Trial's End
by Ewen Campion-Clarke
based on a script by Eric Saward
Chapter Five: Negotiations on the Abyss
The Doctor had walked the length of the alleyway twice. The barrel was dry, none of the doors opened, the distant voices had stopped and the bell was silent. He decided enough was enough and ran down the alleyway until he had entered the grounds of the Fantasy Factory. The only sign of life was the flashing neon sign, as nothing stirred behind the windows, not even the annoyed clerk that had hurled a harpoon at Sabalom Glitz. Had all the Mr. Popplewicks gone home for tea, leaving the Doctor alone in the dark?
The Doctor climbed the staircase up to the entrance to the Junior Mr. Popplewick's office. He tried the door. Locked. Delving into his pocket, the Doctor's hand found an old fashioned boy Scout's penknife. The choice of blades was less than ideal for what he had in mind, but soon decided that the spike designed for removing stones from horse hooves was the best bet.
Crouching down, the Time Lord slipped the metal spike into the lock. He wasn't sure if he could pick an illusionary lock, but maybe his belief he could could effect the Valeyard's belief that the door was locked? Or maybe he could pick the lock while steadfastly refusing to admit it existed?
The Doctor's thoughts were interrupted when a harsh noise filled the air behind him, a sinister crackling noise that was vaguely mechanical. The Doctor weighed his options and continued to attack the lock - whatever was happening was between him and the stairs so he had to work on his one possible escape route, the locked door. Normally he would have turned and introduced himself, but he had come to the sensible conclusion that there was nothing and noone in this micro-universe that was possibly friendly.
Something hard was pressed against the back of his skull as he realized the noise had cut out.
The Doctor carefully rose, and the object at his head stayed with him. Then, slowly, he turned around.
The Master stood behind him, one arm outstretched, his black gloved hand in mimicking the shape of a gun.
'I would have thought you would have killed me immediately,' the Doctor said at length, not noticing the tiny black disc adhering to the back of his collar.
The bearded renegade smiled knowlingly. 'There is no time for me to indulge in personal vendettas,' the Master said flatly. 'The High Council have resigned, Doctor, and thus their contract with the Valeyard has been revoked. Nevertheless, the new regime want you dead as well and are preparing a new contract.'
'Why don't you oblige them and become a local hero?' the Doctor jeered, pocketing his penkife. 'Or don't you want to spoil your anti-establishment image? Kill me before they release a contract and you have have your revenge and reputation at the same time!'
'It's too late. The Valeyard knows he has been betrayed. Should I kill you, he will sense it.'
The Doctor studied his enemy cautiously. 'He'll do more than that,' he pointed out, 'he'll die.'
'But not before he has opened the Time Vent and taken everything with him!' the Master snapped.
'The Time Vent?' the Doctor exclaimed. 'How did he gain control of the syphon of pure chaos that allows the peoples of the universe free will throughout the Web of Time?'
'He materialized his TARDIS inside the Matrix, around the Vent,' the Master explained.
'So he can open it at his liesure,' the Doctor sighed. He suddenly felt very tired. 'Seems he's thought of everything.'
'And only you can now get close enough to stop him,' the Master concluded. 'He can't kill you, but he can kill anyone else.'
The Doctor looked at the Master through hooded eyes. 'Then I'd better get a move on,' he said quietly.
The Master held out his hand for the Doctor to shake. The other Time Lord didn't move. The Master chuckled, his edges losing definition and beginning to blurr. 'Goodbye, Doctor,' he murmured, slowly beginning to fade away, leaving his smile like a Chesire Cat. 'And good luck.'
Then, once more, the Doctor was alone.
'Good luck?' the Doctor repeated, troubled. 'Makes me wonder if I'm doing the right thing.' He took a deep breath. It seems destiny was ready for him even if he wasn't ready for it. It struck him he couldn't remember the last time he'd visited Earth, the last time he saw his friends, never really hanging around to say goodbye in his utter confidence he'd return soon enough.
He wasn't immortal, but like everyone else, he'd lived his life as if he was.
The Doctor turned his attention to the dark sky. 'Valeyard!' he called. 'I know you can hear me!'
The Doctor's voice cut through the tense silence that filled the control room. The Valeyard's hand was already closed around the handle that would open the hatchway in his TARDIS and end everything everywhere ever. Glitz looked up as the scanner cleared of the interference. The Doctor was standing at the entrance to the Fantasy Factory, staring directly up at them, as if he could see them.
'I want to make a deal with you,' the Doctor boomed.
Glitz licked his lips and looked up at the Valeyard desperately. The slender shape had not moved an inch, his hand still clamped around the opening handle. 'Go on,' he urged frantically, 'answer him!'
The Valeyard turned and looked down at him. The gloom of the control room rendered the Valeyard a solid shadow and Glitz could not make out his captor's expression. Then, the figure reached out with an another arm and tapped a control.
Glitz turned fearfully to see that that hatchway cover...
...had not moved at all.
A microphone extended out of the console and the Valeyard moved to speak into it.
The Doctor continued his talking into the night sky, knowing his patter might be the only thing stopping his darker side from triggering armageddon. 'The Master has just tod me that you might feel a little inclined to open the Time Vent!'
So? was the Valeyard's monosyllabic reply.
'You don't really want to do that, do you?' the Doctor asked reasonably. 'Not when you've already won my remaining lives are yours? That'd be silly,' he admonished lightly, knowing that the fate of literally everything rested on him sounding if not convincing than intriguing...
The Doctor's casual chatting on the scanner had somehow calmed Glitz down to the point he was able to stand unaided. The gloom of the de-energized TARDIS no longer seemed so suffocating now the brightly coloured form of the Doctor was filling the scanner screen.
The Valeyard deactivated the mike. 'I don't trust him,' he whispered.
'That's a nice way to t a l k about yourself,' grunted the Andromedan.
The Valeyard reactivated the mike, and the scanner closed in on the Doctor's earnest features.
The Doctor tried to stay calm, relieving his tension by pacing up and down the balcony in front of the Fantasy Factory, lit by the dancing lights of the flashing neon sign. He was thinking of some other way to get a reaction from his current opponent - perhaps his final opponent - when the familiar cut voice rolled out of the black foggy sky.
The High Council did not permit it. The new regime never will.
The Doctor didn't look up. 'Then we'll make our own deal!' he suggested cheerfully. 'Like before! I can sign over my lives to you, not some fictional alias, and no one will be able to stop us. Come on,' he cajoled pleasantly. 'Let me in!'
There was no reply.
The Doctor opened his mouth to speak when the door behind him creaked inwards, revealing a dirty orange gloom. It suddenly struck the Doctor that the Fantasy Factory may not have been an illusion, but a real physical object in the Matrix. Suddenly his recent runarounds in its depths made sense.
The door hung open, managing to look completely uninviting.
The Doctor took his time walking up to the door, peering inside, checking the doorframe, before he realized his delaying wasn't doing anything. Maybe he was just trying to buy himself a few extra moments of life, no matter how trivial they would be. Still, he wasn't about to let his understandable fear control him.
The Time Lord strode through the doorway, which swung shut behind him. Immediately, the courtyard, the kiln and the foggy, gas-lit alleyways surrounding it seeped away into nothing. The brick building sat in the void, in complete silence.
Mel took a step closer to the Keeper, who was slumped in the chair the Doctor had used while being tried. The key hung loosely from the hook his chest plate. One more step and she could snatch it and escape into the outer chamber before the guards could stop her.
Suddenly, the blank screen illuminated to show the Master surrounding by green and pink shapes. There was barely-contained excitement in his voice. 'We may yet win,' he announced. 'The Valeyard has allowed the Doctor to enter his TARDIS!'
The Keeper was suddenly wide awake and Mel drew away as the Inquisitor turned to face them. She hoped the judge had not noticed. 'Is the Doctor all right?' she asked before they could speak.
'For the time being,' the Master replied.
Mel suddenly realized that any minute, any second, the Time Vent could be opened and she would die instantly. Yet, oddly, she was more concerned about the only person she knew in this strange place. 'Can we see what's happening?'
'You can now,' the Master said, his image already bleeding into white as the screen was tuned to pick up the signals from the device he had planted on the Doctor earlier. 'Things are going precisely as intended,' the Master's voice could be heard as the dazzling white cube began to darken once more, sharpening to show a new image.
It showed a gloomy chamber not unlike the interior of the Doctor's time machine, Mel reflected. Standing by the console was a figure in a black hat and trenchcoat, and not far away stood Sabalom Glitz. As she watched the double doors at the end of the chamber whirred open to allow the bright shape of the Doctor to enter before closing again.
'Doctor?' she called hopefully.
'He won't be able to hear you,' the Inquisitor butted in, before returning her attention to the screen.
They might well be watching the end of history.
Stepping through the glazed and curtained door, the Doctor found himself standing in the sophisticated interior of a TARDIS and, judging by the decor and its ability to alter its external appearance, not his own. The chamber was half-lit, however, and no lights twinkled on the control console: the TARDIS was de-energized, all but shut down. That made sense - the automatic systems would immediately try to stem the flood of Erratic Time and, while there was no guarantee they'd work, the Valeyard obviously wasn't taking the chance.
The Valeyard, no longer wearing his court robes, stood by an archway that should have lead to the rest of the TARDIS but was filled by a heavy metal barrier inscribed with the Seal of Rassilon. The edges of the hatch were letting a scalding, disfiguring light seep into the control room and on the edge of his senses the Doctor could hear a creaking, clanking moan on the other side of the hatch. Erratic Time, longing to be free.
'I see that the Master was telling the truth,' he said as the exterior doors swung closed and locked themselves behind him. 'You've already blown the sealing bolts on the Time Vent.'
'Did he think I was bluffing?' asked the Valeyard, amused.
'No,' the Doctor replied, 'but I hoped you were.'
'Forever sentimental,' the trenchcoat-clad figure snorted.
'Not this time,' said the Doctor with equal coldness in his voice. 'You want to destroy everything?' he challenged. He waved his hand dismissively.
'Go ahead.'