PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 2

From the Book of Sasani - The Story of Ranna:

When the Teranovians were still young, a great goddess appeared from the ether in a gleaming chariot. "Behold!" she told the Teranovians, "I am Ranna! I shall provide you will long life and abundant fruits and meats. In this way, you shall know that I am your goddess and you shall worship me!" But the Teranovians did not believe and they attacked Ranna, stabbing her through her heart. But Ranna is a goddess and cannot be killed. Before their eyes, Ranna glowed brightly. And when she stood, she had changed her appearance but her words had not changed. Thus the Teranovians believed in Ranna and accepted her laws. Ranna then taught the Teranovians how to pray to her and how to build her great temples, sometimes appearing before the people in male form.

Once Ranna's temple was completed, she looked upon the people and selected five males and five females. "Rejoice!" she told them. "You are the chosen ones, the templates for all your people. With you, I will unlock the secrets of immortality." The five men and five women followed Ranna into her temple and were not seen for one hundred days and nights. When the men and women returned from Ranna's temple, they told of how Ranna cared for them, how she removed part of them and replaced it with a magic serum which strengthened them. The five men and women told of the Sasani, the many gods of whom Ranna is one. And so the people built temples to the other gods, their names revealed in the language of the Sasani.

But Ranna became jealous of the other gods and imposed her wrath, taking many children of the Teranovians. "Remember, my people, that I am the one who provides you life! Your children will suit my purposes and will be returned only if you return to your goddess." So it was that the Teranovians realized that the Sasani were many but were also one and that Ranna ruled over all Sasani. And they prayed to Ranna, "We shall obey all your laws, Ranna Sasane, and we will worship you above all other gods." This appeased Ranna, who told her people, "In worshipping me, you worship the other gods." And so the children were returned after one hundred days and nights. Like the men and women who had been to Ranna's temple, they told of how Ranna had replaced a part of them with her magic serum.

After two years and two seasons, Ranna had blessed the whole of the Teranovian people with long life and plentiful fruits and meats, just as she had promised. She then stood before the Teranovians. "My people, I shall no longer appear before you but I am always with you. Obey my laws and you shall have peace." She then returned to her chariot, which disappeared in a brilliant white light.

For many years, the people feared that Ranna had not kept her word, that she had abandoned them. But Ranna's greatness continued to reveal itself. The people lived many years longer than they had before. Forty years of life became eighty years. Those eighty years of life became one hundred thirty years. The land became more bountiful than ever before. And there was peace when Ranna's laws were obeyed. And so the Teranovians at last believed without doubt that Ranna is the most high goddess among the Sasani.

So this account is written to show of Ranna's greatness and the greatness of all the Sasani, who should be worshipped with every breath taken into the body.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

His thick-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, the Doctor read the story of Ranna as Nariam prepared drinks, insisting on tending to him as her guest. With every word that he read, and with the knowledge that the story itself was biased to teach the reader the righteousness of their gods, he was more convinced that the Sasani were in fact the Time Lords and that the goddess Ranna was one Time Lord in particular. The ancient texts that Nariam had provided the Doctor also included several journals and ship logs dating back thousands of years. From them and the sacred texts, the Doctor easily pieced together the history of the Teranovians.

Many small human colonies had developed throughout the galaxy after the Earth had first suffered from Sol's devastating flaring, the effect of which made the Earth uninhabitable for several centuries. Those of her children who had chosen to spend their exile aboard enormous sleeper ships had since reclaimed Earth. However, there were still many colonies that decided to continue their lives on the worlds they had claimed as their own.

Teranovo was one such planet. The settlers of the planet had a wide variety of Earth nationalities amongst them. The name they gave the planet itself was a slight mispronunciation of the French "Terra Nouveau", meaning New Earth. The planet wasn't exactly the most hospitable in the galaxy. It was still primitive in comparison, the wilderness still fairly untamed. There was a wide variety of animal life on the surface, some of them fierce predators that could tear the flesh off of their victims in less time than it took to peel a banana. Still, the humans that had made the planet their home made impressive progress. They had a democratic republican government established, had traded some with their neighboring worlds, and had even developed a culture different from anything on their mother planet. In the centuries away from Earth, the colony had devolved from a complex space-faring people into a simple culture of farmers, hunters, and gatherers, much like Medieval Europe.

The story of Ranna told the Doctor that a Time Lord came to Teranovo in her TARDIS and proceeded to use the Teranovians as guinea pigs in experiments. This resulted in their lifespan being increased three-fold, likely an attempt by her to find a way to expand her own lifetime beyond the thirteen lives provided to all Time Lords. Her insisting on being worshipped as a goddess by the people also told that this Time Lord loved power and used that power to control her human subjects. The story of her departure told him that Ranna, or rather the Rani as the Doctor surmised the Time Lord's true identity, found her experiments on the humans to be failures. No doubt while she was able to increase the lifespan of her subjects, she was unable to adapt it to Time Lord physiognomy. It was either that or the Time Lords had discovered her activities on Teranovo and had sent one of their own to stop her. The Doctor, however, felt that the former was true rather than the latter. Back in the days when the Time Lords were still around, they tended to favor him as their unwilling agent in those kinds of matters.

The last bit of the puzzle came from Nariam who, before she had gone off to procure drinks, told him about the invasion by the Lensiati twenty Teranovian years sgo, some seven hundred years after Ranna had "ascended to the stars". When the Lensiati invaded Teranovo, the humans had little chance of defending themselves. Those who were healthy enough to fight were given weapons to defend their people against the Lensiati and their death squads, who reveled in torturing those they captured, sometimes ramming thin rods through their nasal passages and slowly pulling their victim's brain out piece by piece, an agonizingly slow death. When the Lensiati defeated the Teranovians, the simple people were allowed to continue their lives, as they knew them, as long as Lensiati law was obeyed. Any disobedience to Lensiati law and the accused was instantly found guilty and cast out into the wilderness and very likely into the hands of the death squads, who roamed the wilderness in search of exiles. This, of course, was integrated into the worship of the Sasani. Many of Lensiati laws were now associated with Makan's will. Because there was so much death, few Teranovians now worshipped Ranna, the goddess of life, and Makan became the primary god of the Sasani.

All of this left the Doctor with a great big problem. The Teranovian culture had definitely been contaminated by the Rani's influence several centuries before. How was he supposed to convince these people that their centuries-long belief that the Time Lords were gods was entirely false? Should he even try to convince them? Even if he tried, they were still simple people and might just consider him to be an evil spirit, bent on breaking their faith in their gods. No, the contamination from the Rani was done and there was little he could do to repair it, not without spending several years here, something he didn't exactly see as a real option.

But, there was also the issue of the Teranovians being under the control of the Lensiati. If the Doctor just let the Lensiati continue to rule over the Teranovians, eventually they would become extinct due to the Lensiati's insatiable need to torture and kill. The Lensiati no doubt created the law that exiled unmarried young women, unwed mothers, and orphans, manipulating the Teranovian's faith to make the law seem as if it were required by their god of war. What the Doctor needed to do was find a way to convince the Teranovians that the Lensiati could be defeated, that they weren't on their planet as some curse from Makan.

As the Doctor thought on the problem, Nariam returned with the promised refreshments. He looked at Nariam ponderously while accepting a ceramic cup from her.

"You have been very silent, Doctor," the young woman commented as she found a seat across from him. "Have you been reflecting on the words of Ranna?"

"In a matter of speaking," the Time Lord replied before taking a sip of the drink in his hands. His eyes widened slightly. "This is very good," he commented.

Nariam smiled gently. "Prikarta root tea," she told him. "Very good for the heart. I have a cup every day to ensure my child will be healthy when it is born."

"Oh, believe me, it will be. I'll make sure of that," he promised. He went silent again, his attention focused on the books in front of him.

After a moment, Nariam spoke again. "Dinner is cooking now. It should be ready within ten minutes." Gaining no response, she started again with a different approach. "What do the words of Ranna tell you, Sasane?"

The Doctor gave her a pointed look. "I thought I told you not to call me that."

Nariam tucked her head slightly. "Sorry, Doctor. It's a difficult habit to break. But the question still stands. Do they tell you much?"

The Time Lord leaned back as he removed his glasses. "Actually, they tell me everything. About you, about your religious beliefs and how they came to be, about your ancestors... Your entire history is in these books, couched in stories, riddles, and very old ship logs."

The young woman frowned slightly at his words. "What ship logs?" she questioned.

"Recorded accounts of your ancestors' flight to this planet and the subsequent days afterwards. They seem to abruptly stop four months after they landed here."

"And that is bad?" Nariam asked, seeing the confusion on his face.

"Not necessarily," the Doctor told her. "Could be that whoever the captain was either decided to stop making log entries or he died. Or it could be as simple as the records were just lost. Happens all the time, especially after how long your people have been on this planet. It's just a bit of a mystery, that's all. Nothing really related to your current situation, I don't think."

"And you can interpret the words of Ranna and of our ancestors?"

He paused, considering whether or not to tell the young woman about what he'd discovered. Was it right to shatter everything she had ever believed in? "I can," he finally said. "But I'm not sure that you want to know what I've learned. It goes against everything you believe."

Nariam thought for a long moment before meeting the Doctor's eyes. "I have seen wonders today with your great temple appearing before me, Doctor. And I have already committed blasphemy by listening to your words and believing that you speak the truth about the Sasani not being gods. I doubt that Ranna herself will strike me down for listening to the words you say. If they are indeed in the sacred text, then they cannot be denied." She paused. "I dare not admit it in public but I have always wondered if the sacred texts have not been misinterpreted and manipulated since Ranna's departure."

The Doctor hesitated, wincing slightly. "Yes, well… that's the first thing." Seeing the questioning frown on Nariam's face, he clarified. "Ranna wasn't a god. She was a Time Lord, like me." He waited, wondering if he had already gone too far as he watched the stunned look on her face. "Are you alright?"

She nodded slowly. "The sacred texts tell you this?"

The Time Lord nodded. Standing, he went to Nariam's side and placed the book he had in his hand into her lap. "I knew the Rani," he told her, allowing her to look at the book as he spoke. "We went to school together. She was always so focused on science. And she used humans as test subjects for her experiments. In the case of your people, she'd used your ancestors in an attempt to extend her own life. She was always looking for something that would give her power. Even her name reflected that. It means 'queen' in an old Earth Indian dialect." He paused at his own words. "I mean Indian as in from the country of India, not a descendant of North American pre-Colonial natives."

"So, you are saying that Ranna used us and that our long lives are not gifts but rather byproducts of experiments she had performed on us," Nariam murmured in shock.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor told her gently.

She stared at the pages on her lap, her mind running through what the Doctor had told her, what she had been taught by her father the High Priest of Ranna, what she had witnessed throughout her life from the rise of the Lensiati as their de facto rulers to the fall of the worship of Ranna. She didn't know what to believe in anymore and yet there were still so many questions running through her mind, the first and foremost being why she believed this stranger from the blue box who claimed to have known Ranna and yet also claimed that neither he nor Ranna were gods.

Which begged the question: were all the Sasani false gods? Did Makan exist? Did Bressin? If not, what happened to those unfortunates who were expelled from the city to the care of Bressin? She had always been told that the outcasts were protected by Bressin, taken to a place where they could confess their sins against the gods and to atone for their crimes. Then, and only then, if they did not atone for their crimes, they were handed over to the Lensiati for punishment.

The Doctor watched Nariam for a long moment, wondering what was running through her mind at the moment. He could easily see disbelief, doubt, concern, horror, sadness, and disgust run through her features. No doubt she was trying desperately to cope with what had been revealed to her and what she believed. He wondered whether or not he might find himself out on the street in a moment, rubbing his nose against the painful impact of a door.

"What happens to the exiled?" she finally asked, wanting to hear the answer from this strange Doctor with so much knowledge that went against all she had believed.

"Various things, I imagine," he answered, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets. "Killed by the wildlife on this planet. Killed by the Lensiati after being picked up. There might still be some out there, living off whatever they can to survive."

Nariam swallowed tightly. "I suppose I shall find out soon enough."

The Doctor shook his head at her words. "There you go again, being all pessimistic. For having such an open mind, you really have a problem with hope, don't you?"

She smiled slightly. "I suppose it sounds that way. But the law is the law and I still haven't found a… a…"

"Loophole?" the Doctor suggested. "A legal way around the law?"

She nodded. "But there is no loophole. Either I marry before the end of this day or I will be exiled from the city with my unborn child."

The Time Lord took a deep breath, consideration on his face. "Well, can't have that. Can't have anymore innocent people sent into the wilderness against their will ever again, in fact." He looked up at her. "How far along is dinner?"

"Only a few more minutes until it is ready," Nariam told him, placing the book that had been in her lap on a nearby table.

"Right then," he stated emphatically. "This is what we are going to do. After dinner, I am going to your local authority and have a little chat with him about this completely asinine law and try to convince him to change it."

"He will never change the law," she stated firmly with a shake of her head.

"In that case, I'll think of something. But I refuse to let this continue," he told her firmly.

She smiled at his words. "You are an idealist, Doctor." She paused as she stood. "I like you."

The Doctor grinned in response as she went back to the kitchen to finish making dinner. He followed her into the kitchen to help pull out the necessary dishes and utensils while as she brought the pot of stew and put it in the center of the table.

However, just as they were about to sit for dinner, the front door slammed open. The Doctor bolted into the main room ahead of Nariam, standing just in front of her protectively as six men came into the house, armed with swords.