Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [44]
‘Perhaps you can tell me where Lady Pritchard is, miss.’
Ace looked at the Doctor. ‘Does he mean that old bag the housekeeper?’ she asked. The Doctor waved his hands, indicating that she should talk to the inspector.
‘I gather you live in Perivale village,’ continued Mackenzie.
Police inquiries into her private life brought back too many awkward memories for Ace.
‘I’ll be moving to the area... sometime,’ she answered coldly. She moved over to join the Doctor. ‘How’s Tarzan?’
she asked, looking at Nimrod.
‘No change,’ he muttered. ‘He’s still out like a light.’
Nimrod’s eyelids flickered for a second.
The Doctor leaned in close to the Neanderthal’s hairy ear. ‘Light,’ he said.
Nimrod’s hand shot out and grasped Ace’s arm like a vice. She cried out and tried to pull away, but she was held tight.
‘Don’t move!’ hissed the Doctor.
Ace looked at Nimrod and found herself staring directly into the brown pools of his eyes.
It was clear that the last thing Nimrod could see was Ace. He gasped, half choked and seemed to stare straight through her. Then with a deep breath, he began to speak in the deep rich tones of a voice that was years, centuries, even millennia away.
‘I am the memory teller of our tribe. I keep the embers of each story in my mind, so that they burn fresh with each telling.’
‘Good Lord,’ exclaimed the astonished inspector. Ace was too frightened to move.
The Doctor hurriedly began to rummage through Nimrod’s jacket pockets. ‘Word association,’ he muttered.
‘Somehow I’ve triggered him off.’ Finally, he produced the ancient, yellow bear’s tooth from the waistcoat. Placing the ritual symbol in Nimrod’s other hand, he said, ‘Nimrod, the fang of the cave bear calls you. Tell us your tale.’
Mackenzie hurriedly turned to a new page in his notebook.
Nimrod’s attention focused on the tooth, relaxing his grip on Ace’s arm enough for her to pull away. So intrigued were all three spectators, that they failed to notice a shadow pressing against the gap between the doors to the hall. It breathed quickly but silently as it recovered from the exertion of its long climb.
Nimrod swung his legs down from the couch and sat clasping the tooth in both hands, staring as he saw it flickering in the precious firelight of his native time. There were his long-lost, brown-eyed people; spears waved in greeting as they issued from the cave village to meet him.
The sunlight was pale through the forest trees; cold under the ominous gathering of snow clouds. The people sat silently waiting for the memory teller to begin. Most of his tales were old, passed down the generations, word for word, but today this was his own tale and he was the first to tell it.
‘At the season when the ice floods swamped the pasture lands, we herded the mammoths sunwards to find new grazing.’
‘Tricky things, mammoths,’ endorsed Mackenzie.
‘As the snows hid the green world, the eating grew lean.
The wise men cast bones to make hunting magic and spoke with the voice of the Burning One.’
Ace struggled to find a rational explanation for Nimrod’s behaviour. ‘Is this a race memory?’ she whispered to the Doctor.
He emphatically shook his head. ‘No, these are his real experiences.’
Nimrod’s mind clouded. His family, his people and his world were long dead. They lived only in his thoughts now. If he lost their memory, they were gone for ever. He was alone; and after him... Clinging in vain to the tooth, his thoughts turned to despair.
‘But now the wild world is lost in a desert of smoke and straight lines. There is smoke sickness, but Light will return.’
‘Light will return.’
Only the Doctor heard the growled echo from outside the drawing room doors.
Nimrod fell silent; he slid sideways to rest his head which teemed with memories on the stack of cushions.
Much relieved, the inspector stretched and rubbed the back of his neck; he felt peckish.
As soon as she had heard the word light, Ace felt a chill of fear in her stomach. She had hoped after waking to find all the hate and