Doctor Who MA15 - Millennial Rites by Craig Hinton

Author:Craig Hinton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-07-13T02:21:37+00:00

150

Part Two

Millennium

151

Nine

The Technomancer staggered backwards as if she had been struck. Which she had, although it hadn't been a physical attack; it had been far more insidious than that.

Her heart racing, she grabbed one arm of her massive sapphire throne for support and tried to catch her breath. For the briefest of moments, bizarre, alien images had flooded her mind, visions of the Great Kingdom so warped and twisted as to be almost unrecognizable. But, most frightening of all, had been a fragmented picture of her, divested of both her royal armour and her air of imperious dignity, more like a child than the Technomancer, dynastic ruler of one third of the Great Kingdom.

`Majestrix?' Addressing her in the formal way, the Chancellor rushed forward to help, but the Technomancer waved her away.

`Do not concern yourself, Louella, it was nothing. A brief malaise, no more.' She gazed out of the enormous window opposite at the panoramic view of the Great Kingdom. The window – nothing more than a giant rectangle cut into the staggered side of the Ziggurat of Sciosophy – afforded an ideal view of the other two seats of power with which the Ziggurat shared the Kingdom: the shining gold Tower of Abraxas, its pyramidal roof reflecting the energy discharges which rent the sky above; and the pattern of low flat squares that marked the underground warren that was the Labyrinth of Thaumaturgy.

The Technomancer snapped her fingers and mentally directed an order at one of her cybrids: within seconds, he scuttled up to her, holding a blue-black goblet. She plucked it from his talon and thanked him, watching with a 152

maternal smile as he bounded back to the side of the throne room. And why not? Was she not mother to the cybrids, as the Archimage was father to the auriks? And of course, that hag, the Hierophant, was she not mother – or grandmother, rather –

to her twittering, fussing thaumaturgs?

Sipping the sweet, heady wine, she continued to stare through the window. It had been countless millennia since the Great Kingdom had been created by the Three Gods of Past, Present and Future. They had sealed the Kingdom behind the electric-blue waterfall of their tears to keep out the barbarians, and placed the three citadels to rule in their stead. From the gilded edifice of the Tower, the Archimage governed his auriks, while the Hierophant skulked in her Labyrinth with her thaumaturgs. And the Technomancer attended to the needs of her cybrids from the grand palace of her Ziggurat. All was as it had been, and would be always.

Until now.

The Technomancer closed her eyes, and remembered the unprecedented events of the previous day. Not with the blurred inexactitudes of others, but with the vivid accuracy that her royal blood granted her, she could see the visitor to the Ziggurat standing before her.

Ì bring you proof that my words are true, Majestrix.' The figure – stooped, cloaked and hooded – had reached into his cloak. Two of her personal guard

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