Hi. I hope that y'all enjoy this chapter. Hopefully, the site's email notification thing won't break again, but who knows? I hope that you enjoy this chapter, I've been having a lot of fun with it! This arc in general has been really fun to make for me! Btw if you're reading this, I can officially say that
Zoe and the Doctor quickly joined up with Marion and Jamie. Zoe kept staring at Marion in way that Marion thought that the girl thought that she was being subtle and so Marion, politely pretended that she didn't notice.
Marion wondered what was going on. She couldn't see her reflection in the mirror or in the windows. Zoe apparently couldn't see her through the glass. But she wasn't invisible.
Zoe swayed on her feet a little bit, and then sat to lean up against the side of one of the trees.
"Oh my feet ache. I'm going to sit down and have a rest. I couldn't sit down fully in that jam jar and I've been standing all day."
They'd been walking for a while at that point.
"Sure thing," Marion replied, "We can stop a moment. But if we've gotta keep moving, If you need, I can carry you."
Jamie stopped and stared up at the trees. "It's very strange," he said thoughtfully. "I don't know if you've noticed it, Doctor, but these trees don't seem to have branches or leaves. They just stretch up into the sky, and then stop dead."
"It's because they're letters." Marion remarked, she clicked her shoulders, "I saw them when I fell."
"When you fell?"
"Yeah I was in the- nevermind it's not important."
"Marion?"
"Zoe, I promise that it doesn't matter. Anyway, I fell through a hole in the ground and I-" Marion shook her head, "Sorry. I'm rambling. The point is, I saw words."
"What did they say Marion?" Jamie asked.
"Don't remember. Just- a bunch of words. I don't know. I was careening head first towards the ground. I had other things on my mind."
"Well, it's a good thing the Doctor caught you." Zoe said with a nod.
"Oh-" "Oh dear"
"No, he-didn't."
"Jamie then."
"No, he was still a cardboard cutout."
"Then what caught you."
The words "the ground" nearly slipped out of her mouth but that seemed inappropriate. Zoe was what, Fourteen? Fifteen? She wasn't sure, but she was pretty sure that she was a child. Didn't matter that she was a child significantly smarter than her. It just didn't feel right to be as flippant about her injuries around her. It was like swearing. Had she sworn around her? She hoped she hadn't.
Marion smiled lightly.
"Nothing, I'm just a lot hardier than most,"
Marion stared at the tree the group was crowded around. It looked to be part of an M, maybe an N. Something like that. Marion pressed her back against one end of the letter and lifted herself up so that she was horizontal with her feet braced against one side and her elbows and the palms of her hands braced against the other.
"I can probably climb up and get a better look. But I think it's just like, sayings."
"Sayings?" The Doctor asked.
"Yeah like," Marion continued to shimmy up the rest of the way as she spoke, "In for a penny in for a pound."
"Oh!" the Doctor exclaimed, "Like proverbs. Like, Slow and Steady wins the race."
"Yeah-" Marion shimmied up the rest of the way. She used her feet to push herself up so she was in a sitting position with her legs dangling down off the edge of the letter (it was an M). Marion looked around. "A bird in the hand is worth- well, I can't see the rest of that, but I can assume the rest. It's all proverbs. It's a forest of words. Not trees. Uh- over there it says look before you leap."
"Maybe you should take that advice," Jamie called up.
"I never jump before looking down first."
Marion said, before taking a deep breath and stepping off the letter. She dropped down and landed on her feet. Her ankles stung and she hissed and leaned against the letter tree as she waited for her ankles to stop stinging.
"Oh, you always looked do you."
"Course I looked. I didn't land on you did I?"
"Marion, did you see a way out?"
The Doctor asked as the four of them picked a direction and then began to walk.
Marion swung her leg back and forth lightly, "Nope. Just letters as far as the eye could see. Like pages on a book. Raised letters. You know," Marion remembered something, "Zoe are your feet feeling better, or do you need a lift."
"I'm fine now." Zoe nodded. "Thank you."
"Oh good. Well, if you change your mi- Hello!" Marion said in surprise. They turned around the corner and there was a man with a tri-cornered hat, an open vest, and a white shirt and breeches looking at them and holding a gun.
Why did so many people causally point guns at people? Why did people wander everywhere with their guns out? Marion's family wasn't gun-obsessed. At least by American standards, but she had still done the whole BB gun in the backyard with some balloons taped to trees thing once she was old enough that she was unlikely to shoot her or someone else's eye out.
The invitations to go to the backyard had slowly petered out once it became clear to everyone involved that artistic talent didn't translate to decent hand-eye coordination, but she still knew the rules of gun safety. Especially the most important one:
Don't point a gun at anything or anyone you don't intend to destroy.
Sure if the man fired, the odds of her getting shot were minimal. Zoe was already trailing a little bit, and both Marion and Jamie moved at the same time and pushed the Doctor behind them practically on reflex. Marion tried to push Jamie too. But he was a little bit out of reach and also seemed resistant to being pushed.
"It's all right. Don't worry, I've met this gentleman before. He's a traveller like ourselves."
"Oh, that's lovely. Nice to meet you." Marion said with a forced smile "Lower the gun"
"Oh!" The man looked down at his hand and aimed his gun at the floor, "My apologies."
"Delighted to meet you again, sir." the Doctor said with a smile, somewhat pushing past Marion and Jamie to do so, "Allow me to present my companions. This is Zoe, this is Marion and this is Jamie."
"Hello," Marion said with a small wave.
She didn't think the man was dangerous. If she remembered correctly, he had just been oblivious.
Still. That didn't make him any less annoying or frustrating. Because he was very annoying and frustrating.
She thought that she might just be annoyed and frustrated.
The day thus far had felt far too long.
"We're trying to find our way out of this wood." the Doctor explained.
"This resolution may perhaps appear very bold and dangerous." the man cautioned. Marion knew that he was from some famous classical literature. But Marion couldn't remember this one, and a lot of classic literary heroes were more or less described the same way. He was just another tall man in a tri-corner hat to her.
"But we've got to get away." Zoe insisted.
"Well, haven't you ever tried to escape from this place?"
"No. No, I looked upon myself to be fully settled for life."
"Loving your spirit of adventure." Marion snarked.
"These tests, what's the point of them?"
"Think he's just having a bit of a laugh."
"And who would this he be Marion?" The Doctor turned his head. It was the man who spoke.
"In choosing persons for all employments, they have regards to great abilities. A course of study is required to qualify any man for the service of his country."
"But who's in charge here?" Zoe demanded, "Who's setting all these tests for us?"
"The Master."
"Oh, the Master again, eh? I suppose this army of robots works for the Master as well."
"They do. But also, it's not that Master." Marion whispered to the Doctor. "It's a different one."
Marion was fairly certain that the Doctor knew that. But she wasn't certain that he knew that. Also, she was only 99% sure that the Land of Fiction Master wasn't the Time Lord Master. She was pretty certain he wasn't. But it was like, a whole thing. He could've been.
"You've met the-" the Doctor whispered back whispered.
"I mean yeah once or twice. He was-is an- interesting man.."
"Well, whoever he is, this is his army,"
"Army?" the man stared down at them, "As to their military affairs, I knew not what they meant."
"Oh, surely you've seen them."
"I knew not what they meant."
"He knows not what they meant," Marion repeated in a high-pitched tone.
Marion heard a loud creaking noise from somewhere behind her and she turned around and glared out at the darkness with suspicion on her face.
"Ah now, but surely... That's the sound they make. They're coming back!"
"Well, what do we do?"
"We. Hide." Marion replied.
"We hide in among the trees. Quick! There's a J, there's room for two! Oh, thank goodness there's a letter C. Marion, keep Zoe hidden."
Marion didn't have time to argue and also she wouldn't be too far away also it wasn't like she was against looking after Zoe and besides it's not like the Doctor was going to be ALONE. Jamie was already pushing him towards a J. Marion tugged Zoe behind her and towards the C. She very pointedly put her body in front of her.
The Doctor moved around from Jamie and quickly walked towards the man.
"You, sir, aren't you going to take cover?"
"The best expedient I could think on was to keep guard."
There was something wrong with that. Marion couldn't quite remember what it was. It was bothering her.
"Well, whatever you do, don't give us away."
Marion didn't that that that was the problem. He wasn't like, a traitor.
Whatever it was, it would be important in a little bit. She just wasn't sure what it was and it was bothering her.
The creaking noise got louder and sounded wooden, not metal.
Marion wished that for a moment that she was bigger and taller than she was. She was only just barely taller than Zoe and was shorter and smaller than most of the companions and all of the Doctors. At least she was strong. She had that going for her.
But she would've felt better if she knew she could position herself in a way where the people she wanted to defend were hidden from sight.
Marion heard the man's voice speaking again and she suddenly remembered the issue. They should have traveled deeper.
"I could not forebear smiling, sir. What you told me is mistaken. There was no army here."
The man couldn't see the soldiers.
Fuck.
Marion moved out her arm in an attempt to keep Zoe even further behind her and stared across the way at Jamie and the Doctor. The soldiers stopped to stare at them.
They were large and looked like polished wood. But the wood shifted as they moved. Like they were breathing.
Morbidly, Marion wondered if they would bleed if they got broken. Not out of a desire to attack them or anything. Just out of curiosity.
She didn't feel sick near them. She wondered why. Was it because they weren't real? But they were real threats.
The soldier stared at her. It could probably see Zoe behind her. And there was definitely a second one starting at Jamie and the Doctor. That didn't stop Marion from holding out her arms as if that could block Zoe from sight.
The soldiers raised their spears and leveled it at them. And she didn't have to see the Doctor and Jamie to know one was being leveled at them. Their spears weren't made of wood.
The soldiers herded the four of them away from the letters.
Jamie glared at the man. "Thank you very much," he remarked.
"Why did you give us away?" Zoe demanded.
The man sounded baffled, "But I said there was no army here."
"But they're right-"
"He can't see them, Jamie." Marion pinched her nose. "I don't know why exactly, but he can't see them."
"As far as he is concerned, they don't exist." the Doctor elaborated, "They don't live in his world so he can't see them.'"
"Shame that for some reason, we exist in theirs."
The man nodded at the four of them and tipped his hat carefully. "And now, sir, I must forebear to trouble you further. Having answered the only objections you have raised against me, I now take a final leave of you all."
Jamie raced towards him but the soldier held up a spear at him. Marion tugged him backwards a little bit.
"I think the soldiers want us to go in the other direction." the Doctor remarked.
Marion heard more creaking noises. She turned around. More soldiers.
"Doctor," Zoe stared at them, "these soldiers. Am I mad or do they look like toy soldiers?"
"Not mad at all."
One of the soldiers was standing at an angle to them, and she could see a key sticking out of its back and turning slowly. She wondered if someone had to twist the key in order to get them to start moving. And she wondered what would happen if it stopped. Would they die? Would they freeze? Would they know that they were frozen? Or would they not realize that they had been stopped at all?
Marion was curious. It wasn't as if she could ask. The soldiers didn't speak. They "escorted" them as the color and light was seemingly leached away and the place that were in was darker and darker. The only thing Marion could see was herself, the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie.
Marion raised her hand and stared down at it. She needed to keep looking at her hand. She couldn't not look at her hand. She needed to know that she wasn't dreaming and that she wouldn't suddenly be in pain.
"It's so dark!" exclaimed Zoe.
"You know, I've got a funny sort of a feeling I've been here before." Jamie mused.
"Shush! Listen."
Marion could hear distant hooves. Her eyes kept flickering down, trying to make sure that her body was still there.
"It sounds like... like a horse galloping."
"Yeah. It's a-"
"My dream," Jamie exclaimed.
There was a unicorn. It didn't look particularly regal or elegant or majestic. Have you ever seen a horse in person? Picture that. But give it a sharp elegant horn. Like a Narwal. It wasn't particularly scary looking to Marion, but then again, she didn't spend a lot of time around horses. Perhaps if she had she would've felt differently.
"It's looking at us!" Zoe exclaimed.
"Keep quite still." the Doctor ordered.
The Doctor grabbed ahold of Zoe and Jamie's wrists, while Marion grabbed ahold of Zoe's. There was some relief there. The fact that she could hold onto something.
"It's coming straight for us. Run!" Jamie shouted.
"No." Marion said, "It's fine."
Marion wondered what it said about her that she was much more focused on the inner workings of the living toy soldiers and how being in this kind of dark room made Marion have to stop to remind herself that she was awake than the unicorn that was charging right at the four of them horn first.
Marion blinked.
Actually, she wasn't worried about the unicorn at all for some reason. It wasn't making her nauseous even though it was-."
"Marion what are you talking about? This is just like my dream!"
"Yeah!" Marion agreed. "Just like a dream. Which means that it's not real."
"But Marion!"
"Listen to her Jamie, she's right."
"Jamie, listen to me. The Unicorn's not real. Say it. You too Zoe. Say it. It doesn't exist."
"Marion!"
"It doesn't exist!" Marion said firmly, "Say It."
"I-!"
"Say. It."
"It doesn't exist!." "It doesn't exist!" "It doesn't exist!"
The sound of hoof steps stopped abruptly and so did the unicorn
Describing how it looked when something that had three dimensions suddenly became two-dimensional was hard to describe. You don't notice it at first. From the angle you look at it, it looks the same. And then you move and the image no longer looks the way that you should expect it to look.
"What happened?" Jamie stared at the cardboard cutout that used to be a charging unicorn.
The Doctor let out a deep breath.
"Another test."
"But... it was alive." Jamie exclaimed, "We all saw it."
"A lot of things are alive. They don't always stay that way." Marion knocked her knuckles against the unicorn cut out. "Huh." she said under her breath, "I half expected that it would fall over."
"You touched it!" Jamie shouted at Marion! "What if it came alive again."
"Jamie, it couldn't come alive again in the first place because it's not real and you would do well to remember that," Marion said pointedly. She tapped Jamie on the shoulder to emphasize her point.
"He challenged us to believe it." the Doctor said slowly.
"Who? The Master?"
"Whoever it is who's setting up all these conjuring tricks."
"Marion, do you know who he is?"
"Yeah he-" Marion cut herself off. "Well, whomever he is, he's in charge of everything. And the man from earlier seems to know him and somewhat respect him and do you know what that means?"
"That he really did sell us out?"
Marion shook her head. "No, and I'm not sure that he did sell us out considering that he couldn't even see the soldiers. No, it means that he's probably a very good listener."
"A very good-?" The Doctor stopped and stared at her. "Ah. A good listener. I see."
"What do you mean a good listener?" Jamie asked, "What's that got to do with anything?"
"It means he always Hears people when they talk," Zoe said pointedly.
"I-oh." Jamie nodded. Marion gestured to her ears and then to her mouth. "I see."
Marion mimed locking her lips.
"So where should we go then Marion," the Doctor asked.
"I don't know." Marion said with a shrug, "Just like, pick a direction and walk. They're all about as good as each other I figure."
The Doctor had them travel back the way that they came. Eventually, (and it was eventually, they ended up walking for a long while) they came across a forest of dead trees their branches draped with thick spiderwebs. The Doctor got out in front of them and used his dagger to cut through the webs. Marion let him.
She was glad that the spiderwebs were just there for ambiance and there weren't actually giant spiders.
And anyway, looking around helped her focus on the fact that she was in a real (as far as anything could be real) forest instead of the one made of letters. She kept her ears open for weird echoes.
Still, Marion was pretty sure that some of the cobwebs were going to wind up stuck in her hair.
Giant spiders weren't something that she wanted to deal with now or ever.
The forest was huge and seemingly never-ending. Eventually, they came across an old house. It was huge and overgrown with various sorts of ivy and juniper. It didn't look anything like the house that she had woken up in. Marion stepped forward ahead of Jamie, attempting to intercept him before he ran at the redcoat soldier and got himself turned into a cutout again, but she didn't see it. Instead, in the place where there should've been a soldier was a mirror.
Marion stared at it for a moment and then walked closer to it. She squinted at it. Her reflection squinted back.
"Hey!" Marion called, "I think my reflection is back!"
Marion tapped against the glass and there was a hum. The mirror suddenly went cloudy.
"Oh. Oh shit. That's not-"
Marion couldn't see anything, just white smoke. But she could hear Jamie, Zoe, and the Doctor calling out to her. Marion coughed and waved her hand in front of her nose and mouth clearing the white away from her vision.
"Ack." The last of the smoke disappeared. She stared at the mirror. Her reflection was still there. Marion sighed with relief.
Marion turned around to find Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie approaching the mirror where she had been.
"So." Marion said, "That mirror might've been a sort of trap and I might be sort of an idiot. I'm not sure what it did but-"
"Marion!" the Doctor was looking around wildly.
"Doctor?" Marion replied, "I'm right here.".
"Where is here?"
"Right next to you?" Marion said slowly. Marion lightly knocked her shoulders against the Doctor's. He turned towards her for a moment, and then he was staring at the mirror.
"No, don't touch it. I don't know what it did."
"Oh dear."
"Oh, Doctor!" Zoe exclaimed.
The Doctor was staring into the mirror. Or more specifically, he was staring at where Marion was reflected in the mirror. Where she was standing right next to him. He glanced to his side but his eyes didn't seem to focus on her. While staring at the mirror, the Doctor reached out for her hand and she grabbed it.
He lifted her hand and stared down at it.
Marion was beginning to get an idea of what might be going on but it wasn't an idea that she was particularly fond of.
"Marion's been trapped in the mirror!" Jamie exclaimed.
"No, no Jamie," the Doctor replied, "I don't think that that's quite it. See. I'm holding her hand right now. See, look in the mirror. You can see her reflection just fine."
"And you can hear me when I speak, right? You can hear me?"
"Yes." replied the Doctor, "I can hear you."
"It's like the jar!" Zoe exclaimed, "Only it's reversed. I couldn't see Marion through the glass of the jar, but I could see her just fine when I got out of it. We can't see Marion. Only her reflection."
"But you can hear me just fine," Marion asked, just to make sure.
"Yes we can Marion"
Marion let go of the Doctor's hand and poked Jamie in the side.
"Hey!"
"So you could feel that, right?" Marion asked.
"Yes?"
"So I'm not stuck in the mirror or anything. I'm just invisible. Somehow."
"At least your reflection is back," remarked Zoe.
"At least," Marion replied.
The Doctor began to rummage through his coat until he retrieved a pair of reading glasses. (Marion was fairly certain that they had been One's) and perched them on his nose.
The Doctor turned his head to stare at Marion for a moment. He was looking at her in the eye and she wasn't staring past her.
"Oh. There you are!"
Zoe starred from the Doctor to around where Marion was and back again. "You can see her?"
"Yes." the Doctor replied, "See, she's right there. Go on, take a look." The Doctor removed the glasses and handed them to Zoe who stared at Marion for a moment and then handed the glasses to Jamie. The glasses made Jamie cross-eyed for a moment. He lowered them, stared at Marion, and then lifted them again. Before he handed them back to the Doctor and reached out around where Marion was standing. His hand brushed against her shoulder and then lowered it again.
"Well, what happened then?" Jamie asked.
Marion shrugged even though she knew that no one could see her but the Doctor.
"I noticed that my reflection was back so I touched that mirror. And then there was a bunch of white smoke and then-" Marion shrugged and pointed at her reflection.
"It's something to do with refraction!" Zoe exclaimed.
"Sure." Marion replied with a slow shrug, "If you say so."
"Well. What do we do!"
Marion shrugged again. "There was supposed to be a redcoat to turn Jamie into a cutout so the Doctor could get the chance to fix his face after he got the wrong one the first time. No clue what the mirror was doing there. Other than making me invisible I guess. I'm sure it's fine."
"Marion!"
"I'm sure it's fine." Marion repeated, "We should just keep moving. At least I'm not intangible or something."
It was heavy and it opened with a loud creak.
"After you."
Jamie, Zoe, and the Doctor walked into the castle.
It was built from large rough stones and lit by several flickering candelabras with half-melted candles covered in cobwebs. Four tunnels branched off into different directions. Marion let go of the door and stepped closer to the group in case one of them took off.
The door slowly closed behind her with an audible creek.
"Marion, why did you close the door?"
"I-"
"She didn't Jamie. She's standing right next to you."
Marion examined the door for a moment.
"Ah-" Marion said, "The seam's gone."
"What do you mean by that Marion?" Jamie was staring at the wall near her head where Marion assumed that he guessed that she was.
"I mean it's not a door anymore. It's a wall."
"What?"
"A wall. You know. Not a door."
"You seem awfully calm about that."
Marion shrugged, "I'm not sure what else to do if I'm being honest."
"Well," Zoe said slowly, glancing at some of the candelabras, "there must be someone here. These candles are alight. Urgh."
The cobwebs came off from around the candle sticks. The Doctor offered Zoe a handkerchief to wipe off her hands.
"Hello, there!" Jamie shouted down the path. His voice echoed.
Zoe counted off. "One, two, three, four tunnels leading off."
"It would be easy to get lost in there," Jamie remarked.
Something brushed against Marion's foot. Marion leaned down to reach for it. A large spool of dull yellow twine.
"Ariadne's golden threat." Marion mused holding it up in the palm of her hand. She held it out to the Doctor who took it.
"Oh yes," the Doctor mused, "this must have been an invitation."
"Why?"
"Well, it's the classical way of getting through a maze," the Doctor explained, he handed the spool to Jamie, "Now, Jamie, tie that to the door will you."
"Then we are meant to go on," Zoe said slowly.
"Yes, I think we are."
"But that means that wherever we go, at any time, they know."
"Zoe-" Marion pat Zoe on the shoulder who jumped. "Sorry, sorry." Marion turned to look at the Doctor, "Do you have like a bandana or something that I could tie around my wrist or something? Just so something so I don't startle Zoe or Jamie by mistake. Anyway Zoe, what I was saying is that if our goal was to keep them from knowing where we are that ship has truly and properly sailed I fear. And it's been readily replaced board by board so I don't even know if it was the ship we started with. We best get a move on."
The Doctor handed Marion a bandana. She folded it and tied it around her head in a headband.
"Does that help?" Marion asked.
Jamie turned away from tying the twine around the handle and looked at her. Or more accurately, looked at her forehead where the bandana was loosely holding the fringer of her hair out of her face.
"Good thinking. Now we can keep an eye on you." Jamie said with a nod.
So, Marion was fairly certain that a map of the labyrinth had been visible in the show somewhere. The fact was, Marion could barely remember most of it other than like, vague beats and concepts. So Marion chose to follow Zoe's lead as to which direction they should go in the maze.
Marion didn't want to think about how many spiders would have to be in the maze in order to cover the walls in this many cobwebs. And so she wasn't thinking about that.
If you get enough practice at doing something, then sooner or later, you're going to become good at it. At this rate, Marion was going to get very, very, very good at not thinking about things that bothered her.
A silver lining was the fact that the cobwebs at least looked dusty, and not fresh.
However that made the many open flames from the candles worrisome. Was that a fire hazard? It looked like it should probably be considered a fire hazard.
It was probably fine. She didn't remember there being a fire. And it wasn't like she had planned to cause a fire on purpose. So it was probably alright.
Outside of the cobwebs, the tunnels were narrow and built with heavy large heavy stone blocks. It wasn't that every corridor looked the same, but they weren't distinct in their differences enough for her to be able to tell them apart.
Whenever they came to a place where the tunnels branched off into different directions, Zoe would stare down at them for a moment, and then confidently send them down the path she thought was right. And she had only led them down a dead end three times.
Marion had been in corn mazes before.
She wasn't good at them. That didn't stop her from going into them. But she wasn't good at them at all. Even if it was a maze that she had gone through before. So as far as Marion was concerned, only messing up a few times was fairly commendable. Jamie barely had to reroll the twine.
Marion stopped walking before she bumped into the Doctor.
"Which way, do you think?" the Doctor leaned down so that his head was leveled with Zoe's.
"To the right," Zoe said firmly.
"They both look equally unattractive to me."
"But it must be to the right." Zoe insisted, "I've been working it out as we went along."
"Well, as soon as we avoided the dead ends, it soon fell into a clear pattern. One left, two right, three left, four right and so on. It's a simple arithmetic progression."
Marion felt a nudge on the back of her head.
And she turned to see Jamie with his hand still outstretched.
"You're facing me aren't you? It's hard to tell."
"Yeah?"
"Don't suppose you have any more twine in that bag of yours do you?"
"Even if I did," Marion rummaged into her bag and grabbed the first thing her fingers could grasp. A knife. "Jamie, can you see this?"
"See what?"
"Exactly. Everything on my person seems to be invisible. It wouldn't be much help. Not that I have anything on me that could help."
Marion wished that she had thought to ask Twelve for some chalk. Or that the Associate had thought to leave her some.
"What are you two talking about?" the Doctor asked.
"The thread's run out and everything in Marion's magic bag is invisible and wouldn't be any good at marking our way. Now, should we not go back?"
The Doctor glanced back in the direction that they had come from and folded his hands together. He seemed to think for a moment, and then he shook his head.
"No, you stay here." the Doctor remarked.
"Ah-"
"That's good advice. You should stay here. We shouldn't be that long."
"You look after Zoe." the Doctor requested, "Marion and I will explore a little further. There must be another way out of this maze and I mean to find it. You two- ah. Stay put. Come along now Marion."
And the Doctor began to disappear down a tunnel.
"Be careful!" called Zoe after them, "I worry that they don't mean for us to find a way out. Only a way in."
"Of course Zoe. But they really want us in. And we wouldn't want them to get impatient, now do me? They might get angry."
The tunnel widened out into a wide stony chamber. Somewhere, water dripped steadily.
"Well look at that." the Doctor remarked.
"What? Oh."
The Doctor was crouched down looking at a pile of bones. They looked like they belonged to something human or humanoid.
"Do you remember the first time I met you? When I was an old man. When the five of us were trapped in that cave full of bones-"
"And Susan set a skull on fire?"
"Yes!"
"No." Marion. "Hasn't happened for me yet. I mean, I know about it. But I don't like, remember remember. Sorry." Marion suddenly realized something, "Wait-sorry-wait. The first time you met me was just after you kidnapped your granddaughter's teachers."
"Now Marion. I did not kidnap Ian and Barbara."
"Oh, you super did."
"I did not!"
"Did too."
"How would you know! You just said you don't remember."
"Same way I know most things. Don't change the subject. THAT'S the first time you met me?"
"Well…yes," the Doctor replied, looking at Marion curiously, "Why?"
"I don't know?" Marion shrugged, "I thought it might be sometimes sooner I suppose. Anyway, those bones and these tracks," Marion tapped some divots on the ground with her toe, "mean that we're in the center of the maze now."
"I had suspected as much." the Doctor remarked. "What's in the centre?"
"Doctor we're in a Labyrinth that we navigated our way through with golden thread in a world governed by literature and legend."
"Yes?" the Doctor's expression dropped. A low growl Marion could feel in her bones echoed throughout the chamber. "Oh. Half man, half bull. The Minotaur!"
Another loud roar. Marion felt the Doctor's arm slung around her shoulder.
"I wasn't aware that bulls could make that noise!" Marion said. Her voice getting a little bit higher at the end.
"Exactly, but I... I don't think we need be too alarmed. After all..."
Another roar and Marion felt the Doctor's grip tighten. A horned shadow appeared just out of the corner of Marion's eyes.
"Doctor? Are you alright?" Jamie's voice echoed around the tunnel, just barely being able to be heard over the roaring. "What's happening?"
"WE'RE FINE!" Marion called back.
The minotaur was a barrel-chested man. His torso, arms, and legs were hairy, but not to the point where it was unreasonable for a human. That was until his neck and his shoulders, which was covered in thick hair like a beard that slowly got less and less curly until it was the coarse fur of a bull. Its face didn't quite look like a bull, but it didn't quite look like a human. For that matter, it didn't resemble a Nimon either.
What it did have, was sharp horns splattered with what Marion was going to firmly say was dirt, and refuse to fact check and angry red eyes that flashed in the candlelight.
There was another important fact about it.
"It's not real," Marion said firmly, staring at it. And then it occurred to her that staring at it might count as an admission to its existence.
It was surprisingly easy to deny the existence of the minotaur when it was standing right there with its horns pointed down towards her and the Doctor and she didn't feel nauseous or in pain or anything.
She wondered if it could still kill the Doctor, and then she reminded herself that that simply didn't matter due to the simple fact that it didn't exist. And so she repeated that quite firmly.
"It doesn't exist!" "It doesn't exist!"
The minotaur didn't become a cut-out like the unicorn had. Marion didn't even have to blink. It was simply there one moment, and not there the next.
The Doctor slowly let go of her shoulder.
"Is it gone?"
"It was never there Doctor."
"It sure looked dangerous."
"Well, it might've been. Just because something's not technically real doesn't mean it can't cause harm."
"A tacit metaphor."
"A-" Marion blinked, "I supposed it does work as a metaphor."
"Was it meant to be one?"
"No, it's literal. Do you remember just before the incident with the shrinking and the pesticides when I appeared in the TARDIS with my shirt collar covered in blood?"
"Yes..." the Doctor said slowly, he was staring at Marion's neck.
"Like I said. Not a metaphor." Marion realized that she had said too much and that it might be a good idea to change the subject, "Those glasses aren't straining your vision, are they? I've tried to wear my friend's glasses before, and it gave me one hell of a headache. Those glasses are from when you were younger. I didn't think you needed those."
"They're only reading glasses." the Doctor replied, tapping on the lenses. "To tell you the truth, he barely needed them himself. He thought that they made him look knowledgeable and distinguished."
The Doctor and Marion retraced their steps back to the place where they had left Zoe and Jamie.
Zoe and Jamie had left.
Marion looked around for a moment and then her expression flattened.
"Oh dear." said the Doctor, "It appears that the two of them might've wandered off."
"They might've been chased deeper into the maze," Marion said. She leaned down picked up Jamie's coat and held it out to the Doctor.
"I think he tossed it over the soldier's head to keep it from seeing them when he ran."
"Well," the Doctor said slowly, "They can't have gotten far. Could they? We weren't gone for that long!"
"JAMIE!" Marion called out. "JAMIE! ZOE? ARE YOU STILL NEARBY?"
Marion heard footsteps from down the tunnel.
"Marion? Is that him?"
"It's only one set of footsteps."
The Doctor turned around to see who it was.
"Oh. Oh, my dear sir." the Doctor greeted.
"Your servant, sir." It was the man from before. The one with the tri-corner hat and the anxiety-inducing gun etiquette.
"You have a knack of turning up unexpectedly."
"I don't suppose you've seen Zoe or Jamie anywhere?"
"You travel with a phantom Doctor?"
"Not a phantom. Just me. I lost my reflection you see. And then I got it back, but now I just have a reflection and nothing more.."
"I walked alone, but saw no sign of any inhabitants. Would the two of them have been rendered invisible as well?"
Marion shook her head. "No."
"This, er, this person who controls this place, the Master?" the Doctor began to ask.
"The Master, yes?" the soldier asked.
"Have you seen him?"
The man smiled uneasily. "Upon occasion, he has been pleased to grant me an audience."
"Where might I find him?"
"The Master's palace is no ordinary edifice, but a citadel, a walled town at the top of a hill or cliff, which is reckoned the highest in the kingdom."
The Doctor stared at the man for a moment and nodded.
"Yes, now I think I understand. May I ask, sir, where you come from? Would it not be Nottingham?"
"My father had a small estate in Nottingham, sir. I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emmanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I applied myself close to my studies, learning navigation and other parts of the mathematics-"
"Useful for those who intend to travel." the Doctor finished.
"...as I always believed it would someday or other, my fortune to do." The Doctor and the man finished at the same time.
Marion was pretty sure that the words that that would mean something to her if she knew what book the Doctor was quoting from. It wasn't that she hadn't read classical literature. But she just wasn't positive about which piece of classical literature he was from.
"Now I know who you are, sir." the Doctor said with a smile, "Your name is Lemuel Gulliver." He reached out to shake the man- Gulliver's hand.
"Your servant."
"Gulliver? Oh! Like-"
"Gulliver's Travels. Yes. Yes. Oh, I'm looking forward to a long talk with you one of these days!"
"I should like that above all things, but it would not be proper at this juncture to trouble you with the particulars of my adventures."
"Oh," the Doctor nodded, "I wouldn't dream of detaining you."
"Having been condemned by nature and fortune to a restless and active life, I must take my leave of you. Farewell."
"Farewell." "Farewell" Marion and the Doctor called after him.
The moment that the man was out of earshot, Marion turned to look at the Doctor.
"There's all sorts of literary characters lurking around here. From all sorts of eras. You've got the minotaur and the labyrinth. Pretty sure that story spent a long while as oral tradition rather than you know, written word. And then you've got Gulliver a man from a book from the 19th century."
"Eighteenth actually Marion." the Doctor corrected. "It was published in 1726."
"Right. Sorry. Book from the 18th century. And then the weird house that I was in. I opened one of the doors, and instead of it leading into the house, it was a dark endless hallway. Like in House of Leaves."
"Did you measure the house?"
"Didn't think to. It might've been a fourth of an inch off. It wasn't just the house- house thing.
There was the thing that looked like you but was wrong and then when I was running through the woods from it and I fell through the ground and I ended up in the- anyway, those two aren't something that's from like, a solid story. I couldn't place it down to a particular author. It was more of a theme of like, moder-" Marion stopped herself. "Sorry, twenty-first century indie horror. Strange liminal locations. Beings pretending to be people they weren't with malicious intent. They aren't. It's really interesting."
"This world that we've tumbled into is a world of fiction," the Doctor exclaimed. "Unicorns, minotaur, Gulliver's Travels, they're all alive here."
Marion hoped that her face wasn't doing anything funny right now. It almost made her wish that the Doctor hadn't figured out that he could still see her as long as he was looking through some sort of lens.
"Come along," said the Doctor, "let's find Jamie and Zoe. You don't know which way they would've gone off to, do you?"
The Doctor and Marion, unable to find Zoe or Jamie in the labyrinth wandered until they eventually came upon an underground lake. Marion didn't know for sure if they had left the maze or if the maze was just connected to a new cave. It was massive. Flickering candlelight sparkled with stalactites and stalagmites surrounded the lake. It would have been pretty and idyllic if not for the scattering of bones.
"I imagine there must be at least one more test. I... I wonder what it'll be?"
"They're keeping to the Greek mythology theme," Marion replied.
"You studied that heavily, didn't you?"
"Oh-" Marion shook her head, "I don't know if I would say study? It was more of a phase"
"Because of how many greek stories influenced constellations?"
"Yeah, that was part of it. Yeah, tweens get super into that kind of thing for a couple of years. For me, it was Greek and Egyptian. I had a friend who was super into the Epic of Gilgamesh."
"We're not going run into Gilgamesh will we?"
"Probably not."
Marion looked at the Doctor and his eyes flickered slowly around the room.
"It's a bit like an escape room isn't it?" Marion remarked.
"Marion, has that always been there?"
Marion had valid reasons to be startled by the sudden appearance of a statue that wasn't there before. It wasn't covering its eyes and it lacked wings. What it did have was snakes. For hair. Plenty of snakes.
The statue was of a woman in a long Greek-style dress and wide blank, wide eyes.
"A statue."
"Before things started out fake and then became real. Only this time..."
Marion wasn't scared of snakes. Even before most fears became irrational to her, she hadn't been scared of snakes.
There had been a boy in elementary school (he wasn't one of her classmates, but it was too long ago for her to remember if he had been in a different class or if he'd been a year older than her) that had tried to make her jump by pointing out a snake not too far from them and had been annoyed when rather than jump or scream, she'd immediately crouched down to get a better look at it and cooed over the "little guy" until it disappeared into the grass.,
But a couple of snakes in the grass were a bit different from a woman with wriggling snakes on top of her head that you couldn't even look at safely without turning into stone. She could hear the sound of hissing getting louder and louder.
Marion wondered if the Land of Fiction's Medusa looked more realistic than the one on the TV screen but that would require actually looking at it. Not that she thought she'd remain stone. But still.
Marion heard a clatter by her feet. She looked down. There was a sword. A real enough sword that when she crouched down to pick it up and lightly pressed her fingertips to its side a red line of blood instantly welled up and then disappeared.
"Well, I'm invisible," Marion said offhandedly, "Like Perseus was. And this sword is probably sharp enough for me to just-"
"MARION!" the Doctor reminded sharply. "She's not real! You can't kill something that's not real. This is another test of the Master's."
"Oh." Marion replied, "I- right." Marion let go of the sword. It disappeared without a sound as if it had faded away before it hit the ground. This was probably for the best. Marion wasn't sure that she could or should take a Land of Fiction sword with her out of the Land of Fiction. It might turn to plastic.
There would be other swords for her to acquire. Other, safer times. There was another, much more useful weapon now.
"Doctor, your mirror. Perseus slew Medusa by showing her her reflection in his polished shield. We don't have shield, but you've got a hand mirror somewhere in those pockets of yours, don't you?"
The sound of hissing grew steadily louder and she could see something marble-looking getting closer and closer.
The Doctor pulled a hand mirror out of his jacket and held it out. Abruptly, the sound of hissing stopped.
Marion took the risk and glanced in the direction. The snakes in her hair were raised upward and frozen and her hand reached out towards them. But she was otherwise immobile.
Marion wiggled her fingers experimentally. They worked.
She took a step backward, pushing the Doctor with her, and then she reached out and then lightly rapped on the not-immobile statue with her knuckles.
"Back to a statue." she said simply, "Everything's fine. Glad that worked."
"You weren't certain?"
"Of course I was certain," Marion said quickly, "But you can be both certain and wrong."
Next Chapter: King of the Mountain
Marion: Oh look a mysterious mirror!
*Insight Check Failed*
Marion: I'm Going To Touch It!