Part 20 (2/2)

'Major Angela,' he said graciously. 'We meet again.'

She c.o.c.ked the rifle.'And who might you be?'

He straightened.'I'm Gila. You know me.'And then he stared straight into the milky blue opacity of her eyes and realised that she was blind as the moon.'Remember?'he asked, more gently.

She looked grim.'We'll have to see about that.'

'You can't have forgotten me.'

'It was all lies!' burst Sam.'You don't know her at all, do you?'

'It was true!' he spat.'She's forgotten everything. And she's blind.”

'I remember everything,' cried Angela. 'And I remember a surly alligator man called Gila. Who's to say that you are he?'

'I am,' said Gila stolidly.

”This is a world of illusions,' she declared.'And that's why I'm glad the Scarlet Empress struck me blind. I won't be taken in by illusions.' Then she told the bears to put Gila and Sam into the museum of arms.

The Doctor was back on. They stood him on his podium and gathered again in the rafters. His throat was tight and raw with talking.

The wren commanded him again. 'Begin with the beast that gave poison off its skin.When you had to do battle with it in the arena.'

'Ahm,' said the Doctor, thinking back. 'Oh yes. It was in a kind of Ancient Rome, the heart of the Empire that had never collapsed and had instead developed transdimensional travel.'

The birds were fl.u.s.tered.'Too obscure. Explain!'

The Doctor shrugged. His tiredness was making him reckless.'listen, I've been thinking. Do you know anything about the morphology of the folk tale? No? Well, it's a human concept, a very twentiethntury idea,=”” expounded=”” by=”” a=”” russian=”” called=”” vladimir=”” propp=””></entury>< p=””>

'We still do not understand,' said the wren heavily, flexing her small talons.

'His idea was that any story can be reduced to thirty-four functions. Any tale I can possibly tell you is basically a variation on hundreds of others.

All you need are lots of variables to fill up the s.p.a.ce. And you get endlessly renewable stories. So what I'm thinking is... maybe I could give you a plan of the thirty-four stages in any story, and then a whole list of variables, hmm?'

'Go on.'

'The variables might be Sontarans, Aggedor, Zarbi, Sarah, Jo, Metebelis Three, Solos and so on. And then I could give you a whole lot of plot devices, such as building a hot-air balloon to escape, finding a ventilation shaft to s.h.i.+n up, sabotaging a computer in someone's control room with a display of confounding illogicality, or hypnotising a possessed lackey to discover an enemy's secrets. Then you could rea.s.semble as many stories as you like, one after the other, and they would never have to be the same one twice. And then I need never be here! You just need to randomise all my elements, as if in a big... um, blender, and then I can slip away quietly!' He grinned. 'What do you think?'

There was a general kerfuffle of protest.

'But we like your voice,' said the wren.'It has about it a certain ring of authenticity, as if you have actually lived these ludicrous events which you describe. We want you to tell us everything personally.'

'I was afraid of that. But you see, I can't always be here. I'm a fly-by-night. The whole world is calling out to me. Listen! Fidelity has never exactly been my forte.'

'We want you here always, Doctor. We have decided.' The Doctor shook his head, dropping leaves out of his tangled curls. 'It's all very flattering, but -'

'But nothing. Continue with the tales.'

Below the parliament of birds, beneath their floorless city of twigs and clay, a small army was approaching. The Scarlet Guard of the Empress were orientating themselves by the glimmering lights of the lofty buildings in the trees.

Their captain nodded and called his troop to attention. He told his tattooed men to gather the driest wood they could find and ama.s.s it under the trees that supported the birds. He produced from his bag a small, silver tinder box.

”The Empress,' he said,'is becoming impatient.'

Iris watched the troops with mounting horror. She had only just managed to extricate herself from the trees and set herself down on relatively solid ground with great relief. These days she wasn't well enough to do as much climbing and romping about as this. This whole trip was taking too much out of her. She crouched in the undergrowth and watched the Scarlet Guard set their fires.

The smoke spiralled, plumed and began to plummet upward towards the city of the birds. She watched and held her breath. She didn't think there was anything she could do. Then she turned and ran into the forest, through the gloomy and lumpen vegetative forms that lurched and shook and tried to snag her back. She tried to home in on the bus, beating back her panic in an attempt to pick up the s.h.i.+p's psychic trace.

Then she saw it. Her bus waited patiently, as ever, in the same clearing where they had left it.

But there was someone on board, waiting for her. Or, rather, half a person was waiting for her.

By the time Iris had flung herself through the concertinaed doors, that person looked up from its business and stared at her out of ten blazing eyes, and gave a single mechanical blink. The intruder was strapping arms on to its own torso, making minute adjustments and listening with satisfaction to the hiss and spark of its myriad connections coming together.

Iris stared at this silvered, half-completed beast.

Out of a face in which only the essentials had been re-formed, a smokily androgynous voice addressed her. 'I am your quarry, Iris Wildthyme. I have elected to come to you. I am the d.u.c.h.ess, and I am at your service.'

The creature's mercurial hands spread out towards her in supplication.

The council chamber of the birds filled quite rapidly with dense and sulphurous smoke. They lifted from their perches and swarmed in the air, shrieking their alarm. The Doctor fell back forgotten, as they wheeled and careered out of the blanketing smog.

'This is your doing!' he was raucously accused.

It was getting hotter. A whole wall cracked and blackened and fell away.

It let the night stream in.

The birds dashed at the open s.p.a.ce, making for the clearer air.

The city was on fire and the Doctor was left clinging to his podium, feet dangling over the gus.h.i.+ng blackness. Out on a limb again. Someone was smoking them out.

Chapter Nineteen.

They're All Weird Places

They were held in the round tower of the museum of arms. Gla.s.s cases displayed the most startling collection of knives and swords. In the half gloom they glinted and shone. Sam and Gila spent some time examining these weapons, until they grew restless and bored.

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