Book One – Walking in your footsteps
One
Powerful rays of invisible light cut through the thick mists surrounding the planet's highest peak, burning like a bright sun illuminating all within its reach. The Oculus, the inner sun that burned at the top of Mount Madronal, had done so since the old time, casting its light upon a world otherwise shrouded in complete darkness. During the dark cycle, the Oculus shed ultraviolet light, its beams picking out the most reflective surfaces, giving the humid mists below an eerie glow. Within the hour, the twilight cycle would come, and the light of the Oculus would shift into the visible spectrum. The fog below would thin and start to settle, and the fallen would start to go about their lives much as they had done on a world gifted with night and day. The transitional period during which this spectrum shift took place had, by habit, come to be referred to as morning.
Less than a thousand feet from the mountain's peak lived the Keepers of the Oculus. The crest upon which their monastery rested pierced the cloud cover some three miles from the base of the mountain, where scree joined with forest, where the forest turned to bog, and where the bog blended into the sea.
As he did with the onset of every twilight cycle, the Abbot of Madronal stood upon the highest of the monastery walls, catching glimpses of the land and sea that lay beyond the clouds. It was mostly sea, with the mountain rising upwards to form the world's largest land mass, barely thirty leagues across from tip to tail.
The abbot was a tall man, his face weathered, his hair bleached by centuries of morning walks. Without the protective cover of the humid mists beneath their mountain eyrie, the monks of Madronal could be differentiated from their ground-dwelling kindred by their deeply tanned skin, darkened by direct exposure to the ultraviolet radiated during the dark cycle. The abbot's skin was darker than most. Breathing deeply, he reflected upon the miracle that had kept the peace here for two million years; two races, once sworn enemies, forced to share their existence on a single island, eking out the most basic of lifestyles, prisoners of historical circumstance.
"Gesar."
The abbot started. Nothing ever happened to justify the interruption of his morning walk. He turned, finding an even rarer occurrence stood before him. Like Gesar, she wore the plain habit of an initiate, making all but her face and wild white hair indistinguishable from the hundred-or-so monks with whom she shared the mountain. Unlike Gesar, or indeed the other monks, she had not left her cloister room in a thousand years. Her trance was legendary. She had believed that by divorcing herself from her physical body, she would find a path back into the outer universe, and through that path redemption for the fallen.
"Teyamat?" Gesar had not heard her speak in a very long time. "This is an unexpected surprise. I can't remember when I last received a visit from the Old Mother of Madronal. What can I do for you?"
"Hasn't it always been what I can do for you?" Teyamat's cracked voice reflected her age.
"Your quest? Did it succeed? Did you find the path you sought?"
Teyamat smiled an enigmatic smile that made it clear she had no comment on that particular subject. "You have a visitor," she said, speaking slowly, and with more authority than Gesar had ever been able to muster. "A TARDIS has arrived."
"A TARDIS? That's ridiculous," the abbot stammered, confused by the old crone's news. "Time Lord intervention is impossible here. We're far beyond their reach. Did you summon it?"
Teyamat shook her head, smiling toothlessly. "Its prudent to keep the key if you want to lock a door."
"And even more prudent to throw away the key if you never want it open again." Years of quiet meditation could not keep the faint trace of resentment from his voice. "They took us out of time and space. Left us here to rot."
"You are assuming that it is a Time Lord," she cackled, shaking her head, "and not Our Lady returned to bring salvation."
"After two million years?" Now it was Gesar's turn to laugh, considering what effect a millennium of deep meditation might have had upon the old woman's brain. "No, Old Mother, she is long gone. If there is a TARDIS here then it brings a Time Lord, and perhaps more death and destruction."
"Perhaps."
Turning inwards, Gesar cast his eyes down upon the great garden, which filled the upper courtyard, picking out the various brothers tending their herbs and vegetables. With the light of the Oculus and the source of the island's principal river so close, the Monks of Madronal had long since become the world's main providers. Within a few moments the abbot picked out the form of his closest aide.
"G'thon," he called, not waiting for an acknowledgement, "call the brotherhood together."
The monk's pink head bobbed up as he set aside his tools and silently set off towards the monastery's great bell-tower, the Grand Carillon. Once there he would ascend the thousand steps and ring out the summons.
"So," asked Teyamat, "you have a plan?"
Gesar nodded. "If there is a TARDIS on K'thellid, then it is safer to confront it here than in the city streets, no?"
The old crone nodded. "And if Pengallia is returned, then it is better for her to be greeted by a respectful Abbot than a council of corrupt elders."
"Well, we can but try."
"Well, it's an interesting atmosphere, don't you think, K9?" The Doctor paced blindly through the faintly luminous mist, sidestepping shadowy trees as he drew K9 behind him, his long multi-coloured scarf doubling as a leash. The brightest light source – K9's glowing sensors – added a hint of red to the fog.
"It is within acceptable parameters, Master. 72.3 percent nitrogen, 22.7 percent oxygen, 2.6 percent argon, 2.2 percent carbon dioxide and 0.2 percent methane. Geothermal radiation and a static atmosphere give an average temperature of 25.3 degrees Celsius."
"I meant the humidity and the mist, not the composition," the Time Lord corrected, "a bit of a pea souper."
"Pea souper? Nineteenth century colloquialism used to draw comparisons between the consistency of a local vegetable dish and that of environmental pollutants caused by early industrial activity…"
"Yes, yes. I used the expression, so I hardly need to have it explained to me." The Doctor paused to rub his palm against the jointed wood of the nearest tree. It resembled grey bamboo, and there appeared to be no signs of any foliage at ground level. "At least these trees are evidence of plant life," he strained his ears, but the silence of the forest was quite eerie, "any fauna?"
"Affirmative. Besides local wildlife there is evidence of a settlement approximately four kilometers ahead..."
"Well done, K9," the Doctor grinned, stepping up his pace and tugging gently on his scarf, "best foot forward then…" The little robot dog matched the Doctor's pace. He had been fitted with a higher gear ratio and softer suspension than the previous model, and the terrain thus far had presented him with few obstacles. And when they had arisen, a quick jerk from the Doctor's scarf had been up to the task of removing them.
As they moved deeper into the forest, the faint reverberation of Mount Madronal's carillon bells was carried to them on the still, sticky air.
"Shush!" The Doctor said to no one in particular. "What was that?"
"The peal of bells, Master, arranged in a chromatic series…."
"It was a rhetorical question, K9," he said, identifying the notes as they rang, "G, C, D, D sharp. Cathedral bells by the sound of it. A couple of miles away, at least. We should head towards them."
"Confirmed."
They set off again, at a more cautious pace. The Doctor gently rubbed at his temples and pinched at his sinuses. "It's odd K9. Those bells are a fair distance away and yet they seem to be making me giddy."
K9 paused, rotating his ears and processing the data. "I am detecting a low level psychotronic signal, Master."
"Ah. Telepathic bells. That's a novelty."
"Negative, Master. The signal is being emitted by an artificial construct some three hundred and twenty two point six metres ahead."
"Really?" The Doctor peered into the murk, which gave no clue as to which way was ahead. "Well spotted, K9. Let's take a look, shall we?" With a sweeping bow, he gestured for his dog to take the lead.
K9 hesitated. "Master, you are likely to experience further discomfort. The signal is operating at a frequency of one point six microbars precisely..."
"Ah."
"According to the TARDIS databank, one point six microbars is the same wavelength as that …"
"…at which Gallifreyan telepathy operates. Yes, yes, I understand. Lead on."
K9 moved forwards, raising his suspension slightly to accommodate the more uneven ground, and extending his nose-mounted laser as a precautionary measure. As the Doctor followed, the mist soon gave way to a tall, stone obelisk. Perfectly rectangular, it rose straight upwards to a height of about twelve feet, with faint grooves traced into its surface.
"What have we here?" The Doctor knelt beside the object for a closer inspection. He noted that the base appeared to grow directly out of the bedrock, and that none of the surrounding tree roots made direct contact with its surface. He sensed some very slight vibration, but there was no accompanying hum. All he could hear was the subtle whirr of K9's processors.
"It is a lithium construct interlaced with an artificial compound," K9 noted.
"I am unable to identify the markings."
"They're vevers, explained the Doctor, "ancient glyphs designed to store whatever data a prospective Time Lord is likely to need on his journey. It's the Gallifreyan equivalent of a milestone."
"Query?"
"Look under tychomnemonic array," explained the Doctor, sign-posting the relevant entry in K9's databanks. "Every star system we ever visited had one of these hidden somewhere. There's one buried somewhere on Earth's moon. It's a navigational aid from an age of terrible mind powers. They were abandoned when our telepathy waned."
"Tychomnemonic array." K9 repeated the word, retrieving the data. "A fixed psycholinguistic positioning and transmission system…"
"Yes, yes," the Doctor interrupted. "That's what I said. And from my throbbing head, whatever information it contained has probably just been uploaded into my time brain."
"Has it informed you of our location, Master?"
"No. Nothing," said the Time Lord, backing away from the stone, "and I'd be grateful if you disabled it before I do. A level eight blast should do the trick."
K9 complied, directing a sustained laser blast at the stone, which absorbed and distributed the ruby light across its surface, tracing the outline of the vevers. As soon as he ceased fire, the glowing red lines faded, and the Doctor looked physically relieved, clearly grateful that the psychic pressure on his mind had lifted. He patted K9, who retracted his laser and lifted his head.
"Master, I am now detecting alpha-wave patterns and other signs which indicate sentient life."
"From the stone?"
"Negative, Master… sensors indicate that the source lies seventy three point two metres to the left."
"What sort of other signs?" The Doctor followed the dog's direction, squinting into the fog, where he could make out more fog, and perhaps even some heavier fog behind that.
"Voices, Master."
As if on cue, the still air was pierced by a high pitched shriek.
"Now that was a voice and a half." As an expert in the screams made by many of his past companions, the Doctor could tell it wasn't of human origin. "I wonder what sort of creature screams like that. Come on K9…"
Rushing towards what had quickly become an inconsistent noise, somewhere between a gurgle and a whimper, the Doctor and K9 soon came upon a clearing where the mist began to thin. Visibility had been steadily improving with the shift between the planet's dark and twilight cycles, but they were still too far away to connect actions to the dull thuds and splintering cracks which now began to replace the sound of alien suffering.
Reaching into the folds of his greatcoat, the Doctor withdrew a small pen-torch of the variety found in mid-twenty-first century Earth's Christmas crackers. Cutting through the mist, its pencil beam fell first upon the grey flanks of a tethered steed, then across to the lilac shoulders of a tall man, one of the many crowded around the victim. The creature was obscured by the movement of a dozen cloaks and the flurry of heavy boots crashing and splintering against its torso. Flickers of light reflected from the creature, while a separate, wider beam of light projected by K9, locked onto its slumped body, which, with all the motion, the Doctor couldn't quite make out. It had a metallic sheen, and its legs, those that remained, were spindly. The splintering had been the sound of creature's outer shell splitting open to expose the soft, vulnerable flesh beneath.
"Hey, you!" The Doctor shouted, eliciting a pause from the murderous crew. To a man, they turned and stared at the interloper and his dog.
"What?" They were human, roughly six feet tall and dressed from head to toe in lilac-blue robes, their faces hidden by cowls. The tone of their leader's response was enough to tell the Doctor that their blood was up. There would be no chance of negotiation with these people.
The men were armed with clubs and knives, yet each wore utility belts and low-light goggles, which indicated a higher level of technological development. As they turned to face the Doctor, their victim's features became more apparent. It appeared to be a giant crab of some kind, its battered carapace cracked and weeping from countless impacts. It was spotted with silver veins, which the Doctor, given the heavy elements present on the planet, concluded must be metals. Counting the spindles and stumps that had once been the creature's peraeopods, the Doctor found ten. He could not make out the creature's head or eyes. Where he had expected them to be there was instead a concave indentation filled with a mass of severed organic fibres.
"What are you doing? Unhand that… crab… er, thing," continued the Doctor, uncertain of what he was describing. "Leave it alone."
As the Doctor cast his eyes around in search of whatever had been torn from the creature, K9's light-beam settled upon what looked like a broken fishbowl. Partly filling the bowl, and partly stretched out across the ground, the Doctor could make out a pink blob of some kind. It was organic, and, like the wounded crab, fibrous tendrils stretched outwards, each leaking thin white ichor onto the ground. It looked like it had been a cephalopod. A pink octopus. No, he corrected himself. Make that a decapus.
Their attention focused on the Doctor, the men started to move forwards.
"K9?" Sensing his master's apprehension, the dog switched his light beam from the victim to the attackers, his stunner already extended and waiting for his Master's voice.
"Who are you?" asked the largest of the men. Their leader.
"I'm a Doctor," he replied. "The Doctor, in fact. Let the poor creature be."
As the men surged forward again, K9 moved himself into the space between them and the Doctor. Switching to wide-beam, he unleashed a blast of energy. The foremost of the men took the brunt of the blast, falling beside K9 as the club of the man behind swung squarely into the robot's side. The impact caused the robot dog to tilt, tipping him over and exposing his underside. K9 had been rendered defenceless.
"K9!" The Doctor ran towards the little robot. "No."
"Get him!" The men surged forward again, and within moments, it was the Doctor who found himself buried under the onslaught of an angry mob.
The Lady Romana emerged from the TARDIS wardrobe in a fetching black velvet coat complemented by a frilly white shirt, an intricately stitched waistcoat, also black, and a pair of tight silk jodhpurs. Black again. These she complemented with a pair of black leather thigh boots. On her head she wore a black velvet fedora with a red hatband similar to the purple and green one she had first worn on Tara. Her first priority, she had decided, was to cheer herself up with a change of costume. She had been quite taken with the 'gothic style' she had taken from the cover of a children's book she had found in the TARDIS library. It suited her black mood.
Striding purposefully across the control room, she withdrew the sonic screwdriver and set about removing the cover plate to the navigational panel. Setting it aside, she examined the exposed wiring around the randomiser, evaluating the Doctor's handiwork. The way he had bypassed several critical systems to allow the TARDIS to arrive before it even knew it was departing had been an impressive feat, but one which left the time ship vulnerable to a whole host of life-threatening situations. The mean free path tracker had been disabled, the coordinate programmer scrambled, the destination monitor uncoupled and worst of all, the isochronic regulator had been removed, severing the link between their personal time streams and that of Gallifrey. They were, effectively, lost in time and flying blind.
"Well, Doctor, thank you very much," she sighed. "This TARDIS might as well be consigned to a junk yard."
Downing tools, Romana's growing impatience drew her attention to the space-time telegraph.
"T-mail…," she said, scanning the controls, "t-mail…"
Her attention was drawn to a metal plate screwed onto the control panel. Removing the plate, she exposed a disused data screen. "Here we are."
Flicking on the monitor, she opened up the t-mail. The first of the Doctor's messages she came across was more than five hundred years old. She scrolled ahead, wading through page after page of unanswered messages.
"Hundreds! No wonder the Time Lords get angry with you."
Romana reversed the search parameters, calling up the most recent messages first. Very quickly, she found her name, and discovered that she had already received dozens of messages during her time with the Doctor.
"Let's see… junk…" she deleted the first message.
"Junk, junk, junk." Most of the messages appeared to be news feed, either about President Borusa's reforms, Panopticon debates, or edicts from Cardinal Varnel, who seemed to be building a case to shift her House's political allegiance from one Chapter faction to another. Then there were a number of enquiries from various Citadel fraternities offering assignments and apprenticeships based, no doubt, upon her exemplary academic record. Then there were a couple of personal messages. The latest family gossip from cousins Merculite and Mornitude and a few memos from her old mentor, PendectarianVenestri. Romana set aside a couple of messages from her favourite Cousin. Finally, she found something from the Academy.
"A summons!" She noted the urgent flag, and opened the message, unable to contain her excitement, eager to see if she had been allocated a TARDIS of her own. Full graduation as a Time Lord was an arbitrary affair, with only one-in-ten Academy graduates ever being promoted to full Time Lord status.
As she hoped, the mission to recover the Key to Time had, the message revealed, moved her to the front of the queue, ready to fill dead men's shoes when the next Time Lord of her Chapter died or retired.
"Damn." The next message announced the retirement of Moderator Jonas, notifying Romana that a seat in the Panopticon was available. Thanks to the missing isochronic regulator, however, she was in receipt of a third message notifying her that she had missed the deadline. Vacancy filled. Romana was back at the end of the queue.
"Doctor!" She cursed, hammering the console with her fist. "Now I'll never get my collar!"
As she cursed, Romana noticed a flicker in the lighting. The roundels in the TARDIS walls dimmed slightly, and a couple of sparks drew her attention back to the exposed navigational controls.
"What?" As she watched, switches moved, settings shifted and the time rotor jerked into motion. As it began to rise and fall, the dematerialization indicator flickered into life. Moving over to the controls, Romana checked the randomiser. It was still in place. Obviously, the Black Guardian had found another way to find them and capture the TARDIS, despite the Doctor's best efforts.
With its innards exposed, Romana reached forwards in an attempt to manually disconnect the dematerialization circuit, but before she could reach it, an arc of electromagnetic feedback threw her backwards.
Dazed, Romana lay on the TARDIS floor. The dematerialization process was out of her control; there was nothing she could do to stop it.