Act Four, Part Two
"What have you done with Jim?" Artie demanded. He took a step forward, only to find himself abruptly immobilized.
Harlequin, standing proud before him and all but smirking, broke out into a merry chuckle. "Why, my dear Peregrine, where do you suppose I would have sent him but far, far from here? Into Limbo perhaps, to languish in unending agony. Or to the dark side of the moon, there to perish slowly, deprived of air, deprived of heat, deprived of…"
"Of your endless mouth to bore him to death?" Artie fired at him.
Again Harlequin chuckled. "Ah, the bravado of the condemned man! For that is what you are, as well you must know. You are alone now, and in my hands. There is none left to deliver you. Your partner Captain West? Gone, vanished, dispersed perhaps to the four winds! Your father?" Harlequin snorted. "Gone as well! But it has been long years since he left you to your fate, forsaking you here upon this Earth while he spirited your mother away, abandoning you, his only son, in a cowardly bid to keep his wife alive. But that was only fitting! It was meet that they should shun you so, cutting you off for your crime, your murder, your…"
"My father," Artie retorted heatedly, "realized that you would never rest until you killed my mother in front of me, Harlequin! He separated the two of us to thwart your plans for murder. I saw his face when he put me into the Chameleon Arch to transform me into a human. I saw his hearts breaking as he prepared to hide me here on Earth, hiding me like a needle buried in a haystack, hiding me from you. It was all you, Harlequin! You stole from me my home, my childhood, my education, my parents, but you will not steal from me my memories, nor will you twist my father's love for me into something resembling your own convoluted misconception of familial love." Artie glared at his captor and snorted. "Why, you wouldn't know love if it bit you on the ankle!"
Fury blazed across Harlequin's face. "You despicable base-born craven! You will not speak to me in that manner! How dare you essay to lay all blame for your crimes at my feet, you worm, you…!" A glimmer now of delight sparked up in Harlequin's deep dark eyes. "Worm — Yes! Indeed, that describes you perfectly! Down, sir, down upon your belly, to grovel before me!"
Artie's legs crumpled from under him as if made of rubber. He fought desperately to stay upright, but at best he could only postpone the inevitable. Down he fell, down upon his face. He tried to catch himself, his arms flailing in front of him, but they might as well have been rubber as well. He wallowed helplessly, managing only to roll over onto his side. From that lowly position Artie looked up at the triumphant face of the man who hated him.
"Yes, yes!" crowed Harlequin. "For the loss of my wife, for the loss of my child, for the loss even of my legs — though that fault properly lays at the feet of your departed partner — for every privation I have suffered because you live…" He laughed, eyes gleaming, seeming to grow taller and yet taller again, looming over Artie. "Ah, you shall suffer even as I have suffered, stripe for stripe and blow for blow. You shall know every loss I have ever known. Already I have removed from you that other half of yourself, your great good friend Captain West. Already I have reduced you to your current condition, the estate of a man who is only half a man. And now…" He lifted his eyes, and how they darted about, searching, seeking! "Now. Now, Peregrine, wherever you have sent your wife and child away, they are not far enough away to elude my notice nor my grasp. Momentarily were they in my hands; momentarily have they escaped; momentarily shall they return to me. Yes, even now! I have merely to…" He tipped his head and concentrated, eyes closing, breath quickening. "To me," he crooned. "To me! To me, Lily Gordon, Suzanne Gordon, will you come! You have no choice, no will in this matter. You. Will. Come!"
…
Lily gasped as the TARDIS gave a lurch. The room shuddered, all the lights dimming alarmingly. "What… what is that? What's happening?"
All around her Rosalind quivered and groaned. The floor tilted underfoot. The time rotor in its glass column jittered, slowed, seemingly fighting for every inch as it rose up to its height, then reversed again.
"Rosalind! What's wrong?" Lily tried to get her fingers on the keys of the typewriter, but the console was shaking too badly.
On the monitor these words appeared: "IT IS HARLEQUIN. HE IS TRYING TO SUMMON YOU AND PEACHES, TO WREST YOU FROM WITHIN ME, FROM WITHIN THE SANCTUARY OF MY PROTECTION."
The entire TARDIS pitched, careening, reeling like a drunkard. The chairs of the parlor area slid out of their places, and a couple of them fell over entirely. With a gasp of horror Lily sprang from her seat at the console and dashed for the disjointing parlor where she'd left the baby. A split second before Lily reached the chairs, the pair upon which the infant had been lying tipped over, one this way, one that, spilling out the baby. Lily made a leap and grabbed little Suzie right out of the air, then landed hard, rolling onto her back, clutching her little one to her breast, shaking from the close call.
The baby began to cry. Lily sat up, cuddling the child, shushing her gently. Slowly she got to her feet and battled her way back over to perch before the console. "Rosalind?" she whispered. " 'Wrest us from within you'? Can he do that? Can he pluck us right from inside a TARDIS?"
Again the TARDIS whirled, the time rotor all but screaming in its effort to continue its normal rise and fall. And the new words upon the monitor read: "NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT!"
…
Harlequin stood yet taller, head held high, arms outreaching, filling all the room, all the world. "Come!" he cried. "Come! I command it!"
To Artie's horror, there in the corner of the room he saw a flicker as something began to appear, blocking the view of the wall beyond.
…
Shaking, shaking, all the world was shaking! The time rotor juddered, stopping, starting again. The doors of the storage cabinets lining one wall of the console room rattled, some of them springing open, spilling forth their contents: odds and ends, hats and cloaks, gas masks and blankets, a sword cane and a pair of anti-grav lifters. Lily fell off her chair and huddled under the edge of the console, Suzie wrapped up in her arms.
From somewhere deep within the TARDIS came the slow, ominous tolling of a great bell.
