Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [74]
The Doctor still wasn’t listening. He raised his hands in front of him, framing the painting with his fingers. ‘It’s been hung too low down the wall. It reminds me of something –’
Jack exhaled loudly, trying to attract the Doctor’s attention. Failing, he ran his fingers along the edge of the picture frame. He felt something give beneath 123
his fingers. The painting began to swing away from the wall on a hinge. A chink of emerald light escaped from behind the painting and bled into the room. It was the same icy light that had shone from the lamp on the taxi. Was this where the monstrous vehicle came from? Did this lead to its lair?
‘I knew it!’ The Doctor exclaimed, looking at the passageway which was revealed behind the picture – an expression of complete surprise on his face.
‘It’s a secret door.’
They had been descending steadily for almost five minutes. Surely they must be far below the ground floor by now? Jack wondered, a little fearfully, where the stairs might lead. A cellar, or perhaps, if they were lucky, a secret exit from the building? The atmosphere was thick and damp, and Jack was privately worried that they might run out of air as they travelled ever further down.
The stairs turned into a passageway which twisted and sloped wildly several times before opening out on to a small platform which looked out over a large underground cavern. From their high vantage point, Jack could see a ring of burning emerald lights below them on the floor of the cave. From this distance they looked like a discarded necklace of luminous pearls. A figure was seated, cross-legged and Buddha-like, in the middle of the globes.
Whoever the person was, he was too far away for Jack to identify.
‘It’s Moriah,’ the Doctor whispered.
‘Blimey, how can you tell?’ Jack said.
The Doctor didn’t seem to understand what he meant. ‘Well, I have seen him before.’
Jack smiled ruefully. The figure may have been too far for a mere mortal like Jack to make out, but that didn’t seem to stop the Doctor. Was there nothing that the little man couldn’t do?
‘Let’s get closer,’ the Doctor said, and started to climb down a stone staircase which was carved into the wall of the cavern, leading from the platform down to the floor below. He moved silently in the dusty rubble.
The stairs were old and felt like they might crumble when Jack put his weight on them. He swallowed hard and followed, trying to stop himself from looking down.
The cavern floor was rough and lined with deep, jagged cracks. The light from the circle of globes played over the rock walls, turning them varying shades of a deep brackish green. The eerie illuminance made the cavern appear as if it were deep underwater. It was like standing on the bottom of a stagnant lagoon. The air was thick, sweet and medicinal. The same cloying smell that had enveloped him in the black cab. Scattered across the floor of the cavern were pools of the dark liquid. Jack hadn’t noticed them at first, had 124
thought them shadows in the gloom. The surface of pools trembled slightly, almost in. . . anticipation.
The Doctor led Jack over a cluster of stalagmites close to the ring of emerald fire. Jack wanted to look, but when he lifted his head over the rocks, the Doctor pushed it back down. There were voices coming from the circle of spheres. One was a deep unearthly whisper: Moriah? The other voice sounded thin and tinny, as if it were coming from far away. Jack thought he recognized the second voice, male and younger than the first. It sounded anxious and eager to please. The man spoke with a London accent – Jack was sure he recognized the speaker. The voice made him feel uncomfortable.
Well, the only way to be sure was to see. Before the Doctor could stop him, Jack quickly stuck his head over the top of the rocks and stole a glimpse at the centre of the fiery circle. A large, heavy-set man sat in the centre of the ring of globes. His face was large, with strong, hard features, which looked as if they had been cut out of granite. He had short, steel-grey