by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk)

A story of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric.

The copy right of all things pertaining to the concept and characters of Dr
Who is the property of the BBC.  This Story is a work of fan fiction; it has
been written simply for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money
has or will change hands with respect to the story.

The story and original characters are copyright Clive May 2001.


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Chaos Hunt.

Ten


They paused in the  dim-lit hallway, while Orianna and Duo Danella checked
the darkness lurking beyond the next arch.

"The Selkie Folk?" Nyssa questioned.

"Our Children of the Sea," Sedra explained, a slight catch in her voice.
"The heartland of our hopes and happiness - the Bringers of Joy - they were
the sole boon those High and Haughty Time Lords gifted to us in our exile."
Fond remembrance stole her thoughts;a far away look graced her leonine
features; and her eyes smiled, lit from within by the memories of a joyful
time.  A sigh stirred the dusty air.  "Where so ever a Brood was stationed,
they were allowed to bring with them a school of the Selkie Folk to frolic in
the sea and bring harmony to our troubled existence."

"They are exiled too?" Adric asked.

"No.  Wherever they are they are.  Place has scant meaning for them.  They
live in joy and are themselves joy incarnate. So where they find themselves,
there they are - at home.  Like snails, they carry their home with them - a
fashioning of their boundless rapture of the simple joy of being strong in
life;  it is ever with them."

Adric was not too certain he understood;  but the vaulting happiness was
infectious; and he could not help smiling.  Even at third hand, they had,
in the telling of one who knew them, power to lift the heart and bring
happiness.

"We had a school once." Gabriela said, sighing nostalgically.  "Alas, they
did not thrive in the seas of Earth!  They have withdrawn from the world!  We
do not hunt them up in the past, as they know our minds, and would know their
own ending.  We will have that not!  Let them to their happiness while they
may.  It is a small recompense to make for all the long centuries in which
they have lifted the hearts of the Sister-Selves of the Brood; and we would
not bring them such a futile gift as the fore-knowledge of their future
ending."

"And this Lady of the Rain? She is a Selkie?.."  Nyssa began; but she was
interrupted as Orianna and Duo Danella, hand in hand,    backed hastily into
view through the arch.  Beyond them, steel blades glinted in the bosky light.

"Back the way we came!" Sedra ordered.

But as they spun round, more shapes pressed forward from the gloom, swords
drawn, to block any escape.

They were trapped.

Through the lens of a security camera set high up near the ceiling, Kendron
was watching the capture. He nodded to himself in satisfaction, and twiddled
a dial.  The picture on the screen changed to a mid-level view of a wall of
steel bars.  Shadowy shapes moved in the gloom beyond.  He touched a control,
setting another mobile spy camera in motion.  The view on the screen lurched,
canting crazily in a series of sickening swoops.  The point of view passed
between the bars, and focused on the huddle of Sisters around the two forms
in the corner. A cruel smile curved his mouth. At Kendron's side, Lobo stood
impassive, awaiting further orders.

 Behind them came a whisper of silk.  Two slender hands caressed Kendron's
shoulders, toyed with his long blond hair.  The Hunt Master did not move or
turn.  Instead, a vicious smile organised his features into a mask of ungodly
triumph.  Slowly, grudgingly, a smile fashioned in the shape of delight
over-laid the evil. Only then did Kendron turn, to shine his fake smile upon
the Selkie he had suborned from the ecstasy of the sea, with honeyed words
and exciting caresses, to bend to his dark design.  Though the smile appeared
to radiate a bounding joy and passion, the eyes betrayed him.  They remained
void cold.

"At last!" the Hunt Master breathed.  "At last!  My Lady returns to me." He
not so much stretched out welcoming arms, as reached to take
possession of his property.

Rain hesitated.  This was the moment of test; and with the knowledge
vouchsafed her in Harmony's tears, she had lost all faith in the revealing.
But the moment, like a maelstrom guarding a passage perilous between rocks to
a safe landfall, would have to be dared in the final reckoning.  If the land
is to be gained, then the way, no matter how treacherous,  could not be
eschewed. That the landfall promised only a stony shore, sterile and
desolate, tortured her soul. The time was long gone for "if only", but Rain's
soul lingered over the pool of regret, unwilling to move on.

No, she decided at last, studying the face of her lover, brittle with the
effort of holding up the facade of feigned joy, it was far too late now for
"what if?" Left to her now was only "what was"; and it must be
accepted, no matter how painful.

Steeling herself, she plunged into the centre of the whirlpool, diving into
his encircling arms, seeking to confirm what she already knew.  With passion,
she pressed her lips to his mouth, searching for an answering passion, yet
knowing that this phantom of her desire was not there to be discovered.  The
knowledge set a bitter flavour upon her questing lips.

At the cold indifference of his lips, Rain's heart sank like a boulder to the
bottom of the sea.  In that moment, she truly acknowledged her total loss.
And her will - never much to speak of - failed the test of the current
running in the maelstrom.  She gave up on her attempt to brave the passage
and backed off from the cold current of reality, seeking the  calmer waters
where despair ran deep.

She pulled back from his cold embrace, seeking surcease from her inner
turmoil.  The flickering images on the monitor  beckoned, offering a
false abeyance for a short while of her despair.  She concentrated on the
screen, seeing it through a veil of tears.  She indicated the screen with a
finger which quivered with the intensity of her distress.

"What will you do with them?" she asked.  Her words came out in a strangled
whimper.

Kendron seemed not to have notice her passion. "Oh?  Them?" he said
with an affected diffidence. "I fear they have outlived their time.  For when
there are no more Time Lords, what task then remains for the Guardians of the
Vortex?  Besides, with the Gates permanently closed, they are doomed to a
lingering death.  Far kinder, wouldn't you say, to put them from the world in
one swift stroke.  Far kinder indeed."

Kendron turned to Lobo.  "Fetch a troop of guards, and come with me!" he
commanded.

Lobo, who had watched the entire encounter with a dark scowl on his face,
pulled his expression into some sort of soldierly impassivity.  "Sir!" he
said briskly.

Kendron took Rain's hand in a too firm grip and steered her from the room.
Lobo watched them go, his hard eyes, following the Selkie, were full of a
bitter hatred of the Selkie woman.

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Tegan stared, her flesh crawling at the sight of invisible claws raking the
Doctor's face.  She could not bear to watch.  Turning her head away, she
glanced up at the Brood.  They had become no more than ghost-like shadows
staining the air.  The sight, and the distant echo of a TARDIS rising and
falling, ground against her already taunt nerves. There was nothing that she
could do here; but neither could she just sit and wait.

"I'm going to have a look round," she declared to the cell at large.  Nobody
took any notice.  She rose quickly, and went out.

To the left, the passage ended in an archway.  Beyond, was a stair leading up
into darkness.  She went over to it, peered up into the gloom, then back to
the cell, still undecided.  A low groaning was coming from there, overlaid by
the faint wheezing of TARDIS engines.

Taking a firm grip on her courage, Tegan started up the steps into darkness.

In the cell, the humming from the Brood died.  The ghostly forms of the women
took on a more solid appearance.  They broke apart and the one with ruined
hands touched the Doctor on the shoulder, leaving a bloody hand print.
"Doctor?"

The Doctor jerked as though shot. The lines of claws faded slowly from his
ravaged cheeks.  He blinked and turned a questioning look up at the women
standing over him.  He frowned.  "Who are you?"

"Arianna," the woman with bloodied hands answered him.

"Who?"

"Arianna of the Orion Brood.  Doctor?  We must be away from here!  There is
no more time.  Kendron comes!"

Like a man woken from a nightmare, the Doctor slowly gathered his wits.  The
cell seemed less real to him just then than the pit of pain into which he had
plunged to retrieve Harmony - though it had no more substance than smoke upon
the air of evening.

Harmony lay in the straw before him, relaxed and breathing normally, shielded
once more from the mind-spelling of the Klitas by his own TARDIS.  She was
regarding him through half-slitted lids, a wan smile on her lips.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes.  But I'll need some help to get up."

 The Doctor assisted her to her feet.  Swaying unsteadily, she began to brush
some of the filth from her ruined clothes but Arianna cried:  "We must leave
here, now!  Kendron comes!"

She moved to one side of Harmony, while another Sister moved to her other
side.  Together, they helped the unsteady woman to walk, while the Doctor
went on ahead.  Exiting the cell, the trio stumbled toward the stairwell that
led up into Kendron's fortress.

 "Where has Tegan got to?" the Doctor asked as they came to the arch.

"Where indeed?  Time Lord," answered a deep and mocking voice.

Standing, framed by the light coming from the entry way to the prison
level at the top of the stairwell, was Kendron.  He held Tegan against him,
the nose of a blaster held close to her abdomen.  "I believe that I have
here what you seek." Peering over his shoulder was the face of the Lady Rain,
her eyes large and troubled.

"Let her go," the Doctor commanded.

Kendron appeared to consider the Doctor's request.  "Yes.  Yes, I believe
that I shall, Time Lord," he said.   "She's all yours."

Tegan's eyes widened in horror as Kendron, with a might shove, sent her
headlong down the stairwell.

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Agalayne hung by his talons, high up in the darkness of a hallway.  A mad
rage possessed his soul.  He needed to fall from the dark, to rend flesh and
gouge eyes, to visit his fury upon the unsuspecting minions of the black
Minded One. That burning desire warred madly with the calming presence of the
Nyssa-friend which nestled in his maddened mind, entreating him to stay his
vengeance, to hold to serenity.

He chittered softly in his dark corner.  He would not listen to the voice of
reason.  Spreading his wings, he opened his talons, and fell away from the
dank stonework.  Those black garbed monsters must be made to suffer, as they
had made Madelayne suffer, at the behest of the Black Minded One.  Below, the
unsuspecting guards were shoving the strangers into a rough group.

"No!  Wait!  Now is not the moment!"  came the voice in his head.

Agalayne ignored the plea.  He swooped down.

"For the sake of Madelayne?" The new friend entreated.

  Agalayne extended his talons, and selected a target.

"For the sake of Madelayne -" the voice insisted againi his mind.

He chittered softly with frustration; but the invokingof Madelayne had power
a-plenty to master his madness.  At the last possible moment, he held back
his strike.  Spreding wide his wings to cup the air, he veered
sharply up and away.

For Madelayne!  Yes.  For Madelayne, he could stay his lust of blood; but
there would be a reckoning.  He alighted on an outcrop of rock, and watched
as the group were led away up the passage.

A moment later, on silent wings, he followed.  He floated upon the dank air,
staying well back, but always close enough to see which turns they took.  In
this manner, he trailed them to the place where the sun shone underground -
that place which Madelayne had discovered, which had sent her into a rage,
and which had led to her betrayal by the Black Minded One.

Agalyne settled upon an outcrop of rock high under the uneven roof of the
tunnel, as the group was ushered through the arch.  The great doors swung
shut.

 "Wait!" the imperative  command of the Nyssa-friend resounded in his head.
"Watch!  Listen! Study the pictures I will send!  Be ready!"

The pictures came then, in a hazy, flickering rush, growing clearer with
every repetition.  At last the new friend was satisfied that he understood
the thing he must do.

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Tegan's shriek of terror reverberated in the air, preceding her down the
stairwell.  The Brood Sisters exploded into motion.  To the Doctor and
Harmony, it all seemed to happen at once.  While Tegan's scream was still
echoing, the Sisters reacted with that unity of purpose which so
characterised everything they did.

In a flutter of ragged silks and streaming hair, they sprang into the
stairwell.  The two leading Sisters ran lightly up the first five steps.
They linked hands across the space between them.  Behind these two, four more
spread across the arch.  The remaining six formed a semi-circle, cupping the
archway.

A moment later, the Australian woman's headlong plunge was arrested by the
first two Sisters.  They fell back under the impact, easing Tegan's
momentum.  An instant later, the pair released the screaming woman, passing
her down to the next level, allowing her still considerable momentum to
carry her into the waiting arms of the inner pair of Sisters.  They, too,
fell back, bearing Tegan with them.  The outer two stepped in to cradle and
ease their tumbling Sisters, closing in behind the still travelling Tegan
who had been swallowed up in the main group.  To the left and right, the
Sisters closed in around her to form a tight black bud, which split before
the Doctor and Harmony, the black petals folding back like a flower
blossoming, to reveal A bemused Tegan.  She was set lightly on her feet
before the astonished pair. Her eyes were tight shut; her mouth was still
pulled into a rictus of horror; but no sound came forth.  She was swaying
slightly, more from disbelief in her salvation, than because of any residual
momentum left to her.

A slow, derisory, hand-clapping floated down the stair well.  Kendron stepped
into the prison corridor.  "Bravo!" he cried, his voice thick with mockery.
"What marvelous little creatures you are, my sisters!  It seems almost a pity
to put you from the world.  But, alas, it would be a trifle inconvenient just
now to have you running around loose, my dears." He actually contrived to
sound genuinely sorry; but it was no more than a sham; for he signalled to
the guards pouring into the narrow way.

"Secure them!" he commanded.  "And bring them along to my little
contrivance."

The guards hustled them into a loose group while Kendron watched.  Rain stood
at his side, one hand fingering her focus, the other plucking at Kendron's
sleeve.

When he was satisfied, Kendron turned and started up the stairs, the guards
hustling the prisoners behind.

A few minutes later, the shuffling throng rounded a turn in the passage.
A bright splash of sunlight, streaming from the threshold of the Construct,
lightened the dimness. The Sister-Selves of the Brood drew closer together.
They reached out pale hands, the fingers inter-twining, binding them
tighter into a single unitary creature. Already subdued by the weight of the
Devil Metal, their demeanor grew fearful in the reflected radiance of that
wash of yellow light scattering down the passage.

The Doctor and Tegan were stumbling along, at the head of the sorry
cavalcade, half supporting Harmony between them. Kendron strode before this
shuffling knot of prisoners, his cream robes glowing gold in the light.  At
his left side crept Rain.  She kept close. Her right hand gripped Kendron's
sleeve with a fierceness that spoke volumes of her need for reassurance -
that what she had done was right and that what was to happen next was right.

On the Hunt Master's other side, Lobo paced, full of misgivings.  He was a
man of honour, torn between devout loyalties.  But what could he do?  other
than what Madelayne had sworn him do, though he liked it not; but he was a
man of honour.

Kendron halted the grim procession at the bright threshold with an imperious
gesture. He turned to regard his prisoners.  A warm smile settled on his
face; but it failed entirely to warm the icy blue of his eyes.  They
remained shaded with calculation, and shining with triumphal glee.

"In here.  If you please," he directed, indicating the fortified arch through
which the bright sun light streamed.  He stood back and studied the faces of
his Sisters as they passed over the Threshold.  At his side, the Selkie he
had suborned from the sea, was clutching his sleeve, and stealing guilty
glances at the Sister-Selves she had so thoroughly betrayed.  There was no
certainty left within her.  The sight of the cringing Brood spoke directly to
the bright insanity that threatened to undermine the certainty she had
founded upon the rock of her love for Kendron. That seeming solid foundation,
which had crumbled like damp sand before the wave of revelation, gifted to
her in the stolen tears of Harmony.

As Harmony passed, Rain cast her eyes to the floor unable to endure the
self reproach evoked. by the sight of the woman - for her greatest betrayal
was yet to be committed.




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