Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker

'Doctor, you've vanished.'

Dodo and Steven stared with disbelief
at the hexagonal control board of the TARDIS. A moment before, the
Doctor had been standing there; now he seemed to have vanished into
thin air.

'What? What nonsense! Nonsense, child.'
The familiar, slightly crusty voice of the first Doctor echoed round
the room. The Doctor's young companions smiled with relief.

'Thank goodness you're still there,'
said Dodo.

'But is he?' Steven interjected. 'I
can't see him.' Steven moved forward and waved his hand where the
Doctor's voice had been coming from. It met with no obstacle. 'You
seem to have dematerialised,' Steven continued.

'Extraordinary!' cried the Doctor's
voice. 'One could say I only exist through the sound of my voice.'

'Do you think this is something to do
with the Refusians?' queried Dodo anxiously, referring to the race of
invisible aliens they had encountered on their previous journey.

'It must be,' Steven replied tersely.

'No!' came the Doctor's voice, 'You're
wrong. This is something else much more serious. We are in grave danger. This must be some form of
attack.'

Dodo and Steven looked anxiously at
each other. 'But,' said Steven, 'we're still inside the TARDIS.
Surely nothing can harm us inside here?'

'Evidently there is some great power
that can penetrate beyond our safety barrier,' replied the Doctor's
voice.

If the Doctor and his companions had
been able to look outside (the scanner was not on) they would have
been able to see that the TARDIS was standing in the middle of a
large octagonal room, not unlike the interior of the TARDIS itself.
From each angle, lines stretched to the centre of the room. The
TARDIS was standing at the exact point where the lines intersected.

The room was painted white but seemed
to have some sort of inner lumination, a kind of luminosity that
radiated a soft incandescent glow. The only furniture visible was a
simple short wooden bench facing one of the walls and, against the
wall immediately behind the TARDIS, a wooden cupboard of a plain
antique design. No-one was inside the room.

Inside the TARDIS, Steven and Dodo were
still standing looking towards where they assumed the invisible
Doctor to be.

'Don't just stand there.' The Doctor
was now behind them. They both jumped and turned to the new location
of the Doctor's voice. 'Tcha, tcha.' The others could almost see the
Doctor's hand slapping the lapel of his coat, as he did when he was
irritated by something. 'Come and turn on the scanner.'

'But Doctor, don't you think -' Dodo
began.

'Don't ask questions,' said the Doctor.
'We may not have time. Turn on the scanner now.'

Steven ran over to the control console
and flicked on the scanner, then quickly looked up at it. The screen
was completely blank.

'It doesn't show anything,' said
Steven. 'It's not working.'

'Yes it is,' said the Doctor. 'When it
isn't working the screen is distorted, now it's perfectly clear. This
is obviously part of the same trick that brought us here.'

Dodo turned to the Doctor. 'What are we
to do then, Doctor?' she asked. 'Let's take off at once.'

'That might be worse.' The Doctor's
voice was moving across the room. 'Besides, I'm not only invisible,
I'm also intangible, which means I can't pull the switches on the
TARDIS.'

Steven stepped forward looking vainly
around for the new location of the Doctor. 'I'll do that, Doctor, if
you'll tell me what to do.'

'But Steven,' replied Dodo, 'if the
Doctor is dematerialised and we take off now, he might never again
regain his physical form.'

'You're quite right, Dodo. Whatever it
is, we have to face it. Open the doors.'

Steven shook his head anxiously, 'But
Doctor!'

The Doctor's voice came across
imperiously, with that peculiar ring he used when he had decided upon
a line of action. 'Open the doors!'

Steven turned back to the control
console, put his hand forward and touched a control. The others heard
the slight whir as the mechanism operated and the door opened.

'Now, you wait for me here,' the
Doctor's voice came to them as though moving across the room.

Steven and Dodo glanced at each other.
Dodo shook her head, 'I really think we should go with him.'

'You heard what he said,' said Steven.
'And besides, how could we ever follow him?'

'I don't understand,' said Dodo. 'If
the Doctor's intangible then why does he need to open the doors? He
could have just as easily walked through them.'

Steven walked over to the door and
glanced out. 'Habit, I suppose,' he said over his shoulder. Then he
turned back to Dodo. 'It looks quite safe out there; I think we
should inspect.'

Dodo shook her head firmly. 'You won't
get me out there.'

Inside his ornate study, the Celestial
Toymaker, the being who had captured the TARDIS and its inhabitants,
was surveying his extraordinary kingdom. The Toymaker's study
appeared at first like a room. Then, as you became accustomed to its
dimensions, you realised that instead of a roof there was a black
immensity of outer space and the twinkling stars of the galaxies. The
walls stretched up towards the blackness until they became
indistinguishable from space and merged with it.

Hanging on the walls was every
conceivable type of toy, 'mechanical toys, electronic toys, dolls,
teddy bears, puppets, marionettes and masks, some friendly and
smiling, glittering with a malevolent presence of their own.
Scattered around the floor of the panelled, eighteenth-century room
were a series of antique tables,' upon each of them stood a doll's house
or marionette theatre. Some tables held various types of games,
ranging from pinball machines to chess, to obscure board games dating
back over the centuries, many of which had long since been forgotten
in the mists of time.

The Toymaker was lounging in a black
Chinese chair behind a laquered Chinese desk inlaid with
mother-of-pearl and scenes of Chinese life, after the style of the
Willow pattern.

Further around the room there was a
collection of mechanical clocks: some with figurines which came out
and struck the hour with huge gongs; some, like the ancient town
clocks of medieval Germany with a series of figures led by Father
Time with his scythe that paraded when the hour was struck. The
whirring clicking mechanisms, the occasional cuckoo from the cuckoo
clocks and the loud ticking from the grandfather clocks produced an
almost symphonic medley of sound.

Incongruously, the antique desk
possessed a series of switches and buttons glowing softly with a
carefully coded system of vari-coloured lights. In front of the desk
stood a triangular table with the letters A,B and C inlaid in each
corner. On two sides of the table, there were two chairs.

The Toymaker stood up, a tall imposing
figure, dressed as a Chinese mandarin with a circular black hat
embossed with heavy gold thread, a large silver red and blue collar
and a heavy, stiffly embroidered black robe encrusted with rubies,
emeralds, diamonds and pearls set against a background of coiled
Chinese dragons.

With a wave of his hand the Toymaker
stopped the cacophony of ticking, clicking machines. He looked around
the room with his deep-set glittering eyes. 'Let's see now,' he said,
'I think it's time to play a few games.' The Toymaker smoothly walked
over to the first doll's house, a large Victorian one, each room of
which was furnished in meticulous detail with tiny furniture,
carpets, chandeliers and curtains. Inside sat a collection of small
Victorian dolls dressed in the stiff formal clothes of the period.

The Toymaker's long slender fingers
flickered over them for a moment while he considered, then he passed
on to the first of the toy theatres. He bent forward and pulled a
thin cord at the side, opening the large embroidered curtains. Inside
there was a circus ring with bleachers rising up from the circular
floor, each with a tiny figure smiling at the antics of the two
clowns.

'Yes,' said the Toymaker, 'I think you
two will serve my purpose admirably. You are very good at games:
clowns always are. You can shrow Steven and Dodo a few of your tricks
into the bargain.'

The Toymaker reached in and drew out
the two clown dolls, one in each hand. One was a girl doll dressed in
a baggy harlequin, one-piece costume with a diamond pattern, a thick
neck ruff and silk stockings. Her face was stretched in a wide and
inviting smile. Her nose was tipped with scarlet, her eyes wide open
as if in wonderment at the world; her hair swept up in the clown's
traditional three peaks ending in curled points.

By contrast, the male clown was a
sad-looking fellow. Unlike his companion, all the lines in his face
turned downward ... from his long lugubrious mouth to his red-rimmed,
sad clown's eyes. He was dressed in a clown's costume, a white baggy
suit and ruffles edged with blue on his wrists and neck. On
his head he had a cone-shaped clown hat with a blue band.

The Toymaker carefully put the two
clowns down onto the floor and raised his left hand. On his middle
finger, a large sapphire ring began to flash as he pointed his hand
towards the two clowns. Concentric rings of blue fire appeared -
flashing down and surrounding the dolls who immediately began to
grow, larger and larger; until confronting the Toymaker, were two
life size clowns. Each made him a comic bow.

The Toymaker smiled at his creations.
'Yes,' he said, 'I think you'll do.'

Meanwhile, Steven and Dodo were having
a fierce argument. 'I don't know why you always have to be so
obstinate,' said Dodo stamping her feet impatiently. 'The Doctor
asked us to wait here.'

'But he hasn't returned,' replied
Steven hotly. 'I'm going out there to look for him.'

Steven stepped outside the shelter of
the TARDIS into the room and called, 'Doctor, Doctor.' Timidly, Dodo
stepped out beside him.

'What is it?' The Doctor's voice was
loud. They jumped and turned. There he was, visible and his old self
again.

'I can see you,' said Steven.

'Everything must be all right then,'
chimed in Dodo.

The Doctor looked down at his hands.
'Ah, you can see me.'

'It doesn't seem too bad here,' said
Dodo looking around the room.

'It's a strange-looking place,' agreed
Steven. 'Have you ever seen it before?'

'I'm not sure,' the Doctor shook his
head. 'There is something about it that is very familiar.'

Dodo completed her inspection of the
room with its bare white walls and two articles of furniture. 'It
looks dead boring to me. Come on.' She turned back to the TARDIS.

'Wait, child,' said the Doctor,
reaching out for Dodo's arm.

'Why?' said Dodo with the obstinacy of
someone with her mind made up.

'Well, I don't think that it was the
Refusian influence which made me intangible.' The Doctor clutched his
lapels and threw his head back in a familiar gesture. 'No, there is
something here that I feel is important to me - to us. I don't like
the feel of the place any more than you, but I think someone, or
something, willed us to come here and we must face whatever happens.'

Steven, meanwhile, was gazing with
fixed intensity at the wall. 'Look there,' said Steven. 'It's me!'

Dodo peered over at the wall following
Steven's gaze. She saw nothing: the wall was white and blank. 'I
don't see anything there,' she said.

'But you must,' said Steven, 'Look!' As
Steven watched he saw himself clad in Elizabethan type clothes, with
a slashed doublet, thigh length boots and carrying a long rapier in
his hand. 'It's me,' he said, 'Look, Doctor,' he called. 'We're back
in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew in Paris.'

The Doctor who had been examining the
cupboard in the corner turned around and glanced over. Like Dodo, he only saw a blank wall in front of
Steven and realised instantly what it was. 'Don't look at it, Steven!
Now I know where we are.'

But his advice fell on deaf ears. 'It's
changed, Doctor. We're on the Space Ark, remember? Look there - the
Monoids.' As Steven watched he saw a screen filled with the monsters
he had battled on the Space Ark carrying the survivors of a destroyed
Earth to a new planet. The Monoids were hideous shaggy beings with
one eye in the middle of their heads.

The Doctor became more insistent,
marched over and pulled Steven away from the wall. 'Turn away this
instant!' he said. 'I told you I know where we are. We are in the
world of the Celestial Toymaker and this screen is hypnotic. He is
trying to dominate your mind. Don't look whatever you do.'