Chapter 4: Blow Wind And Crack Your Cheeks!

Martha came round, just as Lilith was flying out the window. She saw the Doctor fall and she saw the witch fly away. She hurried over to him. "Hold on, I've got you." She placed an ear to his chest, and smiled. "Hold on mister. Two hearts."

"I could make a habit of this." The Doctor grinned. He sat up, then doubled over in pain. "Ah! Only one heart beating! How do you people cope? Martha, I need you to hit me on the chest!"

Martha swung her fist and whacked the Doctor full force. He winced "Other side."

"Sorry." Said Martha, and struck again.

"Harder!" She hit him again. "On the back!" She hit once more on the back and the Doctor felt that heart restarting. "Badaboomba! Now come on! We've got to stop them!"

Lilith slid into the Carrionites' box and took her seat between her mothers.

"The Doctor?" Said Doomfinger.

"Dead." Lilith looked down. She was slightly disappointed to see that she'd missed the second act, which she'd thought was quite good.

"The ladies have prepared a show. Maria means to present Isis descending from the dewy orb of Heaven. Ah, here comes Costard." Ferdinand was saying.

Custard emerged from the stage rear, to a cheer from the audience. "masters."

The Doctor and Martha hurried through the windy streets of London, too fast to even look at what they were trading in. "We're going the wrong way!" Shouted Martha.

"No we're not." Said the Doctor, as he hurried down the road he knew led to the Globe. Seconds later, he hurried back. "We're going the wrong way!"

Burbage took a deep breath as he prepared for the final speech. He still remembered what had happened the first time he'd read it. But that hadn't happened in later rehearsals, so he'd decided it was a coincidence. "Behold the swainish sight of woman's love. Pish! It's out of season to be heavy disposed..."

"It is now my mothers!" Lilith gasped, as she felt the energy building in the crystal. "The final words to activate the tetradecagon."

"Betwixt Dravidian shores and linear five nine three oh one six seven point oh two, and strikes the fulsome grove of Rexel Four. Co-radiating crystal, activate!"

The moment he'd finished speaking, a massive rush of wind filled the theatre, much fiercer than anything they'd felt earlier. In the very centre of the tetradecagon, the air seemed to refract, like a sphere of water were suddenly suspended in mid air.

"The portal opens. It begins." Said Lilith.

Blood red clouds of glowing smoke poured out of the portal, rapidly picked up by the wind and engulfing the crowd in seconds. Cold lightning of all colours cracked around.

The audience rapidly tried to flee, but Lilith held up a hand and the doors slammed and bolted in front of them. Her sisters would be tired and she preferred if they did not need to chase their first victims.

The Doctor paused at a crossroads and looked around. The trouble was, all these streets looked the same.

"Where now?" Said Martha.

At this point, he saw hordes of people running screaming in the adjacent street. He hurried over to see them fleeing from the red storm column that was growing steadily higher.

The only other person not running was the preacher they'd seen talking about global catastrophe the previous day. He was laughing in delight and shouting to anyone he could. "I told thee! Didn't I tell thee?"

"Come on, stage door!" Shouted the Doctor. He and Martha hurried round the back and into the props stall, where Shakespeare was groggily sitting up. "I told you to stop the play! I think I said. Yes I did, it was very specific. Stop the play!"

"They hit my head." Shakespeare reached up and felt for a lump.

"Don't rub it you'll go bald." Hearing the screams intensify, he hurried for the stage door. "That's my cue."

"Now begins the millennium of blood!" The witches laughed together.

Lilith saw the Doctor come on stage. "The Doctor. He lives. Then watch this world become a blasted heath! They come! They come!" She held the crystal to line up perfectly with the portal and Shadmock's hollow moon. Hordes of Carrionites swarmed out of the crystal like flies, shooting up into the storm and whipping the winds around faster to increase the link.

As Shakespeare backed away, the Doctor grabbed him. "Come on Will! History needs you!"

"But what can I do?" Cried the Bard.

"Reverse it!"

"But how can I do that?"

"The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you're the wordsmith, the one true genius. The only man clever enough to do it!"

"But what words? I have none ready!"

"You're William Shakespeare!"

"But these Carrionite phrases, they need such precision..." He looked up at the ever thickening storm.

"Trust yourself. When you're locked away in your room, the words just come, don't they, like magic. Words of the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm. Words that last forever. That's what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it. Improvise."

Shakespeare took a breath and stepped into centre stage. He looked up at the Carrionites on the balcony and declared.

"Close up this din of hateful, dire decay,

decomposition of your witches' plot!

You thieve my brains, consider me your toy!

My doting Doctor tells me I am not!"

Lilith felt the aether disturbed more fiercely than ever. "No! Words of power!"

Shakespeare pressed on, assuming the speech to reverse the spell would be similar to the one for activating it, he shouted.

"Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points..."

He looked tot he Doctor for inspiration, the Doctor could feel some of the power. Enough to suggest, "Seven, six, one, three, nine, oh!"

"Seven, six, one, three, nine, oh!"

The other Carrionites could tell what was going on by now, and were swarming towards him, though struggling through the storm. Knowing he had to conclude soon, he shouted:

"Banished like a tinker's cuss,

I say to thee..."

Again, he looked to the Doctor. At a loss for ideas, he looked at Martha, who shouted out the first thing that came into her head. "Expelliamus!"

"Expelliamus!" The Doctor nodded.

"Expelliamus!"

"Good old JK!" The Doctor laughed.

The wind rapidly picked up at this point, except now, it was rushing back towards the portal, carrying witches and smoke alike with it. A whole horde of black cloaks gathered in a rapidly shrinking clump around the centre of the Globe. Behind them, the doors burst open, and a flurry of script pages flew out, carried upwards to join the storm. Love's labours Won was being drawn away with the rest of their magic. In a minute, they had all vanished.

The audience stood stunned for a few moments. Then a few of them started clapping, rapidly joined by the rest.

The Doctor, at this point, noticed that the Carrionites' box was seemingly empty and hurried up to investigate.

Martha, meanwhile was taking a look at the cheering crowd. "Do they think it was all special effects?"

"Your effect is special indeed." Shakespeare grinned.

"Not your best line." Martha grinned back, taking his hand and bowing for the audience. She thought she overheard someone at the front saying to her friend, "His costume's very good."

The Doctor pulled open the curtains and looked around the box for any sign of Carrionites hiding behind the bench. But there were none. All he found was the crystal. Holding it up, he saw Lilith, Doomfinger and Bloodtide encased inside, banging soundlessly on the surface. Lilith pointed at him and uttered some curse, but she had no power any more.

The next day, the Doctor was busy searching every nook and cranny of the Globe for anything the witches might have left behind, having already cleared out their coven. Martha and Shakespeare, meanwhile were having a last chat on the stage.

"So I said, a heart for a heart and a deer for a deer." Shakespeare laughed at his own joke.

"I don't get it." Said Martha.

"Well tell me a joke from Freedonia then."

Martha thought for a moment. "Shakespeare walks into a bar. And the barman says "Oy mate! You're bard!""

Shakespeare laughed. "Doesn't make sense, but still. Now come here." He took her hand.

"I've just met you!" Said Martha.

"The Doctor may never kiss you. Now why not entertain a man who will." He smiled.

Martha could tell he was at least making an effort when it came to chatting her up. She tried to think of the politest way to say no. "I don't know how to tell you this, oh great genius, but your breath doesn't half stink."

Shakespeare frowned for a moment, before chuckling and backing off.

At this point, the Doctor emerged, carrying the crystal in one hand and a horse skull in another. He'd also placed a ruff around his shoulders. "Nice prop stall back there. Not sure about this skull though. Reminds me of a Sycorax."

"Sycorax. I'll have that off you too." Said Shakespeare.

"I should be on 10 percent. How's the neck."

"Still a bit sore." Said Shakespeare. He'd bent it over when he'd fallen on the stage.

"Here, try this." The doctor pulled the ruff off his shoulders and fixed it round the Bard's neck, where it fitted nicely under his chin. "Neck brace. Though, you might want to keep it. It suits you."

"What about the play?" Said Martha.

"Gone. I checked. Every last copy."

"My lost masterpiece." Shakespeare sighed.

"You could rewrite it." Suggested Martha.

"Better not Will. There may still be some power in those words." Said the Doctor, which the playwright agreed with.

"Oh, but I've got new ideas. Perhaps it's time I wrote about fathers and sons, in memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet."

Martha's eyes widened. "Hamnet?"

"That's him."

"Hamnet!"

Shakespeare frowned. "What's wrong with that?"

"Anyway..." The Doctor cut in before she could say something careless. "Time we were off. I've got a nice attic in the TARDIS, where this lot can scream for all eternity," he waved the crystal, which the Carrionites were still trapped in, "and I've got to take Martha back to Freedonia."

"You mean travel on through time and space?" Shakespeare grinned.

"You what?" Said the Doctor, for once, genuinely stunned.

"You're from another world like the Carrionites, and Martha is from the future. It's not hard to work out."

"That is incredible. You are incredible."

"We're alike in many ways, Doctor. Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady." Said Shakespeare, as the Doctor, nodded at her, knowingly. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate..."

"Will!" Burbage interrupted.

"You'll never believe it, she's actualy here!" Kempe cried, as they hurried through the street door.

"We're the talk of the town. She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again."

"Who?" Said Martha.

"Her Majesty. The Queen. She's here." Said Kempe.

Through the door behind them, a woman emerged in regal robes, flanked by two halberdeers. She was getting old and frail by this point, and the lead face powder she'd used had had a terrible effect on her skin, but she still maintained an air of nobility about her.

"Queen Elizabeth the First!" The Doctor laughed.

To his surprise, she looked up at him with an expression of seething hatred. "Doctor!"

"What?"

"My sworn enemy!"

"What?"

"Off with his head!"

"What!"

"Never mind what, run!" Martha grabbed hit arm as the guards hurried forward.

The two of them rapidly excited, perused by soldiers, as Shakespeare just sat laughing. All the world really could be as exciting as one of his plays. Life, it seemed, was the longest, most thrilling story ever written.

The Doctor and Martha hurried through the narrow streets of London, while the soldiers called for them to stop. Fortunately, the passers by were apathetic enough not to try and stop them.

"What did you do to annoy her?" Cried Martha.

"How should I know? Haven't even met her yet. That's time travel for you. Still, can't wait to find out." They reached the TARDIS at this point and Martha hurried inside. The Doctor paused at the door, grinning. "That's something to look forward to."

Behind him, the guards had dropped their halberds and pulled longbows from their shoulders, rapidly taking aim. The Doctor beat a hasty retreat, dematerialising just as an arrow thudded into the door.

Next Time: Into The Dalek