Doctor Who: Lungbarrow (24 page)

109

 

He remembered his own graduation class of 2975. Twenty-six young, grinning Squires ready to sort out the Universe. Three that he knew about were prematurely retired injured and two more were dead.

But amongst this line-up of the Doctor's Cousins, not one of the suspects was smiling.

'So many of them have gone away,' said Innocet quietly.

'Are they really dead?' Chris asked. 'Or are they just skulking about somewhere?'

He was met by a cold barrier of frosty denial. The sort of thing he'd got when Roz had been at that time of the month. He gave himself a minus grade for tact, but he understood what the Doctor meant about monuments.

'What else did you dream about the Deathday?' she said carefully.

'We saw you and Glospin arguing,' said Chris, determined to get some reaction. 'You'd taken some secret information about the Doctor's birth from Glospin's room. He thought it affected the Family. More than the Family.

He was very angry.'

Innocet was shaking her head. She opened her mouth, but seemed lost for words. 'How. . . how did you...'

Chris suddenly felt ashamed. He'd lost the fine line between investigation and prying.

'It was nonsense,' she insisted. 'What did Arkhew say?'

'He didn't understand either.'

'Good. That business is long finished.'

'OK. Sorry.' Chris turned back to the picture. 'I can't see the Doctor. Is he taking the portrait, or was he disinherited by this point?'

'Look again. Look for the... kil er?' That word was still giving her trouble.

Chris rescanned the gathering. Most of the faces had a defiant look that suggested they would rather be elsewhere. But at the back of the group he noticed the figure of an elderly man, his face raised in an arrogant and withering glare of contempt. He wore a grey-green robe and his long white hair was combed back. He looked like the bad-tempered relation no one wants at parties, but are too scared not to invite.

'It's him,' said Chris, pointing at the figure. 'That's the one. He was in black then, but he's the one who killed Quences.'

'Yes,' Innocet agreed, frighteningly calm. 'That's him. I saw him leave the Ordinal-General's room moments before I found the body. He was the Doctor.'

***

'Framed,' muttered the Doctor. 'Lies! Not guilty! I've been set up. I deny it al !' Outraged, he turned away from Satthralope's mirrors and saw the advancing Drudges.

Simultaneously, the young man in the glass swooned and Innocet struggled under his weight.

Satthralope, stil in hiding, waited until the Drudges held the Doctor fast. At her command, the free-standing reflections shimmered away to nothing, opening out the room and disclosing herself and Glospin.

'So,' she said and hobbled towards her prisoner.

'Snooping again, Satthralope? Don't believe everything you see in mirrors.' To her annoyance, he showed no surprise at her appearance. 'What have you done? Why are you skulking down here in the dark? Burying my Cousins alive.'

110

 

Glospin moved forward angrily, but a sudden sweep of Satthralope's cane put pay to his advance. 'Plenty of time for that.'

'Back in favour again, Glospin?' teased the Doctor. 'At least Cousin Innocet has a sense of forethought. She got to the laws of Housepitality way ahead of you two old squintlocks . Result: you can't lay a demented finger on me. Not while I'm an honoured guest in the House.'

The Housekeeper buttoned her rage tightly. 'Those laws can be rebargained. In the meantime, you will observe such etiquettes as are expected of a tolerated guest.' She bowed her head with as little reverence as she could bear. 'So Doctor, since that is how you style yourself...'

'Since you saw fit to remove my nominal identity,' he observed, easing himself free of the Drudges.

'... so we welcome you to the House of Lungbarrow. Partake of its meagre facilities as we have endured them for the past six hundred and seventy-three years.'

'Time is absolute for those who stand outside it.' He glanced at a clock on his wrist. 'It's the relatives that are time-consuming.'

'You are still late.'

'Late? Yes, I could be late. But
still?
No, you must be muddling me up with someone else.' He rubbed some strands of web off his hand. 'It's a lie, you know. I never killed Quences.'

'What?' she said and turned to Glospin. 'What's he talking about now? Quences is waiting. The old fool's been waiting all this time for him.'

Glospin smiled and nodded. 'Yes, House-nana. That's right.'

'Haven't you shamed us enough, Doctor? You were summoned by the Kithriarch, but you never came.'

He shrugged. 'I never got the invitation.'

'So you say. But since you have come back to us at Otherstide, which I recall is also your name day, there will be a special supper in your honour to welcome you home at last.'

The Doctor bowed reverently. 'Talking of home, when was this place last pruned back?' He fished out a pair of scissors and waved them at the Drudge. 'You'll need more than just a pair of secateurs. There are branches extending rooms al over the place. And a nasty case of trunk bloat on the lower levels.'

Satthralope felt her temper run out. 'Show him to the library,' she instructed one of the servants. 'And leave him there til suppertime.'

'I don't want any supper,' he complained as the Drudge forcibly manoeuvred him out of the door.

***

'A doctor!' blustered Quences. His face was so red that Chris thought he might have a seizure. 'What do you mean, that's enough? Eh? How can a mere doctor be enough? By the megastar, any fool can be a doctor!

Where's your ambition and sense of familial duty, eh? How d'you think I've worked... we've worked to give you this opportunity? And you dare to throw it back in our faces!'

As Quences ranted, his head seemed to swell and shrink with each outburst. Chris soon lost the focus of the tirade and it became a hectoring drone.

Behind Quences, amid stacks of old-fashioned books and-new-fashioned datacores, was a glass vivarium.

Creatures were moving inside - elegant experimental creatures that Chris somehow remembered as accelerated genetic hybrids, half orchid, half axolotl. Their black and crimson speckled petal-heads waved in search of food as they clung to twigs with their spindly white lizard bodies.

111

 

Quences slowly turned away, clutching the furniture for support. 'I cannot understand it. I have nothing more to give. You'll break my hearts.'

Satthralope rapped her cane on the desk for attention.

'The wretch means that a Cardinalship is not good enough. He'l leech us dry, the ungrateful brat!'

'Not good enough for whom?' Chris heard himself laughing. 'I reach my majority next name day. Time I had lives of my own, don't you think? Hmm?'

'Only a doctor.' She was wallowing now. 'But that's hardly unexpected. No backbone, you see. So disappointing to the Family and the House. Wel , only the Ordinal-General can resolve the situation.' She glared at the old man.

'General?'

His hunched back was turned away. She leant in beside him, but her words were lost to Chris. Al he caught was

'You must ...' and 'How wil you have it end, eh!' and '...for the House's sake!'

He watched one of the creations in the vivarium. Its eye-stamens waved as it stalked and snatched a fly out of the air.

At length the old man stirred, his eyes burning with fierce tears.

'Is that your final word? No plea for clemency? No extenuation?' He paused and looked at Satthralope, so determinedly triumphant. His voice tremored. 'So be it. Apparently Lungbarrow will no longer tolerate your hurtful presence. It is an affront, sir. There's no more to be said. You will quit the House immediately and never cross its threshold again.'

***

Chris was suddenly at the end of a long cloister. At the far end stood a tall cupboard, a wardrobe, a transduction booth (how did he guess that?) with a flashing light on its roof.

Voices began to shout at him. 'Out! Out! Out!'

He could hear drums rol ing closer and closer. He began to run through the cloister, but strands of clinging web blew across his path. Out of the side arches lurched the brutish furniture. Clawed feet lashed at him. Drawers and doors snapped at him.

'Out! Out! Out!'

The drums were pounding in his ears. Web was tangling him, choking him. He could not reach the escape route. A well gaped in front of him like a mouth.

He fell into the dark.

112

 

Chapter Nineteen

Doctor on Call

Chris choked at the stench under his nose.

'I'm sorry I ever ran away!' he gasped and clutched Innocet's arm. His head swam and finally settled. He was sitting on the floor, his back propped against a wall under the portrait.

Innocet showed him a little green bottle. 'Attar of asafoetida,' she said. 'Most effective.' Her brown bonnet and the huge, coiled mound of hair under her cloak reminded him of Terrapin-Maiden in the
FreakWarrior
Vidmags he'd watched as a kid.

'I wouldn't argue with that,' he said. His head was suddenly crystal clear, but so were the grumbles and creaks of the restless House. 'I wish this place would shut up.'

'Your arrival was enough to set off al the bad echoes in the place.'

Chris closed his eyes and breathed deeply. 'What sort of echoes?'

'Old thoughts, bad memories.'

'Dreams?'

'That's one word for them,' she said firmly. 'Some echoes bang around inside the walls for ever. They get magnified and exaggerated.'

'Maybe.' Chris studied the floor. 'I've had a lot of bad dreams lately. But it's got worse here. I don't even have to be asleep. They don't even feel like
my
dreams. I've tried talking to the Doctor, but he's either too preoccupied or he doesn't want to know.'

'It's odd,' she agreed. 'If anyone was a target for the echoes here, I would have said it was him.'

And they're
his
dreams, thought Chris. I know they are. 'How does he do it? How does he carry on regardless?'

'He always has done,' she said.

He hauled himself unsteadily to his feet and looked again at the Family portrait. 'The old guy here. Was that real y the Doctor?'

She nodded. 'In his first life, yes. Housekeeper Satthralope forbade his name in the House when he was disinherited.'

'Goddess, that was cruel,' said Chris.

'He was more than able to fight back. That's why they hated him so much.' Innocet ran a finger along the base of the picture frame, studied the dust for a moment and dabbed it into her mouth. 'Where did you meet him?'

Chris blethered. 'Oh, a long way ago. A long time from here.' Hell, he thought. Past or future? What do I tell his own Family? 'He's a good friend,' he said and scanned the ancient room with its worn and oversized furniture.

'How old is this House?'

She seemed surprised. 'As old as any. Don't you come from one of the Houses?'

There was that piercing look again as if she was trying to read the pages of his mind, but had the book upside down. 'Um ... not a home like this,' he said, awkwardly breaking her stare.

113

 

She walked into the centre of the room. 'There's so much we will have to learn when we get out. They say the Houses are the oldest living things in the world. The first ones were grown during the Intuitive Revelation. They certainly feel as if they've been here forever.'

'I don't believe he killed Quences,' Chris affirmed. 'Or Arkhew for that matter.'

She nodded her eyes towards a mirror at the far end of the room. 'My goodness!' She affected a laugh. 'What a lot Quences will have to talk about when he wakes up!'

Chris turned his back to the mirror and muttered, 'Who are you hiding this from? You can't hide it forever.'

'We could until now.' Her voice had darkened again. 'I can't vouch for the Doctor's safety. Not even from myself.

Not if he interferes.'

'It's a bit late for that.'

She pulled in close to him. 'Have you been with him ever since you arrived?'

'Yes,' he said emphatically.

Damn, he thought. He left me on my own twice. Once in the attic and once in the funguretum. Either time he could have met Arkhew and…. Damn, damn, damn!

'Listen, listen,' muttered Satthralope.

Glospin watched the old woman as she rocked slowly in her chair. 'You didn't say anything about Arkhew,' he said.

'It can wait.' She was turning the keys on their giant ring. One after another in a slow, steady rhythm.

They clicked on the wooden ring on her finger. 'Listen. Are you listening? You've been asleep.'

'What are you doing?' he said, although he already knew.

'
It
must be told,' she crooned. She was staring straight into the mirror. Rocking.

'Not yet.' He moved angrily towards her, but the Drudge blocked his path. 'No, not yet. Don't wake the House.'

She clinked another key round. Her voice was gentle, almost caressing. 'You must stay, Glospin. I'll need you. It may not listen.'

He turned to the Drudge. 'You stay. I'm not involved.'

As he ran for the door, he heard another key clink round.

The walls shuddered.

'I heard you were back, Wormhole,' said Rynde.

He had waylaid the Doctor on a gallery above the Hal . The attendant Drudge reached for the Doctor's arm.

'I'm a guest,' the Doctor said. 'I'll talk to whom I like.'

'You won't like me,' Rynde said. 'But then you never did.' He walked slowly round the Doctor, admiring the little man's extraordinarily clean apparel. He tugged at the decorated scarf.

'That's mine, thank you.' The Doctor slapped his hand away.

'What else have you brought?'

114

 

'Nothing for the likes of you!' The Doctor shot a glance up at the Drudge. 'Oh, dear. You've all been put to a lot of inconvenience and you've had a lot of time to ruminate on the injustice. I'm. . . sorry.'

Rynde grabbed him by the col ar. 'You will be.'

'I'm sorry I didn't come earlier, um ... Cousin Rynde, isn't it? I had plans.'