The Power Of The Time Lords

by Queerlybeloved

The Doctor is asked to find six Gallifreyan artifacts which when combined gives the wearer the power of the Time Lords. Racing through time and space, he must find the items before an evil Brethren does... Chapter 5 Uploaded finally! Rating changed to M.

1. The Cloister Bell

Author's Note: This is a Tenth Doctor story, which takes place between The Runaway Bride and Series 3. Being a big fan of the classic series, I have included quite a few references to classic adventures etc. in the story (which will continue, basically because I'm a bit of a geek). I am hoping that classic series viewers can appreciate the references whilst new series viewers won't find them too intrusive. By the way, thanks to Scout Girl for pointing out a slight oversight in the first draft, which has now been amended!

Disclaimer: It should go without saying, but I will anyway. I don't own any rights to anything to do with Doctor Who. I have directly quoted a line from The Runaway Bride (written by Russell T. Davies) but, apart for that, the rest of it is mine!

CHAPTER ONE: THE CLOISTER BELL

The TARDIS span through space, passing galaxies and nebulae quicker than a heartbeat. At the control panel, the Doctor stood, pensive. His thoughts flickered to Bad Wolf Bay, the look on Rose's face, the tears on her cheeks… For all the time he had been travelling, for all the companions he had traveled with, it was her, Rose Tyler, whose absence burned the brightest. Even his recent adventure with the loud and brash Donna Noble had not diminished his pain at her leaving. But Rose was safe. Alive, well, with loved ones far away from trouble and evil and pain. Must be nice, he thought.

The Doctor was rudely jolted from his reverie by a loud reverberating tone that echoed through the TARDIS. He looked bemused and checked the main control room to see if anything could have fallen and caused the noise. Nothing. He checked the co-ordinates on the control panel. Everything as he had programmed it. No records to say he had crashed into space debris or a meteor.

'How strange', he said.

He heard the sound again, more distinctly this time. It reminded him of something, something long forgotten. The Doctor paused, listened intently.

It happened again. The same loud sound. Almost like a gong or…

'No. It can't be', he whispered.

It had been many years since he had last heard that sound. He had expected to never hear it again. The last time he had heard it however, he had been put on trial for his life before the Inquisitor. He had been summoned by that sound, by the ringing of the Cloister Bell of Gallifrey, and forced to return to his home planet.

But surely not this time, he thought. After the Time War had finished, he had briefly returned to Gallifrey and saw what had become of it. Scarred ruins, blackened and scorched earth, a hollow husk of a planet. He had been too shocked to cry.

A bleeping sound from the control panel alerted the Doctor to a change of co-ordinates. The TARDIS has diverted itself and began to follow the sound of the Cloister Bell. It was like the TARDIS had a homing beacon, which had kicked in. Attempting to override this command and change co-ordinates again was futile. The Doctor tried the co-ordinates for Segonax, Leophantos and even Griophos but to no avail.

The Doctor scanned the screen carefully.

'Those aren't the co-ordinates for Gallifrey. Where are you taking me?', he asked aloud, knowing full well his time machine would not give him an answer.

He watched the screen as they flew past recognisable planets, colonies and star systems, edging further and further into the dark reaches of space. The Doctor could feel the TARDIS accelerating too; wherever it was going, it was going there in a hurry.

The steady, sonorous clang of the Cloister Bell seemed to be getting louder as the TARDIS hurtled towards its unknown destination.

'Please don't let it be another Sanctuary Base in the middle of nowhere. Or anywhere with cats in wimples. Can't be doing with that again' he muttered.

The TARDIS landed with a slight jolt, then settled. The Doctor looked at the external scanner. It didn't look dangerous, at first sight. It did look barren, like a quarry or somewhere desolate, lots of rocks and low-hanging mist and no recognisable landmarks. The scanner couldn't even pick up a name or a system for their location. They almost seemed to be out of time and space completely.

'Oh, well, better see what wants me' the Doctor said, grabbing his jacket and heading towards the TARDIS doors.

He opened the door slowly and then stepped out. His footsteps echoed. He could breathe, that was always a bonus. There didn't seem to be anything on this place except for rocks. The Doctor frowned. Why would the Cloister Bell sound here and call him to it?

He used the sonic screwdriver to scan the surrounding area. Nothing. Through the mist, he thought he could make out a light, distinct and burning against the gloom. He started to walk towards the light…

Suddenly a voice yelled out in the darkness, like the crack of a rifle in a silent forest.

'Theta Sigma!'

These two words stopped the Doctor immediately. Nobody had called him that in years, not since his college days at least. This nickname was not common knowledge.

'Who's there?' he yelled. 'Answer me!'

'Fear me not, my friend. I mean you no harm. Although I must apologise for the rather… theatrical manner of your arrival.'

From the gloom, the light began to move. It was a figure, holding a lantern aloft. A seemingly middle-aged man, dressed in thick brown and white robes. His hair was nearly silver and flowed across his shoulders. His face half in shadows, his visible hazel eye was piercing yet friendly.

The Doctor had trouble containing his frustration, which was slowly beginning to border on anger. 'You rang the Cloister Bell? You summoned me here to this barren rock? Why? And who are you?'

'All shall become apparent, my friend. Now please come with me. I have some refreshments waiting for you. And what I am about to discuss with you may well require you to sit down. Come.'

With little option but to comply, the Doctor followed the strange older man through the gloom, the lantern the only light. Occasionally, the Doctor stumbled on rough shale and had to balance himself.

Soon they arrived at a small dwelling, barely bigger than a cottage, nestled into the side of a cliff. Through a little window, the Doctor could see a fireplace and two comfortable chairs either side of it.

'Where are we?' the Doctor asked.

'This is my home,' the older man said, opening the door and turning back to the Doctor. 'Please come in.'

The Doctor walked in and promptly stopped when he caught sight of an item on the back wall of the room.

The Seal of Rassilon.

The Doctor was amazed. 'That's impossible. That can't… how did… what is this place? How do you have that?'

Before the older man could answer, the Doctor's eyes were taken elsewhere in the room. The entire room was covered in relics from Gallifrey. He turned to the older man, agape.

'Time Lord?'

'I'm afraid not, my friend. Merely half-Gallifreyan, on my father's side,' the older man smiled wryly. 'I was an emissary for one of the chancellors right up until…'

'Until the Time War.'

'Yes.' That word came out, barely a whisper and weighted with pain. 'Please do sit down, my friend.'

The Emissary gestured to one of the comfortable chairs opposite the glowing fireplace. The Doctor nodded and sat down, his eyes still on the Seal of Rassilon.

The Emissary sat down in the opposite chair and the Doctor could see, very clearly, a large scar that ran down the left side of the Emissary's face, closing the left eye permanently. As the Emissary placed another log upon the fire, the Doctor could now see burns and scars all over the older man's hands. The Emissary felt the Doctor looking and fixed his one good eye on him.

'Scars, my friend. We all have them. Mine are physical… whilst yours are more… emotional, I gather.'

The Doctor looked at him, his eyes shining with tears that threatened to fall. He breathed deeply then answered the Emissary. 'As you say, we all have them.'

'You know she is safe. That thought must console you against her loss. Alana!'

A younger, female voice answered from another room. 'Yes, uncle?'

'He is here, my dear. Could you bring the refreshments in? Thank you,' the Emissary said, settling back into his chair. 'My brother's only child. He too died in the Time War. He was a captain in the President's elite guard. One of the first to be… exterminated. When I… but time enough for that. Tea?'

A pretty young woman, aged perhaps in her late twenties, came in from the other room bearing a silver salver with a samovar, cups and a cake-stand. She was tall, slender, with that same piercing look in her eyes as her uncle. She placed the salver on a small table between the two men.

'Is that all, uncle?' she said, smiling at the Emissary.

'Yes, thank you, child. Alana, this is the Doctor.'

The Doctor stood up as Alana regarded him coolly for a moment and then extended her hand. 'How do you do?'

'Pleasure to meet you' the Doctor said, taking her hand.

'Well, I shall leave you to it, uncle. Please call me when you're ready' Alana said, before leaving the two men to their tea.

The Doctor sat back for a moment, barely able to consider what was happening. He had been pulled from space by the Cloister Bell, taken to this distant rock and was now having tea with a Gallifreyan. He needed some answers.

'You called me by using the Cloister Bell.'

'That's correct' the Emissary said, drinking his tea.

'How did you remove the Bell from Gallifrey and bring it here? Do you have a TARDIS?'

'Not quite. You see, I… well, I don't have a TARDIS so much as I… borrowed one. And it's not the whole Cloister Bell. The bell-tower was destroyed and the bell shot down but when I returned…'

'Returned? What do you mean 'returned'?'

'When I returned,' the Emissary said, glossing over the Doctor's question. 'I took the shards that remained of the Bell and rebuilt it as much as I could. It is on the outcrop closest to the cottage. I did not know whether it would work, whether it would summon you here, but it has.'

The Doctor finally lost all patience, putting his teacup down loudly enough to rattle the spoons on the table. 'You say you 'returned' to Gallifrey. You say you 'borrowed' a TARDIS? You talk in riddles, my friend, and if you don't give me some straight answers pretty soon, whatever you summoned me here for will become redundant.'

The Emissary regarded the Doctor for a moment, breathed heavily through his nostrils then put his own cup aside.

'Very well. I shall give you some straight answers. Then perhaps what I summoned you here for will become apparent.

'The Time War was truly the most terrible event I have ever witnessed. The barbarity of it, the scale of devastation was sickening. My brother, my friends and compatriots all lay their lives down in a futile attempt to stop the Dalek threat, to preserve the honour and traditions of Gallifrey against those who would assimilate and destroy it.

When we got warning that the Dalek hordes had landed on Gallifrey and were making their way through to the President's palace, everyone was armed and told to expect to die in defence of the planet.

Then I remembered the ceremonial attire and I… I deserted my post in order to find it and remove it from harm's way.'

'What ceremonial attire?' the Doctor asked.

'The six items worn and carried by the incumbent President at their coronation. The ceremonial orb and sceptre, the diadem, the sapphire ring, the President's chain of office and the coronation robe.'

'Blimey, they've changed things since my day' the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow.

'Indeed. It was felt that a little pomp and circumstance would not go amiss, especially since it was the combined power of these six articles that imbued the wearer with the power of the Time Lords.'

'Hold on… the what?'

'The Power of the Time Lords.'

The Doctor looked puzzled. 'Now, it's precious little that gets past me, but even I have to admit defeat on this one. Those six items give you the power of the Time Lords? The person wearing them was always a Time Lord!'

'Not always, my friend. In the latter days- after you had gone on the run- and the true golden age of the Time Lords was in decline, it was decided that non-Time Lords could, in exceptional circumstances, be invested with that power and serve as President. I remember the chancellor I served, Chancellor Rusbarian, was most affronted when that decree was passed.'

'So these items would grant the wearer the power that we Time Lords had. No wonder you wanted to get them out of the grasp of the Daleks.'

'Precisely!' The Emissary said. 'If that Daleks had been able to harness that power… well, the consequences really do not bear thinking about. Their decimation, their genocide of nations would be infinitely worse. So I decided to get them away from Gallifrey.

I was able to get to the chambers where they were stored with little trouble. I grabbed the chests that contained them and ran for my very life. As I crossed the Panopticon, I could hear the muffled screams of friends as the Daleks advanced and that terrible battle cry, "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

I made it to the TARDIS bays and found one that was open. I threw the chest within it and closed the door, just as a cadre of Daleks came round the corner and began shooting at it. I steered the TARDIS as well as I could, and travelled throughout time and space, dropping off one item in the various places where I landed, hoping, praying that I had not been followed by a Dalek ship.

Luckily I had not been and so I charted the co-ordinates of where I had landed and noted what I had left there, hoping that one day I would be able to return and retrieve what I had placed there.

When I had finished, I returned to Gallifrey. The Daleks had gone but they had left a swathe of devastation in their wake. The buildings were in ruins, burning and crumbling. Bodies everywhere, that revolting stench of death heavy in the air. I ran from building to building vainly trying to find anyone who had survived. Very few had. When I entered my own chambers, I found young Alana waiting for me. She told me my brother had died, fighting against the invasion. So I told her she would come with me when I left and I would take care of her.

I scoured the President's chambers and the buildings for anything I could take with me, any relics of the planet, anything I could save. Those items around me are what I managed to save. Then I came across records of you and your trial before the Inquisitor. I took them too, and the fragments of the Cloister Bell. Alana and I, and all I saved, returned to the TARDIS I… borrowed and we fled here.'

The two men sat without talking for a few moments, the crackling of the fire the only noise in the room.

'So now do you see why I summoned you?' the Emissary asked, looking at the Doctor.

Realisation dawned on the Doctor very quickly. 'You want me to travel through time and space to collect the items.'

'That is correct.'

The Doctor paused for a moment. 'If you were so concerned about the Daleks getting hold of these ceremonial items, why didn't you just destroy them?'

There was a long pause before the Emissary answered. 'Because… because I foolishly hoped that Iwould be able to use the items to restore Gallifrey. Knowing the Daleks would decimate the planet, I hid the artifacts hoping to retrieve them and use the power of the Time Lords to master time and bring our planet back. But that is not meant to be. The TARDIS I hijacked those years ago is now beyond repair. I am now too old and I cannot defend myself as well as I could.'

'Defend yourself? Why would you…?' The Doctor paused. 'There's something you're not telling me. These items have been lost in space and time a long time. Why do you suddenly need them now?'

'We have received word that a rogue faction has learned that the ceremonial attire is hidden and they are starting to look for it themselves.'

'Who? Does this "faction" have a name?'

The Emissary swallowed hard before answering. 'The Brethren Of Osterand.'

'Never heard of them. But they've certainly got you spooked.'

'And with good reason, my friend. They are powerful and they are evil. They have members throughout space, time and even in alternate and parallel dimensions. They have a strong but subtle stranglehold on the universe, which would only increase if they were to harness the power of the Time Lords. They would enslave us all and wreak devastation that would make what the Daleks did to our planet look like an insignificance.'

The Doctor looked grave. Having seen what remained of Gallifrey, the idea of somebody causing so much damage elsewhere was abhorrent. That could not be allowed to happen.

'I'll find these items for you. Where did you leave the first one?'

'You'll do it? Oh, thank you, thank you, my friend!' The Emissary laughed. 'Alana! He'll do it! Bring the ledger, my dear.'

The Doctor rose from his chair by the fire. The Emissary stood also. Alana came in from the other room, carrying a small leather-bound book.

'I wrote everything down here,' the Emissary said, as he took the book from Alana. 'The co-ordinates for the planets, notes on the period of time which I visited, what I left, where I left it, in some cases who I left it with.'

'That will help immensely,' the Doctor said, putting his glasses on and glancing over the crabbed handwriting on the yellowed pages of the ledger. 'It'll feel slightly less like looking for a needle in a haystack. Is there anything else I need?'

'Just me' Alana said.

'What? No, hold on…' the Doctor said, taking off his glasses.

'My uncle was most insistent that, were we able to contact you and you would agree to this task, that I would go with you if you were alone,' Alana said. 'Not for the companionship so much, but there may be times you will need another's help. Are you travelling alone?'

The Doctor looked unsure. 'I am.'

'Then I must go with you.'

The Doctor was ready to protest until something that Donna had said- just before they had parted company- came to mind. 'Sometimes I think you need someone to stop you'. Would he need stopping at any point as he tried to retrieve these artifacts? Would he be in that position where to take a life would seem too easy? Perhaps Donna, for all her brashness, was right. Perhaps he did.

'Fine. Come with me. But we must leave as soon as possible. Chances are the Brethren are out looking as we speak.'

'I'm ready to go, Doctor' Alana said.

'But… your uncle? Surely he will need your assistance?' the Doctor said, leaning close to Alana and lowering his voice. 'He is half-blind.'

'That I am, Doctor,' the Emissary said. 'It does not mean I am half-deaf. I will be able to cope quite well without Alana's presence. Besides, you may well be returning quickly than any of us anticipate.'

'And the quicker we leave, the quicker we may return,' said Alana, taking the ledger from the Doctor's hands. 'Come, Doctor. Where did your TARDIS land?'

'A little way beyond your uncle's cottage' the Doctor said, slightly stunned at how quickly he was being railroaded into leaving.

The three of them walked the short distance from the Emissary's cottage to the TARDIS, the Emissary once again leading the way with the lantern. When they reached the TARDIS, the Emissary embraced Alana and kissed her gently on the cheek. She touched the good side of the Emissary's face gently then entered the TARDIS. The Emissary smiled and shook the Doctor's hand. 'Thank you once again, Doctor. May your journey be swift and without trouble.'

'I doubt it'll be either' the Doctor said, entering the TARDIS himself.

The TARDIS doors closed and, very quickly, the light on top of the TARDIS began to pulsate and- with a loud whoosh- it vanished. The Emissary stood watching for a moment then began walking back to his cottage, his lantern once again the only light in the gloom.