Part 25 (2/2)

'No Doctor!' His words were a spray of bubbling acidic water.

The foot drew back. Nepath rocked forwards, head free of the water for a moment. A clear view for a second: Of the Doctor giving a sudden, single, violent kick at the stone of Patience Nepath's back.

Then he was falling, her weight on top of him, The view through the bubbling white water was a blur bearing him down, The Doctor watching him as he sank slowly holding him tight, Then turning and walking away so tight, the bubbles of his own final breath misting out the image in an embrace of death.

never once looking back.

Chapter Twenty.

From the Embers It was as if, s...o...b..ld thought, the whole of Middletown had been picked up and deposited somewhere else. The water had receded, but the ground floor of the Rectory still smelled of mud and mould. The church had fared better, with its stone floors and walls. There was little in the way of soft furnis.h.i.+ngs to absorb the water and retain and exude the smell of the damp.

The lower part of the west wing of the Grange had been washed away by the water as it raced past, so that the house slumped to one side awkward and broken. It was convulsed down one side with the main windows collapsed in on themselves, into a bizarre approximation of a wink.

But the landscape was completely changed. Where the fissure had been, a narrow, jagged lake cut across the ground, fed by the river that now ran through the shattered remnants of the dam, retracing its previous course. The moorland was more like a marsh now, boggy and hazardous. All around, even in the streets of the main part of the town, weird rock formations jutted up from the broken ground, as if reaching up towards the sky to escape the receding waters.

The huts and machinery at the mouth of the mine had been swept away, leaving shattered driftwood and lumps of bent ironwork in their wake. The engineers had inspected the workings. They were worried about subsidence and collapse, though there was little above the old workings that could be damaged. Colonel Wilson had told s...o...b..ld, in confidence, that most of the tunnels were under water now. But the changing landscape, the way the ground had moved had forced open new natural tunnels and crevices, and Wilson said he had seen s.h.i.+ning rivulets of what might just be tin ore embedded in the walls of several of these newly exposed shafts and tunnels.

s...o...b..ld's own sense of loss seemed emphasised, exaggerated by the imminent departure of his house guest. They had to remove the window of the Doctor's bedroom in order to get his large blue box out. Now it was strapped to a cart in the Rectory driveway. A horse one of Urton's recaptured after his stables were washed away stood ready to pull its load out of the driveway and away from Middletown.

'You know,' s...o...b..ld said as he shook the Doctor's hand, 'when it catches the light, there seems to be some texture to it.' He nodded towards the box.

'I know what you mean,' the Doctor agreed. Together they stood and examined the box from a short distance. 'Almost like panelling of some sort. Just a hint, a shadow of a shadow.'

'Where will you go?'

'I have no idea.' He took the reins and led the horse slowly forwards. Its hooves crunched on the gravel. The wheels creaked into motion behind them. 'But it will be interesting finding out.' As they walked, the Doctor let go of the reins. The horse followed obediently beside him.

The Doctor pulled a tattered piece of paper from his pocket and opened it. s...o...b..ld could see that there was writing on it. An even handwriting, almost mechanical it was so consistent, faded and smudged. It said: Meet me in St. Louis', February 8th 2001.

It was signed with the same perfect writing. The name looked like Fitz Fitz.

'We're well into January now,' s...o...b..ld said. 'Perhaps that means a minute past eight o'clock in the evening.' He tapped the 2001 2001.

The Doctor stopped. The horse stopped too. The Doctor folded the paper again and returned it to his pocket. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'But I don't think so.'

'Do you think the mine will open again?' s...o...b..ld asked. The sun was s.h.i.+ning in his eyes, so that the Doctor was a silhouette against the skyline.

'Who can say? The future is a closed book, I'm afraid.'

I suppose so.' s...o...b..ld agreed. 'When we first met, we talked of predestination, I seem to recall. We debated whether our lives had any meaning, any individuality whether they are there for us to shape as we will.'

'Or whether they are set in stone. Yes,' he said quietly. 'I remember.' He nodded thoughtfully. 'But so long as we don't know, perhaps it really doesn't matter.'

s...o...b..ld hesitated before he spoke. 'Doctor,' he said. tentative and slightly nervous at his own words, 'there is one thing I should like to know very much.' His breath misted in the cold air.

'Yes?' The Doctor's tone suggested he knew already what it was.

'Who are you?' s...o...b..ld asked.

'Ah,' he replied at once. Then he was silent for a while, and so still as he considered that he might have been a statue. 'That is something,' he eventually replied, 'that I must find out for myself.'

'Is it... is it something you really want to know?

'Yes. Yes it is.' He was walking again now, clicking his tongue to encourage the horse to follow. They turned the corner of the driveway and the empty moorland stretched out ahead of them beyond the gates. 'It's something I am burning to know.'

Before he could press the Doctor further, s...o...b..ld was distracted by a noise. At first he thought it was the cartwheels scratching on the gravel of the drive. The gravel was thin, all but washed away by the flood. The wheels clattered on the frozen ground beneath. But the sound was more of a sc.r.a.ping. and it was coming from the other side of the cart, from the heap of stones and earth where the perimeter wall had collapsed, where Betty...

Betty 'Excuse me,' s...o...b..ld heard himself mutter as he ran. He pushed past the Doctor, the horse, the cart. The stones in front of him were moving, s.h.i.+fting, falling. Something was emerging, something pale and delicate from amongst the heavy rock and stone, from out of the dead land.

Fingers Clutching round a large stone, reaching for the cold air.

He grasped the hand in his own, felt it cool and fragile in his grip as with his other hand he rolled the stone away. He had to let go of her to clear the rubble, to dig with his nails into the frozen dirt, to drag her clear.

She collapsed at once, a tangled weeping mess at his feet. He fell beside her, pulling her to him, crying into her shoulder as he held her. Her face was smeared with her tears and the earth. Her clothes were torn, ragged, stained and in places charred by the fire. Her right hand was a blackened ma.s.s, the flesh peeled back like burned paper.

The fire, he thought, had consumed her. But she had been at its centre, in the eye of the flames, the burning.

They rocked back and forth, crying quietly. 'Oh Jephthah,' he wept into her scorched hair, 'what a treasure hadst thou?'

'One fair daughter,' she wept back. 'Oh Father... Father.' She held him tight in her embrace, their tears mingling where their cheeks met.

Eventually they climbed to their hesitant feet. Eventually he led her gently back to the drive. Eventually he realised they were alone.

A single line of cart wheel tracks led out of the gates and across the sodden moorland. Into the distance.

Disappearing into the empty wilderness.

Acknowledgements

Any novel is a collaborative effort. In the case of The Burning The Burning I am more than usually indebted. I am more than usually indebted.

I owe thanks to Ian Smith for advice on all things military pertaining to the era (and the loan of a nice red jacket just like Michael Caine had in Zulu), though if there are any mistakes they are of my own devising.

In formulating an approach to the 'evolving' character of the Doctor I have to thank Ben Dunn, Dave Owen, Rebecca Levene, Paul Leonard, Lance Parkin, Terrance d.i.c.ks, Gary Russell and Peter Anghelides for their help, confidence, endors.e.m.e.nt and support.

I thank both Jac Rayner and Steve Cole for their help there too. And for far more than that.

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