The King's Dragon (10 page)

The Doctor turned on
the Regulator in cold rage. It looked back at him impassively. 'This is a pre-industrial world inhabited by a people known throughout the universe for their
pacifism,'
the Doctor spat, 'and you've sent gunships to deal with them! Is that what you call reasonable force?'

With a cry, the Teller turned and ran back into the cover of the dark arcade. The Doctor nodded to Amy to go after him. 'Over to you, Pond.'

Amy saluted him. 'On the case, Doc.'

'Find out what's happening outside,' the Doctor instructed her. 'Keep close to our friend the spin-doctor. He'll be looking for Beol. I want to know what they say to each other. I want to know who
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they are and where they found this dragon. And I want you never to call me "Doc" again.'

Amy saluted once more and went in pursuit of the Teller. She almost caught up with him as he hurried through the council complex, half-running, half-stumbling as he tried to get outside as quickly as possible. She had to hold back, using the curves of the corridors to conceal her from his sight.

Eventually he led her to a pair of big wooden doors which he threw open, and tumbled out into the big plaza in which the council building stood.

Amy went as far as the doorway and hung back in the shadows. She watched as the Teller looked upwards. His hand covered his mouth. The sky was growing steadily brighter.

The plaza was filled with people. Amy slipped through the door and made her way through the crowd, trying to keep close to the Teller while using the others to shield her from his view. It helped that he wasn't looking round. Nobody was looking round. Everyone was looking up. Someone cried out, and the cry was picked up, soon everyone was shouting:
What is it? Who are they? What does this
mean?

High in the night sky above Geath were two spaceships. Golden spaceships, each winged and with a long tail, made from a metal that looked
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THE KING’S DRAGON

both supple and resilient. They were the image of the dragon that lay slumbering back in the hall.

They passed overhead with a scream of engines that sent many people in the plaza diving to the ground.

Amy looked at the faces around her, ordinary men and women, but with absolutely no frame of reference for what they were seeing now. What must this all look like to them? The sound of the engines grew fainter as the ships headed downriver, but the danger had not passed. They must have turned, because the noise grew steadily louder again.

While the people gathered here might not entirely understand what they were seeing, they knew enough to be able to tell that the enemy had not left them. They shouted as they struggled with each other to get to the alcoves, the cellars, the places of shelter.

'What are they? Where have they come from?'

'It's Dant! Who else can it be? The beast in the hall

— these creatures look just like it! They've come to claim it back! They're going to kill us!' That, and the steady approach of the dragon-ships, sent the crowd into panic.

'Be quiet!' shouted the Teller. 'Calm down!' His voice rang out above the noise. He could still speak with authority and persuasiveness. People stopped panicking to listen to him. He pointed upwards.

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'Dant? How can it be Dant? How could the people of Dant
possibly
have anything like that?'

'Who is it, then? We took the dragon from them! It has to be them! Who else would do this?'

The Teller opened his mouth to reply. 'Now, this should be worth hearing,' Amy muttered. But whatever he was about to say was sucked up in the scream of the engines. The dragon-ships were now directly overhead. Then they opened fire.

In the council chamber, the Regulator had turned the concave space of the dome into a huge screen, onto which it was projecting images of the events happening outside. The Doctor, Rory and Hilthe watched in horror as the two dragon-ships made their first pass over Geath.

'Doctor,' Hilthe said, 'what are these creatures?'

She had moderated her tone considerably, presumably having realised that making demands was not the best way to extract answers from this stranger. She got her reward.

'They're not creatures,' the Doctor explained.

'They're ships — vessels that can fly in the air.

This is a demonstration of power. The Regulators are trying to show how powerful they are in comparison to your people.' He turned angrily to the Regulator. 'That's right, isn't it? You want to scare them into handing over all the Enamour.'

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THE KING’S DRAGON

The Regulator bent its head, as if acknowledging that what the Doctor said was true.

The Doctor stood, hands clenched by his side, and watched helplessly as events unfolded on the dome overhead. The gunships flew over once again.

When they reached the far side of the city, they opened fire, sending a barrage of shots down the valley, over the buildings, across the river. The ships banked, turned, and flew past for a third time.

Then they fired another volley of purple flame over Geath in the direction of the hills. Some trees caught fire. The picture cut to the streets, where people were running for cover.

'My poor city,' Hilthe whispered.

The Regulator panned around Geath, showing a city in turmoil and distress. Then it spoke again.

'Nobody has been harmed. Yet. This is a warning. All substances covered by the Act must be handed over within ten standard time units.' As it spoke it shrank and, as soon as it reached his height, it addressed the Doctor directly. 'We shall be monitoring your progress.' Then it disappeared.

The council chamber was dim and quiet and the dome was dark. The ships were gone, but outside there was the clamour of chaos and confusion.

One by one the lamps around the chamber leapt alight.

'How much time exactly is ten standard time
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units?' asked Hilthe in an uncertain voice.

The Doctor didn't answer. He thumped his palm hard against the dragon. 'Bureaucrats!' he spat. 'Is there anything in the universe I detest more than bureaucrats? You can travel from the Dawn of Time to the very end of existence, and there they are

- the cockroaches of eternity! Bureaucrats! With their rules and their protocols and their procedures and their unshakeable belief in their own right to enforce all that mumbo-jumbo! And their superior firepower to back up their threats! Well, I've had enough! I'm sick of it!' He stood in the centre of the hall and shouted up at the darkened dome. 'Do you hear me? Sick of it! You want all the Enamour? I should hand it over to the Herald right now!'

'That,'
said Rory in exasperation, 'is what I've been saying for ages. Why does nobody listen to me?'

As they argued, Hilthe finally lost her temper.

'Quiet! Now!' They stopped. 'I am
not
a stupid old woman, but this is simply too much. Too much to digest, all at once, and who can think while you shout at one another? Either one of you tells me right now what is happening here, or I send for the watch and have you both slung into the stocks.
What
is happening?'

The Doctor swung round and stared at her in alarm.

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THE KING’S DRAGON

Rory said, 'Go on then!'

The Doctor pulled a face. 'Not me! She's scary!

Anyway, she's your friend.'

'What?' Rory said incredulously. 'This whole thing is your fault!'

'How did you work that one out?'

'You're
the one with the time machine!
I
was on my stag night!'

'Ah. Fair point.' The Doctor turned to Hilthe and clapped his hands together. 'Right. Are you sitting comfortably?'

She glared. 'Doctor, my city is being destroyed. Do not be glib.'

'Destroyed? Hmmm.' His forehead wrinkled.

'No. No. You're right. I'll try to explain...'

The sky above Geath became quieter and darker until, at last, only the moon glimmered above. The dragon-ships were gone, for the moment at least.

Amy checked herself for damage, found none, and then stood up. She reached down to help a young woman get back to her feet - 'OK? Nothing hurt? OK then!' - and then she looked round for the Teller.

He, along with everyone else, had dived for cover when the dragon-ships opened fire. Now he was kneeling on the ground, his arms wrapped round himself, still staring up at the sky.

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'I
think they've gone for now,' Amy called out, to reassure people, trusting that the Teller wouldn't recognise her voice. 'Check the person next to you.

Make sure they're all right.'

As it turned out, she didn't need to issue instructions; the people around her were already looking after each other. A glimpse of the old Geath, she thought, before this horrible stuff smothered its best instincts.

Nobody went near the Teller. Eventually he struggled back to his feet of his own accord.

Someone shouted at him, 'This is your doing!'

The Teller looked up in alarm. Three or four men were moving towards him. 'What have I done?'

'You're the one who brought that dragon here!'

one of the men said. 'That's what they want, isn't it?

You saw those flying beasts - just like that dragon.

You stole it from Dant! They've come to collect it, and they'll take their revenge at the same time!'

'That's right!' another said. 'And what can we do? How can we protect ourselves? Our families?' He gestured round angrily. 'Look at it all! This is what you've brought upon Geath!'

It was about to turn ugly. Amy abandoned her cover and ran forward.

'Leave him be! We've got enough problems without fighting each other!'

Several of the people around her shouted out
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their
agreement. Three
of the men who had been threatening the Teller were pulled away by friends or family; the last one stood for a while, glaring, then shook his head, spat on the ground, and turned away.

The Teller stared at Amy, surprised to see her so near.
'Thank you,'
he mouthed. He looked back up at the sky, shaking his head, as if trying to convince himself that what he had seen had been nothing more than a dream or a nightmare. But it hadn't. It had been real.

'You wanted them to believe they had enemies over the next hill,' Amy said to herself. 'Bet it doesn't seem such a great idea now, does it?'

All of a sudden, the Teller swung round and went off at a great pace across the plaza. Amy continued to walk slowly around the crowd, checking on those who were still weeping, or seemed alone. Quietly, she worked her way amongst the distressed, hoping that the people and the emotion and the darkness would be enough to keep her out of the Teller's sight. He crossed the plaza and ran up some steps. Amy lingered behind a pillar at the bottom, helping a child back to his feet, rubbing his knee where he had grazed it when he had been knocked over, and shooing him back to his mother.

At the top of the high stone staircase, the Teller
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paused and looked back down the hill across Geath. Surveying the aftermath, Amy thought. She turned to look back and see what he was seeing.

Even without the view that the Teller must have from his higher vantage point, it was obvious that the city was in uproar. But - and this was odd -

she couldn't see any actual damage. No burning houses, or tumbled stone, just shocked, terrified people. Some stumbling, some sobbing, and some angry.

A band of citizens was gathering in front of the main doors of the council chamber. A handful of Beol's knights stood uneasily between them and the entrance. A chant went up, like the one Amy had heard only a few hours earlier:
Beol. Beol. Beol.
It didn't sound anywhere near as enthusiastic as before. Again, Amy almost felt sorry for the Teller, at how quickly his rule through Beol was falling apart

- but he did have nobody but himself to blame.

Lost in this vision of chaos and terror, it was almost too late when she heard footsteps running back down the steps. Amy pressed back into the shadows and the Teller hurried past. He had raised his hood to cover his face. Anonymous, he slipped back inside the council chamber, using a side entrance. Amy followed, keeping to the darkness.

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'Let me see,' said Hilthe, 'if I understand what you have been telling me. Against my instincts and my beliefs, against all that I know and perceive and understand, you tell me that creatures that are not of my world were the makers of this metal. These strange artists fashioned it into the shape of this beast and later abandoned it here, deep in our soil. All this happened long ago, long before my own people began to live here.' She paused for a moment, closing her eyes very briefly. 'I shall leave aside for the moment the many questions I have concerning the origins of my people.'

The Doctor and Rory exchanged a look of relief. Getting Hilthe to believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life was one thing. Asking her to get to grips with evolution at the same time was probably a bit much for one evening.

'The makers of the beast abandoned it during the course of a war,' Hilthe went on. 'A war which they later lost. My people, discovering the creature, began to work the metal. This has, in some way, called to its makers and drawn them to Geath, like a beacon on a hilltop. Speaking through me, they have asked for the return of their property. But their enemies have also followed the signal and they too demand that the metal is given to them.'

She paused to marshal her thoughts, pressing her fingertips against her forehead.

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'Of this faction we know less, other than that they are willing to arouse in the hearts of people great fear and dread. They have been visiting our city for some time now, but this evening, they have at last threatened us directly, and they have shown great powers — they can fly above our heads like huge birds, they can let loose a fire that lights up the night sky and destroys whatever it strikes. Our choices, therefore, seem to be either that we believe the Herald when she claims that her people are trustworthy, or we submit to the threats of her opponents and surrender the metal to these walking nightmares, these Regulators. One way we take a risk, the other we put ourselves in danger. It is an unhappy set of choices.'