Monday 5 May 5147

Stormcage

‘Oi!’ was the first thing I heard.

This was a good sign. Definitely boded well. I risked cracking open an eyelid.

‘What the blooming heck do you think you’re doing?’

Trying not to throw up would have been the honest answer.

It was the Time Hopper. Traded it with Frodene in the showers for ninety-five sugar mice that had unaccountably arrived anonymously 4,600 years past their sell-by date; and an incredibly rare and holy protective relic Father Octavian sent me years ago, with a letter begging that I keep it by me always in my quest for true repentance. Frodene likes it glinting on her tail.

The Hopper can’t get you past the Tesla force field, of course, but – if you’re happy to stay in one place – amazingly, it works perfectly. Here I was, still in my cell, geographically perfect; but on the very day the cell was being built. The bars weren’t even fitted yet.

‘Where’d you spring from, then?’

I noticed the workman’s surprised voice sounded slightly muffled, then realised to my annoyance that I couldn’t breathe. They hadn’t oxygenated the area yet. So annoying.

‘Sorry! Gotta go!’ I said in a slightly strangulated voice, quickstepping over his tools and stopping merely to grab his keycard and his oxygen supply.

I am almost one hundred per cent sure… maybe seventy-nine per cent sure… that one of his colleagues would have got to him with back-up oxygen in time.

And after that, we would both need a day off.

Asgard

He was waiting, arms folded, leaning against the TARDIS, pretending he wasn’t fidgeting. He hates waiting. If he’s not arriving in the nick of time, it isn’t worth it.

‘Come on!’ he said. ‘It’s open and everything! We’re missing it!’

‘Hello, Sweetie.’

‘I thought,’ he said, unfolding his arms, ‘you only called people that when you couldn’t remember their names.’

‘Not true,’ I replied, ditching the stolen helmet. ‘It’s also if I can’t remember their gender. Anyway, I had to stop at the market.’

He looked dubiously at the wicker basket I’d brought. ‘What are we having to eat?’

‘Stop being fussy.’

‘I just want to—’

‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘If you’re picking the location, I’m picking the food. And, by the way, the location is ridiculous.’

He turned round, gleefully, the vast golden gates spread out before us, shining like mad in the morning sun. ‘Isn’t it?!’

ASGARD™. A planet-sized theme park. It is ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. ‘A celebration of all things legendary.’ The skies were a heaving, rolling pink, always with a strategic ray of sun bursting through triumphantly; you could take part in a great fire funeral, or join the Beating Tunnel Ship of 10,000 Drums ride; or fly mechanical eagles through thrilling rock falls. They have a 5,000-metre waterfall with a hotel built into the cave behind it that’s lit entirely by naturally occurring prisms.

‘This place is so tacky,’ I said, as we walked through the vast bright shining gates towards the Rainbow Bridge, with thousands of other excited-looking tourists; children bubbling with excitement, wearing their toy winged helmets and brandishing bendy hammers indiscriminately and then being told off for it.

‘Don’t anger the Gods!’

‘Are you going to be like this all day?’

I nudged at him to look at the family near us. They were Pharax. Blue, at any rate. Three parents, and a clutch of children at various stages, including one nearly fully grown, and obviously a teenager. His clothes were ill-fitting and drooped, and he slouched, as much as a flint exoskeleton could slouch.

The lad’s expression showed plainly how annoyed he was at being dragged here, even as his younger siblings bounced and hopped cheerfully round his feet and pointed at things they wanted to buy later. And he kept taking out an electronic device, whereupon one of his parents would tell him to put it away and he would scowl and do it reluctantly.

‘Teenagers are the same in every galaxy,’ I said.

‘I know,’ said the Doctor, smiling. ‘Brilliant.’

And there was a slight pause. And I told myself sternly I wasn’t bringing it up.

‘Certainly, sir, madam,’ the attendant in the booth was saying, as the Doctor waggled the psychic paper at him. ‘It’s a great honour to have you here today. Let me make sure you have VIP passes to everything. Gets you to the front of all the rides.’

‘Oh,’ said the Doctor, looking wounded. ‘Oh, no, I mean, we would never push in in a queue.’

‘Doctor!’ I hissed. ‘I’m not waiting for hours to go on stupid rides! Take the passes!’

‘But it’s not fair!’ he said.

The attendant was beginning to look suspicious, which always has a wobbly effect on psychic paper.

‘Just take them!’ I said.

‘And your complimentary horned helmets!’ offered the attendant.

‘No, thank you,’ I said, at the exact same second the Doctor said, ‘Cool!’

We joined the hordes of day-trippers streaming onto the Rainbow Bridge.

‘I’m not skipping the queues, though,’ he said mutinously.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s why I brought a book.’

Still, you would have had to be a lot more churlish than me – and have spent a lot less time staring at a brick wall – not to be impressed by the Rainbow Bridge.

This area of the park was always a stunning gold and pink dawn, fresh fingers of the sun warming your shoulders; and a 5,000-piece orchestra played you across on great swells of sublime music. You could glimpse the endless waterfall in the distance, but the river below was wild and deep and clear and looked like the most refreshing, cold and delicious thing ever, like liquid sunlight. (They had glasses of it for sale at a concession stand, so you could find out – for an exorbitant fee.) Still, you really did feel like you were leaving one world behind, and I smiled, feeling quite excited.

‘I’m not doing the mining,’ I warned him.

‘Come on! “Join 5,000 trolls digging for real gold and diamonds in a hundred real mountain tunnels a mere eagle ride away!”’ the Doctor read from the map. ‘What’s not fun about that?’

‘You’re forgetting I only narrowly avoided the hard labour mines…’ I began, but he’d gone. I glanced around. He’d better not be looking for trouble. This was not the day for that. Plus, I had to talk to him about …

I spotted him by the stone sides of the bridge, kneeling in front of a very small rotund humanoid child, who was sobbing inconsolably.

‘It’s OK,’ he was saying. ‘You’re not lost. Well, not for long. Nobody can stay lost for long. Not when I’m about. Here, look at this.’

He took his screwdriver out and made it shoot tiny coloured fireworks in the air. Which I had thought was a waste of space when he did the modification, so shows all I know.

The child’s eyes widened and it reached up a sticky hand.

‘I know, it’s my favourite, too,’ said the Doctor. ‘But don’t touch. What’s your mother’s name? Do you know?’

‘Mama,’ said the child.

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Good start. Got anything else to go on?’

‘Want Mama!’

‘Let me just programme this to get a DNA trace—’

The child grabbed hold of the sonic very tightly and refused to let it go.

‘The thing is, if you give it back to me, I can find your mama.’

‘Find Mama!’ ordered the child. ‘Give LIGHTS ME! ME LIGHTS!’

‘Let me just…’ said the Doctor, switching the fireworks setting off.

‘WAAAAH!!!!’ The child screamed fit to wake the dead.

Suddenly a vast lumbering mountain of a person huffed over and grabbed the child by the hand.

‘Mure! There are you are! Oi! What the blooming heck do you think you’re doing?’

I was hearing that a lot today.

‘Well, your child was lost, and I was—’

‘He ain’t lost!’

‘But I was—’

‘WANT LIGHT MAMMA!!!!’

‘Give him that light, then.’

‘But I was…’

‘GIVE IT.’

‘Manners…’ said the Doctor weakly.

I stepped out in front. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, in a voice I have known to get excellent results. ‘Were you planning to join in the funeral pyre ritual later? Because if you weren’t, I’d be quite happy to facilitate it.’

‘River,’ said the Doctor.

The woman looked at me, sizing me up.

I smiled broadly, and pulled back my coat to give her a quick glimpse of my prison tattoo. (It’s temporary: I needed to gain Frodene’s trust. Well, I hope it’s temporary.)

The woman balked and backed away. ‘Well, you can see who wears the trousers with you two,’ she spat, marching away. ‘Come on, Mure.’

‘What’s wrong with wearing trousers?’ asked the Doctor, puzzled. He said goodbye sweetly to the child, who was being roughly hauled away, great big puddles of bright snot pooling on his upper lip.

‘Want light,’ the boy hiccupped sadly, looking over his shoulder, as his mother shook him roughly, then jammed some sweets in his mouth.

I wondered. Now? Should I do it now? I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This would have been the moment, I know. To ask him. Asking the Doctor for advice on my personal life. Oh lord, I have had better ideas.

The thing is, normally I love making him laugh, when I do things he wouldn’t. But I am never truly as brave as I pretend to be, and, actually, I have a theory that he is absolutely the only creature in the universe who is.

Regardless: I couldn’t bear the idea of him laughing at me.

I couldn’t bear it. After all, with my childhood… imagine, me. The very idea of raising a child. Absurd. Who would leave a child with someone as dangerous as me? How would I have the faintest idea what to do: I who had known absolutely nothing of parenting. How could I tuck a child into bed?

And what if he thought I was asking him? That would be ridiculous. Completely stupid.

After all, what kind of father would he make anyway? He lives in the moment, only for today. That’s what children do, not what they need. They need utter repetitive boredom, day after day after day, life exactly the same; a great big net of boring: of boring old love and times tables and vegetables. Nothing we could even begin to provide.

But if not now, when? Because I am not getting any younger.

Because he is.

Not that I am thinking about that.

‘Hey!’ I said, as something landed on my hair.

‘You looked distracted!’

‘That is absolutely no reason to fasten a helmet on me!’

‘Chill out, Brunhilde!’ the Doctor said. ‘Now, there was a girl…’

‘You know, Vikings didn’t really wear horns on their helmets.’

‘Mythic ones did,’ he said, marching off, and the moment was gone.

The main square of Asgard™ was heaving; everywhere were half-timbered buildings; a working smithy – huge – where you could get weapons hammered into shape, or jewellery; there were bakeries selling honey cakes, and, obviously mead stalls everywhere. The Doctor couldn’t stay still, zooming from one side of the square to another, cheerfully replying ‘Hello!’ back to grinning people who were clearly just being paid to say hello: it was all the same to him.

‘Starting shortly in the Valhalla Amphitheatre: the fearsome Dragon Wars of Thor,’ came a booming over the loudspeaker system. The crowds started to move in that direction.

‘Ooh,’ said the Doctor, looking at me expectantly. ‘How can you possibly want to watch a fake animatronic monster show?’ I said in disbelief.

‘Are you kidding? Somewhere people are screaming at a monster and I don’t have to do anything? Tremendous! Scream away! I shall have my feet up on the seat in front. Unless they tell me not to.’

And he led on, exuberantly. I wouldn’t have told him so in a million years, but he rather suited the helmet.

The vast amphitheatre was crowded with people from all over the galaxy. I couldn’t work out what the strange thing was I was feeling; then I realised. It was normality. Going to a theme park. For fun. With someone you cared about. Being hideously gouged for mead. I was enjoying all of it.

We were ushered to special VIP seats front and centre.

‘VIP sucks!’ shouted someone behind us, and we both looked embarrassed and agreed. I looked round. It was the grumpy teenager from before.

One of his triparents was trying to admonish him. I overheard him say, ‘Well, if you hate all this stuff so much, you’re more than welcome to go and get a job, Tomith.’

‘Yeah, and end up like you?’ The teenager sniffed and buried his head back in his device, completely ignoring what was taking place in front of him.

Which was a shame, as I have to admit, I have seen some sights, but the Asgard™ dragon show was quite the most spectacular.

First the orchestra played their most stirring music – and if you have never heard 3,000 violins play in harmony, I recommend it – then due to some clever atmospheric tweaking, the sun suddenly set above our heads in a million glowing shades of pink and purple streaking across a golden sky. As the stars popped out above us, thousands and thousands of tiny candles lit themselves, until the amphitheatre was a glittering fairyland and a collective ‘ooo’ could be heard from the crowd.

I realised we were holding hands, but we weren’t running.

A man brandishing a huge sword ran onto the floor of the amphitheatre, holding up his weapon. He looked tiny down there. Then behind him came more and more and more; as the orchestra beat the drums, an entire army emerged, standards raised, marching in perfect unison to the music; it was oddly stirring, as thousands of them lined up, displaying their marching skills. Then the music changed, and lots of women ran on too, with long plaits and beautiful embroidered garments, and the entire arena erupted into a victory war dance around the campfires which sprang up suddenly.

Then just as we were lulled into the display, a single person, dressed in furs, tore onto the floor. He could have been an interloper, except for his sword, and he shouted loudly about a dragon, a dragon coming this way, whereupon the actors dissolved their dancing and made a huge line; brought out their weapons which all burst into huge lines of flame above their head, and the music changed to something ominous and scary.

There was a long pause and then a great noise, like a huge metal foot striking the ground.

‘Oooh!’ said the Doctor. ‘What’s that?’

There was another sound, then another, then another from near the entrance. The crowd of performers shrank back, and so did the audience. And when the burst of flame appeared, everybody jumped. It was immense; we could feel the heat from up in the box.

‘Whoa!’ said the Doctor.

Then BOOM you could just see, entering the arena, one huge metal claw. The ground shook. Then another, then another; clang clang clang. The Doctor was gripping me in excitement. Then there was a huge cloud of smoke across the arena and when it cleared, the creature was there, at least four storeys high; a genuine metal monstrosity, shaped like a dragon, with huge bright red glowing eyes. It opened its sharp jaws wide to the sky and an enormous roar and a billowing flame erupted.

The beast rampaged around the stadium floor, causing the performers to cower in terror; occasionally approaching a bank of the audience. At one point it reached out a surprisingly delicate claw and lifted a hat off someone, to vast applause.

Then the mood darkened again; the people on stage cowered, and in another puff of smoke, from the entrance appeared a man – a huge man, blond of hair and beard, incredibly over-muscled (some might say), dressed in chainmail and a loin cloth, with a hammer the size of me, marched into the arena to a huge and overwhelming standing ovation from the audience.

‘Why do I never get one of those?’ came the voice to my left.

‘Sssh,’ I said. ‘It’s just getting interesting. He’s very oily.’

‘Fierce and mighty dragon!’ shouted Thor, amplified throughout the arena. ‘Face me in combat!’

The dragon turned round, its red eyes blinking, smoke puffing from its giant nostrils. With a roar it pawed the ground and prepared to charge. Thor stood his ground. It looked a ridiculously uneven fight, as the dragon backed the man into a corner, whereupon Thor struck the weapon with an almighty clank, and harmless green sparks showered the first ten rows. He swung it round with some rather unnecessary pyrotechnics, then whacked it straight into the head of the dragon, which staggered backwards, then regrouped to run at him again. But now Thor was a blur of motion; spinning and hacking; at one stage seemingly cornered, then rolling out from underneath the creature; temporarily losing his sword, but not before he’d hacked off a great sharp-needled toe from the dragon and was fighting him off with his own pointed nail, etc. It was all very stirring stuff; the dragon veered almost but not too dangerously close to the crowd; just at the last minute, the flames wouldn’t quite reach, or the claws would draw back, as the audience screamed.

Thor was gearing up for the very last charge; the audience in a frenzy. He had escaped near-death several times now and the crowd was absolutely ready for the kill. He advanced slowly on the puffing, bucking, crazed animatronic beast.

And then something strange happened. The tail of the dragon went over the side of the barrier, and knocked an entire row off their seats. A great screaming broke out. The huge beast wobbled and wavered as if about to topple over, and absolute panic broke out in the stands. We both stayed watching closely, neither of us sure whether or not this was all part of the act; perhaps that section of the audience were stooges, to make the experience more intense for the spectators. Then the Doctor grabbed my arm.

‘Look,’ he said.

The dragon was now twirling around, its robotic limbs flailing everywhere, and it had inadvertently scooped up a figure from the stands.

It was a child; the same child we’d found earlier, wandering free from its parents. It had clearly been wandering free again, and had got onto a very dangerous path.

The dragon lurched, holding the tiny child – who looked even tinier in its claws – as the audience screamed and gasped.

‘Quick…’ I said, turning, but of course the Doctor had already gone.

There must have been a control room somewhere, because the dragon lurched to the left and to the right as there was a frantic struggle for control. And as people started to dangerously cram themselves towards the exits in panic, and the actors vanished, I saw a lone lanky figure down on the floor of the amphitheatre, waving his arms.

The beast was a robot of course, it had no independent thought at all, but it responded to movement and noise. I ran down the steps towards the stage and clambered over the barriers. Security had vanished, which was a tad disappointing. Perhaps all that smiling had tired them out.

The Doctor was trying to get close to it, but every time he approached, the dragon would drop its head and make a lunging noise, just as it was programmed to do so with Thor, who was, I noticed disapprovingly, huddled in a side entrance, pressed against the wall, terrified. He’d left his hammer discarded in the middle of the stage.

‘I’ll distract it!’ I shouted, hoping the hammer would have a trigger effect on the robot, which it did. I couldn’t lift it, but I could waggle it from side to side. The robot turned its mighty head towards me.

‘Give him one of your looks,’ came the Doctor’s voice as he charged round the back of the great beast and tried to grab it by the tail, which lashed furiously.

The child was screaming, but seemed to be being held quite securely. I didn’t have a hope of reaching up there, and wished I still had my trusty lasso. Instead, I glanced around. There were stones on the ground, surrounding the facsimile campfires. I picked them up and tried to figure out where to throw them that wouldn’t hit the howling boy. I aimed for the knees, which seemed to work; the creature started to unbalance slightly, leaning, then overreaching.

‘Again!’ shouted the Doctor.

I let loose and the great tail came crashing down for long enough for him to grab hold of it. He clambered up it, carefully, as I stopped throwing stones – I didn’t want the beast to fall with the two of them on it, and instead ran underneath, trying to work out where best to place myself if I had to catch the child.

The Doctor was now hoisting himself up the underside of the creature’s tail, so it looked as if he were hanging off a giant branch, and was pulling himself hand over hand.

‘Help!’ the woman was screaming from the sidelines. ‘GET MY BABY!’

I watched the Doctor and the boy anxiously, adrenalin pounding, as the Doctor shouted, ‘Right! On my count, River, be ready!’

And with an almighty lunge, he let go with both hands, with only his legs clinging on to the rampaging creature’s tail, and hurled himself backwards. The creature lurched, the leg I’d damaged moving up in the air – then, crack, there was the noise of a great switch being flicked, and the huge beast froze.

So did everybody fleeing for the exits. A momentary hush descended. But not for long.

There was an ominous creak. I held my breath. And the great four-storey creature twitched, just a little. And the leg I had whacked with stones started to tremble. It was like watching a tree being cut down.

The great stampede of people turned tail yet again and fled for the exits. We, on the other hand, could do nothing but stand and watch.

I drew a deep breath and stood as tall as I was able. Then I shouted at the child: ‘Mure! Mure! Can you jump?’

The kid gazed at me with terrified eyes, shaking his head tightly.

‘Jump to me,’ I said. ‘Come on, sweetie. You can do it.’

He shook his head mutely. The beast’s leg trembled again. Inside there was a twisting noise of crunching metal. Something was going terribly wrong in there.

‘You have to!’ I said. ‘Come on, Mure. You have to. Just do it!’

He shook his head again.

‘Come on!’ I shouted desperately. ‘Come on! You can do it!’

The little boy edged slightly closer to the edge of the creature’s great claws.

‘That’s right!’ I said. ‘Come on! I know you’re very brave, and I’m going to catch you!’

He inched forwards a tiny bit more, and I smiled encouragingly.

‘Come on!’

He was ready, his hands going up.

Suddenly his mother was by my side.

‘MURE!’ she screamed. ‘GET DOWN HERE! GET DOWN RIGHT NOW!’

This had the opposite effect. The child shrank back into himself straightaway.

‘NOW!’

The headshaking had recommenced. I glanced at the beast. Yes, the creaking was getting louder. The beast was starting to lean further and further over. I held my hands out even higher for the child.

‘Mure. Please,’ I said. It was such a long drop, and he was such a small child.

‘River! Use this!’

The Doctor was sliding down the creature’s tail, which had the unavoidable effect of unbalancing the beast completely. As he did so, he hurled his sonic high in the air, and it curled over the dragon’s flanks and flew straight towards me.

I caught it in my left hand, and switched it up; the fireworks began to dance lightly from the end.

‘Look, Mure!’ I said. ‘Look!’

And the huge beast began to topple, just as the little boy gazed at the fireworks, and shouted ‘Lights!’, and the Doctor leapt first, and was there supporting me, just as Mure leapt into my arms, as the robot landed on the arena floor with a crash that shook the earth.