Date: 2013-02-23 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Doctor Who; Science Fiction; Fiction; Short Stories; Fantasy; Time Travel; Media Tie In; Horror; Adventure
Description: This paperback is part of this boxset: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22896661-doctor-who?ac=1 it is not sold separately When Jamie McCrimmon gives the Doctor a mysterious book, he has no idea of the danger contained within its pages. The book transports the TARDIS to a glass city on a distant world, where the Archons are intent on getting revenge on the Time Lord for an ancient grudge.

THE NAMELESS CITY

Michael Scott

PUFFIN

Contents

About Michael Scott

Books by Michael Scott

THE NAMELESS CITY

Copyright page

About Michael Scott

Michael Scott (@flamelauthor) is one of Ireland’s most successful and prolific writers for both children and adults. Michael has over 100 titles to his credit and has written in a variety of genres including fantasy, science fiction and horror, and is considered an authority on mythology and folklore. In 2007, The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, the first in a ground-breaking young adult fantasy series, launched straight into the New York Times bestsellers list, spending sixteen weeks in the top ten. All six books in the series have been New York Times bestsellers and the series is now published in thirty-seven countries. He lives in Dublin.

Find out more about Michael at www.dillonscott.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/flamelauthor

Books by Michael Scott

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series:

The Alchemyst

The Magician

The Sorceress

The Necromancer

The Warlock

The Enchantress

Prologue

We are old now.

Our age is not measured in centuries or millennia or even aeons.

We have seen the rise and fall of solar systems. We have observed galaxies spin and turn, and, once, we watched the entire universe die, only to be instantly reborn in music and light.

Before the Doctor, before the Master, before Gallifrey and the Time Lords, our race ruled the universe. Gone now. All gone. Just we few remain.

But while the rest of our race faded, their atoms mixed amongst the stars, we clung to a semblance of life, dancing to the Music of the Spheres. Our rage kept us in existence, and our loathing sustained us. We will have our revenge. We will rule again.

We are the Devourers of Worlds, the last of the Old Ones.

We are the Archons.

Decrypted data burst recovered from the TARDIS records.

1

London, 1968

A shout: high-pitched, terrified.

The sound was nearly lost in the noise of the busy Saturday-afternoon traffic and the crowds bustling along Charing Cross Road. A few people glanced up and looked around. Seeing nothing wrong, they went on their way.

A second shout rang out, almost completely drowned by the blare of car horns.

Only a tall dark-haired young man standing outside a shabby antiquarian bookshop continued to look, head tilted to one side, eyes half closed, listening intently. None of the passers-by paid him any attention and, since this was London and the city was awash with the latest fashions, no one even blinked at his oversized black turtleneck sweater or the fact that he was wearing a red Scottish-tartan kilt, complete with sporran.

The young man used a trick his father had taught him when they’d been hunting grouse in the Highlands. He deliberately focused on the sounds – first, the cars and buses; next, the street clatter, the dull hum of shouts, the buzz of laughter – and then he tuned them out. He waited for something out of the ordinary, something odd, alien. Something like …

The slap of leather on stone.

It had come from behind him.

Moving quickly now, he followed the sound. It led him to the mouth of a cobbled alley. He glanced down: it was empty. However, he knew with absolute certainty that this narrow tube of stone would have carried any sounds out into the street beyond. Ducking into the alleyway, he blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom, before darting forward. The alley curved slightly to the left and as he rounded the corner he discovered the source of the noise.

A bearded grey-haired man lay sprawled across the filthy stones, surrounded by a scatter of antique leather-bound books. An enormous greasy-haired thug crouched over the figure, searching through a battered satchel, pulling out books and tossing them to one side.

‘Please … please be careful,’ the old man groaned as each leather-clad volume hit the ground with a distinctive slap.

‘Where’s the money?’ the huge thug snarled. ‘Where’s the shop’s takings?’

‘There is none …’ the old man said quickly. ‘We sell antiquarian books. But some days we don’t sell anything …’

‘I don’t believe you. Empty your pockets.’

‘No,’ the old man said defiantly.

‘Yes!’ The thief smiled, thin lips peeling back from yellowed teeth.

Anger flashed in the young Scotsman’s eyes. He knew he shouldn’t get involved. He’d been entrusted with a critical mission and had promised not to delay, but he’d also been raised to a strict code of honour, which included protecting the weak and respecting elders. Keeping close to the walls, he hurried forward, well-worn soft-leather-soled shoes making no sound on the cobblestones.

‘I said, Empty your pockets.’ The thug tossed the satchel to one side and loomed over the man lying on the ground.

Suddenly, a shout cut through the air: a guttural snarl that shocked the thief into immobility. He caught a glimpse of a shadow in the corner of his eye the instant before a tremendous blow to his side sent him crashing into the alley wall. His head cracked against the old stones, and red and blue spots of cold light danced before his eyes as he sank to his knees. The thief blinked, watching a figure in a red skirt – no, a kilt – swim into focus. Scrambling to his feet, he threw an unsteady punch and then something hit him in the centre of the chest and he sat down hard, spine jarring on the cobbles.

‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll run away now. And you won’t look back.’ Although the Scotsman had spoken in little more than a whisper, the threat was clear.

Bending double, with both arms wrapped round his bruised chest, the thief backed away, then turned and ran.

The Scotsman knelt, offering his hand to the old man and gently easing him into a sitting position. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘Only my pride … and my trousers.’ The grey-haired man struggled slowly to his feet, brushing his hair back off his high forehead. ‘And my poor books.’ He moved to pick them up, but the Scotsman was already darting around, collecting the scattered volumes. ‘You’re very brave,’ the man said, his deep voice echoing off the alley walls.

‘Well, I couldn’t just walk away, now could I?’

‘Yes, you could have. Others did.’ The older man stuck out a leather-gloved hand. ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’ He smiled through a neat, grey-flecked goatee beard, his eyes dark and curious beneath heavy brows. ‘I’m Professor Thascalos.’

‘I’m Jamie, Jamie McCrimmon.’

‘Scottish. I thought I recognised a Gaelic war cry. Creag an tuire. What is that – “The Boar’s Rock”?’

Jamie handed over the books. ‘You mean the kilt wasn’t a clue?’ he asked with a grin.

The old man smiled. ‘Fashions nowadays.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows what you young people are wearing?’

Jamie picked up the satchel and held it open as the professor carefully brushed off each book and returned it to the bag. Some of the leather bindings had been scuffed and torn when they’d hit the cobbles and one cover had come away entirely. ‘You were in the military?’ the professor asked.

Jamie shook his head. ‘Not really.’

‘You reacted like a soldier,’ Professor Thascalos said. ‘A shout at the last minute to disorientate the enemy, followed by an overwhelming attack. That only comes with experience. You’ve been in battle.’

The young Scotsman nodded slightly. ‘Aye, well, it was a long time ago,’ he said, his accent suddenly pronounced. ‘And it didn’t end well.’ He wasn’t going to tell the professor that the last battle he’d been in had taken place over two hundred and twenty years ago. He handed the final book to the professor. ‘Is there much damage?’

‘I can have the worst ones re-bound. I should not have come down this alleyway, but I was taking a short cut to my shop. I’m a bookseller on Charing Cross Road,’ he added, and then lifted the bag of books. ‘But you probably guessed that.’

‘I did.’ Jamie grinned. ‘Will you report this to the police?’

‘Of course.’

‘If you’re all right then, I’ll be on my way.’

The professor reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a wallet. ‘Here, let me give you something –’ He stopped suddenly, seeing the look on Jamie’s face. ‘Not money then, but here …’ Rummaging in the bag, he found a small book, wrapped in a black silk handkerchief.

‘I don’t want payment …’

‘Not payment – a gift,’ the bookseller said. ‘A thank-you.’ He handed the package to Jamie, who took it and turned it round in his large hands, folding back the silk to trace a curling outline embossed into the book’s dark leather cover.

‘It looks old.’

‘It is. It is one of the oldest books I possess.’

Jamie opened it. The thick pages were covered in blocky black print in a language he thought might be German. ‘It must be very valuable.’

‘It is,’ the professor repeated, ‘but I want you to have it. You saved my life today, young man,’ he said gruffly. ‘It is the least I can give you.’

‘I cannot read the writing.’

‘There are few who can. But keep it. I insist. You can always give it as a gift to someone you think might appreciate it.’ He suddenly reached out and shook Jamie’s hand. ‘Now I have delayed you and taken up far too much of your time. Thank you. You are a credit to your clan.’ The professor stood back and swung his satchel on to his shoulder, then turned and strode down the alley. He raised his gloved hand and his voice echoed off the stones. ‘Take care, Jamie McCrimmon,’ he called. ‘Enjoy your book.’ And then he rounded the corner and vanished.

Jamie looked at the black book, rubbing his thumbs over the surface. The leather felt oily and slightly damp. He guessed it had fallen in a puddle. Bringing it to his nose he breathed in slowly. He thought he smelled the faintest odour of fish and sea air from the pages. Shrugging, he wrapped it back in its silk and shoved it in his belt as he hurried away. Maybe the Doctor would like it.

Professor Thascalos paused at the end of the alley. He could hear Jamie’s footsteps fading away in the opposite direction. He turned his head to look at a huge figure lurking in the shadows. The greasy-haired thief stepped forward, mouth wide in a broad, gap-toothed grin.

‘You did well,’ the professor said quietly. He pulled out a wad of money from an inside pocket of his greatcoat. ‘We agreed on fifty, but here’s sixty.’ He peeled off six crisp ten-pound notes and handed them across. ‘A bonus for getting hit.’

The man looked at the thick bundle of notes and he licked his lips.

‘You’re thinking foolish thoughts now,’ the professor said quietly again, his face settling into an implacable mask. ‘Dangerously stupid thoughts,’ he added icily.

The thug looked into the professor’s dark eyes, and whatever he saw there made him step back in alarm. ‘Yes … yes, fifty. And the bonus. Very generous. Thank you.’

‘Good boy. Now, go away.’ The professor tossed the bag of books at the big man. ‘Here, get rid of these for me.’

‘I thought they were valuable.’

‘Only one,’ the professor muttered to himself, looking back down the alley. ‘And that was invaluable.’

Stepping into the shadows, the professor watched as the thief slid unnoticed into the throng of people walking past. Then he pulled a slender metal cylinder from his pocket, twisted it counter-clockwise and held it to his thin lips. ‘It is done,’ he said in a language that had not been heard on Earth since the fall of Atlantis. ‘I have completed my half of the bargain. I trust, when the time comes, you will honour your part.’

A thread of faint ethereal music hung on the air.

The professor snapped the cylinder closed and strode away, a rare smile on his lips.

2

There was a blue police box almost directly opposite the statue of Henry Irving at the back of the National Portrait Gallery. None of the tourists gave it a second glance, though a few of the local traders were a little bemused by its sudden appearance. It had recently been announced that London’s police boxes would soon be phased out and demolished.

Jamie McCrimmon slowed as he rounded the corner of the gallery and then stopped. There were tourists everywhere; some were even taking photographs using the blue box as a background. A family of what could only be American tourists in florid shirts, matching shorts and sandals was standing right up against the door.

‘Ah, there you are!’

Jamie whirled round.

The Doctor was standing behind him, looking his usual rumpled and dishevelled self. Polly, one of the Doctor’s companions who had known him before he’d changed, once described him as looking like an unmade bed. Jamie thought it was a good description. The Doctor’s mop of thick black hair was uncombed, his collar was rumpled and a bow tie sat slightly cock-eyed round his neck. He was wearing a black frock coat that had gone out of fashion decades ago over black-and-white checked trousers, which managed to be both too large and just a little too short. It was impossible to put an age on him: he looked to be in his mid-forties, but the Scotsman knew that the Doctor was at least five hundred years old. Jamie still hadn’t decided if he was a genius or a madman. Or both.

The Doctor was licking an ice-cream cone. ‘What kept you?’

‘There was a wee spot of bother …’ Jamie began.

‘Did you get everything on my list?’

‘Nothing,’ Jamie said ruefully. ‘I went to all the chemists I could find – none of them had even heard of the stuff on your list, except the gold and mercury.’

The Doctor bit off the top of the cone. ‘Then we have a problem,’ he said, frowning, deep lines etching into his face. ‘A serious problem.’

Jamie nodded towards the police box. ‘I know. How are we going to get inside?’

The Doctor silently handed Jamie the half-eaten cone. He reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a slender wooden recorder decorated in swirls of blue. ‘When I say run, run!’ he said. ‘Oh, and you might want to stick your fingers in your ears,’ he added, raising the recorder to his lips.

Even with his fingers jammed in his ears – and with cold ice cream dripping down the side of his neck from the cone clutched in one hand – Jamie could still hear the sound vibrating through the air. Pressure built up in his ears and all the nerves in his teeth protested. Birds nestling in the trees and pecking on the ground erupted into the air in an explosion of flapping wings.

‘Run!’ the Doctor instructed. He darted forward, head tilted towards the sky, finger pointing upwards. ‘What is that?’ he shouted. ‘There … just there.’

Everyone looked up, following the wheeling, darting birds.

The Doctor brushed past the staring tourists, stepped up to the police box and quickly unlocked it. He opened the door just wide enough to slip through and pushed it closed promptly after Jamie squeezed inside.

‘We don’t want anyone peeping in now, do we?’ The Doctor grinned and clapped his hands in delight. ‘See? Simplicity itself! There are very few things that a good diversion won’t solve.’

No matter how many times he travelled in the extraordinary machine, Jamie knew he would never get used to the idea that the Doctor’s ship – the TARDIS – was bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. He had no idea how many rooms, galleries, museums and libraries were housed in the extraordinary craft. There was even supposed to be an Olympic-sized swimming pool somewhere in the basement, but he’d never managed to find it. Jamie stopped, suddenly conscious that the beautiful and ornate central console, which was at the heart of the machine, had been dismantled and lay strewn in pieces around the hexagonal room. The floor was scattered with coils of wire, glass panels and hundreds of oddly shaped cogs and wheels.

The Doctor tiptoed his way through the mess. ‘Touch nothing,’ he warned. ‘I know exactly where everything is.’ His foot struck a squat metal cylinder, sending it spinning into a little pyramid of ball bearings, which scattered in every direction, ricocheting around the room. ‘Well, almost everything.’

‘You can fix it, can’t you?’ Jamie said carefully. When he’d left a few hours earlier, the Doctor had been lying flat on his back, head buried under the central console, whistling softly to himself.

The Doctor stood in the centre of the mess and spread his arms wide. ‘Not this time. I’m afraid we’re stuck,’ he said ruefully. ‘The Time Rotor is damaged; I daren’t take us back into the time stream with it in its present condition.’

Jamie stepped over a coil of cable, which writhed on the floor trying to follow him. The Doctor had once told him that these ships were not made but grown, and were actually sentient in their own way. ‘Stuck. Now, when you say stuck …?’

‘As in stuck. Unable to move. Trapped.’ The Doctor’s humour changed in an instant. ‘Are you sure you couldn’t find anything on my list?’ he asked irritably.

‘Nothing,’ Jamie said. He carefully skirted round a wire honeycomb filled with tiny winking stones.

‘Can’t we buy the gold?’ enquired the Doctor absent-mindedly.

Jamie pulled the handwritten list out of his sleeve and unfolded it. ‘A ton of gold,’ he read. ‘Doctor, unless we rob the Bank of England, we’re never going to find a ton of gold. And, even if we bought it legally, it would cost a fortune. I checked this morning’s Financial Times. Gold is priced at around thirty-seven American dollars an ounce. I don’t know how many ounces there are in a ton …’

‘Thirty-two thousand,’ the Doctor said immediately.

Jamie tried to do the maths in his head and failed.

‘One million, one hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars,’ the Doctor said in exasperation. ‘Didn’t you learn anything in school?’

‘I never went to school.’

‘Oh.’ The Doctor suddenly looked embarrassed. ‘No, of course you didn’t. Silly me.’ He waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the roof. ‘Money is not a problem. There’s plenty upstairs in one of the bedrooms. And there’s lots of jewellery we can sell. I’ve still got the pieces Tutankhamen gave me. I’ll never wear them.’ He nudged a spring with his foot. It bounced a metre into the air, pinged off a wall and danced around the room. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ He patted the gutted remains of the central console, then turned, leaned against it and slowly sank to the floor, legs stretched in front of him. ‘There’s only so much I can do for the old girl. I can put the bits back together, but if she’s going to heal, she needs the equivalent of a blood transfusion: gold, mercury and Zeiton-7.’

‘No one has even heard of Zeiton-7,’ Jamie said, scanning the list again. He sat on the floor alongside the Doctor. ‘Can’t you …’ He paused. ‘I don’t know … do something?’

‘I’m a doctor, not a magician.’ The Doctor looked around the control room and slowly shook his head. ‘We’re trapped in London, Jamie. We’ll be forever stuck in this place and time,’ he added softly. ‘And there was so much I wanted to see and do, so much I wanted to show you.’

They sat in silence for a long time. Jamie shifted on the hard, uncomfortable floor and something dug into his side. He reached into his belt and his fingers touched the soft silk wrapping round the strange little book.

‘I’ve got a present for you,’ he said, suddenly remembering. ‘Maybe it’ll cheer you up.’

The Doctor looked up. ‘I quite like presents.’ He frowned. ‘You know, no one has given me a present for a very long time. Well, not since my three-hundredth birthday, or was it my four-hundredth? What is it?’ he asked.

‘Well, I was given this as a reward for something I did this morning. It’s a book and I know you like books. I was told it was very old.’

‘A bit like me,’ the Doctor said, smiling. ‘Aged, like a fine wine …’

‘Or a mouldy cheese,’ Jamie murmured with a grin. ‘Here, I’d like you to have it.’ He slid the book out of the silk wrapping and handed it over. The leather felt slightly greasy and flesh-warm. The Doctor’s long fingers closed round the scuffed black cover. Almost automatically, his thumbs began to trace the raised design. ‘Interesting. What is that?’ he wondered aloud, tilting the cover to the light. ‘Looks like a type of cephalopod …’

‘A seffle-a-what?’

‘Octopus.’ Resting the book on his knees, the Doctor opened it to the title page, the thick parchment crackling as it turned. ‘I don’t quite recognise the language,’ he murmured, index finger tracing the individual letters. ‘This looks like Sumerian, but this here is certainly one of the Vedic scripts, while this is Rongorongo from Easter Island. No, no, I’m wrong. This is older – much, much older. Where did you say you got it?’ But before his companion could reply, the Doctor’s index finger, which had been following the words in the centre of the title page, stopped, and he automatically read it aloud: ‘The Necronomicon …’

With a shriek of pure terror, the Doctor flung the book away from him.

‘The Necronomicon.’

In a place abandoned by time, in the heart of an immeasurably tall black-glass pyramid, the words rang like a bell.

‘The Necronomicon.’

The sound hung in the air, trembling, vibrating off the glass to create thin ethereal music.

Three sinuous shapes wrapped in long trails of ragged shadow rose from a silver pool to twist through the rarefied air, moving to the gossamer music. Two more pairs detached from the four cardinal points of the thick darkness and joined the intricate mid-air dance. The seven curled and wound round one another, folding and bending to form arcane and ornately beautiful patterns, before they finally settled into a perfect black circle. The tower’s mirrored walls and floor made it look as if the darkness was alive with huge unblinking eyes.

‘The Necronomicon.’

‘Oh, Jamie, what have you done?’ The Doctor’s voice was shaking.

‘I don’t know … I mean, it’s just a book.’

‘Oh, this is more, much more, than a book.’

The Doctor and Jamie stared at the leather-bound volume on the floor. Caught in a tangle of wire and cogs, it was pulsating with a slow, steady rhythm.

‘It’s like a heartbeat,’ Jamie whispered. ‘Doctor, I don’t … I mean, I just …’ the young Scotsman said in confusion. He leaned forward. ‘Do you want me to throw it out?’

The Doctor raised his hand. ‘Don’t touch it!’ he snapped. ‘If you value your life and your sanity, you’ll not touch it again.’ He opened and closed his right hand into a fist. The tips of his fingers where they had touched the book were bruised and blackened.

The book’s cover suddenly strobed with dull red light and a tracery of thin lines flickered across it, briefly outlining the shape of a tentacled creature etched into the black leather. The heavy cover flew open and the thick pages lifted and flapped, blowing in an unfelt wind. It finally fell open at a page showing a black-and-grey illustration of narrow pyramids and towers. Abruptly, a series of tiny golden lights – like windows – appeared on the image. A spark leaped from the pages into the tangle of wires cradling it. A second spark – like a tiny yellow cinder – billowed up and hung in the air, before see-sawing into a spider’s web of fine silver wire on the floor. The wire immediately twisted and trembled, pulsating red and black. A fountain of sparks then erupted from the book and scattered across the floor, bouncing like tiny sizzling beads. Wires quivered and shifted with a surge of power; cogs and wheels turned and spun of their own accord.

And then the control console coughed.

It was an almost human sound, a cross between a breathy sigh and a wheeze.

‘Oh no, no, no, no, no, no …’ The Doctor scrambled to his feet and reached for the lever in the centre of the console. He pulled hard – and it came away in his hand. He looked at it blankly. ‘Oh! Well, that’s never happened before.’

The TARDIS breathed again: a rasping gasp.

The Necronomicon had now turned into a sizzling rectangle of sparks and the usually dry, slightly musty air of the TARDIS became foul with the stink of rotting fish.

‘What’s happening, Doctor?’ Jamie asked. He watched, wide-eyed, as the mess of wires, cogs, wheels and dismantled instruments was drawn back towards the central console, as if pulled by a magnetic force. He scrambled out of the way as a cable was sucked back under the desk, writhing like a snake. ‘Doctor?’ Jamie shouted.

But the Doctor was incapable of speech. The air was full of components, winging their way to the control unit. He danced out of the way as a thick tube of metal whipped towards him, plunging deep into the interior of the console. Black smoke filled the room.

‘I think we’re OK,’ the Doctor said, as the incredible movement died down. He grinned and shook his head. ‘For a moment there, I thought we were going to take off,’ he added shakily, ‘but there’s no power, there’s no way we can –’

The TARDIS lights flickered, dimmed and then blazed. And the ship wheezed again. A dry, rasping intake of breath, then a sighing exhalation. And again, faster this time. Then – a familiar, unmistakable sound. The TARDIS was taking off.

‘Impossible!’ the Doctor shouted.

‘I thought you said we were trapped?’

The Doctor waved his hands at the remaining knot of wires on the floor. ‘We are. We shouldn’t be able to go anywhere. We shouldn’t be able to move!’

The main lights dimmed and all the dials on the console lit up with a strange, sickly green glow. The faintest vibration hummed through the floor.

Jamie felt a shifting in his inner ear and then sudden pressure in his stomach. ‘We’re moving,’ he said.

‘And fast too.’ The Doctor rested his fingertips against the metal, feeling it shiver. ‘Very fast. I wonder where we’re going?’ He looked down at the book on the floor. The sparks had died away and the book had snapped shut. The black cover was leaking gossamer-grey smoke. The edges of the white paper were burned black, but the book seemed to have suffered no other damage. He made no move to touch it. ‘Where did you get the book, Jamie?’

‘I tried to tell you. I rescued an old man who was being robbed. Well, maybe he wasn’t that old. He gave me this book as a reward. I did tell him I would not be able to read it …’

‘… and so he told you to give it to someone as a present.’

Jamie nodded. ‘It was meant for you, wasn’t it?’

‘It was.’

‘Have you any idea who it was?’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘When you’ve lived as long as I have, then you make the odd enemy or two.’ He nodded towards the book. ‘Though not that many who would be this powerful. However, there is one who was always fascinated by this terrible book …’ A thin thread of pain crept into the Doctor’s voice. ‘I’ve not seen him in a long time. The Necronomicon is the Book of Dead Names. It is a collection of dark and terrible lore. And it is … old.’

‘Even older than you?’ Jamie asked with a shaky laugh.

‘Older than the Earth. Even older than my homeworld. Older than most solar systems. It was written by one of the races who ruled the galaxy in the very distant past. This is the sum total of their knowledge and speaks of the Time before Time.’

‘And this race,’ Jamie said quietly, ‘I’m guessing they are not your friends?’

‘Oh, they are long dead. They exist only in the memories of a half-dozen scattered worlds, where they are still worshipped as gods. I’ve come up against their worshippers, though,’ he added softly. ‘They didn’t like me very much.’

‘Have you any idea where we’re going?’

‘None.’ The Doctor knelt and peered at the smouldering book, his nostrils flaring. ‘It stinks of old power and foul secrets.’ Then he sat back, dusting off his hands. ‘I’m reluctant to lay my hands on it again. My touch obviously activated it.’

‘I was able to handle it.’

‘But you’re just a human. Tell me,’ he said, ‘when you were given the book, was it wrapped in a cloth?’

Jamie reached into his belt and sheepishly held out the square of black silk.

The Doctor leaned forward until his nose almost touched the material. He breathed deeply and his eyes closed. ‘Ah, now there’s a familiar scent. This old man: tall, dark eyes, goatee beard touched with grey, black gloves.’

‘Yes, that’s him. And gloves, yes, he had gloves. He said his name was Professor Tas– Tascal?’

‘Thascalos,’ the Doctor whispered.

‘That’s it. Who is it?’

‘Someone I’ve not encountered in a long time. But at least we now know where this is taking us,’ the Doctor said grimly.

‘Where?’

The Doctor focused on gingerly wrapping the black silk cloth round the smoking book. ‘Why, to our doom, Jamie. To our doom.’

And the book pulsed in time with his words.

3

‘It feels like we’ve been travelling for days,’ Jamie grumbled.

‘Eight hours as you measure time,’ the Doctor said absently. He was staring intently at a small globe that looked like an oversized light bulb as he carefully twisted two wires – silver and gold – round its base.

‘I thought the TARDIS could move instantly into any place or time.’

‘It can, and usually it does,’ the Doctor grunted.

‘So what’s taking it so long?’

‘During our time together, we’ve never travelled this far before.’ The globe flickered, faded, then blinked alight. ‘Ah, success! You do know I am a genius?’

‘So you keep telling me,’ Jamie muttered.

The globe was now glowing with a pale-blue light. The Doctor stared intently at it, turning it slowly with his fingers. ‘I’ve managed to connect this to the exterior time and space sensors. Now, let us see …’

The globe turned black for an instant and then was suddenly speckled with silver dots. A long misty white streak appeared across its centre.

The Doctor gasped in horror. ‘Oh my giddy aunt. Oh crumbs.’

‘What is it? What do you see?’ Jamie demanded, peering at the image.

‘This! This!’ The Doctor pointed to the globe.

Jamie stared and then shrugged.

‘The dots are stars …’ the Doctor said in exasperation.

‘And the white streak across the middle –’ Jamie began, but almost immediately knew the answer to the question. ‘That’s the Milky Way.’

‘It is.’

‘It seems very far away.’

‘That’s because it is.’

As they were speaking, the long cloud of the distant Milky Way faded and vanished into the blackness of space. Then, one by one, the stars winked out until nothing remained but complete darkness.

‘Has it stopped working?’ Jamie asked.

‘No,’ the Doctor said glumly. ‘It’s still working.’

‘But what happened to all the stars?’

‘They’ve gone. We’re heading to the edge of space.’

A sudden explosion shocked Jamie awake and he realised he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep in a nest of wires. The interior of the TARDIS was filled with noxious white smoke. Coughing, he scrambled to his feet as another detonation ripped a panel off the ceiling. As it came loose, it dangled on a long curl of transparent tubes. The Doctor was lying on his back under the central console, and Jamie could hear the distinctive whirr of what the Doctor called his sonic screwdriver. Jamie wasn’t entirely sure what it did, but he was sure it was definitely not a screwdriver.

Suddenly all the dials on the console lit up with cold blue-green light and began to spin and dance.

‘Are you doing that?’ Jamie asked.

‘Doing what?’ The Doctor’s voice was muffled and distorted. Jamie guessed he was holding the sonic screwdriver between his teeth.

A shower of multi-coloured sparks skittered across the surface of the console. Two of the dials bubbled and melted. ‘Setting the control panel on fire?’ Jamie shouted, darting away.

The Doctor pushed out from under the console and scrambled to his feet. Hopping from one foot to the other, he waved his hands at the blue-green flames now licking up through the panels. Jamie reappeared with a red fat-bodied fire extinguisher, which bore the words Property of London Underground stencilled on the side.

‘No …’ the Doctor squeaked.

‘Yes.’ Pointing the nozzle at the flames, Jamie pressed the lever and doused the control panel in water. A huge gout of flame shot up to the ceiling, where it was swallowed in thick white steam. When the smoke finally cleared, the central panel was a blackened mess.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ the Doctor said accusingly. ‘You’ve ruined it!’

‘Ruined it? I didn’t start the fire –’

The Doctor suddenly held up his hand and turned away. ‘Do you hear that?’ he asked in a hushed whisper.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ Jamie said, looking around.

‘Exactly.’ The Doctor spun back to Jamie. ‘We’ve landed,’ he said grimly.

4

‘It looks like every other barren rocky planet we’ve landed on,’ Jamie murmured. He peered round the edge of the TARDIS’s door, a breathing mask pressed to his face.

The Doctor brushed past him and strode out on to black sand. It billowed up around him.

‘Hey, how do you know it’s safe to breathe?’ Jamie’s voice was muffled behind the mask.

‘I don’t. But I’ll wager we’ve not been brought all the way out here to suffocate.’ Putting his hands on his hips, the Doctor craned his neck back and looked up into the night sky.

Jamie pulled away the mask and breathed in quickly. The air was dry and bitter, tasting vaguely of rotten eggs.

‘Sulphur,’ the Doctor said, answering the question the Scotsman was about to ask.

‘I hate it when you do that,’ Jamie muttered. Standing beside the Doctor, he looked up into the night as well. There were very few stars visible and they were little more than distant specks. Rising low on the horizon was a thin vertical strip of gauzy stars. ‘That’s the Milky Way,’ he said in awe. ‘But it’s wrong,’ he added, tilting his head to one side. ‘The Milky Way does not look like that.’

‘It seems we have travelled very far indeed,’ the Doctor said, looking about them. He wrapped his arms round his body and a shiver ran through him. ‘We’re at the edge of known space, in that place known as the Great Desolation.’

‘And I’m guessing this is one of those places no one ever returns from?’ Jamie asked.

‘No one,’ the Doctor replied. ‘This is the place where myths go to die.’

Deep in the silent heart of a black-glass pyramid a sound reverberated off the sloping walls.

Slow and sonorous, the noise washed across the circular silver pool set into the floor and the fluid within trembled. A series of thick concentric circles spread out across its surface and then a shape appeared, rising up into the blackness. Hooded and wrapped in dripping grey robes, it was joined by a second and a third, and then the liquid boiled as four more rose from beneath the silver. In a ragged V formation, the seven tall shapes turned to face the pyramid’s only door.

The noise boomed out again, growing and intensifying until it became identifiable: the sound of laughter – insane and malevolent laughter.

‘Is this planet inhabited?’ Jamie asked.

The Doctor was lying prone on the ground, staring intently at the black sand through a huge magnifying glass. ‘Remarkable.’ He looked up. ‘Inhabited? Once, perhaps, but not now. This world is ancient beyond reckoning.’ He patted the ground and a cloud of fine black particles rose to envelop his head. ‘This sand has the consistency of talcum powder,’ he said, coughing. ‘Some of it is already dust. Why do you ask?’

Crouched on the brow of a low hill, Jamie pointed. ‘Well, unless I am very much mistaken, I’m looking at a city.’

The Doctor scrambled to his feet and dusted himself down. ‘Nonsense, this place has been uninhabited for aeons,’ he began. ‘Probably just an oddly shaped mountain range. Oh! That’s a city.’

Jamie bit his lip and said nothing.

The Doctor dug into an inner pocket, pulled out a long brass telescope and focused. ‘It’s a city,’ he repeated.

‘Why is it so shiny?’

‘It’s made of black glass.’ The Doctor handed over the telescope.

Jamie pressed the instrument to his eye. The distant cityscape shifted into sharp focus: a vast metropolis of towering ebony-glass buildings razor-etched against the starless sky, each one outlined and traced with threads of gold. They were all tall and slender, triangular and pointed, some bent into odd, irregular angles. He couldn’t see any windows. The young Scotsman pulled the telescope away from his face as the image shifted and blurred. He blinked hard, eyes watering. ‘It’s difficult to look at.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘It was built by creatures who did not live completely in this dimension.’

‘You’ve seen it before.’

‘No. I doubt there is a single creature alive today who has seen this place. My people told stories of it. This is the Nameless City: the home of the Archons.’

‘Friends …?’ Jamie suggested hopefully.

‘The enemies of every living thing.’ The Doctor took the telescope and put it to his eye again. ‘I cannot see any signs of life,’ he murmured. He tapped the telescope against his bottom lip. ‘I seem to remember something about the Nameless City.’ He shook his head. ‘It is a curse having a memory like mine: to have seen so much and not remember all of it.’

‘Would there be something about it in the TARDIS’s library?’ Jamie asked.

‘Ah! The library. Genius, Jamie, just genius. If I can activate the TARDIS’s archive, it is sure to have something about the Nameless City.’ He passed the telescope to Jamie before turning and darting back into the ship.

Jamie was about to follow when he spotted movement in the distance: a swirl of black cloud heading out from the city. ‘Doctor, I think we may be about to have company.’ He trained the telescope on the fast-approaching cloud, but could only make out vague shapes in the gloom. None of which looked human.

The Scotsman slapped his hand against the side of the TARDIS and stuck his head through the open door. ‘Doctor, something’s coming. We need to go now!’

The Doctor was hunched over the console, desperately weaving a handful of wires together. ‘Give me a minute. I just need to push a little power into the library. There’s something at the back of my mind about the Nameless City.’

‘We don’t have a minute.’

Jamie looked over his shoulder. The cloud was closer, and he caught a dull reflective flash – weapons!

‘Now, Doctor. Now!’ he cried, rushing into the TARDIS.

‘The … Name … less … City.’ Low and rasping, the sudden sound sent both the Doctor and Jamie scrambling backwards. The drawn-out syllables echoed off the interior of the TARDIS.

‘The Nameless City.’

The Doctor attempted a shaky laugh. ‘Why, it quite startled me. The TARDIS’s voice is usually female.’ He twisted a wire from the bundle on the burnt-out console, pulled his sonic screwdriver out of a pocket and focused it on the wires. The screwdriver hummed and there was a sudden stink of burning rubber and molten metal.

‘The Nameless City.’

The voice started low and slow, and then speeded up to become sweet and unmistakably female.

‘Home to the Archons –’

‘Stop,’ the Doctor commanded. ‘We don’t need a history of the Archons. Why is the Nameless City so important? Why does it stick in my memory?’

With a glance at the door, Jamie moved over to where the Doctor was standing.

The female voice continued. ‘The only description of the Nameless City occurs in the Necronomicon, the Book of Dead Names. Harnessing the Music of the Spheres, the Archons raised their city over a pool of gold, surrounded by canals of mercury and Zeiton-7.’

The Doctor’s fingers bit into Jamie’s arm. ‘That’s it. That’s our ticket home!’

‘How?’

‘The TARDIS is not a machine,’ the Doctor said. ‘These old TT Type-40 Mark-III machines are organic; they were grown, not made. If we can get the old girl to the city, we can treat her with the gold, mercury and Zeiton-7. Then the self-repairing mechanism will take over.’ He clapped his hands. ‘She’ll be as good as new.’ He looked up at the black monitor. ‘What is the location of the Archon world?’

‘The Archon homeworld is on the Prohibited List. Data has been struck from the records.’

‘Why?’ Jamie wondered aloud.

‘Now that, my young Scottish friend, is the question.’ The Doctor nodded towards the door. ‘Go and see how close our friends are?’

Jamie hurried outside. And ran straight into a huge black shape.

‘Doctor –’

Jamie’s cry of warning was cut off as a massive three-fingered claw gripped his sweater and jerked him forward and up. Suddenly he was cartwheeling through the air. He caught an upside-down glimpse of dozens of huge black metallic ape-like creatures converging on the TARDIS before he hit the ground hard in a billowing explosion of powdery sand.

‘The Nameless City … The Nameless City … The Nameless City …’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I know.’ The Doctor pulled apart the wires and the ship’s voice crackled and faded.

A metallic thump echoed against the ship.

Then another, and another.

Something was hammering on the outside of the craft.

When Jamie had been dragged outside, the Doctor’s first instincts were to go to his aid, but he knew he would be of little help and it would leave the interior of the TARDIS open and exposed. Throwing himself on the ruined console, he’d pushed the manual lever and the door had shuddered and then squealed shut. ‘I’m sorry, Jamie. But I think you will be safer out there than in here.’

The Doctor was beginning to formulate the theory that someone like Jamie – a human – would be of no interest to the creatures, who had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to bring him and the TARDIS to this long-forgotten place. He nudged the Necronomicon with his toe. None of this was accidental.

Snatching a length of wire from the mess on the floor, he wrapped it round his sonic screwdriver and then pushed the other end of the wire into the monitor. An image formed, dissolved into snow, then slowly re-formed to show the exterior of the TARDIS.

‘Oh crumbs.’

The TARDIS was surrounded by what he first assumed were black metal robots. There were dozens of them, shifting and moving around the craft, three-fingered claws scraping the blue surface. Measuring them against the outside of the TARDIS, he calculated that they were at least two metres tall. They had two squat legs and four arms: these were creatures that could stand on two legs and run on six. Despite their size and bulk, they would be fast. Their heads were smooth featureless domes with a single long, glowing red oval where the eyes should be. They had no mouths. As they moved, the Doctor saw that they were semi-transparent. Then he realised that they were not made of metal: these were creatures of glass.

The TARDIS lurched, sending the Doctor crashing to the floor. The last image he saw before the monitor’s picture dissolved into static fuzz was of the huge creatures toppling the ship on to its side and hoisting it on their backs.

‘Well, I did want to get to the Nameless City,’ the Doctor said, sliding across the floor and ending up in a heap against the wall. Turning his head to one side, he saw the Necronomicon caught like a fly, in a spider’s web of wire. Pulling a crumpled spotted hankie from his pocket, he wrapped it round his right hand and reached for the ancient book. He wondered what else it could tell him about the Archons and the Nameless City.

When Jamie awoke he had no idea how much time had passed – it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. Rolling over, he hauled himself slowly to his feet, biting back a groan. He’d banged his elbow and the fingers of his left hand were still numb. The entire left side of his body was going to be one enormous bruise, he decided, probably the same colour as the black sand. He looked around: the creature had flung him into an almost circular crater. A thick layer of soft powdery sand at the bottom had saved him from serious injury.

The Doctor!

With a little difficulty, Jamie scrambled up out of the crater, the fine dust swirling around him, getting in his eyes and nose, and coating his tongue. Once he reached the lip of the crater, he saw the Nameless City ahead in the distance, which meant that the TARDIS should be right behind him.

He spun round.

The TARDIS was missing.

His gaze followed a mess of tracks in the dust … and there, now a long way off, was a billowing cloud of dust heading towards the city.

‘Oh, Doctor …’ Jamie sighed, and set off after the cloud.

The black-glass apes carried the TARDIS towards the city on their backs. Inside the ship, the Doctor had precariously balanced a stepladder on the ruined console. He was standing on top of a wooden stool, which he’d wedged into the top rungs of the ladder. The contraption brought him close to the door, which was now directly above his head. Slowly and carefully, he ran the sonic screwdriver round one of the circular wall panels. It dropped to the floor, bouncing like a ball. The Doctor grinned; the roundels were practically indestructible. Directly in front of him were the square windows set into the TARDIS’s outer door. He carefully undid the hermetic seal and peeled off the glass-like membrane. Shoving the film into his deep pockets, he popped his head out of the opening and looked around.

He was within the walls of the Nameless City.

The Doctor’s eyes immediately started to water. The angles, shapes and perspectives of the buildings were wrong and almost painful to look at, while the gold-trimmed black-glass pyramids reflected one another in endlessly dizzying iterations.

Blinking hard, trying to focus, the Doctor turned to face the direction the TARDIS was being carried.

Directly ahead of him, in the centre of a vast square, was a towering gate: two massive black-glass pillars rising hundreds of metres into the dark sky supported a golden lintel that was easily two hundred metres across.

‘A Time Henge,’ the Doctor murmured in awe. He had come across these ancient gates scattered across hundreds of worlds, including Earth. Millennia past, the Time Lords had rendered them inert and useless, but, once, they would have been used to transport people and goods between fixed places in space and time.

The Doctor looked around. Glass apes poured out of the nearby twisted alleyways and irregular streets. There must have been thousands – tens of thousands – of them. They ebbed and flowed round the TARDIS, reaching up to touch it as it was carried aloft towards the largest building in the centre of the Nameless City: an impossibly tall windowless triangle of shimmering, gold-etched ebony glass.

‘Like a trophy, or a relic,’ the Doctor murmured. As he watched, a vertical seam split the glass triangle and an opening appeared at the top of a series of uneven steps. The doorway was a series of ragged lines, tilted at an angle. Beyond the doorway, there was nothing but thick impenetrable darkness.

The Doctor gingerly climbed down off the stool and ladder. The TARDIS tilted, sending him staggering left and right, then forward. ‘Looks like we’re heading up the steps.’

Replacing the window membrane or the roundel in the wall was clearly impossible, so, wrapping his hankie round his hand again, he slumped to the ground and lifted the Necronomicon off the floor. The book fell open to the illustration of the Nameless City. Focusing on the text, the Doctor began laboriously translating the arcane languages. Almost unconsciously, he started to whistle.

Jamie discovered that the gravity on this ancient planet was a little bit less than Earth’s. He ran in long loping strides, covering a lot of ground quickly, racing towards the Nameless City, which grew out of the desert floor in jagged, irregular blades. He could still just about make out the billowing cloud of dust … and then it suddenly disappeared.

They had gone into the city.

‘Doctor, you will be the death of me yet,’ he muttered. He crouched, then took off at a flat run and launched himself into the air in a soaring jump. He had to get to the Doctor; he would never forgive himself if anything happened to him. And he was also keenly aware that this was all his fault. He should never have taken the book; the Doctor had warned him countless times about talking to strangers.

Jamie’s relationship with the strange little man was complicated. The Doctor had saved his life on more than one occasion, and he’d repaid the compliment by saving the Doctor’s life in return. In their time together, Jamie had come to accept the Doctor as his laird, and as a clansman he owed undying loyalty to his chieftain. Jamie knew the Doctor was not human: he didn’t know exactly what he was, though when he was growing up, he had heard tales of the legendary fairy creatures of the Unseelie Court who haunted Scotland’s deepest valleys. He suspected the Doctor might be one of the dark Sith. He also knew that humans rarely came away from their adventures with the fairy folk unscathed.

Silence.

The TARDIS had been righted and the Doctor had slid off the wall into a tangle of wire and metal. He’d crouched on the floor for a long time, listening intently, but hearing nothing. He finally stood up and peered through the empty square in the door where he’d pulled out the glass-like membrane. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom. He saw another TARDIS and then a second and a third; he was surrounded by hundreds of blue police boxes.

Reflections.

He was looking at reflections.

The Doctor was within the enormous black-glass pyramid, and the mirrored walls reflected and distorted everything around him. He could see the massed ranks of thousands of crystal apes standing still, their ‘eyes’ now just dark panels. Almost directly in front of him, a few metres away, a huge triangle was traced in gold on the floor, and at its centre was a gold-encircled pool of shimmering silver liquid. Lifting his right hand, the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the pool, thumbed the button, then examined the result. Just as he suspected: mercury.

He cracked open the door and popped his head out, looking quickly left and right. There was no movement. He breathed deeply: the air smelled stale and sour, but with a definite tang of dead fish.

The Doctor squeezed out of the half-open door, ducked through the ranks of unmoving crystal apes and crouched at the edge of the mercury pool. He stared at its metallic surface and then looked back at his poor damaged craft. He needed to get the TARDIS into the pool. The Doctor wrapped his arms tightly round his chest and rocked to and fro: if only he could take control of the apes, he could get them to carry the damaged craft …

A droplet of mercury, a metal bead the size of his thumb, popped up on the surface of the pool. It vibrated and then floated upwards.

Another appeared. It drifted up into the air.

And another.

A shimmering thread of music hung in the air, a single humming sound.

Suddenly, long strings of metal streamed up towards the unseen roof and slowly, slowly, slowly a head appeared out of the silver. A second head emerged, a third, then four more.

‘Archons,’ the Doctor breathed in amazement.

With a swirl of sound, the seven figures rose from the mercury.

5

The Nameless City was empty.

Jamie raced through the streets, his reflection rippling off the glass walls. He was looking for any signs of movement, any clue as to where the Doctor had been taken. But the city seemed deserted.

He ran into a vast square and stopped before a huge black-and-gold gateway. He looked around; all the streets of the city converged on this point. And they all led to one building.

Directly in front of him rose the tallest of the black-glass pyramids. It was the only one with a door – and it was open. Without a moment’s hesitation, Jamie raced towards it. It was at times like these when he wished he had his claymore, though he wasn’t exactly sure what the great Scottish sword could do against glass apes.

The Doctor watched in horror as the rulers of the glass city appeared out of the mercury in a swirl of ethereal music.

In his long life the Doctor had seen creatures both monstrous and hideous, but nothing like these. The stink of stagnant water and rotting fish filled his nostrils. Each creature was wrapped in long, trailing rags, which concealed most of their flesh, but he caught hints of their true appearance as they floated up into the air. One, bigger than the rest, resembled an octopus, with twisting, writhing limbs, while a second had an eel’s sloping head peering from within its hood. Another had a suggestion of a crab claw half hidden in its sleeve, and everywhere he caught glimpses of barbed squid suckers and albino flesh.

‘You are the Gallifreyan. We will not honour you with your title.’ The words were liquid and sticky. The Doctor could not be sure which creature spoke.

Hanging in mid-air, rags blowing in a foul breeze, the seven creatures began to move in a beautiful, intricate dance. Circling one another and undulating in time to the shimmering music, they crawled all over each other in a writhing mass – tentacles sliding over claws, fins interlocking with suckers – until they finally all slotted together, fitting into place to form one huge entity. A tentacled, beaked and clawed monstrosity. The Doctor stared at it in awe; it was simultaneously hideous and mesmerisingly beautiful.

‘Once we were many, now we are all that remain. We are seven; we are one. We are the Archons.’

The Doctor backed slowly away from the pool. He needed to get to his ship. If he could just get inside …

An enormous milk-white eye at the centre of the grotesque being glared at the Time Lord. Beneath the eye, a beak – ringed with waving tentacles – opened and closed. The head dipped forward and the huge black pupil dilated until the Doctor felt he was looking into a bottomless pit.

‘We’ve waited a long time for you.’ The voice was fluid and gurgling and full of menace. ‘And the TARDIS. Our TARDIS.’

Made dizzy and nauseous by the bizarre angles, Jamie stepped through the doorway and looked down into the heart of the pyramid. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust and when they did he took a quick step backwards. The pyramid was filled with the huge semi-transparent six-legged apes. There were thousands of them, maybe more, but it was hard to be sure with the confusion of never-ending lines and reflections. They were standing immobile in long irregular ranks facing the centre of the pyramid where the tiny figure of the Doctor crouched before a silver pool.

Jamie’s breath caught in his throat: floating in the air over the pool was a monstrous squirming nightmare waving octopus tentacles in the Doctor’s face.

Jamie knew he had to get down there. He stepped up to the nearest ape and poked it gently with his finger. The glass was smooth and cool to his touch, but the creature didn’t react. Growing bolder, Jamie stepped up and waved his hand in front of the ape’s face. There was no response.

‘You’re not so scary,’ he said with a grin. Dropping flat on the ground, he began to crawl and slither between the apes’ legs across the smooth floor towards the Doctor.

‘Your TARDIS?’ the Doctor snapped, rising to his full height. ‘I think not.’

‘We created TARDIS technology.’ The sticky, bubbling voice crackled and long strings of liquid dripped from its beaked mouth. Music swirled around the creature. ‘The original TARDIS seeds were created by Archon science-mages.’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘I think not,’ he repeated. ‘The secret of Time Travel was created by my people.’

‘And your people stole those seeds from us. The Time Lords cloned them and grew their own ships. And then, in order to keep the mystery of time to themselves, your race declared war on us.’ The music rose and fell as the Archon spoke. ‘They abandoned us here and left us to rot.’

The Doctor continued to shake his head, but without his previous conviction. The early history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords was shrouded in mystery.

The Archon leaned down, tentacles and claws waving in the Doctor’s face, spattering his cheeks with rancid mercury. ‘Do you know what it is like to spend an eternity in isolation? Have you any concept of the loneliness of millennia of solitude?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘I have known loneliness,’ he said quietly.

‘We are the last of the Archons. Trapped here in the Great Desolation, we have watched our people die. But they will not have died in vain if we can avenge them.’

The Doctor started to back away from the edge of the pool. If he turned and ran, could he make it to his ship?

‘Do you know what we have needed all these millennia?’

The Doctor shook his head, though he already had a good idea of the answer.

‘A TARDIS,’ the Archon continued. ‘And, just when we had despaired, one of your kind appeared before us. He made us an offer. He was not foolish enough to land. Orbiting the planet, he told us of a damaged TARDIS, a craft without a Time Rotor, blind and defenceless. And he could bring it here.’

‘No doubt you paid him well.’

‘When the Archons return in fury and vengeance, we will make good our promises to him. He will rule galaxies.’ The creature’s tentacles waved, suckers opening and closing like tiny barbed mouths. ‘He must hate you very much.’

‘He does.’

The Archon drifted out over the heads of the crystal apes and hovered above the TARDIS. Dozens of hooked tentacles dangled from beneath its ragged grey robes. They wrapped round the battered craft and lifted it effortlessly into the air.

The Doctor watched in amazement as the Archon brought the TARDIS back to the mercury pool and then slowly, almost delicately, lowered it into the silvery metal liquid.

‘The time of the Archons has come again,’ the huge creature announced. ‘The TARDIS is the key to our escape. Once the ship is repaired, we will fuse it into the Time Henge and activate the gate. All the galaxies and all the time streams will be ours to command. We will lead our army back through time to Gallifrey, back when it was still a fledgling world, and we will turn it into a barren rock. When we are finished, your race will never have existed.’

‘You cannot –’ the Doctor began.

‘We will.’

‘If Gallifrey falls and if the Time Lords do not police and protect the time streams, then the history of many galaxies and times will be altered. Countless millions of worlds will die,’ the Doctor said desperately.

A shudder ran through the Archon and the creature seemed on the point of splitting apart. ‘We will rebuild the Archon empire.’

The Doctor watched as the mercury pool shrank. The ship absorbed the liquid metal, draining the pool and soaking it up like a sponge. He saw it leech colour from the gold perimeter, turning it to grey stone. One by one, the scrapes and scars on the blue surface of the TARDIS faded and vanished.

With the falling level of mercury, the Archon was forced to dip lower to keep the TARDIS submerged in the liquid.

The Doctor edged closer to the pool and peered down. He could see the distinctive green glow of Zeiton-7 on the floor of the pool. Gold, mercury and Zeiton-7: all the nutrients necessary to revive the ailing TARDIS. The ship already looked sleek and gleaming: ‘well fed’ was the phrase that came to the Doctor’s mind.

He caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and glanced sidelong to see Jamie crawl out from between the legs of the crystal apes. The Doctor turned his back on the Archon.

‘And what will you do with me?’ he asked.

The rippling laughter was disgusting. ‘Why, Doctor, we will eat you. You will be a tasty snack.’

‘I’ll give you indigestion,’ he snapped. ‘And what will you do with this new Archon empire?’ he continued, his voice rising and echoing slightly. Looking directly at Jamie, he mouthed, Get ready. He held up his hand, five fingers spread open, then folded down his thumb: four … three …

The beautiful music rose to a crescendo and the creature rippled in its intricate dance. ‘We will rule again. It is our destiny. We are the Archons.’

Still with his back to the creature, the Doctor pulled out his recorder, put it to his lips and played the first few bars of ‘The Skye Boat Song’.

The TARDIS doors hummed open.

‘Now, Jamie! Now!’ The Doctor flung himself forward and leaped through the open door of the craft dangling over the now empty pool. A huge suckered tentacle instantly wrapped round his leg, pulling him back. Jamie sprang on top of the squirming tentacle. He ripped the Doctor’s leg free, just as the TARDIS door slammed shut, slicing the writhing limb in two. Leaking green gore, the dismembered appendage flapped helplessly on the metal floor of the TARDIS like a fat green worm.

‘Och, man, that’s disgusting!’ Jamie muttered.

The interior of the craft was pristine and the Doctor scrambled to the gleaming central console. ‘Oh, it is good to have you back, old girl,’ he murmured, pushing two levers and bringing the ship to roaring life. The TARDIS growled and tore free of the Archon, soaring into the air. It floated in the centre of the pyramid, swirling round the creature.

‘Everything is new again.’ The Doctor danced from foot to foot.

All the monitors lit up, showing the Archon splitting up into seven separate parts, each creature attaching itself to the blue box, claws and tentacles snatching and holding on. The ship lurched and sank down.

Jamie looked knowingly at the Doctor. ‘You have a plan,’ he said.

‘Is that a question or a statement?’ the Doctor asked.

‘A statement.’ Jamie grinned. ‘You always have a plan.’

‘Get your bagpipes, Jamie. It’s been a while since you played them.’

‘My pipes?’

‘Your pipes.’

Without another word, Jamie hurried away.

‘You are trapped here, Gallifreyan,’ the Archons boomed, seven voices speaking in unison. ‘There is no escape.’

The Doctor hit a lever on the console and then flopped cross-legged on the floor. ‘I have no intention of escaping.’ Magnified, his voice echoed and re-echoed throughout the glass building.

Jamie reappeared, settling his bagpipes under his arm. ‘What’ll I play?’ he asked.

‘Something loud. Maybe a ceol mor?’

‘You once told me a ceol mor sounded like fingernails being pulled down a blackboard.’

‘Exactly.’ The Doctor grinned. ‘Play, Jamie.’

Settling the bag under his arm, and slipping the mouthpiece between his lips, Jamie started to blow and pump the bag.

‘Make it loud, Jamie,’ the Doctor said, pulling out his recorder. ‘I think I’ll join you.’

The sound was indescribable.

Shrill, high-pitched and screeching, it bounced warbling distortions around the interior of the pyramid, completely swamping the fragile delicate music that the Archons moved to.

Hissing and spitting, the creatures fell away from the spinning TARDIS.

The sounds rose higher and higher to an incredible crescendo. The new music caught the Archons, sending them twisting in a frenzy, crashing into the glass walls and blindly bouncing off one another. They tried to reunite into the one enormous creature, but the distorted wailing of the bagpipes curled their shapes into ragged ugly spirals.

The Archons threw themselves on the TARDIS again, claws and beaks tearing at the exterior, tentacles trying to prise the door open.

‘Try “Scotland the Brave”,’ the Doctor suggested. His hands danced across the console as Jamie played, altering the output, subsonics and high harmonics screeching out through the ship’s hidden speakers and sending the Archons into a paroxysm of ugly random movement. One, a thickly shelled clawed crustacean, smashed blindly into the side of the pyramid, and a frost-white crack spider-webbed along the black surface.

‘Louder, Jamie!’ the Doctor called. ‘These creatures have spent an eternity dancing to the Music of the Spheres. Let them dance to a new tune.’

A howl of feedback sent two of the Archons soaring high into the glass pyramid, smashing them against its apex. Another crack appeared and, even above the caterwauling bagpipes, the sound was like a thunderclap. It was followed by a second and a third. And then a huge slab of glass sheared away. It smashed into the two Archons and drove them down to the floor in a tangle of ugly fins and razor teeth. Massive shards of glass fell with the Archons on to hundreds of apes, cutting a swathe through their massed ranks and reducing them to powder.

The entire building started to tremble. A network of cracks radiated across the surface, creeping out into the adjoining buildings. The surviving Archons darted away from the TARDIS and desperately tried to escape, but it was too late: the pyramid suddenly exploded in a detonation of glass. A deadly rain of enormous razor shards fell, completely burying the hideous creatures and pulverising the crystal apes. The explosion rippled out through the Nameless City, setting up a chain reaction as buildings toppled on to one another.

The TARDIS spun up through the opening in the shattered roof, and the Doctor and Jamie watched in silence as the entire city shattered and crumbled into black dust. Soon, only the glass-and-gold Time Henge remained, standing tall amid the ruins.

The Doctor put his recorder to his lips and whistled a single screeching note. Fractures radiated along the length of the henge’s black supports. They snapped like cracking ice and the golden cross-beam fell and splintered into a dozen massive pieces.

The Doctor spread his arms out across the restored console, pressing his cheek against the warm metal. ‘I was worried about you for a while,’ he whispered.

‘It worries me when you talk to the ship,’ Jamie said.

‘Sssh, you’ll hurt her feelings.’

‘How did you know how to defeat the Archons?’ Jamie asked.

With his foot, the Doctor nudged the Necronomicon lying on the floor. ‘The book they sent to destroy us proved to be their undoing. It tells of their origins. The Archons have their roots in the oceans of long-dead worlds. They were once deep-sea dwellers, living in vast undersea kingdoms where they would have hunted and communicated by sonar. You saw them dance in the air, moving to the beautiful music created by the faintest ghost winds blowing across the sharp edges of the city. You just gave them something else to dance to, something to disorientate and confuse them. They’d never heard the bagpipes before. And, of course, I tweaked the sound. It must have been agony for them.’

Jamie started to nod and then stopped. ‘Hey! Are you saying my music’s not beautiful?’

‘Dear boy, it helped us escape, didn’t it? That makes it the most beautiful music in the world.’

‘What about the professor who gave me the book?’ Jamie asked. ‘What do we do about him?’

‘Nothing. We’ll not chase trouble, Jamie. And we’ll meet him again,’ the Doctor said. ‘Sooner or later, he’ll turn up. He usually does,’ he added, twisting the recorder in his fingers. ‘Come on now – let’s play!’

Spinning in the light of a thousand suns, blue and now sparkling new, the TARDIS flew back towards the Milky Way, leaving the faintest trail of ‘Scotland the Brave’ in its wake.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, eleven ebook short stories will be available to download and collect throughout 2013.

ELEVEN DOCTORS.
ELEVEN MONTHS.
ELEVEN AUTHORS.
ELEVEN STORIES.

FIFTY SPECTACULAR YEARS.

PUFFIN BOOKS

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First published by Puffin Books 2013

Text copyright © Michael Scott and BBC Worldwide Limited, 2013

BBC, DOCTOR WHO (word marks, logos and devices), TARDIS, DALEKS, CYBERMAN and K-9 (word marks and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.

BBC logo © BBC, 1996

Doctor Who logo © BBC, 2012

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ISBN: 978–1–405–91210–5

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