Doctor Who_ Fallen Gods Part 9

The King, slows, the fury on his face melting into disbelief.

The Doctor, speaks quietly now, persuasively. -You're a judge, you need evidence. That's what the gla.s.s is for. And the crystal. It glows from the demons just like it glows from the Fallen, only more so what does that suggest to you?He dances on the edge a moment more. The words settle on Rhadamanthys, begin to harden. Slowly he turns away, straining for thought.

-The last, time you let them out, they learned how to slip their chains. Open the gate again and they'll devour the empire.

The King stands, taking this in. The Doctor brings the spygla.s.s back to solid ground and busies himself with it, putting his stick down as he fusses with the tripod. -Now, poetically just as that may be, I'm still giving you the chance to save your empire from the fate you inflicted on Athens.

With that, Rhadamanthys turns on him. -You would blame me for that? For protecting my people?

-I know, I know, the barbarians at the gate. Never mind the ones in the palace.

Rhadamanthys grabs his arms, pinning him to the spot. In a flash the Doctor returns the clasp: holding each other near the edge, such that neither can throw the other without being dragged down himself.

-The Athenians needed to be stopped, declares Rhadamanthys. - They killed Androgeos, and now Asterius. Two of my brother's own sons lost to their treachery.

The Doctor's smile is barbed. -Oh, I know, it's personal. It's the oldest question of them all: what will you sacrifice for the children?

And with a hair-raising grin he skips to one side, dragging the King, with him over the edge.

Just as they tip too far, his trailing foot stamps against the roof, shoves them back towards safety. They fall tangled together. At once, the King pulls himself up, stares at the Doctor, paralysed with utter astonishment. The Doctor doesn't move from where he lies, suddenly cool in repose.

-But to you, O father of your country, the question is: what do you expect the children to sacrifice for you?

The King stands, shaken on the roof of his palace. The truth freed from Tartarus is too much to conceive of. As a man whose prayers have always taken the form of commands, he now finds himself wis.h.i.+ng to entreat, to beg for aid; but he has no idea to whom he can direct these prayers.

Eventually he turns, and retreats into the building. The Doctor stays where he lies: insouciance now, revealed as exhaustion. Finally he reaches for his stick and begins to drag himself to his feet.

And the clawlike hand of Alcestis grabs his heel and yanks him off the edge.Her fury gives her the strength to whip him round by his ankle, a full half circle in the air. But with that grip he's heavy and unwieldy she's sinking and tipping over as they spin.

He hits the wall halfway down. His arms break the impact, but she still feels the jolt straight through his body. There's a gaping look of shock on his face. She sees it, and wants to swing him back and hit him again and again against the wall till the shock turns, to understanding. -How could you? she breathes.

They've sunk to the ground. His head, and arms. .h.i.t first he tries to pull away from her using just his hands. She lets go of his foot and descends upon him, upon the aching astonishment and confusion on his face. She's dirt-streaked and filthy and relentlessly wild.

-How could you? she repeats. -You stay in the house of a murderer, a killer a hundred thousand times over. You drink his wine, you give him your gifts, all for your own ends. You leave him untouched after all his crimes. How could you stand next to him? How could you tell me you had anything to do with justice?

She's trying to grab him, but can't quite reach him he's scrabbling away beneath her, along the polished stones of the courtyard.-Alcestis. Please. It's the only way-How could you stand next to me? How could you convince me I was something I wasn't?

He stumbles to his feet, hands flailing in search of anything to use against her. Find your weapons where you can, she thinks furiously; we don't last long. Behind him a couple of palace onlookers stare openmouthed. She's skimming just above the ground, closing in on him as he protests.

-Please, listen, he says. -Every word I said to you, I still believe. And just in case you got the wrong impression the other day, let me a.s.sure you that any life-energy I take from my companions is strictly metaphorical A hand flashes towards her, striking at the pressure point in her neck. But she's ducked aside already, catching his wrist with one hand and pressing the other flat against his chest pinning him with his arm at full stretch.

-I've learned well, she says with a pointed smile. But with a twist of his shoulder he slithers out of her grip and backs away, giving her a nod and smile as acknowledgement. She charges at him again. But he can't be pinned down: he ducks each attack just as she dodges his. They're a flurry of colour and violent motion weaving across the courtyard neither able to land a blow.

Her words fly as fast as her arms, somehow not breaking her rhythm in the slightest. -You turn junk into inventions, people into heroes, yourself into something new every time I turn around. Monsters into dust. Cities upside down. You turned me into this. But you won't expose the King, and turn him into a criminal?

-Yes, yes, I'm a founding member of the Society For Turning Things Into Other Things. But I can't turn notes into music. I can't turn a broken thing into a whole one. Only patch it. Only push a bit in a new direction.

He seems secure on the defensive, as if this is his usual footing. But she's adapting to his style combining blows so that ducking one drives him into her next strike, not giving him a moment to take the advantage.

-And that's your excuse for not facing it? she spits. -Leaving the job half-done?

A hint of a grin. -I don't do sta do stable.

Fury lifts her. Her legs lash around in mid-air, her body horizontal as she kicks again and again at his head. -Well, you're involved now. You changed me. And I won't let you escape me!

And she touches down just long enough to spring, and leaps straight over him. He ducks, but she's already caught the down-draft from the volcano, slamming her straight down onto him. She feels him fall, the rattle through his bones as he hits the ground, her feet stamping on flesh.

By the time he rolls to his feet, she's already high above him. Held against the wall three stories up,, head, down, watching him cast about looking for her. He's shaking on his feet. Guarding himself now, only just realising what he's awakened.

She twists a smile. -Not so quick now?

-The G.o.ds took a lot of years from me, I'm still growing them back ...

As he smiles, she's already launched herself at him again. Headfirst, hands stretched into claws. She swoops through him he twists aside, no longer trying to counter-attack, just blocking and dodging what he can. Up the far wall of the courtyard, wheeling and banking, moving faster than his eye can follow.

-No-one cares about justice, she shouts. -Facing the consequences. No-one ever will.

He turns, on his heel, stumbling, trying to follow her, voice. -Never?

-All that we've lost. We used to walk with the G.o.ds ...

-Now, the G.o.ds, they do stable. If you want your empire levelled, your cities laid waste, they won't stop till they've finished the job. Is that what you want? do stable. If you want your empire levelled, your cities laid waste, they won't stop till they've finished the job. Is that what you want?

-I want it over! she shrieks. But she feels the fire about to consume her, and she directs it out into another rain of blows. Again she plummets. When she reaches him this time, she spirals ever closer, arms and legs las.h.i.+ng out non-stop. Reflexive rhythm, faster than she can think. -None of us deserves to live. We've lost our best qualities ...-Yes, I'm afraid you have. You've lost your sense of possibility.And he stops, his heel back against the wall of the council building. He keeps blocking her strikes, but his eyes and voice won't let her go.

-You'd call that being disillusioned, but that's the final insult to what you've lost. The denial that you lost anything worth having. There's no word for having lost a true vision, not an illusion, a real sense of what could be. vision, not an illusion, a real sense of what could be.

Their dance is so instinctive that she can forget it, the way she forgets she's breathing. In the middle of the motion she feels still. And as she hangs over the Doctor, trading blows and dodges by reflex, she can feel the disturbance in the currents that she's never noticed before: a wind that pulls you, rather than pushes you, into him. There's a whirlwind confined inside his body.

-Knowing you'd lost your sight, that would be too painful to face. So you tell yourself your small hard-fought truth was a big lie, and run from it. You don't want to face the fact that some battles you can still win.

One last strike, trying to grab hold of him, to break through and shake her despair into him. And she catches him but at the same time, he's caught her, pinning her, close to him. His face fills her vision, his desperate conviction trying to jump the gap to her like a spark.-Listen to me.Hold for a moment: being close to him is like the instant you overbalance in your chair, where you're not sure which way you'll fall. He's a possibility in the shape of a person.

But a hundred thousand souls are crowding in on her. They thunder through her veins, crying to be released. She wants to die but she wants the Doctor to save her but there's no way to save them, nothing can atone, the only hope he can hold out is to duck and dodge the consequences of what they've done forever. She wants to save them all, she wants to see them burn.

She tears away and howls. The cry carries her up, shaking him loose, letting her, rise up, along the slopes of the volcano, letting all her hopes fall away behind her.

She lands broken on the scorching rocks of the peak.

Almost instantly, the G.o.ds wrap her up in their peace. She sinks to her knees. Her body feels so strong, so honed and powerful. But the soul inside has shrivelled. She is a fruit invaded by a worm. And yet, and yet here, it doesn't matter.

She walks to the shrine and stands, in the glittering dark. It's like coming home, it's the place she belongs, with the Fallen.

Of course, the thought comes into her head that she could stagger off the edge and let herself fall into the fire. But her weary feet won't move in that direction. What presumption, to fling herself into the G.o.ds' realm as though she belongs there.

You led me, didn't you? You led me to Britomartis. You put me through the fire, to make me ready to do what you want.

They don't answer in words. A wind rushes through the shrine, the crystals glow more fiercely. A little flame ignites in her heart. She's right. She knows it. She's been doing their will.Or is she talking to herself? Telling herself what she needs to hear?She prays like a child. Make me a stone, she begs them. She closes her, eyes, and the crystals glow inside her head, flecks of light in the orangeblack of her vision. If I'm a killer, let me be the killer. Let me be the one to put an end to the horror. G.o.ds, let it end. Let it all end.

They flow into her heart and her hands. They don't tell her anything, give her any instructions. But they soothe away her exhaustion, wash away bewilderment with certainty.When she opens her eyes again, she knows what she wants to do.

That night, she comes to him.She hovers in the window, blotting the moonlight from his face. He's sleeping tonight, sprawled on top of the bed, his body exhausted. Slowly, inevitably, she lets the current carry her, over him.

She comes to rest just above him, letting the draperies of her silk brush gently across his skin. He doesn't stir; nothing disturbs that unforgivably innocent face. But in his dreams, his eyes are darting about, like a trapped animal.

She holds herself there, feeling cold and impersonal as the wind. She's clean now: washed in a hidden corner of the palace, her silks immaculate. Clean.

His eyes wander open.

-Another angel? he murmurs through his sleep.

She gathers him up, without speaking, enfolds his body in the silk. Her arms cross behind his back, pinning his hands by his sides; her legs hook round his, holding him flat against her. He's too close for her to see his face, cheek against cheek, the braids of her hair falling across his eyes.

Then she takes him up. Out of the window and into the wind, watching the ground shrink away like a chicken back into the egg. Higher and smaller; already she can feel the chill whistling through her. She's grateful for the animal warmth of this other body pressed against hers; but even this close, his flesh feels cool and distant.

He isn't struggling. His body is peaceful and yielding. Perhaps he thinks this is another dream. Consequences are distant things to him: understood in abstract, dodged up, close. A man who treats being told to face the music as an invitation to dance.

But now, she has him pinned. His hands held in place, the magician out of tricks.-I didn't want the last, angel either, says a soft voice in her ear.Her grip tightens suddenly, but she says nothing as she continues to rise.

-She came to me as I lay wounded and fallen. All my plans and hopes laid low by one inescapable act. She looked down on me, a creature of infinite compa.s.sion and unwanted mercy. And she stopped my heart.

For a moment she can't feel her own. Below the islands have vanished into the night; there's nothing with her but the fast s.h.i.+vering rhythm of his heartbeat.

-But then she started it again. She picked me up, from the ashes I'd left and gave me a clean slate, another chance. What did I do to deserve that?

It's not a teacher's question. She can feel his breath shaking, his hands trying to clutch onto her hips.-Why am I still alive?-Shh, she tells him. -You won't need to worry much longer. She comes to rest in the air. His hair is blowing across her, face in the thin wind, her own braids enveloping him.

Say something terrible, she wills him. Let me see all your frivolous disregard laid bare. Let me know that I'm justified in what I'm going to do. Let this moment be my purifying fire and burn away my doubt. But the man in her arms says nothing, just holds close for comfort, perverse to the last.

-The King, and his people have so much, she tells him. -Things they haven't earned. Some are the gifts you've brought down from the heavens, some are things they've stolen, which you're letting them keep. But there are always consequences. I want you to think about the fact that you gave me the gift that brought you up here. You turned me into an instrument for something greater.

She takes a final breath.

-Because that means this is your fault, not mine.

And she lets him go.

Slow, flickering motion: pale white face and skin revealed falling past her eyes. The strange, slow juddering of the world in flight gives her time to study his face the impenetrable look as his eyes find hers while they sink away but not to understand it.

It takes an age until he's beyond her, reach.

Another age until he's lost in the dark below.

Suddenly she feels naked, her front no longer s.h.i.+elded by his body from the wind, as it sucks the last of his warmth away. There's nothing else in the clouds that can touch her now.Was that last look one of realisation? No, that's merely what she wanted to see; his expression was too calm for him to be making the connections she wanted him to make. But still she can't imagine his quicksilver mind not realising, before the rocks turn him into meat, that he's earned this for his interference.

He has perhaps a slow count of thirty. Longer through her eyes, with the distorting effects of the currents. It feels like it's going to be forever.

Perhaps it was the look of one who thinks he knows that this is a test. Maybe down below, he's plummeting serenely as the moments fall away, expecting her to s.n.a.t.c.h him away from death at the last moment. Which means he still might never realise his misplaced faith in her protecting him from the truth until he can no longer think.

The fury tightens her chest, stiffens every muscle in her body. He has to die in order to learn. If he doesn't know he deserves to die, what's the point? No, that look was the smug pity of someone who has forgiven those who sin against his blameless body.

No. Not forgiveness. Not even that he saw it as a test. His fear was for her. With a surge of fire in the wind, she sees what his eyes said: that as he fell it wasn't him him being tested, it was being tested, it was her. her.

In a rage she throws herself over, screams straight down through the sky, the world flickering past her, faster than she can imagine. Half-formed words churn in her throat. Telling herself she doesn't want to pa.s.s his test, that this is still about getting through to him before the end. If he doesn't understand, then it's as meaningless as Britomartis's sudden unrepentant stillness.

Falling fast as a stone. The mountain below draws itself out of the dark, growing ever larger. Finally the Doctor turns from a pale dot to a rigid figure arms folded across his chest, falling supine, trying to hold himself stiff and together. Even closer, matching his speed. Falling with him from inches above. The tightness in his face as he struggles to steady his breath and not cry out. Below his shoulders, the treetops ma.s.s.

His eyes open and lock with hers, unblinking.

Two more seconds.

She waits.

One.

With a choked-back scream of frustration, she wraps her arms and legs around him and pulls sharply upwards.

They hang frozen five feet above, the ground. Against her chest she feels the Doctor letting out a shaky breath. -Don't say it, she shouts. Don't even think it. Don't you ever understand?

As she turns them upright and prepares to settle them on their feet, he clutches onto her. His eyes wide and urgent. -No. Don't, don't put us down!

-Why not?

-We're still falling. Don't you understand? We're both falling.

His words don't make any sense. But something instinctive, something beneath her senses, is telling her there's something wrong.

His words come out in a panicked babble, clutching on to her. -You couldn't have brought me to a stop that quickly without pulverizing us both. This isn't real flight. All you're doing is, every instant, you're jumping yourself up, as far as you've fallen in that moment. Cancelling acceleration but not momentum. And now you've matched the speed of my fall, you're falling as hard as me. When you land and let go of the currents we'll both hit as hard as I would have anyway!

He stares her, in the eye, gasping now, begging as hard as she'd ever imagined. -You've got to go to the water. Please. For both our sakes.

And she follows his words to the sea. Flying, she can clearly feel the wrongness sluggishness, a wrenching in the small of her back as if she's straining to hold her height.

He's gasping: -Here, that should be deep enough. Turn us over got to hit the water smoothly. Feet first.

His face drives her mad finally she can see the desperation in it, but none of it directed at himself. It's all about saving her. her.

They're a short way from the island now, hanging in darkness. She lets an updraft lift them, slowly if she sinks her nails into that current as she falls, it might slow them, just enough.

He'd spoken of angels, creatures of grace, who broke his fall when it was he who should have been broken. Did he have any idea how unforgiving they were, when they let him live?

She feels his arms tighten around her. -Now, let go.

The ocean hits like a hammer. Breath driven from her chest as she falls, water bursting into her throat. Still driving downwards, far deeper than she should be, the force carrying her down to no return. Desperately turning herself and fighting her way back up each choking cough sucking more ocean into her. It feels like it's steaming where it hits the fire in her lungs. A hand reaches for her from the side; she shoves it away.

Even when she breaks the surface, the pain doesn't let up one more mouthful of sea water as she flails about. Her whole body convulses among the swells. Even breathing is torture. Now she knows why newborns cry.

He breaks the surface near her, great rasping gasps near her ear. The arm wraps around her again, trying to carry her home. She fights him off, is still fighting him off as they drag each other onto sh.o.r.e, pounding and screaming -What does it take to make you learn?