Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [6]
Aoi’s father waited until the fire was lit before he interrogated the prisoners.
He stood over them in his armour, hand on the hilt of his sword. They did not tremble or beg. Aoi wished he had the secret of their courage.
‘Tell me what you know of the spirit that fell from the sky,’ said Father. ‘I will not ask again.’
‘All right,’ said the giant. ‘No problem, we’ll tell you whatever you want to know.’ The little man glanced up at him. ‘Do you want to –’
‘You start,’ said the man. He looked back at Aoi, who shuddered at the touch of those blue eyes, and remained silent.
The giant took a breath, and started to tell their story.
13
2
Blue-eyed samurai
Chris was looking at a flower.
The single blossom was blushing pink. It was at eye-level, six feet up the wall, peeking out between two stones.
His muscular frame was hidden inside the loose trousers and jacket he was wearing, blue cloth with gold patterns over a black kimono. His blond hair was done up in a samurai topknot.
He took a step back and looked up. The wall was a seamless mass, thousands of stones piled high, as though a giant eggshell had been glued back together. Here and there moss was growing, there and here more of the tiny pink flowers had taken root.
‘How long has it been since anyone lived here?’ The question turned into a puff of white in the chilly air.
He turned around. The Doctor was looking up at the Castle itself. He didn’t answer for a moment.
With his stature and his yellow hair, Chris wasn’t very heavily disguised by his samurai clothes. The Doctor hadn’t even bothered to dress like a local, wearing a dark Paisley waistcoat and a tweed jacket, his umbrella hooked over one arm, a banged-up leather satchel slung over the opposite shoulder.
But then, the Doctor always seemed to get away with it. After all, he was already incognito. There was no way to tell by looking that he wasn’t human.
He turned to Chris and smiled. ‘No one’s been here for ten years,’ he said,
‘except for whoever carved that.’
He pointed with his umbrella at a single stone, standing by itself in front of the Castle. Chris saw that the surface was partly carved, with a human figure he couldn’t quite make out.
The Castle was a charred mass of timber, its lines softened by seasons of snow and rain. The top storeys had collapsed through one another, falling down into the centre. The ornamental ponds were empty but for a chill slick of algae. The trees were tired collections of sticks.
15
‘A shrine,’ said the Doctor, examining the stone. ‘A very basic one, but I expect it serves its purpose.’
‘What purpose?’
‘In this case, to shut in an angry spirit. Usually the shrines are small buildings, and the spirit is trapped inside, unable to hurt the living.’
‘What happened here?’ said Chris.
The Doctor said nothing, hands clasped behind his back, walking around the Castle as though it was a mildly interesting work of art.
Chris walked in the other direction, following the wall. There was no sign of a breach. There were no bodies or scattered pieces of armour, none of the paraphernalia of war. Maybe the Castle had just caught fire, and had been abandoned by a daimyo too poor to rebuild it.
There was a wooden ladder leaning against the wall. Chris tested a couple of rungs. The wood was still hard, after all these years. He climbed up carefully.
Wow, the view! It was just dawn, the horizon still a line of pink and orange.
Chris stood on top of the wall, breathing in deep lungfuls of the cold air. The Castle was high in the mountains. Jagged cliffs fell away to broad plains.
Distant peaks held lingering snow. He thought he could make out a town, a dark patch on the plain below.
In his time, the cities were a thick film that covered the Earth, even the oceans. No matter where you were, the air carried the same smell of industry and sweat. Years in his past, centuries into the