Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [12]
They both started laughing. Kadoguchiroshi and the young monk looked at them, puzzled.
The Doctor took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. ‘Do we have enough time for a tea ceremony tonight?’ he asked.
Kadoguchiroshi smiled. ‘The more quickly it’s done, the longer it takes. I don’t think you’re quite ready.’
‘That’s the nub of my problem,’ said the Doctor. They were walking through the garden, through the sound of distant chanting and the wind in the bamboo. There was a milk-coloured moon overhead, providing enough light to see by. ‘I’m not ready. I want to be ready.’
‘You speak as though you know the hour and the place.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘But I want to. I want to choose. If I’ve got to regenerate again, go through that miniature death one more time, I want it to be on my own terms.’
‘You want it to mean something.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Everything I do is for a purpose. Too many people just die, die for no reason.’ The Roshi said nothing, considering a leafless tree.
‘I have to admit there’s something a little bit attractive about the prospect.
Passing the baton. Putting down all the burdens and letting it all be washed away. . . ’ The Doctor shook himself. ‘Time won’t have her Champion for much longer. Chris has to be ready. Recent events have shaken him badly.’
‘You can reach Hekison village within a day,’ said the Roshi. ‘Be careful of brigands and wolves.’
‘We’ll stay until tomorrow morning. And we’ll be back within a day or so.’
The Roshi nodded. ‘Perhaps you will be ready by then.’ The Doctor gave him a troubled look as he walked on.
∗ ∗ ∗
25
Chris was sitting in the travellers’ quarters, struggling to undo his samurai topknot, and thinking about a dream he’d once had. He’d seen that girl with the face of a clock once before, in another one of those dreams. ‘Is this your new steward?’ she had asked the Doctor. ‘Or have you brought me a sacrifice?’
It was like a riddle he’d been given to solve. He was kind of the Doctor’s steward now, or really his squire, the way he had been Roz’s squire. Like an apprentice. But a sacrifice?
If the Doctor asked him to die, would he do it?
Risking your life was one thing, but knowing you were going to die, knowing there was no escape. . . ‘Make it quick,’ Liz had told him, and he hadn’t been able to do it, hadn’t been able to spare her those slow hours of knowing.
For Chiyono, it had already been years. How could she bear it?
What was more creepy was the idea that the Doctor wouldn’t trust him to be brave enough. Maybe he would even trick him into dying. If it was the right thing to do.
Chris wished he was more like the Doctor. He knew the Time Lord wouldn’t hesitate, didn’t have doubts. At least, very few.
On the other hand, always knowing the right thing to do even if it meant getting your friends killed – must really suck.
Should he ask the Doctor about the dream, the new dream, his night-after-nightmare? He had a weird feeling the Time Lord already knew about it.
Anyway, the Doctor liked him to figure things out for himself. Like what had happened to the Castle.
Chris looked up. Kadoguchiroshi was there, holding a sputtering lamp.
The old man sat down in front of him, putting the lamp between them. His wrinkled face looked weird in the flickering light.
‘Kosen was really the pupil, and the other guy was the teacher. Right?’
The Roshi just smiled. Darn, thought Chris.
‘Do you know why we call him Snowman?’ asked the old monk. Chris shook his head.
‘Then let me tell you another story. It was ten years ago, in the middle of a very bitter winter. I had travelled over the mountain to visit another monastery, and I was returning. I had stopped at the shrine to Jizo Bosatsu on the mountainside – where you met me – when I saw a hand push its way out of the snow.’
Chris listened, pulling at his hair.
‘I was more easily surprised in those days,’ said the Roshi. ‘I was quite startled to see a hand creeping out from under the snow like a pale spider. I went at once