Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [76]
The next time I awoke it was to find myself sprawled against the cool stone wall. The agony was receding like a wave across a beach, always promising to return.
Surd was a shadow blocking out the light. From behind him, a soft caress of a voice said:
'Your friend Holmes is slightly less stupid than I had assumed. You should be in Calcutta by now, searching for me in vain. I had not anticipated that you would penetrate my alliance with the Nizam so soon.'
I tried to speak, but the tide rolled over me again and withdrew, leaving me shivering.
A white-gloved hand raised my chin.
'You are pathetic,' Maupertuis said. I managed to raise my eyes to gaze into his thin, impassive face. His eyes seemed to sear into me: somehow the experience of his gaze was worse than all the pain.
'We can find out everything we want from your friends. How much they know. What sort of threat they pose. Why they persist in following me, when all I want is to restore the glory of the Empire and extend it to other worlds. You, however, are irrelevant.'
I could hear the rustle of a gown as somebody else joined us. For a moment I had hopes of a rescue, until Ghulam Haidar said, 'The Nizam wishes you to join him. The others have been subdued.'
'Very well,' Maupertuis whispered.
The gloved hand released my chin. I tried to keep my head up, but failed. I could feel consciousness ebbing away with the tide.
'Surd,' he said, turning away, 'kill him.'
Chapter 11
In which Holmes stands alongside an unlikely companion and a villain falls for Bernice and Watson.
Maupertuis's footsteps echoed like the knell of some huge bell as he walked away. Surd bent to take my head in his huge hands. I tried to look away, but I was fascinated by the twin sparks glowing deep in his eyes. I swear that I could feel the heat emanating from them. I made my peace with God. Surd, seeing my acceptance of my fate in my expression, smiled twistedly.
I wrenched my head downwards as the fire in Surd's eyes reached out for me. Heat seared the top of my head and I heard a massive crack! as the wall exploded. Chips of marble stung the back of my neck. Surd fell backwards, clutching at his face. Blood seeped between his fingers. I scuttled crab-fashion away from him and climbed precariously to my feet.
The last things I saw before I staggered away were a scorched pit in the wall where my head had been resting, and Surd wiping the blood from his eyes and looking round for me.
I ran. I ran until my lungs were heaving and my legs would not carry me any more. I ran until I no longer knew where I was. I ran until I could no longer avoid the question that pounded in my brain to the exclusion of all else. What could I do now?
My funk lasted for a few minutes, and left me shaking and soaked with perspiration. What pulled me back from the brink was the thought of my friends in danger.. I could not allow anything to happen to them. I am not a brave man by any stretch of the imagination - I have seen too much pain and suffering in the lives of others to face it with equanimity myself - but there is a code that transcends all else, and its name is honour. I had to help.
I slipped quietly through the whited sepulchre of the Nizam's palace, looking for some stretch of corridor or ornamental feature that I recognized.
The coolness, the silence and the marble all reminded me of the Diogenes Club back in London. I found the comparison strangely calming. The sweat dried on my brow and a warm glow of courage spread through my limbs.
Perhaps I could achieve something after all.
A sound! I hesitated, then flung myself flat against the wall as a small group of people emerged from an adjoining corridor ahead. I was as invisible