Doctor Who_ Slow Empire Part 3

The soldiers marched them up through a warren of pa.s.sages and hallways. Since she had first met the Doctor, Anji had seen her fair share of the sort of corridors that looked like Alphavilie made out of egg boxes, or drab and soul-destroying affairs where the single concession to gay frivolity was a time-chipped coating of inst.i.tutional green, but these were somewhat different. The walls seemed to be of solid gold, inset with enamel murals and glyphs of elegant complexity. Salvers of incense burned on spindly stands. Functionaries in white robes drifted serenely to and fro. It was like walking through the anterooms of the G.o.ds.

It was a distinct improvement on the plaza they had found themselves in after running from the TARDIS the artistry of civic statuary always tending to devalue when a bloodbath is happening in front of it and certainly an improvement over the holding cages, but Anji for one didn't find it rea.s.suring. There was an air about these surroundings that was too good to be true, like the pristine foil one finds on chocolate money.

'Well, these guys are doing well for themselves,' Fitz said, looking around. 'You have to give them that.'

One of their soldier escorts rounded on him, and for an instant Anji could see the immediate future in perfect clarity especially in the slapping-andshouting-of'Silence!' department.

'You don't want to do that,' said the Doctor, quietly. 'You really don't.'

Anji realised that he was talking to the soldier, who promptly didn't. It wasn't that there had been a battle of wills or some such, or any kind of 'these are not the droids you're looking for' hypnotism: it was as if the Doctor had simply said how the world was going to be, so that was what the world was. The soldiers just marched on with their charges, heedless of whether they talked or not.

'You have got to tell me how to do that,' Anji said as they walked.

'If I knew knew how to do it,' said the Doctor, 'I'd be doing it all the time.' how to do it,' said the Doctor, 'I'd be doing it all the time.'

He scanned a section of enamelled wall depicting a mult.i.tude of generally humaniform creatures kneeling in supplication before a n.o.ble-faced man dressed in armour like a cross between a ronin ronin and a conquistador and holding what appeared to be a multiple-barrelled ocular telescope. 'I must admit, I sometimes wish I hadn't lost the knack of knowing everything at a glance. It's a bit of hard business, having to learn.' and a conquistador and holding what appeared to be a multiple-barrelled ocular telescope. 'I must admit, I sometimes wish I hadn't lost the knack of knowing everything at a glance. It's a bit of hard business, having to learn.'

'So what have you learned so far?' Anji asked. 'Where are we? Where have we ended up?'

'Well, from what I can gather, we're in the heart of some empire or other planetary or interplanetary, I couldn't say. n.o.body bothered to mention. The name of this place is apparently Shakrath, but '

'Shakrath! But of course!'

This last came from the plump man with the tiger's face etched on his own, who had been accompanying their happy band with, so Anji thought, a completely uncharacteristic sense of diffidence considering that he had preciously been bouncing around like a lecherous buffoon and done everything short of slapping her backside and having her make him a cup of tea.

'I beg your pardon?' Still walking, the Doctor turned towards him with an inquiring smile. 'I take it that you know something of this place?'

'That I might,' said Jamon de la Rocas. 'I might at that.'

There had been no introductions as such, and certainly no complicated bow and flourish from Mr de la Rocas, but Anji thought that she could sense the kind of instant rapport that makes such introductions unnecessary. It was one of those knife-edged instants where the first exchange between two people, for no perceivable reason, fixes their relationship forever as friends, enemies or simple indifferent acquaintances, no matter what might subsequently occur.

'I must apologise for not speaking up earlier,' said Jamon de la Rocas, all bluff and bounce again, 'but while I know of this place, I did not know it as where I was, if you understand me, until I heard the name. There I was, you see, cruelly and most undeservedly incarcerated, with not so much as a glint of intelligence as to the whys, wherefores and whereabouts of my egregiously abject state...'

'So now you know know where you are?' the Doctor said, smiling a little. where you are?' the Doctor said, smiling a little.

'I do.' Jamon de la Rocas brought himself back to the point and warmed to his theme. 'You must understand, of course, that the very nature of the Empire means that almost each and every world in it thinks of itself as the centre but some with more justification than others. From even so far off as I might have been, I have heard tales of Shakrath and of the stamp it puts upon its locality...'

His patterned face took on the expression of one whose ears have just caught up with what his mouth is saying, and then fell.

'And I have to tell you,' he continued a little worriedly, 'that the tales of its barbarous and primitive manners are myriad. We are in a savage place here Doctor, was it? a place of infamy and the fecund darkness of the death of gentility...'

They had reached a set of arched doors, which swung open seemingly of their own volition.

The soldiers herded them forward. They saw what lay beyond the doors.

'Of course,' said Jamon de la Rocas, 'I could be wrong.'

The Conclave of Governance was bathed in a warm golden glow that seemed to come from the direction of the masked and berobed Emperor without his actually casting it. The figures crowding both Houses sat still and solemn in this magisterial effulgence, their heads bowed.

His sun-mask glistening, the Emperor turned his head towards the Amba.s.sador Morel, who stood modestly beside the throne in his black robes. Morel nodded in acquiescence, then turned his attention to the Conclave at large and began, in an altogether a.s.sured manner, to proclaim: 'His Extreme and Divine Potency, the Light before which the Barbarity and Ignorance of the Infidel are burned away, the G.o.d that walks among the World as Emissary, the Primateur of all things Holy in the Sight of Man, the Emperor, has taken examination of and advis.e.m.e.nt upon the natures of those now brought before him. By certain signs he sees that, though outlandish in appearance and form, they are obviously and without doubt of his Imperial Domain. As such, they are to be allowed to pa.s.s among the environs of the Capital with neither undue let nor hindrance, although to leave the city itself must needs require a docket stamp on their visas.'

The Doctor looked sidelong at his young companions and at Jamon de la Rocas as they knelt before the throne, a small detachment of guards likewise kneeling behind them. It was barely a minute since they had entered through the arched doors and a.s.sembled in this position.

'You don't suppose this has all been just a kind of formality?' he said quietly. 'It's good of the man to deal with these things personalty...'

'Did you have something you wished to say?' asked the Amba.s.sador Morel. There was no irritation in his tone, far less anger at any kind of affront to these Imperial proceedings: more a sense of polite forbearance such as might be afforded to a stranger who does not understand the decorum of courtly ways.

'Only that the Emperor has my most profound thanks, for taking time in his no doubt busy schedule to attend the matter of unworthy wretches such as ourselves,' the Doctor replied smartly, making a respectful little bow while still kneeling.

'Quite so,' said Morel. 'The business of this Extraordinary Conclave is now closed. All shall rise.'

As one, the two Houses rose to their feet. On his throne, the Emperor nodded the sun-mask of his head in dismissal. For a moment all was silent and still, bathed in the golden glow that came from the direction of the throne.

Then the glow shut off as if a switch had been thrown.

'Well, I'm glad that's over with,' Morel said briskly, clapping his hands together as though dusting off something not particularly pleasant while the guards hauled the Doctor and his party none too gently to their feet. 'It's something that has to be done, but I've never been a one for play-acting.'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that,' the Doctor said from where a soldier had him by the elbow. 'Do you think you could explain?'

'I imagine I might,' said Morel, with the cheerful air of one who knows that whatever might be said at this point won't do any good, and knows that the person it won't do any good for is not himself. 'New arrivals to our fair Capital are treated with the kindness and generosity they deserve, that is a well-known fact well known because it is seen to be done. The proceedings here have been recorded by photomechanical means, to be shown to anyone with an interest in asking.'

'And does anybody ask?' asked the Doctor.

'The fact that such materials are there there for the asking tends to prevent such questions in the first place.' Morel gestured to the soldier restraining the Doctor, who shoved him roughly forward. 'If you cast your eye over this,' he said companionably, 'I feel you might find it of some small interest.' for the asking tends to prevent such questions in the first place.' Morel gestured to the soldier restraining the Doctor, who shoved him roughly forward. 'If you cast your eye over this,' he said companionably, 'I feel you might find it of some small interest.'

This turned out to be a small control panel on the side of the throne, positioned so that it and its operation by Morel could not be seen when one was looking at it from the front. Morel touched a control, and beside them the Emperor nodded his masked head. Another touch, and the Emperor raised a hand in benediction. Another touch and the Emperor's head began to swivel... turned out to be a small control panel on the side of the throne, positioned so that it and its operation by Morel could not be seen when one was looking at it from the front. Morel touched a control, and beside them the Emperor nodded his masked head. Another touch, and the Emperor raised a hand in benediction. Another touch and the Emperor's head began to swivel...

'Do you have a b.u.t.ton for pea soup?' asked the Doctor. Morel's spider-lined brow frowned. 'I beg your pardon?'

'Never mind. The Doctor cast his eye over the Emperor-contrivance as invited. 'Clockwork?'

'Some application of the hydrological sciences, I believe.' Morel caused the Imperial head to stop spinning.

The Doctor, meanwhile, had turned to regard those dignitaries a.s.sembled in both Houses of the Conclave.

'These are devices of a similar nature?' he asked Morel. 'I'm sure I would have sensed that given the...' He peered at the dignitaries in the now dim light. 'They're not, are they?' His voice now seemed coldly angry. 'They're alive.'

'Slaves,' said Morel with an indifferent shrug. 'Their mouths sewn shut, their shoulders dislocated, their spinal columns attached to a galvanistic generator.'

The Doctor's head shot round to stare at him with kind of furious astonishment. 'You made this? You built such a thing? What would you build such a thing for? What gives you the right?'

Morel smiled at him; a prissy little smile that was far too well bred ever to be a sneer.

'I did not build this,' he said, as though stating the perfectly obvious to a child. 'It was here long before I ever a.s.sumed my position, hundreds if not thousands of years before. I merely maintain it. And as for the why why of it... well, the Emperor must be seen to attend his duties, don't you think?' of it... well, the Emperor must be seen to attend his duties, don't you think?'

'So what happened to the Emperor, then?' said the Doctor, in the tones of one knowing very well what had happened to the Emperor, and indeed Emperors.

'Why, nothing at all,' said Morel. 'At least, nothing in the sense that I think you mean. And speaking of which...'

He touched another control on his hidden panel. A small doorway opened in the wall behind the throne.

'As to the state of His Extreme and Divine Potency, the Light before which the Barbarity and so forth,' he said as the soldiers took hold of the Doctor again, and marched him and his three companions out through the door, 'then come into the Inner Court. I believe you'll find out soon enough.'

I believe that I have mentioned something of my small sojourns into the palaces and courts of several worlds, and something of the conduct and the manners of such households. It is a common state of affairs, I am very much afraid to say, that those with the power to order the world to their liking whether it be planet, city or merely the environs of their own immediate enclave tend to use the blade of that power, as you will, to the very hilt. believe that I have mentioned something of my small sojourns into the palaces and courts of several worlds, and something of the conduct and the manners of such households. It is a common state of affairs, I am very much afraid to say, that those with the power to order the world to their liking whether it be planet, city or merely the environs of their own immediate enclave tend to use the blade of that power, as you will, to the very hilt.

I recall a certain Countessa, in the far-off floating palaces of the world of the Second Sky, who would have such penitents as might fall within her remit roundly whipped about the antigravitational courtyards, drawing behind them small buggies containing some specimen or other of her large collection of lapweevils, in a curious kind of race upon which bets would be tendered by those n.o.bles invited to witness it. My back and shoulders, I declare, still smart a little at the remembrance.

I recall the usage that the warlord Mavin Sa would commonly put to those inhabitants of settlements he conquered. Likewise, the desportment that the Ottoman of Rahaghi would practise upon such Prime Ministers as would displease him (said Ministers being appointed at the Ottoman's personal whim rather than at the vote and voice of the commonality). All manner of tyrants and despots have I seen and heard of, and the plain fact of it is that when one has the power of life and death, whether over planets, cities or, I repeat, merely the environs of their immediate enclave, those who share the world with such tyrants and despots tend to die at an alarming rate.

I mention this merely to lay the ground that I know of such goings-on and to say that I have never experienced such a thing as the Inner Court, those chambers that lay past the hidden doorway in the Conclave of Governance.

It was all the worse, in some strange manner, that these matters, as it were, remained unseen. That is, for the moment, we saw no evidence as such of these matters happening right before our eyes. The walls were filthy, however, encrusted with such bodily expulsions and effluvia as had been expelled over years if not centuries and never been removed. The reek of death and corruption was likewise, and the air was like some solid ma.s.s of putrefaction. There was a sound, a constant sound, of men and women in torment close by men and women in their hundreds if not thousands, layer upon layer of their screams and utterings and whimperings so that the specifics of any one unfortunate were lost in an ululation that was reminiscent of a howling world.

I am used, as I have said, to gauging and interpreting such certain clues in my surroundings, inferring the deeper tenor of said surroundings from them and as the Amba.s.sador Morel and his bandsmen took myself, the Doctor and his young companions through these noisome anterooms, I freely allow that I was all but mad with terror at my apprehension of them.

In such a fearful state as I was, no doubt, I failed to notice that the Doctor had manoeuvred himself through our little grouping until he was beside me. I remember giving a start as if my heart might summarily stop as he spoke to me.

'Exciting, isn't it?' Unaccountably, he seemed cheerful rather than otherwise, as though he were watching some entertainment put on for his benefit, for all that these secret chambers were quite patently a reality and a hideous one at that. 'This is what we find behind this Empire of yours, is it?'

I believe that I may have muttered something to the effect that such things might depend on one's point of view, and that, at this point, the guess of one might be as good as that of another.

'Doesn't matter,' said the Doctor. 'It doesn't matter. Whatever happens, I think somebody should be doing something about this. And soon.'

The tone in his voice gave me pause to look at him sharply. His eyes were hard and calculating, his mouth set in a grin that seemed for all of him to be merely happy and I realised of a sudden that he was happy with antic.i.p.ation, at the prospect of action. It seemed to me, though, that it was action of a kind not limited to the small particulars of our current circ.u.mstance. When he spoke of something being done, the Doctor was not referring merely to some sudden and heroic escape from the momentary inconvenience of bandsmen guards and the Inner Court. He was happily antic.i.p.ating bringing the Court, Shakrath, the Empire entire, perhaps, to its knees.

And something inside me realised that he was fully capable of doing it. My memory may or may not be clouded by the recollection of subsequent and later events, but I am sure that I felt so at the time, though I cannot entirely explain it.

'First things first, though,' said the Doctor, as if he were carrying on a conversation with my unspoken thoughts. 'For the moment, Mr de la Rocas, I'd suggest you make yourself ready. I might need a small diversion at any time.'

I mulled this over momentarily. Quite what diversion I could provide, short of making a break for it and being cut down instantly by some alert bandsman's instrument, I failed to see. And, while my mettle is and was entirely beyond question in such matters, I could not divine what a peremptorily truncated escapade such as that might be calculated to achieve.

Such musings were cut short, as we left the anterooms and entered the chambers of the Inner Court proper and I realised that my aforementioned inferences about the nature of the place from the available clues were all too correct.

'Well, this is all very Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom,' said the Doctor. 'It reminds me of the Court of Caligula on the days when they let school parties in.'

'You what?' said Fitz, somewhat aghast at the thought of this.

'I mean,' said the Doctor, 'that I'm glad we seem to be dealing with minds of certain fundamental limitations. Some things simply haven't occurred to them. All things considered, those things could be a lot worse.'

Fitz cast his eyes across the scene, and tried not to imagine how they could possibly be worse. They were quite bad enough as it was.

The Emperor was attended by an armed personal guard who might once have been human, and presumably still were, physically, under the black leather uniforms and masks though a lumpen, crippled look to their forms suggested that certain modifications had been carried out to their physiognomy. The... things hanging from various racks, what was left of them, had once been decidedly human. Some of them were still alive. The implements with which they had been idly tortured, over some considerable length of time, hung neatly from hooks on the walls.

Almost the worst thing was, despite the obvious function as a recreational torture chamber, various personal items of furniture were scattered around as they would be in any living apartment: armchairs and candle stands, drinks cabinets and the occasional table. The worst worst thing was that, where possible, these items had been constructed from human bone and, where applicable, covered in cured, st.i.tched human skin. thing was that, where possible, these items had been constructed from human bone and, where applicable, covered in cured, st.i.tched human skin.

Reclining on a divan made of intricately worked humanoid skeletons, alternately drawing on a pipe made from a polished thighbone and drinking some noxious fluid from a bowl (have a guess), was a man whose age it was difficult to tell. He might have been ancient and suffering from some unfortunate glandular condition that had stunted his physical maturity, or he might merely have been a hideously ravaged youth. His naked flesh was pocked with the kind of sores that would not have looked out of place on some diseased beggar. His straggly hair was plastered across his scalp in filthy strands. His eyes were dull and feverish whether from some actual fever or from long use of some narcotic opiate.

Certain duties were being ministered to this wretch by a brace of scrawny females, who knelt before him. Now he turned his attention, listlessly, to the new arrivals. He regarded them blankly, as a lobotomised man might regard a moving object, simply because it is moving.

'My Emperor!' the Amba.s.sador Morel cried, darting forward to present himself with a bow of supplication so deep and heartfelt that it could only have been intended sardonically. 'I have brought you some visitors. New playthings for you.'

The Emperor if such he was looked at Morel for a long time, as though it took a while for the meaning of his words to sink in, then turned his gaze to Anji, who squirmed as though brushed by something tangible and slimy.

'Nice...' said the putative Emperor. 'She looks unusual and nice. I think... I shall have her as one of my harem...'

He gestured, vaguely, with a withered hand towards one of the women who were tending to him. The woman turned her head. Her mouth had been sewn shut.

One of the soldiers who had escorted them here took hold of Anji and shoved her forward into the waiting arms of a pair of leather-clad guards.

'Hey!' Fitz shouted, struggling against the grip of two soldiers of his own. 'You can't just... let go go of me... this isn't...' of me... this isn't...'

The sick-looking eyes of the Emperor turned to him.

'She has... a friend, yes? A boy who is her friend. Doesn't want to see her come to harm?'

'It does indeed seem that way, my Emperor,' said Morel smoothly.

'Well, so he can. He can join her in the seraglio and watch over her as a eunuch.'

Fitz would no doubt have had something further to say about that, had not the guards who now grabbed hold of him stuffed a gag in his mouth. He renewed his frantic efforts to break free, but, whatever modifications had been made to the bodies under the leather, one of them was to increase their strength more than was humanly possible.

The Emperor's eyes turned to the remaining strangers, mildly curious as to what entertainment they could offer. 'And these are...?'

Jamon de la Rocas became aware that the Doctor was glaring at him pointedly and making a little nudging gesture with his elbow The time had come, he supposed, to make the diversion of which the man had spoken. He considered the options, thinking as fast as he had ever thought in his life.

'My name, n.o.ble Emperor, is Jamon de La Rocas,' he said grandly, 'and I have the honour to be servant and most trusted confidant to none other than the Doctor, here, though that is not of course his proper name. On point of fact, this man comes from a place so far and strange, its denizens so powerful, indeed so G.o.dlike in their own beings, that to hear but the merest syllable of his true name would drive mere mortal man mad mad with the Manichean Glory of it! Mad, do you hear me? Mad!' with the Manichean Glory of it! Mad, do you hear me? Mad!'

That caught what pa.s.sed for the Emperor's attention. 'A Doctor, you say?'

'And that is the least iota of a part of it,' declared Jamon, improvising wildly. 'For he is the very pre-eminence pre-eminence of his people in the performance of such dark and magickal surgeries as has made him the very talk of that far-off place I aforementioned. Indeed, that is in some small part the reason for his travelling to the splendour that is Shakrath and your good Imperial self. E'n from far off wherever it is, he has sensed tell of the fact that your most Worshipful Highness has been feeling, not to put too fine a point upon it, a little peaky of late no doubt due to some malign demonic influence such as would lay a normal man to his death in the barest trice, your Worshipful Highness being, but of course, far more than can be so much as known by normal men. Oh what foul of his people in the performance of such dark and magickal surgeries as has made him the very talk of that far-off place I aforementioned. Indeed, that is in some small part the reason for his travelling to the splendour that is Shakrath and your good Imperial self. E'n from far off wherever it is, he has sensed tell of the fact that your most Worshipful Highness has been feeling, not to put too fine a point upon it, a little peaky of late no doubt due to some malign demonic influence such as would lay a normal man to his death in the barest trice, your Worshipful Highness being, but of course, far more than can be so much as known by normal men. Oh what foul traitor traitor in your midst could have called such a pestilence down upon the very, er, Shakrathly presence of his own beloved Emperor! For shame!' in your midst could have called such a pestilence down upon the very, er, Shakrathly presence of his own beloved Emperor! For shame!'

At this Jamon glared rather pointedly at the Amba.s.sador Morel, who merely returned the gaze as one might would that of a babbling lunatic who accosts one on the street, puts his face very close to the kebab one is eating and asks one if one has finished with it yet.

'Yes, well, this is all very entertaining to be sure,' Morel said, 'but I believe the time has come to '

'See now, how he has extricated himself from those guard who were attempting to restrain him,' Jamon continued. 'You must know, of course, that one such as he cannot be held by any such crude means, any more than one might hold a burning coal in one's bare hands. See how he very humbly moves about you. There is no need for alarm, I do a.s.sure you! Note if you will, his humble demeanour. It is of a piece I say, with the vow of silence that I, in his charge, am bound to explicate. The power of his sorceries is such that by the merest nod he could level the tallest of buildings, and thus he has vowed, in person and in posture, to a.s.sume a most mild aspect. Why, look at him and see that such an estimable man as he would nary hurt a fly!

'Now, as to what he's doing doing, let me say that the Doctor is at practice of the art of, ah, Pratantimancy a discipline, you know, of his people. It is to do with the positioning positioning of things, from what I gather what of things, from what I gather what any any mortal can gather of its secrets. In the same way that the sigils of a divination circle my be drawn just mortal can gather of its secrets. In the same way that the sigils of a divination circle my be drawn just so so, it seems, and in the mean, prosaic way that simply moving an item of furniture in a room can make that room more hospitable by far, the good Doctor has refined the art so that he can build an Engine of Conjuration from whatever is to hand. I believe that by rearranging the particulars of the chamber, he is attempting to affect a charm which will summon up the demonic ent.i.ty that besets the Emperor and bind it would that be right, Doctor? Yes, guardsman, please take heed of his gesturing and move a little to your right, placing that pikestaff-flute of yours just where he suggests.

'And now, I believe, all is prepared. Is all prepared, Doctor? Yes, all is prepared. That most powerful of sorcerers, the Doctor, will now begin to be about his conjuration...'