Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [72]
‘I –’
‘And that’s not the only thing. I didn’t notice it before. I was stupid.’ She let go of his front and raised her arm. Sesehset saw that the arm was covered in fine goosebumps. ‘I haven’t felt that since fighting the Time Soldiers. The TARDIS sensors agree with me. You’re the key, Sesehset. The key that opens the door in time. Right? Start walking.’
He turned to try to run away.
Ace lashed out with the cattle prod, catching him on the arm. Sesehset squealed and fell over, squirming in the dust.
‘You alien monster bastards,’ snarled Ace. ‘Who are you?’ But his face was blank. ‘Start walking,’ she said again.
They went through the desert in the hot dawn. Twice more the ex-priest tried to run away. Ace brought him down with the prod each time, watching dispassionately as he twitched in the dust.
‘Listen to me,’ she said, when she saw he was looking around a third time, wondering in which direction to bolt. ‘You work for the people who killed the Doctor. I have no mercy for you, Sesehset. Nothing. Not even anger. Run away again and I’ll squash you like a bug.’
When they got to the desert valley, it was noon. The back and armpits of Ace’s shirt were soaked. Her socks were probably welded to the inside of her sneakers. She felt the tingling in her hands and feet, the knot in her stomach. She remembered lying in the dirt here, waiting to die. She remembered Sedjet’s strong arms lifting her.
Sesehset turned to look at her. There was nothing human left in his eyes at all.
‘Do it,’ she said.
The rift exploded outwards, instantly, like a great white flower unfolding in the air.
136
Sesehset just stared into it like the machine he was. His eyes reflected the burning light of the breach in reality. The rift distorted, expanded, blew the sand away in a stinging hurricane as it dug into the ground.
Ace took a deep breath, threw her arms over her head, and jumped into the void.
‘Lend me your gun, would you?’
Vivant handed Bernice his weapon, absently. His eyes were fixed on the inscription, carved deep into the cliff in lines of anger. The message had survived endless years, lifetimes, millennia.
He was unpacking his cardboard box of art equipment, preparing to sketch the stela and the extraordinary inscription at its foot.
Benny’s first shot ricocheted. Her second exploded amongst the words, spraying shards of limestone in all directions.
Denon looked up in astonishment. Benny calmly shot the inscription three more times, until there was nothing left but a series of shallow gouges. And the persistent voice, louder than ever, singing come here, come here.
‘ Mon Dieu, ’ said Denon. ‘After all the trouble we took to come here.’
Bernice was shaking her head, impatiently. ‘There must be something else here. Leave your pencils for a moment, Vivant, and help me find it!’
Slowly, he put down the box. ‘It has been my goal to preserve the antiquities of Egypt,’ he said, ‘before time or human violence could destroy them. I’m not at war with the Mamelukes, but with oblivion.’
‘Vivant,’ Benny said, ‘that inscription should never have been left there.
Trust me.’ He looked at her, strangely. He had done so much for her, without ever asking awkward questions. ‘Trust me,’ she said again. ‘Please, Vivant. I know I can trust you.’
It took them a quarter of an hour to find the tomb entrance. No peasant pottery this time, just ancient chips of limestone, a heap of workings, blown an ancient colour by the wind.
Benny leant in and peered down. There was a shaft perhaps ten feet deep, leading down into the cool dimness. Vivant started to hammer a tent peg into the rock, tied a rope securely around it. Benny lowered it carefully into the shaft, pulled on thick leather gloves.
Obeying an ancient tradition of archaeologists, she took off the Doctor’s hat and laid it carefully on the stone chippings at the top of the tomb. ‘Won’t be long,’ she said.
‘Mlle Summerfield,’ said Vivant, ‘there’s so much you’ve kept from me.’
Benny