CHAPTER 27. LAND OF GODS AND MONSTERS

Years had passed since Rose last saw these streets, these buildings, but the city was as vibrant as she remembered. The skies were a clear blue, with the sun blazing down and the people didn't have a clue what was about to unfold. Rose wanted to take it all in, savour what could be lost in the blink of an eye, but they had a task to complete. Time was limited and Rose wasn't quite sure that the Doctor actually had a plan.

'So, to get it right,' Rose said, 'it's now twelve years after we were trapped in the Underworld?'

'Correct.' The Doctor looked around, eager to get going. 'We only have one day to stop Adam, or in the years from now he'll destroy this planet. Again.'

'Any idea where to start?'

'Not a clue.'

'Aleas is all grown up now. We don't even know if he's even still here.'

'Ah, but there's one other person who can't have gone far. Niyoli. If she's still alive, she must be here.'

Rose looked up at the facade of the Temple that now loomed ahead, somewhat run-down, but still not easy to miss.

'How do we get in? It's the middle of the day.'

'Same as before.' The Doctor made towards the entrance, but Rose grabbed his arms.

'Wait. There's a better way. Remember what Aleas said? There's this small courtyard at the back and they always left a door open for the priests to avoid drawing attention when they snuck out at night. If we're lucky, it's still there.'

The Doctor grinned. 'See,' he said, ' I knew there was a reason to keep you around.' Rose thumped his shoulder with her fist.

They quickly made their way across the square in the direction of the more shadowy side of the huge Temple structure.

'Look,' Rose said, 'the courtyard has to be over there.'

Rose rounded the corner and the Doctor nearly ran into her as she stopped dead.

A beast the size of a small truck blocked the way, hissing and scratching the stones with its clawed feet. Rose's first thought was of the Manticore, but this monster was different. It wasn't attacking, but rather guarding. Her heart was up in her throat by now, but strangely enough fight-or-flight hadn't kicked in yet. The Doctor put his hands on her shoulders and gently eased her to the side.

Rose hissed a warning. 'Are you insane?'

'No need to fight…'

Rose wasn't sure if he'd addressed her or the beast. The Doctor took another step forward, actually smiling at the creature this time.

'We're friends, remember? I get that you're angry, but there's no need to be afraid. Let's talk.'

The beast, so threatening a moment ago, now began to shrink. In front of their eyes, it took on human size, then the form of a young woman, her dark hair falling over her shoulders in thick ringlets.

The Doctor smiled again. 'Hello, Niyoli.'

She hadn't yet become the battle-hardened warrior they met under Adam's reign. There was still a hope about her, be it a tenuous one, but she wasn't pleased to see them, her entire demeanour fierce and defensive.

'How is it possible you have returned?' Niyoli took a stance, challenging the Doctor to convince her.

'That's a long story,' he said. 'Too long, but if it helps, I'm here to make amends for my mistakes.'

'You believe you have the right to interfere further?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'No right whatsoever. Just hoping for a chance to prevent what's coming. It's a dark and terrible future.'

'You've seen this?'

Rose took a step forward. 'Like the Doctor said, it's a long story, but if you can tell us what happened in the time we were gone, that would help.'

Niyoli relaxed a little. 'Come with me.'

Rose and the Doctor followed her into the Temple to a small room at the back.

'Now we can talk,' she said.

Before the Doctor could speak, Rose stepped in. 'Niyoli, you're not a shapeshifter. How did you do that thing to scare us, just now?'

For the first time since meeting her again, Niyoli smiled. It was quite a smug grin, in fact.

'Only benefit of being the Guardian,' she said. 'You're right, I'm not a shapeshifter, but this Temple hides many tricks and illusions. I just happen to know a few.'

'Talking about the Temple,' the Doctor said, 'it isn't what it used to be. I'm amazed you're still here.'

Niyoli's eyes shot daggers at him. 'I will never abandon the Keeper. It's all I know and I will stay with her until the day she dies.'

'And be sacrificed.' Rose stared at Niyoli.

'You were going to tell us about the city,' the Doctor said.

Niyoli looked away, remembering. 'It was the day after Convergence when the Order turned on the shapeshifters. They were exposed and hunted down. The Order used some sort of device to find them.'

'A DNA scanner?' Rose felt her blood run cold. Could it be the Doctor's device that caused this disaster?

'I don't know about that, but they used it routinely until every shapeshifter had either fled the city or been captured.'

'What happened to Aleas and his family?'

'Sunaq managed to get out, but Aleas was trapped here. He expected to be caught every day, but for some reason the results always came back as full-blood Caliun. Eventually they lost interest and forgot about him. He took on another name and became a scribe at the Scriptorium, to learn more about the history of his people and perhaps find a way to exonerate them. Stupid, if you ask me. He could have fled years ago.'

'Maybe there was something else holding him here,' the Doctor said.

Niyoli glanced at him but said nothing.

'Did he ever find anything useful?' Rose asked.

'Not as far as I know, but I don't get to talk to him very often. It's dangerous, these days.'

'We'll take our chances at the Scriptorium, then.' The Doctor suddenly appeared more confident, despite Niyoli's dark tale. He turned to Rose. 'A Scriptorium has books, and I really like books. Most of all the information they contain.'

Rose turned to Niyoli. 'Will you come with us?'

'I can't leave the Temple grounds before sunset. I'd be careful if I were you. These streets are dangerous and Aleas won't be happy to see you, not after what happened to his father.'

~x~

The Scriptorium was easy to reach, but far less easy to sneak into. Rose struggled to find a foothold on the slippery windowsill. The Doctor's shoulders were somewhere below her feet and his hands were gripping her calves. He was probably happy that it hadn't rained lately.

'Have you got it yet?' he grumbled.

'Give me a sec.' Rose reached down and finally found something to hold on to. She pulled herself up and through the window. After that, it was easy enough to unlatch the lower window and let the Doctor in.

'We have just broken into this place in broad daylight.' Rose panted from the exertion.

'Now let's hope Aleas will be kind enough not to call the guards the moment he claps eyes on us.'

They explored the building further, all the while staying in the shadows as much as possible. There weren't many people about. Probably too hot for that, Rose thought. It was cooler inside the stone walls, though. Soon enough they spotted a head with dark curls, its owner bent over a stack of scrolls, deep in concentration. Aleas had to be in his twenties now and, like Niyoli, he was still far removed from the desperate days to come.

'What do you think,' said the Doctor, 'ambush or trust?'

Rose shrugged.

The Doctor hissed. 'Oi!'

Aleas looked up, alarmed, like he expected to be chastised for something. Then he spotted them in the shadows. It took a few seconds for realisation to set in, then he got up slowly. Glancing around cautiously, he walked up to the nearest bookshelf and pretended to search for a volume. His oddly-coloured eyes shot to Rose, then to the Doctor.

'You've come back,' was all that he said. He didn't sound happy or relieved. 'And you look exactly the same. How is that possible?'

'We were trapped inside the Rift. Time moves differently there.'

'You are time travellers,' Aleas exclaimed. 'I knew it!' Now he looked more like the little boy they had known before. His face suddenly fell again. 'Why didn't you save my father? You could have gone back.'

'Look,' the Doctor said, 'we only have a single day to put things right, so let's leave the technicalities for later. Without your father, we wouldn't be here.'

He dug in his pocket and took out something that fit in the palm in his hand. It was Eshar's medal.

Aleas took the trinket from the Doctor and stared at it for a long time, his fingers trembling ever so slightly, then he looked up. 'I will help you with whatever you need.'

'Good man,' the Doctor said. He quickly explained about what was going to happen, tactically leaving out details about the future.

The Doctor looked around the vast library. 'Anything here that you think could help us?'

Aleas looked a little lost. 'I do know the location of the Key. After you entrusted it to my family it was guarded with a whole new purpose, but when my people were rounded up, I was the one who hid it again.'

'That's a start,' the Doctor agreed.

'There's one other thing,' Aleas said. 'I found some very ancient maps of the city.'

'Show us.' Rose watched as Aleas went to fetch his treasure.

'Look.' Aleas spread out the maps for Rose and the Doctor to see. The one on top looked like an ordinary map at first, but there were strange markings around the edge. The Doctor studied them for a moment, but they were only partially legible.

'I don't think these are very useful,' he said eventually, 'but we can search this library for more clues.'

~x~

After the first few hours of finding absolutely nothing, the Doctor was becoming cranky. He was convinced now that they were wasting time, but he had precious few other ideas. The Shadow was a more dangerous enemy than he dared to admit out loud.

The Doctor was startled from his thoughts by Rose calling out. He made his way to where she sat with Aleas. The book opened before them contained no written words, only a small patch of metallic-looking lines, somehow grafted to the page. The Doctor grinned, his worries suddenly forgotten.

'It's a computer chip.' He took out his sonic and carefully scanned the page. The moment he cracked the code, a holographic message appeared. The words were in Gallifreyan, so he had to translate them for Rose and Aleas.

'This text is about an ancient Time Lord invention,' he explained. 'It was called the Object and the Time Lords used it to harness the power of the Rift.' He quickly scanned the rest of the text.

'Hah!' he exclaimed. 'I knew there had to be a failsafe of sorts.'

'Go on, then,' Rose said.

'So, they used something called the 'True Key' to protect their precious Object. Access to the Object was a way to fully control the Rift and keep evil at bay.'

Aleas interrupted. 'But what is the Object?'

'I'm not sure. It looks like maybe some sort of artificial intelligence, but with biological components. Whatever it was, it's deactivated now. Hold on…' He scanned the page faster. 'Another name for the Object was the Keeper.'

This time, Rose was the one who interrupted. She turned to Aleas. 'Remember when we searched for a cure for the Doctor? We thought it was weird that the ancient sources referred to the Keeper as some sort of machine, instead of a child.'

The Doctor felt his hearts start to race. 'What if this Object is the real Keeper? Maybe the Object was deactivated and then replaced by a child?'

Rose nodded in agreement. 'But in that case, this whole system is even crueller than we thought.'

Next to Rose, Aleas fumed. 'Niyoli was forced to sacrifice her future for nothing. Her entire life, dedicated to a lie, and all those before her… And they say we are the monsters.'

Rose turned to the Doctor. 'Can you find out why the Object was deactivated?'

'Dunno.' He looked at the page blankly. 'The only other thing this says is that the Time Lords used the Object to explore more of the Rift's potential.'

'Sounds dangerous,' Aleas said.

'Hold on.' The Doctor suddenly felt his hopes rise again. 'There's something else here, almost like a footnote. It's about the True Key.' His eyes flew across the page.

The Doctor finished reading and leaped up. He grabbed the maps Aleas had shown them which he believed to be useless before.

'I'm so stupid,' he called out. 'I get it now. I know what happened before, why the Key failed. It's brilliant!'

Rose watched as the Doctor used a piece of vellum to draw a map of his own. It showed two of the city's major landmarks: the Great Temple to the east and the smaller temple of Andah to the west.

'And then there's this one,' the Doctor said, indicating a third site. 'The actual place where we arrived back.' He let his eyes hover over the page for a moment, then marked a fourth place on the map, this one seemingly without a major landmark. He looked down on his work and then carefully began to draw lines between the different sites. A pattern emerged.

'It's a rhombus,' Aleas said. 'A diamond shape.'

'There are four sites in this city,' the Doctor explained. 'Each has an aspect of the Rift, but neither of them is the heart of the Rift. That has to lie in the exact middle.' The Doctor placed a finger on the crude map. 'The House of Ceremony. Our Key didn't work because it was used in the wrong lock. It was only a small part of a much larger system, devised by the Time Lords to prevent others from tampering with the Rift.'

'So,' Rose said, 'there are three more 'locks', so there have to be three more keys as well.'

'Now you've got it!' The Doctor grinned. 'Together these can be used to permanently restore the Rift.'

'But we have to create this 'True Key' first, right?'

'Yeah, there's a little problem there.' The Doctor scratched the back of his head. 'We need the three other keys for that, and I guess they're sort of missing.'

~x~

Rose and the Doctor had made their way back to the Temple, accompanied by Aleas.

At the outer wall of the Temple, Aleas halted. 'I can't follow you any further, but I will search for a way to locate the other keys, I promise.'

Rose gave the young man an impromptu hug. 'Thank you,' she said. Aleas just smiled. More than anything, Rose wanted him to stay as he was: bookish, clever and very brave. She didn't want him to turn into the hardened resistance fighter of his possible future. That wasn't going to happen, at least not if she could help it.

'If you can,' Aleas said, 'meet me here after nightfall. The patrols are fewer just before they change shifts. I'll see what I can find in the meantime.'

Rose and the Doctor left Aleas as they walked further along the Temple grounds. Rose had a sudden urge to look back. From this angle they could see Aleas, still where they left him, but he couldn't see them. He was clearly waiting for something. Rose pulled the Doctor's sleeve and put a finger to her lips, telling him to be quiet. 'Just wait a bit,' she whispered.

Together they watched as another figure appeared. It was Niyoli. Even in the shadows, Rose could see Aleas smile as he and Niyoli stood close together, protected from street view by the high walls. Then Aleas, very gently, kissed Niyoli and she responded to him. The kiss was sweet and tender, an easy familiarity between the two that seemed to speak of a deep love. Rose felt somewhat guilty for spying on them, but it also made her realise the stakes had just been raised even higher.

'That's a dangerous path they're on,' the Doctor whispered. 'If they're found out, they'll be punished, if not worse.'

Rose gritted her teeth. 'Then we'll just have to make sure we don't mess up this time, won't we?'

They left the two lovers behind, walking together in silence. The road to the Hall of Resurrection was quiet as well and the Doctor could almost forget this was a city on the verge of disaster. Finding out more about the different lock sites might finally put things right. He should have figured it out by now, but other things kept getting in the way.

They had almost reached the Hall when the Doctor suddenly halted. He grabbed the sonic and made a sort of half-pirouette, scanning the surrounding streets. A man carrying a sack of grain threw them a curious glance.

The Doctor grabbed Rose by the arm and guided her into a nearby alley, away from other curious folk. Several stories up, someone had draped their washing across the windowsill, making the alley smell of wet cloth and soap.

'What's with the scanning?' Rose asked.

The Doctor tried to sound as calm as possible. 'When you were ill, you tried to tell me about another person inside the TARDIS. Turns out you were right.' He drew in a breath. 'It was an entity of sorts and I met her myself later. Just now, on the street, I thought I felt her, but I was wrong.'

'It's a woman?'

The Doctor hesitated, troubled by this part of his confession. 'The Entity took on human appearance. She was you, Rose. I believe she was actually you, probably from a parallel universe.'

Rose stood dumbstruck.

'I have absolutely no idea why she wanted to contact us, but she did help me figure out how to get back here. Maybe that was it, or maybe she wanted to say more. I don't know.'

'I've had visions of another me.'

Now it was the Doctor's turn to be surprised.

'There were several,' Rose said, 'of you and me.' She shook her head. 'No, they looked exactly like us, but it definitely wasn't me. And she called him John. He was human.'

The Doctor experienced a strange sensation of being outside himself. He forced himself to think rationally. 'There's an infinite number of parallel universes. It's quite possible there's another world where Adam is named John.' The Doctor swallowed. Don't say anything, he told himself, don't say anything. He opened his mouth. 'If Adam had been healthy and sane from the start, would you have gone with him?'

Rose looked at the Doctor, trying to gauge his intention. After all that had happened, he chose this moment to open up?

She slowly shook her head. 'That's not a fair question.'

He didn't say anything, probably already regretting the question, but they were in it now. 'It feels like an eternity since you've touched me,' Rose said. 'Is everything we had gone?'

He looked at her, still unable to answer.

Rose tried to stay as calm as possible, but the adrenaline was racing through her system. Part of her simply wanted to go back to how they had once been, but what had happened between them was simply too big to dismiss. 'After this is all over,' she said, 'is there still a reason for me to stay with you?'

When he still didn't answer, Rose leaned closer, afraid that her voice would fail her. 'Please talk to me. I don't want to lose you. Not again.'

He was facing away from her, and for a moment she believed it was already too late, as if the bubble they were living in had burst and they were now in free fall.

The Doctor finally recovered his ability to speak. He traced his fingers along her cheek, daring himself to feel the full impact of that touch. He didn't need a telepathic connection to read Rose's thoughts. They were written all over her face.

'It's all been so confusing,' he said, 'and everything started screaming at me to run away.' The last of his defences came tumbling down. 'Rose, I thought I'd lost you.'

'You didn't.'

Tears welled up in his eyes. 'But I don't know how to fix this.'

Rose stepped closer and fisted his jacket, forcing him to face her. 'No,' she said, 'we're not going there again. I know you're in pain, because so am I. Our bond is gone, but we can't pretend it never happened. You can't keep blaming yourself for everything. Doctor…'

He put his hands on either side of her face. 'Rose… I don't want to forget about it. All I ever wanted is for you to be happy. I'm a Time Lord, with the universe at my fingertips, but the only thing I can't do is make things better again. I can't undo what was taken away from you, from us. It hurts so much I can hardly think straight anymore.'

Rose was on the verge of tears herself. She gently stroked his sideburns with her fingertips as he pressed his forehead to hers. This was their first moment of true intimacy in what felt like forever, and she didn't want it to end. He pulled her against his chest and it was as if she'd never been away. His hands threaded through her hair and the world came to a halt.

'It's like I can't hold on,' he whispered. 'You came back to me and I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to think about the future, of you being ripped away from me again. I don't know how many times I can bear the pain of that happening, Rose. I can't.' He felt a warm wetness against his cheek. He didn't know whose tears they were, and he didn't care.

'All that you did for me,' she said, 'can't it be enough? All these feelings of loss and failure, can't we just let go and be like this again?' She drew in a shallow breath. 'We can still make things better. We're alive and together. So what that we can't make love fully? We've found ways around that before.'

For the first time the Doctor actually laughed, only a small chuckle, but it was there and it was genuine, his breath warm against her face.

The Doctor closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, her body pressed against his, her scent all around him. 'Rose,' he whispered, 'I love you.'

Rose held onto the Doctor for dear life as his words reverberated through them both. She buried her face in his shoulder and he had to stop himself from crying, even if they were tears of joy this time.

'Whatever happens,' he whispered, 'I'll never let go again, until the end of the universe.' He drew back a little so he could see into her eyes. 'And I'm a Time Lord, so that's definitely not an exaggeration.'

Rose could no longer hold back and she laughed through her tears. 'I'll keep you to that.'

He answered by lowering his face and she met him in the middle, his lips finding hers eagerly.

The kiss lasted a long time, neither of them quite ready to relinquish their little haven, even if it was only a dirty alley.

A window above them creaked open and the Doctor glanced up to find a woman leaning on the windowsill, chin propped up on her hands and a smile on her face. As she noticed him watching, she quickly moved back inside, but not before throwing him a wink.

He chuckled, then kissed the top of Rose's head. Her hair tickled his nose and it was the best thing he'd felt in a while. She was right. They were alive, and they were together. Anything was still possible.

The remainder of their journey to the Hall passed in a blur. Rose tried to focus her thoughts on the problem ahead, but the last half hour kept replaying inside her head. She wanted to treasure the memory and the knowledge that nothing had been truly lost, but the reality of the situation was quickly catching up. Adam was coming, and the future was in flux, the fate of this planet literally hanging in the balance.

Adam's misguided attempts to become a Time Lord again had led to them becoming trapped in the Underworld and caused a major deviation in the fabric of Time and Space. The physical traces of his actions and even the massive earthquake on the last day should have been minor in comparison. Still, Rose felt her heart sink as they arrived at the Hall of Resurrection. It had been all but destroyed. One set of walls still leaned against the neighbouring building, but the others were reduced to a crumbled ruin, as if a giant foot had stepped on it. It was an eerie reminder of the Rift's barely contained power.

Rose navigated through the debris, careful not to stumble or dislodge any larger pieces of rubble. Many, if not most of the carvings had been destroyed and any possible clues about the Time Lords were gone forever. She then noticed what looked like a doorway, half covered by vegetation.

'Doctor, look. There's something behind this.'

The Doctor helped clear away the branches, revealing a second room, previously hidden from sight. 'The earthquake must have dislodged the secret door.'

Rose stepped through the narrow gate and into a different world filled with shadow, moist and musky from vegetation that had grown inside, then rotted away in places. In the middle of the large space sat a rectangular shape. As her eyes adjusted to the tropical gloom, Rose made out other shapes surrounding the one at the centre.

The Doctor cleared away more debris from the central tomb and it became visible again for the first time in centuries. Rose wiped away the rest of the dirt to reveal the writing on the lid. Most of the letters had become too eroded to make out, but it was still possible to identify the tomb's owner.

'Zaqar' the Doctor read.

There was a symbol next to the name. It was a star.

'It's the same,' Rose said, 'the same symbol as on the Key.'

The Doctor straightened, a very familiar expression on his face. He walked over to one of the other tombs. Most of them were a lot smaller, others completely covered in ivy and fallen debris and nearly destroyed. Every surviving slab had a symbol on it: the Archer, the Moon, or the Sword, each time accompanied by the same mysterious star symbol.

'You were right,' said Rose. 'The families, they're all connected.'

'Not only that. It's the families and the shapeshifters who are connected. That symbol proves it.'

'What if,' Rose surmised, 'the Keys are now somehow owned by these families?'

'It would explain their determination to get our key.'

'But they didn't seem to know what it does any more than we did.'

'Remember, over time, the shapeshifters lost all knowledge of that. The same thing could have happened to the families.'

Rose shook her head. 'Fighting for centuries over a single worthless key, while what they really wanted was under their noses all along.'

'Worse,' the Doctor added. 'If we want to save this planet, they need to unite, end the feud, and create the True Key.'

'But they're not going to do that, right? Not after hundreds of years of fighting.'

The Doctor looked pensive as he considered her words. 'We'll think of something.'

Rose headed for the way out. 'Let's get to the Temple first, see if Aleas has found anything by now.'

As they stepped outside, a group of children was playing on the other side of the street. The Doctor veered towards their direction without explanation. Rose watched as he and the children exchanged a few words. Next, the children ran off and the Doctor sauntered back.

'What was that all about?' Rose asked.

'I have another idea,' he said. 'Forget about the Temple. We need to go to the very place where the feud began, the Ashur Mansion.'

'See,' Rose said, 'I said you would come up with something.'

'Always do, but let's hope I got it right. Otherwise, we're in deeper trouble than before.'