by George Mann
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Cinder, softly. She stepped closer to the observation screen, watching as more of the tiny pinpricks of light drifted up into the sky, before winking out of existence, transmitted somewhere deep into the Vortex. She wondered where they’d all emerge, into the distant, long-forgotten past, or perhaps the battle-scarred future, long after the end of the War.
‘It’s vain,’ replied the Doctor, ‘and unseemly. A waste of time. Most of those lanterns won’t survive the journey through the Vortex. They’ll break up on the time winds, and all of those cherished memories will be dashed to the breeze.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Cinder. ‘To those people, the lanterns represent hope. Hope that some small part of who they are might survive all of this. Don’t take that from them.’ She suddenly felt cold, and folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself.
The Doctor smiled, for the most fleeting of moments. ‘You’re marvellously human, Cinder,’ he said, quietly. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, before he looked away and the tired, haggard expression returned.
‘What do we do now?’ said Cinder.
The Doctor shrugged. ‘We await their answer,’ he said.
Half an hour passed, maybe more. Cinder paced the room impatiently, while the Doctor remained standing at the window, looking out upon the city that had once been his home.
She wondered how long he had been running. Rassilon had called him ‘Gallifrey’s wayward son’. That suggested a deeper, more interesting history than she had so far managed to glean. What had he done to earn a reputation such as that? It was clear he was non-conformist, of course – the simple matter of his appearance, the tarnished leather jacket, the red and white scarf, not to mention the strange external aspect of his TARDIS – all of these marked him out as different from the other Time Lords. Yet Cinder got the sense there was more to it than that.
She supposed it might simply be down to his antagonistic approach to authority and his blatant disregard for the Time Lords’ obsession with ceremony and ritual. He certainly hadn’t done himself any favours in the way he’d spoken to Rassilon. Although, seeing how Karlax fawned over the Lord President, it was probably a healthy attitude to adopt. Someone had to speak up. Cinder herself, of course, probably hadn’t helped matters with her outburst. Still, at least she’d been able to make her point.
She turned at the sound of the door sliding open. A guard stepped into the room. His eyes seemed to pass over her, despite the fact she was looking right at him. He waited for the Doctor to turn and acknowledge him before speaking. ‘Lord Rassilon will speak with you now, Doctor,’ he said. ‘You may bring your … companion.’
Cinder stiffened. The man had delivered the word in such a way that the implication was clear: he did not consider her in any way to be the Doctor’s ‘companion’, but rather his ‘pet’. The Doctor knew it too, as he crossed the room and pointedly put a hand on her arm to reassure her. ‘Come on,’ he said, beneath his breath. ‘Let’s go and see what the musty old fools have come up with.’
They followed the guard along the passageway to the council chamber. He ushered them in, but did not enter.
Rassilon sat alone at the head of the table, still clutching his staff. He looked up as they entered the room. Cinder noted that, thankfully, Karlax was nowhere to be seen.
‘Have you reached your decision?’ said the Doctor.
Rassilon narrowed his eyes. ‘You forget your place, Doctor. You assume a standing here, in the chamber of the High Council, where you have none. You are a renegade, a runaway. A deserter.’
‘I am a former President of Gallifrey,’ said the Doctor angrily.
Rassilon scoffed. ‘In name, perhaps, but never more. You could never appreciate the importance of such an office.’
‘On the contrary, Rassilon. I was the only one who did.’ The Doctor pulled out a chair, scraping it across the floor, and dropped into it heavily, facing Rassilon. ‘The Tear of Isha. What is your decision?’
‘That it will be deployed into the Eye,’ replied Rassilon.
Cinder felt her heart lurch in her chest. She felt suddenly nauseous. They were going to do it. They were really going to murder every single living thing on a dozen worlds.
‘Rassilon,’ said the Doctor, clearly exasperated. ‘You’re condemning a billion souls to a terrible death. More. How can you even consider it?’
‘What are a billion human lives to us, Doctor?’ said Rassilon. ‘They are but motes of sand on the breeze. They breed like a virus, infesting every corner of the universe. Where some die, others will take their place.’
He paused, his sharp, green eyes fixed on the Doctor, as if boring into him. ‘We’re talking about Time Lord lives, now, Doctor. What you’ve described to us is a doomsday device, a weapon with the power to annihilate us, to bring an end to the War in the Daleks’ favour. Worse, if you’re right, if the Daleks manage to deploy this weapon, then Gallifrey and all her many children will be utterly eradicated from history. It shall be as if we never even existed. And where will your precious humans be then? At the mercy of the Daleks, with no one to watch over them, to keep the monsters at bay. The fate of time itself is in the balance. The death of billions is as nothing to us, Doctor, if it helps defeat the Daleks.’
‘Rassilon, you can’t honestly believe that. We’re talking about a dozen inhabited worlds,’ said the Doctor, getting to his feet. The exasperation – and disbelief – was evident in his voice. ‘You’re talking about genocide.’
‘Worlds now inhabited by Daleks, Doctor, lest you forget,’ said Rassilon.
‘Nevertheless, we don’t have the right to decide who lives and dies. Not on that sort of scale. We’re not gods, no matter how much posturing you like to do in your fancy capes and funny hats.’ The Doctor allowed his words to hang for a moment. ‘You don’t get to decide this,’ he continued, quietly, reasonably. ‘If you deploy that weapon, we’re as bad as the Daleks, the very thing we’re fighting against. Don’t you remember why we’re even at war in the first place?’
‘Enough!’ bellowed Rassilon, striking his gauntleted fist upon the table. Spittle flecked the table surface before him. He stood, glowering at the Doctor. ‘We’re fighting, Doctor, because we must. Because we’re under attack, and we have no other option. We’re fighting to save ourselves from extinction.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s not a good enough justification for what you’re suggesting. Sealing the fate of twelve planets to save one. That’s the choice you’re making. You’re putting your own lives above those of everyone else.’
‘What if I am, Doctor? Is that not the burden of the Time Lords? If we survive this war, as well we must, we shall go on to ensure the sanctity of the timelines. We will restore history; unwind the damage wrought by the Daleks. Only the Time Lords have the capability, the ingenuity, to achieve this. It is our duty to survive.’
The Doctor laughed. ‘Oh, how grand the view must be from up there on your pedestal, Rassilon. Your duty. You’re starting to sound more like a Dalek every day.’
Cinder could see that Rassilon was grinding his teeth, flexing his fingers inside his gauntlet. ‘This conversation is at an end,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Once again, Doctor, you have outstayed your welcome. I have made my decision. The Tear shall be deployed. But rest assured – despite your allegations to the contrary, we are not monsters. If there is a way to neutralise the Eye and deploy the Tear of Isha without any … collateral damage, then I shall find it. I shall consult the possibility engine.’
‘The what?’ said the Doctor.
‘The means of our salvation,’ said Rassilon cryptically, ‘and none of your concern. The time has come for you to leave. Go, and return to flitting about the universe, meddling in the affairs of the lower species.’
‘I have seen some “low species” in my time, Rassilon, but none so low as the Time Lords have sunk.’
Rassilon raised his gauntleted hand,
poking the Doctor hard in the chest with an extended index finger. The Doctor’s shoulder rocked back, but he retained his footing. ‘Get out. Now!’
‘Come on, Cinder,’ said the Doctor, not taking his eyes off Rassilon. ‘It’s clear there’s nothing more to be done here.’ He took a step back, and then turned and grabbed her by the arm, leading her hastily toward the exit.
She glanced back over her shoulder to see Rassilon still standing, his arm raised, his finger pointing to the door.
Once in the corridor outside, the Doctor pulled Cinder to one side, stopping her in her tracks. He glanced down the passageway, checking for guards. There was no one there.
‘Wha—’ she began.
He put his finger to her lips to silence her. She furrowed her brow, giving him a quizzical look.
‘I want to see what he does next,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got a feeling that I should know what this “possibility engine” is all about.’
Cinder nodded. She watched as the Doctor crept back toward the open doorway that led to the council chamber. He stopped just short, peering in around the frame.
With a shrug, Cinder decided to join him. She sneaked up behind him and, placing a hand on his back for leverage, peeked over his shoulder.
Rassilon was still inside the room, standing with his back to them. As she watched, he turned and mounted the small platform she had noted earlier, standing between the two black spurs. He made an adjustment to something on the control panel, pressed a button, and then, in a glimmer of coruscating light, he winked out of existence.
She felt the Doctor heave a sigh of relief. He stepped out into the doorway.
‘What happened to him?’ she whispered, confused. ‘Where did he go?’
‘Two very different questions, with two very different answers,’ said the Doctor. ‘That device is a transmat, designed for matter transference.’
‘Teleportation?’ asked Cinder.
‘In a sense,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s what happened to him. As for where he went …’ He glanced over his shoulder, and then strode into the room, crossing to the transmat device. He hopped up onto the platform and punched at the controls, frowning at the display. ‘Ah, yes. Just as I thought.’
‘Well?’ said Cinder, ‘don’t leave me in the dark.’
‘He’s gone to the Tower,’ said the Doctor. He was clearly distracted, trying to fathom his next move.
‘Right,’ said Cinder. ‘Now I’m clear.’ She folded her arms across her chest.
The Doctor looked up from the transmat controls. ‘Listen, Cinder. Go back to the observation room. Wait for me there. I won’t be long. Try to stay out of trouble.’
‘Wait! Hold on. Where are you going?’ she said.
‘I’m going after Rassilon,’ he replied, before flickering into nothingness.
Cinder was left staring at an empty platform, in an empty room. ‘Great,’ she said.
Chapter Twelve
The Doctor shimmered into existence in the blustery wasteland that had once been the Death Zone.
It took him a moment to get his bearings. It wasn’t often that he travelled by teleport any more, and he felt momentarily disorientated.
The landscape here was wild, overgrown, and dangerous. Rocky outcrops were exposed to the elements, and the woodland had been left to grow unchecked, harbouring all manner of feral beast, left over from the days of the games. Heather had run rampant over the fields, but the Doctor knew that, hidden beneath the long grass, there were deadly bogs and swamps. Worse, there were cave systems that were prone to collapse, some of them the only means of passing from one part of the zone to another.
Here, the Time Lords of old had carried out brutal games of life and death, during which they would scoop unwitting alien species from their natural habitats and pit them against each other in this untamed corner of Gallifrey. It was a spectator sport, similar to those of the ancient Romans of Earth, a violent, bloodthirsty pastime from a less enlightened era that many Time Lords now wished to forget.
The Doctor had played those games once, a long time ago, when a madman had torn five of the Doctor’s incarnations from their own time streams and tried to deposit them here, in the hope that he might lead them to the tomb and the secret of Rassilon’s longevity. The man responsible had transpired to be an old friend and mentor, Borusa, who’d become obsessed with his desire to achieve immortality and his need to retain a grip on his waning power.
He’d been granted his wish, too, upon following the Doctor to the tomb, where the ancient Time Lord President had tricked him, entombing his living consciousness in a stone relief for the rest of eternity.
Rassilon himself had been resurrected in the early days of the War, encouraged to take corporeal form once again to lead the Time Lords in their crusade against the Daleks.
The Doctor had once imagined him to be a benign leader, an innovator and a great statesman, just as the ancient legends had claimed, but now he knew that Rassilon was just as flawed as any other Time Lord. Worse, his ideals were outdated, and his bloated sense of his own importance was the driving force behind his policies. In his own mind, Rassilon had become a god, able to do whatever he saw fit.
The Time Lords had always preferred an autocratic society – they were overly fond of being told what to do – but what he had seen during the meeting of the High Council had convinced the Doctor more than ever that things were going badly awry. The only question was how he was going to successfully intercede.
He turned up the collar of his coat and tugged thoughtfully at his beard. He’d emerged from the teleport at the foot of the Tower – a tall, imposing structure that sat at the heart of the Death Zone. It was carved from slabs of dark, imposing granite, and crested with a finial in the form of a golden globe, intersected by a half moon. It had to be one of the most unwelcoming places the Doctor had ever seen, its brutal architecture dating from those primitive days of Gallifrey’s first forays into the stellar engineering that had granted them the power to step through time. Inside the Tower was the former tomb of Rassilon.
This had to be where the President had gone. But what was he up to? Why return to this place, where he had slept in peace for so many millennia, but was now, surely, disused? Had Rassilon found another use for the place, something he didn’t wish to share with the rest of the High Council?
The Doctor supposed there was only one way to find out. He risked incurring Rassilon’s wrath but, he reflected, it was already a little late for that, and he was curious now to discover exactly what this ‘possibility engine’ was all about.
He strode up to the tower, approaching the main gates. Here, two immense pillars flanked the entrance, and iron braziers were mounted on ornately wrought spikes, their bowls guttering with bright orange flame.
He hoped that Cinder was staying out of trouble back at the Capitol, although he doubted it. She was probably giving Karlax hell. It was no more than he deserved. It would be good, however, if at least one of them didn’t end up in a cell.
With a deep breath, the Doctor crept inside.
The interior of the Tower was cavernous, and lit by further braziers that cast long, flickering shadows, lending the place a sombre tone. Which, the Doctor considered, was only natural for a tomb.
It was dominated by the tomb itself, which sat on a large plinth in the centre of the chamber, with impressive marble pillars at each corner, and a short flight of steps leading up to the raise dais. Tattered banners in greys and blues hung from the ceiling. Once, they might have been splendid, but now they were dusty and rotten, representative, that Doctor decided, of the faded glory of the Time Lords themselves.
The Doctor watched as Rassilon swept into the great hall, his billowing robes trailing across the marble floor and swirling eddies of dust in his wake. His staff tap-tapped with every step, echoing out in the desolate, abandoned place.
He crossed to a small hexagonal console and ran his hands over it, waking the system so that a series of runes lit u
p across its surface. He then turned and approached the empty tomb, upon which his body – or rather, the body of his previous incarnation – had once lain.
‘Borusa!’ he called, his voice booming, as if trying to wake the dead. ‘Borusa! I have need of you.’
Was Borusa still here, his essence trapped inside the carved relief on the side of Rassilon’s granite coffin? During that fateful episode when the Doctor had been forced to endure the Death Zone, this was where Rassilon had incarcerated Borusa.
There was a whirring sound from atop the tomb, and as the Doctor watched, a platform began to raise itself up, pivoting so that the figure lying on top of the tomb would be presented upright to anyone standing below.
Rassilon stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up as the machine completed its cycle. The Doctor, still standing in the doorway, crept forward in order to get a better look, edging round to stand in the shadow of a buttress. He cringed as his boots scuffed against the polished marble, but thankfully the grating sound of the mechanism muffled his steps, and Rassilon didn’t look behind him.
The sight of the thing on the tomb was something the Doctor would never forget, not in all his lives. It was utterly monstrous. Borusa had been lashed to the steel frame, his wrists and ankles bound with rope, so that his body formed the shape of a cross. He was still wearing his ceremonial robes, but where they fell open over his chest, it was clear they were hiding a multitude of sins.
His body was a mess, resting at the heart of a nest of wires and cables. His pale flesh was puckered where incisions had been made in his chest and tubes had been inserted, pushed deep into the cavity, presumably to inflate his lungs and keep at least one of his hearts beating.
His head was crowned with a metal skullcap, and a knot of cables erupted from the back of his skull, trailing away to the blinking box of a neural relay.