the dragon's apostle page 2

Spears of lightening tore across the sky illuminating the mighty Transylvanian alps, making them stand out like demonic sculptures. The peasants of Trigoviste were terrified; how many hundreds of prayers were offered into the turbulent heavens that night, I could not even guess. The soldiers and the castle guards too, were frightened, but through the wars with the Turks they had seen many frightening things and they had learnt to counter fear with action. Some who had heard that devil-cry in the mountains were now talking of revolt and, as the storm's intensity increased, so did they in number, power, and determination. They were resolved: that night the Master would die on the stake.

‘Yes,’ mumbled the Doctor, ‘my word...mmm…’

‘What is it?’ asked Jo, while Vlad Dracula stood close to the safety of the candle.

‘Well, Jo,’ the Time Lord began, ‘these star maps, as you so rightly guessed, are centuries ahead of this era…’

‘Quite correct, Doctor.’ A voice interrupted from the doorway. ‘Star maps plotted from observatories on our own world. They are views of this solar system, some showing an insignificant little planetoid hidden, rather neatly within the rings of Saturn.’

‘Min Terr, if I'm not mistaken, Master,’ added the Doctor, his mind racing ahead to educe the Master's possible interest in the planet in question.

‘You are mistaken, Doctor.’ The Master replied, ‘In the Earth year A.D. 1997, a space-probe was sent to Min Terr with the purpose of searching for and communicating with any animal life there.’

~~~

The soldiers were growing more restless with every rumble of thunder. News had reached their ears that there was another devil in the castle, and that this one helped Vlad Dracula to escape. It was to have been Vlad's execution that day; now the Master was to take his place. On top of everything else, word now arrived that one of their number, Arminiu (a good friend to all), have been struck by fires of the skies while erecting the execution stake - surely an omen! Volta could no longer restrain them. Indeed, he joined their ranks and led them into the castle in search of the Master. That devil would be impaled.

‘You mean that there is life on this planet-thing?’ asked Jo.

‘The people of Min Terr evolved very quickly indeed, Jo,’ the Doctor explained, ‘by your twentieth-century they had developed a much higher level of technology than had the people of Earth. But, at present, the year 1457, why - they'd be experiencing their stone age…’ The Doctor was beginning to see what the Master had up his sleeve. ‘..and if my sums are correct, then Min Terr ought to be in the same relative position to the Earth 1457 as it shall be in 1997!’

The Master could not hold in a dastardly chuckle. ‘I told you, Doctor - you see before you the future ruler of this dear little planet Earth!’

‘But you can't mess up evolution!’ the Doctor shouted.

‘Really? And who is to stop me? A bunch of ignorant medieval peasants?’ And with that the Master collapsed to the floor with a painful thud. Janos Volta stepped from behind him and marched across the room to kneel before Dracula.

Dracula had provided the time-travellers with their own chambers, but the Doctor felt uneasy and was eager to return to the TARDIS and be gone. However, there was one problem to be resolved before he could allow himself to leave - the Master. Reluctantly, the Doctor left Jo on her own and went to visit his fellow Time Lord in his cell. He returned shortly to find Jo crying.

‘Cheer up, Jo. I think everything will be alright if we leave now,’ he assured her.

Then entered Count Dracula.

~~~

Anyone who dared to go out that troubled night, when hell and heaven met in fiery conflict, may well have heard above the clamorous clashes of the gods a strange, screeching, 'vamping' sound - not unlike that which had been heard by Volta and his men in the mountains that evening - and may well have seen, through the vial of rain, that one of the castle's battlements did vanish into thin air. Doubtless, such a spectacle would have been attributed to the evil of the night.

The Doctor and Dracula were having their own fiery conflict. The gaunt little man's self confidence had been re-inflated following his re-instatement by the guards.

‘I tell you, devil,’ Vlad insisted, ‘you shall use your powers to help us in our war with the Turk!’

‘And I tell you,’ the Doctor retaliated, ‘that I am neither a devil nor a sorcerer. Where I come from, these powers that you claim I have are simply the benefits of learning! And, even if I had any magical powers - which I do not - I have no right to interfere further in your affairs!’

That was a laugh, thought Jo. But she decided that she had heard all this before - the Doctor would never realise how stubborn it was to valiantly uphold such principles in the face of someone like Count Dracula.

Just then, Volta entered with news. The Master had escaped and the Doctor had been seen helping him yet again using the 'evil magic of the eyes' on the guard. The day was not yet over, and the people of Trigoviste had been promised an execution - firstly, that of Vlad himself, and then the Master; the Doctor had helped the Master escape; he was as much a devil himself having refused to give his powers to the Romanian cause. At midnight, then, the Doctor-devil would face the stake!

~~~

It never rains but it storms. Preparations were being made for the Doctor's execution...and for the marriage of Vlad Dracula of Wallachia to one Josephine Grant. The little man gave her a toothy grin and wrung his lone, crooked hands as he locked her in his chamber, captivated by her fairness.

‘But, but, but…’ she protested, trying to control her arguments, ‘...but, there's something I ought to tell you - I love ...garlic! Can't get enough of it! Eat it all the time! I just reek of it!’

‘Excellent,’ he chuckled, ‘I knew we would have something in common!’

Stone the crows! What else could she think of? Blood? That was it, blood! ‘I've got awfully bad blood,’ she said.

‘Bad blood?’

‘Oh yes! Terrible stuff! It runs in the family. You wouldn't want to drink it!’

‘I never drink...blood,’ he replied.

Oh course! Dracula still believed the Doctor to be something supernatural.

‘My friend...uncle...the Doctor,’ she blurted. ‘He created a monster out of corpses...if you kill him, the monster will come here to kill you!’

‘So, the Doctor is a sorcerer?’

‘Oh yes, indeed! And whenever there's a full moon he can turn himself into a wolf! He's real evil and dead dangerous!’

‘Indeed,’ said Dracula to himself. The gods would surely protect him from any such monster, and reward him for impaling this earth-bound devil by giving Dracula victory over the Turk.

The Doctor must die!

As the electric sky exploded above, and the rain-waters, heated in the celestial turmoil, showered onto his face, the Doctor wondered - was this the end?

Carried along by his limbs, he was met by curses and prayers from the torch-bearing villagers lining along the rise to his place of execution at the top of a hill, where stood a tall wooden stake - the symbol of a most dreadful and agonising death.

~~~

No regeneration could save him once he had been impaled! Since the beginning of his adventures, he had escaped death from Daleks, Autons, Cybermen and Sea Devils..now he was to die at the hands of superstitious peasants on a piece of tapered wood! This was the end!

He bent his head back and saw the top of the hill, and the wooden stake illuminated by a flash of lightening and there stood Dracula with his arm around little Jo. Poor, poor, Jo - she would never see her home again.

What was he thinking of? Was he going to give up now? ‘Don't worry, Jo’ he had said, ‘I'll get us out of this...we always manage.’ But how?

The Doctor looked back at Jo again. Her image was blurred by the hot rain. There must be a way. There is always a way! Always!

He stared at the villagers. He stared into their torch flames. They began to burn into his eyes and blur. He heard their prayers and execrations - all echoing and blurring in the mind. The world around him was drifting out of focus. Strange lights and sounds began to wash through and drown his oppressed brain; the light burning and pulsating and the noise beating in his skull and rising in volume...noise and light...noise and light...noise and light...beating, flashing, vamping, screeching...noise and light...noise and light...noise and light…

The air was shaken by a deep, resounding scream, a screech...a flashing light! The villagers fell to their knees in fear. The soldiers had heard the sound before - it was evil.

A large dark box, like the doorway to hell itself had appeared from out of the electric air in a blaze of light and devilish screams and groans.

The Doctor, dropped by his startled and horrified bearers, scrambled dizzily to his feet, Jo impatiently pulling his arm.

‘Be gone devil!’ screamed Dracula in terror and kneeling by the stake. ‘Leave us! Leave us!’

Much too weak to speak the Doctor supported Jo, opened the TARDIS doors. The couple staggered into the safety of the control room and the Doctor set the ship into flight.

Once he was safely in the TARDIS, the Doctor seemed immediately refreshed, but Jo was bewildered as to what had happened. She had one hundred and two questions she wanted to ask him - what about the Master?; Was the Doctor going to let him get away?; Could she keep the ring? In short - just what did happen out there?!

‘Well, Jo,’ the Doctor began, ‘you remember the Voyager space-probes? How they carried messages to alien life-forms about life on planet Earth?’

Jo nodded in reply.

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘the probe that was sent - or will be sent in 1997 - to Min Terr carried exactly the same sort of communication. The Master planned to capture the probe shortly after his launch and then let it continue its mission - only 500 years before planned! He is a Time Lord, remember? Anyway, reprogrammed, the information about the Master, the probe would land on stone-age Min Terr where it would be found by cave-men who would then believe the Master to be their 'God' !’

Jo did not se how this would affect the Earth.

‘And you just let him escape?’

‘Well, Dracula would have killed him.’

‘But what about Earth? Min Terr? Aren't you going to stop him?’

‘It's not as simple as that, Jo.’ The Doctor's chin sank to his chest and he pinched Jo on the cheek. ‘How do you think the TARDIS came to rescue us, mmm?’

‘Telepathy…’she guessed.

‘Yes, but you don't imagine that I could have preformed such a feat by myself, do you? No, I'm afraid I had a little help.’

‘The Master...?’

The Doctor smiled and walked from the control room. It was at times like these that Jo realised how very alien and yet, how very human her friend really was. Yet, she still felt that there was something the Time Lord was not telling her...

written by
IAN McPHERSON
copyright 2009

artwork by
JOE McINTYRE
IAN McPHERSON
copyright 2010


 
< PAGE 1          CONTENTS >