Chapter 9
The next ridge, a rocky outcrop that jutted perpendicularly to the ground, loomed above them. The orange rock curled in wave formation and a series of small, dark holes, were dotted along the face. Emerick led the charge, her pack banging against her back as she ran. Over the din of the circling hyaenas Emerick's voice could just be heard, shouting encouragement. Clara followed a few steps behind and the Doctor lagged further back. He adjusted his sonic shades as he ran, pausing to shift his gaze skyward, refocus and readjust the settings.
The hyaena pack was closing in. They flew as one in a mass of darkness, twenty or more grouped in a diamond formation with the alpha leading. Despite their lumbering flight they were faster than the scurrying bipeds on the ground and they were gaining rapidly.
Clara's leg throbbed as she ran. The limb was leaden, burned hotter than a furnace and it was getting harder to lift her foot clear of the floor. Tearing her gaze from Emerick's back she looked over her shoulder to see the Doctor tapping the glasses in frustration. Concentration lost, Clara's toe dragged across the earth and caught on a rock. It sent her tumbling to the ground just as the alpha's claws were about to grab her. With a grunt she fell onto her back, the air knocked out of her lungs.
"Clara!" the Doctor, just four steps behind, was with her in an instant. Spinning in the dust he turned the volume on the sonic shades up to full. A fluctuating pitch of whistles emanated from the shades vibrating the surrounding molecules with such vehemence that the air shimmered.
"Just breathe, Clara." He instructed without taking his eyes off the sky. His hand found Clara's shoulder and pulled her into a ball where he heard her inhale more freely.
Emerick's boots kicked dirt over them both as she skidded back to a stop. Without a word she hauled Clara to her knees, onto her feet and then over her shoulder. Clara, who had no breath to argue, found her eyes stinging with tears as Emerick jogged the last hundred metres. The Doctor walked backwards, glaring at the sky as the hyaenas followed, their ears bleeding from the sound.
Clara was flung, with relative care, into a narrow tunnel. She crawled a little way until she came to a bowl where they could sit, cramped, together far enough from the entrance to maintain safety. The Doctor slid to her left, Emerick to her right, both peering at her concerned looks in their eyes.
"I'm fine!" she wheezed, pretending that pained tears were not still streaming across her face.
The eyebrows knotted together, and the sunglasses looked into her eyes, "Dehydration, mild hypoxia and low blood sugar."
A slender finger pulled the glasses down his nose and Clara met his gaze with a glimmer of amusement. "Did you programme the shades for medical terminology just to make it sound more impressive?"
"Clara, would I do such a thing?" he replied, sticking the glasses back inside his jacket.
A water bottle and a wrapped bar of food landed in Clara's lap. She looked up to see Emerick fastening her bag once more before handing the Doctor a similar package and opening a different coloured one herself.
Clara's smile of appreciation slipped into a barely controlled grimace of pain as Emerick pulled apart the tear in her trousers to press something cold and slimy against the skin. Green gel spread along the length of the swelling, purple, bruise cooling and numbing the area. Relief made Clara light headed. She leant into the wall, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as she fought her body's urge to surrender to unconciousness. Something cool brushed against her face and when Clara opened her eyes she was surprised to find the Doctor's hand cupping her cheek, a concerned frown creasing his forehead.
"I'm fine," she said seriously, covering his tender hand with hers. "That stuff is amazing. I didn't realise it hurt so much until it stopped."
"Internal bleeding," Emerick said through a mouthful of the foil wrapped food. She looked at the Doctor and a twisted smile of superiority and humour crossed her lips. "You might want to try scanning the whole body next time, if you want an actual diagnosis. The gel is nano-tec, any damage will be repaired as soon as it is fully absorbed."
Clara bit her lip and concentrated on opening the food pack, watching as the Doctor coiled himself into a more comfortable position whilst feigning nonchalance. The food was grey, a dehydrated and unappealing concoction of seeds and grains which seemed to pass for emergency provisions. Clara ate it slowly, drinking plenty of water to wash away the taste.
"Is there a plan?" Emerick's question broke the silence.
"Well we aren't going back the way we came," the Doctor groused in a thick Scottish drawl.
"You got what you were searching for," Emerick glanced from the Doctor to Clara and back again, "I haven't. I know I can't save my people. I know you won't help me… can't… help me do that. But I need to finish my quest. It's been 10,000 years. I have to know if this was worth it."
"So you have a plan?" the Doctor countered.
Emerick shook her head, "Not really. I thought you would be finding the fastest route back to your ship. I was going to ask for the key and leave you to it."
Indignation wrote itself across Clara's face, "You cannot seriously be thinking about staying here alone."
"I have no family to return to. My whole species died. I am a relic, out of place and out of time," Emerick's chin dropped towards her chest, shoulders rounded in defeat. "I would like to know if I could have saved them, or if I simply wasted my time."
Clara reached out, placing her hand on Emerick's arm. The other woman tensed at her touch.
"Please?" Emerick looked up into Clara's eyes, "May I take the key?"
With a short nod Clara reached for the chain but found the Doctor had slipped forward and grabbed her wrist, keeping her fingers away from the pocket.
"Doctor?" Clara frowned, "It's a bit late to destroy it. Fel-har-dai has been found without the key's help anyway."
"We'll come with you," the Doctor was firm, "But the key stays in Clara's pocket until we are safely back in the TARDIS."
"I don't want your help," Emerick insisted, "And I don't want to cause you any more harm. Please, just let me have the key and we can go our separate ways."
Clara tried to reach for the key again but the Doctor's grip was firm and unyielding.
"It's non-negotiable," the Doctor insisted, his knuckles turning white around Clara's wrist.
Emerick hesitated, sighed and eventually nodded. Clara shook herself free of the Doctor's grip and stared at him with a silent question that he declined to answer.
"We better get moving then," the Doctor slid passed them both and began a fast paced, crouching walk, along the tunnel.
There was a gradual downhill decline on the path, its diameter fluctuating minimally forcing bent knees and backs for most of the journey. The dark was punctuated by a pale blue beam of light generated by the sonic shades and the stronger, white light of Emerick's torch which cast angular shadows all around them.
"We should go this way." Emerick directed her torch along the right fork of the tunnel.
Three pairs of eyes followed the torch's light. The beam ran out before it illuminated anything of any interest. There was little to differentiate between the two options, both dark and increasingly warm.
"I agree," Clara volunteered, taking a step in that direction.
The Doctor turned and stared at her giving Clara the distinct impression that he was scanning her with the sonic again.
"I can sense it, the key. It's telling me which way to go," her fingers slipped into the pocket of her jeans in a subconscious need for reassurance.
Emerick moved forward, taking the lead this time. Clara followed, but the Doctor lingered behind, scanning the tunnel walls with an infra-red light that illuminated every mark scratched into the soft sandstone surface before walking on, keeping Clara and Emerick within sight.
Light filtered into the tunnel ahead of them. Not the bright light of a sun, or the crystal light of a moon, but a red and orange glow that licked the floor in front of them in short bursts. Emerick's pace slowed until she stopped, a few feet from the mouth of the tunnel, blocking the exit for her companions.
"What is it?" Clara asked, trying to peer past Emerick's shoulder. The red light flickered erratically and heat blew across her skin.
"I think Emerick has something to tell us," the Doctor's voice hung heavy in the air between them.
Emerick looked at the floor, unwilling to meet the Doctor's eyes.
"Please, do go ahead," he said, "Or would you like me to make the assumptions?"
Clara looked from Emerick to the Doctor. Neither made a move to speak.
"Oh for goodness' sake!" Clara threw her hands in the air, "It's pretty clear you've been here before, Emerick. And, quite honestly, it's a good thing, or I'd have drowned back there at the waterfall."
"The question is, why have you been lying?" The Doctor raised a wispy eyebrow and waited.
The silence was thick and awkward. A cold stare from the Doctor cut through Emerick and whilst she avoided meeting his gaze she felt the accusations piercing her skin. Between them, Clara hesitated, waiting.
Tension broke Emerick first. "I didn't ask you to come. I never wanted to put either of you in danger. All you had to do was give me the key. If you had done the one thing I asked you could have flown away."
Something a fraction short of a snarl formed on the Doctor's lips. "And let you fill yourself with the ambrosia of the gods? Just what the universe needs, another immortal with a weapon and half a brain cell."
Emerick opened her mouth to respond, but the Doctor ignored her.
"So where did we figure in your little equation? Elixir plus Time Lord equals salvation? Despite everything I said? Did you think Clara would give you the key and…"
Emerick exploded, throwing her hands wide. "I thought if I could find it quickly I would get back out, find you and help you get back to your ship."
"Where you'd tell us you had found nothing and ask to be returned to your own time and planet to die with your family."
The Time Lord's cold, hard voice pulled Emerick to her full height. Eyes on fire she strode towards him, shoulders squared, nostrils wide.
"I had to try. For my people, for my family. Would you have done anything less? What would you have done to save Gallifrey, Doctor?"
"What haven't I done to save the universe?" he retorted, his voice loud, the words racing from his tongue. "For centuries I believed I had burned my world. That I had made the choice to kill everyone I had ever known. As far as I knew I had, personally, ripped my entire planet from the fabric of space and time to save every other world from the war."
He paused and levelled an accusing finger at Emerick's chest. "And then I meet people like you and I wonder, was it worth it?"
Emerick pushed in closer, her breath on his neck, fists clenched at her sides, the muscles in her jaw pulsing. With the illumination behind her Emerick's face was in shadow but her black eyes burned red fire.
"But you saved your own kind, didn't you? In the end? Doesn't that affect the time lines? Or are the Time Lords so superior, so aloof, that their presence in the universe makes no impact on Time at all?"
His angry eyebrows furrowed with the thick lines of a frown that met at the bridge of his nose. The expression gnawed down to his cheeks making his face wolf like in the dim light of the passage.
"The fate of Gallifrey has nothing to do with this. You were trying to trick me into changing history. You do not have the right to meddle with Time. No-one does. I can see it all, from beginning to end, life and death playing out before me. I can feel the turn of the universe, the energy of the stars, and I know when lives can be saved and when there is no choice but to let them die. Your people are no less or more worthy than anyone else. Call it what you like, fate, god, pure luck. We all live for our allotted time and we die whether we are ready to or not. Deal with it."
"Alright!" Clara's voice rose between them, strong, loud and full of authority. "That's enough! Emerick Hale back up a pace. Doctor, put the eyebrows away. This is not helping."
Surprise replaced the anger in Emerick's eyes for just long enough for her to take a step back as Clara ordered. The Doctor more used to Clara's tone did not move, but his face lost some of its tension.
"Thank you," Clara held in the sigh that ached to escape. "Emerick, your people are gone, and if the Doctor says he can't change it, then he can't change it…."
Clara looked at the Doctor, seeking reassurance. Rule one, the Doctor lies. It didn't sound like a lie.
"Tidal waves," he offered with a distinct lack of grace. "Save three million, nine-hundred thousand, five hundred and seventeen people who should have died, that's not even a tidal wave. That's a tsunami."
"I still had to try." Emerick's voice dropped to a whisper. "You understand that, don't you?"
The Doctor nodded, "I was counting on it."
Fire re-ignited in Emerick's eyes and she stepped forward to be met by Clara's hand on her chest, holding her back.
"Doctor?" Clara glared at him.
"We came here to make sure no-one else could join the immortality club. I thought Fel-har-dai could only be located with the key. Well it turns out I was wrong, there's a first time for everything. Now the walls are broken Fel-har-dai is a sweet shop without the shopkeeper. It is imperative I make sure the elixir, if there is one, is destroyed."
"You can't be serious!" Emerick pushed against Clara's restraining hand, trying to get closer to the Doctor. "You want to destroy something that could cure and heal?"
"If it makes you immortal in the process? Yes. Absolutely." The cold resolve in the Doctor's voice pierced Emerick's rage.
"But..."
A renewed intensity in the Doctor low, cold, voice drew Emerick in.
"Think about how you feel, right now. Focus on it until your heart bleeds. You have lost everything you have ever loved. Does it burn? Is it carving a hole inside of you? Now live with that for an eternity. Immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be."
"How did you know?" Emerick croaked.
The Doctor met her words blankly, "Excuse me?"
She swallowed the lump in her throat, "How do you know that three million, nine-hundred thousand, five hundred and seventeen Yalanthi died?"
His grey eyes met Emerick's with profound sorrow. "Do you think, with so many lives at stake, I hadn't already tried to save them?"
Clara's hand slipped from Emerick's shoulder and her gaze turned to the Doctor. He stood motionless, a mask across his face that concealed everything but the ghosts in his eyes.
"With a hole that big inside you, you're dangerous," he continued softly, "There are enough immortals already. They aren't gods, they aren't even great. They are just people who deserved better luck."
"Okay," Emerick whispered. She swallowed again and found a stronger voice, "I get it. Being immortal, or unreasonably old, has some significant downsides."
A slight, skewed, incline of the head was all the response she received from the Time Lord as he straightened his shoulders and rubbed a dust spot from his lapel.
"What's out there?" Clara pointed to the end of the tunnel. "Why did you stop here?"
Emerick turned to the tunnel mouth and felt hot air on the breeze.
"Fire. A wall of fire and magma as far as I can see. It's the only part of this puzzle I haven't been able to beat. There's a steep path down, narrow and awkward. I was going to ask you for the key again," she closed her eyes in apology, "I didn't want either of you to get hurt."
"The key stays with Clara," the Doctor moved passed them both, striding towards the end of the tunnel.
Clara caught Emerick's frown of question and raised her hands and shoulders in a gesture of ignorance on the subject. Then with a small smile she followed the Doctor.