Title: The Seven Deadly Sins
Author: E.A. Week
E-mail: e. at gmail dot com; also on LJ as eaweek.
Summary: The Jewish Ghetto of Prague in the late 1800s is a damp, cold, claustrophobic maze. The Seventh Doctor and Ace encounter a young gem cutter who claims to have seen the Ghetto's mysterious Golem, but could this mythological legend have an extraterrestrial origin?
Category: Doctor Who.
Distribution: Feel free to link to this story, but please drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.
Feedback: Comments are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Leave a review, shoot me an email or a PM, and let me know why!
Disclaimer 1: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just playing in their sandbox.
Disclaimer 2: This story was originally published in Crossed Computers 2, a fanzine published in 1991 by Ed-Ventures, Ink., Rochester, NY, E. Michael Whitmore (Ed). This is an edited and revised version.
Credit where credit is due: much of the material for this story is based on the 1914 novel by Gustave Meyrink, The Golem.
Story rating: This story is rated G—appropriate for general audiences.
Continuity: This story takes place between seasons twenty-four and twenty-five of the classic Doctor Who series.
Ace firmly capped the small can she held. She checked the seal one last time and slid the canister inside her bulky bomber jacket, where it clinked against another. She surveyed the TARDIS's cluttered lab. When she had first started using this area, it had been neat as a pin. Now it resembled a cross between a teenager's bedroom and the lair of a mad scientist, and the pervasive odor of burning chemicals wafted through the air.
A slight jolt as the time machine landed interrupted her examination of the lab's condition. She hastened to zip her backpack closed and made an ineffectual pass at tidying up her workbench.
The door to the lab popped open, and the small figure of the Seventh Doctor appeared. "Ace! We're here!"
"Where's 'here' this time, Professor?"
The Time Lord's mouth puckered as if he'd bitten into a lemon. "Ace—"
"I know, I know. Sorry—Doctor." She grinned as she hoisted her knapsack.
He sniffed the air like a suspicious bloodhound. "Wait one minute. What's in there?"
"Just some stuff." She gathered the knapsack protectively against herself.
The Doctor lowered his gaze at her as a teacher would to an errant pupil. He motioned for her to advance. "Let's have a look."
With a loud, wounded sigh, she handed over the bag. He opened the top, pulling out two small cans of Nitro-9. "How many times—?"
She hung her head, the very image of contrition. "Sorry, Prof—Doctor."
He grinned. It was impossible to stay angry with her for very long. "Well, come along, then!" He bounded out of the lab. With a smug grin, Ace patted her pockets, shouldered her bag, and followed him.
(ii)
The open TARDIS door revealed a strange, crooked street lined with queerly shaped houses that seemed to have been placed there without a sense of symmetry or order. The buildings had been squeezed together until there was no room to fit even one more. It felt claustrophobic.
"Where is this?" Ace muttered distastefully, looking up and down the street.
The Doctor turned to the console, verifying the coordinates. "We're on Earth. Home, sweet home."
"Not likely." It was far from any home she ever knew.
Cautiously the time travelers stepped onto the cobbled street. Away from the shelter of the TARDIS, they could feel a thin, bone-chilling breeze that whistled through the streets. Crowds of people milled by. Some wore threadbare rags, others the fine clothing of aristocrats or a prosperous bourgeoisie. The men wore pointed beards, hats, and long overcoats. The women were bonnets, shawls, and large bustles.
The people spoke a myriad of languages. Ace had never been exposed to any of them before, but she could understand them quite readily. The Doctor had mentioned something about a Time Lord gift some time ago. She really didn't understand his explanation— she just trusted he knew what he was talking about. As long as she knew what people were saying, and they could understand her, she didn't concern herself with the details.
People turned to glance at the Doctor and Ace, conspicuous in their bright colors. She felt self-conscious and cold in her short skirt and pulled her jacket closer. "It's freezing here, Professor."
The Doctor waved her comment away. He looked at a street sign, then glanced back at a shopkeeper's placard. He snapped his fingers. "Got it!"
"Got what?"
"We're in Prague. The late 1800s, I would guess."
"How'd you know?"
"The buildings, the style of dress, the language. It's most likely the old Jewish Ghetto. Do you know how fortunate we are?"
Ace cocked an eyebrow. "Fortunate? To be in this dump?"
"The Ghetto was destroyed in 1890. We're lucky to have arrived before it was all pulled down!"
"Real lucky," Ace muttered, unable to muster much enthusiasm.
"Come on. Let's have a look." He grabbed her arm, pulling her along. "Have you ever heard of the Golem?"
"The what?"
"The Golem. A magical creature made of clay, shaped like a humanoid. It was said to haunt the Ghetto. It always vanished into a room with no entrance, only a barred window."
Ace laughed. "You don't believe that, do you Professor?"
"I didn't say I believe it. But it is interesting to note that sometimes these legends have a basis in fact. Did I ever tell you—" He stopped short, and Ace nearly barreled into him.
"Hey, look out!" she complained.
He didn't hear her. "Antiques!"
Ace sighed. She had never known the Doctor to be an antiques enthusiast. And why did he always have to change directions abruptly and bound around like a hyper-caffeinated retriever? She followed him into the gloom of the antiques shop.
"Yuck!" Ace wrinkled her nose in disgust at the endless shelves filled with old, dusty junk.
"Fascinating," the Doctor murmured, darting from object to object while Ace languished behind. The shopkeeper, a short, bearded man chewing on a pipe, barely glanced up from his Hebrew language newspaper as the time travelers entered.
The Doctor was delighted with the treasures he had unearthed. Yuck, indeed, he thought. Many of the items had been hand-crafted by artisans whose skills would be long-lost in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution.
He peered into the face of a clock sitting on a mantelpiece. Its odd construction made it seem unlikely that it belonged to this time or place. The sinuous bodies of two carved dragons curled up either side of the clock, and two snarling griffins formed the base. Above the face of the clock was a round mirror, surrounded by a semicircle of six smaller mirrors. In their silver surfaces, the Doctor saw the shop behind him reflected seven times over.
He stepped closer to the clock and gently wiped dust off the mirrors with his handkerchief. The hands of the clock slid toward the hour of seven. The clock chimed. In that instant, the reflections changed. The Doctor still saw himself in the central mirror, but in the other six he saw different faces—the faces of his six former selves.
He gasped as the clock finished its seventh stroke. Only his current visage graced the seven mirrors now—small, wiry, dark-haired, and straw-hatted.
"Professor? What happened?"
The Doctor raced to the shopkeeper. "Where did you get that clock?"
The shopkeeper looked up from his paper and squinted. "An old man. Long time ago." He removed his pipe and tapped it on the counter.
"Describe him to me!"
The shopkeeper thought for a minute. "White hair—black coat—walked with a cane."
"White hair about to here?" The Doctor gestured to just above his shoulders. "A cravat and a stick pin?"
The shopkeeper rubbed his chin, then nodded.
"Young, dark haired girl with him, calling him Grandfather?" Another nod. The shopkeeper closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.
"What's all this about, Professor?" Ace had rarely seen the Doctor display anxiety.
The Doctor scratched his head. "I don't remember doing that." He looked worried. "Come on Ace, I have some thinking to do." He led the bewildered teenager out of the shop.
As the door slammed shut, shopkeeper peered through one eye, watching them leave. Gently he set the pipe down on the counter—and smiled.
(iii)
Ace sulked and tried to shrink further into her jacket. The Doctor had led her out of the cold into a basement pub in another one of those crooked buildings. The air was stale and foul with coal fumes and the smoke from pipes and cigars. In one corner, a wizened old woman played a screechy accordion while a tone-deaf man sang in a language that Ace guessed might be Yiddish.
The pub's clientele was dominantly male, with the exception of the accordion player, the waitresses, and a few provocatively-dressed women sitting extremely close to some of the men, flirting and being handled. Disgusting, Ace thought. Everything was dirty. Ace felt conspicuously wholesome with her scrubbed pink cheeks and clear eyes.
The Doctor sat crouched next to her, a far-off expression on his face. She tried to get him to talk, but he would only utter a few monosyllables. Then he would lapse back into a glum silence.
Ace was uneasy. It was quite unlike the Doctor to be anything but his energetic, cheerful self. If he was occasionally quiet or reflective, she knew he was just thinking. But this morose being, sitting in silence, brows furrowed and eyes dark with worry, was a stranger to her.
She watched indifferently as a group of men took the table next to them. They were approximately middle-aged, one younger than the others. The young one stared unseeingly around the pub. Ace looked at the Doctor, then back at the young man. They both had the same look of preoccupied introspection.
Suddenly the young man broke out of his quiet reserve and smiled at Ace. "Hello."
"Hi." Ace regarded him warily.
"Are you visitors in the city?"
"Yeah. We just got here today. I'm Ace and he's the Professor—the Doctor." She jabbed her thumb in the Time Lord's direction.
"Might I ask where you're from?" Obviously their appearance puzzled him.
"I'm from Perivale—England. I'm not sure where he's from. He hasn't told me yet." She nudged the Doctor. "Professor? Where're you from?"
"Gallifrey," was his distant reply.
"Never heard of it," the young men murmured. "My name is Athanasius Pernath."
The Doctor's head snapped around, his attention focused once again on the present moment. "You are?"
Taken aback by this intense interest, the young man responded, "Yes, I am."
"Cutter of gems?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"I'm not sure. From somewhere—" The Doctor seemed about to drift off again. "What can you tell me about the antiques shop across the way?"
"Not Wassertrum's?"
"It's across the road, down four buildings. An old fellow with a beard runs the place."
Pernath looked puzzled. "There's no antiques shop there, so far as I know. It's been unoccupied for quite some time."
"Well there's someone there now," Ace put in.
Their friend shrugged, murmured an apology to his companions, and joined the Doctor and Ace at their table. "What brings you to Prague? Particularly the Ghetto?"
Ace nodded toward the Doctor. "It was his idea to look around."
"Are you a scholar?" Pernath couldn't seem to reconcile the presence of these two newcomers.
"Of sorts. I'm doing a bit of research on the legend of the Golem." The Doctor waited for Pernath's reaction.
The words had an electrifying effect on the young gem cutter. He looked wildly about for a moment. He leaned toward the time travelers and hissed, "It's no legend! It exists! People will tell you it does." He glanced over at the other table. "I can't talk about it for fear of being thought mad. Come to my rooms. We can speak of it there."
(iv)
Pernath's tiny quarters were far from warm. He explained that the coal stove would warm the room, but it would take a while. Ace didn't mind. The air was easier to breathe here, and she felt less conspicuous.
They seated themselves around a small wooden table near the stove. The Doctor rubbed his hands together expectantly. "Now, what do you know of the Golem?"
Pernath looked uncomfortable. "It's a long story. Centuries ago, it is said that a Rabbi, who had studied the ancient book of magic known as the Kabbalah, made a sort of mindless man-creature from clay to do the menial work in the synagogue. The creature was animated by a spell written on a scroll and placed behind its teeth. One day, the Rabbi forgot to take the spell out. The creature became violent and destructive, until the Rabbi captured it and took the spell out. He then destroyed the creature."
"The Golem is said to have haunted the Ghetto ever since, appearing every 33 years. Some people see it as it originally was, a yellow-faced, slant-eyed creature in almost medieval garb. He appears in the Althschulgasse and always vanishes into the building next to it. There is no entrance into this building except a barred window. No one knows how to get inside.
"Accounts of the creature vary. There are people who claim that the Golem mirrors their own appearance. Some run away from it in fear. Others try to approach it, only to see the creature shrink until it vanishes. The wife of the registrar Hillel—the registrar spent much time studying the Kabbalah—claimed to have seen it. She said it felt like her soul had been divested of her body. She's convinced it was nothing more than a physical manifestation of her innermost self."
Pernath paused, apparently reluctant to continue. Ace leaned toward him. "Did you ever see it?"
He took a deep breath. "Part of the work I do often involves the restoration of books printed with gold leaf. Two days ago, an unusual man brought me such a book to be restored. I'm not sure how, but the book seemed to open to the letter-page of the chapter called Ibbur: The Fecundation of the Soul. I became absorbed with reading this chapter. By the time I had finished, the man was gone. I had no idea who he was and could not recall, for the life of me, what he looked like. The harder I tried to recall, the more it seemed to me that he was the very image of myself!"
"The Golem!" Ace said, transfixed by this narrative.
He nodded. "Last night I heard a noise in the flat next door. It has been empty for some time. When I explored, I found a friend of mine there, Innocence Charousek. He had been trying to prevent Wassertrum from blackmailing a noblewoman, who had been using the studio for—" Pernath coughed discreetly, unable to finish his sentence.
"Meeting a bloke on the sly," Ace provided helpfully.
Pernath's ears turned a deep shade of red. He coughed again. "After Charousek had gone, I noticed a trap door in the studio floor. It made me curious, so I opened it. There were stairs that led to a labyrinth of tunnels running beneath much of the Ghetto. These were the rumored passages that were used by the Jews during times of persecution.
"I wandered the labyrinth for what seemed like hours until I came to a flight of rusty stairs leading up to the surface. I climbed them, entering an old, dusty room through the floor. It only had one window—a barred window—and no door. Through the window I could see the houses on the street. It was the Althschulgasse! In my horror, I realized I had discovered the fabled room of the Golem!
"It was a cold night, such as this one, but I never felt it. I had been too excited. But suddenly I began to shiver. I looked around for something to keep me warm. In one corner, I found some medieval-looking garments, which had seen better times. I couldn't believe my fortune. As I grabbed the clothes, a deck of cards fill out. It was the Tarot. And sticking out of the center of the deck was the Pagad—the Magician.
"Moonlight began to stream through the window, falling on that card. The figure on the card began to grow. I couldn't breathe. Fear held me in place. It was the Golem, and he was assuming my form!
"It seemed hours that I battled the creature with my mind. I believed I had won when it began to dwindle away. That was when I realized the sun had risen. People were beginning to emerge in the street outside. I went to the window and called for help. That only caused panic. Everyone thought I was the Golem. I wasn't going to receive any help from them. I decided to risk the tunnels again. Luckily I found a passage that led to an empty schoolhouse. I ran home, all the way feeling its presence."
(v)
Ace said, "If you battled it and won, why is it still bothering you? You saw the Golem, you had a scare, but you weren't hurt. Why are you still afraid?" The Doctor looked at Ace, surprised at her perceptiveness.
Pernath looked ashamed. He did not know why he had confessed his soul to a perfect stranger, but something about this odd man inspired confidence. Perhaps it was his face—completely open, honest, and sympathetic.
"I feel as though I'm living my life like I've just woken from a particularly vivid nightmare." Pernath paused and glanced at the Doctor and Ace. "About dinnertime yesterday, I was out with my friends—the ones you saw me with today. We were in that hot, stuffy pub, and I began to feel sleepy. I rested my head on the table, starting to doze. Believing I was fully asleep, my companions began to talk about me. I learned that in my childhood I had suffered some horrible experience and had nearly gone mad. I was taken to a physician who hypnotized me to forget most of my past. That was until I met the Golem. When it began to grow, I felt as though it were an incarnation of myself. When I prevailed over it, I kept my sanity, but with no past—no identity. If I had succumbed to its power, I would have discovered my innermost self, but I fear the knowledge would have driven me back into the depths of madness."
"So why are you still afraid?" asked Ace. "You won."
Pernath shook his head sadly. "The Golem was defeated, but not destroyed." From his pocket he withdrew a yellowed Tarot card—the face of the card blank. The entity on the card's surface was gone.
"The Golem's escaped," murmured the Doctor, "and still on the loose."
"So it would seem," Pernath agreed.
"Show us this tunnel of yours." The Doctor stood up.
Pernath reluctantly agreed. They took up candles in pewter holders and went to the studio next door. Pernath picked the lock, allowing them to enter. He led them to the trap door and opened it. An indistinct, musty smell arose from the tunnel. Ace wrinkled her nose.
Pernath led them through the twisted maze of corridors. How can he remember the way? Ace wondered. After what felt like forever, they came to a set of rusted iron stairs. Above them, a Star of David glowed.
"This is it." Pernath looked nervously at the Star. "The full moon is out."
"How do you know that?" Ace looked at him quizzically.
"The Star. The moonlight is coming through the window, touching the trap door."
The Doctor started up the stairs, lifted the door, and peered in. The room was exactly as Pernath had described: dusty, empty—except for a pile of rags in the corner—moonlight streaming in through a barred window.
Pernath looked around the tunnels anxiously, pitch-black beyond the light of their candles. "We really should leave."
"Why?" Ace taunted. "Afraid the spook'll get you?"
"Ace," the Doctor warned. He climbed the rest of the way into the room, and she followed him up the stairs.
Pernath was the last to enter the room. He glared at Ace. "It is cold." He gazed about with apprehension.
"Amazing." The Doctor paced the floor, tapping each wall in turn. "Someone had something strange in mind when they built this room."
"Yeah, like wacky weed." Ace shivered. "He's right, Professor. It's as cold as Kane's fingers in here." They climbed back down the rusted stairs.
"I think a little exploring is in order, wouldn't you say, Ace?" The Doctor motioned toward the tunnels.
A look of fear crept into Pernath's face. "These tunnels go on forever. You might never find your way back."
"Not with my trusty chalk, I won't." The Doctor grinned as he produced a large piece of chalk from his coat pocket.
"Well—if you insist—" Pernath didn't look convinced.
"Professor, it's freezing down here." Ace wasn't sure whether the cold or the darkness chilled her more.
"Then go back with Herr Pernath."
"You shouldn't go alone," Ace began to protest.
"Ace," the Doctor said patiently, "I'm nearly a thousand years old. I've been able to take care of myself until now. Give me credit for being able to do so for another few hours!"
"You're not that old, are you Professor?"
"And don't call me—"
"I know, I know." Ace giggled. "Come on, Herr Pernath." She pulled the confused gem cutter along the passage. "Don't mind him. He sometimes gets a little loony."
(vii)
The Doctor wandered through the pitch-black tunnels, trying to peer beyond the feeble light provided by his candle. He paused long enough to make another mark on the wall with his chalk. He looked back the way he had come, but his vision could not penetrate the darkness. He shrugged off a growing sense of menace and continued on. The Golem was nothing more than some sort of psycho-kinetic phenomenon—he hoped.
The passage widened and grew brighter. He continued until he entered a vast chamber. It was well lit, but from what source he could not discern. The room was empty. He blew out the candle and set the taper, in its pewter holder, on the floor.
"Ah, there you are my fine chap." The Doctor whirled around, his jaw-dropping. Behind him stood a tall, white-haired man, clad in a ruffled shirt and a velvet smoking jacket. "We've been waiting for you."
"We certainly have." The Doctor spun in the other direction. A fair young man in the garb of an Edwardian cricketer smiled at him. A sprig of celery was stuck to his lapel. "Brave heart, Doctor."
"No!" the Doctor gasped.
"Yes, actually. Can't say the regeneration's done much for me." The Doctor backed away from a pudgy man in a brilliantly colored coat, trying to escape from that sardonic, cat-like smile.
"Something the matter, Doctor?" A jovial voice inquired. "I say, you don't look very well." A small man dressed in scruffy clothes put a recorder to his lips and began to play. Hot Cross Buns… Hot Cross Buns.
"You're not real!" the Doctor shouted.
"Not real? Not real? Of course we're real! You can see us, can you? Why stand there babbling on about reality when you could have a jellybaby? You would like a jellybaby, wouldn't you?" The Doctor covered his face to block out the tall, grinning man in the floppy hat and long scarf.
"There's nothing you can do about it, my dear boy," came a sharp voice. The Doctor didn't need to look up to know what he would see: an old, white-haired man in Edwardian dress, leaning on a cane…
They were closing in on him, their voices mingling and babbling. "Brave heart, Doctor… Hot Cross Buns… Right first time, Doctor… Hot Cross Buns… Don't think much of your clothes sense, Doctor… Hot Cross Buns… Would you like a jellybaby? Hot Cross Buns… there's no escape, my dear boy—no escape."
"Aggh!" The Doctor had backed himself into a corner, and there was nowhere else to go. If the Golem reflected back the personality of whoever looked upon it, this was torture times six! The worst aspects of all his former incarnations wreaked havoc upon him.
Out of nowhere, the Doctor began to inanely recite, "Mary had a Little Lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go! Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, even the Christmas pie—"
"Stop! Stop it, you imbecile!"
"Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey—"
"STOP I SAY!"
There was a hiss and a shower of sparks, followed by a muffled bang. "You idiot! Look at what you've done!"
(viii)
Ace watched Pernath nod off on the sofa. The moment she was certain he was asleep, Ace picked up her knapsack and crept out of the room to the studio next door.
She lowered herself down the stairs through the trap door, lighting her way with a torch she had taken from her pack. There—much better than those ridiculous candles. Ace cast the powerful beam about the damp bricks, the crumbling mortar. The Doctor should have been back by now, and Ace was growing suspicious. There was something amiss about this whole business. Golems—spirits—playing cards that came to life, indeed! This bizarre town affected people's minds. Probably just the weather, she thought. It's enough to make anyone mad.
She reached the junction in the tunnels where she and Pernath had left the Doctor, picking out the telltale chalk marks he'd left on the wall. The moon's position must have shifted, because the Star of David in the trap door to the Golem's mysterious room could no longer be seen. Ace hurried down the passage, following the trail of white marks.
The tunnel began to lighten, allowing her to walk more quickly. She could hear two voices echoing down the passageway. It sounded like the Doctor was arguing with someone else, but who? Ace switched off her torch and crept along the wall, staying in the shadows.
"…do you? You'll never actually kill me outright, and I'll tell you why. Without me, you have no reason to exist! You always say that your whole life is dedicated to killing me, but if you did, what would be your purpose?"
"You half-witted cretin! Don't you think I would willingly give up all the power in the universe to see you destroyed?"
"Listen to your drivel! Without me, you'd be a shriveled husk of a Time Lord that should've died centuries ago! Look at you, standing there in a body you had to steal to continue your wretched, miserable existence!"
Ace heard a strangled roar of fury, the sounds of a struggle and something being smashed. She charged out of the shadows. The Doctor was on the floor, wrestling amidst a pile of ruined scientific equipment with a tall, thin man dressed in black. This other man attempted to throttle the life out of the Doctor, who was kicking, punching, and biting like an angry terrier.
"Professor!" Ace leaped forward, kicking the Doctor's adversary squarely in the temple. The man's grip on the Doctor relaxed, and he groaned, clutching his head.
"Ace!" The Doctor scrambled to his feet. "What are you doing down here?"
"Looking for you!" she yelled, unrepentant for her disobedience. "Who's that?" She indicated the second man.
"That's my best enemy." The Doctor brushed the dust off his clothes. "He likes to call himself the Master."
The Master was reaching for his Tissue Compression Eliminator. "I'll kill you both," he wheezed.
Ace yanked a can out of her jacket. "Don't try it, Mister," she warned.
"No, don't! Not down here!" The Doctor tried to wrest the can away from her.
The Master aimed his weapon at Ace, who never took her eyes from him. "You want a fifteen megaton explosion up the armpit?" She yanked the can away from the Doctor.
"She's got Nitro-9 in there; she'll blow us all to Kingdom Come!" the Doctor shrieked.
The Master held his weapon unsteadily, still stunned from the blow to his temple. Ace quickly pulled the cap off the can and launched it at him. The Master stared at the hissing thing that bumped and rolled across the floor so innocuously toward him. He could smell the fumes and hear the hissing. It was only a matter of seconds before…
"Ten seconds 'till detonation!" Ace grabbed the Doctor's arm and yanked him toward the tunnel. "Come on, Professor!"
The two raced down the tunnels as fast as they had ever run. Let the Master save his own skin!
"Get down!" The Doctor pulled Ace behind a pile dank bricks that had crumbled into the passageway.
The explosion rocked the tunnels. Bricks and mortar began raining down everywhere! As soon as the aftershock subsided, the Doctor was on his feet, pulling Ace behind him.
"These tunnels are centuries old! Do you know how unstable they are?" Before she could answer, they heard, over the sound of their own feet, a distant rumbling. "We'll be lucky to get out before the whole place collapses on us!"
(ix)
"How was I supposed to know everything would come down?" Ace and the Doctor were sitting before a warm fire in Pernath's new lodgings. Through the walls of the building came the muffled sounds of the Ghetto being demolished. Ace's eyes were downcast. "I didn't mean to wreck the whole neighborhood."
"Don't worry." The Doctor gave her a reassuring smile. "It was torn down eventually anyway. You've only made it happen a bit prematurely."
Relieved that the Doctor wasn't cross with her, Ace changed the subject. "What's with that Master bloke? What's he got against you?"
The Doctor sighed, his expression full of regret. "He's a renegade Time Lord, like me, only his whole life is dedicated to evil. He was trying to drive me mad, making me see images of my former selves. That equipment you saw was a device that must have locked onto my brain waves when I looked into the clock in the antiques shop—the old man with the newspaper was the Master. The illusions were powered by nothing more than my own mental feedback."
"Blimey," said Ace.
"Even worse, the visions of my former selves seemed to embody my worst personality traits: irritability, childishness, vanity, irreverence, gullibility, and sloth! When I started reciting nursery rhymes, it blocked my thoughts and blew out the Master's equipment."
"What d'you think happened to him?" Ace asked. "Did he die in the collapse?"
"I doubt it, Ace." The Doctor shook his head. "I've seen him survive death past the point where his body was disintegrating. I've seen him survive being incinerated. I've seen him survive a trip across the universe at warp speed, with a hungry Tyrannosaurus rex as a passenger. No, it takes more than a bump on the head and an explosion to do him in."
Ace laughed. Pernath just looked bewildered.
"I can't thank you enough for your help," the young man said. "I was convinced I was losing my mind." Ace noticed some of the haunted look had left Pernath's eyes.
"Nonsense." The Doctor patted him on the shoulder. "You must have some latent psychic ability. The Master's machinations were influencing you without your being aware of it. When you saw the Golem, it was your own subconscious in a temporary corporeal form. I suspect your vision was strongly influenced by the fact that you had been hypnotized to forget half of your history."
"Which I have you to thank for restoring to me." Pernath was obviously happy, though troubled, by the return of his memory.
"It was my pleasure," the Doctor said airily. "Think nothing of it."
"I know now why my physician hypnotized me. My unhappy childhood tormented me to the point where I could not live normally. Now I must confront my past again."
"Let me recommend a specialist in that area." The Doctor was scribbling on a scrap of paper. "A fellow in Vienna. I think he'll be just the one you need to see."
"Thank you." Pernath accepted the paper from the Doctor. "But how will I afford the treatment?"
"Why, with the money your poor friend Charousek…" The Doctor clamped his mouth shut.
Pernath studied him gravely. "My friend Charousek is a consumptive. I know he has not long to live. Is he planning to make me a beneficiary?"
"Among others," the Doctor mumbled. He stood up quickly, eager to leave. He had to go before he blurted out the rest of Pernath's life to him. "Come along, Ace."
(x)
Once outside, Ace glanced back toward Pernath's flat. "Will he be all right?"
"Certainly." The Doctor was swinging his brolly in a jaunty fashion.
"Will that specialist help him?"
"Help him? Ace, Pernath is going to become one of Dr. Freud's most famous cases. He's in fact the patient who'll shape Freud's entire theory of the id, the ego, and the superego." He paused, seeing Ace's skeptical look.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"Remember you said that each of your former selves embodied your worst personality traits?"
"Yes."
"Well, you only said six traits."
"You counted?" the Doctor sputtered.
"Good at maths, remember?"
"I only have six former selves," the Doctor prevaricated.
Ace would not be deterred. "But there's seven selves, including you. What's your worst personality trait?" She smiled mischievously at him.
The Doctor knew when he was being teased. "Without a doubt, Ace, I would say my worst flaw is liking you." They had reached the TARDIS, and the Doctor was fishing out his key.
"You know, Professor, I never know whether you're serious, winding me up, or just plain off your trolley."
The Doctor grinned as he unlocked the TARDIS door. "Actually, Ace, I think I'm a little of each!"
The End