Part 25 (1/2)

Gruffly, Angela told Iris, 'Drive out of here as quietly as you can. I wouldn't want them waking until we're long gone.'

Iris tossed her head.'Drive quietly!' she snapped derisively and revved up the engine. The bus set up a ghastly, racking cough of a din as she instructed it to reverse through the tall, glossy double doors of the mansion.

Sam went to sit beside the Doctor. Inside his fur hood his grey eyes were gleaming with excitement.

'We've got quite a little team in tow,' he smiled.

Sam gritted her teeth until they were out of the hallway and on to the gravel drive. The tyres seemed to make an unearthly racket as they headed for the road. Everyone, it turned out, held their breath until they were out of sight of the buildings, tearing they might wake the bears and see them in pursuit. But inside the homestead, nothing was stirring.

Iris got them on to the road at the back of the estate and accelerated swiftly into the forest. Major Angela shuffled down the gangway and bent close to give her directions.

The forest's sepulchral air swallowed up the bus and they plunged onward, into the south.

Sam thought about school trips and starting out in the bus, full of eagerness every time, even if they were going somewhere educational.

'Hey Iris,' she yelled.'Put that Motown tape on again.'

'Righty-oh,' Iris called, and Diana Ross came on, surprising all the Hysperon natives on board.

Somehow things seemed much better now they were all back on the road.

Where the thorns and thickets grew their densest and the vines swung down to impede the primitive roads, the gateway to the next level was waiting for them. As she gave them half-remembered directions to the gateway, the Bearded Lady grew quite philosophical about this. 'We are coming to the southernmost limit of my domain. I haven't been this far in a decade. Haven't you ever noticed,' she called back to the Doctor, 'that the one place you want to go is that most shrouded in mystery and the most hazardous to get to?'

'Oh yes,' he agreed happily.

Iris thought that Angela had taken too much of a s.h.i.+ne to the Doctor.

She must like the sound of his voice. 'So what is the danger here?' the old woman asked. She drew the bus to a halt. The road had become completely overgrown. 'What can we expect?'

'If this is indeed where the gateway to the next level is,' said Major Angela,'then we can expect it to be guarded by a beast.'

'We should have guessed,' scowled Gila.

They clambered out of the bus. Very little light penetrated the mesh of branches above them.

'Where is this beast?' asked the d.u.c.h.ess flatly.'I will destroy it.' Major Angela was scandalised. 'Surely you recall that you can't possibly kill the beasts who guard the gateways? They are all that maintain the discrete barriers between levels.'

'Well, where is it?' Sam snapped. 'All I can see are a few old trees.'

'Within the trees, in the darkest, dingiest part you can uncover,' said the Bearded Lady. ”That is where you must go to ask to permission to pa.s.s through.'

'Like trolls,' said the Doctor. 'In the old Nordic tales, guarding bridges: ”They don't have trolls here,' Iris called from her wheelchair in the doorway of the bus.

'Well, whatever,' said the Doctor. 'I'll just pop in and ask if we may pa.s.s.'

He plunged recklessly into the bushes, then pulled back. 'What kind of beast is it I'm likely to come across?'

'A gigantic and malign spider,' said Angela.

He froze.'Oh. Really?'

'You don't like spiders,' Gila smirked.

'Not much.' The Doctor looked abashed.'Sam, would you come with me, please?'

Sam shouldered forward, secretly flattered.

The others watched them slip into the trees. The undergrowth whipped and flailed at them. Major Angela suggested that they start to cut away some of the jungle vines to find the gateway itself. It had been years since anyone had pa.s.sed through this way.

They set to work.

In the murky light of the s.p.a.ce beyond the trees the Doctor and Sam were casting about and keeping a careful eye out 'Come on, Doctor.You're the best at walking straight into monsters. Even when you don't want to.'

He gave a little shudder.'I have a thing about spiders,you know. Did I ever tell you about the time I had to go into the cave of the Great One?'

'I think so.'

'On Metebelis Three. Strange place. Everything was a kind of Habitat blue. This was all several lifetimes ago and a complete nightmare.'

'Shh.' Sam stopped in her tracks.'I thought I heard something.'

The Doctor crashed blithely on, cracking and bending wet branches as he reminisced. 'Oh yes, I came out of it almost dead, but I saw the queen of the giant spiders. Dreadful squeaky voice. They were a terrible lot. Iris claims to have done exactly the same thing, though apparently that time it was her and her glamorous companion Timmy who -'

Sam swore.

The Doctor wheeled around. 'Sam, I'd much prefer it if you simply screamed blue murder rather than use language like -'

The spider in front of them was taller than the two of them together. It lay casually, almost luxuriously, in an opaque tangle of webbing, bathed in orange light. Its eyes glittered and all eight of its legs tapped eagerly, as if waiting for their explanation.

They had pulled aside curtain after curtain of twisted overgrowth and undergrowth. At last they had found stone underneath. An archway stretched over the road, almost completely clogged with rank life. A sandstone door barred their way. The d.u.c.h.ess and Gila worked steadily to reveal a host of runic symbols gouged into the soft rock, as if by someone's nails.

'What's the pa.s.sword?' Gila asked, as they rested to admire their handiwork.

'Usually,' Major Angela said, feeling the inscribed text with her fingers, 'you have to pay a toll.'

'A toll?' asked Iris suspiciously.

'You feed your most expendable companions to the spider.'

The creature's voice seemed to be coming from many places at once.

'You bears never come this far south,' it ruminated.

Sam elbowed the Doctor. They both clutched their furs tighter and shrank into them.