BBC Cult Dr Who - The Sands Of Time

by BBCi Cult

  'May I?' he reached down and took the glass from her hands. Tegan thought for a second he was about to help her to her feet. But instead, he drained the brandy in a single swallow, smacking his lips together appreciatively. Then he handed her back the empty glass and dashed across the room to where Kenilworth was still standing silently by the casket.

  The Doctor reached inside the coffin. 'Will you time me, Lord Kenilworth?' he asked. 'I'm going to feel her neck for a pulse again.'

  'If you wish, Doctor.' Kenilworth pulled a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped open the front cover. 'But there was nothing earlier.'

  'Four thousand years is a very long time. An induced metabolic coma would explain the body's preservation, and it would have to be extremely deep to be sustained for that length of time.'

  'You mean - she might not be dead?' Tegan put her empty glass down on the low mahogany table beside her chair and stood up. 'Nyssa's alive?' she asked.

  The Doctor was staring into the casket. 'It's possible,' he said. 'We did feel for a pulse just now, but only for few seconds - perhaps thirty. In a coma this deep, there might be a pulse only every few minutes.' He paused, face creasing into a frown as if he was willing Nyssa's heart to beat. 'It is possible,' he repeated. 'Just possible.'

  The bed was hard, made of some sort of rough wood. In fact it was more like a bench than a bed. The smell of fish was everywhere, which might have given Nyssa a clue that she was somewhere very close to Billingsgate. Except that she was unconscious. And she had never heard of Billingsgate.

  She drifted into and out of awareness, her mind hovering between blackness and a misty haze. Sounds wafted through the gloom as she floated nearer to the surface of thought, mixing with the smell of fish, insinuating their way into Nyssa's mind. She heard rather than listened, absorbed the noises as she breathed in the smells.

  'She was found at the appointed place. There at the appointed hour. She is the one.' The voice was refined, cultured but with a guttural accent which caught the vowels at the back of the throat.

  But the voice which answered rasped as if it was forced through broken glass: 'You will send her back?'

  'As it is written. As I remember it happening. I have seen her, and she is the one.' A pause. Then the gravelled voice scraped again in the darkness: 'Then the time is near. After all the millennia, a mere century and then...'

  The blackness drifted in again. The mists clouded Nyssa's thought and fogged her hearing. The sounds drifted away again into the distance. A few phrases, odd words found their way through the night.

  'The journey... the alignment will be right tonight, the stars are set ... power is building...'

  'The watchers report the museum is clear... we must return at once...'

  Dinner was a rather muted affair. Usually when Lord Kenilworth was recently returned from an expedition, he and his wife would talk animatedly about what had happened variously in Cairo and London over the past few months. The previous night had followed this pattern, broken only by anticipation of the unwrapping, and by Kenilworth's strange assumptions about what Atkins had been doing in his absence.

  But tonight Atkins poured a little wine into his lordship's glass, and listened to the silence. He had not attempted to understand why Lord Kenilworth supposed that he had accompanied him on his expedition. He must have known otherwise. And even if he did not, Lady Kenilworth was as insistent as Atkins was that Atkins had not stirred from London in the past four months. The conversation had been ended by Lady Kenilworth's suggestion that they talk about the impending unwrapping, and Kenilworth's half-heard mutterings that the Doctor had said there would be some confusion over events.

  As Atkins removed the dinner plates and motioned for Beryl the maid to supply pudding bowls he reflected that the previous night had been crystal clear by comparison. After the subdued silence of the soup and the quiet politeness of the entree, conversation had risen to new levels. And confusion with it.

  'Four thousand years, and you say she's just asleep?' Kenilworth shook his head and reached for his wine. 'Dashed queer business, if you ask me.'

  'It's a metabolic coma,' the Doctor repeated patiently, hand palm-down over his wine glass as Atkins reached forward with the bottle.

  Atkins moved on to Miss Jovanka. She watched glassy-eyed as he replenished her drink, and then all-but drained it in a single gulp. Atkins pretended not to notice, just as he feigned disinterest in the conversation. He had heard matters from the colour of the Queen's bedroom curtains to the future foreign policy of the Empire discussed in this room, and he took it all in his measured stride.

  Tonight's conversation was more unsettling than others, though. Perhaps because of his involvement on the fringes of yesterday's related discussions, perhaps because of the evident distress of the Doctor and Miss Jovanka, perhaps because of the seemingly lifeless body lying in an ancient casket in the next room... Atkins felt that tonight he might permit himself to discuss some small aspects of the deliberations with Miss Warne when they went over the plans for the household for the following day.

  'Dashed queer,' Kenilworth repeated. 'Don't you think, Atkins?' he added as the butler passed behind him.

  'I'm sorry, sir? Oh I really couldn't say.'

  Kenilworth snorted. 'I must say, you've clammed back up since we returned. You know I value your views on these matters.'

  This was news to Atkins, but he nodded politely and hazarded an opinion as he was asked. 'If the young lady is merely asleep, sir, then could we not wake her up?'

  'Good thought, good thought.'

  'Well, Doctor?' Miss Jovanka seemed to take her first interest in the conversation. 'Can we help her?'

  'Perhaps, Tegan. Perhaps.' The Doctor pushed his plate to one side, the food untouched. Atkins carefully removed it before the Doctor's elbow could sink into the spotted dick. 'It is possible, though rather tricky. I have to break into the coma in precisely the right way and that depends on how long Nyssa has been unconscious, where she was found, what condition the sarcophagus has been in, all manner of things. Even how she was transported here is important. Ideally the body should have been kept as level as possible.'

  Kenilworth wiped his upper lip on a napkin. 'Well, of course it was,' he said through the double damask.

  The Doctor stared at him. 'Could I ask why?'

  Miss Jovanka, the Doctor and Lady Kenilworth waited for the reply. Atkins contrived to fill a glass close to his lordship so as to hear properly.

  Kenilworth eventually finished refolding his napkin. He seemed perplexed. 'The sarcophagus was kept level, even to the point of stringing it up in a hammock on the return voyage, because you insisted on it, Doctor.'

  The Doctor gaped. 'I did?'

  'Indeed. I'm not sure I follow what's going on here, Doctor. Your memory seems as fickle as Atkins' does. The other stuff you mentioned - location and condition of the body and all that - you know already.' He stood and motioned to Atkins. 'I think we'll take port in the drawing room.'

  'But how?' Miss Jovanka called after Kenilworth as she got unsteadily to her feet. 'How does the Doctor know?'

  Kenilworth turned in the doorway. 'Not you too, Tegan. He knows, as you do, because he was there when we found the tomb.'

  The carriage clattered to a halt in the snowy night. Nyssa had no way of knowing how long it was since she had last been here, but she recognised the impressive stone facade of the British Museum as she was dragged roughly from the carriage.She stumbled groggily down the damp wooden steps and slipped on the cobbled street. Her foot sank through the crisp crust of ice and skidded on the slush beneath. At once she was hauled to her feet.

  'Gently, Yusuf, gently.'

  Nyssa found herself looking into the tanned face of a short but broadly-built man in an opera cape. It was a round face, made to appear rounder by the complete lack of hair. The face was broken into a grim smile which looked as though it was set in position. Nyssa got an impression of a depth of experience which belied the appar
ent age of the man. Then she saw that while his skin was smooth, it was also cobwebbed with hairline cracks, like an old oil painting of a young man. He continued to smile humourlessly at her, talking over her shoulder to the man holding her arms behind her back.

  'The goddess did not choose this one so that you could bruise her fair skin.' He reached out a callused hand and ran a rough finger along Nyssa's cheek. She flinched, tried to back away. But the man behind her held her still. 'No, Yusuf, she has a better use for her than that.' He stared into her eyes for a while. Nyssa held his gaze for a moment, then looked away, sought refuge in the dirty white of the churned up snow at her feet.

  'Does your father have other daughters?' The hand on Nyssa's cheek caressed her chin, gripping it suddenly and pulling it upwards so she was forced to look into the man's face again. It was not a rough gesture, rather it was almost gentle. 'It would be a shame if such beauty was unique.'

  'My father's dead.' And for the first time Nyssa found she really believed that. He was not coming back; he had not just gone away; her father was dead. A short word that covered a condition that would last forever. No funeral, no time for tears, just an emptiness so deep that it ached. 'Dead,' Nyssa repeated, and the word hung in the cold air with a blunt monosyllabic finality.

  The man nodded slowly. 'I have heard it said that a father should not outlive his children,' he said quietly, so that only Nyssa heard him. Then his mouth twisted into a sudden smile and he snapped his fingers. The bald man was immediately handed a thick roll of cloth. The man gripped the hem of the cloth and let a long cloak unroll. He draped it over Nyssa's shoulders and pulled it tight around her. Then he stepped back to admire the result. 'There,' he said, 'that's better.'

  'Who are you?' Nyssa was aware that her voice was shaking. She hoped the man thought it was from the cold rather than from fear. 'What do you want with me?'

  'So many questions, so little patience.' The man started to turn away.

  'Why have you brought me back here?'

  The man paused, then swung back to face her. His face was still set in its half-smile. 'Oh Nyssa, Nyssa,' he shook his head.

  She gasped. 'You know who I am?'

  'Of course. I have always known. Or at least, it sometimes seems that way.' He gave a slight bow, barely more than an inclination of his bald head. 'I am Sadan Rassul, High Priest of Sutekh and Nephthys, as was my father before me. And I have been waiting for you.'

  He turned away again, cape swirling in the breeze, and started to walk slowly towards the main doors of the museum. Yusuf pushed Nyssa after him, and she was aware of others following behind him. A single flake of snow landed on the smooth back of Rassul's head. It lingered for a second in the gaslight before melting slowly into a drop of water which ran down his hairless neck like a tear down a mourner's cheek.

  As she stumbled her way after Rassul, Nyssa realized that the others were walking with the same measured tread as their leader. It reminded her for a moment of a ceremonial procession on Traken.

  It reminded her of a funeral cortege.

  The candles guttered and danced in the draught from the open door. The light flickered across the relics and played along the walls. It pooled on the floor, reflected off the high windows.

  If she had not remembered the path they had taken to get back there, Nyssa might not have recognized the relic room. As she was guided in, it seemed to Nyssa that every available surface hosted a candelabra. Each of the candles kept its own tiny halo within reach, allowing it to toss and twist but never to break free of the fizzling wick. Shadows crept across the room, and then jumped back into the gloom as a flame edged towards them for a second before changing direction again. Trails of oily black smoke spiralled upwards towards the ceiling as if rising through murky water, desperate to reach the air.

  The dark figures of her cloaked captors processed slowly through the room. A dark cat watched their progress with statue eyes; the dead faces painted on the sarcophagi followed their journey to the far end of the long room. Nyssa let herself be carried with the tide. She could smell the acrid candle fumes, could taste the caustic smoke in the back of her dry mouth. She tried not to cough and the effort brought tears to her eyes. Tears that she had been trying to keep inside.

  As they neared the end of the room, Nyssa could smell something else. There was a perfumed, sweet, almost sticky smell. Incense and flowers, honey and myrrh. She looked round, trying to locate the source, and out of the corner of an eye caught sight of the flicker-lit blue of the TARDIS. She gasped, taking in a deep mouthful of the sticky sweetness. She almost laughed for joy, but the sound stuck in her throat as she was pushed forward, away from the hope of escape.

  Her vision was blurring, hazing over as a firm hand on her shoulder drew Nyssa to a stop. She blinked back the smoky tears and saw that she was standing in front of the sarcophagus Tegan had been examining. A lifetime ago. The dark, impassive, carved face stared back at her. The arms were crossed over the chest, each hand holding a staff. Almost unconsciously Nyssa copied the gesture, bringing her cloak tighter about her. A phrase of Tegan's lingered in the back of her memory: 'Cross my heart.'

  Beside the sarcophagus stood tall incense burners, one each side. Through the increasing muzziness of the sweet haze, Nyssa registered that the sticky smell was dripping from the smoking contents of the bowls of the burners. She swayed on her feet, feeling the weight of her body rock on the backs of her heels for a second.

  Rassul stepped in front of Nyssa. He bowed low to the sarcophagus, then turned to face her. With a swift movement he shrugged off his cape. Beneath it his chest was bare, adorned only with a gold necklace which hung in heavy strands across his torso. Below it he wore what looked like an ornate skirt.

  Nyssa swayed again, as if in the breeze, and noted with a light-headed giggle that he wore sandals on his feet. The leather twisted into an oval over his toes. The shape mirrored the curled end of the stave the sarcophagus figure held.

  The other figures clustered round behind Nyssa, attention fixed on Rassul. When he spoke, his voice had taken on a deep, plangent tone that echoed round the room, glancing off caskets and cutting a path through the smoke and incense.

  'The time is now.' He raised his arms above his head. 'We bring the chosen one to the gateway at the appointed time. It is as it was written; as I remember it to have been.' Rassul turned back to the sarcophagus, crossing his arms across his chest, imitating the carved figure. 'I make the sign of the eye, and send you a new receptacle. The chosen one.'

  Somewhere deep within the sarcophagus a hum of energy was building. A blue light flickered with the candles across the face of the casket.

  'From across the ages, we provide your continuing imprisonment, and your ultimate release. When Orion is aligned, when power is rife, then it is said that you will live again.'

  The noise was rising like a major chord on a large organ. The blue light strobed into a swirling vortex of colour, and the front of the sarcophagus dissolved into a whirl of light bleeding into its dark outline.

  'The waiting is almost over. I begin the final act.' Rassul's laugh echoed over the chord.

  Nyssa felt herself propelled towards the vortex. She struggled for a moment, but then realized that nobody was holding her, nobody was pushing her. But in the second she looked behind, she saw a figure through the incense-mist, a figure standing behind Rassul's followers. Watching. The figure stepped back into the shadows as Nyssa turned away again. But she had caught a glimpse of him, had seen the shadow of his ruined face. But the image that her retina retained was not the pallid glow of the moonlight on the sunken, blackened features of his face. It was the snow clinging to his matted hair and his heavy cloak. The snow which seemed to have crystallized into a layer of ice, when it should have melted in the heat from his body.

  Nyssa was being drawn closer, into the kaleidoscope of light. She clasped her hands tightly over her shoulders as the blackness closed around her and Rassul's laughter faded into the hazy distance
.

  'Cross my heart,' Tegan's voice murmured in Nyssa's ear as she fell from consciousness and into the casket. 'Cross my heart, and hope to die.'

  'I'm sorry, Lord Kenilworth, but I'm going to have to ask you to trust me.' The Doctor clenched and unclenched his hands as he spoke.

  But Kenilworth snorted at his exasperation. 'Well, wouldn't be the first time, would it?' He drew on his cigar and let out a breath of smoke. It drifted across the drawing room, thinning and dissolving somewhere above the mantelpiece. 'Reckon you deserve that though, after everything.'

  'Yes, well,' the Doctor scratched his head, half stood up from where he was seated on the sofa, then sat down again. 'I'd rather we didn't discuss that in any detail, if you don't mind.'

  'Why not?' Tegan was standing on the far side of the room, arms folded, staring down into the coffin. She looked up, and the Doctor had to twist in the sofa to see her properly. 'What's happening here, Doctor?' She held his gaze for several seconds. 'I want to know.'

  'Well, if we're to help Nyssa, there are some things I need to know. But I'm wary of knowing too much.'

  'Not much fear of that so far.'

  'Tegan,' the Doctor chided.

  'So what do you want to know, eh?' Kenilworth was examining his port. He took a sip and nodded appreciatively.

  The Doctor picked up his own glass, stared at it for a moment, then put it carefully back on the table beside him. 'I must ask you to bear with me, Kenilworth. I'm going to ask you about things which you will tell me I already know. But please answer my questions about where and when the mummy was found as best you can. And please don't add any extra information, I only want a direct answer.'

  Kenilworth shrugged. 'Fire away, old man.'

  The Doctor turned back to Tegan. 'And I'd be grateful if you could curb your natural inquisitiveness for a while, Tegan.'

  She stared at him. 'Doctor, Nyssa is in a coffin here dying.' Her voice had dropped an octave. 'I want to know why. And I want to know how to save her.'