Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [58]
He’d arranged for the professor and his researchers to come just to speed up her work, no doubt thinking that when the translation was complete there would be nothing to prevent her from taking her place by his side on the Jewelled Sword. Nothing to stop royal life returning to normal.
Gilliam picked up her notepad and flicked through her field notes. Exciting as the work was, it wasn’t Petruska’s ancient story that was keeping her away from her husband. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she hadn’t run away to do archeology – she’d run away from him. And when the work was over, she wasn’t going to have anything to hide behind. She was going to have to make a decision.
But not yet, she told herself. Not today.
For the rest of the day she buried herself in the translation. Petruska’s song was spread across all five of the walls of her chamber. By the end of the day, Gilliam had finished translating the symbols on four of the walls. All but the last two choruses of the first queen’s love song for her husband.
Much of the journal was concerned with a device which Petruska was building with the help of her sole companion and bodyguard, a young man called Tol’gar, whom she had taken into her confidence. The device was represented 98
by two symbols: a bird in flight, and a circle or possibly a sphere. Petruska variously referred to the device in her journal as ‘gateway’ and ‘opening door’.
A secret means of escape perhaps? A way of fleeing Moriah’s tyranny?
Gilliam hoped so. She was beginning to feel close to the first queen of Kr’on Tep, despite the centuries that separated their lives. She could empathize with Petruska’s confinement of course. In her years as Queen of Kr’on Tep, Gilliam had all too keenly felt the imprisonment Petruska described in her journal.
But their lives weren’t the same; to suggest they were only undermined the first queen’s experience. Petruska had been a real prisoner, forbidden any contact with the outside world, locked in this luxurious gaol that was her palace. However trapped Gilliam felt, she could leave. Unlike Petruska, she had a choice.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Petruska had also had a choice. To choose to disobey, to fight, to try to escape her abusive husband. And she had chosen wisely; using her scientific knowledge to create a device, a machine to deliver her from the mysterious man-god, Moriah.
Gilliam couldn’t help hoping that the academic histories had got it wrong.
That Moriah hadn’t killed Petruska, that she had used her device to escape.
But that was just wishful thinking.
It was late in the evening when Gilliam finished translating the fifth wall.
The temperature had already dropped substantially. She would shortly have to finish her work for the day or else risk hypothermia.
Much of the later journal entries referred to the functioning of the bird/globe device, which appeared to be nearing completion. Gilliam couldn’t make any sense of the technical details, although she wasn’t surprised by this.
It was the last part of the journal which caught her attention: And tonight I sleep above the bird/globe waiting only Tol’gar’s return We’ll caress the birds
And in the safety of the mountain we’ll pass through the opening door Entwined
This was the first time Gilliam had come across a direct reference to the location of the device. She rubbed the chill out of her arms; it had been almost an hour since the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the desert was cooling rapidly. She really ought to seal herself into her tent for the night, but she couldn’t bear to stop working after reading the last journal entry.
I sleep above the bird/globe
According to the many reconstructions of the palace, Petruska’s bed would have been situated in the centre of the room. Probably a large, canopied affair, much like Gilliam’s own aboard the royal barge. The bed, of course, was long gone. The floor of Petruska’s chamber was decorated with small hieroglyphs;