Doctor Who: The Masque of the Mandragora (4 page)

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and considered his next move. The pikeman’s talk about the worshippers of Demnos had aroused his curiosity. They sounded very much like the hooded brothers who had kidnapped Sarah. If he had stumbled upon an entrance to their meeting place then he might well be able to find her. He set off cautiously down the narrow stone steps and into the thickening gloom of the catacombs.

He had not gone very far when a sixth sense alerted him to danger. A few feet ahead lay an intersection with another passage and down it he could hear footsteps approaching. He pressed himself back into a niche in the rock-wall.

The footsteps grew nearer and finally a figure in long purple robes appeared out of the darkness. It stopped at the junction of the two passageways and, facing the blank wall, stretched out its arms and pressed the stonework. From where he was hiding the Doctor could only glimpse the outline of the figure but he felt sure it was wearing a head-mask of some kind. There was a rumble and where the figure had pushed the rock-face a section of it now slid aside. The figure stepped through and the entrance closed behind him.

The Doctor waited several moments then emerged from his niche and approached the rock-face. Carefully he explored the blank wall with the tips of his fingers until he discovered a small indentation. He pressed, the same rumbling noise occurred, and the wall slid aside to reveal a further passage beyond. The Doctor tiptoed through and the secret door swung to behind him.

In a quiet ante-room in the palace Giuliano was examining the body of the sentry killed outside the city gates. A guardsman looked on, fearful and wide-eyed.

‘No it is not a fire demon.’ said the Prince reassuringly, ‘such things are pure superstition.’

‘Then what is it, sire?’

‘His skin is such a strange colour. I’ve not seen a corpse like this before.’ He frowned, genuinely puzzled, then covered the body with a sheet. ‘Poor man.’

‘We thought...’ mentioned the guardsman, ‘... with your interest in the new learning...’

The Prince put up his hand. ‘You did well to bring him to me. But the new learning does not always have answers. It means only that we must throw away old beliefs like witchcraft, sorcery and demons and trust our own intelligence.’

‘I still think it could be a fine demon, sire. I once heard of a case in Florence...’

The Prince smiled at him. ‘All right. You may return to your duties.’

The guard bowed low and left the room. A moment later Marco entered.

‘No further news, my lord.’ He stopped as he caught sight of the body on the couch.

‘He was found at the city gate, Marco.’

He lead his companion to the couch and pulled back the sheet. ‘What do you make of it. old friend?’

Marco winced at the sight and he looked questioningly at his young master.

Robed in white and looking deathly pale Sarah lay unconscious on the sacrificial altar. Around her a hundred hooded figures whirled like dervishes in a mounting frenzy of religious fervour. As they danced around their victim their grotesque masks seemed to come alive in the flickering torchlight, like ghouls awakened from the dead.

The ritual continued for several minutes. Then the brothers dropped to the floor and knelt towards the altar. The High Priest appeared at one end of the chamber and made his way slowly to the head of the altar. Grasping the sacrificial blade which lay on the cushion by Sarah’s head he turned and displayed it to the kneeling throng. A response of feverish excitement rang around the chamber. A second figure cloaked in purple robes and wearing a mask carved from pure gold emerged from a small hidden entrance near the altar. With its leering mouth and cruel, deep-set eyes, the masked visage seemed the embodiment of evil.

The figure approached the altar and took up a position on the highest step. The High Priest bowed to him and began to chant.

‘Let the sacrifice be swift and certain lest the great god Demnos be displeased!’

‘So shall it be,’ replied the masked figure and taking hold of the sacrificial knife he raised it point downward over Sarah’s defenceless form. The chanting of the High Priest and the responses of the brothers rose to a pitch of hysteria, echoing round the vast chamber in a cacophony of sound.

The Doctor paused. He had reached a dimly lit passage not far from the main chamber. The eerie chanting sound which he had heard for several minutes now began to ring more loudly in his ears. He hurried on, drawn by the mesmeric incantation. Intuition, sixth sense, that telepathic power which Time Lords possess told him Sarah was ahead and in danger. He rounded one more bend in the tunnel and there in front was the chamber and the source of the sound he had been following. For a second he was stunned by the sheer numbers of black hooded figures covering the floor of the cavern. But that shock was superseded by an even greater one as he spied Sarah on the altar, the sacrificial knife poised ready to plunge into her heart.

Both the High Priest and the masked figure were gazing upwards to the roof of the cavern incanting the final phrases of their votive offering. In the instant’s delay, the Doctor leapt through the kneeling bodies and gained the altar steps. As the voice of the masked figure reached a climax and the knife began its rapid descent, the Doctor swept Sarah up in his arms and lifted her bodily from the path of the flashing blade. It dug into the stone surface with a steely clang almost throwing the masked figure off balance. It took a few moments for him to realise what had happened but then he let out a scream of rage and pointed to the fleeing form of the Doctor.

‘Seize him!’

The High Priest ran down the altar steps followed by three brothers. The remainder were still too confused to take in the situation.

The Doctor struggled with Sarah towards the passage which led from the chamber.

The pursuing brothers were almost on him when something so remarkable occurred it halted them dead in their tracks. The entire chamber had begun to glow with an ethereal light and the sound of a great rushing wind reverberated around the cavernous walls. The brothers, including the Doctor’s pursuers, turned to face the altar where the masked figure in purple now stood rooted to the spot, arms upraised in a supplicating gesture.

‘Brothers, look!’ he cried, ‘our prayers are answered... our temple is restored.’

As the Doctor watched, the broken rocky masses which formed the chamber walls began to shimmer and pulsate and the ghostly outline of a beautiful, pillared temple complete in every detail filled the chamber. Then the Doctor heard a familiar whining noise and the glowing red sphere of Mandragora Energy descended through the roof of the cavern, and engulfed the altar in a dazzling blaze of light.

‘What is it? What’s happening?’ whispered a tiny weak voice in the Doctor’s ear. He turned to see Sarah, her eyes half open in an effort to regain consciousness. Thankful to be able to release her weight from his arms he lowered her carefully to the ground.

‘It seems our own little bit of the Mandragora Helix has finally got here, Sarah.’

As he spoke the light around the altar faded. It was as if the stone slab had somehow absorbed the Energy.

‘Time to leave,’ whispered the Doctor. Taking Sarah’s arm he led her on tiptoe out of the chamber.

Behind them the attention of the assembled brethren was still diverted as they gazed with awe upon their restored temple. Plucking up courage the High Priest approached the altar and bowed reverentially.

‘It is a dream of two thousand years come true! How is it possible?’

‘Faith, brother,’ responded the masked figure, ‘Faith! ‘

Then the High Priest let out a cry. ‘Look!’

As they stared at the altar a column of radiant light appeared at one end. It was about three feet in diameter and seemed to shine straight down through the roof of the chamber.

‘Stand back! ‘ commanded the masked figure. The Priest and surrounding brethren fell away from the altar as they were bid and the masked figure slowly climbed the altar steps.

The light looked immensely dangerous, like a current of high-voltage power. The masked figure reached the top of the steps, hesitated a moment, then stepped into the pillar of light! He was instantly illuminated in a blinding supernatural glow. His purple robes glittered and shimmered, and from the eye-slits in his mask flashed an incandescent light. The figure seemed to suffer no pain; rather he was held by the radiant column in an ecstasy of paralysis.

After a few seconds a distant booming voice, unearthly in tone and cadence, reverberated around the chamber. It emanated from the column of light itself.

‘You have been chosen for powers undreamt of,’ it said. ‘Through us you will become supreme ruler of Earth. Do you understand us?’

The masked figure nodded and replied, ‘I understand.’

‘Only you must stand in this spot,’ the voice continued. ‘Any other mortal who dares stand where you stand now will he destroyed. You and you alone will carry out our will on Earth.’

There was a pause. ‘What must I do?’ whispered the masked figure obediently.

‘There is one being apart from you who knows of our purposes. He is called the Doctor. He must be found and eliminated!’

‘How? How must I do this?’

This time there was no reply. The light faded abruptly, and the ghostly outline of the temple disappeared leaving only the bare stone altar in the ruinous cavern as before.

The masked figure, no longer illuminated, turned to address the astonished brethren.

‘The service is concluded,’ he announced. ‘Go. But remember—no word of this to a living soul.’

Dazed and mute with wonder the brothers began to disperse.

With no further word the masked figure also left the chamber. He hurried along a narrow passage which led finally through a secret door into a small vestibule. Once there, he began to disrobe. As the long purple vestments fell to the ground the figure turned to face a mirror on the wall. Raising both hands he carefully removed the golden mask.

Revealed beneath it were the sinister grinning features of Hieronymous. the court astrologer! He stared at his own image in the mirror for several long moments. Finally he spoke.

‘Power undreamt of! Supreme ruler of the universe!’

His eyes blazed with hypnotic fascination, as if his entire being had succumbed to that overwhelming and irresistible idea.

The Doctor guided Sarah hurriedly though a maze of underground passages. She was still suffering from the effects of the drug and every so often, stumbled and fell.

After ten minutes or so a pale light filtered into the passage ahead and the close, fetid atmosphere gave way to softer, fresher air. The Doctor settled Sarah into an alcove and went to explore. He had hoped to retrace his steps back to the secret door but the warren of catacombs had defeated him. However, it seemed they had come upon an entrance which led out into the palace gardens at another point. As he peered into the gloom he could make out groups of soldiers still searching by torchlight. He nipped back to Sarah.

‘We’ll have to wait here for a while.’ He gave her a cheerful smile.

Sarah grinned back. ‘Anything’s better than being sacrificed to the great god Demnos.’

‘Demnos?’ The Doctor muttered the name. Ever since he had heard it on the lips of the pikemen it had rankled at the back of his mind.

‘Have you heard of him?’ asked Sarah.

The Doctor nodded. It had come in a flash of memory. ‘A particularly nasty Roman cult, which was supposed to have died out in the third century.’

‘So why are they still around in the fifteenth century?’ Sarah’s voice echoed in the darkness. ‘And what have they got to do with the Mandragora Helix?’

‘Put it the other way, Sarah. What has the Mandragora Helix to do with them? What we saw back there was a sub-thermal recombination of ionised plasma.’

There was a slight pause. ‘Simple,’ said Sarah. ‘I should have thought of that.’

‘The question is,’ continued the Doctor, ‘why a remote, obscure little planet like Earth... what is their intention?’... He tailed off ruminating on the problem.

‘Conquest? Invasion? They want to take over Earth and fill it full of old Roman temples.’

The Doctor laughed. ‘The Intelligences that inhabit the Helix don’t have a physical existence in the way that you or I would understand it. They don’t need Earth.’

The Doctor was about to speculate further when he received a nudge in the ribs from Sarah’s elbow. ‘Come in Number Seven your time is up.’

‘What?’

Sarah nodded towards the darkness behind him. The Doctor whirled round. Four large shapes were advancing towards them in the gloom, their long pikes glinting in the reflected moonlight from the entrance. They surrounded the Doctor and Sarah and motioned the pair to their feet. Resistance was futile. They both obeyed and allowed themselves to be prodded out of the tunnel and into the palace gardens.

‘Just when the conversation was getting interesting too,’ sighed the Doctor loudly and gave a wink of encouragement to Sarah.

The Doctor and Sarah were led hurriedly through the gardens and into the palace itself. Once inside, their captors marched them silently along dimly lit corridors, and finally bundled them into a small wood-panelled chamber. A handsome young man with dark-brown hair and wearing fine garments rose from a table as they were thrust in. The Doctor recognised him immediately as the stranger who had observed his interrogation by Hieronymous.

The young man nodded curtly to the guards who released their hold on the prisoners and left the room.

‘Whatever happened to that old-time Italian courtesy?’ complained Sarah rubbing her sore wrists.

‘I apologise if you were roughly handled,’ said the young man. ‘Speed was essential. My uncle has men searching for you everywhere.’

The Doctor looked surprised. ‘Your uncle?’