Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [120]
Chapter 18
In which one disaster is sought and another one narrowly avoided.
The tiny black object that had been hovering in front of Azathoth's slobbering maw suddenly darted away.
The Doctor turned to run. Circling quickly, the missile sped for the Doctor's back in a blur of ebony. The Doctor tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, leaving the missile to overshoot its target.
'Disengage!' Ace yelled. 'Do you hear me, disengage!'
Azathoth was giggling.
I dropped to the floor and whipped out my trusty revolver. The missile was heading straight for the Doctor's face, but I managed to deflect its path with a well-placed bullet. For a moment I thought that I had crippled it, but it recovered its momentum quickly and headed straight for the Doctor again.
He had climbed to his feet and was pressed against the wall with nowhere else to run. The missiles sped directly for his wide-eyed face. I fired again, but missed.
The Doctor threw himself to the floor. The missile hit the wall and exploded, sending a hail of wooden splinters across the caravan. Several of them hit Azathoth, who howled in pain. Through the hole I could make out the rocky surface of Ry'leh.
'Quickly,' I shouted, 'before anybody investigates.'
I stood by the hole and helped the others as they scrambled through. The Doctor was last, and caught his coat upon a projecting spar of wood.
'With friends like Ace. . .' he muttered as I disentangled him.
Within seconds I was outside with the rest of them. As we ran off, Azathoth's plaintive voice tugged at my mind.
'Listen to me. . .' it shouted, its voice growing fainter and fainter. 'I can offer you peace and happiness and a place in heaven.. .'
I was not the only one to stop and look back, but we kept on going none the less.
We took refuge finally in a small clump of bushes. They snapped at us tentatively, but the size and mood of our party obviously frightened them and they returned to sleep with their buds safely tucked beneath their leaves.
'Look,' said Bernice, gazing upwards in wonder. Her face seemed to shine.
At first I thought that it was her inner beauty, but then I followed her gaze.
For the first time in a thousand years the sun was shining upon the surface of Ry'leh. Its rays were pouring through the hole in the sky, surrounded by concentric rings of cloud, and shone down like a stage spotlight upon the plain where the caravans were landing. Rakshassi hovered high above, looking for us, the shadows of their wings skimming across the ground like lithe black animals.
'There is a crack in everything,' the Doctor whispered. 'That's how the light gets in.'
'Pardon?' I said.
'A line of poetry from my home planet. I think it loses something in translation.'
In the distance, illuminated by the finger of light, the fakirs were emerging from the landed caravans. They immediately formed up into lines and began to chant.
'I-ay, I-ay!' The words echoed across the plain. 'Naghaa, naghaighai!
Shoggog fathaghn! I-ay, I-ay tsa toggua tholoya! Tholoya fathaghn! I-ay Azathoth!'
The words repeated, growing louder as more voices joined the chorus, throbbing like a heartbeat in the distance. I felt, as I did the last time that I heard those words, that a pressure was building up behind my eyes.
'They don't waste much time, do they?' Bernice said.
'It's their big moment,' Ace replied. 'And besides, the Shlangii will soon be here.'
'How soon?' the Doctor asked.
'The nearest garrison is a small one, so let's assume that it's been wiped out during the battle with Maupertuis's men. The next one is half-way around the planet, but they've got skimmers. Giving them an hour to work out that something has happened, and another fifteen minutes to mobilize .
. . I guess half an hour until they arrive.'
'Too long. Azathoth will be through to India by then.'
'So what are our options?' Holmes asked.