Jamie opened his eyes and saw nothing but whiteness. He stood on his elbow, as he was lying on nothing but whiteness, and gazed at the sky above him, which was nothing but whiteness. When he looked at himself, his clothes, once colorful, were nothing but whiteness.
He began to walk unsteadily, but he was not even sure to progress, without any landmark to pass or reach. A thin mist was the only noticeable feature in this place which seemed out of time and space, until, much to his relief, a door appeared before him, standing incongruously in the void without any wall to support it. It had the number six bis written on it, but whatever this number could mean, he did not care, and knocked feverishly.
No response. Jamie put his hand on the handle, and the door opened smoothly. He blinked in disbelief at the view behind.
"Och, what a surprise! Welcome, lad! Fancy a slice of cucumber?"
Chapter 12 You only live twice.
Jamie entered cautiously. He was now in a sort of square yard surrounded with walls like a cloister, but with a pool in its centre. Two setting suns bathed the scenery in a tangling of shadows which made it perhaps even more surreal than the emptiness outside. Not far from the pool, Jamie could see a little table, where a light meal had been served.
"Maybe you'd prefer meat? I'm not very fond of it myself, but…"
The cheerful voice who addressed him belonged to a man, sat casually on a small bench under the shade of an umbrella of many colors which concealed his features to Jamie.
"Who are you? Where are we?" the young piper asked, doing his best to focus on his host rather than on his surroundings.
The man stood up and appeared in broad daylight. Jamie noticed he was wearing a plaided kilt, very much like the one he used to wear back at Culloden, but with a sort of multicolored tartan he had never seen before which made him look like an odd harlequin. A dirk, very much like his own, hung at his belt, complete with a sporran. However, the most remarkable element of his strange getup was the skin of unicorn which covered the upper half of his head and his shoulders, reminding Jamie of the princess of this old fairytale he heard once.
"The answers to these questions will depend on you." the man answered with a smile on his masked face. "Do you ever wonder who you will be? I would like to help you to find it out, by giving you the rare opportunity to catch a glimpse of your potential futures!"
"My what?"
"Come to me."
Subjugated, Jamie obeyed and joined the man who put a broad hand on his shoulder as he sat at his side. He looked curious and intimidating of course, like some sort of wild wizard, but despite the mask, Jamie could see benevolence in his eyes, and kindness in his smile with an impish touch that made him think of the Doctor. And he quite liked this.
"You have engaged yourself in quite a hazardous path, which could put in the wrong the plots of the lords of creation themselves. They simply don't know what to do with you, lad! But, as a matter of fact, they seriously lack of imagination. Look at this…"
He took a book on the table nearby and handed it to the young highlander. All Jamie could read on the cover was the letters "WS". Puzzled, he opened it, and was treated to the picture of an old man, sad and skinny, who seemed to look at him with eyes regretful of his very existence, but also sympathetic and determined, as if he tried to warn him of something.
Jamie closed the book, perplexed.
"Pathetic, isn't it?" the man said with a wry grin. But that's not the last you will see… or rather hear.
He produced a tin rectangular box from his sporran, and gave it in turn to Jamie. The letters "GR" were engraved on the top, and Jamie found a crank on one side of the box, that he turned carefully. But instead of the delicate tune he expected to hear, it was the voice of an old man which rose in the air of the courtyard.
What the man was talking about was of little importance: the harmless things of a tidy life. It was the voice itself that drew Jamie's attention. At first sight, the man sounded gay and cheerful, but, maybe because of his trained ear of musician, he perceived something false and dull in the tone of this voice, like a wrongly tuned instrument. It was as if some awful secret was hidden behind this peace and harmony, a secret that stirred such unease in Jamie's heart that he nearly retched when he released the crank with a trembling hand.
"Who were these two old men?"
It was all he could utter. He felt confused and afraid to understand, yet his eyes were pleading for sense, sense for this persistent feeling of belonging which thrived in his mind since he met his host and the two men he had introduced to him.
"Your two possible fates." the masked man replied wryly. He put the book and the box in each of Jamie's hand, and cupped them gently with his owns. "On one hand, you can live a miserable life where your world will be shaped and tattered by the truth. On the other hand, a good life, free from any big revolution or glorious finish, lived in perfect oblivion of the truth."
"What do you call "the truth"?"
"Och, lad, that's what you're after since you left the battlefield!"
"You mean, the Doctor?"
"The truth about you and him."
Jamie's eyes ran one after the other over the book, the box, and the man with the unicorn head.
"So? What will you put in your sporran? What will you choose?"
Jamie's eyes stopped their course, and focused, stern and cold, on the masked man.
"Wait a minute! I want to know the "truth", but why should I suffer for this? And what sort of "good life" is it, if I have to lie to myself to enjoy it?"
The masked man did not answer. Jamie stood up abruptly, trembling with rage, and threw both the book and the box on the floor.
"These two lads are no sense! I dinnae want to be any of them. I cannae be any of them. And the Doctor? Where is the Doctor in all this mumbo-jumbo?
His voice began to crack, and he swallowed painfully a lump in his throat as he struggled to regain control of himself.
"Well, as you might guess, he has too much of good reasons not to come back." The man whispered, glancing at the book, lying half-opened on the pavement.
Jamie shook his head.
"Enough of riddles talk! You asked me who I will be, right? Let me tell you this: I didn't wonder anymore: I will be the sword of the Doctor, and no one else, and I won't let any so-called future take me away from him!"
Much to his surprise, the masked man smiled and clapped.
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Och, who are you to be glad? Who are you in all this?"
The masked man reached and touched Jamie's cheek. The young highlander nearly fell on his knees, and words formed on his lips faster and faster, trying to match the pace of his boiling brain which seemed to be on the verge to break apart at each second.
"The Doctor... I see him... so close. With him at last... Is this... another future? But why is Zoe not here? And why is Victoria with us? I made my choice. She suffered enough from it. She didn't want to travel anymore. Can't do this to her! Well, it may be coherent, but it's not… fair! Och, I know what you're doing! This is an illusion made after my wishes. My wishes to have not been separated from my Doctor, to keep Victoria by our side even if I couldn't give her what she wanted from me… Unless... Unless you are indeed a trick from some twisted gods minds. Yes, you're tempting me! I won't sacrifice the happiness of these two lassies for my own!"
Blood, warm and thick dripped from his ear along his neck, soiling the hand of the mysterious man. He removed it slowly from Jamie's face and along the other, gripped the sides of his mask.
"You're right. I'm not a future, just a fleeting fantasy."
The skin of the unicorn fell off his head. Jamie's eyes widened.
A smashing noise burst through the air and Jamie heard a voice calling his name along with a furious roar. He looked around him in stupor: he was in the mine again, and was treated to the sight of the shattered body of the giant spider, whose one of the pyramidal facets was broken. Towering it was his friend, the Big Grey Man, with scraps of fading threads all over his arms.
He felt fingers on him, tearing at something. It was Fiona, his dirk in hand who did her best to release him from the last remnants of his glowing prison. By the snatches he could get from her nervous gibberish as he gradually came back to his senses, he learnt that his cousin had run the tunnel until she reached the entrance of the mine, called for help, and was heard by the creature which followed her diligently after it tore the wall of threads as if it was made of paper.
Something fell from his side with a clattering sound as he tried to get up on his numb feet. Fiona picked what looked like a long clothed stick on the floor and gave it to her cousin with questioning eyes. Jamie examined this new curio carefully, and nearly jumped with surprise when the cloth around the stick flew open, revealing its true nature of multi-colored umbrella.
"Now that I remember, Jamie, that was with you in the cocoon." Fiona commented, as perplexed as him. "Do you know where it comes from?"
He shrugged. "Absolutely no idea. But it's nice and funny, don't you think?" he answered cheerfully, rising and twisting the opened umbrella above their heads.
"I'm glad you're not hurt, that's all. Och, but your face still glows!"
Jamie removed some last threads from the side of his head, and felt something unusual at the birth of his jaw. He looked at his fingertips. They were tainted with dried blood.
Jamie shivered, and for a fugitive moment, almost regretted to have been torn from the pyramid by his two friends, even if he could not figure the reason why. He wiped his face quickly before Fiona noticed it, but it was not necessary, as she had now turned her attention to the Big Grey Man, which was chewing some mop of threads quietly.
"Why don't you want to come with us?" she exclaimed, pulling the hand that was not putting more threads in its now glimmering mouth.
It shook his head, barely aware of the attempts of Fiona to drag it along.
"Why not?" Fiona insisted.
Jamie put a hand on her shoulder.
"Fiona, it's secluded here, and our friend won't lack of anything." He glanced at the luminous walls around. "It's a perfect place for it to have a good life, am I mistaken?"
It nodded.
"Well… Goodbye then." Fiona released the paw of the creature and went away in the tunnel after a timid, sad wave.
Jamie looked at her behind his back, but decided wisely to face the Grey Man instead.
"Now that I'm thinking of it, I didn't thank you properly… » he almost whispered, twirling the umbrella in his hand.
The creature looked at him, then at the umbrella with a curious glint in the eye.
"Would you like it?" he said, handing it to his friend.
It shook its head briefly, and instead, handed in turn to Jamie a silver sphere, rusty and cracked, which was the size of a little pumpkin. Probably the thing Jamie saw shining in the pyramid previously. The young piper took it without a word, lost in the soft, twinkling eyes of his savior and friend. He was barely aware of putting the ball in his sporran as he reached up, and planted a kiss on the furry cheek of the creature.
The sun shone brightly when he finally got out of the mine, and Jamie opened his new umbrella with delight, despite the clouds of mist that were already coming to them from the horizon. He found a sullen Fiona, sat curled up in a ball on tree trunk nearby, and offered his hand to her with a warm smile. She wiped the corner of her eyes and took it, smiling back shyly. The umbrella above them was like a rainbow protecting their path on the moor, and when the mist finally fell upon them, Jamie nearly sank in it joyously.
He did not know what would come to him tomorrow or next year, but one thing was sure in his mind: the secret of a good life was to look for the truth.
