood that had attached itself round his ankle.

  ‘There’s a hole under the grave. Either Stefan dug right down to the roof of some cave or someone tunnelled in from below. Or possibly both.’

  ‘Someone tunnelled into a coffin,’ Nicolai said, ‘and stole a whole body?’

  ‘But who would do that?’ Olga asked.

  ‘Whoever stole Stefan’s leg,’ Klaus said.

  The Doctor looked up at him approvingly. ‘You know, you’re not as daft as you look.’

  ‘He doesn’t look daft,’ Olga said. ‘I’ve never thought you looked daft,’ she told Klaus. ‘Not ever.’

  ‘Right,’ the Doctor decided. ‘Well, I’ll just take a look down here in this tunnel and see where it goes. There might be clues. I love clues. Clues are good. Useful things, clues.’

  ‘Not now, Doctor,’ Nicolai said.

  ‘Yes, now. No time like the present. Though actually, if you think about that for just a moment …’ His voice tailed off. ‘How do you do that? It looks like there’s loads of you up there suddenly.’

  ‘Not now, Doctor,’ Nicolai said again. ‘You need to come up here. These men are from the castle.’

  Klaus and one of the men from the castle reached down and helped the Doctor out of the pit.

  There were two of them. They wore heavy jerkins with chain-mail vests over the top. Each had a sword strapped to his hip. They both had the weary, resigned expressions of men who had been in battle. Neither of them looked friendly.

  The Doctor looked round, nodding happily. ‘So, you’re from the castle? I was going to come and visit later. Do I need a ticket or is it free admission?’

  ‘Lord Ernhardt wants to see you,’ the larger of the men said.

  ‘Great. Super. As soon as I’ve finished here …’

  ‘He wants to see you now.’

  The Doctor stepped up to the man. His eyes were level with the soldier’s chest. ‘I’m busy now.’

  ‘Doctor,’ Olga said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maybe you should go with them. The tunnel will keep for later.’

  ‘Whatever has happened to Liza,’ Nicolai added, ‘we can’t help her now.’

  ‘True enough.’

  The Doctor turned back to the chain-mail-clad chest. ‘So what’s he want? This Lord Ernhardt – why’s he want to see me?’

  ‘You’re a doctor.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Lord Ernhardt’s son is ill. He might have the plague.’

  The Doctor sniffed, and looked up into the man’s face. It was weathered and stern, craggy like it was fashioned from old granite, but there was a kindness lurking in the eyes.’

  ‘You got children?’ the Doctor asked.

  ‘A daughter.’

  ‘Do you love her passing well, as Hamlet might have asked?’

  ‘I’d die for her.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘You know, if you’d said “I’d kill for her” I’d be staying put.’

  ‘But you’ll come.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘So long as I can bring a guest.’ He turned to Olga. ‘You said you’d never been inside the castle. Well, now’s your chance.’

  ‘Just so long,’ Klaus said quietly, ‘as she gets out again.’

  Chapter 3

  The castle was built into the valley wall as it rose steeply towards the black sky. It looked as if it had been hewn from the solid rock, and perhaps it had. The storm broke when they were halfway up the cliff path.

  Lightning cracked the dark sky into pieces. Thunder echoed off the valley sides. The rain was instantly torrential, as if some great storm god had simply switched it on.

  The two guards seemed unimpressed. They were obviously used to storms. Olga pulled her ragged coat tighter. The Doctor turned his face upwards to watch the rain rodding down towards him. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes.

  ‘Refreshing!’ he yelled above the sound of the water hammering into the rocky ground. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his jacket was wringing wet. But he laughed and splashed in the puddles, and ignored the bemused stares of the guards.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said after a while. ‘I guess you’re all used to it.’ He paused to let a particularly loud roll of thunder die away. ‘But I haven’t seen rain like this since last time I was in Great Yarmouth. Between you and me,’ he said quietly to Olga, ‘it’s more like “Quite Good Yarmouth” these days. But don’t tell them. It would take so long to change all the road signs.’

  Water was running down the path and cascading over the edge. As they approached the castle, the Doctor realised that the cliff into which the castle was built was separate from the one they were climbing. Between the two was a chasm, perhaps twenty metres wide. Across it a narrow bridge led to the castle’s main entrance. The bridge was a solid stone walkway, with no walls or railings. Stray off the path, and your next step would take you a hundred metres straight down to the rocky valley floor below.

  Olga stayed right in the middle, as did the guards. But, fascinated, the Doctor sauntered to the very edge of the bridge and leaned out, looking down. He watched the rain tumbling away from him, and splashing into the valley.

  ‘Makes your feet go sort of fizzy, doesn’t it,’ he called to the others. But perhaps his words were lost in the noise of the storm as no one answered.

  The castle loomed above them. The gateway was twice the Doctor’s height. As they approached, the larger guard, whose name the Doctor had discovered was Caplan, called out. With a clanking of heavy chains and the grinding of some ancient mechanism, the thick wooden door that filled the entranceway was hoisted up to allow them through.

  Another guard stood beside the opened gate. He nodded to Caplan, who ignored him, and led his group inside.

  The feeling that the whole structure might have been hewn from the valley wall continued. The inner courtyard was like a huge cavern, roofed with unbroken sand-coloured stone. Darker veins looped through it like beams. The whole place was lit with firebrands that burned smokily in holders on the walls.

  ‘Are we impressed yet?’ the Doctor asked Olga.

  Like him, she was looking round in awe. She nodded silently.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Do we get a guided tour?’ he asked Caplan. ‘I love guided tours.’

  ‘Lord Ernhardt is waiting for you,’ Caplan grunted. ‘You watch your tongue while you’re with him.’

  ‘Watch my tongue?’ The Doctor stuck his tongue out as far as he could, shoving his chin out, and turning his eyes to look as far down as possible. ‘Not sure I can see my tongue,’ he said – rather indistinctly as he was still sticking it out.

  ‘You’ll see it all right,’ Caplan growled. ‘When Lord Ernhardt orders me to cut it out. I’ll make sure of that.’

  ‘May have to pass on the guided tour then,’ the Doctor said quietly to Olga.

  Caplan escorted the Doctor and Olga through a door, and down a passageway until they reached another door.

  The room beyond was more like the drawing room of a great country house than the inside of a rock-hewn castle. The stone walls were softened by tapestries and large paintings. Several well-worn armchairs and a large sofa were arranged around a polished wooden table in the centre of the room.

  Again, the room was lit by burning wall lights. A fire crackled in a large grate surrounded by a stone fireplace.

  Olga looked round in astonishment, and the Doctor guessed she had never seen such opulence.

  ‘How the other half lives,’ the Doctor told her.

  He had assumed the room was empty, so the reply surpris
ed him.

  ‘And which half do you belong to?’

  The voice came from an armchair facing away from them. Now that he looked, the Doctor could see a gloved hand holding a glass of amber-coloured liquid resting on the arm of the chair. Whoever was sitting there made no effort to get up or look round at them. So the Doctor and Olga walked round the other chairs until they could see him.

  ‘Lord Ernhardt, I presume?’ the Doctor said.

  The man in the chair smiled, and raised the glass in confirmation and greeting.

  ‘I don’t care for people who presume … Not generally. But in your case, I shall be glad to make an exception. Thank you so much for coming, Doctor.’

  ‘I didn’t realise I had a choice.’

  Lord Ernhardt leaped to his feet. He was tall and wiry, with thin features. His hair had turned to grey and, despite his being well into middle age, was still thick and well kempt, cut off the collar. He wore a long, dark jacket with an emblem like a stylised star sewn over the breast pocket. He set down his drink on a side table and reached out to shake the Doctor’s hand.

  ‘My dear Doctor, I am so sorry. I told Caplan to ask you if you could spare me some time. He does rather over-interpret his duties, I’m afraid.’

  Lord Ernhardt’s grip was powerful, even through the black velvet. The Doctor noticed with surprise that his other hand was ungloved.

  ‘And unless I am mistaken, this is our excellent teacher, Miss Olga Bordmann.’ Lord Ernhardt took Olga’s hand and raised it to his lips. ‘A pleasure. I have heard such good things about you.’

  Olga blushed with embarrassment, and even hinted at a curtsy.

  ‘Several of my servants have children who have attended Miss Bordmann’s school,’ Ernhardt told the Doctor.

  ‘Hardly a school, really,’ Olga said apologetically. ‘If they leave able to read a little and write their own names, it’s something.’

  ‘You are too modest,’ Ernhardt proclaimed. ‘I am sorry I’m not more involved in local affairs, but my duties often take me far away from here, to Malkeburg and beyond. When I am here, poor Victor consumes much of my time. If he were not so frail I might well have sent him to you for schooling, Miss Bordmann. As it is, his mother and I do what we can.’

  ‘And you think he has the plague?’ the Doctor prompted.

  ‘He has a wasting disease of some sort. He has suffered with it for years.’ Lord Ernhardt sighed. ‘My Watchman does what he can, but recently the poor boy has deteriorated.’

  ‘You think I can help?’

  ‘To be honest, I doubt it. Oh, I don’t mean to disparage your abilities, Doctor. But I’m sorry – I’m forgetting my manners. Can I offer you a drink? And you look soaked through, come and warm yourselves by the fire and tell me how things are in the village.’

  Lord Ernhardt seemed as happy to listen as he was to talk. He enquired after the children that Olga taught – knowing several of them, including Jedka, by name and asking how they were getting on. Before long, she had almost forgotten where she was and who she was talking with. The Doctor too was easy company. She had not felt so relaxed in a long time.

  After what seemed only a few minutes, but was probably much longer, Lord Ernhardt checked the time on a pocket watch and sighed apologetically.

  ‘I really should look in on Victor. His mother is with him. Perhaps I can persuade her to leave him for a while. She gets so she forgets to eat or sleep …’

  ‘May we see the boy?’ the Doctor asked.

  Ernhardt smiled. ‘I still think of him as a boy but he is a young man really. Or would be …’

  The passageway was chiselled into the side of the valley. According to Ernhardt, there was a vast maze of tunnels and passages behind and beneath the castle. ‘Even I have not explored them all,’ he confessed. ‘My grandfather tried to map them, but I fear he barely scratched the surface.’

  Burning torches were fixed to the wall, and Ernhardt also carried an oil lamp.

  On the way, the Doctor explained about the jewellery and the radiation poisoning.

  ‘So far as I know, no one here in the castle has any of this metal, Doctor. But I’ll make sure that any there is gets collected up for safety. I suppose it’s possible that Victor has been exposed to this poison,’ Ernhardt conceded. ‘But he was always a sickly child. I suspect his frailty derives from a different source entirely. He was born too soon. His mother almost died, you know. It was only the skill and diligence of – but here we are.’

  They had arrived at a door set into the solid rock.

  ‘It’s a long way from the main living area,’ the Doctor said as Ernhardt gripped the door handle with his gloved hand.

  ‘The noises of everyday living disturb poor Victor.’ Ernhardt pushed open the heavy wooden door with ease. ‘Down here it is quiet. And I think he feels safe somehow, embedded in the heart of the mountain.’

  Apart from the stone walls, the room was like an ordinary bedroom. It was more opulent than any bedroom Olga had seen before, but the arrangement of bed and side cabinets, with a trunk at the end was hardly unusual. It was a large room, with a vaulted stone ceiling, and the few pieces of furniture – a wardrobe, chest of drawers and several chairs – were lost in it.

  Victor Ernhardt lay sleeping in the bed. The covers were drawn up to his neck. His face was pale and drawn, almost emaciated. But his father’s features were echoed in the young man’s. Sitting in a chair beside the bed, her hand resting on the covers over the boy’s chest, was a woman.

  She was, Olga thought, the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Her skin was pale, but like porcelain. Her features too were delicate, her long fair hair immaculately combed out. She wore a simple green dress that seemed to emphasise how extraordinary she looked. But when she turned to see who had come into the room, there was a deep sadness in her eyes.

  Lord Ernhardt hurried over, taking her spare hand between both of his own.

  ‘There’s no change,’ she said.

  ‘There never is,’ Ernhardt said gently.

  The woman was looking past Ernhardt. Her expression did not change as she stared at the Doctor and Olga. ‘Who are these people?’

  Ernhardt apologised and introduced them. ‘And this is my wife, Marie.’

  Olga stared back in surprise.

  The Doctor voiced her thoughts: ‘You can’t be Victor’s mother.’

  Lord Ernhardt drew in his breath sharply. But his wife seemed unmoved. ‘You think I am too young?’

  ‘Well yes. Sorry – I didn’t think it was rude to say a woman looked too young.’

  ‘It is rude to suggest they are not the mother of their own child.’

  ‘You are his mother?’ Olga said, her surprise getting the better of her discretion.

  ‘She is,’ Lord Ernhardt said sternly. ‘My wife is blessed with the appearance of youth.’

  ‘To some,’ the young-looking woman said quietly, ‘that makes me a witch.’

  ‘Not to us,’ the Doctor assured her. ‘People being older than they look is perfectly fine with me.’ He grinned broadly.

  Marie Ernhardt nodded. ‘You are a doctor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A physician?’

  ‘Ah. No. Actually. Though I read a lot.’

  ‘I warned you not to get your hopes up,’ Ernhardt said.

  ‘I have very little hope left,’ she told him. ‘My hope is dying in that bed.’

  ‘I can take a look,’ the Doctor offered. ‘I may be able to suggest something.’

  ‘No!’

  The door slammed shut.

  ‘I absolutely forbid it.’

  Standing by the closed door was a small white-haired man wearing wire-framed glasses. He peered angrily over them at the Doctor. Olga took a step backwards, but the Doctor stood his ground.

  ‘Things that are forbidden are always so much more enticing, aren’t they?’ the Doctor said. ‘Almost an invitation. You’re talking to someone who sees “Keep off the Grass” as a challenge.’
>
  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor.’ Lord Ernhardt seemed to have deflated. ‘If the Watchman will not allow it …’

  ‘Oh – so you’re the famous Watchman. What do you watch?’

  ‘At present, the sick and the dying. You are a doctor?’

  The Doctor’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms. ‘I’m many things. Why won’t you let me help?’

  The little man approached the bed. Marie Ernhardt moved aside to let him look down at her son.

  ‘I have tended young Victor since he was born, since he first became sick.’ There was a surprising tenderness in his tone. ‘I cannot allow anyone else to treat him before my work is complete. You do see that, Doctor?’

  ‘Honestly? No.’

  The Watchman sighed. ‘Then I’m sorry. Please be assured that I am doing what I can for the boy.’

  ‘If anyone can save him,’ Lord Ernhardt said, ‘then it is the Watchman. He saved …’ Ernhardt hesitated. ‘Others. He has skills that ordinary physicians, even you, Doctor, can only dream of.’

  The Doctor sniffed. ‘I doubt that. I have the most extraordinary dreams. And if you ever meet my nightmares … Well, let’s hope that never happens.’

  ‘I have work to do,’ the Watchman announced. ‘I cannot concentrate if you insist on gossiping.’

  ‘Gossiping?’ the Doctor said. ‘Gossiping?! I do not gossip. If you want to hear gossip you need to listen to Sir Thomas de Rosemont – now he could tell you a thing or two.’

  ‘Doctor …’

  Lady Ernhardt took his arm and led him gently to the door. Her husband and Olga followed.

  ‘We must let the Watchman do his work.’

  ‘He requires peace and quiet,’ Lord Ernhardt explained. ‘His work is very … delicate.’

  ‘Why – what’s he do?’

  They were out in the corridor now. Lord Ernhardt pulled the door shut behind them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘But we have to trust him.’

  ‘Why?’ Olga asked. ‘Why do you trust him?’

  ‘Because he saved Marie here from the fever, many years ago. When Victor was born.’

  ‘He is our best hope of saving Victor,’ Marie Ernhardt agreed. ‘We cannot upset him. I know you wish to help, Doctor. But your skills are unproven. We live with the evidence of the Watchman’s craft each and every day.’