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Chapter Twenty-nine - Chapter Twenty-nine

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Consequences

Innocet struggled to steady her coracle - half a hewn-out stixxi pod, grown in the atrium before it flooded. The pole she was using to steer slithered in her hands.

She was halfway across. The black water reflected the lamplight in serpentine patterns on the branches of the atrium's ceiling. Around the walls, half-submerged portraits of former Cousins glowered out disapprovingly.

Ahead, on the far side of the lagoon, were the coracles that Maljamin and Jobiska had used. The Drudges always brought the boats back.

The House knew.

It was all a game.

Innocet! In the turmoil of voices in her head, she heard her own name called. And again.

She looked back. The Doctor was at the water's edge. When she ignored his calls, he climbed into another boat.

Something swished past in the water.

A skinny reptilian shape was circling the coracle. Its long white head lifted above the surface and opened out like a vicious flower. Stalky eyes like stamens waved over a ruff of purple-blotched petals. It hissed. Its glistening tongue uncurled from a central ring of teeth. The monstrous progeny of both cavepool lizard and meadow orchid, hybridized in one of the Doctor's most repulsive experiments.

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'You were told not to bring those things indoors,' Satthralope had complained.

Something grabbed at the pole. A second creature was writhing in the water behind the boat. Innocet tried to beat it away. The coracle lurched wildly. She struggled to stay upright.

The first creature rammed the boat.

Innocet grabbed at the pole, lost her grip and fell into the water. The weight of her hair pulled her down. She saw the huge petal mouth open to encircle her. Its tongue gleamed in a sudden flash of fire.

The Doctor, standing in a second boat, was yelling and brandishing a flaming brand into the heart of the petals. The creature gave a bubbling hiss of rage and dived away.

Innocet reached for the Doctor's hand. He was hauling her in when his boat lurched and tipped him in beside her. The torch spluttered out in the water.

Round the prow of his coracle came the second creature, eyes waving in its beautiful open head.

It suddenly rolled in the water, thrashing angrily as something gradually dragged it down under the surface.

The Doctor pushed Innocet into his boat and clambered in after her.

There was no sign of the creatures. He set his weight to the pole, heading the coracle towards the far side.

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Satthralope sat tightly in her chair. She turned her keys, but the House was not listening. Her mirrors had gone blank.

'Not dead yet?' said Quences, his cloak of shadows billowing. She stared at the dripping dagger in his chest. He came closer, closer. 'Don't imagine your stranglehold on the House will stop me.'

'You're not dead,' she mouthed. 'You're not dead!'

'Does the House know that?' wheezed the old Ghost.

The House, she thought. I am the House!

And she forgot herself completely.

'What's happening now?' said Leela.

They were sitting on the overturned TARDIS, watching Redred and Glospin spread a document on one of the Hall tables.

'Don't know,' Doroth\xE9e said. 'Something to do with the Doctor's ancestry. They reckon he's not who he says he is.'

Leela's hand went to her knife. 'Then we must protect him.'

'Comes as no surprise to me. People are always saying that about him.'

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'Which people?'

Doroth\xE9e shrugged. 'People all over. When you travel with someone, you can't help finding out a few dark secrets. Don't tell me you've never wanted to know who he really is.'

'Sometimes,' said Leela. 'But that would be wrong.'

'Comment? I mean, why?'

Leela looked at her sternly. 'The Doctor is wise and strange, and he is powerful. But he is also a mystery that will only reveal itself to the chosen.'

'Maybe,' said Doroth\xE9e. 'But I still want to know.'

They sat in silence. Doroth\xE9e looked across at the implacable Drudges. Behind them, the image in the glass coffin flickered fitfully.

'Leela,' she said quietly. 'I saw.'

'I think we'd better find the Doctor.'

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Innocet sat dripping and shivering on the steps, listening to the plaintive voices in her head.

'You had no right to follow me,' she told the Doctor.

'Take off your wet things, Innocet,' he said. 'Then you must show me where the Cousins are.'

'I will not,' she said.

He took off his jacket and wrung out the sleeves. 'I know you've been protecting them all this time. You're the only one strong enough.'

He sat down beside her and tried to take her hand. 'Innocet, listen. We can put an end to it at last. You must tell me where they are.'

'Take away your hand,' she said.

'Please, Cousin. No more secrets. You can let go now.'

She tried not to listen. Water slapped on the steps.

He sighed. 'You know, on other worlds there are people dedicated to clearing up the mess I leave behind. It's always been actions and reactions with me, and I tend to forget the consequences.'

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She watched something moving under the water.

He continued, 'But now I have to make amends for the suffering I've caused you all. It's my responsibility. So stop hoarding all the misery for yourself and tell me where the others are hidden!'

She closed her eyes.

'Then do it for Chris's sake,' he said.

She bowed her head. The soaking hair pressed her down. She slowly edged her hand towards his.

The lagoon erupted at their feet. Something huge began to emerge, climbing the sunken stairs. Water cascaded down its bedraggled fur.

The Doctor pulled Innocet back.

'Badger! Why are you always pestering me!'

'I am required to protect you,' boomed the machine. 'I destroyed the amphibian orcholotl.'

'I don't need a bodyguard. I've managed for centuries on my own.'

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Innocet edged to the top of the stairs. She turned and ran, down through old neglected corridors where the whitewood trees were overgrown and tangling through the furniture.

'Innocet!' He was coming after her. Her wet dress caught and tore on a branch.

And in her head, they were calling her too. Calling her to join them in hiding.

But there was nowhere to hide any more.

'Innocet!' He was behind her. This little man, this serpent had destroyed the Family, the House that she would never now pledge to serve might and main, drudge and droil.

Innocet, they called in her head.

'Cousin!' he said at her shoulder.

She grabbed at a rusty sword that hung on the wall and levelled it at his chest. 'Stay back!'

'Put that down, please.'

'Leave us alone!'

The shape of Badger came crunching through the branches.

'Innocet, put the sword down,' said the Doctor.

'No!'

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'Badger will attack anyone who threatens me. Even you. That's how Quences programmed him.'

The huge machine dwarfed him as it advanced.

'Stay back!' she yelled above the voices in her head.

'Badger,' he ordered. 'You will not harm Innocet. She's not attacking me. Now, stand back!'

The avatroid swayed where it stood.

After a moment, the Doctor edged towards her. 'Now, give me the sword.'

'I cannot,' she said.

'Please.' He reached gently for the blade.

A sudden outburst from the voices in her head. She swung the sword against his outstretched hand. He made no sound, but blood trickled between his fingers.

Badger roared in fury. The Doctor was knocked aside. The machine reached for Innocet, lifted her and threw her against a tree.

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The voices went quiet.

She was lying on her side at the foot of the tree. Its branches spread above her. Her hair would not let her lie flat. And he was there, looking down at her with extraordinary tenderness.

'Don't move. I'll go for help.'

'I had to protect our Cousins,' she whispered, every word an effort. 'It's my fault.'

'Of course it isn't.'

'They couldn't stand the dark. There had to be somewhere for them to go. Somewhere the House couldn't see.'

'And you helped hide them?'

'Yes.'

He stroked her hair. 'But the House knew. It must have known.'

'Of course it knew.' She started to cough. 'But it loves them. That's why it let them go.'

'But it wouldn't let them leave completely, would it?' There was anger in his voice. 'They're just hiding somewhere to get away from Satthralope.'

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'It was all I could do.'

He leant down to kiss her forehead. 'How could one person endure so much alone?'

Blood tasted in her mouth. 'They're waiting for you, Snail. They've waited a long time.'

'In my room? Is that where they are?'

Her body ached. 'So weary. Had enough now. Can't do any more.' She felt him reaching gently into her mind. Please understand, she thought. Please finish it for me.

'Innocet, no. Don't end it here. You've got many lives left yet.'

I want an end, she thought. No more dark. A real end at last.

'Innocet.'

'Go and find them, Snail,' she said and pressed his hand.

She closed her eyes and heard him move off.

She folded away her thoughts in the dark.

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The Doctor wiped his face on his soaking sleeve.

He left Innocet lying against the whitewood tree. When Badger started to follow him, he said 'No!' quietly and the machine stopped in its tracks.

'Go and get help,' he said and the brute lumbered away.

Along the passage went the Doctor. Not far now. The place was all too familiar.

He reached the door. The door to that place where he had taken refuge from the absurd mock infancy of a fully grown Gallifreyan childhood.

The children of my world would be insulted.

The place where he had first hoarded five-dimensional star charts and read Thripsted's Flora and Fauna of the Universe (Abridged for Younger Readers) and made working models of birds' wings and carved his name on the lid of his indignant desk.

They say a Gallifreyan isn't fully grown out until he tastes his own tongue.

The place was quiet. He expected to disturb a whole flurry of echoes and memories as he pushed open the door. But he heard only the squeaking of a hinge beetle in the wainscot.

His room was empty. Stripped of its furniture and fittings as if his own remembrance had been exorcized.

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He had thought of and believed in so hard that it became reality and was sustained. It sat in the floor like a mouth. An impossible well on the second floor.

A figure stood balanced on its edge, gazing down into the flickering depths.

'Chris,' said the Doctor.

'Can you hear them?' said the young man. 'I have to go to them.'

'Come back, Chris,' the Doctor said. 'Those thoughts are meant for me. They're not yours.'

Chris didn't look up. The glow was hitting his face, making it a mask. 'No, they're calling me.'

'What do they say?'

Chris edged away round the rim of the well. 'They're calling me. They've been waiting. They're calling the Doctor.'

The Doctor reached for him, but Chris threw himself off the edge and vanished deep into the light.

Silence.

He stared into the impossible depths of the well. He looked in vain for some way to let himself down. His fingers touched the sword cut on his hand.

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He walked back along the passage, pushing through the wild branches, to where Innocet lay against the tree.

She was cold.

'Innocet?'

Just a shape in a wet dress. No thoughts. No dreams of renewal. Just empty and cold.

He sat on the floor in the sickly lamplight, holding her hand.

Of anything he had ever known, this was the worst.

For long moments, he absorbed the once-familiar angles of her face for a last time. Finally he leant across and gently untied the cords that held the great coil of plaited hair to her body.

'Dear Cousin, forgive me this last dishonour.' Using scissors, he cut through the braid and eased it away from her head.

No more guilt. Travel freely now.

He returned down the tangled passage to his room, unwound the coil of hair and knotted one end to a branch. Testing his weight on the rope, he slid into the mouth of the well and started to lower himself into the depths.

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The thoughts licked up like silent flames around him. As he went deeper, he saw figures clinging to the walls. Faces he knew. Cousins he remembered. Tulgel, Chovor the Various, Farg and DeRoosifa. But their faces were twisted and gaunt. Maljamin and many-chinned Salpash, now a chinless shadow of her previous girth. Haughty Celesia and little Jobiska.

Faces burning in the hell of their own thoughts.

More and more of them. All staring their silent accusations.

Pitiful, wasted and exhausted characters with gaping eyes and mouths, gathering round him like a lynch mob of ragged scarecrows. There was no renewal here, no rebirth. Fed on spite, his Cousins were de-generating in their own bitterness.

He was grateful at least that Innocet had avoided this.

The well shaft widened into a cavern where they clustered in, jostling and pushing.

'I'm here now,' he said. 'I'll put this right, I swear to you all.' But he could hear nothing from them.

He pushed through the crowd until he saw a figure hunched on the cavern floor.

The Doctor crouched beside Chris. The young Adjudicator's hands were covering his head. He was shaking. 'I'm sorry,' he pleaded. 'I'm so sorry.'

The Doctor reached out with his own mind and unlocked Chris's thoughts.

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The force of his Cousins' contempt knocked him backward. The hatred for all the torment he had given them and all the things he had made them lose.

He did not belong to their Family. They rejected him utterly.

'They came this way,' said Leela.

There were fresh footsteps in the white dust where one of a cluster of bulbous fungi had exploded. The tracks followed the course of an indoor stream, through an open gate, until it reached a cavernous flooded hall.

Doroth\xE9e pointed to a group of boats on the far side. 'Fancy a swim?' she said.

Leela eyed the black water warily.

'I wouldn't if I were you,' said a familiar voice.

Romana was walking down the passage towards them. Her hair was down and she wore a scarlet tunic with grey trousers and practical boots.

The principal-boy look, thought Doroth\xE9e.

'This time I really am here,' Romana said and shook hands to prove it. 'Have you found him yet?'

Doroth\xE9e and Leela exchanged glances.

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It was easier than Glospin expected to get the Doctor's TARDIS upright. Owis, who had the digestive system of a gullet-grub and was already sufficiently recovered from poisoning himself, soon managed the job with Rynde's assistance.

'You'll still need a key to get inside,' said Captain Redred.

Glospin examined the ship's doors. 'Not necessarily,' he said. He pushed the door with his finger and it swung open. 'Someone forgot to secure it.'

His Cousins clustered at his shoulders. The hum of instruments came from the dark interior.

A sudden gasp of air stirred the hangings around the Hall and sent little dust devils spinning across the floor. A fresh shudder ran through the House.

'What's that?' said Rynde, peering up at the galleries. 'Feels like a warning.'

Glospin nodded across the Hall.

The Drudges had turned to stare at the glass casket on the dais. The hologram of Quences had finally guttered out. The dry skeleton lay in its place.

There was a sound like indoor thunder.

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'I don't like the sound of that,' said Romana once she had listened to Leela and Doroth\xE9e's story.

'Why have you followed us?' said Leela.

Doroth\xE9e grinned. 'Having a spot of bother at home?'

Romana looked embarrassed. 'Yes, actually. The truth is I'm on the run. Andred and Ambassador Whitecub barely got me out alive. Lord Ferain's seized control. He's trying to legalize my impeachment, so I'm not sure if I even have a Presidency by now.'

'Is Andred safe?' said Leela.

Romana levelled at her. 'He's admirable. But your running off like that didn't help matters.'

'The Doctor needed me,' Leela protested.

'So do we all,' said Romana sternly.

The House boomed and rumbled. Little waves began to slap in at their feet. Across the water, a crowd of ragged figures was gathering on the half-submerged staircase.

'I think the Doctor's found his Family,' said Romana.

'They will never get across in those boats,' Leela said.

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The House shuddered. A rain of plaster and wood began to fall from the atrium's dome, splashing into the lagoon. The white branches that held up the roof were twisting and tearing themselves loose. The three companions watched as two treetrunk pillars, one on either side of the water, wrenched themselves free of the walls and tilted inward. Branches crackled and snapped as the massive growths wound and matted themselves together into a single span over the lagoon.

Immediately, the crowd began to shuffle over the new bridge.

'Where's the Doctor?' demanded Romana as the first Cousins reached the near side.

None of them answered. Their eyes were empty. Load of zombies, thought Doroth\xE9e, watching the procession until the last skeletal stragglers had passed.

'Come on,' she said, leading the others across.

When they reached the room, they found Chris hauling a shape out of a well set in the floor.

'Not more companions,' he said when he saw them. His voice had a Scottish burr. 'Sometimes you're more trouble than you're worth. All right, just stay together, do as you're told and try not to all need rescuing at once.'

He deposited the shape at their feet. 'Beaten up by my own Cousins,' he continued.

The shape had a hat on. It was the Doctor, more bruised than ever. 'Only my dignity,' he whispered unconvincingly.

Chris seemed to lose interest. He wandered away and sat in a corner.

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The Doctor flinched when they touched him. 'I only wanted to be part of the Family,' he said. 'I went through all the correct procedures. Gene weaving, birth trauma, education, acne. . . obviously it wasn't enough.'

'We could leave in the TARDIS,' said Doroth\xE9e.

'No! No one goes near my ship.'

He was very apprehensive when he recognized Romana. 'What's she doing here?' he said in Leela's ear. 'Doesn't she have a planet to run?'

'I've come to help,' said Romana.

'It is true,' said Leela.

'Any more of you outside?' he called. 'It's getting like the Last Rites or a wake.'

'Doctor,' Romana said sternly.

He sighed. 'You've done very well, Madam President. The future is so important.'

'And the past?' she said.

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'Oh, the past. The past is dead and buried. I'll never know now.' A look of despair thundered across his face. 'And the future? I couldn't see beyond my seventh regeneration. The original Eighth Man Bound. Perhaps I have no future to see...'

His eyes closed.

'He's working himself into a premorphic trauma,' said Romana across him. 'Unless we do something drastic, he may deny himself regeneration.'

Doroth\xE9e leant forward. 'Doctor, if you're not part of the Family - '

'No,' interrupted Leela. 'You cannot ask him that.'

'I'm me now,' he whispered. 'What good is that...?'

'But who were you?' said Doroth\xE9e.

The Doctor's words were drifting away. 'Too many thoughts. Can't think any more... Sorry.'

'He's hardly breathing,' said Leela.

There was a movement at the door. A woman with short brown hair was leaning weakly against the frame. She wore a plain white shift and was dragging a rust-coloured dress behind her. 'If he's to live, we must unlock his mind.'

She walked unsteadily into the room.

Doroth\xE9e stared at her. 'Who are you?'

The woman held up the dress. 'His Cousin,' she said.

Leela scrambled up. 'Innocet? What happened? Have you regenerated? You must rest.'

The woman nodded wearily. She was shorter and her face fuller than the old Innocet. 'Don't be concerned for me. We must help him.'

'Romanadvoratrelundar,' said Romana, awkwardly offering a hand. 'Please come and sit down. Are you sure you're up to this?'

Innocet closed her eyes. 'The more support, the better. Now, please sit in a circle.'

They sat and linked hands, circling the Doctor.

Innocet took a deep breath and began muttering to herself.

Behind them, Chris clutched his head. 'I am the Doctor. I am. I am. I am!' He pulled off his boot and threw it across the room.

The companions glanced warily from one to another.

Innocet's head went back. Her eyes were white, the colour of looking inward.

'Why did you leave us?' Her voice resonated through her fingers, into their heads, making the circle one. 'Where have you been? Who are you?'

'Vultures!' shouted the Doctor. His body arched as if something was being torn out of him. He slumped back and lay still.

'Can't catch me,' whispered Chris.

Innocet shuddered and sat back. The circle was broken.

'He's gone,' she said, her voice trembling. 'There's nothing. His mind is dark. I was too late.'