Seo Wiċċan Ġiedd
Martha
The woods changed slowly into more of a swamp, a deep marsh where their feet sank into black mud as they trudged along. The trees in this area were so thick above that they blocked out all the light and a lot of the rain, leaving a fine drizzle hovering around them and an unusual fog in the air. Even the sound of the storm seemed dulled the deeper they went, and sometimes around them the mud and puddles bubbled strangely. It was exactly the kind of place where Martha thought a witch might live, deep in some boggy and unusual area of rural England, and she was paying very close attention to the slimy, fungus-covered flora and the insects and the algae to try and block out the buzzing sound in her ear – the sound of Rose Tyler's incessant, unquenchable questions.
"Why don't you want to talk about it?" Rose was badgering her.
"Because it's too huge," Martha told her, trying to watch her feet and where she was walking, her arms crossed tightly around her, around her stomach, as though somehow shrouding it from view would render Rose unable to ask anymore invasive questions.
"What have you and Mickey been talking about, then? You've been inseparable ever since you found out, right?" Rose said. That was true, she was hardly away from Mickey's side. She didn't even like being away from his side now, but maybe they could wrap up the whole business with the witch before he woke up, which wouldn't be hours.
"Just… mainly about where we're going to live," Martha admitted. As much as she didn't want to think of all this, she still had a desperate need to confide all of her troubles in a fresh pair of eyes. She couldn't decide if she was grateful to have Rose there or annoyed at the interrogation. "Isn't this weird for you?"
"Why would it be weird?"
"Because Mickey's your ex-boyfriend, I don't know."
"Eight years ago," Rose said, "It's not weird. I'm happy for him, you two are like, my best friends. Do you know how close I was to seeing if you wanted to be chief bridesmaid?"
"I think it's matron if you're married."
"I only picked Jack because… well, I just thought he'd be better at it, to be honest. Organising things and making speeches. I can't wait to see his speech at the Doctor's wedding – it's gonna be mental. Him and Donna both." Martha couldn't disagree, she was also excited to see Captain Jack's chief bridesmaid speech.
"He was our best man," Martha recalled, "He did a great speech, oh my god - we've got it on DVD. It's in our flat though… haven't been back for months. Lucky we had savings, it's been paying our rent while we've been living on the TARDIS this whole time…" She had been thinking about their flat in London more and more lately, after they had left Cardiff once Torchwood had been aggressively 'disbanded.' "I bet we hardly have any money…"
"I've got a fraudulent credit card, you can have some money from that if you need it," Rose offered. Martha frowned.
"No, thanks. The economy may be a mess back home, but it's really not that hard to get a job as a doctor."
"You'll be fine, then," Rose smiled, "You're not going to raise it on the TARDIS though, are you? It's no place for a kid."
"No. We were thinking… somewhere rural. Out of the city."
"What? Like you're in hiding?"
"It's what Gwen does now," Martha said, "As soon as Anwen was born, she and Rhys left Cardiff to go live in some lonely cottage where they keep tons of illegal firearms. Maybe we should be doing that? Just in case? Anwen isn't even… she's a human. But this…"
"Look, I swear, personally, that if anybody comes after this baby, I'll punch them so hard they explode. As if anyone's going to hurt a baby whose mother can shoot fire out of her hands. That's one thing Amy and Rory didn't have going for them. Anyway, forget about all the kidnapping risk and the money and where you're going to live and all that other stuff – though, I'd love to see Jack's best man speech he gave for you two – and tell me about the most important thing."
"Which is what?"
"Baby names!" Rose exclaimed with an unmitigated amount of glee.
"We really haven't talked about any names."
"Oh, okay, and you're telling me that never in your life have you thought about baby names before? In your whole life? You've got no idea what you'd name a kid?"
"I'll name it 'Rose', after you, are you happy now? Can we stop talking about this yet?" she asked, pleadingly. "It's just an embryo – because it's not a baby, not yet, it's not even a foetus and it's barely got placenta."
"What does it have?" Rose asked.
Martha paused for a while before answering, "A heartbeat."
"Oh my god! A heartbeat! A tiny little a heartbeat! And it's so small!"
"You're more excited about this than I am, honestly."
"You have to start getting excited then, and not lose sight of the only thing we know for sure in this whole situation, that you're going to have a baby, a real baby, and it's going to be adorable and the best thing in the world and it's gonna have so many people looking out for it that nothing bad could ever happen. And even if it did, I control the universe, and – oh my god, are they bones?" Rose was instantly distracted by something she saw over Martha's shoulder.
And when Martha turned she saw that yes, Rose had spotted some bones, some very human bones, hanging from a tree. Again, the baby was nothing more than a dull buzzing in the background, like she had left the radio on but forgotten to set it to an actual station. White noise, easy to ignore.
She dragged her feet through the mud towards the strange object, lifting it from where it hung on a thin piece of twine from a branch. But it wasn't ordinary twine, it felt distinctly like human hair, and the bones hung from it as though they were some kind of charm – a grotesque dream catcher, muddy and still with shreds of skin attached. Martha was repulsed and carefully returned the thing to wear it hung, wiping her hand as clean as she could get it on her soaking wet jeans. When she and Rose looked around their surroundings more closely, they saw it was not the only one of its kind. There were more bones, hanging everywhere, all over the place like a psychotic trophy cabinet.
"This is horrendous," Martha said, "It's appalling."
"Must be the witch," Rose said. That made sense, Martha supposed, and made her even more suspicious of whatever monster was hiding out there. But the thought of monsters hiding made Martha spy, at the edge of the trees where the wood turned into dark, impenetrable shadows, glowing creature: another ghost.
"Look," she breathed, tapping Rose's arm and nodding towards it. It drifted, having less shape than the other one they had seen, this blue-ish energy cloud, and then dispersed as if blown by a gust of wind into sparkling dust in the air. "I don't get it – I've been to graveyards and funerals and they're not full of ghosts like this forest."
"There must be something else going on," Rose decided. Martha agreed, there clearly was a larger power at work, especially for there to be so many restless echoes active in one place.
After that ghost dispersed, however, that area of the woods began to light up like a carnival. They tried to continue on their path through the bog, which was icy cold and stickily humid at the same time, both of them covered in frostbitten sweat and moisture, but there were more of the spectres, all of varying degrees of corporeality, drifting in and out of the trees and mud and the heavy, unnatural fog-like shadows. The ghosts flickered, they surrounded Rose and Martha and left them disorientated, unable to progress, barely able to recall which way they had come from in the first place; if only they had been more focused, left some breadcrumbs like Hansel and Gretel, instead of getting so distracted talking about the baby – or, embryo, she corrected herself in her head.
Within seconds of Martha disturbing the bones hanging from the tree they were being swarmed by the creatures, some of them even forming faces, painful, malformed faces with pearlescent, fishy eyes and weeping wounds all over their skin, some even with sores, scabs, rot, decay. And then the moaning began, dreadful sounds of pain and anguish that were inhuman, hisses and groans like death rattles. They were encompassed by the spectres as though they were begging for something – release? From whatever was keeping them trapped? Were they just angry for being there?
"Anforlæteaþ sona, dwimor," an interloper ordered. Martha turned and was face to face with a creature, spectral in a different way to the ghosts and tall, commanding, pale green skin and glowing white eyes with no pupils or irises or anything behind them, shocking white hair to match. This creature somehow managed to dispel the phantoms terrorising Rose and Martha. The sharp blue lights evaporated, leaving them engulfed in a soft green, emanating from a lamp in the feminine creature's thin hand. "Ēalā, wīfcild tīma."
"What did you say?" Rose asked, in shock, looking at the creature looming above them.
"I told them to leave."
"No, you said 'children of time.'"
"You're time travellers. You exude Artron energy, it's all over you both, among other things," the creature explained, "I'm sorry about the wraiths. They became agitated when you disturbed the charm. Their energies are very disruptive sometimes. Þa earmingas. Ic besorgie."
"The charm – you mean the bones hanging from the tree?" Martha asked.
"Gese, þa baan. Come with me, it's not safe here. You're in danger. The gāstas are nothing compared to what else is out there." The creature, clearly an alien of some sort, turned and led them away, holding the lamp up high. "The lamp satiates them, keeps them calm. You shouldn't have touched the charm."
"It's made of human skin and bones – who are you?" Martha questioned.
"It's all I can gather of their remains – the circumstances are complicated. And I'm Itrux. I'm a Zuar. The villagers call me a wiċċe."
"You're the witch we've been hearing about," said Rose, "With your bone charms."
"The charms are a means to an end," Itrux said. Martha was straining her memory, though, because she could have sworn she had heard the name 'Zuar' before.
"So, you're an alien?" Rose persisted.
"Gese. An 'idese leōhtfæes.'"
"That's what they called Florence Nightingale," said Martha, then she gasped, "Oh my god, was Florence Nightingale an alien!?"
"No, there was a Zuar present during the Crimean War. Florence Nightingale was a woman who stole most of her achievements. She met a Zuar and misunderstood the role of the lamp, to ease the pain of spirits, spirits she didn't believe in, despite the scientific explanation of residiual energies."
"If this isn't magic and witchcraft, what is it?" Rose asked. Out of the gloomy fog in front of them, glowing green under the light of the strange, silver lamp, a small hut emerged. It had a thatched roof and crooked, wooden walls, a small chimney, strangely ancient, resting on a large and unusually-shaped mound. This was their destination.
"Science and medicine."
"Listen, I'm a doctor," said Martha as they scaled the mound, "Hanging bones from trees and talking to ghosts isn't science or medicine."
"So, you think it's dwolcræft? You, a human doctor, also call me a wiċċe? A wælcyrie?" But the Zuar, Itrux, seemed amused. "The dead leave behind energies, ghosts. We're healers. All of the Zuar are healers." She opened the door to the small, thatched hut and they entered. It had more body parts in it, some in containers and jars, more charms, some of them only partially made. "They're not ghosts the way humans think of ghosts – they're merely echoes. Stains. Incomplete. But they hurt, they feel pain, their own pain, eternally if nobody helps them move on. The charms draw them here, they feel an attachment to their own body parts, and the lamp keeps them calm enough to talk to, along with other technologies. We help them move on, settle down. Resolve their unfinished business." Itrux set the lamp down on a small wooden desk.
"Bloody hell!" Martha exclaimed, grabbing Rose's arm in shock.
"Don't burn me," Rose told her, prying her fingers off her wrist, "What's up with you?" Then she was alarmed, "Is it the baby? Did it kick? Oh my god, Martha, did the baby kick?"
"It hasn't got fully-formed limbs or a brain, so no, it didn't kick," she snapped, "I just remembered where I've heard about the Zuar before. The spaceship that crashed on Earth in the later Nineteenth Century, it was a Zuar ship."
"What spaceship?"
"The one that Liam Kent excavated and then used to bring Esther and Ianto back from the dead. That was Zuarian technology. And Thomas Edison used it to make some kind of soul-powered electrical generator."
"This all sounds very farfetched," said Rose.
"It definitely happened," said Martha, then she spoke to the Zuar, "How are you allowed to have the technology that can bring people back from the dead?"
"It's the same as any kind of medicine," said Itrux, "And we use it with discretion. We're supposed to. Nobody ever wavers from the Zuarian code."
"Which is what?" Martha asked.
"'Do no harm.'"
"But that's-"
"Humans borrowed it from us."
"…What did you give to the boy with whooping cough? A poultice, they said?" Martha changed the subject. She felt like she was having her entire understanding of medicine turned on its head – how many medical advances were really the achievements of these intervening Zuar? "I'm sorry, I just really don't understand what your role is – interfering with humanity? Like humans can't take care of themselves?" She took this quite personally.
"We're healers to all races," she said, "Please, I'll show you, tīmawīfcild." She leant down and lifted a fur rug from the floor, kicking it into a corner and revealing a trapdoor which she opened carefully. Inside was a passageway lit the same pale shade of seafoam green, "Mec bedrīf." This they did, descending a small, narrow ladder into the floor of the alien witch, and into what lay beneath the mound – a spaceship.
This spaceship was not very large, only fit for one occupant, and smelled of unusual and potent chemicals. Martha recognised now many advanced technologies – computers, chemistry equipment, injectables, in stark contrast to the contents of the hut above them. This was clearly where the Zuar actually lived, lived and developed her complex 'poultices' and whatever other advanced medicine she was dishing out to the occupants of the dark ages.
"We don't view ourselves as being able to control life and death," said Itrux, "There's a natural order in the universe we try not to disturb, just distribute medicine. We detect where we're needed and one of us goes to observe, to help, to teach – we don't believe that a lack of scientific ability should lead to unnecessary deaths. We stay on the outskirts, go down as witches and sorceresses in history."
"How can you be a doctor to every species?" Martha asked, "It took me years to get qualified and that's just for humans and I don't have any specialisation, I'm basically an ER doctor."
"We live for a long time, learning, on our home world, and then we leave on a pilgrimage. After we save or improve a certain number of lives, we return home and wait to be assigned where there is the most need. Like army medics. There is a great need for a healer here. I'm on my pilgrimage now, I'm very young."
"Really? How old are you?" Martha asked.
"Only a thousand."
"A thousand?"
"I know," sighed Itrux, "It's almost embarrassing, I'm a child."
"God," remarked Rose, "Puts the Doctor into perspective, doesn't it? He's always going on about how old he is. He's gonna end up getting a hip replacement one of these days just to prove a point."
"The Time Lord?" Itrux asked.
"You know him?"
"Everyone knows him," said Martha, going to lean against one of the walls, while Itrux had gone to sit down on a stool at an advanced chemistry set which was boiling away.
"Forgive me," said Itrux, "We vow to help any species in need, except the Time Lords."
"What? All the dangerous, destructive races out there, and it's the Time Lords you choose to abandon?" Rose was shocked, "What about the Daleks or the Sontarans?"
"We help at our discretion," said Itrux, "It depends on the situation. Have you never met a Dalek in need?"
"I…" Rose faltered, and then said nothing.
"We have a specific agreement with the Time Lords. They say our medicine isn't necessary, they forbid us to interfere with them, and they disapprove of how we engage with species across the universe." Using advanced technology to help, rather than hoarding it, was a fundamental difference between the Time Lords and the Zuar, clearly. "They vow never to interfere, and in turn, we vow the same thing to them, at their request."
"Every Time Lord?" Martha asked.
"Every Time Lord."
"…What about a non-Gallifreyan Time Lord? A new one? Born without meeting any of the others, without sharing their ideology, their agreements?" Martha asked.
"This is about eower ċildes?" Rose had mentioned the baby upstairs, Itrux must have been listening closely.
"Yeah," said Martha, "We travel with a Time Lord, the last of the Time Lords – sort of – the Doctor. And I'm pregnant."
"It's the Doctor's?"
"No!" Martha exclaimed, "God, no. No. No."
"Alright, don't sound too disgusted," Rose muttered, then added to Itrux, "I'm marrying the Doctor." Itrux did not seem to care that Rose was marrying the Doctor, she was more focused on Martha.
"If you're as knowledgeable a doctor as you seem to be, can you help me?"
"In what way?"
"I just want to know that everything's going to be okay. We have this virus, too, it's complicated, it's a genetic abnormality with the adrenal gland that causes abilities, and a scan of the embryo shows that it's going to be a Time Lord because it was conceived on the TARDIS, and it's going to be infected with the strain of this virus, and I'm terrified," Martha explained, more frantic than she wanted. "And Rose was just saying earlier that we could maybe find some kind of expert, so… please. I feel like I can't prepare for having this baby before I know if it's going to be alright, and I also have no idea why I'm telling you all of this since I don't even really trust you. I don't know why I told you that either…"
"It's okay," said Itrux, "It's one of the gifts the Zuar have, people are honest with us. It makes it easier to distribute the correct medicine when patients are less inclined to lie about their symptoms." Why did she feel so soothed looking into white, empty eyes in a green face? Anyone looked at least a little menacing if they didn't have anything in their eyes. "I'll make an exception in exchange for you making an exception for me."
"An exception how?" asked Rose, suspicious.
"Ic beþearfe bōte."
"Help with what?" Martha narrowed her eyes.
"Do you remember I said þa gāstas are not the most dangerous thing? It is þa hold. They have risen, from hira licburga, hira morþcrundlas."
"Hang on, you don't mean…" Martha began.
"You mean…" Rose also began.
"Zombies?" they said together. Itrux shrugged.
"Gese, ic ġehycge. Belifene wīcingas, belifene folcwigan, belifena wīfan, belifenan bearn."
"Zombie Vikings?" Rose repeated the first thing on her list.
"It's what makes þa gāstas so restless, they can't find peace if their bodies are still walking around out there, attacking people."
"Why are there zombie Vikings, exactly…?" Martha asked, "Because here you are, with technology which has brought two of our friends back from the dead and one of them with a whole host of side effects where she shoots lightning out of her hands and will die if she isn't attached to an electrical source, and now there are zombies?"
"It's not my doing, I promise," said Itrux, "Another cnihtcild tīman, he came here, bade me to move on because he was sent here by his superiors, worried about the effect I was having on the villagers and changing history. I told him if he helped with this problem, I would leave, because I would have no reason to stay."
"Is he dead too?" asked Martha.
"I'm afraid I don't know, but I haven't seen his spirit. If you find him, and you help þa hold find friða. Then, I promise, I'll do everything I can to help with your baby. I'm sure I can put your mind at ease, it would be my pleasure."
"Yeah," said Martha, "As long as we get rid of the… zombie Vikings. Were things always this ridiculous?"
"I think it's got worse lately," said Rose, "With Thomas Edison and his Soul-Stealing Machine."
"The cnihtcild tīman, he went to the village to examine heora līcbyrg. You should start there."
"Great. We investigate zombies by going to a cemetery."
"A cemetery is probably the last place the zombies want to go, though," Martha said, "So we'll be fine, just casually finding out what's reanimating the dead." She turned to add to Itrux, "It's not a plague, is it? With a cure?"
"I would know if it was," said Itrux, "It's something else, no cure. The spirits are gone from the bodies, they are only husks. Please, the cnihtcild tīman will know more. And I'll help with whatever I can once this is done."
"Sure," Rose grumbled, "Just off to kill some zombies, and then back before lunch. All in a day's work for us 'children of time'…"
AN: Fun fact, I have an exam in Old English next term so I'm using this as a revision tool and you all have to put up with it. Also are you guys as excited about Mickey and Martha's baby as Rose is?