This short story was original published in the Big Finish anthology Short
Trips: A Universe of Terrors in 2003.
It’s been out of print since 2009 (approx) and the copyright has reverted to
me, so I thought I’d share it with you as a little Halloween treat. If you read
it and enjoy it, I would be delighted if you could make a donation to Comic Relief.
Note: this is the text as submitted (with a few corrections) so may
differ from the published version. It remains my copyright and may not be
reproduced without my permission, and may be deleted from this blog without
warning!
MAURITZ
The darkness was so absolute, so intense, I felt that if I
were to reach out my hand, I would be swallowed up. All I could see was a
shifting blur of after-images as my eyes struggled to accustom themselves to
the deep, blotted night. The gloom seemed to press itself against me, my skin
prickling to its touch. I drew in a breath of clammy air, thick with the smells
of corrosion and decay.
A torch clicked into life and its beam swung through the
darkness, picking out ever-falling apparitions of dust. The beam drifted across
the stone floor and scuttled up a pillar of crumbling plaster, its glow
weakening as it crossed the vaulted ceiling and then brightening as it settled
upon the opposite wall. More brickwork, rotten and stained, strangled with
creepers and moss. A number of archways, each leading into blackness.
The beam drifted around the chamber, awakening more dust
phantoms, gauging the extent of the room. The heaviness of the atmosphere gave
me the impression of being far underground. I shivered and put my hands in my
pockets as I followed in the Doctor’s footsteps.
The Doctor halted and announced
in his boom of a voice, “Shop!”
“Where are we, Doctor?” I asked.
“Literally or philosophically?” The Doctor strode across the
floor, his long scarf sweeping the dust behind him. He seemed distracted,
hunched in thought.
“Either?”
“Ah”. The Doctor turned his wide eyes upon me and shrugged,
breaking into a conspiratorial grin. “In that case, I haven’t the faintest idea”.
“You should know,” I told him. The Doctor possessed a vast
intellect – he was the greatest scientist I had ever known - but he could also
be frustratingly whimsical. Indeed, he sometimes took a strange pride in his
foolishness. My own belief was in logic, in rigorous thought; a belief the
Doctor did not share. “You claim you can control the TARDIS”.
“Just because one can do something, does not mean one should,”
countered the Doctor. “A wine cellar, without the wine? An unoccupied crypt?
How cryptic.” The Doctor lifted his head to address the ceiling. “Hello? Anyone
home?” His words echoed back at him indignantly.
I glanced away from the Doctor. Down one of the passages
something flickered, casting flitting shadows across the rough walls. Two lamps
bobbing in motion, held by two figures in robes, one tall and stooped, one
standing at about my height. They remained motionless, as though watching us,
their faces obscured by cowls.
“Doctor-”
The Doctor dashed to my side
melodramatically. “What?”
I shrugged to indicate the passageway, but the figures had
gone. The archway led to blackness once more.
“I thought I saw-” I began, but
the Doctor shushed me, a finger to his lips.
I listened. I could hear the sound of footsteps, a steady
pat-patting upon the ragged floor. They seemed to be approaching from every
direction. I backed towards the TARDIS. The empty archways loomed threateningly
around us. The footsteps grew nearer, nearer still, and halted.
“Welcome,” said a voice behind
me.
A figure stood between us and the TARDIS. A figure draped in
robes, its face hidden by a hood. The habit was of a coarse, woven material,
unornamented and hanging in folds. It raised a lantern in one hand as if in
greeting.
The Doctor’s expression dropped into concern. “Hello,” he
began cautiously, avoiding eye contact. “You don’t know me, but I am…”
“The Doctor,” answered the figure. It had the voice of old
man, breathy and hesitant, the words scraping at its throat. It turned its
facelessness towards me. “And Adric”. The figure raised its hands and lifted
its cowl to reveal a drawn, lined face, the features set in a downcast frown,
the hair thin and moon-white. His eyes were grey and lifeless. He bowed, and
smiled, revealing worn, yellow teeth.
“Welcome,” he said, facing us in
turn, his expression softening. “My name is Mauritz”.
Each passageway was submerged in darkness, the only
illumination the swinging, oversized shadows cast by Mauritz’s lamp. We
followed the scuffle of his footsteps up narrow stairwells, the mould-encrusted
walls barely a shoulder width apart, and passed through vaulted chambers
identical to the one in which we had arrived, each one in a differing state of
disrepair. And at no point did we pass a window, or catch sight of any natural
source of light.
The man who led us did not utter a word. Every question the
Doctor and I put to him was answered only with a beckoning motion. Occasionally
Mauritz would disappear completely from sight, ducking into a side-passage,
only to emerge from another passage a moment later. He repeated this trick time
and again, seemingly unaware of doing it.
We emerged into a long, dusky hall lined with reading desks
and bookcases. The bookcases extended to the ceiling on three levels, each
accessed by a balcony, accessed in turn by stairwells. Each bookcase brimmed
with tomes and parchments, each bound in a cover of what appeared to be
leather.
Seated at the desks, what appeared to be monks leafed
through the ancient tomes by the gleam of their candles, their identities
shrouded in the same anonymous robes.
We moved wordlessly through the library and arrived at a
heavy door. Mauritz unbolted the lock and led us into a spartan dormitory. A
fireplace was set into one wall, and he quickly set to work on it, gathering up
coals and puffing the embers with the bellows until it finally snapped into
warmth.
Three high-backed chairs surrounded a wooden table; to one
side was a drape that I presumed concealed a bedchamber. Again, there was no
window.
Without a word, the man ushered the Doctor and I into the
chairs. The door creaked open and one of the monks entered, his face again
obscured by his cowl. He carried three steaming bowls, and set them on the
table before us, bowed and left.
I was famished, having not eaten for several hours, and
dragged the bowl towards me, feelings its heat tingling my numb fingers. The
soup’s steam was rich and spicy, and the liquid contained clumps of white meat.
I was about to bring the bowl to my lips when the Doctor shook his head in
warning.
“What is the soup?” he asked
nonchalantly, sliding his bowl away from him.
“We are provided with a supply
of meat,” answered Mauritz.
“Cattle?” said the Doctor.
“We make the most of that which
we have.”
“We?” I asked, reluctantly
putting down my bowl. “Who are you? What is this place?”
“A monastery?” suggested the
Doctor.
“A place of study. Of
contemplation, certainly. You are not hungry?”
I looked again at my soup. Following the Doctor’s lead, I
shook my head. “Maybe later?” I smiled apologetically.
“Of course.”
The Doctor stood, the low ceiling causing him to stoop. He
ruffled his hair. “So would you say it was more a university?”
“All will be explained.” Mauritz rose from his chair. He
considered for a moment, then smiled in decision. “If you are ready, I will
show you the citadel.”
We found ourselves in yet another vaulted chamber. Treading
across the flagstones, I would have believed we had returned to the chamber in
which the TARDIS had landed, except that a section of the wall had collapsed to
reveal the cloisters beyond. Six monks busied themselves at the wall, clearing
away the rubble and bracing the ceiling with wooden joists.
I had been handed a lantern, and walked over to the damaged
wall, the shadows snaking away as I approached. The masonry lay in an advanced
state of decay, the plaster crumbling to the touch. It seemed strangely
brittle. Ground creepers coiled through the cracked flagstones.
A monk cemented a new brick into place, smoothing the edges
with plates of wood. I sensed the Doctor and Mauritz approaching behind me, the
light of their lamps conflating my own.
“This quarter of the citadel is currently uninhabited,”
explained Mauritz. “And undergoing renovation”.
The Doctor looked bleak. “No
sooner do you put it together than it falls apart.”
“Indeed,” said
Mauritz, covering his face with his cowl and moving amongst the
identically-dressed monks.
The Doctor took a brick from the pile, weighed it in his
hands and then returned it. He looked for Mauritz amongst the monks, and
remarked offhandedly, “Where do you get the bricks from?”
“We make the most of that which
we have.”
“Like the cattle?”
One of the monks lifted his cowl, revealing Mauritz’s
features. “What we cannot use for food, we employ elsewhere.”
“So nothing goes to waste?”
“Inevitably there is always
waste. That is taken to the gardens. Follow.”
The gardens turned out to be a chamber of the same
dimensions as the library. The ground, however, consisted of soil, broken up
into avenues. Dozens of monks toiled in the murky candlelight, hoeing the earth
and planting bulbs. Others harvested the crop, which consisted of spindly
growths, somewhere between a mushroom and a coral, that reached to little above
knee-height. The gnarled stems and branches of the organisms were covered in
transparent grey leaves and sickly, pale pod-fruit. Evidently whatever they
were, they did not require natural light for sustenance.
We watched as a monk brushed some dirt over the bulbs and
mixed it with compost, the rotten remains of fruit and meat.
“So everything is ploughed back,” said the Doctor. “Home-grown,
very efficient. Don’t need to pop out to the supermarket much?”
“No,” replied Mauritz. “We do
not require outside support.”
“Not at all?” I asked. “But you
must, occasionally. You can’t just live on this -”
“We never leave the citadel.”
“Why?” I removed" my hands
from my pockets and clapped my fist on my palm for emphasis.
A silence fell over Mauritz as he turned to the Doctor.
Whilst I had been talking, the Doctor had strolled over to the monks, watching
in fascination as they dug one of the fungus-corals out of the ground. He
wandered around them, oblivious to the fact he was trampling over the crop. “Hello,
I’m the Doctor,” he said genially, addressing one of the robed figures. “So
you’re on gardening duty, eh?”
The figure did not respond. The Doctor gave a nonplussed
pout and turned to another figure. He blocked the monk’s way. “Still, I’m sure
it’s all worth it, come supper time”. The monk did not respond.
“Not trappists, are you?” inquired the Doctor as he advanced
on another monk. He brushed his nose and grinned. “If you don’t want to talk
about it I’ll quite understand.”
The monk ignored him and turned his back on the Doctor. As
he did, the Doctor leaned forward and pinched the top of the monk’s cowl,
drawing it back suddenly to reveal the monk’s face
He was an elderly man, hairless, with lined features fixed
in a downcast frown, his eyes buried in wrinkles. Black marks freckled his
saggy, ghost-pale skin. He was obviously exhausted, close to death.
It was Mauritz.
Or, at least, an older version of Mauritz. This man was at
least twenty years the elder of the man standing beside me.
The Doctor dashed over to another of the monks and tugged
back his cowl. Again, it revealed the same face, but this time the man was
about the same age as Mauritz. He did not seem startled or shocked. He simply
gazed ahead, his eyes devoid of expression.
One by one, the remaining monks solemnly removed their
hoods. They were all the same man, some little older than Mauritz, some twenty
or thirty years older.
“Do not be alarmed,” said the
original Mauritz. “I should explain.”
“Cloning?” I suggested as we wound our way up yet another
steep staircase. The climb was exhausting, the steps narrow and worn smooth,
the walls dribbling with condensation. “You’re all clones of the same man?”
“Nothing so rudimentary.” Mauritz pushed open another door,
and we emerged into a vaulted chamber. Again, the chamber was identical to the
one in which the TARDIS had arrived, but it had the appearance of being
recently constructed. The plaster that covered the walls was smooth and clean.
The lines of the brickwork were fine, the paving stones free of dust or grime.
The air smelt clear and cool.
“You know,” remarked the Doctor, rubbing his lips. “I’m
beginning to get the feeling we’re going round in circles.”
I agreed. I had felt a fleeting sensation of déjà vu. If I did not know better, I
would say that had been visiting the same chamber, over and over again. But
throughout our time in the citadel, we had never walked down a staircase, only
up. So it was impossible.
“No, Adric, this
is the chamber in which the TARDIS arrived,” said Mauritz. “Or rather, the
chamber into which your TARDIS will materialise. You see, in this part of the
citadel, you have yet to make your visit.”
“What?” exclaimed the Doctor,
somewhat over-loudly.
“Time is not an absolute here.” Mauritz walked to the centre
of the chamber, and gestured expansively. “This citadel comprises all pasts,
all futures. Take this chamber. We can visit this room at any point in its
history. The day it was built, or a day a later, or a hundred centuries later.
Every room, at every point in time, exists within the realm of the citadel!”
I was beginning to understand. “You mean, you can travel
into the future, just by walking into another room?”
“Precisely,” smiled Mauritz. “We
can access any time, in any future.”
“Just a short hop down a corridor and fa-zam! You’re back
where you started, but in the next week?” suggested the Doctor.
“The… geography is inevitably a little more complicated than
that, but yes. As you might expect, the more distant the future, the more
inaccessible. A thousand years hence may be many miles distant.”
“Of course, of course. It’s all relative.” The Doctor
grinned a wild grin. “So here we are,” he said, waving his lantern-light across
the chamber. “Standing in the middle of last Wednesday.”
“So that’s why you
said there was no outside,” I breathed, patting my hands together. “Because in
every direction, there is no boundary to the citadel – there is merely more of
the citadel, or rather than same citadel again, but at another time. More of
the same rooms, extending further and further into the future.” I could barely
contain my awe. To stand inside such an achievement of multi-dimensional
engineering, I felt suddenly giddy.
“Infinite?” asked the Doctor, as
though enquiring about the weather.
“Impossible to tell. But to
answer your next question, yes, it is a closed system,” said Mauritz.
“Hence the recycling. No supermarket.” The Doctor wandered
the chamber, lost in thought. “You have to make the most of what you’ve got, I
see, because there’s nothing else…”
“It’s incredible,” I said, jogging over to Mauritz. I
couldn’t help myself burbling over with enthusiasm. “A four-dimensional space,
mapped into three-dimensions. Of course, mathematically it’s quite
straightforward…”
“A four dimensional space?”
muttered the Doctor derisively, staring at his shoes. “Five dimensional!”
“Five?”
“The Doctor is correct,” said Mauritz. “The citadel does not
merely allow access to one future. It permits passage to every potential future.”
“Every potential future?”
“Every probability is played out somewhere within the
confines of this building. Naturally, the more remote the possibility, the more
remote the region. But,” Mauritz leaned closer to me, fixing my eyes with his, “take
this chamber for instance. In ten years’ time, it may have fallen into
disrepair, or it may have been adapted for a new use. Both possibilities exist
within the citadel.”
“A multiplicity?” I grinned. “But
how do you do it?”
“The technical explanation is not relevant.” Mauritz
collected his lamp and headed for the door opposite. “Let me show you the new
library. Or, to put it another way,” he paused, “let me show you the library
when it was new.”
It was the same library, the same long, solemn hall, the
same three galleries of bookcases. But a gust of warm air brushed our faces,
and there was no taste of dust, no aura of decay. Hundreds of monks filled the
chamber, occupying every desk, scratching away at parchment. Others bustled
from bookcase to bookcase, recovering and filing the leathery tomes. Others
hurried in from adjoining passageways, heaving in piles of dust-coated book.
The chamber echoed with hushed words.
“So you can go to this same library in the future,” said the
Doctor, “see what will be written in ten, twenty years time, and bring it back
here?”
Mauritz nodded.
“And no fines to pay?” He
grinned that irreverent grin again.
Mauritz smiled and shook his
head.
“You must have a very efficient
filing system,” joked the Doctor. “But what about paradoxes?”
“Yes,” I shuffled forward. “What if you go into one of the
future libraries, take out a book, and in the process of bringing it back cause
it not to be written?”
“Every potential future is as valid as any other,” explained
Mauritz. “Paradoxes may either stabilise or collapse.”
“Stabilise?” I couldn’t help but
assume a note of superiority. “But that’s ridiculous!”
Mauritz did not reply, but his
expression disagreed.
“But it’s not just every potential library that exists, is
it, Mauritz?” said the Doctor darkly, his gaze averted. He nodded towards the
monks. I had almost forgotten. Beneath those cowls and robes, they would all be
identical copies of Mauritz.
“No,” said Mauritz. “Every
potential future version of myself also exists.”
“Together?” I shook my head in
disbelief. “You mean they… are all future versions of you?”
“Indeed. Learning from each other. Passing on their
knowledge. All of them,” he blinked sadly, “what I am to become.”
I watched the monks in awe. The same man, at different
stages in his life. Some hunched with age, others standing tall. Muttering to
each other, passing parchments between them, oblivious to the sheer…
impossibility of it all.
“For every potential course of action, there will be a
future me,” said Mauritz, folding his arms. “A future that I can learn from.”
“And thus know in advance the outcome of every decision,”
said the Doctor delightedly. “So you can predict events with the benefit of
hindsight. How dreadfully cunning!”
“You mean,” I began, clicking my fingers in realisation, “if
you have a choice, you can go and visit a version of yourself from five years
in the future, see how things turned out, and compare notes?”
“Precisely. For every choice, every alternative is played
out within the realm of the citadel.” Mauritz paused. “There is one more thing
I wish to show you. Or would you prefer… to return to your craft?”
The Doctor and I exchanged glances. The Doctor stared at me
with his wide, grave eyes, and I was gripped with a sudden foreboding. I
shivered. For a moment, I considered suggesting we go back to the TARDIS. But,
no, it was too fascinating an opportunity. We had to see more.
“So be it,” said Mauritz,
leading us to one of the passageways. “If you will join me-”
After an exhausting ascent up another sheer stairwell, we
emerged from the citadel and I took in a lungful of rare night air. We ducked
through a low archway and out onto a square balcony at the summit of a high
building. Above us hung a heavy iron bell in its tower, ropes looping through
open floor-hatches.
I made my way over to the balustrade, rested my hands upon
its rough, rusted railings and gazed out across the turrets of what seemed to
be a vast city. Everywhere there were narrow, vertiginous ledges and flues and
bulwarks. Dark, sinister walls dropped away, some smothered in creepers and
ivy, others choked in soot. Many hundreds of feet below us they sank into a
tide of undulating fog.
Squinting into the distance, I spotted another bell-tower,
its zenith rising through the drifting mist. A collapsed, hollowed-out edifice,
it was otherwise in every way identical to the tower in which we stood. Looking
to the left there was another bell-tower, again identical. And beyond that
another bell-tower, and another, and another, stretching away to the horizon. And
not far distant, maybe a mile away, a bell-tower was undergoing construction.
I walked a complete circuit of the balustrade. In every
direction, the minarets and ramparts and roofs continued in a never-ending maze
of architectural confusion. A sea of buildings extending to infinity, at first
similar in their greyness and bleakness, but in the details, each one unique.
Acres of slate and coughing chimney-stacks, roof after roof of every incline
and variety.
Something caught my attention at the nearest bell-tower.
Standing within it, I could see three unmoving robed figures returning my gaze.
Oddly, they were of different heights. Then I spotted more of the monks below,
strolling through galleries, making their way up and down flights of stone
stairs. Constantly in motion, hurrying from doorway to doorway in a ceaseless,
mathematical pattern.
“The citadel,” announced
Mauritz.
“It’s endless,” I said, glancing up into the cloudless sky.
Above us there was a canopy of blackness, scattered with a million untwinkling
stars. Utterly still and lifeless. “The stars…”
“Other possibilities,” said
Mauritz. “Too strange, too distant to reach.”
We stared out into that infinite, fog-laden night for some
minutes, and then the Doctor spoke. He rounded on Mauritz, looked him straight
in the face, and asked, “But you still haven’t explained why. What is it all for?”
“Contemplation. Research.
Meditation.”
The Doctor pah-ed derisively.
Mauritz continued. “I created
the citadel because I wished-”
“You created all this?” I
interrupted.
Mauritz nodded. “…because I wished to study. To attain a
plateau of pure thought. To create the purest philosophy. To reach
understanding.”
“I see,” said the Doctor, then held up a hand. “No, I don’t.
You built all this, single-handedly… to have a bit of a think?”
I decided to explain to the Doctor. “But, don’t you see? The
intellectual resources here are unimaginable. Because every potential
future-Mauritz can put his learning at the disposal of the current generation…
every possible avenue of thought can be covered, studied, and recorded. A
feedback loop of knowledge... It’s fantastic!”
“Standing on the shoulders of
giants,” brooded the Doctor, deliberately avoiding my gaze.
“Adric is correct,” said Mauritz. “For every problem, every
solution can be investigated. I have a hundred, a thousand, a million selves to
consult.”
The Doctor remained unimpressed. He took another tour of the
balustrade, and stared out into the distance. “Or, rather,” he said. “Standing
on your own shoulders, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” He rounded
on Mauritz. “Don’t you get lonely? I mean, here you are, all on your own, all
however-many of you?”
Mauritz bowed. “One is never
alone if one appreciates one’s own company.”
We had returned to Mauritz’s dormitory. My calves ached from
our long descent, and the heat of the fire came as a joyous relief. I dragged
my chair nearer to the hearth and warmed my palms.
The Doctor slouched in the chair opposite, watching as a
monk brought in three bowls. The monk handed me my bowl and spoon, and I
inhaled a deep breath of the steaming soup. It smelt delicious. I stirred it
and some white meat bobbed to the surface.
Mauritz sat at the table and ladled himself a mouthful of
the soup. He looked directly at me as he swallowed, a smile wetting his lips. “Please.”
I looked at the Doctor, who was staring vacantly as though
awaiting some stage direction. I shrugged and brought a lump of the meat to my
mouth-
The Doctor launched himself out of his chair and stood
upright. “Of course!” He glared at Mauritz. “A closed system!”
I dropped my spoon. “Doctor-?”
““We make the most of that which we have”,” said the Doctor,
hurling each word in Mauritz’s direction. “You don’t keep any cattle here, do
you?”
Mauritz did not reply.
“No, of course not, you don’t need to. Where do they go, the
future Mauritzes? Where do they all end up?” The Doctor knocked his bowl to the
floor. “A feedback loop! They end up
right here, on the dining table!”
“What?” I gulped.
“You eat them,” said the Doctor.
“There’s nothing else to eat, is there?”
Mauritz did not reply.
“All your future selves – boiled down to soup. And their
skin… dried and bound into books. Their bones, baked to make bricks. This whole
place, it’s all made out of one thing. You!”’
I looked down at the bowl. The white flesh I had been about
to eat lurked beneath the surface. Human flesh. I shivered and felt a sudden
coldness as the blood drained from my face.
“For each of my selves,” said Mauritz at last, “there are a
dozen or more potential future selves. When they die, they are not left to
waste. Just as each of my selves learns from each of his future selves, so,
when they die, he will draw nourishment from them.” He looked up at the Doctor
and his lips parted into a grisly smile. “Yes. Every brick of this citadel is
made of my ground-up bones. Every book in the library is inked in my blood upon
my skin. My body fat is used for candles, my hair is woven into twine. And what
cannot be used is composted and ploughed back into the soil, to create the
plants that give oxygen and wood. I require nothing. I depend on no-one but
myself.”
“Well I’ve heard of
self-sufficiency,” joked the Doctor humourlessly. “But this is ridiculous.”
“At least,” continued Mauritz
meaningfully. “Until you arrived… now I have company.”
The Doctor nodded to me, and I inferred his meaning
immediately. He gathered up his scarf, collected a lamp, violently upturned the
table, and bolted for the door.
How we found our way back I do not know. We dashed across
the library, and hurried down the nearest stairwell, grabbing the walls for
balance. I struggled to keep up with the Doctor, barely able to see more than
the reflected glimmer of his lantern, whilst also taking care not to tread on
his trailing scarf. We passed through dozens of vaulted chambers, all in
different states of disrepair; some thick with ivy, some collapsed, some
freshly constructed. We hurried through the library, its empty shelves draped
with cobwebs, its floor smothered in dust, the air still and silent. We dashed
through the gardens, some full of monks tending the stunted corals, others
filled with ghost-pale trees.
But after another descent down another narrow staircase we
emerged into the vaulted chamber in which we had first arrived. I recognised
the patterns of rot that daubed the walls, and our footprints trailed across
the musty floor.
The Doctor swung his lamp forward, and in the corner the
TARDIS emerged from the darkness. The lamp flame reflected in its windows. A
surge of relief filled my heart as we ran towards it.
There was a grinding, churning sound. The light on the
TARDIS roof span and flashed. I could almost reach out and touch the surface of
the Police Box as it faded from view. I found myself staggering into the square
of floor it had deserted. The sound of dematerialization hung in the air for
some seconds more.
The TARDIS had gone.
Recovering my breath, I looked up, aghast. The Doctor and I
had been joined in the chamber by dozens of monks. Some stood tall and stooped,
some were about my height. They lined the walls, each of them in robes, their
faces concealed by their cowls. They made no motion, and gave no sound.
Another monk entered and lifted his hood. Mauritz. He raised
his lantern, its red flame flickering in his eyes.
“Your time machine has gone,” he
said.
I exchanged a worried glance with the Doctor. He looked
suddenly unnerved, his expression grim. “We noticed!”
“Do not be alarmed,” said Mauritz. “As you will remember,
the citadel does not merely allow access to one
future. Every potential future is played out within these walls. Earlier, you
had the choice to depart in the TARDIS. There was the possibility you might
leave, or the possibility you might stay.” He paused. “But both alternatives
occurred. So… there was the Doctor and Adric who returned to the TARDIS and
left,” he gestured towards the empty stone floor, “And you. The Doctor and Adric who decided to stay.”
I took a step backwards, my
mouth suddenly dry.
“You will join me. As it shall
be, so it has always been.”
Mauritz smiled as all the other monks in the room lifted
back their hoods. I immediately recognised the faces.
The monks were me and the Doctor. Over and over again. Some
looked as we did now. Others were many years older and had grey hair, and lined
faces, and watery eyes.
I saw myself as a man of forty, my skin coarsened with age.
I saw myself as a man of sixty, my hair thin, my skin cracked and folded. I saw
myself as a man of eighty, bald, my skin blotched with cancers.
And the Doctor – that same face, over and over again, but
with the eyes increasingly hooded and dulled, the hair increasingly thin and
grey. Wearing an expression of infinite sadness and regret.
“You have always been here,” said Mauritz. “Here, by my side.
Welcome.”
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