Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [33]
'Was he dead?' said Chris. 'Was Glospin dead?'
'That finished off his schemes!' Arkhew pointed to another mirror shard as it spun slowly past. 'Look over there.
Look at the despair.'
The Cousins are gathered round the stone plinth in the hall. They are clinging to it, like frightened kids clinging to their mother.
Tallow is dripping from a tilted candle. It drops into a dish of water. forming white shapes like mushroom skul s.
Innocet holds the candle, a look of fear and anger on her face.
Satthralope rages at Quences in his room. Accusing fingers and eyes. He, far from frail, laughs at her as she storms out. He turns to work on a huge furry shape that lies on a table.
Suddenly the reflection within the turning shard cracks into dozens of identical little reflections. A double-bladed dagger held by a figure in black stabs Quences through both hearts. Quences stares in disbelief his lips mouthing the word 'You'.
'Murderer!' yelped Arkhew. 'It was him! That's who did it!'
'Who?' said Chris.
' He came back to do it! It was him!'
Wine is spil ing off the table.
Chris grabbed Arkhew by the shoulders. 'Who killed the old man?' he demanded.
'Murderer, murderer. . .' gasped the little man.
Satthralope stares at them from the surface of a turning mirror shard. Her chair rocks back and forth. Soothing, lulling.
Although Chris could not hear her, he understood the words she was mouthing:
'Not dead. Just in stasis. Just waiting. He's not dead.'
A cortege is passing by. On the monstrous catafalque lies the body of murdered Quences.
'Not dead. Just waiting. Waiting in stasis. We're all waiting.'
'Is it over?' Arkhew stared imploringly up at Chris. 'Is the waiting over?'
'I don't know. I don't understand,' stuttered the young Adjudicator. The violence of the murder had shocked him cold. 'Who was it? Who kil ed the old man? How long ago?'
'Too long.' Arkhew was drifting, moving slowly away. 'No,' he said angrily. 'Nothing changes.'
'What do I do?' called Chris. 'Show me!'
'We've already been shown!'
Chris saw a bright eye approaching in the dark. It pulled hungrily at him. It was the mirror through which he had entered this nightmare.
Arkhew was already a distant figure in the gloom. 'The will,' he was intoning. 'That's all that's left. Where is the will?'
47
***
'Danger, Mistress. Danger!'
K9 retracted his sensor from the operations port and backed away from Andred's desk.
Leela turned the chair to see a Chancellery guard captain standing in the office doorway. There were two other guards with him.
'Stay there,' she muttered to K9.
'Lady Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima?' the captain said formally.
She stood and walked round the desk. 'Leela is enough.'
As he stepped into the room, she saw that it was Jomdek.
'I am here to place you under arrest,' he announced.
'For what crime?'
'For using false security clearance codes to access classified information and bio-extracts from the Citadel security systems.'
'Those are the Castel an's codes,' protested Leela.
'But they are not yours, madam. Does Castellan Andred know you've been using them?'
'He is not here,' she snapped.
'Then the charge is treason.'
'I want to see the Castellan.'
'He wil be informed.' Jomdek started towards her, but she darted back round the desk to where K9 was waiting.
'These are traitors,' she whispered. 'Get the information we have found to Andred.'
'Danger!' warned the robot dog and extended the gun barrel from his nose.
A guard with a ceremonial impulse staser came round the side of the desk.
'No, K9!' shouted Leela, too late. A thin beam of hard light stabbed from K9's gun and the guard's staser was knocked from his hand. He fell back clutching his smoking glove.
Before K9 could turn round in the tight space, Captain Jomdek rounded the other end of the desk. A wild bolt from his gun scorched Leela's arm and hit K9 squarely on the flank. The robot lurched sideways into the desk, gave a squeal of protest and stopped dead. Smoke whisped out of his joints.
Leela grabbed at her companion, but the second guard pulled her