Doctor Who_ Time Flight Part 6

'Shall I be forced to compel you, Doctor,' said Kalid quietly, with the rea.s.suring charm of a rattlesnake.

'There is no power that will give you control over the TARDIS!'

Kalid's body stiffened.

The Doctor thought the sorcerer was about to attack him. Then he realised the man was in some sort of pain.

Kalid moved swiftly to the crystal. Of course. Part of his mind was on another plain. Like a wild animal, he felt danger.

The Doctor looked over Kalid's shoulder. In the nebula he could see the great hall where Stapley, Andrew Bilton and the Professor, like a group of subversive pickets, were persuading the pa.s.sengers to down tools. Kalid was angry. He chanted urgently. 'Shiraaz shiraaz kazaan ...' As if a door had opened, chilling the room, the Doctor felt the flux of energy.

'Shiraa, shiraa, kazaan ...'

The Doctor watched helplessly as Plasmaton shapes formed in the hall.

The amorphous things soon engorged the rebels.

'Iznamin ... Iznamin ...' The crisis over, Kalid's voice was soft and coaxing.

But the danger had been great enough to impress his servitors; which meant, thought the Doctor, that Nyssa would now be free. At least the two girls would be safe in the plane.

The suddenness with which the shield evaporated, voiding Nyssa on the ground, took Tegan by surprise.

'Nyssa! Are you all right?' She knelt beside her fellow companion.

'Of course.'

'What happened!'

Tegan's question was rhetorical, but Nyssa answered confidently. 'The power dissolved. It was needed elsewhere.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I don't know.' She was as surprised as Tegan at her sudden intuitions.

'I promised the Doctor we would go back to Concorde.

'No!' The same oracular voice.

'But, Nyssa...'

'We must go to the Citadel!' Some dreadful imperative urged her forward.

'We'll only get caught.'

Nyssa shivered. 'The Doctor's in danger!' she gasped - then gave a cry: 'Kalid!'

'Eevaneraagh!' cried out Kalid, as the Plasmaton c.u.mulation entered his chamber.

The ma.s.sive discharge of energy as the protoplasmic matter unbonded was quite terrifying in the enclosed s.p.a.ce, like an explosion of steam from a boiler. In seconds, all trace of the Plasmatons was gone, leaving Hayter and the Concorde crew on the floor.

Captain Stapley was the first to his feet, delighted to see the Doctor.

Then they all became aware of the extravagant figure that stood beside them.

'Who is this man?' asked Professor Hayter.

'The oriental gentleman calls himself Kalid,' said the Doctor.

Captain Stapley turned indignantly on the magician. 'Are you responsible for the abduction of the Concorde pa.s.sengers and crew?'

'Is it you who authorised ma.s.s hallucination?'

challenged the Professor.

Kalid regarded them all with leering disdain. 'Your questions are irrelevant.'

'I don't think so.' The Captain stepped aggressively towards him. Bilton and Scobie moved in alongside, confident now that they faced a tangible enemy.

'No!' cautioned the Doctor.

'Sheraz aazoor,' hissed Kalid.

The air shimmered. The three officers stopped dead as if they had walked into a plate-gla.s.s window.

'What's happening?'

'He's thrown up a barrier. I did try and warn you.'

Kalid turned away from his would-be a.s.sailants. He had some unfinished business with the Doctor. 'I require the TARDIS,' he announced unequivocally.

'You're wasting your time, Kalid.'

Kalid said nothing. His evil face inclined towards his captives; he knew how to put pressure on the Doctor.

But the menacing smile soon froze on his lips. His pockmarked features spasmed with pain. He pressed a hand to his temple, and moved to the crystal where he began a desperate chant.

'Arogogorah abrao abelatha...'

The Doctor crept up behind Kalid so that he too could see into the crystal ball. He was surprised at the cause of Kalid's discomforture.

Tegan and Nyssa had entered the Citadel.

Tegan wished heartily they had done what the Doctor said and gone back to Concorde. She was ill at ease in this dark and sinister place.

'But where are we going? she asked Nyssa as they walked down the gloomy corridor.

To help the Doctor.'

'Is this your intuition again?'

'Yes. Can't you feel it too?'

'No!'

'We must find the centre.' Nyssa was strangely confident. Her sense of authority disturbed Tegan. 'Trust me,' she added, aware of her companion's anxiety.

But Nyssa's inspired sense of direction appeared to have brought them into a cul-de-sac.

'It's a dead end,' said Tegan, running her hand over the bland rock face that barred their way.

'We must continue.' Nyssa moved resolutely forward.

To Tegan's amazement the wall opened up, revealing a narrow pa.s.sage beyond.

The two girls pa.s.sed through the divide.

Kalid was appalled. "Not even I have dared penetrate the heart of the Citadel!' he gasped.

'You mean you've not been able to!' cried the Doctor, encouraged by the evidence that there was a force not entirely under Kalid's control.

'The power must prevent all mortal advance,' protested Kalid.

But the Doctor knew that a greater power protected Tegan and Nyssa and urged them forward.

'You will watch them suffer for this!' Kalid screamed at the Doctor, and began a demonic incantation.

Tegan and Nyssa heard nothing of Kalid's vile litany, although they both sensed the invisible eddy and flow of mighty forces. But there would be no turning back; their progress was inexorable.

The young boy who stepped out of the shadows to bar their way was a timid unthreatening figure. But he stopped the two girls in their tracks.

'Adric!' gasped Tegan in disbelief, as she gazed at their brave friend who had sacrificed his life to prevent the destruction of Earth by the Cybermen.

'No! Adric's dead!' But for all her steely a.s.surance, Nyssa was disturbed by the presence of the pale wraith in front of them.

'Go back, or you will destroy me.' The boy spoke with immeasurable sadness.

Grief, uncertainty, longing conflicted with the resolution of the girls.

But despite the distress she felt at this sudden confrontation, Nyssa knew that their old companion existed merely in their shared imagination. 'It's the only power Kalid has left to stop us,' she whispered.

'How can we be sure?' Tegan was in an agony of indecision. Her doubts were instantly exploited.

'Go back, or you will destroy me,' pleaded the boy.

Tegan dared not move forward, terrified lest a miraculously ressurected Adric should die a second death.

The young man turned to Nyssa who was plucking up courage to continue. 'If you advance you will kill me, Nyssa.'

'We can't take that risk!' Tegan had grabbed Nyssa's arm.

Nyssa didn't know what to do. Then she saw the badge. 'Adric's wearing his badge!' she cried.

'It was shattered when the Doctor destroyed the Cyber Leader.'

'Exactly!'

'Come on!'

Sure now of his unreality, Tegan and Nyssa closed in on Adric. The boy watched them accusingly. They reached out their hands to thrust him aside, only to feel the empty air.

There was an unnatural scream and Adric vanished.

Shaken but undeterred they continued.

The girls needed all their courage as more nightmare emanations, drawn from the dark of their own minds, surprised them. But neither Melkur from Traken nor a roaring Terileptil could stop them.

They continued. All sense of time and s.p.a.ce abandoned them. The unknown centre drew them towards itself like a lodestone.

There was another barrier. They waited before it like two postulants.

Groaning as if it were a living thing, the stone split apart. A cold luminance whitened their faces.

They stepped forward into the light.

'They have entered the Sanctum!' Kalid could no longer see the girls in the crystal. He trembled with rage. Nyssa and Tegan had been granted access to the centre of the power while he, Kalid, must remain at a distance.

He turned away from the sphere. 'Doctor, you will give me the key of the TARDIS!' He was desperate now.

The Doctor shook his head.

'Then you will see your friends destroyed and you yourself annihilated!'

The Doctor stood his ground. 'I don't think so,' he answered defiantly.

'We've all got rather good at resisting your sorcery.'

'You will not resist my combatant!' There was something ominously convincing about Kalid's voice. 'Sotou monduru, sotous abraou, phil thao thiaf!' The diabolical invocation summoned the very essence of darkness.

A thin skein of ectoplasm formed in the air. As Kalid continued his evil mantra, the hovering matter dilated.

Unperturbed, Captain Stapley seized a metal rod. 'Just a ball of cotton wool.'

'I'm not so sure,' cautioned the Doctor. There was something frighteningly different about this new manifestation.

As the metal in Stapley's hand impacted with the nascent shape there was an explosion. The Captain felt as if a thousand volts coursed through his body. He staggered back towards Bilton and Scobie.

'Kalid is drawing on deeper reserves of power,' warned the Doctor.