Doctor Who: the Nameless City by Michael Scott

Author:Michael Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781405912105
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

5

The Nameless City was empty.

Jamie raced through the streets, his reflection rippling off the glass walls. He was looking for any signs of movement, any clue as to where the Doctor had been taken. But the city seemed deserted.

He ran into a vast square and stopped before a huge black-and-gold gateway. He looked around; all the streets of the city converged on this point. And they all led to one building.

Directly in front of him rose the tallest of the black-glass pyramids. It was the only one with a door – and it was open. Without a moment’s hesitation, Jamie raced towards it. It was at times like these when he wished he had his claymore, though he wasn’t exactly sure what the great Scottish sword could do against glass apes.

The Doctor watched in horror as the rulers of the glass city appeared out of the mercury in a swirl of ethereal music.

In his long life the Doctor had seen creatures both monstrous and hideous, but nothing like these. The stink of stagnant water and rotting fish filled his nostrils. Each creature was wrapped in long, trailing rags, which concealed most of their flesh, but he caught hints of their true appearance as they floated up into the air. One, bigger than the rest, resembled an octopus, with twisting, writhing limbs, while a second had an eel’s sloping head peering from within its hood. Another had a suggestion of a crab claw half hidden in its sleeve, and everywhere he caught glimpses of barbed squid suckers and albino flesh.

‘You are the Gallifreyan. We will not honour you with your title.’ The words were liquid and sticky. The Doctor could not be sure which creature spoke.

Hanging in mid-air, rags blowing in a foul breeze, the seven creatures began to move in a beautiful, intricate dance. Circling one another and undulating in time to the shimmering music, they crawled all over each other in a writhing mass – tentacles sliding over claws, fins interlocking with suckers – until they finally all slotted together, fitting into place to form one huge entity. A tentacled, beaked and clawed monstrosity. The Doctor stared at it in awe; it was simultaneously hideous and mesmerisingly beautiful.

‘Once we were many, now we are all that remain. We are seven; we are one. We are the Archons.’

The Doctor backed slowly away from the pool. He needed to get to his ship. If he could just get inside …

An enormous milk-white eye at the centre of the grotesque being glared at the Time Lord. Beneath the eye, a beak – ringed with waving tentacles – opened and closed. The head dipped forward and the huge black pupil dilated until the Doctor felt he was looking into a bottomless pit.

‘We’ve waited a long time for you.’ The voice was fluid and gurgling and full of menace. ‘And the TARDIS. Our TARDIS.’

Made dizzy and nauseous by the bizarre angles, Jamie stepped through the doorway and looked down into the heart of the pyramid.

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