The Nameless City Read online

  ‘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, Gallifr
eyan,’ 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.

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  First published by Puffin Books 2013

  Text copyright © Michael Scott and BBC Worldwide Limited, 2013

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  ISBN: 978–1–405–91210–5

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