Doctor Who_ Companion Piece - Mike Tucker [23]
`No tears now,' said Father Julian.
Cat pulled away. 'I don't cry,' she said, flashing the old priest a glance.
`I am truly sorry, child. I will pray for your friend. Even the fate of Time Lords is in the hand of the Almighty.'
The Doctor was beyond help. His body hung insensible on the black wall, but he was not inside it. The machine had done something . . . split him from his body. He was drifting slowly through the ship, dazzled by light that had no source. Voices rose and fell like waves in a lazy sea. People shone with energy — some brightly, some dully, each with his or her own peculiar tone of light.
None of them could see or hear him.
He floated, it seemed, at random, through the ship's massive engine rooms and even more massive kitchens, then up into Guii del Toro's luxurious quarters, where he watched the Inquisitor raising a glass of dark wine in a silent, grimly satisfied toast, and out through the ship's bulkhead, into the market square. He could touch nothing and no one, he passed through solid objects, he could not control the rate or direction of his drift.
He was heading towards the Cathedral, thinking absently about how it looked centuries old. It couldn't have been there longer than thirty years — probably less.
The solid stone walls were as diaphanous as air to him, and he passed within.
There was Cat, sitting, head bowed, in the front row of pews, before the high altar. She looked so sad. So alone. The Doctor wanted to reach out to her. To tell her he was sorry. At the foot of the altar, two men were kneeling in prayer. One was the red-robed Cardinal. The other was a good twenty years older, and dressed in what appeared to be the habit of a Benedictine monk.
The silence was suddenly shattered by an explosion of noise — a sidedoor crashed open and a black figure rushed through it. A monk. He ran forward, straight at the Cardinal.
`No!' Cat leaped forward.
The Doctor tried to cry out, but found that he had no voice. He tried to will himself to move forward, but merely began to drift backwards, back through the wall.
He saw the Cardinal flailing at the monk with a free-standing gilded cross. The monk batted it aside and then struck the Cardinal to the cathedral floor with a single blow. The Doctor saw the Cardinal's light die like a candle snuffed out by fingers.
Cat froze.
The old monk was only just realising what was happening. He crossed
himself and slumped to the floor, muttering frantically about the Antichrist. The attacker regarded him for a moment, then turned and ran back the way he had come.
The cathedral fell silent again, save for the old man's fevered prayers.
The Doctor found it so difficult to concentrate . . . Had someone been killed? It seemed so long ago.
The sun was going down to the east of the ramshackle city. Lamps were being lit. The Doctor had drifted far from the town square, out over darkening fields. He was forgetting where he was .. .
The cathedral was lit up like a beacon in the advancing night. He could war music coming from within, carrying over the benighted rooftops.
He felt himself slipping from consciousness — if you could call this ;consciousness . The limbo of light and muted sound was starting to engulf him. He tried to focus on the light, on the music. Singing . . .
It seemed to gain in clarity. He was drifting — so slowly — back towards the town.
Allegri's Miserere .. .
Concentrate...
Cat was in chains. Del Toro had decreed that she should be there to reflect upon her crime. It was a requiem mass in the cathedral for the late Cardinal Runciman. She was under arrest for his murder.
She had been found trying to revive Father Julian. Del Toro had immediately had her manacled and thrown into a cell.
The service dragged. She was thinking about the Doctor. Del Toro had laughingly confirmed Father Julian's prediction — he was dead. And she would soon follow him to wherever the Devil had sent him. Agatho, the fat Bishop, preached the sermon. He eulogised Cardinal Runciman as a great shepherd