Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [48]
Kadiatu had been here before.
She was aware that she was dreaming, in a disconnected way, as though she were playing a VR game while half-asleep.
It was absolutely silent. No, there was the wind in the bamboo, the tiny bell-sound of a small stream.
She snapped her head around, eyes raking the trees. She would be attacked, she didn’t belong here! But there were only trees, and stones, and bushes, placed by human hands in deceptively natural, random patterns. A path led deeper into the garden, dark stepping-stones gently curving away through the yellow gingkos. The air was pure and cool, without the taste of smoke. An autumn sky wheeled overhead, licked by cirrus, full of golden sunlight.
It was too real, too untidy to be media memories, a magazine-and-movie Japan. No, this was someone else’s memories, someone else’s dream.
She walked along the path, the breeze damp against her cheeks, following the tobiishi until they led her to a hut covered in moss.
Kadiatu looked around again, sharply, straining to make out some half-heard sound. But there was only the whirring of the cicadas and the trickle of water into a hollowed-out stone beside her. A butterfly landed on the rock, a muted flutter of colour.
Kadiatu picked up the bamboo scoop and poured water over her hands, rinsed out her mouth. The water was shockingly cold, slightly metallic –
spring water, bubbling up from somewhere inside the garden. As she had done every time, she carefully replaced the bamboo scoop, bent under the doorway, and went inside the wooden hut.
She hesitated, not wanting to disturb the occupant. At first she thought he was kneeling, but then she realised he was sitting Japanese-style, deep in contemplation of the flower arrangement in the tokonoma. She’d seen her father do the same, sitting in front of a soothing hologram he’d bought from an artist on Triton.
The room was bare except for the tokonoma and a great iron kettle perched over a fire-pit in the middle of the floor, surrounded by straw mats. Behind the flowers the niche was decorated with an equally simple painted scroll.
Kadiatu ran her eye down the calligraphy, wondering what it said.
‘Empty your cup,’ said the Doctor.
Kadiatu was startled. He’d never spoken before, never been aware that she was there before.
‘Who are you?’ he said, without turning around.
91
‘An engineer,’ Kadiatu heard herself saying. ‘A student.’
‘Nan-in received a university professor at his temple,’ said the Doctor. ‘He poured tea into his guest’s cup, and continued pouring until tea ran onto the table and dripped onto the floor. “It’s too full!” cried the scholar.’
‘Listen,’ said Kadiatu. ‘Can you hear that?’
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said the Doctor wearily. ‘“Like this cup,” said Nan-in,
“you’re full of your own opinions. How can I teach you the truth unless you empty your cup?”’
Kadiatu’s head turned. It was a woman, her face painted chalk-white, kimono, the full works. The butterfly was perched on the woman’s hand, its iridescent wings opening and closing softly. ‘Where is your steward?’ she asked.
‘I’m trying to find her,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m trying. But it’s taking so long. I need just one more week. One more day. Just one more day.’
The woman took something from the sleeve of her kimono. Kadiatu saw it was an hour-glass. The woman stretched out a delicate hand, put the glass in front of the flowers and the scroll. It was very small.
‘You’re Death, aren’t you?’ said Kadiatu.
‘There is a family resemblance,’ said the woman. ‘I am Time, and this is my champion.’
‘He’s mine.’
There was another woman. Kadiatu found herself shrinking back, instinctively. It’s starting to get crowded in here.
The newcomer (or had she been there all along?) knelt on the floor on a low wooden stool, idly flicking the air with a feather-duster. She was white, absolutely white, a silhouette, a piece of the rice-paper that the artist forgot to paint.
The Doctor