Author's note: Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter. Like some of you I wasn't sure if it was going to be finished. I just recently purchased a new Audio Drama with the Doctor and Nyssa so it inspired me to come back to this story. I turned off the smart quotes on my word processor so hopefully the problems with the last chapter with the formatting won't continue with this one. **fingers crossed**
Call of Balkisia
Chapter 6
Nyssa stepped blindly toward the green force field. Voices on top of voices were calling out to her mind but she felt no pain this time. Instead it was as if the voices were now beckoning her to join them, to end her suffering. One voice stood out above the rest. It's warm familiarity was leading her inextricably toward something that intuitively told her was her doom.
Nyssa, come to me. I'm waiting for you.
"I'm coming, Father." She muttered almost inaudibly.
Just as she stepped through the force field, the Doctor ran around the corner with Sarif, Tegan and Adric right behind him. As he saw the brown –haired Trakenite disappear through the green field, the Doctor reached out to her unsuccessfully. "Nyssa, NO!!!"
Sarif hung his head. "I'm so sorry, Doctor. I had hoped we could save her."
Tegan gripped Adric's arm for comfort. It couldn't be true. Nyssa couldn't be gone. Tegan looked to the Doctor. Surely there was something he could do. He turned to look at the two of them. It was the first time either Tegan or Adric had ever seen the doctor at a loss as to what to do. Finally he turned to Sarif. "What is beyond that force field?"
"I don't know. Nobody who's ever gone in has ever come back."
The Doctor nodded. "I'm going in after her."
Sarif grabbed his arm. "No, Doctor. It's too risky. I'm sorry but your friend has left the Life and there is nothing we can do."
The centuries old Galifreyan shook his head. "I can't accept that. Please Sarif, I have to do this. If something should happen please look after Tegan and Adric."
Before anyone could try to stop him, the Doctor plunged into the force field. The same ghostly green as the entry way filled this new area. For a moment he had to cover his ears in pain as the sound of millions of voices called out to him in anger. It was clear that they thought he was an intruder but he had to do what he could to save Nyssa. He had let her down when it came to Kassia, Tremas, and the whole of Traken. He wouldn't let her down again.
He looked around, searching for some sign of his young companion. The Doctor recognized that the green of the air seemed to come from the pulsating blob of energy. He decided that that must be Balkisia, feeding off Nyssa's appearance in this beautiful garden that surrounded him. Flowers and ornate rocks littered the ground. A hint of lavender and jasmine even hung in the air. He ignored Balkisia and the beauty of the surroundings when he saw Nyssa standing in the middle of what appeared to be a group of translucent beings. He was loath to call them ghosts but that is exactly what they looked like. "Nyssa!"
At the sound of her name, Nyssa turned but the expression on her face stopped the Doctor in his tracks. He had never seen her look so happy in all the time he had known her. Her face held an almost rapturous glow. "Doctor, isn't it amazing?"
He tried to focus on the group around her but although he could make out bodily images, he couldn't place any features on them. But Nyssa appeared to be greeting them as one would long lost relatives suddenly refound. Remembering her manners, Nyssa started to make her introductions. "Doctor, you remember Seron and Katura don't you? I don't believe you ever met Gamia or Chorten."
With a sinking feeling, the Doctor suddenly realized how Balkisia drew his victims to him. He was using the images of lost friends and loved ones to entice his so-called chosen ones to enter the force field. He felt a momentary stab of guilt. When he rescued Nyssa, and he would rescue her, it would be for her just like losing Traken all over again. She never seemed to blame him before but would she blame him this time? It was a chance he would have to take.
Two new unrecognizable beings stepped closer. The Doctor realized that all though he could not tell anything about their features, Nyssa must be seeing them clearly. The ones closest to his young friend stepped back as the newcomers approached. Nyssa drew in a quick breath and began to cry. "Father! Mother!"
The Doctor lowered his head, feeling hatred for Balkisia. How dare he do this to the poor child? Hadn't she been through enough in her young life? He couldn't watch as Nyssa ran to the beings to embrace them only to pass right through them. A bright light encapsulated her small figure. Suddenly she screamed in agony.
"Doctor." The voice was so familiar, so real that the Doctor did a double take. It was unmistakably Tremas's voice. "Doctor, thank you for taking such good care of our daughter and for bringing her here to us. But you have to leave now. You don't belong here."
"I'm not leaving without Nyssa, Balkisia." He warned the mound of energy nearby. "I don't care tricks you use to try to convince me otherwise. This is not the real Tremas; he would never want to see his daughter in this much agony."
The bodies shimmered and as the Doctor blinked the two beings Nyssa had addressed as her parents began taking on a more recognizable corporeal form. The form of her mother knelt within the light and held her daughter close.
"She's not in agony, Doctor." Tremas tried to reassure him despite the fresh screams of pain coming from Nyssa herself. "Her agony is finally ending. She's where she belongs, with the people of Traken and her family. Would you really want her to suffer in grief without us any longer, Doctor? You who claim her as a friend?"
The figure of Nyssa's mother was the clearest now. The Doctor studied her carefully. She was a perfect older version of Nyssa herself, assuring him that Nyssa would continue to be a beautiful woman well into adulthood. That is, if he could save her now.
"Yes, I who claims her as a friend does not want her life to end here. And if you were truly her father you would want that as well."
Tremas chuckled warmly. "Doctor, you do not know what you are saying. I want what Nyssa wants. I am willing to give her a choice. If she wishes to leave we will allow it. But if she wants to stay, then Doctor, if you care for her as you claim to, you will do the same."
Without wasting a moment, the Doctor rushed to Nyssa's side. Waves of agonizing pain crashed over her time and again as he entered the light but he ignored it as he knelt beside Nyssa and her mother. He put his hands on her shoulders but she pulled away. "Come, Nyssa. I'll take you to safety."
She shook her head. "No Doctor. I'm finally with my parents, my people once again. I won't lose them again. Please Doctor, I want to be here."
Incredibly her voice was free from any traces of pain. To his amazement, Nyssa's mother was crying. She stood. "The Doctor is right. Nyssa is the last Daughter of Traken and more importantly she's my baby. For years I've longed to hold my little girl in my arms again but this is not the way it should be. I want my daughter to grow up, grow wise beyond her years. I want her to love and to be loved. I want her to extend the grace and compassion and caring she was raised in to others. Then, when she has done all she could possibly hope to do, then I will be content to hold her in my arms again."
Tremas, almost fully restored now himself, pulled her away. "You are mad women. Our family is now complete again. This is what's important. Soon Nyssa will join us here and never suffer again. How could you not what that, Marissa? Doctor, please, you heard Nyssa. Leave before it is too late for you as well."
"NO! Doctor, take Nyssa away from here. Protect her as I would if I could."
Nodding, the Doctor scooped Nyssa up in his arms but light enveloping them would not let him leave. Meanwhile Nyssa was growing paler and paler as if her life energy was leaving her and entering the Trakenites around her. Balkisia was pulsating brighter and brighter. Soon all of his efforts would be in vain.
"Marissa, help me help Nyssa." The Doctor pleaded as the other Trakenites tried to take Nyssa from him. Even though the once translucent beings were now almost as real as the Doctor and Nyssa themselves, they could reach in and out of the stasis field surrounding them.
For a moment she looked helpless as she caressed her daughter's cheek. Then she drew herself up to her full height and seemed to come to a decision. She managed, with a strength that belied her small frame, to pick up one of the ornate rocks from the ground. Then with a cry of helpless anguish, she flung it at right into the heart of the essence that was Balkisia. A jagged bolt of light reversed the path of the rock and struck Nyssa's mother and she collapsed in a heap on the ground. Suddenly the whole area began to shake and quiver. The growing corporeal beings began to shriek in agony as they collapsed to the ground and withered away. Tremas' body was the last to fade away. As he disappeared, he left this warning for the Doctor.
"She will forever hate you for this, Doctor."
Staggering the Doctor carried Nyssa toward the entrance. The green faded around him as he collapsed at Tegan and Adric's feet with Nyssa still in his arms. Immediately they knelt beside him.
It took several minutes for the pain to fade away enough for the Doctor to catch his breath and realize that Sarif, Tegan, and Adric were all calling his name. Ignoring them, he turned his attention back to Nyssa. She still seemed so limp and still. He checked her pulse and breathing and was relieved to see that both were within normal ranges.
"Doctor, is she…?" Tegan couldn't bring herself to finish the question.
"She's alive but I don't know what lasting effects she'll have." He didn't add that he also wasn't sure what effect the experience would have on him. Right now Tegan and Adric needed to be reassured and they wouldn't be unless he projected his normal calm exterior.
A long sorrowful knell filled the corridor. Sarif looked alarmed. "We are all in great peril. I've only heard that sound once before when I was a small child. At that time, the Winds had started but Chosen One was found. The storms grew fiercer and fiercer and the Life was almost destroyed before someone began to show the signs of being affected. Balkisia must be furious that you have pulled Nyssa from him. He will destroy us all."
Nyssa's eyes flickered open and she looked at her friends in confusion. "Wh…what happened? Wh..Where am I?"
Tegan patted her arm reassuringly. "It's okay, Nyssa. The Doctor saved you. Everything is going to be okay." She hoped at least, after hearing Sarif's grim warning.
The brown-haired girl looked from Tegan to Adric and then to the Doctor. She scrambled out of his arms. "Who are you?"
