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.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chaos Hunt.

Fourteen.


"Doctor!  She won't come!" Tegan shouted, as she pounded into the control
room, Duo Danella hot on her heels.  "Harmony won't come!  She wants to speak
for the Brood before the High Council.  You've got to talk to her."

The Doctor stood with Lobo, Nyssa, Adric and the remaining thirteen Brood
Sisters in a little group in the wrecked control room.  They were watching an
ornate set of double doors fading slowly into existence to the right of the
grand fireplace.  A familiar wheezing sound was swelling in the air.

"There's no time." he answered Tegan's frantic shout, without taking his eyes
from the doors.

"But Doctor?"

He turned to look at the young woman, his expression a mixture of sadness and
pride.  "Harmony has made her choice." he said simply.  "I would have
expected nothing less of Danavoronda of the House Prydonian."

The wheezing stopped in a final thump.

"They are here!" said Duo Danella, as though announcing that "tea is served".

"It would be wise for us to depart," Gabriela suggested.  "NOW!"

The Doctor nodded.  "Quick!  Everybody outside.  There's too much shielding
from the Dwarf Star Alloy in here."

"It will do no good," Sedra warned.  "The Interdiction Barrier is in place.
The Path to the Void may be closed to us." Turning, she led the Brood in an
orderly line through the double doors, while the others bunched behind them
in a jostling crowd.

Adric, at the back, paused in the doorway, glancing over his shoulder.  The
doors had fully materialised.  They swung open.  Two tall men, helmeted and
garbed in personal body armour, sprang through, staser rifles gripped with
grim purpose.  The one on the left leveled his weapon at Adric.  The boy
waited to see no more; he bolted.

The Brood, with the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, stood gathered into a ragged
line on the far side of the formal garden, near to the low parapet guarding
the sheer plunge to the next terrace, hundreds of feet below.

Adric scurried over to them.  "They're coming," he cried.

"Everybody join hands," ordered the Doctor, grabbing Tegan with one hand and
Nyssa with the other.  Quickly, the others followed suit.  The Doctor checked
the line, then nodded to Sedra.  "Get us out of here!  Quick!"

"Go!" commanded Sedra.  The line flickered, faded then solidified.

Biting his lip in consternation, the Doctor demanded: "What's wrong?"

"We don't have the power to overcome the Time Dams of the Interdiction
Barrier," Sedra explained.

Two Chancellery guards stepped into the garden, stasers ready.

The Doctor thought furiously for a moment, then he shouted a question to
Sedra.  "Would inertia help you to breach the Spatio-temporal Dampers?  Do
you have the capability to convert the extra energy?"

Sedra glanced nervously at the doors, where more guards were emerging.
Behind them came an officer, and a tech with a portable Time Dam control
unit strapped to his chest.

Sedra nodded.  "Perhaps." she admitted reluctantly.

The Doctor looked significantly at the low parapet enclosing the rose garden.

Sedra followed his gaze to the dizzying gulf of air over the sea, before
nodding her understanding of his desperate plan.  "We will need an
acceleration of at least eighty feet per second, per second to overcome the
resistance.  The drop might not be enough.  If it is not -"

With an asthmatic wheezing, another summer house shimmered into being at the
eastern end of the terrace.  The door swung open; more armoured Chancellery
Guard emerged, stasers held ready.

"We've no choice," said the Doctor urgently.  "Quick!  Everybody up on the
wall - and don't let go whatever you do."

Tegan didn't know much about inertia and terminal velocity; but then again,
you really didn't have to understand that much about them to know that if you
fell hundreds of feet onto a hard surface, you died rather messily.  At
least, that is, if you weren't the Doctor.  No, she thought.  He can't be
serious.  No!  NO!  I won't do it!

The next moment she was bodily dragged up onto the parapet between a Sister
and the Doctor.

"Halt!" cried the Chancellery Guard Officer.  "There is no escape."

No one paid him any attention.

The Doctor glanced along the line once more, to check that everyone was
holding on, then he cried: "JUMP!"

Tegan screamed, but leapt with the others, her eyes tight shut.

The linked figures plunged out, and down, in a graceless swallow dive towards
the next terrace, many hundred feet below.  The brilliant blood red of the
roses seemed to foreshadow the most probable end of this mad gamble.

In the garden, the officer turned to the Tech. "Full Power," he ordered.

"But Sir, they'll not be able to breach the screen," the Tech protested.
"They'll be killed on the rocks."

"You saw what those criminals did to the Capital...Full power - NOW!"

The Tech nodded; he adjusted the controls.  "Full power, Sir," he confirmed.

In the air below, the Doctor could feel the Brood Sisters straining to force
a path Between - and failing utterly.  With sickening speed, the ground
reached for them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kendron pushed Rain away from him, brutally breaking free from her passionate
embrace.  The Selkie winced as the gold chain cut into her neck, before
it snapped.

Kendron stepped back.  The sun, striking through the open window, lit his
face, making it glow with an unholy triumph.

"Kendron? -" Rain gasped.

Kendron ignored the distressed woman.  He was so engrossed in his own
thoughts, that he was barely aware of her existence.

"Kendron?"

He looked up from his gazing into the heart of the teardrop.  The lambent
fire in its heart was mirrored in his icy blue eyes.

"What?" he demanded sharply.

"Kendron?  If you desired my Focus? you only had to ask.  Whatever is mine is
yours.  You know that.  Have I not given you everything you have ever asked
of me?"

Kendron said nothing.  The silence conveyed a wealth of meaning, more than a
million words had power to impart.  Rain was at a loss.  The long
suppressed knowledge of the true situation was struggling for recognition.
The small voice, deep inside, cried out for reassurance.  She tried to ignore
it; but its time had come; the truth would stay its venomous bite no longer.

The taste of Harmony's tears was bitter on her tongue, laden with all the
power of revelation the Source Priestess had at her command.  The
enforced Knowing had unravelled the weave of Rain's self-delusion, and left
her naked before the unpalatable truth.  Though she had long since recoiled
in horror from herself, yet still, hope had lingered forlornly, like the mist
in the dawn of the coming day.

"Kendron?  I love you.  I have always loved you."

From below in the garden, came the sound of a TARDIS materialisation. Voices
were raised in desperation.  Kendron paused a moment to listen, but no words
could be made out.  He returned his attention back to the Selkie,
nodding in acknowledgement of her desperate assertion. "I know." he said
coldly.  "And it has proved a very useful tool."

"Tool?  Kendron!  You love me?" It was meant to be a statement; but this time
it came out as a question.

"no!" he said.

Ashen faced, rain stammered.  "But, but, Kendron?  I parched a world for you!
I, I, I murdered a planet for you!  I did it all for you.  Kendron?  I gave
up everything for you.  Everything. Kendron?  I even gave up the joy of the
sea for you!"

"I'm flattered," said Kendron, without sincerity.

"Doesn't that mean anything?"

"No!"

Rain's mouth opened to speak; but no words would come out.  She stood there,
bathed in the wan sunlight, a stricken figure in a waterfall of blue silks.
Her hands made little vague gestures of helpless incomprehension in the air
between them.  The livid bruise on her temple pulsed in time to her inner
tumult.

With detached amusement, Kendron watched the anger rise.  "Hell hath no
fury..." he quoted nastily. and drew a blast pistol from his robes.  "Ah! No!
my lady!  I took all you had to offer, Body and soul, And I gave you
nothing, save a lie." This appeared to amuse him.  "And even sweet revenge I
deny you."

So saying, very deliberately, he shot the stricken woman twice in the chest.

Rain blinked.  Her growing fury flickered into puzzlement, into disbelief,
into pain of body, and then back to the central anguish of her soul.  Without
a word, she crumpled up, like the broken marionette she had always been.  A
thin, pale blood soaked into her blue silks,and ran away into the deep pile
of the carpet.

Kendron put the blaster away.  His mouth pulled into a mou of distaste at
sight of Rain's blood staining the carpeting.  "Another carpet ruined," he
mused with genuine regret.  "I really must organise these things better."
Then he forgot the corpse.

He gazed once more into the heart of Rain's Focus, savouring a renewed hope.
With this stone of power in his grasp, he had the power to escape.  Even
those fools in the garden would be powerless to prevent him.  He would
withdraw, regroup his resources, and make new plans; his just revenge would
not be denied him.

A chill touched his neck.

Absently he reached up a hand to brush the sensation away.  It came again,
moving around his throat, and up to caress his patrician lips with a chill
kiss.  A long shiver of pure fear ran through his tall frame.

He spun round.  His blue eyes grew wide with superstitious fear at the
monstrous thing that was reaching for his soul.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below in the garden, two of the Chancellery Guards were shouldered aside by a
plump man in black leather armour.  The very last of the orange light from
the setting sun, flashed along the naked blade clutched in his hand.  With a
great cry, Lobo lashed the sword into the chest unit of the Tech.  A
brilliant blue flash exploded from the unit.  Quicksilver swift, the
crackling energy flowed up the yard of steel, wedged into the Time Dam
control unit.

Lobo screamed as the blast of energy lit his body from within.  His eyes
were boiled away in an instant.  A great exhalation of mist blew from his
open mouth, made orange by droplets of boiling blood.  He staggered back; the
incandescent blade fell to the grass sizzling and smoking.  Without another
sound, Lobo's seared body crumpled to the grass.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tegan was still screaming when she hit.  The impact was terrific, knocking
all the air from her.  She bounced back, into utter chaos.  End over end, she
tumbled through the screaming Vortex, which lay between and beyond all
realities.  Her crazed mind turned inwards, away from the shrieking madness
shredding her sanity. She was barely aware of the strong arms that gathered
her soul into serenity. A moment later, the comforting arms surrendered her
to a dripping darkness, leaving her swaying unsteadily in ankle
deep water.

All about her, in the darkness under the beeches, a torrent of droplets
pattered like rain into the warm water.  Peering about, she was just able to
make out three figures - the Doctor, Adric and Nyssa.  Of the Sister-Selves
there was no sign.

Beyond the edge of the beeches, the drowned village was astir with figures
running around in confusion.  They were splashing about in panic through the
water, shouting and crying in alarm.  Some of the cottages had sustained
damage, one had a jagged lump of stone lodge in the roof and another, had a
huge hole smashed in the front wall.  In the distance, but drawing swiftly
closer, the urgent wailing of emergency services swelled and sank on the
sodden summer air.

On unsteady legs, Tegan splashed across to the others to see if they were
alright.

"Doctor? -" she began; but he cut her off.

"Come on," he urged.  "Lets' see what we can do to help?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The corpse of Rain was a shrivelled mummy, almost lost in the folds of blue
silks.  Rising lazily from it was a fat curl of mist.  The tendril of water
vapour billowed, gleaming palely in the sunlight as it reached out towards
Kendron.

"NO!" Kendron gasped, his hair standing erect along his neck.  He hurriedly
backed off a step.  He lifted Rain's Focus, and tried to bend the power to
his will; but it had been Rain's Focus.  The power remained hers to command,
for as long as Rain was - what ever form she held.

Kendron, his handsome features pulled into a mask of horror, backed away
another step.  The focus dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers.  He turned
to flee.

A fat billow of mist enreathed his head.  Kendron staggered to a halt.  Hands
flew to his face, clawing at the cold smothering caress; but it was only
mist, mere water droplets suspended in air.  There was nothing he could get a
grip on.

And yet!

And yet - it was strangling him.

In his head, before the rising roar of blood pounding in his ears drowned out
all other sound, he heard Rain's voice.  "I gave up the sea for you.  The
Sea!  THE SEA!  For you Kendron!  FOR YOU KENDRON!" The words crashed and
pounded like surf on a wild shore, like a sundering sea of passionate sorrow
smashing itself to ruin on the rocky promontory of Kendron's stony heart.

The roaring wave of fury gathered itself into a vast surging sorrow, which
reared up to close over Kendron's head.  The powerful undertow of the tide of
a deep and profound passion, a steadfast love abused and betrayed, pulled him
down screaming into a pitiless dark.

Kendron's withered body toppled to the blood stained carpeting.  A wavering
grey mist lifted from the shrivelling corpse.  It quested, tentative, upwards
and away towards the light streaming through the window.  It was blocked,
encircled, netted, and strangled by the pearly mist that Rain had become.  A
thin black dust filtered from the base of the furiously boiling cloud.  It
sifted back over the rumpled cream robes covering the withered thing that had
once been Kendron, the Hunt Master of the Orion Brood, an instrument
fashioned in flesh, by the Time Lords of Gallifrey.

In a dark corner, a darker shape sighed, and removed a tall top hat from its
head.  The figure surveyed, with a calm countenance, the carnage in the room.

The mist of Rain's being hovered uncertainly about the two corpses.  It was
time to go; but the call of the flesh had ever been Rain's undoing.  Even
now, in her transitional form, she could not abandon the remembrance of the
pleasure she had taken in simply being a physical creature.  It was not a
thing she could surrender easily.  Mournful, the mist drifted, irresolute
about the room, approached the window, retreated from the light, back to
drift above her mortal remains.

In the shadows, the shadow figure sighed.  He felt an acute pain.  For this
one he could do nothing; his remit did not stretch so far.  And yet?...

...Yes.  There was something he might do.

He looked to the light streaming in the window.  He called, sending forth a
silent summons.  There was a proper place for one such as she had been.
Perhaps one even more fitting to her kind than that to which he carried those
whom he gathered in.

A first cousin to an elemental force, so had she been in life.  So now in
death, a return to the element that nurtured her seemed most fit.  He could
summon that which was friend to her being.  He could commend her to the air,
to the sky and through the blessing of a gentle rain, finally to the sea that
had nurtured her.

Hideous as her crime had been, surely no one now could deny his bestowing of
this small mercy.  And even if there were those with hearts so hard well
mercy was beyond price, any price.  If it fell due to him, then he would pay
that price with a glad heart.

In answer to his ineffable summons, the salt breeze came questing into the
chamber.  It billowed out the heavy drapes, ruffled the robes of blue silk
enshrouding rain's corpse, moved on to the cream robes.  Fitfully, it
fluttered the papers on a writing desk, but did not stir the black cloak
 of the Gatherer.

He raised a hand, and pointed at the irresolute mist.

The breeze understood.  It moved to gather into its gentle embrace the cloud
of mourning mist.  With a sighing tenderness, that gentle stirring of
atmosphere, bore the last remains of the Selkie from the room.

Out into the air over the sea it carried the vapour, the very last rays of
the winter wan sun caressing a thousand shifting colours from its heart.  Far
out, above the restless sea, the ethereal pall bearer released its sad
burden, so that it might dissolve into the salt sea air.

slowly, the cloud of vapour thinned away.

Far, far down the sky, along the borders of the sea, the Selkie folk paused
in their forever play.  A thin chanting lament of sad voices, achingly sweet,
rose up into the air, born aloft on the gentle sighing of the evening sea.
Thus did the last lament for the passage of a Selkie, sing in the fall of
night.

At the window, the shadow on the last light looked out with satisfaction.
"From the sea you arose.  And at the last, finally, back to the sea.  Go with
my blessing little one - you who have been both the Betrayer and the
Betrayed."

And so saying, the figure set the hat upon its head, turned from the last
rays of the winter sunlight, and was not there.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


The end




---------------------------------------------------------------------------