Doctor Who: The Awakening (11 page)

‘All right, all right!’ he wheezed. ‘You’ve made your point!’

The trooper ignored him. He frogmarched Turlough onto the Green and stopped only when Sir George Hutchinson, who had been overseering the preparations, cantered across on a big chestnut horse.

Sir George reined his horse to a halt, and from his vantage point glared down at Turlough. He pointed a black-gloved finger at him, and his voice was a paean of triumph. ‘One by one,’ he shouted, ‘you and your companions will return to my fold, and you will never get out again.’ He paused, and glanced across the Green, at its feverish activity. ‘It’s a pity you have seen this,’ he said, and then, turning to the trooper, he snarled, ‘Lock him up!’

With that Sir George galloped back to his other soldiers.

Before Turlough had a chance to protest, he was dragged roughly away.

In the church, the Doctor and Jane felt as if they were being dragged into the vortex of a whirlpool.

The very air around them was being stirred into violence. The monstrous roaring of the Malus in the wall mingled with those shattering sounds of battle to fill the nave with tumult. Smoke and masonry belched from the wall. The flickering lights whirled and dazzled and behind diem the image of the Grey Cavalier had solidified into a towering man in plumed hat and long curled wig, with a broad, pointed moustache and a thick beard, who was now moving slowly but threateningly towards them.

Jane’s nerve gave way. She was going to run, but the Doctor grabbed her arm. ‘Stand perfectly still,’ he whispered.

‘What is it?’ Jane croaked. Her throat had dried up and felt as rough as sandpaper.

‘I told you,’ the Doctor reminded her. ‘It’s a psychic projection.’

Jane winced, and submitted. ‘It pains me to say it, but I’m sorry I ever doubted you.’

She shivered, and the Doctor returned her jacket and placed it across her shoulders. ‘We all learn from our mistakes,’ he said drily.

Suddenly, swooping up from nowhere and adding to the already strong impression that the world was being torn apart about their ears, a wind - a real wind this time - rose in the nave. It came up out of silence to roar and howl, and hit the Doctor and Jane like a tidal wave. They staggered under the pressure - Jane would have lost her balance and been dashed to the floor had not the Doctor managed to hold on to her and push her upright again. The power of the wind took their breath away.

‘Now what?’ Jane gasped.

‘More psychic disturbance!’ the Doctor shouted above the howling of the wind. And then suddenly there was another thing to worry about: the Cavalier was almost upon them - he loomed up out of the noise and with a rasp of steel drew his sword.

The Doctor retreated, and dragged Jane with him.

‘It seems he intends to kill us!’ he gasped. ‘Make for the underground passage. Run!’

He pushed Jane in the direction of the vestry, and followed close behind her. As they ran up the church, the Malus roared again and lurched inside the wall. It was growing more powerful with every movement. Little by little, it was breaking free.

The trooper frogmarched the almost

unconscious Turlough across a deserted courtyard on the edge of the village. His left arm was locked so tightly around Turlough’s throat that his air supply was cut to almost nothing, and still he maintained the pressure which forced Turlough’s right hand high up between his shoulder blades. Turlough was in desperate straits.

The courtyard was seldom used and the hard earth had grassed over with weeds, over which the trooper now heaved Turlough towards a small, red-brick building at the other side. When they reached it he unbolted the door and threw him inside.

Turlough pitched headlong across the cement floor.For a moment he lay breathless and dizzy, sprawled lull length with his face in the dirt. He heard the door close and the bolt being drawn across, and the trooper’s feet march away.

Now, from his exceedingly limited viewpoint, Turlough looked across the flour. He saw a few bales of straw scattered about, and an oil drum. Apart from these the room appeared to be empty. Yet, as he lay regaining his senses, he could hear a soft shuffle of feet on the floor.

Then a shadow fell across his face.

Startled, Turlough looked up into the grizzled, un-shaven face of an elderly man. He wore twentieth-century clothes - a matter sufficient in itself to mark him as unusual. Turlough pushed himself up on to his elbows and looked at the man fearfully.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ the old man said. He knelt down beside Turlough and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Turlough felt easier now that he could sec him more clearly: with his baggy old tweed suit, crumpled shirt and tie, untidy hair and mild manner, he looked harmless enough.

Then he said, ‘I’m Andrew Verney.’ Turlough was looking into the face of Tegan’s grandfather.

Jane had run through the church and kept going at top speed through the vestry, down the steps and along the underground passage, but now she was having great trouble keeping pace with the Doctor. He seemed tireless.

She staggered around a bend into yet another gloomy stretch of tunnel. Now she could hardly see the floor, because the Doctor had the torch and he was pulling further ahead with every second.

‘Doctor!’ she panted. ‘Slow down! That thing isn’t following us.’

‘I need to speak to Sir George,’ the Doctor called over his shoulder.

‘Haven’t you got enough troubles?’

The Doctor stopped and waited for her to catch up. ‘Do you know anything about psychic energy?’ he asked urgently.

She shook her head. ‘You know I don’t.’

‘Then here’s a quick lesson.’ He tapped his hand with a finger to emphasise what he was saying. ‘It can, of course, occur in many varied forms, but the type of psychic energy here, capable of creating projections, requires a focus point

...’

Jane was nodding and trying hard to appear as if she understood him, but the Doctor could see she was confused already. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he tutted. He searched desperately for another word, and found it. ‘A
medium
!’

‘Ah.’ Jane began to catch on at last. ‘You mean, as with a poltergeist?’

‘Well, yes,’ the Doctor agreed, ‘but it’s a bit more complicated than that. In this case it isn’t the medium who is creating the projections, but the Malus. The medium simply gathers all the psychic energy for it to use.’ He leaned forward and looked intently into Jane’s face, peering at her through the gloom. ‘And what, at the moment, is creating the most psychic energy?’ he asked.

Jane was puzzled again. She was thinking hard, but along unfamiliar lines, and the Doctor could not wait. ‘The war games,’ he prompted her.

And light dawned. It exploded like a firework in the darkness of the passage. ‘The war games!’ Jane almost shouted.

‘And who controls the games?’

There was true understanding now. ‘Ah,’ she nodded

‘You
had
better speak to Sir George.’

The Doctor frowned. ‘The trouble is, I don’t think he can have any idea what he’s doing. The Malus is pure evil.

Given enough energy it will not only destroy hirn. but everything else.’ He noticed Jane’s glum expression, and brightened up for her sake. ‘Cheer up,’ he said lightly.

Outside the village, a figure was running across a meadow.

He came pounding through waist-high, flowering grasses and weeds with arms flailing and breath heaving, as though the hounds of hell were after him.

It was Will Chandler.

Will hadn’t stopped running since he left the church.

He still kept glancing behind him in panic and now, as he looked over his shoulder again, his foot slipped into a rabbit hole and he tripped and fell headlong, disappearing from sight among the rank vegetation. Whimpering, he struggled to his feet, stumbled forwards and lurched into a run again.

His chest ached and his face showed the extent of his agony. But the sounds of the battle were still ringing in his cars; he was driven onward by the horrors of the fighting that was still going on inside his head, and nothing could stop him or slow him down.

Will intended to stop when he reached the shelter of the village, and not before.

Tegan stood at another window now, in Ben Wolsey’s seventeenth-century parlour. She looked out at his garden, crammed with cottage flowers, whose loveliness expressed all the country pleasures she had hoped to find in her grandfather’s home.

She sighed ... and stealthily moved her hand towards the window catch, which was just above her head. If she could reach that and open the window without the farmer seeing her, she would he out before he could move. Willow had left her in Wolsey’s charge while he sought Sir George Hutchinson; since she was not so afraid of this gentle giant as she had been of the sadistic Sergeant, she was more willing to take chances.

But Wolsey, who was standing in front of the fireplace, had seen Tegan’s arm move. He watched it slide almost imperceptibly upwards, and smiled to himself and shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t get very far if you tried to escape,’

he said.

The softly spoken words broke a long silence and startled Tegan. She twisted round and shouted ‘What!’ at Wolsey, in a voice so harsh it startled her even more than him. There was anger in it, and shattered nerves, and sheer frustration: she was close to breaking down.

Wolsey understood. His tone was sympathetic. ‘There are troopers everywhere,’ he explained.

‘I wouldn’t dream of putting you all to so much trouble!’

Tegan shouted.

Wolsey seemed embarrassed. His manner was surprisingly uncertain, and even apologetic as he said, ‘I rather think we’re all Sir George’s prisoners at the moment.’ Then he smiled reassuringly: ‘If it’s any comfort to you, your grandfather is safe.’

Relief gushed from Tegan in another shout, this time a cry of pleasure. She ran eagerly to the farmer. ‘Then let me see him!’ she demanded.

‘All in good time.’ A coldly calculating voice killed Tegan’s happiness in the moment of its birth. She paused in mid-stride as Sir George appeared in the doorway. There was a smirk of victory on his face, and he gestured dramatically with his Cavalier’s hat as he came into the room and walked slowly around her, appraising her, examining her in the May Queen dress as if he was looking at the points of a piece of horseflesh. ‘You look charming, my dear,’ he gloated, ‘positively charming.’

The compliment, coming from those eyes and that smile, made Tegan feel unclean. ‘Thanks for nothing„’ she said, and shrank away from hint, angry and embarrassed.

‘Can I have my own clothes back, please?’

Sir George leaned towards her. His face was eager and his eyes were as bright as stars. ‘But you’re to be our Queen of the May! You must dress the part.’ He was purring like a cat now, a sound which made Tegan’s skin crawl.

‘Look,’ she said frantically, ‘I’m in no mood for playing silly games!’

‘But this isn’t a game.’ Suddenly Sir George’s tone and expression were deadly serious. They contained an intensity which shook Wolsey into alertness. His next words astonished both of them. ‘You,’ he said to Tegan,

‘are about to take part in an event that will change the future of mankind.’

7

The bare brick walls of the hut had once been painted white; now they were merely dingy. A window protected by iron bars allowed barred sunlight to slant brightly across a floor furnished with forgotten bales of straw.

On one of these Andrew Verney sat. He gazed, without much hope, at Turlough who was testing the window bars for signs of weakness. He had tried them himself, and knew there were none.

‘Solid,’ Turlough sighed. He moved away from the window, leaned his back against a wall and looked curiously at the old man. ‘Why are they keeping you a prisoner here?’ he asked.

‘Because of what I discovered,’ Verney said, returning Turlough’s scrutiny with a gaze tinged with sadness.

Seeing Turlough’s uncomprehending expression, he added, ‘Have you been to the church?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Now Turlough understood only too well. He picked up a dusty oil drum, carried in over to Verney and sat down on it beside him.

Verney shook his head sadly: ‘Years of research, to discover that something as evil as the Malus was more than a legend.’

Turlough thought for a moment ‘It wasn’t active when you discovered it?’

‘No.’ Verney gave a wry, helpless smile. ‘My mistake was telling Sir George Hutchinson. It was his deranged mind which caused its awakening.’

This sort of talk was making Turlough feel even more nervous and agitated. ‘We’ve got to find a way out of here,’

he said urgently. ‘We have to let the Doctor know what is happening.’

Verney shrugged. ‘But how?’ He had tried all the ways there were.

Turlough studied him. The old man had obviously been shaken by his experience and looked tired and worn; if they were going to get out of here it would be up to him to lead the way. He rose from his seat and returned to the barred window. Looking out at the deserted yard, he asked,

‘Are there any guards?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Guard!’ Turlough shouted through the window. He hurried to the door. ‘Guard!’ he shouted again. There was no reply, and no sound of movement outside. It was beginning to look as if they had been abandoned here.

Turlough tested the door. It was pretty solid too, but at least it was wood, and that would splinter if you applied enough pressure. The planks were old and gnarled, with gaps which let in strips of light. He was sure they could be made to give way.

He looked back at Andrew Verney, still sitting wearily on his seat of straw. ‘What are you like as a battering ram?’

he asked him.

Verney’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

The underground passage connecting the church with the ancient yeoman’s farmhouse which now belonged to Ben Wolsey was long, narrow, low, winding and – since it was strewn with rocks, pitted with holes and had to be tackled in a crouching position – arduous.

So it was with a promise of considerable relief for her aching back and trembling legs that Jane Hampden negotiated the very last bend and saw, up ahead, the spiral staircase glimmering faintly in the light of the Doctor’s torch. He smiled over his shoulder to encourage her. ‘Not much further!’ he called.