Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [46]
'I know what you were searching for on the panotropic network,' he said. 'But what about the Doctor? Who is he really?'
She shook her head. 'He's a wise man. A shaman. No, he is more than that.' For a moment, she was uncertain. In her memories, there was an excitement and wonderment, a sense of danger that the thought of the Doctor always aroused. But she had always accepted him; never questioned his identity. Finally, she knew her answer. She understood the Doctor's secret. He could not and must never be tied down, pinpointed or categorized.
'He is a mystery,' she said with the utmost reverence.
From somewhere close in the Capitol, there came the deep boom of an explosion. The office shook and the sky went black.
62
Chapter Twelve
Uninvited Hosts
'Going somewhere?'
The voice brought Innocet up short. 'Cousin Rynde,' she whispered as she saw him slide out from behind an arras.
'You startled me.'
'You're out late,' he said. 'Or is it so late that it's early now?' Even in the gloom, his face was grubby and had an oily sheen. His eyes bulged like the pale eyes of a lantern fish. He looked uncommonly well fed.
Innocet knew that Rynde hoped she was engaged on il icit business. She pulled her cloak around her. It barely fitted over the heavy coil of hair on her back. 'I'm surprised to see you in this part of the House,' she said.
He edged up close to her and growled, 'Someone's been thieving from my shrew traps.'
'Your traps?' She pulled away as politely as possible. 'I thought that Cousin Maljamin caught the tafelshrews for the Drudges.'
'He used to.'
'What's happened to him?' said Innocet warily. The prophecy of the rogue card cast a shadow across her thoughts. Anything erring from that usual wearisome burden of candleday-to-candleday life in the House now filled her with foreboding.
'Gone. He's gone away,' said Rynde.
'What? Like the others?'
'Don't know about that. He just took to sitting in his chair and losing interest. Wouldn't talk. Wouldn't eat. Wouldn't even give me a game of Drat. That's when I knew things were real y turning windy. Twice I found him in the corner of his room trying to dig a hole. I think he thought he was a shrew as well. And then he disappeared. That's all.'
Still facing her with a grin, he ambled backward along the passage.
Innocet felt the weight on her shoulders. Sometimes her burden was unbearable. It was still growing. Against her better judgement, she set off after Rynde. 'You should have restrained him,' she called. 'You should have known he might go away.'
Rynde had reached the staircase leading down to the disused phrontisteries. He spat down the stairwel . 'Why should I?' he said. 'Maljamin wouldn't have stopped me. We do things differently in the North-by-North-East wing.
Not the same as you grand galleriers. He just went the same as the others. No fuss. Anyhow, he might be happier as a shrew.'
'You should have told me,' she scolded. 'You know I keep the tal y. You must be the last one left in your wing of the House. Soon there'll be no one left at all.'
He scratched his head through his oily hair. He had dirty fingernails. She couldn't abide dirty fingernails. She seemed to remember that he had once worked as some sort of food technician to the Time Lord gentry at the Capitol.
'You're just worried there'll be no more dinner,' he sneered and started down the stairs.
'Be careful, Cousin. Something dangerous is happening,' she cal ed after him. 'There was an omen in the cards.
And you must have heard the clock.'
'Superstition!' said Rynde. 'I'm more worried about my traps.'
63
She started down the stairs, struggling with her robe on the big steps. 'Have you seen Owis and Arkhew?' she called.
'Together? Owis doesn't count, does he?'
She reached the landing, quite out of breath. 'Of course, he counts.'
'Oh well, in that case I defer to your superior wisdom, Cousin. I saw both of them three candledays ago in the funguretum. Glospin was with them too. They were gambling for something. When I asked what, they just laughed and said