Steve Cole - Doctor Who: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead

Steve Cole

DOCTOR WHO: THE KNIGHT, THE FOOL AND THE DEAD

TIME LORD VICTORIOUS

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

First Interlude

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Second Interlude

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Third Interlude

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Author

Steve Cole is an editor and childrens author whose sales exceed three million copies. His hugely successful Astrosaurs young fiction series has been a UK top-ten childrens bestseller. His several original Doctor Who novels have also been bestsellers.

For Christine Gordon

With Twitter thanks to Natalie Robyn Molto bene!

Death is a great evil and the gods have judged it so: for they choose not to die.

Aristotle, after Sappho

Prologue

The skies over Destran were horrid with phantoms, wheeling in the wind. Estinee watched their wild dance of dark and colour from her bedroom window, clutching to her chest the doll shed grown out of, long ago. She couldnt make sense of the shifting patterns; if they were monsters come to claim the living, or spirits of the new dead taking flight from their bodies. The visions spun and shifted like scraps in a hurricane, but the dread they brought was deep and slow.

Though she wanted to, Estinee couldnt stop watching the haunted sky. If she did, she knew her eyes would be drawn to whatever was causing the screams in the cropfields. And if she didnt look then she would never remember. It wouldnt have to be real. She could close her eyes, of course. But Estinee knew that if she did, she couldnt pretend she wasnt alone behind the locked door, in darkness.

It was already growing so dark.

Estinee couldnt take it in. Minutes ago this had been a day like any other: Mother and Father and all their workers, out in the fields for the harvest. Then the skies darkened and the sun was swallowed, just as in the old stories. Stories shed been told since she was tiny, but had never believed till now.

The Kotturuh. They had come.

Shock had been squeezing her voice box shut, but now words and tears came together. Its the end of the world, Estinee whispered aloud.

Theres no need for fear, child. Her mothers voice from the talk-circle in the wall, quiet and calming. The Kotturuh bring meaning to Destran.

Mother! The spell of the skies was broken; Estinee jerked and ran to the white mesh disc in the wall. Meaning? How can you say that? Where are you? Ive been so scared, whats happening, wheres Father?

Her mother didnt seem to hear. Death is the Kotturuhs gift.

We must hide from the Kotturuh, Mother. Estinee clutched the doll tighter, but it was cold and hard against her chest. Please, come to me?

I am coming to you, said her mother slowly. I am nearly here.

There was the loudest scream from outside the window. Dont look, Estinee told herself. If you look, its real. Itll always be real.

But now she couldnt help but look. Because the scream was her fathers. Her father was outside beneath the storm-grey panic of the sky, running through sticks of cinder where the cropfield had stood minutes before.

Father! She dropped the doll, threw open the window, shouted to him.

He was looking wildly behind him. Estinee caught a glimpse of something a quivering shape of shadow reaching out to him before she closed her eyes. Only a glimpse, but that was enough.

Now its real.

The shape vanished, a shadow blown away on the wind, and her fathers final scream died as quickly. Estinee turned from the window, faced her bedroom door.

It swung open. Her mother was there. Her smooth, rosy skin tightened and split, her body grew hunched and shrivelled, her rust-red hair turned white all in seconds. Estinee opened her mouth to scream but her mother shook her head, put a finger to emaciated lips.

The harvesters are harvested. Her voice was like the creak of an old door. You shall know forty summers and no more, my love. Time enough

Mother had known so many summers. Her bleached skeleton dropped to its knees and she pitched forward.

Everything is real.

Estinee wanted to scream but the sound wouldnt come. There had been something in the shadows behind her mother. Something making her talk, so it could get closer. A veiled creature, thick tentacle legs blooming from its midriff, the flesh purple-black like bruises. More horrible than any of the pictures in her storybooks.

Kotturuh.

It stared at her through a thick veil and Estinee felt a buzzing pressure inside her head. Overwhelmed, she fell back against the bed. One hand closed on the doll.

The visitors voice was like the writhing of worms in the soil: We are here for you, child.

Estinee turned and tried to scramble through the window. Something touched the back of her leg. The Kotturuhs six fingers, grey diamonds, were pressed to her skin. A feeling like burning flared through the flesh. Estinee pulled away and felt she must be trailing fire.

As she fell from the window she imagined that she must look like a comet blazing to earth, like a shooting star.

But there was no one on the farm left alive to see her as she struck the ground and the Kotturuh drew their veil about her.

Chapter One

Oh, yes! The Doctor grinned like a wolf as he strolled around the Tombs of the Ended, this monument to the dead of Andalia. Oh, this is brilliant. Just what the Doctor ordered.

It was cold in the halls of shadowed marble, and the Doctor was glad of his long brown coat with its deep, deep pockets. As a rule of thumb, tombs werent a laughing matter, but this one, rather like the Andalians themselves, was something special.

He saw an Andalian male, jade-skinned and painfully thin, sitting cross-legged before an enormous statue of an Andalian seated in the same position like the tiniest Russian doll placed beside the largest. Both seemed carved from translucent stone. Through panes of cracked and coloured glass, streams of sunlight stirred luminous veins in both figures.

Hello! the Doctor called cheerily. Unbelievable, isnt it! Only cemetery on the whole planet and just fifty bodies interred here since records began. Talk about room in the tomb. You Andalians, youre so alive

Please! The Andalian turned to him, beak raised in gloomy dignity. I am in contemplation.

Oh. The Doctor pulled a face. Sorry to interrupt. Thought you were just admiring the statue. Im contemplating, myself. Sort of.

I see. Well

Only, life got out of hand a bit. On Mars. Course, Mars wont exist for a few billion years

The Andalian smiled as one would at a dim-witted child. I suppose you dont know our customs, seeing as youre from off-world.

The past is a foreign country, the Doctor agreed, and Ive come a long way back. Further back than Im meant to, but, well. Im getting away from

She enters the dark house. Closes the door. Snow falling. Youre already walking away. You hear the blast

Youre getting away from the demonstration? the Andalian suggested.

Im getting away from the old haunts. From fixed points in time. The universe is a better place here and now. So many races like you Andalians just brimming over with life! Whatever happens, you pretty much cant die, even if you He closed his eyes.

You hear the blast. You turn. No light at the window. All silent on Davies Street.

even if you wanted to. He frowned. Sorry, what demonstration?

Youre right not to go. Its all scare-stories. As the Andalian shook his head crossly he looked a little like an aged chicken. I have lived and learned for thirty thousand years, my mothers for three times that. The eldest of us have watched the birthing of suns and shall live to see them sputter out. He nodded, turned back to the statue. Scare-stories. Just scare-stories.