1.
The sky was ash and flame and the sun was fire at its centre that poured upon the lake and spread out over the water, and the island below was a piece of charcoal on a sheet of hammered copper.
Two black silhouetted figures moved towards it on a reed-narrow bridge carrying a flat shape between them that rippled and flapped in the breeze and as Bréon watched from the rising bank he touched the broach that pinned his cloak to his breast and drew vigour from it.
The figures reached the island and moved slowly to the structure that rose from its centre and, rising on unseen steps at either side, lay the flat shape down upon it. There were murmurs from the crowd at Bréon's back and then the Wild One came forwards with his wand before him and carved shapes of meaning into the evening air. Fox tails fluttered about his shoulders and his hands moved in great sweeping arcs as he barked through the face of the vixen sounds from the forest and the darkness.
When he was done Bréon stepped forwards and turned and addressed the people who stood all gathered before him, the old ones and the Fathers and the women and the children. They all wore their finest cloaks and their most precious ornaments and the copper glittered from them in the sunset like flames in a hearth.
"This is my Father's body!" he declared, throwing his hand out to the dark shape on the island, "Let the flesh of my Father's body fall away! Let the spirit of my Father travel on the wind! Let the ghost of my Father walk in the Lands of the Dead..." He paused, in reverence, and then, drawing himself up, he held his spear aloft so that its tip pricked golden sunlight from the sky,
"I am my Father's Son! I remain with the Living!"
In the canopy of the woods behind, dark birds scattered screeching into the air.
Bréon fell silent. He was breathing quickly. He felt the lightness in the head and the rushing in the chest that he felt when hunting the boar or the deer.
When it had passed, he spoke again,
"We will have much feasting. We will have meat over the fire. We will dance and we will sing. My Father's first born and my Father's second born will dance and sing," and he felt the smile burst out of him with a sudden sense of warmth and tenderness for all the people. He nodded, "And when we have done these things, we will return and fetch the bones of my Father and we will bury them in the ground," he smiled again and gathered them all in with his eyes, "And then we will have mild Winter and good harvests."
Bréon walked from the slope beside the lake and through his people who honoured him with warm embraces, and some cheered and yelled and rattled their spears against their shields, and as they followed him away from the water and the island the black birds that had taken flight at his cry circled in the sky.
Silence fell on the water and the island.
The birds circling increased in numbers, croaking and cawing. They seemed to become a cloud, billowing about itself, darkening as more birds gathered. Then the cloud moved down, settling on the grass of the island and on the thin planed log that served as a bridge. The birds moved hesitantly in wary hops towards the dark shape that towered above them and cast its long shadow onto the shore of the lake. Tussles and squabbles broke out. Then one of the birds broke from the group and flew to the top of the dark shape and alighted there. It seemed to pause, spreading its wings like hands, its feathers broad like fingers splayed out in a gesture of grace. It hopped in an ungainly lurch onto the flat shape that lay upon the dais and seemed to be searching in it, pecking gently at its surface. Down below, other birds flew closer, emboldened. Then the one up above, seeming to find what it had searched for, pushed its head down between its claws, twisting its beak and tugging, its wings spreading wide suddenly. It fell back with a snap and something in its beak and turned climbing skywards as some of the other birds gave chase. One of those remaining leaped up and another joined it, and then as if a signal had been given the flock seemed to rise and descend as one upon the dais, stabbing and pecking and pulling, their shrieks ringing across the waters that were grey and perfectly still now like a sheets of iron.
"Adric, hold still!"
"If you keep moving about we may hurt you."
"Accidentally."
"Oh, yes, of course. Not on purpose."
There were giggles behind Adric's head but when he tried to turn and look a sharp fingernail prodded his cheek.
"Still!" said Tegan's voice from out of sight in a low growl. Adric scowled, or at least tried to, but his fringe was covering much of his face and any menace he might have been able to convey was undermined entirely by the presence of an orange plastic bowl on his head.
There was a sudden metallic 'ship-ship" sound in his right ear that made him wince and he would have raised a hand to fend it off if it hadn't been for the cotton sheet that covered him from the neck down and was tucked in tight under his seat.
"A little more off that side" said Nyssa sidling into Adric's view, leaning towards him, her hands on her knees, studying his left ear with a look of intense concentration. The sound of scissors came close again. Nyssa stared, and decided,
"You'll have to take some more off that side, now."
As she raised a hand to her lips to stifle another giggle Adric's patience finally failed,
"Doctor!" he tried to stand but got tangled in the sheet tied at his neck and ended up falling back into the chair as Nyssa, giving up all pretence now, burst into laughter and Tegan from behind waved her scissors at him,
"Look, if you're not going to behave..."
He tried again to stand and this time made it and then stomped from the room, the sheet flapping around him like a super hero's cape, female laughter twittering in his wake.
"Doctor, they are making fun of me again!"
Adric stood resolutely at the door to the console room. The Doctor, who was knee-deep in a tangle of wiring that had spewed from one of the main console's access panels looked up briefly, saw the boy in his white cape and orange plastic bowl, seemed to hesitate at a reply, then ducked out of sight again behind the flashing instrumentation. With an awkward flourish Adric pulled the cape from his shoulders and flung it to the floor,
"It's not fair!" he hissed trying to prise the bowl from his scalp. Tegan walked passed him into the room,
"Oh stop whining, Adric," with a slight sideways sneer that Nyssa had taken recently to calling her Mara face, "Do you want to look like a girl?"
"I do not look like a girl!"
"You do need a haircut though," said Nyssa making a simple regal assertion. Tegan leaned towards him, her bottom lip pushed out,
"I could put a bow in it for you," and she laughed her big teeth laugh as Nyssa's air of aloof disinterest deflated in a giggle.
"Doctor, tell them!"
From under the console the Doctor's voice came harried but cheerful,
"I am rather busy at the moment, Adric, as you can see," and Adric scowled,
"You're always busy- fiddling with that thing."
"Just some minor adjustments here and there." The Doctor stood. He had what looked like a wrench in one hand and what looked like a net of fairy lights in the other. He was frowning deeply at the fairy lights. Then he smiled and said kindly to Adric,
"Why don't you three just, er..." he waved the wrench vaguely, "run along and play." He put the wrench down and ducked out of sight again. Tegan clicked her tongue,
"Come on you two, we're not wanted here."
Adric pushed passed her,
"Why don't I help you, Doctor?" he began, reaching for the wrench. But, even as the Doctor began, "It's quite all right, thank–" Adric's clumsy fingers sent the object spinning from the console.
There was an "Ow!" from below and the Doctor reappeared massaging the top of his head. Adric started to apologise hurriedly and tried to pick up the wrench from off the floor but in doing so got caught in the sprawling wires and they came away with his foot and a pop and a blue flash.
Suddenly Nyssa was beside him, her small hands on his arm, leading him away from the smell of singed plastic, speaking as if to a very young child,
"Adric, we're only getting in the way here" and behind him Adric heard the Doctor say,
"Yes, why don't you see if you can find the Golf Course, have a quick Round before Tea," in a tone so breezy it could only mean that he was absolutely furious.
Adric elbowed free of Nyssa's grip,
"I was only trying to help!"
"You couldn't be more helpful if you dropped a bomb on the TARDIS!" muttered Tegan through her sneer.
"Yes, well, thank you for trying, Adric, but Tegan and Nyssa have the right idea..."
Adric looked at him with outrage,
"Why do you always side with them?".
The Time Lord took a deep breath,
"Adric, I'm not siding with anyone."
"It's always the same!"
"Adric, I am trying to do some very important maintenance work to the TARDIS, for which I require a great deal of concentration, and for which I do not need you three bickering with each other like infants in a school playground!"
His voice had risen to that strident bark, laced with a thin note of exasperation, which normally was excellent at reducing panicking groups of people to a rapt silence but which here and now only provoked very nearly the opposite reaction.
"Now hang on!" Tegan waved her scissors lethally, "He started it!"
"I did not start it!"
"I think the Doctor would rather we left him to his work..."
"Well, you're just as bad as she is!"
"Who's she, the cat's mother?"
"I am not as bad as she is!"
"And just what do you mean by that?"
The Doctor's shoulders slumped visibly and as Tegan advanced on him, nearly shouting, "Make her explain that last remark, Doctor!" he discreetly touched a couple of buttons on the panel at his waist.
There was a subtle change in the atmosphere of the room that they all felt, a slight gravitation, a concentration of the air about them - as if an infinite stream of possibilities had suddenly been reduced to just one.
"Ah!" shouted the Doctor over all the noise, "We seem to have materialised!"
His three companions, suddenly silenced, turned towards the window that was expanding in the TARDIS wall behind them. In place of the usual spray of starlight against a coal-black background, a landscape was fading into view.
"Where are we, then?" asked Tegan in a tone that suggested she was reluctant to surrender her belligerent mood just yet. The Doctor pushed some keys on the TARDIS console,
"According to my calculations... " he began, then looked up at the viewing screen.
There was a sky the colour of tin and a low flat horizon and in the foreground a bed of reeds that billowed in a gentle breeze.
"Ah!" said the Doctor.
"Let me guess, Earth?" Tegan's lip curled and she raised her eyes into her sculpted fringe. The Doctor looked down his nose at her,
"Very possibly, yes–" he muttered a little defensively, "Now, let me see..." and delved into the TARDIS' main information port. Tegan walked around him,
"You know, Doctor, you did once promise to show me all the wonders of the Cosmos," she leaned passed him and pulled at one of the more prominent levers bristling from the console. Behind her with a mellow hum the TARDIS doors swung inwards. "They can't all be within a thirty mile radius of the North Circular..."
Tegan went outside.