Doctor Who_ Fallen Gods Part 8

The Doctor's awakened her, turned that intolerable numbness into an even more intolerable fire. Sent her out of control. Her insides twist even tighter. How could he force open her eyes with no regard for what she would see?

In her mind's eye, she sees the crowd falling like grain before a scythe, the s.p.a.ce becoming empty as bodies pile on the paving. That's how it would have been in Athens: the swift poison of unleashed immortals, slurping up years. In one moment, the picture of dead Minoans puts peace in her, heart; the symmetry, the justice: the stolen years stolen back. In the next, she sees their faces, sees them pale in the dust with empty eyes, and she cannot tell Athens and Akrotiri apart.-That's why the bulls are coming, she whispers.-Of course it is. (Pelopia puts an arm around her, shoulders.) They hate everything about us. Serve them right if there was another plague. Could help with the war.

She's aware she's shaking, she feels Pelopia inching her, arm back towards her, stall. -I know, I know, the hag is crooning, gently. -It'd be lovely to go back, to when we thought the world was safe and we could afford to be nice. But we've learned better now, dearie, and that's what matters.And she has.

Deucalion slips away from his bodyguard while down at the Kamenai docks. He's spotted Perdix just around the bend in the island, looking out to sea from the ridge of black rock, and has to go to him.

He hasn't had a chance to talk to Perdix, not properly, since the night he cried. The next morning, he sneaked out to reach their room, but outside their door was a flock of flapping servants, saying that Perdix was deathly ill and Alcestis had gone in search of distant help. Apparently she had taken Britomartis with her as well, perhaps for guidance. Eventually Perdix recovered enough for the lessons to begin again,, but always under the watchful eyes of others. And throughout it all, Deucalion has been kept busy with a whirl of social crises, daily obligations and warnings of threat not giving him any time to remember that anything was ever any different.

So now he's found Perdix alone, gazing out to sea through the gap in the circle of Thera staring at the horizon as if he stood on his toes he might just be able to peer over it. Deucalion knows the expression; he's seen it on Glaucus as he gazed out of the window during a council session: a flattened longing for any place that wasn't this one.-Ah, Deucalion, says Perdix faintly. -It's good to have you here.He looks untouched. His skin is still impossibly pale and smooth, his face no older. But he's leaning heavily on a carved stick, and Deucalion can see the tightness in his arm muscles as they support his weight. He's fighting to keep the shaking under control.

Deucalion looks at this old body hidden under this young man's skin, and wonders if this is how he himself will look in a hundred years' time. An egg that's gone off inside its perfect sh.e.l.l.

They sit together, on the volcanic rock, and for the first time ever, Deucalion can talk.-I didn't ask for this, he says.-Well of course you didn't. I can hardly imagine someone who would. Well, I suppose I can, I mean I've met them, like your father, but somehow that still doesn't mean I can imagine them, you know, what I mean?

Deucalion likes the way Perdix looks at him just then. He's talking like he's just another person, not a grown-up.

Perdix has in his hand a pile of stone chips, the black and grey rock of the Kamenai volcano. He keeps tossing them out into the bay, trying to skip them across the water, but he doesn't have the knack; his hands have too much tremor in them. Stone after stone hits the surface and disappears, even the ripples vanis.h.i.+ng in the chop of the water.-How could he do it? asks Deucalion.-For the empire. For himself. I suppose if you stare at the two long enough it's possible to lose the difference.

Another stone vanishes with the others. Perdix tells him what his father did to Athens, and Deucalion feels little more than a sort of numb acceptance. Glaucus's crumbling face is still so raw in his memory that multiplying it by tens of thousands of faces just seems like the next logical step. Perdix goes on to tell him about the G.o.ds, the senders of the bulls, and even that great betrayal simply seems obvious in retrospect.

-So many ... whispers Deucalion. He can't even look at Perdix. -I should have ...

-Died?

-Tried something ...

-Same thing.

Perdix steeples his hands, and rests his chin on them, looking out to sea. -I've had to see things happen, let them happen ... even make them happen ... because I knew at that moment there was no other way.

-And people died?

-Oh yes.

-But it wasn't your fault, Deucalion says shakily. -You didn't ask for it. And you didn't have to do it yourself, did you?

Perdix's eyes look sideways, weighing Deucalion. Deucalion s.h.i.+vers, as if Perdix can see straight through his question to the fear beneath: the thin hope that, so long as there's some bit of distance between him and the crimes committed around him, he's not d.a.m.ned.Perdix, old and weary, answers -Mostly, not.Suddenly even having a chance at hope seems like such a precious luxury.-A question for you, continues Perdix, his voice returning to something like his old tutorial tone. -Say you know, something infinitely bad is going to happen, whether or not you do anything. And you have the choice of refusing to take part, and dying for it, or taking part and trying to ease the horror down the road. Which is the lesser evil?

-I suppose it's better to live and do something, says Deucalion hoping that Perdix means his choice was the right one.

-And if you can find a third choice? One that's less evil?

-Well, then you should take it.

-Even if it's still about the third most evil thing in the world?

Deucalion blinks. He'd thought this was about making him feel better. But looking at Perdix, that doesn't seem to be what's on his mind at all. He keeps staring across to the clifftops of Thera, searching the skies.-I suppose, says Deucalion.Now, Perdix turns, to look at him, his face childlike and serious. He nods slowly. -Yes, I suppose, too.

The look on Perdix's face leaves him even more unsteady. Somehow he always a.s.sumed, when Perdix was asking him and Glaucus all those questions, that Perdix knew the answers himself. And when he began to confide in him about his own complicity, he thought that meant Perdix knew a way to deal with it. When in fact all he had was the gift of still being there to be able to ask the questions.

And Perdix throws another stone, trying to make it skip, and it too vanishes into the bay. Now Deucalion sees the tightness and concentration in the muscles of his hand. He's training himself, Deucalion realises dragging his body back to fitness, struggling to be ready for whatever is going to happen.

-So it's better that I'm alive, says Deucalion. He wonders how far he can take this. -And it's better that I've still got everything I have. It wasn't me who stole all the years, I didn't ask for it.Perdix says nothing.-It was all before I was born. So they're all long dead, so it's all right for me to keep my years, isn't it? It's not like I could give them all back and make it all right -Wrong question, snaps Perdix.

Deucalion jumps. But Perdix's voice, while hard, is not angry. Perdix reaches out and turns Deucalion's head, towards him, locking eyes with him.

-You've been given these gifts whether you like it or not. You can't give them back. Not your wealth, not your food, not your life. All that's happened, the things you've done to get where you are, they can't be erased. The question is - what do you do now you've got them?

Alcestis on the hillside, turning over a stone. It's heavy enough that she has to put her, back into it, lifting with both hands. After a moment, she lets out a frustrated breath and simply wrenches herself and the stone up, off the ground.

A thousand things crawl out from beneath the rock. Alcestis tosses the stone aside and watches them. A moment later, she is in amongst the creeping, slithering population, sc.r.a.ping at the loose soil with her, hands. Grit lodges under her, fingernails as she hollows out a hole in the dirt.

She pushes the flying costume into it, folding and scrunching until she has forced all the cloth into the ground. Then she lifts the stone back up, again, using just her own strength this time, feeling the strain in her wrists and the centre of her back, and slams it back down into place.

d.a.m.n them. They can fall into Tartarus for all she cares. She's been wrong to stop the bulls, wrong to get in the way of justice. Let the fire demons scour the island, clean.

He tells Deucalion: Every gift costs as much as it gives. Do you know, how the G.o.ds give you four harvests in a year? By borrowing them from the future. Every year of plenty means several of barrenness in the centuries to come. The G.o.ds have power over wind and water, sun and stars, even time itself but they can only rearrange, not really change. The earth tremors that the grown-ups speak of ... you've never felt one? That's because they've all been pushed into the future. Deferred for as long as they can keep the G.o.ds at bay.

(He turns, raises his eyes to the steep slope behind them, to the point above, where the trees shrivel from the heat.) But it won't last, forever. And when the G.o.ds do break free, all the earthquakes and eruptions will be unleashed at once. All the stronger for their deferral.

The explosion will erase Kamenai from the world. Bury Akrotiri under the remains of its sister island. For four days there will be no sun, as the volcano hurls wave after wave across the land: first rock, then sulphurous windstorms, then lava, then acid thunderclouds. A sky so thick and gritty that no bird can fly.

Three thousand people will be caught at the harbour, scalded alive as they try to beg and bribe their way onto any boat. But with all the s.h.i.+ps here, in the trading centre of the world, there will never be enough. The few who escape will look back to see a plume of smoke, thirty times the size of the island, and give thanks ... until the tsunamis come, and wipe their boats from the surface of the sea.

And even that won't be the end. The empire will limp along, even for another generation, until a great swarm of men from the north overrun Knossos. And these men? Another payment deferred. Had the G.o.ds not been unleashed, the last war would have gone quite differently Athens would have finally united the neighbouring city-states to push you back to your own palace gates. The G.o.ds' mangling of time has separated the two, but the effect will remain, even though the cause has been crushed. Minos's empire will be overrun by ghosts, destroyed by the people whom they made no longer exist.

Tears, now,? Oh, there's always time for those. But the question to ask is, what will you do to ease the changes to come? If this is what you expect, what will you do that they won't expect?

(And he raises his hand to the waters of the bay, and points, to where all the chips of pumice he's thrown are, slowly floating back to the island, like ducklings following their mother bobbing on the surface in a most unstonelike way.) Payment deferred:Rhadamanthys finds the Doctor inching alone through the palace colonnade. The King's face is a quiet rumble of thunder.

-They've found Britomartis's body, Rhadamanthys tells him. -Some fishermen caught her, in their nets, near the foot of the Thera cliffs.-I'm sorry.-No. (Rhadamanthys's words whip-crack across the Doctor's back.) -You won't be. Not where anyone can hear.

The Doctor stops short, and Rhadamanthys moves ahead of him, his eyes pinning the Doctor.

-Britomartis has of course ascended to become a G.o.ddess. For the public, this is a time to rejoice. The matter of her old body can be dealt with un.o.btrusively. And the matter of her killer shall remain unaddressed ... so long as Alcestis continues to defeat the demons.

-I see, sire.

-What do you see? Tell me.

-That justice can be tempered with expediency.

Rhadamanthys shakes his head. -Without Alcestis as a symbol, the people will feel defenceless. That is reason enough to defer justice, if not to tip the scales forever. Were she to s.h.i.+rk her duties, though, then we would have no reason not to hunt her down ... or to keep her name secret any longer. And no person in the empire would shelter her once they knew she'd turned her back on them.-And if, in the end, the demons defeat her?-Then it will be a tragedy for the empire ... but still justice will have been done.

-So her ability is her sentence.

-If you wish to see it that way.

-You declare her guilt quite boldly. As a judge, you clearly have the courage of your convictions Rhadamanthys cuts him off, harshly. -No one else, could have taken Britomartis off the island, to those cliffs unnoticed.

The Doctor falls silent; clearly nonsense will not serve him now. Rhadamanthys can no more be distracted than a charging bull. He paces in front of the Doctor, lecturing him like an errant pupil. -Now, you may have had a part in this murder but if you were guilty, you would not have stayed. All that could keep you here is innocence some of which I'm sure you have, though not nearly so much as you pretend or some more important aim. Whether the former or the latter, though, you've still earned the same offer I have just made to Alcestis.-I'm afraid I lack her skill at fighting demons.-Of course you do. And you've found no-one else who has it either ... not that I expect you to find such a replacement now, as I'm sure you believe that would sign her death warrant. But you are an inventor, a man of knowledge. Your talent is unquestionable, unlike your loyalties. I tell you now, that you may keep your place here, so long as your inventions prove useful against the bulls.

-And you shall have them. I have one nearly ready, which will allow you to identify their perpetrator.

-And if you can ease conditions within the palace as well, all the better.

The Doctor lowers his head. -I can but try, sire.

-Then we understand each other.

-As I said, I'm sorry, begins the Doctor, but the King has turned his back on him and is stalking away.Still the Doctor speaks quietly. -You must have loved her very much.Rhadamanthys's back stops short. When he turns, his face is contorted, but harder than ever. He answers: -And your heart must be broken indeed, now she has turned her back on you.

He turns, and disappears into the palace, and the Doctor stands, uneasy on his stick.

The bull comes with the dawn. Alcestis has been awake for hours, feeling it coming closer, like a sea storm.

The cries of panic begin, and stranger sounds, noises she's come to recognise as buildings crumbling with age. She lies back down on the bed, but the sounds carry clear through the air.

She pulls on her dress, her ordinary clothes, and lets herself float up, from the doorway to gain a view of the bull's work. Immediately she can see the grey channel it has cut through the buildings, connecting three streets in a swathe of powder. And there's the red-black shape of the monster itself, tossing its head, as it tramples and throws the ones who aren't quick enough to get out of the way. From the shattered buildings rise moans and cries, for help.Alcestis shoots down towards the bull. The wind whips across her, bare arms and s.n.a.t.c.hes the breath from her, face. She comes at it faster and faster until she almost touches its burning skin, and then rebounds away like a ball thrown against a wall, back into the sky.

The bull raises its boulder of a head, to squint up at her. Then it lowers it again, smas.h.i.+ng into a wall. The masonry comes down like rain, revealing a dozen people who've stupidly tried to shelter behind it.

Alcestis repeats her approach, snapping in close enough almost to touch the bull. Before she can shoot away again, it turns suddenly, one of its horns snagging in the hem of her, dress.

She screams and tears loose, the fabric unravelling to her knees. Another inch and it would have impaled her leg, and that would have been an end to her.

She climbs upwards, frantically, the bull following in a cloud of seething air. She can smell its sulphur breath, its magma sweat. A bellow erupts from its brute face.

Alcestis zigzags suddenly, changing directions, knowing that the bull will be slow to turn and follow. She has only to out-run it. But it turns so fast! and gallops after her. Its hooves pound ridiculously at the air, but its bulk moves swiftly, like a dolphin through water. She should be leaving it behind, but it's getting closer.

Half panicked, she climbs upwards again. Perhaps it's too heavy to go so high? Perhaps it will turn back to its real target, the island?

Beneath her, the ocean fills everything. Thera is a round shape below, and between her and her home, the swelling, sizzling shape of the bull, hurling itself upwards after her.

Alcestis realises she is panting. She looks up. Can she lose it in the clouds? She feels as though she will shake to pieces. The sky is blackening, turning into a narrow tunnel above, that suddenly squeezes shut, and she's Falling! She's falling!

She falls right past the bull, which gives an almost human snort of astonishment. She's gasping, her head is pounding, and her hands and feet are terribly cold.Somehow she gathers her strength, turns, the fall into a dive, slowing enough that when she hits the sea she enters it smoothly, her hands out in front of her. She travels in a deep curve through the cold weight, lifting herself out and into the air, her hair and dress heavy with water.The bull strikes the water almost at that instant. Steam explodes upward in a great jet, showering her with hot water. Beneath her, the ocean boils like soup in a pot.

The bull does not emerge again. The cold ocean has swallowed up, the last, of its energy. She watches for long minutes, but all that comes up, are, dead fish, floating on their sides in the seething water.

Alcestis slaps at her, own face, sobs coming like yelps. She couldn't do it. She couldn't stand by while the bull ran down the crowd. And it nearly killed her. She can't trust the Doctor, she can't trust her own people, she can't trust even herself.But she has to do something to stop it all.She hauls herself through the air, back towards the land. The taste of salt lingers in her mouth, like blood.

On the hilltop, she unearths her flying clothes. Now, it's Alcestis's dress that she leaves scattered by the cliff-edge, as if its occupant has shed it and jumped. She brushes the biggest pieces of dirt from the silk as she bakes dry in the day's heat, then abandons the task as the need to move on builds up, in her, a current she cannot fight. builds up, in her, a current she cannot fight.

Dirt-stained, salt-encrusted, hair wild in the wind, she sets off like an arrow for Kamenai.

-Come to the edge, says the Doctor. -I've got things to show you.

Rhadamanthys steps warily out onto the roof. The Doctor points the way with his walking-stick; the King, notices that he's using the stick now for emphasis rather than support. Almost without thinking, he widens the distance between them.

Near the edge stand two objects. He s.h.i.+elds his eyes from the first: a small chip of crystal, the size of a baby's fist, resting on the plaster roof and burning with the orange heat of an afternoon sun.

A crystal from the sanctuary walls, explains the Doctor; he had a priestess fetch it for him. He tells the King, how he charged it with the timefire released by the disintegration of this morning's demon. It is a fire that will not go out, like the faint glow in the sanctuary multiplied by a thousand. -You can use it to light the darkness, or keep the kitchen fires burning forever, or invent the jacuzzi for all I care.

-And you can make more of them? asks Rhadamanthys.

-As many as they send demons, replies the Doctor.

The other gift is set up, on the very edge of the roof, overlooking the courtyard below and facing the slope of the volcano. It stands, on a crude wooden tripod, a tapering bronze tube with a curved piece of gla.s.s at each end.

-Come here, says the Doctor, motioning him to the precipice. Look through the narrow end.

Rhadamanthys braces himself, then peers through the small gla.s.s. Inside he sees the top of the volcano large and clear enough to see the doorway on the peak sanctuary.

-Incredible, he says, his free hand reaching out to touch, the distant building in front of him. -An army gifted with the ability to see their enemy's movements from far away- To spy un.o.bserved ... You have given us foresight in bronze and gla.s.s. This gift is truly beyond value.

And just below his feet, Alcestis is pressed against the side of the palace, held against the wall by the currents and her, fury. With each word she hears, she feels the scream of rage building in her, throat. Her fingers dig in as if to tear the wall right out from under them.

-Is that what you'd use it for? asks the Doctor.

And his stick lashes out and knocks a tripod leg away. The spygla.s.s tips slowly over the edge.

Rhadamanthys lunges for it, but the Doctor catches it first his body between the King, and the gla.s.s, dangling his prize over the drop. The King grasps for it, but the Doctor backs away.

-If you want to look through this thing, you're going to have to open your eyes first.

-How dare you? rages the King.

-Oh, I dare. I dare.

The Doctor wobbles dangerously as he dances along the edge with the King. Rhadamanthys can see his arm shaking as he supports the weight of the tripod, but he holds it nonetheless.

-Listen, Rhadamanthys. I've tried patience, I've tried eloquence, now I'm trying something you'll understand. If you threaten me any further, you'll never see another fire crystal, and the gla.s.s will do what gla.s.s does best, namely shatter. You'll never know how to make another of either. Now, what I want from you is simple: the spygla.s.s stays up here, with a man constantly watching the volcano. Have you got that?

-Are you giving me an order? breathes the King.

-Open your eyes. Ask me why I want you to do that. want you to do that.

-Why?

-So that when the next demon comes, they'll be able to tell you exactly where it came from.

-From the volcano?

-From the Fallen.