Trial's End
by Ewen Campion-Clarke
based on a script by Eric Saward
Chapter 2: Delaying Tactics
To be honest, the Doctor was almost relieved to see his oldest enemy. He understood the Master, could predict him, know him - something he couldn't with the Valeyard, or at least he hoped he couldn't. Shaking off the thoughts he didn't want to think, he concentrated on the positives. Just this once, he and the Master were allies against a common enemy. The Master had provided the Doctor with witnesses to rebut the forged Matrix evidence, revealed the Valeyard's identity and role in the conspiracy, and given Glitz the vital clue as to the whereabouts of the Valeyard's base.
And now he had come to rescue. Or was he planning to provide the coup de grace and kill the Doctor once and for all during this moment of weakness?
'My apologies,' the Doctor said quickly. 'I'm grateful. Now, please, get me out!'
The Master reached out a black-gloved hand, clamped it around the Doctor's stained forearm much as the severed hands had done, and hauled with all his might, never once moving his feet from the point where he stood. 'I didn't realize illusions could be so repulsive,' the Master grunted as the Doctor was hauled from the oozing mud. The stinking slime muted all the colours of the Doctor's attire, crusted globules of black marking the handprints of the creatures that had tried to drown the Doctor in the first place.
'Now what?' the Doctor grimaced as his feet were freed from the bog.
'The difficult part,' the Master muttered, closing his eyes. 'Concentrate,' he ordered.
The Doctor did so, closing his eyes.
Seconds later, the beach was deserted. Seconds after it, it never existed.
The Doctor opened his eyes to see a thick patch of swirling fog, which rapidly began to clear. The Master was beside him, eyes closed, gripping the Doctor's wrist. The Doctor noticed that the muddy slime had vanished, leaving his clothes completely dry and pristine. The last of the fog cleared to show a narrow alleyway between two tall brick buildings. It was night, the only source of illumination a single, badly maintained gas lamp.
The Doctor recognized his surroundings. It was the same alley he and Glitz had arrived in upon entering the Matrix, in the ground of the Fantasy Factory. 'We're still in the Matrix,' he observed, as the Master released his wrist at last.
'It's worse than that,' the Master gasped, as though out of breath. 'You're still in the Valeyard's illusion.'
'Surely you can get me out of something so elementary,' the Doctor chided, arching an eyebrow.
'Not when he is sustaining the it by drawing power from the very core of the Matrix,' the Master snapped.
'That must mean you're using up massive amounts of energy to sustain your presence,' the Doctor deduced. 'No wonder you're not your usual suave, urbane self,' he mocked. The Master glared at him, unable to gather breath to throw back an insult. 'We've got to find him quickly before he can cause any more trouble.'
The Master gave a pained chuckle. 'That you must do alone.' Suddenly, the black-clad Time Lord was so pale the Doctor could see straight through him to the decaying brickwork of the wall behind him. Substance returned to the Time Lord, but his edged were blurred and rippling. 'He can't risk harming you until he's confirmed the wording of the contract in the Matrix...'
The Doctor tutted. 'I know that, but if we can find him before...'
He broke off as the Master shimmered once again and vanished, leaving the Doctor standing alone the in the alley. The sudden isolation cut into the Doctor, now without even Glitz to show off to and be distracted by. Distantly, a bell rang and the Doctor fancied rats were watching him from the shadows.
With no other plan, the Doctor decided to retrace his steps to the Fantasy Factory. Perhaps the Mr. Popplewicks would be able to help this time? Cheered with his new purpose, the Doctor strode down the alley, skidding to a halt as he spotted the rainwater barrel as the fog cleared.
The last time he had seen that barrel, something had exploded out of the water and tried to drown him. At the time, he had put it down to an illusion designed to scare and humiliate rather than an attempt on his life, but after recent events, the Doctor wasn't so sure. Maybe the Valeyard had been trying to kill him from the very start? In any case, he wasn't about to investigate it again.
'Careful,' he muttered to himself with a weak smile as he sidestepped the barrel that nearly filled the alley.
The Doctor froze in mid-step, the smile fading from his face.
On the cobblestones before him, there was a glistening patch of water, then another and another. Wet footprints of something that had climbed out of the barrel and down the alleyway and out of sight. The footprints were not of any animal the Doctor knew, but it would be very easy to find out, just follow the footprints and he would find the owner. After all, a quick glimpse couldn't hurt, could it?
The Doctor shook his head. He was being manipulated again, his curiosity being turned against him. Or had he just noticed a very obvious trap? Either way, should he continue towards the Fantasy Factory? 'Perhaps not,' he decided out aloud, then turned one hundred and eighty degrees to head back the way he came.
He stopped.
Another set of wet, grotesque footprint, identical to the other set in everything but direction, wound their way down the alley, past the place the Doctor and the Master had materialized, and out of sight. Either there were two creatures in the barrel, or another illusion? Was one real and one fake, in which case either direction held a fifty-fifty chance of danger? Were they both real? Or both illusions designed to do nothing more than confuse and delay them while the instigator was busy?
'Is this the best you can do?' the Doctor shouted angrily at the night sky. 'So much power yet so little imagination!' he sneered.
A harsh, evil laugh rolled down the alleyway from both directions.
The Valeyard had finally cleared the screen to reveal an empty beach and Glitz had watched his captor unhurriedly adjust the scanner until it showed the grounds of the Fantasy Factory. On the display, the Doctor was raging next to that creepy barrel of rainwater.
'So you think I lack imagination?' the Valeyard laughed. 'We shal1 see, Doctor.'
Glitz sighed. 'But you won't kill him,' he reminded the Valeyard. 'The Doc's right, inne? You're dead frightened the High Council's got at your contract and the one the Doctor signed won't work.'
The Valeyard turned to face him and smiled a smile that could have been a gateway to hell.
'Don't be too sure, Sabalom,' he said softly. 'Don't be too sure.'
The last trace of ion storms were fading, leaving the gigantic bronze space station hanging silently in the centre of a gigantic spaceship graveyard. Inside the main courtroom, Melanie Jane Bush was having an extremely strange day. Last week she had met a strangely dressed man calling himself the Doctor, who, with her aide and that of a young woman called Peri, had defeated an alien invasion. That morning at her home in Pease Pottage, Mel had heard someone call her name. Turning around, everything had gone black and she had found herself inside a foam-lined coffin sitting outside this court. It appeared that she - and some nervous crook called Glitz - had been summoned by a being called the Master to testify on behalf of the Doctor, who was on trial by his own people. No sooner had Mel and Glitz joined proceedings when the Master revealed the whole trial was a farce to dispose of the Doctor for unintentionally discovering some terrible Time Lord secret, and the prosecutor was the Hyde to the Doctor's Jekyll.
Then the prosecutor had vanished into the Time Lord's gigantic computer Matrix and the Doctor and Glitz had followed, while the Master had announced he was planning for the Doctor and the Valeyard to eliminate each other, then suddenly, without warning, he had vanished from the screen he'd been hogging since her arrival. It seemed that it looked like the Valeyard was winning and so he needed to save the Doctor in order to restore the balance. Or something.
The jury had risen and were now muttering and grumbling about due process and taking the High Council to account for the conspiracy. The Inquisitor, a female judge dressed in white, spoke urgently and quietly with several of the red-clad guards who blocked the doors to the exit.
At the moment Mel was beginning to regret asking the Keeper of the Matrix what was happening. He was more concerned at his position now the treasured Matrix had been violated on his watch, and he was still wondering how the Master had gained access. 'This is so typical of the Master,' he was complaining. 'First he's here, then he's gone; a most confusing fellow!'
'Does it matter?' asked Mel idly. 'Just as long as he helps.'
The Keeper looked sadly up at the blank screen which should have allowed them to see what was happening in the micro-universe, but either the Valeyard - or the Master - had sabotaged it. 'I fear that whatever the Master does will be exclusively for his own purpose.'
'According to the Doctor, most Time Lords are the same,' said Mel icily, remembering the passion of her friend when he had discovered the horrors his people had perpetrated.
'A very cynical observation,' the Keeper cried, annoyed.
The Inquisitor finished an earnest conversation with a senior member of the court and swept importantly across the courtroom to the Keeper and Mel. She spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. 'The High Council has resigned,' she hissed urgently. 'Which, I gather, has sent Gallifrey into turmoil!'
The Keeper looked paler than normal. 'Do they yet know of the events that have taken place here?' he asked, gravely. The discovery that the Time Lords had broken all of their own laws to fix a problem that should never had occurred and then blame an innocent was not good at the best of times and these were not the best of times.
The Inquisitor shook her head and the Keeper sighed in relief. 'No and we must keep it that way. Knowledge that the Matrix has been violated by outsiders, of the Ravalox stratagem, could lead to civil war!'
'And that's what the Master wants!' Mel interrupted. 'He can only do that once the Doctor and the Valeyard are dead, but if we help the Doctor find the Valeyard and defeat the Master, then no one need every know!' It was against her principals to aid a conspiracy, but it was either this or leave the Doctor to his fate.
'If only it were that simple, young woman,' said the Inquisitor sadly, and returned to the others.
Mel watched her go, wondering exactly what she meant by that.
In the Valeyard's TARDIS, Glitz watched the scanner as the Doctor crept along another part of the alleyway that seemed to circle the factory grounds. On both sides, doorways broke the brick walls. The Valeyard was leaning against the console, staring intently at the screen.
'The Doctor's thought patterns are very confusing,' he murmured. 'I sense that he is concerned about something... something... someone... called Mel Bush,' the Valeyard murmured, suddenly understanding. He turned to face the controls and began adjusting the settings.
'Mel Bush?' echoed Glitz baffled, before inspiration struck. 'That bit of siddle he's knocking about with.
Her name's Mel. Or was it Peri?'
'Indeed,' the Valeyard muttered, before punching a sequence of button on the control panel. The image on the scanner was replaced by what seemed to be a very detailed sketch of a woman's face, surrounded by a mass of curly hair. It was the face of Melanie Jane Bush.
'That's her,' said Glitz trying to sound helpful. Maybe the Valeyard was his best bet of getting out alive.
'Perfect.'
'She's done you no harm though,' Glitz pointed out, more to establish what the Valeyard was going than genuine concern for the irritating redhead.
'Sentimentality does not become you, Sabalom,' the Valeyard snorted, activating a final control and the image returned to the Doctor in the alleyway.
'At least I'm capable of it,' Glitz retorted automatically.
The Valeyard stared at him as if unable to understand what Glitz was saying. 'It's a weakness,' he said flatly, 'and not a thing to boast about.'
Glitz decided it was time to change the subject and pointed to the scanner image. 'What are you gonna do with him now?' he asked.
'Lose him in a very safe place,' the Valeyard replied, flicking one more control. The image of the scanner was now focussed on the Doctor. Around the Doctor, a spinning, circular funnel of light appeared.
'What for?' Glitz protested. 'You're running out of time! Someone's already managed to break into your illusion!' And Glitz had a fair idea who that might be, remembering the bearded figure that had interrupted his entry into the Matrix to hand over a note for the Doctor.
'I only need to keep the Doctor safe until I have confirmed the wording of my contract,' the Valeyard said calmly. 'Then, I shall make my move.'
'Knowing the Time Lords I suggest you get on with it,' Glitz grunted. 'And if the contract's useless?'
'I have overlooked nothing,' said the Valeyard, glancing at the sealed door behind Glitz.
The Doctor crept through the gloom to the doorway and leapt in front of it. A shallow alcove ending in a thick wooden door, just as it should be. Turning around, the Doctor tried the doorway further up on the opposite side of the alleyway. Empty. It felt silly doing this all checking, but the wet footprints were around and the Doctor had no intention of being caught by surprise.
The Doctor moved on down the alley towards the next doorway. In the alcove he had just left behind, a dark hooded shape stepped into the alleyway, despite the fact the door had not opened and the doorway had been empty seconds before. The figure wore a black hooded robe that might have been worn by a monk, its hem brushing the cobblestoned ground.
Silently, the figure slid through the gloom towards the Doctor, who was checking a doorway. As he relaxed and prepared to check another, something cold and sharp prodded him in the back. Startled, the Time Lord spun around to face the hooded figure, one sleeve raised threateningly. A gnarled, green claw with three long, yellow talons stretched out from the sleeve. Rainwater glistened on its flesh, like the footprints the figure had left on the cobbles.
The claw reached for the Doctor's unprotected neck.