Doctor Who: Lungbarrow (32 page)

154

The Play's the Thing

'He wil come down,' said Innocet.

'He could be dead,' said Leela.

'Or injured,' said Dorothée. 'We should have stayed.'

'He wil come.'

The Doctor's Cousins and companions had waited an age in the Hall in embarrassed silence for the Doctor to arrive.

The tall banqueting tables had been positioned round the House's Loom, with the glass casket containing the sleeping Quences suitably garlanded to form the centrepiece. Forty-five places were set around the table, but everyone present had clustered into two opposing groups at one end. No one's feet touched the floor.

Friends versus Family.

Everyone looked at the body on the table.

Something rumbled under the floor and then the huge flagstones burst open with a crash. A dishevelled shape was spewed up into the Hal from the depths.

The Doctor clambered awkwardly to his feet and surveyed the gathering, swaying slightly.

'Well, well. Gallifrey's most dysfunctional family!'

God, he's drunk, thought Dorothée. She climbed down from her seat to give him a place between herself and Leela. He was not wearing his formal attire and his clothes were dishevel ed and dusty. Behind him, the hole in the floor closed itself with a crunch and a sigh.

'Charming,' he said, caustically surveying the table. 'Cheer up, everyone. It's a party. Otherstide felicitations to you all!'

He flourished a trick bunch of feathery flowers out of his sleeve.

'Very festive,' said Dorothée. 'What happened to you?'

'You know what libraries are like. They can't stand anything to be overdue.' He was trying to be dismissive, but his voice tremored slightly. And he had a black eye. 'Satthralope must keep the House under tighter control. I've never been beaten up by a library before. I don't recommend it.'

He peered at Chris, who was asleep in the chair beyond Leela.

'We can't wake him,' she said. 'He's sleeping so deeply.'

Dorothée fol owed the Doctor's accusatory glance up to the roof, where a familiar shape hung in a net of cobwebs.

'Jesus, how did that get up there?'

'How do we get it down here?' he snapped.

'Is this how you treat al your friends?' Innocet called from across the table.

'No different from his Family,' said Rynde.

Leela whispered, 'Say the word, Doctor, and I will make these miserable Cousins of yours do you honour.'

155

He shook his head. 'Don't worry about them. They haven't enjoyed themselves so much for centuries.'

He turned to the company. 'Now let me guess what's on today's menu.'

'Fish,' said Cousin Rynde.

'And my shopping,' added Dorothée. She nodded across the table at a tray stacked with slices of sun-dried tomato ciabatta.

'And feathergills,' said Owis, eagerly leaning forward to proffer a dish.

The Doctor frowned suspiciously at him. 'Is that my pullover?'

A row of woollen question marks peered from under Owis's tunic. 'Lose and weep, find and keep!' he chanted and proffered the dish again.

'Doctor, how much of it is true?' interrupted Innocet.

He ignored Owis's dish. 'Is what true?'

'That you wil deny me my place as next Housekeeper should we all survive.'

'He's Quences's successor,' interrupted Rynde. 'Given the chance, he'd throw us all out of our House.'

'What about me?' said Owis. 'He says I have no right to exist at all.'

'When are we going home?' said Jobiska.

While they bickered, the Doctor slowly removed his hat and played with the brim. 'Let's see what Quences has to say about it.'

There was sudden silence.

The Doctor glanced at Glospin, who was sitting apart from the others.

'I didn't say a word,' said his Cousin.

Quick as a flash, before his chair could object, the Doctor climbed on to the banqueting table and started threading his way between the candles and cut glass. A trail of footprints on the tablecloth marked his path towards the glass coffin.

There was uproar from the Cousins. Shouts of 'No!' and 'Don't touch him!'

'Why?' he said. 'What can you possibly be afraid of?' He bowed his head and laid his bunch of fake flowers on the coffin lid.

'Recquiescat in pace,' he said quietly.

'How dare you!' Satthralope's voice rang out through the Hall.

'All joints on the table wil be carved,' observed the Doctor, watching various condiment boats scuttle for cover.

Satthralope's cane clacked on the flagstones as she made her painful way to the table. The Drudges came behind her.

'Down, sir! By al the fires in the kitchen, down!'

The Doctor half smiled. Dorothée had a sudden unpleasant premonition that he was going to play the spoons. She glanced at Leela, who was fingering her knife.

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Instead, the Cousins watched open-mouthed as he sauntered up the table to meet the Housekeeper. When he reached her place setting, he knelt among the cutlery and bowed his head. 'Cousin Satthralope, thank you for your Housepitality. I am honoured.'

'Honour?' Her rage was scarcely under control. She lifted her eyes to the gal eries. 'There were some honourable people here once.'

Like an imperious sovereign, she lifted her ringed hand towards him.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Lives have hung on a signed contract here, a kissed ring there. Family favours meant precious little to me for many years.' He reached forward to kiss her wooden ring, but the old woman grabbed hold of his ear and pulled him off the table.

He yelped with pain and hit the floor, but her bony fingers held on tight.

Leela and Dorothée both scrambled to help him, but a Drudge blocked their way.

'What have you done with Quences's will?' demanded Satthralope, pulling his head back and forth by his ear.

His face was screwed up in agony. 'What have you done with the rest of my Cousins?'

'Wormholed little revenant! Sneaking back here!' She twisted his ear hard. 'I don't apologize for what the House threatens. It is very angry!'

She pushed him roughly away.

'Of course, it's angry,' he said from the floor. 'What do you expect when you buried it alive with all its Family?'

'
I
buried it? Me?' Satthralope turned to scan the remnants of her Cousins. 'The House of Lungbarrow was so ashamed of what you did, that it buried
itself
and took us all with it!'

The Doctor gave a little moan of shock. He stumbled to his feet and stared up at the TARDIS, his hands slapping at his pockets. 'The will,' he muttered. 'I've got the will.'

Innocet had moved in beside him. 'Not now,' she muttered. 'You'll kill us al if you're not careful.' She took his arm and gently guided him back to his seat between Dorothée and Leela.

Satthralope had climbed up into her own place at the head of the table. 'At Otherstide, the time of renewal, we pledge our devotion to the House.'

'And my name day,' mumbled the Doctor massaging his ear. He signalled for his companions to stand. They let Chris sleep on while Satthralope sang the incantations.

'Book of Foundations. Chapter Prydon. Verse six seven three.'

'Lungbarrow,' responded the Cousins.

'We will always return to the Loom from which you wove us.'

'Ancient House.'

'Sheltering generation on generation of your Kith since the birth of the New Time.'

'Home.'

'We are your plans, designs and architecture. We, who rejoice in your name of...'

'Lungbarrow!' they chorused. 'Lungbarrow! Lungbarrow!' Their cries echoed through the Hall, taken up and repeated by the walls and galleries, the wood and stone.

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The Cousins and guests stared up and about in fear. The glancing echoes darkened, grew more thunderous, as if the House itself had found a voice.

LUNGBARROW! LUNGBARROW! LUNGBARROW!

Through the continuing tirade came Satthralope's voice. 'None of you shal ever leave the House again! The Family is united at last!'

Glospin was staring fixedly across the table at the Doctor.

The Doctor was gazing up at the TARDIS which was swaying unnervingly in the web.

As the tumult final y died, there was a clash of drums and tuned gongs from invisible musicians. Forty-five chairs, most of them empty, shuffled round to afford their occupants a view of the open Hall.

Giant puppets, bigger than Drudges, lurched out of the shadows. Huge painted heads set on flowing cloaks. They seemed to work themselves.

'Good grief,' complained the Doctor and slumped in his chair. 'I thought we'd be spared this.'

'Begin the Mystery,' said Satthralope and stamped her cane.

'This ritual,' said Leela, excitedly, 'is it the Mystery of the New Time?'

The Doctor gave a glum nod.

'Then I have read about it,' she continued proudly. 'But it is never performed now. It was presumed lost.'

'Just like Le Sacre du Printemps?' added Dorothée.

'Some things are better off staying lost.' The Doctor scowled across the silverware at Glospin. 'Was this your idea?'

'In your honour,' smiled his Cousin. 'It's traditional. Highly appropriate, don't you think, for such a special occasion?'

The Doctor slid deeper into his chair. He glanced enviously at Chris. The young man's head had nodded back and he was snoring gently.

The gongs began a rolling repeated tune like a gamelan band over which a wild flute wailed like the wind. A puppet with a blue cloak and long silver hair full of jewels appeared. One eye was red. The puppet gyrated about the Hal , billowing its cloak as if it was casting spells.

'This is the al -seeing Pythia,' said Leela. 'And this is Rassilon. Now they will fight for the future of Gallifrey.'

A second, smaller puppet had appeared. It had red hair and a crown and it waved a silver mace or rod. It performed a stylized fight with the Pythia puppet; the two figures exchanging blow after symbolic blow, more dance than combat. Eventual y, the Pythia swung its head high and the flute shrieked in agony. The drums rolled like thunder and the stone floor of the Hall cracked open in spectacular fashion. The puppet vanished into the crevasse with a scream and a spurt of flame.

'Sepulchasm!' shouted the Cousins as the Rassilon puppet raise its arms in triumph.

'Inaccurate,' complained the Doctor. 'Rassilon should not be wearing that sash yet.'

'Whoa! Better write in and complain,' said Dorothée.

Leela shushed them. The spectacle had clearly moved her. 'It was the curse. Now Gallifrey is doomed and there are no more children.'

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Mock snow started to fall from the gal eries. Through the swirling white, they watched a slow procession of puppets, al carrying small swaddled bundles. Each figure took a turn, gently laying its bundle into the crack through which the Pythia had fallen. Dorothée thought of her own mother tucking her in at night. She saw the Doctor shoot Leela a sudden knowing glance. 'It's just a play,' he whispered. 'Nothing personal.'

Leela held his look for a long time. She looked deeply upset. 'I am so sorry for you all,' she said. He nodded and squeezed her hand gently, but Dorothée couldn't tell who was reassuring who. She also noticed that Glospin's eyes never left the Doctor.

The puppets were moving in a circle in what Innocet called the mystical Dance of the Intuitive Revelation. First they lamented in identical movements, railing fists at heaven, putting their heads together, dancing with one mind.

Then slowly, each one broke the circle, finding a separate dance of its own.

Two figures joined Rassilon. The first juggled flaming balls with a single hand. ('Oh, very symbolic,' said Dorothée.) The second only moved in the background. It was faceless and wrapped in a black cowl.

'That one is the Other,' announced Glospin.

The Doctor fiddled with his cutlery.

Accompanied by another shriek from the flute, the first, the juggling Omega puppet, exploded in flames. When the smoke died, only his unscathed hand stuck out of his ashes on a stick. Rassilon moved to take the hand, but the Other puppet moved in and snatched up the prize. The two puppets fought a duel, hand to mace, until the Other was finally vanquished and cast down.

There was a triumphant crescendo of drums and gongs.

And Chris suddenly jumped out of his chair. 'No!' he shouted at the puppets. 'That's all wrong! It wasn't like that at all!'

'Silence!' ordered Satthralope and the House rumbled angrily.

The Doctor held on to Chris, trying to calm him.

'Those aren't his thoughts,' called Glospin, pointing at Chris. 'They're Wormhole's thoughts. He's the serpent who destroyed our Family!'

The grim puppet of the Other rose, towering up from the floor. It gave a fluted shriek and rushed at the Doctor, swallowing him whole in its black cowl.

159

Table Manners

The last rays of sunlight slanted across the gardens and into the shabby hall in the South wing.

Captain Redred was only too glad to escape the House's cloying atmosphere. He checked the documents he was carrying and stepped into the transmat booth. He separated the official documents of interment registration from the item requiring special carriage to the Agency.

Deathdays always brought out the worst in a place, and the summary edict he had delivered could only add to the gloom. Yet the rumours circulating the Chapterhouse, rumours of an illegal birth at Lungbarrow, seemed unheard of at the actual scene of the disgrace. Most Family members he had encountered appeared almost improperly jovial. Only the Cousin Glospin, acting in lieu of a Housekeeper too distressed to deal with official matters, gave the occasion the due weight it demanded. But even Glospin had his own cards to play and Redred found himself acting the messenger. At least his bribe was not an insult.

A Deathday was a private occasion, when a House was left to its own grief. Worst luck, he would have to return to collect the cinerary urn containing the mind of the deceased.