Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [65]
„Glamours, I think we can rule out,‟ the Doctor said. „I suspect we‟d have seen her use them by now.‟
„What‟s a glamour?‟ asked Harry.
Godric explained. „A magic by which a sorcerer can take on the appearance of another.‟
Harry frowned. „But if she could do that, how would we know if we‟d seen her use it?‟ Doctor, doctor, I think I‟m invisible. I‟m sorry, I can‟t see you right now.
„Good point,‟ said the Doctor, „but just think how easy it would have been for her to throw suspicion on someone else for the murders, rather than go to all the trouble of that elaborate business with Emmeline and the fake claws.‟
„But perhaps finding out she had a werewolf in the house was too good an opportunity to miss?‟
„She could not have known!‟ Emmeline burst out. „No one knew!‟
„That‟s patently untrue,‟ said the Doctor, rather dismissively.
„She is your cousin, after all. Perhaps it wasn‟t even a surprise to her. Perhaps it‟s in a family diary or something?‟
Harry said, trying to be helpful. „After all, now I come to think about it, it all seems a bit of a coincidence, otherwise, a sorceress just happening to have a werewolf in the house to frame for murder.
„Interesting,‟ said the Doctor. He turned to Godric again.
„Anything else?‟
„Yes, there is indeed more,‟ the lad said. „I have mentioned before that the wood in which you found me was the property of the Lady Morgan, and all dreaded it. For there, we knew, nature roamed wild and free, and was subject to no control save hers. Her gift was to have control over the land itself.‟
„This is more like it,‟ the Doctor said. „Think what you could do if you were a power-hungry maniac who controlled the land itself? Not just random tree attacks like we‟ve been seeing here - she could hold the country to ransom!‟
„They could cut down all the trees,‟ suggested Harry.
„Cut down all the trees? Raze all the hedgerows, pick all the flowers, dig up every carrot in the land? Even if that were practicable,‟ said the Doctor, „it wouldn‟t make any difference. What would people eat? If she has control of the crops... She could make the corn wither, the barley attack the reaper, the vines strangle the fruit-picker.‟
Harry gaped. „I say! It‟d be like Day of the Triffids!‟ Luckily -
as he realised the book in question had still been fairly new when he was a boy in the fifties - the Doctor was still running with his train of thought and paid no attention.
„No plants - what do we eat?‟
„Meat,‟ said Godric.
„Assuming that people are so inclined,‟ said the Doctor,
„what do the animals eat?‟
„Ah,‟ said Harry.
„So, no plants, no animals. Ultimately, no food. Chaos. And then an earthquake or two under the Houses of Parliament for good measure, perhaps.‟
„But the land - it is not yet awake,‟ said Emmeline.
They all turned to stare at her.
„I thought it was,‟ said Harry, puzzled. „We‟ve been saying it is. And what‟s with all the attacking trees, then?
Sleepwalking?‟
„In a way, yes,‟ she replied. „The land has slept for many hundreds of years. We wolves, we have a bond to the land.
You know that. The land acknowledges us, its sleep is lighter when we are here, but still it sleeps. We have the bond, but not the power to awaken it fully. Here in England, there are no wolves; until my arrival the land had barely stirred for centuries, its sleep was deep and complete. The blood now spilled - spilled in the place where it was once most alive -
has woken it further. It senses that something is happening.
But there has not been enough blood.‟
„Then that‟, said the Doctor, „is what‟s going to happen tonight.‟
„Oh dear,‟ said Harry. „Are you sure?‟
The Doctor shrugged. „But it all makes sense! Tonight Hester is going to spill enough blood to wake the land fully and use some sorcery or other to bind it to her. And we have to stop her.‟
„So, what‟s the plan?‟ Harry asked, fully behind the idea of stopping Triffids and parliamentary earthquakes, but less sure what