Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [24]
He rounded a corner and saw one of the huge wooden servants, striding directly down on him, carrying a black object on a silver tray. No time to hide. His stomach churned as it walked straight through him. Gasping for air, he stared after it in disbelief. It had ignored him. Impossible. No one missed this shirt.
He reached out to steady himself against a table. His hand slid through the hard wood. No sensation at all. He tried again with the same result. For a moment he stood, heart racing, then he smacked his fist into the wall and nearly fell in after it. He pulled back, squeezing one hand hard in the other. He didn't exist. He really was dead.
'Anybody there?' he yel ed aloud. 'Hello!' It was an odd sound. No resonance, as if it was echoing only inside his empty head. He came up in a cold sweat. The wooden giant was disappearing round the turning at the end of the long corridor. It had not heard him. He shouted as loudly as his throat could muster and ran after the creature.
He reached the far corner just as the servant disappeared into a side room along the next passage. The door closed behind the creature. Chris slowly approached the entrance, listening to the muffled cursing of an old woman that came from inside. He put his fingers to the wood and they slid right in.
He decided with relief that the place was a holo-environs; something like the Academy simulator ranges on Ponten IV or Captain Jamboree's Fun-dungeon of Mystery at Lunar Park where he hung about as a kid. Thank the Goddess for this solution. He didn't believe in ghosts and he wasn't going to start now. He straightened and brushed at his shirt as if he was about to enter the Adjudicator Officers' Mess at the Academy for the first time.
Then he walked slowly through the closed door.
38
A large room, with threadbare tapestries hanging from the tree-pillars, was dominated by a large rocking chair.
The chair was carved like a hand, its fingers forming the back. In the hand's cupped palm sat the old woman, small, not giant-sized at al , but vigorously fierce, her grey hair in disarray. She was staring almost directly at the door where Chris stood, and he flinched at the maliciousness of her glare. But she couldn't see him. She cursed loudly again and snatched the black object from her attendant's silver tray - a black bonnet which she planted over her wild hair. She scowled while the wooden maid adjusted the ribbons and tried to tuck the loose strands of hair inside.
Opposite her stood a dressing table carved in the house's animalistic style with a trio of looking glasses set on it.
The old woman glared angrily at the mirrors. It was all wrong. The central glass reflected the wrong room.
Chris moved closer. The mirror looked into another room in the house, where a very old man sat upright in a big chair His ancient head nodded in apparent irritation. His bony fingers tapped out the time on the carved arms of his chair. His feet did not touch the floor. He wore elaborate robes, too big for his frail demeanour. Occasional y, he glanced directly out of the mirror as if he knew only too well that he was being spied on.
The old woman cackled to herself. Her servant looked on, its carved, androgynous mask of a face devoid of emotion.
Suddenly the air moved. There was a second figure standing beside Chris. A ratty little man had just walked through the closed door. He had ragged clothes and corpse-coloured skin, and he returned Chris's look of disbelief with eyes like roundels. A mutual realization that each could see the other. He gasped, cringed and turned tail back through the door.
Chris grabbed at the little man, but missed. There was a cry from behind him. He turned and saw the old woman, her eyes darting in his general direction as if she had half glimpsed a ghost.
He slid through the door into the passage. There was no sign of the little guy, but in the distance, where dusk was already gathering, he saw a light coming from under