Part 1 (1/2)

ALL-CONSUMING FIRE.

by Andy Lane.

Prologue.

March 1843 - Jabalhabad, India.

'Boy! I say, boy! Two more burra pegs, chelo!'

The man in the British Army uniform waved an imperious hand as the turbaned servant glided silently from the veranda.

The old man in the cane chair beside him cackled gently. 'Most kind of you, hmm?' he said, and glanced over to where his granddaughter was attempting to capture the distant mountains in watercolour. The setting sun was behind the bungalow, casting a deep shadow over the patchy doob gra.s.s but catching the snowy peaks in a net of scarlet and purple.

She glanced up and caught his gaze.

'Grandfather?'

'Nothing, child.'

The soldier batted at a cloud of insects with his pith helmet. The motion caused a fresh rash of sweat to break out across his forehead. He mopped half-heartedly at it.

'Deuced if I know how you cope in this heat,' he muttered.

'Oh, I've been in hotter places than this, my boy,' said the old man.

'There's nowhere on Earth hotter than India during the dry season. If there was, I'd have been posted to it.'

'Perhaps you're right,' the old man agreed. He looked over towards a group of three people - a man and two women - who were sitting and taking tea upon the lawn in the shade of a large parasol. There was something familiar about the man, but he couldn't quite place him.

The servant appeared from the shadows of the bungalow with two double whiskies on a tray. The ice had already melted. A mosquito was struggling weakly in the old man's gla.s.s.

'Now, where was I?' the soldier asked, frowning slightly.

'You were telling me about a rather strange temple up in the hills.'

'So I was,' the soldier replied, faintly surprised. 'A rum tale, and no mistake.

Let's see what you make of it, what?'

The old man said nothing, but glanced again at the trio happily chatting near his granddaughter. The women were young, but the man . . .

He managed to catch the man's eye. A look pa.s.sed between them, and the old man s.h.i.+vered.

'Are you all right?' the soldier asked.

'Hmm? I think somebody just walked over my graves.'

'If you're feeling a bit under the weather, you'd better see the medic.

Corporal Forbes is rife around here.'

'Corporal Forbes?' the old man asked.

'Cholera Morbus. Cholera, you know.'

'I wouldn't worry about that,' the old man said. 'Please, go on.'

'Right-ho. As I said earlier, the palace was a sight to be seen...'

'So this is where it all started?' Bernice said politely.

'Indeed,' the Doctor replied, and took a sip of tea. 'And we've seen where it ends. If I hadn't listened to Siger's tale on that veranda.. .'

'Yeah, we know,' Ace said dismissively. She fiddled with her frilly dress.

Bernice could tell that she felt uncomfortable in something that wasn't bullet-proof and laser-resistant. 'Ultimate evil, and all that guff, It's a bit hard to swallow, Professor. If you hadn't stopped it, somebody else would have done. I've seen the future, remember? The future of all this. I was born in it.'

'Time's a funny thing,' the Doctor mused, gazing with a strange expression at the girl who was painting the watercolour landscape. 'Didn't the business with the Monk and his pet chronovore ill.u.s.trate precisely that point? The lives of every planet, every person and every proton are like trickles of water running down a window. Their courses may look fixed, but if you disturb them early on then they can trickle into another path entirely'

Ace summed up her viewpoint in one succinct word.

Before the Doctor's temper boiled over, Bernice said, 'So, do I take it that the old man sitting over there is you?'

'In a sense.'

'In what sort of sense, precisely?'

'In a rather imprecise sense.'

'He doesn't look very much like you.'

'I was five hundred years younger then,' the Doctor said gloomily. 'You may not believe it, but age has mellowed me.'

Ace snorted.

'You should write your autobiography,' she said. 'Confessions of a Roving Time Lord. You'd sell a billion.'

'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'that reminds me...'

He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small, leather-bound book.

'A present for you both,' he said.

Bernice took the book from his outstretched hand.