Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [157]
He wasn’t the only one recovering from a shock. Society, the society of the underground, was already adjusting itself to the fact that several of its lost members had returned overnight. In Westminster as in Hispaniola, in Paris as in Covent Garden, those who’d attended the wedding suddenly reappeared with tales that even the elders of the Star Chamber would have found hard to match. They were like prophets, returning from a revelation, and the fact that many of them hadn’t come back only put those who had in an even better light.
To understand how the Doctor had found his way home, it’s best to delve into the legends of the Kingdom of Beasts one last time. Because while Sabbath was doing something to the Doctor within the central chamber of the palace, a group of British ritualists closer to the entrance (including the overenthusiastic Scotsman, who’d become a true warrior of his clan since he’d arrived there) was engaged in one of the most desperate struggles of the entire war. Before the human contingent had retreated into the great palace hallways, they’d spotted a procession of the ape-shamans approaching the building with an enormous wooden cross hoisted between them: the trunks of two machineel-trees, crudely lashed together. It wasn’t so much an affront to Christianity as it was a particularly painful form of death, because mounted on that cross was a figure, a human being, and both he and the crucifix had already been set on fire. The man was still alive as the procession reached the palace, and the shamans hauled his blazing carcass towards the gateway, the unfortunate victim screaming profanities with every step they took. His face was already unrecognisable, but those who heard him cry out claimed he’d sounded like the missing priest, Robert Kemp.
Mercifully, those humans on the frontline hadn’t had time to listen to the screaming as the apes had advanced. But now, trapped in the hallways of the palace with the flames closing in on all sides, the survivors must have wondered whether the same fate lay in store for them. Beyond the wall of fire that swept in from the entrance they could see the silhouettes of the apes, long-limbed shadows cavorting in the ruined halls. Some reported seeing ape-shamans move in to ‘officiate’, while others said there was an even greater presence lurking near the gateway, the King himself waiting for the slaughter to be concluded.
Then the unexpected happened. The most striking account comes from those who’d been trapped outside the building, who’d been engaging the apes in close combat at the gateway when the shamans had set the fires at the walls. This small group of men, among them several Masons and the houngan Émondeur, had started to retreat into the streets of the city after they’d been cut off from their colleagues. Now the ranks of the men were being slowly reduced, by frenzied, suicidal apes who would occasionally leap forward and tear one of the Masons limb from limb before his comrades could cut the creature down.
The group had been reduced to half a dozen men, maybe less, when things started to change. The first they knew of it was when the beasts suddenly stopped their attack, and turned, with puzzled and irritated grunts, towards the palace gateway. By this time the gate was in flames, so it hardly seemed likely that anybody other than a dumb animal would risk stepping through it, but as the men followed the gaze of the apes they realised they could see several human outlines simply walking through the fire. The shapes were moving quite calmly, several of them holding hands, as if (writes one source) ‘the elements themselves bowed to their wishes’.
The silhouette at the front of this bizarre procession was the Doctor himself, and even the apes looked astonished as he stepped through the fire and into view… as much as apes could. All the descriptions of him agree on his determination, the demeanour of ‘a force of nature’ as the fire