Author's Note:
Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Personal soundtrack for this chapter was "If I Could Be Where You Are" by Enya.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
The frozen figure was eerily beautiful, gleaming in the soft amaranthine moonlight, framed by the gently falling snow. Tejana couldn't take her eyes away from it. It was as though some great artist had set out to sculpt a block of ice into an exact representation of the Master, perfect in every detail.
A masterpiece, she thought, painfully aware of the irony of the words.
Her legs felt weak beneath her and all she wanted to do was to curl up on the ground and never move again. Because, deep in her hearts, she knew that the Cruciform did not lie. It could twist the truth, contort it and make it seem other than what it was in order to deceive. But it could not lie. And the Cruciform had told her that she had just destroyed the last remaining part of the man she loved with her own hands. The thought was a burning, unbearable screw of agony inside her.
The mountain rumbled and shook beneath her, the tremors significant enough by now to almost make her lose her balance. A tiny fissure appeared in the base of the ice statue, before trickling upwards and spreading outwards in a fine mesh of hairline cracks. She only just had time to turn her face protectively aside before what was left of the Chaos-Master shattered into a billion tiny chips of ice, blending into the deepening snow drifts and disappearing.
"Well, he didn't exactly go 'pouff', now did he?" a weary, sardonic voice said from nearby. "I'd like a refund, please."
Turning, Tejana saw Hart still lying unmoving where she had left him, at the base of the atmospheric converter. His face was as pale as paper and the pristine snow around him was stained red with his blood. But his blue eyes were as alert and mocking as ever.
She hurried across to him, even as the entire mountain shuddered again. The rising wind gusted around them, bitterly cold, bringing with it the deadly promise of incipient hypothermia. She had no way of determining how serious Hart's injuries were, but she suspected from the way he was lying that he had sustained some internal damage from the Chaos-Master's vicious attack. The deep slash on his arm was bleeding freely and she had nothing to bandage it with. Going with the lesser of two evils, she made up her mind and curled her fingers into the fabric of his t-shirt, tearing it from neck to hem and baring his chest to the falling snow.
"Whoa, tiger!" he protested weakly. "Not that I'm complaining about you ripping my clothes off, you understand, but couldn't you wait until we were somewhere warmer?"
"I have to stop this bleeding," she said, using the shreds of material to bandage his arm tightly. "Otherwise you're going to die right here."
He coughed hoarsely. "Hate to break it to you, Princess, but we're trapped on a virtually inaccessible mountain top with a blizzard closing in and neither of us are exactly dressed for the cold. Things aren't really looking all that rosy, if you know what I mean." He sucked in his breath in pain as she pulled the bandage tight, deep shivers beginning to wrack his body. "Not sure how I look, but you're already a very fetching shade of blue," he added, eyeing her with a pitiful approximation of his usual trademark leer. "Of course, I'd be a gentleman and offer you my jacket, if only you hadn't gone and tossed it over the cliff."
Tejana sighed audibly. She could already tell she was going to get very, very sick of hearing about that damn jacket. "Build a bridge, Hart," she replied sarcastically, securing the makeshift bandage as well as she could.
Hart glared at her in complete astonishment. "I just climbed up a sheer cliff for you, faced some kind of weird tentacled monster made out of red light, nearly got kicked to death by your boyfriend's evil twin, I'm currently freezing to death in a snowstorm, and you want me to start building a bridge? How the hell is that going to help?"
Despite her terrible, aching fear for the Master, Tejana couldn't help the small, hysterical bubble of laughter that exploded in the back of her throat at the incredulous tone of the Time Agent's voice.
"I don't mean literally, you idiot!" she told him, realising he had no idea what she was talking about. "It's a twenty first century Earth saying – it means you need to get over it!"
He thought it through for a puzzled instant and then gave her a wry smirk as he obviously got it. "Yeah, right. Thanks for that really useful piece of advice, Princess. You do know that hanging out with you has been the absolute worst day of my life, right? And since we're talking about my life, that's really saying something."
"Pleased to hear it," she replied curtly. "I need your vortex manipulator."
"Of course you do. My sword, my jacket, the shirt off my back, and now my vortex manipulator," he said sourly. "What next? My kidneys? My liver?"
"I wouldn't have your liver on a bet, Hart," she shot back, grabbing his right wrist, which was still encircled by the wide leather strap. "The gods alone know why it's even still functioning after all you've put it through."
The mountain trembled violently again and the moan of the wind in her ears increased to a shrill scream. Tejana didn't bother pausing to remove the vortex manipulator from Hart's wrist. Instead, she stretched his arm firmly out behind them, holding the device as close as possible to the faintly-humming atmospheric converter, while rapidly pressing a complicated sequence of buttons at the same time.
"It's no use, you know," he said. "It's completely drained of power. Dead. Buggered. Kaput!"
"The converter is channelling pure energy. All I need to do is to siphon some of it into the wrist-strap."
"That won't work!" he argued. "It's not temporal energy. It's not compatible with the systems!"
"You're right, it won't get us far," she replied abstractedly, still concentrating on the small screen before her, which was now glowing gently. "But with a bit of tweaking, it should be enough for a short spatial hop off this mountain. The extreme cold streaming back down through the mountain is causing the tectonic plates in the lithosphere beneath us to contract and shift."
"Which means what?"
"It means that, if the shifts are severe enough, this entire mountain will collapse like a deck of cards," Tejana answered grimly. "And I'd much rather we weren't sitting on top of it when it happens, OK? Brace yourself!"
Before Hart could say any more, she held on to him tightly, keyed in the last co-ordinate and activated the short range teleport system.
With a surge of disbelief, Hart felt the wrist-strap tighten on his arm and then the familiar twisting, rending sensation that always accompanied travel by the vortex manipulator, even though he knew it should theoretically be impossible. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised – from what he could tell, all three of the remaining Time Lords seemed to do the impossible on a regular basis.
The trip lasted for just a few seconds. When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer lying on the bare, wind-swept mountaintop. Unfortunately, however, his relief was short-lived, since their new location didn't actually appear to be all that much of an improvement.
"When you said a short spatial hop, Princess, I didn't think you meant this short!" he complained.
They had materialised right back where they had begun, beside the enormous, hulking obsidian shape of the Cruciform. Apart from a thick blanket of white snow, the clearing was exactly the same as when they had left it. The Cruciform itself had transformed into something that looked remarkably like an evil fairytale castle made of ice, the black surface glimmering with a myriad of frozen crystals, each one reflecting the fitful purple radiance of the moon. Hart found himself shivering even harder as he looked at it. He didn't think he had ever seen anything that looked quite so cold.
"The real Master's still in there," Tejana said, releasing his arm and climbing to her feet. "I have to go back for him."
More rumbling echoed through the frosty air and the ground heaved and quaked. Tejana's tiny figure stumbled, but she managed to right herself, before moving away from Hart and heading determinedly back over the rough ground towards the Gallifreyan battle-cruiser.
"Are you insane? You heard what Evil Twin said, he's dead!" Hart yelled after her, his alarm much too intense to be tactful. "It's too late!"
"I told you, he doesn't do dead!" she called back stubbornly. "And it doesn't matter either way. Dead or alive, I won't leave without him. Not now and not ever!"
Forcing his tortured muscles to respond to his mental commands, Hart struggled to his hands and knees. "Princess, if you're right, this bloody mountain is about to fall down any minute. And that's only if we're lucky and don't freeze to death first! We can't wait, we have to get out of here!"
But Tejana didn't stop or even slow down. Then, to Hart's horror, he felt the wrist-strap tighten again. "Oh, no! No, no, no, you don't!" he shouted, suddenly realising what she had done. She had already locked in a second set of co-ordinates and he was about to leave without her, whether he wanted to or not. "Princess, get back here!"
She looked back over her shoulder. "No-one else is going to die for our past today, John, not even you!" She gave him a wry, tremulous smile. "Thank you for being my hero. And good luck finding Jack. Tell him...tell him I was thinking of him, OK?"
"Wait!" he bellowed. But already the scene was twisting and fading. The last thing he saw before he disappeared were the frozen tears glittering on her face.
Carefully, keeping her eyes fixed on the Cruciform, Tejana picked her way over the uneven ground, knowing if she fell into one of the deeper snow drifts she would probably never surface again. Her body was so cold she couldn't even feel her limbs any more, which made her progress even more slow and awkward. She had a sudden wistful flashback to the freezing nights she had spent inside the Matrix, cuddled close against the Master's chest to keep warm, hearing his double heartbeat under her ear as they watched the snow falling in the firelight. Despite her attempts to shut it out, the memory was as sharp as a blade and twice as painful. She would do anything to feel his arms around her like that again, anything at all.
She had never thought for one second that she would miss John Hart's company, but she did. Without him at her back, she felt horribly alone. She almost wished she hadn't sent him away. At least when he was around she had something to take her mind off the terrible reality of what could be waiting for her inside the Cruciform. But he had been far too badly injured. Sending him back to the relative safety of Brandon's village had been the only thing she could think of to rescue him. Maybe someone there could help him...if the war with the Lich hadn't destroyed the village, of course. And if the humans didn't take it into their heads to kill him first and ask questions later, as payback for all the vile things he had done as leader of the Slavetakers. But looking after himself was what Hart excelled at. He'd had plenty of practice, after all. She'd given him the best chance she could – and if anyone could escape from this awful planet intact, it was him. She hoped he found Jack, she really did. She hoped things worked out for the two of them and they could both be happy.
With a heavy feeling deep inside, she realised she had already accepted that she would never see either of them again. Or the Doctor. Or any of her other friends. She knew the danger she was walking into and that she was unlikely to come back. But the bottom line was that, if the Master was dead, she didn't want to keep living either. She didn't want to grieve endlessly for him for the rest of her life, as the Chaos-Master had predicted. She didn't want to forever ache for his touch. She didn't want to watch their child grow up without his father, knowing that he had trusted her to save him and she had failed. If the Cruciform was to be the Master's tomb, buried for eternity deep beneath the remains of Mount Boreas, then let it be hers as well.
The huge doors to the landing bay were wide open, almost as though they were waiting for her. But Tejana could see at a glance that the Cruciform would never lie in wait for anyone again. The entire psychic presence of the ship had changed. The terrible, whispering malevolence had gone. Instead, as she entered, she could hear a ghostly sighing in the distance, a keening sound of utter sorrow. The Cruciform's creator was dead. Its heart had been destroyed. And now the ship was dying by inches. The lights had all dimmed again and the corridors were filled with shadows. It was like travelling inside a glacier. The walls and floor were coated with solid ice, slippery and treacherous. Tejana had to slow down even further, to prevent herself from falling over. Over her head, glittering needles of ice hung from the ceiling, slowly dripping water to the floor with a steady, solemn plopping sound. She couldn't help thinking that it sounded horribly like a clock ticking.
Tick tock, goes the clock, especially for the Master...
Free of any psychic interference from the ship, she sent her mind frantically ahead, silently calling for him over and over again, begging him to answer her. But there was nothing. She felt nothing, except a hollow void where he had once been. It was as if he had never even existed on Mnemosyne. At last she came to the double doors leading into Kelios's throne room, the same doors she and Hart had tried so desperately to escape through, such a short time ago. The long hall screamed of terrible emptiness now, as if it had been abandoned and desolate for years. The big black throne was dusted in white frost, no longer a place for a living man, but a seat for the King of Winter.
Tejana had no eyes for the rest of the room. All she cared about was the enormous thought bubble that still hovered to the left of the throne. To her shock, she saw that it had also changed. Where once it had seemed alive, its outer skin silvery and glutinous and rippling, now it appeared to have turned to dull grey stone. It looked just like a huge boulder, ancient and impregnable. Haltingly, alert for any trick, she approached it. But nothing moved. Again, she heard the distant sighing and weeping. Fear and horror rose up to choke her. She could see no crack or seam in the smooth surface of the sphere, no evidence of any opening. Was the Master still trapped inside this lifeless lump of rock? She had no tools, no weapons. How the hell was she supposed to get him out?
Without much hope of changing anything, she reached out her hand. For a few, infinite seconds, she hesitated, her fingers hovering over the surface, afraid to touch it, remembering the torture she had gone through inside the malevolent sphere. But then she laid her palm firmly on the cold stone, her hearts contracting in pain as she imagined the Master lying helplessly on the other side.
Open, damn you, she thought angrily, her hand curling into a small, determined fist. Let me in! Give him back to me!
To her overwhelming surprise, the thought bubble gave a weak little hum in response, startling her. Unsure what was happening, she snatched back her hand and began to retreat to a safe distance. A heavy grinding noise came from inside the sphere, like stone being dragged across stone. Slowly, the top half of the ossified thought bubble began to retract. Tejana watched apprehensively, her thoughts hard at work. Kelios was dead. The Chaos-Master was dead. The dying Cruciform was bereft of any will to direct it. Was that why it had latched on to her silent command and had obeyed her? Or had it merely recognised the Master's DNA inside her once again?
The reason hardly mattered. What mattered was that the sphere had opened. She was standing too far back to see what it contained. But there was no sound and no movement, no indication that there was anything alive inside. Taking her courage in both hands, she stepped forward. The inside of the thought bubble was no longer liquid or gelatinous. Like the outside, it had hardened into unforgiving stone. But graven into the centre of the stone was the distinct outline of a man, hollowed out, as though a body had once lain there and the stone had gradually formed around it. And inside this deep impression lay a black hoodie, some black jeans and a pair of black work boots.
The clothes were flat and empty, filled with nothing but ancient, sifting dust.
With one single cry of bitter anguish, Tejana's legs went out from under her and she fell heavily to her knees.
Where are you this moment?
Only in my dreams.
You're missing, but you're always
A heartbeat from me.
I'm lost now without you,
I don't know where you are.
I keep watching, I keep hoping,
But Time keeps us apart.
Is there a way I can find you?
Is there a sign I should know?
Is there a road I could follow?
To bring you back home?
Winter lies before me,
Now you're so far away.
In the darkness of my dreaming,
The light of you will stay.
If I could be close beside you,
If I could be where you are...
If I could reach out and touch you,
And bring you back home...
Is there a way I can find you?
Is there a sign I should know?
Is there a road I could follow,
To bring you back home...
To me...
-"If I Could Be Where You Are" - Enya.