The Tomb of Valdemar Read online

  The Magus talks to him. Roars at him to Become.

  Sometimes, the Neville-being feels he will burst with the noise. He must change or be destroyed. The Magus will not compromise.

  The human Neville places the hood over his head and lights the candle in the chalice. He can feel the Magus straining for release, pleading angrily for him to hurry; feels the greater being’s muscles and sinews straining for rebirth. The human Neville tries to placate the voice – it must understand that to rush now would be fatal. This final ceremony must proceed according to the ritual that Neville spent a decade piecing together.

  A frenzied beeping from the console breaks his concentration. The still-mortal part of Neville’s conscious mind, that part he is attempting to dissipate, recognises it as a call from Kampp. No doubt with details of the Doctor’s slow demise. Neville ignores the signal. This is the time, the ultimate fulfilment. The moment to bind the strands of a lifetime. He thinks of all those lives on all those planets, the cult members who gave up everything for him, for the promise of the resurrection. Do they now look up at the stars and understand, feel how close the moment is? The human Neville sniffs. Who cares?

  As the human Neville moves gracefully down the wide marble stairs that eventually lead to the piazza, he is completely focused, staring at the candle, ready for the ritual.

  ‘Master. Magus,’ comes a small, frightened voice. Huvan, sitting on the steps, dressed in the white robe, waiting for him. If only the boy knew, if he had only half an inkling of his historical importance. The Magus will remember him with honour. As he is consumed.

  Not yet, not yet. The human fragment still controls, just.

  Huvan, for all his years, has the mind of a child and must be treated as such. The human Neville can barely look at that oily, pitted face.

  Attempting to retain his concentration, the human Neville arches a silver eyebrow beneath the hood.

  ‘Are you prepared? Is there anything you need, Huvan?’ He remembers to use that caring, fatherly tone that voice-tests revealed worked most effectively on the boy’s psyche.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything.’ Huvan looks away.

  He is embarrassed. The human Neville understands the boy is seeking attention, needing to be told once again just how important he will become. Inwardly, the human Neville sighs.

  ‘Let’s sit down. Share your troubles. You want to talk about it?’ He realises that the fact that Huvan responds so well to this pseudo-therapy jargon, known as op-rick, is merely one of the inconveniences that make him really hate this little sod.

  ‘I’m worried,’ says Huvan. ‘What if I mess everything up?

  What if it all goes wrong? I don’t think I could handle rejection again.’

  ‘You have to believe in yourself.’ The human Neville can recite this as slickly as he can speak the ritual passages.

  ‘Give yourself respect. You are a human being; you have a right to be heard. Listen to your own inner voice. It doesn’t matter what others think.’

  ‘What if they laugh at me? What if nothing happens?’

  ‘It will, Huvan. It will. You must just believe in your own worth. You have a great gift, a special gift...’

  This goes on for another twenty minutes until every avenue, every possible permutation of doubt, every paranoid barrier has been overwhelmed. Huvan is at last finally filled up with the pompous praise and agrees to do his best. He spends the next ten minutes apologising before skipping his way down the stairs, making the human Neville late for his own black mass.

  Once Neville has descended the stairs, he is enraged to find that his servitors are not ready. They are dashing around, half-dressed, covering the tables with the starred black cloths, arranging the pentagrams, lighting the candles.

  ‘What is happening here?’ he bellows, unable to believe this farce.

  One of them, Hermia in fact, her teeth chattering in panic, drops to her knees. ‘We weren’t sure what to do,’ she moans.

  ‘Tennie... I mean Brother Stanislaus... has disappeared. He’s the only one who knows the rituals. Please forgive us!’

  The others drop to their knees in contrition but the human Neville is too angry. He walks round each in turn, kicking them over. ‘You mean he was the only one who could be bothered to learn. I knew I should have left you on Palma station and brought the inner circle. You’re useless! I should destroy you all!’

  This provokes much wailing and entreating him to spare their lives. At this point Huvan enters, and the human Neville allows him to put in a few choice kicks of his own. ‘Now get this mess sorted out!’ he yells.

  At last, they begin. The human Neville takes a deep breath.

  He ushers the group to kneel at a large, black-draped stone table. Huvan sits opposite him, next to Hermia, staring furtively at the black cloth. ‘Take each other’s hands,’ Neville orders. The cabal obeys. If Hermia is unhappy with Huvan’s sweaty palm, she does not show it.

  ‘The spirits of the Old Ones are all around.’ The Magus is with him, clearer now, directing operations. Eager; willing the human Neville on. ‘They would prevent our communion with the Dark One. Concentrate, concentrate and join with me in the hymn of rebirth.’

  He starts up the low chanting, the notes alien to the human tongue. It took the human Neville five years to master the phonetics.

  It ends, as always, with the one word, the one true word.

  ‘Valdemar, Valdemar, Valdemar!’

  Suddenly, Huvan moans. He looks around, eyes wide. ‘I can’t do it! I don’t know what to do!’

  ‘Huvan!’ the human Neville barks at the boy.

  ‘Magus, help me. What shall I do? I feel nothing. I did before but now there’s nothing. You made this happen, you’re all laughing at me! Where’s Romana?’

  He stands, ready to run, unable to cope with what is expected of him.

  Romana. All is not lost. The human Neville speaks, quickly, to sustain what is left of the moment. ‘She is in the arms of another, Huvan. Look, you know this is the truth.’

  Huvan falters. He looks around, almost through the walls of the palace. ‘No, she can’t...’

  ‘Romana has already betrayed you. She is with your enemy, she is with the traitor Stanislaus!’

  Hermia pulls away from Huvan. ‘No, Magus, no! That’s not true!’

  ‘Open your pretty mouth again and I shall tear out your tongue,’ he hisses. Hermia sits down, instantly. Neville’s voice has changed. ‘Huvan, tell me you know this to be true!’

  The human Neville is lost, gone. He feels a rushing in his ears, the blood rising, and then the Magus is all that is.

  ‘It’s true, it’s all true!’ screams Huvan.

  A sound, something like thunder, blasts round the palace.

  The lights flash furiously. A wind whips at the robes of the cabal, sending its members shrinking under its force. Hermia screeches in fear. Only Huvan is calm, unmoving, his eyes rolled back into their sockets so that nothing can be seen but the whites.

  ‘VALDEMAR!’ roars the Magus.

  The noise, the lights, the wind all cease. The air is thick with electric tension. The Magus is still, black eyes glittering beneath the hood.

  ‘Er, sorry to interrupt you,’ comes a voice from the stairwell. The cabal, as one, jumps. The tension has gone.

  The Magus starts to slip, a begging pleading Neville unwillingly returning.

  It is the Doctor, alive. He sits and plays with a yo-yo, staring intently at it as he tries to master a trick. As if he has only just become aware of his audience, he looks up and smiles. ‘Oh please,’ he says smoothly, ‘don’t let me interrupt.

  It all looks ever so interesting and you were having such a nice time.’

  ‘Doctor!’ bellows Neville.

  The Doctor had been wondering why Neville had kept him alive. After all, he had got the power back on, had refused to talk and was no longer of any value. A man in Neville’s position... well, surely he had to kill him, it was just a matter
of time. Which was why the Doctor and Pelham had been forced to set up their rather implausible escape plan. The one that involved hitting whomsoever it was that came into the cell. Unfortunately, it had turned out to be their would-be rescuers.

  The Doctor was certain that the man, Stanislaus, would recover from what was only a tiny bump on the head. He was strong, had youth on his side and all that.

  The upshot of it was, they were free. Of course, his first instinct had been to dash for the TARDIS, the last vestige of his original intentions.

  Finding Kampp curled up and asleep outside the cell, his bag of instruments by his side, had half-convinced him otherwise. The dead guard on the way to the anti-grav lift had fully convinced him. You don’t die of fright in an empty corridor.

  There was nothing they could do to wake Kampp. He was just there, a dead weight, like a cat. Pelham was all for using the opportunity to repay some old debts, using the butler’s own instruments, but he and Romana managed to persuade her to restrain herself.

  He couldn’t leave. He knew it, had known it the moment the cell door opened on the sleeping Kampp. It just wasn’t in him to walk away from a situation, especially one of his own making. The Key to Time would have to wait. If he felt guilty, he would have to make amends.

  There is an odd tingle in the palace, a pressure, as if the place is about to suffer an internal thunderstorm. He notices his hair has become even more static-prone than usual.

  Something is about to happen and Neville has to be behind it.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Romana had asked, as he finished inspecting the guard.

  ‘You know Neville’s going to blame us for this,’ said Pelham.

  The Doctor had closed the guard’s tortured eyes. ‘There’s more than a dead guard to worry about,’ he murmured softly.

  ‘Huh?’ grunted Stanislaus. Young, but stupid. Keep him in the background.

  ‘Huvan,’ said Romana.

  ‘Huvan,’ he repeated. ‘The psychic catalyst.’ He turned to Pelham. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Me?’ She pointed at her own chest, realising she was getting the blame for something. ‘I didn’t know. It wasn’t me who turned the power on.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ the Doctor said, carefully avoiding that particular issue. ‘What does matter is that Neville is much more organised and dangerous than I suspected. I have to get to him and prevent Huvan opening the gateway.’

  ‘Gateway?’ asked Romana.

  ‘The gateway to the higher dimensions. What Neville calls Valdemar.’

  He remembers starting to run, leaving the others behind, desperate to get to Neville and stop him.

  ‘You will die for this intrusion!’ Neville has completely lost control. The cabal quake, helpless under their master’s extreme and seemingly infinite rage.

  The Doctor, however, seems unmoved. ‘That seems a little harsh. A simple telling off would have been more than sufficient. Better still, how about a sign saying, ‘Keep Out –

  Dead God Awakening”? Hmm?’

  Neville’s eyes threaten to burst from beneath his hood. He raises a threatening finger. ‘You dare... you dare...’

  The Doctor ignores him. He speaks instead to the cowering nobles. ‘You know, there are dozens of ways to reawaken a sleeping deity, much less draining. I heard of one case...’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘You realise, of course, that Romana would describe Mr Neville here as a paranoid schizophrenic with an almighty inferiority complex. Cross that with an unchallenged, over-privileged upbringing and you end up with a very unstable personality...’

  ‘You will die, Doctor, slowly.’

  ‘Whose threats go on far too long. It gets boring. Don’t you think it gets boring?’

  He directs this question at Hermia, a smile on his face.

  She, confused and frightened, looks in turn at her Magus.

  ‘You realise, of course, he’s completely mad. And worse than mad, he’s wrong,’ the Doctor continues.

  Neville produces a pistol from his robes. He raises it to the Doctor who quips, ‘Now that is a variation on the magic wand I’ve not seen before. Abracadabra.’

  And he has gone, just as Neville fires. The bullet sings into the far wall, where the damage it causes is sealed and repaired within seconds. Neville looks round, aiming left and right.

  ‘Here! Here!’ shrieks Hermia, pointing under the table right next to her.

  A curly head pops up. ‘Now you see it...’

  Neville aims and fires. Hermia stops screaming. Neville is still as he observes the girl topple back out of her seat. She hits the ground like a broken doll, the gun’s roar still ringing round the piazza. The Doctor stands, his face worn and grim, all that cheeky energy draining from him.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ he mutters, looking down at the dead girl. Neville smiles and raises the gun once more.

  ‘Stop!’ Romana yells. She and Stanislaus dash down the stairs. Neville turns and aims at them. As if possessed, the gun leaps from his fingers. He is as surprised as anyone.

  The Doctor leaps across the table, kicking over candles, and throws himself on the robed lunatic. Both topple to the ground. The cabal leap up, as if galvanised into manic action.

  Romana and Stanislaus find themselves in the middle of a panic.

  Only one person is still, absolutely still, and with a cold shock Romana realises just who has been their secret helper all this time. He probably doesn’t know it himself.

  Huvan is oblivious to the mayhem around him. He just stares, his mouth moving to its own silent messages.

  ‘Doctor,’ says Romana, unable to take her eyes off the boy.

  ‘Doctor!’

  Abruptly, the noise ceases. The cabal responds as if to a signal, falling mute and turning to Huvan. The Doctor stands, releasing the cataleptic Neville. Huvan has become the focus, not just of the living but of everything.

  Like a puppet, the boy looks around. How he can see, none can tell, as there are no pupils in his eyes. The mouth continues to move slowly, almost in a parody of speech. The red of his mouth is like an obscene flashing light. Blood streams from the pustules on his face. ‘Release me,’ comes a voice like gravel from his throat. ‘Or I will kill you all.’

  Romana has one horrible thought, one nightmare realisation. The Doctor is wrong. Valdemar is real. Valdemar lives!

  She is disturbed to find that the boy seems to be staring at her. ‘Doctor,’ she says, slowly. The cold wind is back, sending goose bumps rising up her bare arms.

  Huvan stands and smiles. The grimace is a death mask.

  The boy does not stop at standing. He starts to rise from the ground.

  ‘There is no Valdemar,’ the Doctor states. ‘Don’t believe it.’

  ‘Come with me,’ says the dark, supremely resonant voice.

  Huvan forms the syllables of her name. ‘Romana...’

  She looks around, unsure of her next action. The Doctor steps in front of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘she’s all booked up.

  Come down from there.’

  Huvan raises an arm, as if to strike. Romana flinches; what does he want from her?

  ‘No!’ yells Stanislaus all of a sudden, and leaps heroically on to the stone table. ‘Leave her alone!’

  There is a deep throaty chuckle, a small movement from the floating boy and Tenniel Stanislaus explodes. Literally explodes.

  As the pieces fall, Romana sees Huvan’s pupils return and, with an expression of terrible suffering, the boy seems to deflate and collapse noisily to the floor.

  Heat returns to the hall.

  Romana looks at the Doctor, who seems stunned, too stunned to move. Pieces of Stanislaus sizzle everywhere.

  A rustle from the drapes by the stone stairwell. Miranda Pelham pulls aside the curtain. ‘Is it over?’ she asks, like a frightened mouse.

  Outside the palace, in the never-ending acid storms, Ashkellia is shrieking. Night falls as the planet spins. The clo
uds bubble and froth and the surface far below quakes.

  The palace stabilisers jet and smoke with the effort of retaining stability.

  Something is moving under the planet’s surface, a charging rumbling monster of unbelievable proportions. It is as if some gigantic force is fighting for its freedom, tearing at the bonds that hold it down.

  Kampp, awake at last after his phantom sleep, is conducting an autopsy on the dead guard. His hands shake as the palace rocks. Just what can be occurring up there?

  Neville has ignored his messages, informing him of the Doctor’s escape and the murder of one of his men.

  Honestly, the Magus is impossible at times. All that spiritual nonsense, why do people bother? Kampp has always had other preoccupations, flesh being prominent amongst them. Flesh and blood and mortality – the true canvas of the artist. So why do his hands shake so?

  Apparently there has been some sort of disturbance with the children of the rich. That young, ugly protégé Huvan. He has disappeared and so has Neville.

  He is not worried about the genetically altered boy. Kampp has always had a deep distaste for ugliness; to work on Huvan would be a duty, not a pleasure. However, when Neville is lost too, it is time to worry.

  It is undoubtedly the work of the strangers. Once again the guards are out searching for them.

  As far as the butler is concerned, Neville should have let him loose on them as soon as they arrived. Pelham too, she always had a smart mouth. He would like to have worked on her long ago, held up that flapping tongue for her to see.

  Kampp cannot stop his hands shaking. His sleek moustache itches. He stares down at the corpse in front of him, the sculptor’s block of stone ready for the shaping. He feels odd, like time is standing still. He cannot account for his sleep, was not even aware that he had fallen asleep. He remembers the order to kill the Doctor, preparing the instruments and receptacles, walking to the cell. And then he was on the floor outside, with something like a sticky black stain on his head. The guards running towards him, panicked, one of their own struck down.