Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 13

Chapter 3.

Ace didn't need to see to tell that the pitch-black tunnel was damp. The cold air was clammy with vapour and the sound of dripping had increased. Her shoes, which she hadn't changed since she left Iceworld, were letting in water. She clung tightly to the Doctor's hand as they slipped and slithered their way along.

'Ancelyn's ancestors must have built this tunnel,' he was saying.

She kept on talking because she didn't want to stop and think about what she was doing. 'Professor?'

'Hmm?'

'Where does Ancelyn come from?'

'Another dimension,' said his voice. 'Sideways in time at a rough guess. A different universe.'

'Oh. Not a local boy then... ' She gave a gasp and swore as the floor slid under her and she sat in a puddle.

'Ace!' shouted the Doctor. 'Where are you?'

'I'm here!' She could hear him groping for her hand.

'Where? Why is there never light when I need it!'

There was a buzz and the tunnel walls gleamed with a tracery of phosph.o.r.escent green.

'Hey, Cavern Club!' grinned Ace. She turned towards the Doctor and gave a yell of fear as she saw the monstrous fish-head that loomed over them, its scimitar teeth bared.

Shou Yuing parked her 2CV in front of the Gore Crow.

Her morning had consisted of arguments with her parents for not having rung home the night before. In the end, she had walked out again and come back to find Ace and the Doctor. If they had left the hotel, she had agreed to follow them to the dig.

The army officer running up the drive towards her didn't look as if he should be running at all. Too old, like a General from the Old Guard of the People's Republican Government.

'I'm commandeering your car,' he said.

'Excuse me?' said Shou Yuing.

He held out a hand. 'Give me the keys.'

'What?'

The keys!'

She was too astonished to argue.

'Thank you.' he said and climbed into the 2CV.

Shou Yuing ran around the car and got into the pa.s.senger seat. 'Just a second, this is my car!'

'And I'm on urgent business, young lady. I'll ensure you are completely reimbursed for petrol and inconvenience.'

He jammed the gears into reverse and backed his way out.

She looked at his cap badge. 'You're with UNIT, right?'

'What do you know about that, miss...erm?'

'Li Shou Yuing. I met Brigadier Bambera.'

'Oh. really.' He turned the car on to the main road.

'Yes,' she said. She thought he would be impressed, but he kept driving.

'How did you get past the roadblock?' he said.

'Easy. They hadn't closed off the back lanes.'

He smiled and nodded. 'This Brigadier Bambera. I don't suppose she mentioned someone called the Doctor?'

The stone eyes of the fish gargoyle returned the Doctor and Ace's gaze. Its grotesque demon head blocked the entire end of the tunnel. Nostils flared in its painted snout, above a cavernous maw that teemed with steel teeth like swords. It was the medieval depiction of the gates of h.e.l.l.

'Just a portal.' said the Doctor. 'Clearly designed to frighten superst.i.tious people off.'

'It gives me the creeps,' complained Ace.

'It is a little overtheatrical.'

He started to feel round the edge of the mouth. 'No coded pattern,' he muttered.

'No hidden switch?' she said.

He shook his head. 'Much too complicated.'

'Then how are we going to get inside?'

He turned, smiled knowingly and tapped the side of his nose. Then he straightened up, cleared his throat as if he was about to begin a recital, and said, 'It's me. Open up!'

With a grating clash, the steel teeth separated and slid up and downwards into the fish's jaws.

'I refuse to ask how you did that,' she said, staring into the dark throat beyond. 'How did you do that?'

He looked rather self-satisfied. 'It occurred to me that this tunnel was built to Merlin's designs.'

'But everyone thinks you're Merlin.'

'Exactly. The portal's keyed to my voice pattern. Just the sort of thing I'd do.' He stepped through the jaws into the darkness.

'Are you Merlin?' she called.

He reappeared and said, 'No,' and then added mysteriously, 'But I could be, in the future. My personal future, that is. Which could be the past.'

He vanished again.

Ace stood for a moment, grabbing at the loose ends he always left dangling for her to pick up. 'Right,' she said doubtfully and clambered through after him.

The darkness she had seen through the gate was a deep ocean half-light: green and cool. The place hummed gently and rythmically like something asleep.

The Doctor was silhouetted against a softer watery glow from the far end of a pa.s.sage. He was running his hand across the glistening walls. The ribbed contours were solid and covered in organic patterns. Patches of light emanated at random along the walls and floor like the glow of deep-sea fish.

'Is this a submarine?' she said as she reached him. 'Or a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p?'

'More than that, this is a craft for travelling between dimensions.'

'It's more like being inside some huge animal,' she said.

He nodded and poked the wall with the tip of his umbrella. It quivered slightly and gurgled.

Ace stepped back in alarm. 'Who built it?'

'It wasn't built, it was grown.'

'Who grows s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps?'

'Very advanced bioengineers.' He started to walk towards the light.

She had to walk sideways to ask questions and keep up with him. 'If it's grown, how does it fly then?'

'Magic!'

'Oh, what! Be feasible, Doctor.'

'I thought I was a Professor. What's Clarke's Law?'

They had reached an iris-shaped portal through which the light was filtered. She wondered why he always picked the most idiotic places to give her a science test. Since there was plainly no chance of going through until she had answered the question, she said in a singsong voice, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'

'Well, the reverse is also true.' He glanced at the portal and said, 'Come on, then!'

The grey sinews of the iris contracted. A circular hole opened through which light came in a mote-filled wave of greeting. He stepped through, and as Ace followed, she could not help saying aloud: 'Any sufficiently advanced form of magic is indistinguishable... from technology.'

'Impressive,' said the Doctor. 'I knew you'd like it.'

The glare faded, leaving a single central beam of light descending from the high roof. It lit a great sword which stood upright, its blade embedded in a block of obsidian.

Its hilt was ornamented with a single pommel amethyst.

Beyond the sword, half in shadow, was a raised plinth on which a knight in black armour lay, still as a statue. His mail-gloved hands were laid on his breast in an att.i.tude of prayer.

The Doctor and Ace slowly approached the pool of light. Little eddies of centuries-old dust swirled up from the floor as they pa.s.sed. Their footsteps echoed high into the rib-vaulted roof, 'That's Arthur. King of the Britons, isn't it?' whispered Ace.

The Doctor stopped and laid a hand on her arm. His voice, so often mocking, was full with a quiet awe. 'This is the legendary King Arthur. From another dimension, where the man is closer to the myth.' He frowned. 'I wonder what he's doing here.'

'Not a lot,' said Ace.

As he suspected, the filigree inlay on the sword's blade was reminiscent of circuitry in the TARDIS. This was what had summoned him. 'The King's in suspended animation,' he said.

Ace placed one hand on the sword hilt and threw out the other in mock declamation. 'In eternal sleep until the hour of England's greatest need!'

'Ace, leave that alone!' scolded the Doctor.

She planted her other hand on the hilt as well. 'Don't worry, Professor. I've seen The Sword in the Stone. It's not like I'm the King of England.'

She gave a playful tug at the sword.

'Ace, no!'

The sword slid, almost sprang, out of the stone.

'Gordon Bennett!' She fell backwards under the weapon's weight, throwing up a whole c.u.mulus of dust.

The Doctor began to help her up, his eyes darting around the vast shadowy chamber. 'I hope you didn't disturb anything,' he snapped.

It disturbed me,' complained Ace as she dusted herself down.

'I hope you didn't disturb anything else!' He could already hear a low keening in the darkness.

He searched around again. If he was Merlin, what sort of defences would he put into such a s.h.i.+p? And where would he put its fail-safe systems? It was bound not to be a straightforward job. His predilection to be too clever for his own good had earned him a certain notoriety amongst his companions. So many regenerations in so short a span could not be good for the brain.

And why had Merlin forgotten, as he designed the wretched thing, that one day in the future he had been its victim? Bother! There was too much here that he did not like. He hated temporal paradoxes and he particularly disliked working with organic technology: a nasty, messy business.

Who said that he had to be Merlin anyway? There was an infinite number of possibilities.But it seemed that the more he struggled, the more tangled he became in the web of the very thing that he always denied.

He caught a flicker of green light at the edge of his vision. That thing was already stalking him in the darkness and whatever trick he tried, he doubted he would escape it.

What had Ancelyn said so merrily? That he knew Merlin by his manner, not his aspect? And Mordred recognized him too, though plainly not by his current face.

Between them, they had as good as pa.s.sed his death sentence.

The threat hung over him, frequently inspiring him.