Chapter 4 (Flame On!)
The Doctor was sat at one end of the long, oak table with Caleb and Reikon on either side. When Celestia walked into the hall all three of them looked at her.
The Doctor couldn’t help but admit that, even now, she still took his breath away. Not in a romantic way (he’d never bother was such silly nonsense), but she was stunning. Her long, dark, red hair hung down over her shoulders; her head raised high. Her high-neck made her look taller than she actually was and her dark, green dress flowed behind her as she walked into the room.
She stopped in front of them for a few moments. And then smiled politely at the Doctor.
“It’s good to see you again, Celestia,” he said, getting up from his chair.
“And it is good to see a new you,” she said, smiling at him. “How many faces has it been now? Since the first one?”
“Too many to count,” he smiled.
“You should try hanging onto your faces longer,” she said, and then winked at him.
“Mother, can I ask a question?” said Caleb.
“Not just yet, eh, Caleb?” said Reikon quietly.
She straightened herself out, her face looking serious again. “If you are here, Doctor, then I can only presume that you’ve found my daughter.” She hesitated on the word ‘daughter’ and her eyes flicked to Reikon.
“No, not yet I’m afraid,” said the Doctor, sitting back down at the table. “But then I haven’t had the time.”
“It has been three months,” said Celestia, sitting at the far end of the table.
“For you, yes. But for me it’s only been a day. I’ve had to find time to…settle in to this body.”
“Doesn’t he look different?” said Caleb.
“Indeed he does,” said Celestia, staring straight ahead at the Doctor.
Nobody said anything for a good few seconds, and then Reikon cleared his throat. “Look, I’m sure there’s bound to be a little bit of…uneasiness between all of us.”
“There’s no uneasiness from where I’m sitting,” said the Doctor.
“Absolutely none at all,” said Celestia quickly.
“Oh, come off it,” said Caleb. “All three of you need to loosen up a bit. Look at you.”
“Silence, Caleb.”
“No, I won’t be silent, mother. I’ve been through the hell as much as any of you.” He folded his arms and looked between the three of them. “We need to look at the facts. Father and I were trapped in a weird dimension for…well, forever, and mother moves on and has a child with the devil himself.”
“Caleb-!”
“No, Celestia,” said Reikon softly. “Let him speak. We’ve all been bottling this up for too long. Things need to be said.”
“Thanks, father.” Caleb looked at his him. “You’re bound to be a little bit aggrieved.”
“I’ve accepted that your mother had moved on.”
“But to him?” said Caleb. “I wouldn’t accept it.”
“I can accept it,” said Reikon, “because I’ve been given this second chance. Just like you, Caleb.”
“Exactly!” he said, clicking his fingers.
“Then where is this going, Caleb?” asked Celestia.
“If father has accepted it then why haven’t you?” he turned to his mother.
“I accepted what I did, but it was before Koschei became the Master.”
“He was always a wild card though,” said the Doctor.
“I was lost and alone. I needed…a friend.”
“And instead you got a baby,” said the Doctor.
“A baby I thought was dead,” said Celestia, her voice echoing around the great hall.
“But the baby isn’t dead,” continued Caleb after a few beats. “It’s very much alive.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. “And that is the whole point of this. We need to find your daughter.”
Celestia relaxed and shook her head. “Where do we start?”
Before the Doctor could answer there was a huge explosion and the entire hall was rocked. Chunks of marble and masonry fell from the roof and a huge column tipped over, smashing the old, oak table in two.
The Doctor was thrown off his chair, landing on his back hard. He shielded his eyes as particles of pulverised marble and stone rained down on them. His ears were ringing and his arm hurt where he had landed on it.
After a few moments the Doctor scrambled to his feet. “Is everyone okay?” he asked - more shouted it than anything.
“Fine. Fine,” came Reikon’s voice amongst the dust.
“Caleb?”
“Still alive,” came the young man’s voice from under half of the broken table.
“Celestia?”
“What in the Matrix was that?” said Celestia, getting to her feet and brushing the marble dust from her dress.
The Doctor turned to face the window. Where there was once a balcony there was now a huge gap looking out oto the valley below. The Doctor peered over the edge. He could see the TARDIS way, way down by the lake, but nothing else.
“I can’t see anything,” said the Doctor. “What the hell caused it?”
There came a distant chuckle.
“Oh no…” said Celestia, fear spread across her face in an instant. She backed herself up to the far wall. “It’s him.”
“Where is he?” said Reikon, crossing over to his wife and putting a protective arm around her.
She looked at him for a moment and then relaxed a little. It had been a while since her husband had made her feel safe again.
The Doctor looked between the couple and got the impression that the two of them hadn’t been very close since they were reunited.
Outside the sky was getting dark. The three suns had set and the moon was beginning to rise. There was a gust of wind and the candles that were illuminating the great hall flickered and blew out.
“Stay here,” said the Doctor, pointing at Caleb, Celestia and Reikon.
“No way,” said Caleb. “We all need to stay together.”
“If it is the Master, then I’d rather you three not get in his way.”
“How could he have found out?” said Celestia, her eyes wide in terror. “I only told you three.”
“Oh, my dear Celestia,” came a silky voice, echoing from all around the hall, “I have been watching you for quite some time.”
“Where’s my daughter!?” she shouted up to the roof.
“She’s quite safe,” said the voice.
“Show yourself,” said the Doctor, looking all around for any sign of his old enemy.
“Good to see you looking so healthy again, Doctor,” came the voice.
“And how about you show me your face,” said the Doctor. “I’ve never been a fan of disembodied voices. I’m presuming you’ve regenerated too.”
There came the sinister chuckle again. The Doctor edged a little closer to the family. “When I say run…”
“You won’t be running anywhere. Any of you.”
With a burst of light a column of blue flame erupted from the shadows at the far end of the hall, casting everything in a blue glow. The Doctor tried to shield his eyes against the light as the flames moved closer. Slowly the flames reduced until instead a shadowy man was standing, flames covering his hands and obscuring his head.
“What have you done to yourself?” said the Doctor. He could already feel the heat coming from the man.
“I’m still regenerating, Doctor,” he chuckled. “I haven’t finalised a look yet.”
“It’s unnatural,” said Reikon. “It’s wrong.”
“Since when have I ever done anything that wasn’t unnatural,” said the Master, turning to Reikon.
“Last time I saw you,” said the Doctor, “you had an army of creatures with you - the Swytch.”
“Oh, the Swytch,” said the Master fondly. “Yes, they are a part of me now. I consumed them. They were merely a means to an end. They no longer exist.”
“You’re a monster,” said Celestia.
He turned to the woman, her red hair illuminated purple by the blue flames. “And you…I told you what would happen if you fought against me.”
“I can’t believe you’d kill your own daughter.”
“Where is she?” asked the Doctor. “Tell us.”
“Somewhere you will never find her.”
“Why her though?” said the Doctor, his eyes wide. “What makes her different from the other children you have had?”
The Master shook his flaming head. “Every one of my children is different. Every one of them serves a different purpose.”
“How do we know she’s even still alive?” asked Celestia.
The Master chuckled and stepped away from the three of them. “Because she is my next project. My…master plan, so to speak.” He laughed at his own joke. “I’ve been watching over her for years. Since before me and you and UNIT, Doctor,” he said, pointing to the Doctor.
“And you never said anything,” said the Doctor.
“The measure of a good man is on how many back up plans he has up his sleeve.”
“And that’s all she is,” said the Doctor. “A back up plan?”
“More than that, Doctor. I care for her like I have cared for the others.”
“A likely story,” spat Celestia. “If you cared for her you wouldn’t have pretended she was dead and hidden her away.”
“She needed to grow up away from you. You would have stifled her. Stunted her and made her become a positive role model. You would have fawned over her like a mewling deer does a doe.”
“There’s a song in there somewhere,” said the Doctor.
“I needed her to become like me,” said the Master, ignoring the Doctor’s attempts to rile him.
“Insane?” said Caleb.
“I’m not insane, young man,” said the Master, turning to face him. “But with me guiding her she can live up to her potential.”
“Tell me where she is!” yelled the Doctor.
The Master shook his enflamed head again. “I will never tell.”
“That’s all I needed to know,” said Reikon. He stepped away from Celestia and dived at the Master, his hands going for around his throat.
“Reikon, no!” shouted the Doctor, as the Master stumbled backwards. “It’s not worth it.”
Reikon’s hands burned and blistered in the flames. “Get out of here! Go.” He turned to Caleb. “Now! NOW!!”
“Reikon…” started Celestia.
“Please,” begged Reikon, turning to look at his wife, his face sweating from the heat of the flames.
“I love you,” she said, her voice barely audible above the crackling flames.
“Always,” smiled Reikon.
The Doctor looked at his adoptive brother as he struggled with the roaring flames of the Master. Reikon stared back at him and smiled sadly. And then he nodded. “Keep them safe.”
The Doctor nodded back to him, grabbed Celestia and Caleb’s hands, and then ran from the hall.
As they bounded through the wooden doors, the Doctor turned back just in time to see Reikon force himself and the Master over the edge where the balcony used to be.
By now it was dark outside and the silver moon cast pale light over the courtyard as they burst through the door and ran under the portcullis and made their way over the drawbridge.
“We need to go back,” said Celestia, trying to break free from the Doctor.
“Don’t be stupid!” yelled the Doctor.
“But Reikon might still be alive.”
“He sacrificed himself so that you could survive. So that I could find your daughter. I’m not letting you go back!”
“Please,” said Celestia.
The Doctor stopped and let go of Celestia’s hand.
Caleb stepped out in front of him. “Don’t you want to find your daughter? Don’t you want to find my sister?”
“She’s just a half sister,” said Celestia. “You heard what he said - she’ll probably be twisted and messed up in the head.”
“Father was only the Doctor’s adopted brother, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t care, does it, uncle?”
“No,” said the Doctor quietly. “I cared for Reikon as I cared for all of my family.”
“Don’t you love her?”
Celestia turned back to the castle and then looked at the Doctor and Caleb. “Find her, Doctor. Please. Find her and then come back for us.”
“Celestia…”
“I didn’t just get him back to lose him all over again. I know that she will be safe under your protection. But who will protect Reikon?” She closed her eyes and then opened them again, her face resolute. “Take Caleb and find her. Find Illithia.”
“Illithia?”
“That’s what I named her. Even after she had died. I called her Illithia.”
“I can’t change your mind, can I?” said the Doctor.
She shook her head. “If I find Reikon safe, we’ll find shelter. If anything the Master will come after you now, so you need to track her down and take her with you. He will keep following. Do you hear me?”
The Doctor nodded, but refused to meet her gaze.
“I don’t believe you’re doing this, mother,” said Caleb, trying not cry.
She walked over to her son, put her hands either side of his head and kissed his forehead. “You have a future. You have a future with your uncle and your sister. Not with me. Before you disappeared your uncle was going to take you away. Now’s your chance.”
Caleb opened his mouth to talk, but Celestia put a finger to his lips.
“Go. Go now.”
And then she turned and ran back towards the castle.
“We need to go,” said the Doctor as Caleb watched his mother disappear into the darkened courtyard. There was no sign of the Master or the flames. He was in there somewhere, but there was nothing they could do now. They had to keep on running.
The Doctor dragged the reluctant Caleb down the mountain path as quickly as they could. If the Master was out there somewhere it wouldn’t take him long to find them.
They stopped in their tracks just near to the base of the mountain when they heard a female scream echo around the valley.
“We need to move,” said the Doctor, dragging Caleb again.
They reached the beach and ran as fast as they could towards the familiar blue police box.
Caleb didn’t have time to say goodbye to his home he had only know for three months as the Doctor unlocked the door and then almost threw his nephew through the double doors.
He turned to look back at the castle just as a huge explosion of blue flames erupted from the windows, blowing two of the towers clean off.
The last thing the Doctor heard as he locked the door and set the TARDIS to dematerialise, was the sound of the haunting, chuckling laughter of the Master.
To be continued...
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