Doctor Who: Ultimate Treasure (23 page)

She wished him goodnight and closed the door, feeling really safe once more. Tomorrow at first light she would set off after the Doctor and the others. And there seemed a good possibility that she would be riding at least part of the way.

Arnella was screaming, arms flung about her uncle, as the wall of fire grew higher and closer. Brockwell was stamping on small fires that were springing up about them, while Falstaff slashed wildly at them with his sword. Thorrin was swinging about, glaring at the blaze as though attempting to hold it at bay by the sheer force of his will. It should have burnt out in seconds, Myra thought. No grass can burn that long or that fiercely, so it has to be another trick. But she could smell the clothes scorching on her back. Was it real fire artificially enhanced or simply an illusion? Could you die from the illusion of fire if it seemed real enough?

Suddenly Thorrin shouted above the roar of the flames, 'This way - it's our only hope!'

For a moment Myra thought he had gone mad. He was pointing into the forest. But then she realised the outer wall of trees had burnt down, revealing cool darkness beyond, overhung by a pall of black smoke.

They stumbled forward, picking their way rapidly across the still smouldering embers, choking in the fumes, the heat scorching their feet. The DAVE drone tried to follow them, but a flaming branch smashed it to the ground. It's an ill wind... as terrestrials say, Myra thought. Then they were beyond the blaze, staggering between the twisted tree trunks and breathing in cool air.

Then the fire came after them.

It leapt from tree to tree, each almost exploding into flame, forcing them to run deeper into the forest to keep ahead. As the trees burnt they contorted still further, writhing into even more fantastic shapes. And as each burnt it seemed to scream. A thin terrible wailing cry, a continuous ululation of agony. Arnella clamped her hands over her ears as she ran to shut out the terrible noise.

'It's heated sap and water vapour escaping through splits in the woods!' Thorrin shouted, sounding less certain than his expression would suggest.

But as the fire sheathed each tree they began to see faces picked out by the flames and the peeling bark. Myra could make out distinct eyes and noses, with mouths gaping in time with the cries. They were too precise to be chance formations. Thorrin stared in horror and disbelief, but the terrible faces would not go away.

'You killed them, you killed them!' Arnella shouted wildly.

Flaming branches uncoiled and lashed out, as though the tree beings were trying to take their revenge on their destroyers before they died. Falstaff cut at one branch with his sword and then, seeing a dark gap between two trees, he darted off, moving with surprising speed for his bulk. In a few seconds he was gone.

Before Myra could decide whether to follow him or not, a howling wind tore through the forest, whipping up dead leaves, ash, and glowing embers into a choking turbid fog. She heard the others calling out, but though she groped about her she could find nobody. She stumbled on blindly, eyes and nostrils clamped shut against the unbreathable atmosphere. How long could humans survive it? she wondered desperately.

Then the skies opened as the black cloud above the forest dissolved into a torrential downpour, washing the smoke and ash from the air and drenching the blazing trees with hissing roars.

In moments everything vanished in a haze of steamy vapours.

The cool rain felt like balm to Myra's scales, even though it had not improved visibility. The ground was fast turning to mud and she could neither see nor hear anything of the others.

Exhausted, she slipped and slithered into the lee of an earth bank and sat down to wait for it to pass.

Qwaid urged them on into the shelter of the nearest clump of trees on the edge of the forest as the torrent descended. The fire they had been approaching was swallowed up by the downpour, and in seconds the only sign that it had existed was the pervasive odour of damp ashes.

As they huddled out of the rain and wind he tried to raise Gribbs on the comm link, but all he got was static.

'Must be the change in the weather,' he said aloud, more for his own benefit than the others. Silently he wondered if Gribbs had simply turned off his receiver. Perhaps he'd fouled up again and didn't want to admit it. What if he'd got the ship working and decided to give up on them? No, he wouldn't do that - would he?

What other surprises had Alpha left for them? Maybe the ship was booby-trapped and Gribbs had tried to take off and it had blown up. He could still see that last image of Alpha's face on the monitor...

'I don't like it here,' Drorgon rumbled, swinging his great head about anxiously and fingering the stock of his cannon. 'It feels...

bad.'

'You don't have to like it, just be quiet and do what you're told!'

Qwaid shouted back. 'We say what's bad around here. Others worry about us, got it?' He was surrounded by fools, but he mustn't lose their respect. And yet it was getting harder to think of new things to say. Then he realised the Doctor was looking from one to the other of them with solemn intensity. 'What?' he demanded, his voice cracking under the strain.

'It's begun,' the Doctor said. 'Another form of mental attack.

The opposite of what we experienced out on the mud flats, I think. You must both force yourself to remain calm, whatever stimulus you feel. Do you understand?'

There was something very compelling and soothing about his voice. Qwaid swallowed, forcing himself to concentrate.

'You hear him, Dro? You keep cool, yeah?'

'But I feel it, Qwaid. It's all round us.'

'No it ain't!' Qwaid said, very much afraid that Drorgon was right but desperate not to show the depth of his own fear.

Even as he spoke he saw a tiny flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye that disappeared when he turned to look properly. Then there was another. Somehow he knew they were shadows of half-formed things that should never see the light of day. He drew out a torch and flicked it about after them, but they always evaded the beam. He began to flinch and jerk at the slightest movement. A heavy raindrop worked itself through the branches and landed on his cheek, where he dashed it away with a whimper of terror. Drorgon fired his cannon at something unseen out in the darkness, then shone his own torch only to discover he had blasted their tenacious DAVE drone to fragments. For a moment that cheered him enough to force a chuckle. But the dread returned, growing deeper by the minute.

The Doctor was sitting with his fists clenched and eyes shut apparently fighting his own demons. 'However real they seem they aren't there,' he said quietly, as though repeating a mantra.

'I am master of my own mind.' Then more loudly: 'I deny you, do you hear me?'

The storm lessened and the rain swept away, leaving a clear sky tinted by the last cold blue glow of the vanished sun. The Doctor forced his eyes open, looking suddenly haggard. 'I suggest we get back on to the mud flats. I think we can manage the lassitude better than this, at least until morning.'

'Yeah... right,' agreed Qwaid, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

They all three made to stand up. But they couldn't. Something was wrapped around their ankles holding them fast. With a sobbing cry Qwaid shone his torch down at their feet.

Pale glistening roots as thick as ropes were curling about their legs.

* * *

That was the third DAVE drone he had lost inside a couple of hours. His expenses for this story were going to be steep.

Rapidly he reprogrammed the second of his patrolling DAVEs and sent it on its way. But it would take over an hour to reach the scene of the action, and meanwhile he was as good as deaf and blind. The blank screens on his monitor array stared back at him like dead eyes. The scene of the year might be taking place somewhere out there this second and he might miss it!

That possibility was the only thing in the galaxy that really frightened him.

When the steam and rain lifted Myra found herself all alone, sitting on the edge of an ephemeral flood stream that gurgled away between the trees. The only other sound was the incessant dripping from the naked branches.

She looked around her curiously. 'Hey, where is everybody?'

There was no reply. Taking out her torch, she got up and began to make a circle through the trees, keeping the stream at the centre and calling out their names. There was still no reply.

Where could the others have got to? Nobody would have gone far in these conditions. Fifty metres at most.

She scratched her hip irritably, then realised she was feeling hot and itchy in several places. Some ash from the fire must have got into her clothing and between some scales. She tugged out a flap of her jerkin and shook it about, but the itching only became stronger. She twisted around and shone her torch on her side.

The smooth supple hide across her hips was disfigured by a swollen patch of flesh, dotted with loose scales. With trembling fingers she touched the patch. A few scales dropped to the ground and a flap of skin peeled back to reveal a spongy grey mass of fibres beneath. A fetid odour reached her nostrils.

Myra gave a tiny gasp of horror. The torch fell from her nerveless fingers and she sank to her knees. She had terminal sporiform necrosis - the most hideous disease a Tritonite could contract.

Even now she could feel the fungus growing across her body, burning and itching as her skin flaked away. She tore at her clothes, staggered forward and fell into the tiny stream. The fungus was invading her face, eating away her eyes. She tried to scream but her tongue was useless. As her sight faded the last thing she saw were the scales of her body floating away down the brook like dead petals.

The mud sucked and gurgled around Willis Brockwell. He'd been following Arnella's voice when he had blundered into some kind of bog in a hollow between the trees, and had rapidly sunk in up to his waist. Looking about desperately, he saw above his head a tangle of vines that trailed from an overhanging tree branch. If only he could reach them he could pull himself free! But every time he stretched up a hand, his fingertips brushing the vine, it seemed to twitch out of his reach. He sank a little lower - and the vines dropped slightly as well, remaining cruelly that merest fraction beyond his reach.

Then he heard a light laugh.

Arnella was sitting on a tree root by the side of the bog. She had something in her hand - trailing vines that ran up into the branches over his head. And he knew it was she who had deliberately lured him here to his death, and who was even now tormenting him.

'Ms Rosscarrino... Arnella! Help me, please!'

But she only looked down at him with aristocratic disdain and laughed again as, slowly but inexorably, he sank deeper into the mire.

Thorrin halted, panting, flashing his torch about him. Where had the others got to? Why did they have to wander off like that, leaving him to make all the decisions? No discipline or foresight, that was the problem.

He found himself in a sort of natural amphitheatre floored by a carpet of dead leaves and encircled by trees. There was no other exit, so impatiently he turned to retrace his footsteps.

But the path he entered along was now blocked by a hunched and twisted tree with branches trailing to the ground. He flashed his torch around the hollow, but its high banks were completely ringed with the trees, forming a living fence about him. Even as he stared at them their branches began to sway as though stirred by a breeze.

But there was no breeze.

'Alex Thorrin,' whispered a voice out of the dry rattle of thousands of twigs.

'Who are you? Show yourself.'

'We are all around you. Can you not see us? You are accused of callous murder.'

'What? That's absurd. This is no court... and I'm no murderer!'

'But you are. Earlier this night you acted out of arrogant self-assurance. Instead of waiting to find another way you thoughtlessly attempted to dispose of an obstacle in your path.

Your fire killed our people.'

'Your people? Trees? No, I don't believe you exist. It was an illusion created by natives. This is all an illusion now.' He clutched at his head. 'Get out of my mind! Talking tree men belong in some childish fantasy.'

'Do you know that for a fact? Can you prove it absolutely, or is this a further example of your arrogance? You, who think of yourself as educated, know only the minutest fraction of the myriad forms life takes throughout the universe.'

'Yes, but I want to learn more.'

'Then you admit your ignorance? You admit you might have been wrong?'

Thorrin looked about him wretchedly. 'I... don't know. I didn't mean any harm, but I couldn't afford any delay. It's vital I reach Rovan's treasure as soon as possible.'

'Why are you so impatient?'

'There's so much to do and learn, so little time.' He looked around himself again. 'Please, won't you let me out of here?'

'More impatience. But it is too late for you, Alex Thorrin. Now you must pay the price for your crime.'

The dead leaves swirled around him, brushing against him with their papery forms. They were autumn and winter, sucking the life out of him.

'You cannot deny the seasons...'

He saw the skin of his hands greying and cracking as they drew the years out of his body.

Too late, too late, they whispered.

Then he was nothing but a swirl of dust dissolving into the wind.

Nobody knew where Arnella was.

The Marquis ran through the forest from one person to the next, but there were only looks of incomprehension on their masked faces. And it was becoming steadily harder for him to make himself heard, what with the people getting taller all the time.

Or was it he that was getting smaller?

He looked down at himself and saw he was dressed in rags. No wonder they didn't take any notice of him any more. He couldn't be very important looking like this. But he kept on tugging at trouser legs and skirts asking for Arnella, because nothing would work without her. The masked people laughed and started to throw coins at him, which stung as they struck, but evaporated when they hit the ground before he could pick them up.