Doctor Who_ The Scarlet Empress Part 25

Gruffly, Angela told Iris, 'Drive out of here as quietly as you can. I wouldn't want them waking until we're long gone.'

Iris tossed her head.'Drive quietly!' she snapped derisively and revved up the engine. The bus set up a ghastly, racking cough of a din as she instructed it to reverse through the tall, glossy double doors of the mansion.

Sam went to sit beside the Doctor. Inside his fur hood his grey eyes were gleaming with excitement.

'We've got quite a little team in tow,' he smiled.

Sam gritted her teeth until they were out of the hallway and on to the gravel drive. The tyres seemed to make an unearthly racket as they headed for the road. Everyone, it turned out, held their breath until they were out of sight of the buildings, tearing they might wake the bears and see them in pursuit. But inside the homestead, nothing was stirring.

Iris got them on to the road at the back of the estate and accelerated swiftly into the forest. Major Angela shuffled down the gangway and bent close to give her directions.

The forest's sepulchral air swallowed up the bus and they plunged onward, into the south.

Sam thought about school trips and starting out in the bus, full of eagerness every time, even if they were going somewhere educational.

'Hey Iris,' she yelled.'Put that Motown tape on again.'

'Righty-oh,' Iris called, and Diana Ross came on, surprising all the Hysperon natives on board.

Somehow things seemed much better now they were all back on the road.

Where the thorns and thickets grew their densest and the vines swung down to impede the primitive roads, the gateway to the next level was waiting for them. As she gave them half-remembered directions to the gateway, the Bearded Lady grew quite philosophical about this. 'We are coming to the southernmost limit of my domain. I haven't been this far in a decade. Haven't you ever noticed,' she called back to the Doctor, 'that the one place you want to go is that most shrouded in mystery and the most hazardous to get to?'

'Oh yes,' he agreed happily.

Iris thought that Angela had taken too much of a s.h.i.+ne to the Doctor.

She must like the sound of his voice. 'So what is the danger here?' the old woman asked. She drew the bus to a halt. The road had become completely overgrown. 'What can we expect?'

'If this is indeed where the gateway to the next level is,' said Major Angela,'then we can expect it to be guarded by a beast.'

'We should have guessed,' scowled Gila.

They clambered out of the bus. Very little light penetrated the mesh of branches above them.

'Where is this beast?' asked the d.u.c.h.ess flatly.'I will destroy it.' Major Angela was scandalised. 'Surely you recall that you can't possibly kill the beasts who guard the gateways? They are all that maintain the discrete barriers between levels.'

'Well, where is it?' Sam snapped. 'All I can see are a few old trees.'

'Within the trees, in the darkest, dingiest part you can uncover,' said the Bearded Lady. "That is where you must go to ask to permission to pa.s.s through.'

'Like trolls,' said the Doctor. 'In the old Nordic tales, guarding bridges: "They don't have trolls here,' Iris called from her wheelchair in the doorway of the bus.

'Well, whatever,' said the Doctor. 'I'll just pop in and ask if we may pa.s.s.'

He plunged recklessly into the bushes, then pulled back. 'What kind of beast is it I'm likely to come across?'

'A gigantic and malign spider,' said Angela.

He froze.'Oh. Really?'

'You don't like spiders,' Gila smirked.

'Not much.' The Doctor looked abashed.'Sam, would you come with me, please?'

Sam shouldered forward, secretly flattered.

The others watched them slip into the trees. The undergrowth whipped and flailed at them. Major Angela suggested that they start to cut away some of the jungle vines to find the gateway itself. It had been years since anyone had pa.s.sed through this way.

They set to work.

In the murky light of the s.p.a.ce beyond the trees the Doctor and Sam were casting about and keeping a careful eye out 'Come on, Doctor.You're the best at walking straight into monsters. Even when you don't want to.'

He gave a little shudder.'I have a thing about spiders,you know. Did I ever tell you about the time I had to go into the cave of the Great One?'

'I think so.'

'On Metebelis Three. Strange place. Everything was a kind of Habitat blue. This was all several lifetimes ago and a complete nightmare.'

'Shh.' Sam stopped in her tracks.'I thought I heard something.'

The Doctor crashed blithely on, cracking and bending wet branches as he reminisced. 'Oh yes, I came out of it almost dead, but I saw the queen of the giant spiders. Dreadful squeaky voice. They were a terrible lot. Iris claims to have done exactly the same thing, though apparently that time it was her and her glamorous companion Timmy who -'

Sam swore.

The Doctor wheeled around. 'Sam, I'd much prefer it if you simply screamed blue murder rather than use language like -'

The spider in front of them was taller than the two of them together. It lay casually, almost luxuriously, in an opaque tangle of webbing, bathed in orange light. Its eyes glittered and all eight of its legs tapped eagerly, as if waiting for their explanation.

They had pulled aside curtain after curtain of twisted overgrowth and undergrowth. At last they had found stone underneath. An archway stretched over the road, almost completely clogged with rank life. A sandstone door barred their way. The d.u.c.h.ess and Gila worked steadily to reveal a host of runic symbols gouged into the soft rock, as if by someone's nails.

'What's the pa.s.sword?' Gila asked, as they rested to admire their handiwork.

'Usually,' Major Angela said, feeling the inscribed text with her fingers, 'you have to pay a toll.'

'A toll?' asked Iris suspiciously.

'You feed your most expendable companions to the spider.'

The creature's voice seemed to be coming from many places at once.

'You bears never come this far south,' it ruminated.

Sam elbowed the Doctor. They both clutched their furs tighter and shrank into them.

'It thinks we're bears,' Sam hissed.

'Were-bears?' asked the Doctor, looking round.

'I wonder if you could tell me why you are here; said the spider languorously, lying back on its soft hammock. It had a very diffident tone.

'We are here...' began the Doctor, attempting to sound gruff and bearlike,'We are here to find out how we may descend to the next level.

Through your... um, charming gateway.'

'I see.' The creature flexed a couple of hairy, wrist-thick legs. 'Perhaps you already know, then, that I guard the interstices between the levels. It is my function to prevent traffic. Especially - forgive me - by bears.'

'I know,' said the Doctor winningly. 'But we can make it worth your while, you see.'

'I thought that you bears shaved yourselves these days,' the spider said, becoming suspicious.'Aren't you two terribly hairy?'

Sam put in,'We're not ones to follow the crowd.'

'All the bears want to be human.' The spider said it like a curse.

'We don't want to be like that,' said Sam.

'Hmm.'

The spider was putting on a good show of seeming bored. Actually, she was thrilled to have company. She considered roping the two of them into her web and forcing them to talk for ever. Her paralysing sting would keep them alive indefinitely, immobile but free for conversation. And she need liquefy and devour them only very gradually. There wasn't much else in the way of conversation to be had here. She rather enjoyed speaking with her irregular victims.

'How long have you been guarding this gateway?' asked the Doctor in a conciliatory tone.

'Ages.'

'You look tired of the work. It's hardly a demanding job.'

The spider's mirror ball eyes swivelled.'What do you mean?'

'For someone of your undoubted talents.' The ma.s.sive legs twitched.'It doesn't exactly stretch me.'

'Why don't you come with us?' asked the Time Lord impulsively.

'What?' Sam nudged him hard.

'And where would I be coming with you to?'

The Doctor gabbled excitedly. 'Tell me who put you here. Who is responsible for the mind-numbing tedium of your position?'

'Well,' said the spider. "The Empress, of course. It is she who maintains the discrete barriers between her nether regions.'

'Quite,' said the Doctor. 'And we are on our way to confront that Empress.We think she's got above herself.'

'My treatment has been appalling,' said the spider restlessly.

'Sometimes I even think she has forgotten about me.' "Then open the gateway! Come with us!'

'And this is how you will make it worth my while?'

'Of course!' beamed the Doctor. 'A little light revolution! What more could you want?'

'I could, of course, just ensnare and devour you,'

'You don't want to do that.'

'Don't I?'

'Oh, no.' The Doctor was still grinning like an idiot.

'You are no bear.'

'Actually, no.'

'Hmm. I shall have to think.'

his and the others had become impatient. She sat in the doorway of the bus, and listened to the forest noises for a while. She had a tape somewhere with the same creaking, cawing, shus.h.i.+ng and rustling noises and it was meant to be gently soporific. One of her companions, Gary, had bought it for her, but woodland noises just gave her the creeps.

She returned her attention to the tedious job in hand and told Gila and the d.u.c.h.ess which portions of the stone doorway to push and probe.

She racked her brains to come up with the words to open it. 'Open sesame' was on the tip of her tongue, but she was too embarra.s.sed to actually try it. She wanted to hit upon the correct Gandalf-like combination of phrases. She was sure there must be one. Not for the first time she wished she was the type who could produce the exact answer in a flourish of flamboyant erudition.

The Bearded Lady was soon furious.'Where has that dithering fool got to?'She stroked her beard quite roughly.'How long does it take to speak to a spider?'

Iris shrugged. She didn't think much of Major Angela. Trumped-up nouveau riche, she seemed to her. Pretend gentry. All guts and glory.

Not Iris's type at all, and not her usual cla.s.s of travelling companion. She sighed as they watched Gila wedge his jade bulk against the solid stone of the gateway. Iris marvelled at the alligator man's muscles. He seemed suddenly squatter and more powerful than ever. Muscles stood out on his back so that there appeared to be a solid ridge there.

'Perhaps we should go back,' said Iris. 'If the Scarlet Guard are searching for us, maybe we should give in and just go with them. They're heading in our direction - back to Hyspero.Why run away?'

The Bearded Lady came over all gung-ho. 'What? Give ourselves up?

To that tattooed sc.u.m?'

Iris tutted. Gila had warned her what Angela could be like. 'I don't mean surrender, exactly. I mean, we've got what we came for.'

The Bearded Lady looked bitter. 'My Empress. My possession.'