Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [8]
He turned to the book shelves, searching for something. He found a great Bible, thicker than an arm, and heaved it from the shelf and on to the desk.
‘Let me see, let me see,’ he muttered to himself, flicking quickly through the thick parchment pages. Dodo noticed that their margins were filled with illustrations and cryptic comments in Latin; the capital letter at the start of each chapter was enormous and ornate, filled with scarlet and gold, swirling shapes and precisely knotted geometric patterns.
At last the Doctor found what he was looking for. It was an enormous illustration towards the end of the book, and depicted a wounded lamb on a throne, with twelve leaders below and, in a great procession, myriad men and women bowing low. ‘Here is the world as these people see it,’ said the Doctor. ‘It begins with the men and women of what we would term the Middle East and Europe, and extends to the far reaches of the known world.
So we see Hebrews, Arabs, Armenians, Byzantines, Romans, Scythians...’ He traced a finger along the procession, and Dodo noticed with a start that the people had started to alternate with beasts and monsters. She saw great giants with single eyes in their foreheads; slender girlish figures with extra fingers; men covered from head to foot with hair; grotesques who moved on one single leg, and others with faces in their stomachs. The further along the line her eyes moved, the more bizarre the creatures became, gradually losing their humanity to a dizzying array of seemingly random animal parts.
‘Fauns, centaurs, naiads and dryads, monsters of all kinds,’
said the Doctor. ‘These people are frightened of the unknown, and who can blame them? And the Mongols are a great storm rising from lands they do not comprehend.’
‘You mean there’s been no contact with Asia?’
‘Not quite, my child, not quite,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Romans returned from their eastern expeditions with silk, though they imagined it was combed from the leaves of particular plants. Alexander marched into India, and described a land of peculiar men and monsters. As you see...’ The Doctor indicated the great procession again. ‘Merchants persist in telling these tales to this day. They speak of cynocephali, or dog-headed men, and antipodes, who are people whose feet face backwards.
Of course, if you follow their footsteps, you will never find them!’ He chuckled, then pointed to one of the figures with a single leg. ‘Monopodes – well, the name says it all! Griffins, unicorns, vampires, satyrs, Amazons... The list is endless.’
The Doctor closed the book suddenly and, with Dodo’s help, returned it to the shelf. ‘The Mongols are absolutely unstoppable,’ he announced firmly. ‘It is little wonder that contemporary accounts talk of flesh-eating beasts and a coming Armageddon. Their fear only makes the Mongols yet more powerful.’
He laid a gentle hand on Dodo’s shoulder, and looked at her sadly. ‘There are many beasts and monsters in the universe, it is true,’ he said. ‘But the worst of them is man. No more, no less.’
Adviser Yevhen found the bishop kneeling before the great golden altar, head bowed. The meeting had been arranged the previous night, and Yevhen was not surprised to find the man in prayer. Bishop Vasil was not one to spurn an opportunity to appear pious.
Swallowing his irritation, Yevhen waited patiently for the bishop to rise to his feet. Vasil was not a tall man, but he had an aura about him, a certain haughty bearing that made the most of his wiry frame. A wrinkled face seemed to merge into the dark folded robes that bunched about his head and shoulders and which resembled a dark halo, the inverse of the many bright icons that littered the cathedral. Only his full grey beard brought any colour to the man’s features – and that was the colour of decay, of old things stiff with dust.
Vasil straightened slowly. Yevhen genuflected, brushing his lips against the gilt ring that adorned the bishop’s right hand.
‘God bless you, my child,’ said Vasil, his voice cracking like