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.

Six.


Rain held the Tear Drop out over the Stone.  The pendant swung at the end
of the golden chain, tantalising Harmony. The unseen sun struck a blue fire
from its heart.

"Well?" she inquired.

Harmony frowned, pursing her lips, but said nothing.

"It will work," Rain assured.

"I don't doubt it," Harmony bit back.

Rain looked grave.  "The alternative is to stay here;" she said, waving a
hand vaguely at the swirling wite mist.  "There are caves over there.  The
accommodation is very ...Spare...But the Incarnators have permitted me an
environmental envelope projector.  Of course, only two of us will be able to
use it at the same time - and it gets very cold here, especially towards
dawn." She swung the Tear Drop before Harmony, tantalising.  "Well?"

When Harmony showed no sign of responding, Rain went on, squeezing a trace of
mock solicitousness into her voice.  "Or, if the caves are not to your liking
my Lady?  There are the ruins of the Gate-Hold just over in that direction.
A few of the chambers are fairly intact."

Tegan, arms folded, watched the forced exchange.  Silently, she willed
Harmony to accept the un-looked for offer of a way of escape. She tried not
to think of what "crime" Rain may have committed to have earned her exile.

Harmony, who had been staring off into the mist, suddenly sighed.  "Alright!"
she conceded, with grave misgiving.  Her lips drew into a rueful smile.  "And
I was worrying about my reception at the Citadel, after being away from home
for so many centuries." She let out a short, mirthless chuckle.  "Well, at
least I won't have to worry about that anyway -- I'll be lucky to escape the
vapourisation chamber after this little escapade." Her face darkened.  "Or
even - Shada?"

Harmony drew the blaster.  With a click of a hidden catch, the hand grip came
free.  She held it up.  "The Power pack," she announced, looking hard at
Rain.  "This will be very dangerous.  If I twitch at the wrong moment, you'll
lose a leg."

"And you'll lose an incarnation," Rain pointed out.  "I'm sure you'll be
careful." She held out her leg.

In her present weakened state, Harmony knew, it wouldn't just be a
regeneration, it'd be the whole shooting match; but she did not disabuse Rain
of her assumption. "I need a small piece of wire or metal, something that
will conduct electricity?"

"Would a hair grip do?" Tegan offered.

"Perfect," Harmony assured, and took the hair grip.  She bent it into an
intricate shape.  Kneeling to the tiles, she steadied herself with a deep
breath, and reached out to the anklet.  All three held their breath.

There was a sharp spat of energy.  An electric blue flash dazzled the day.
Rain yelped, more in surprise than pain.  Tegan took an involuntary step
back.  Then, peering over Harmony's shoulder, she saw that Rain still had her
foot.  The metal restraining band lay on the ground in two pieces.  A thin
wisp of smoke was curling up from them.  The smell of ozone was sharp
in the air.

Harmony rose.  She snapped the power pack back into the weapon, and
slid the blaster back in its holster.

Placing hands on the block, she looked hard at Rain.  She said curtly.
"Ok!  Let's get on with it!"

Rain lowered the tear into the centre of one of the shapes.  The Travel
Stone came alive with a low humming.  The coronal display shivered into
being, enclosing the translation zone in a dome of multi coloured light.

The ceiling of energy began to waver and pulsate.  This time, though, the
waves were rippling inwards towards the centre.  The dome of light thickened,
darkened, stabalised into a rock ceiling.  There was a single bluish light
source directly overhead.  A cool, damp breeze caressed their faces.

Tegan, who was still preparing herself for some sort of exciting spectacle,
took several seconds to come to the realisation that the journey was over.
She peered about.  They were in the centre of a circular chamber.  All around
the walls were man high niches, about three feet from the floor.  Tegan
counted them; there were thirteen.  Standing in each shadowed niche was a
form in black stone of a woman wearing silken robes.  Each held hands out,
and up, to the light source.  They looked, as had the women in the fountain
in Little Deeping, as though they were straining to take flight.  The
sightless, stone eyes were all fixed on the light; and the attitude of their
forms, slightly leaning forward, possessed the quintessential essence of a
profound yearning.

"We've arrived." Harmony pointed out unnecessarily.

"But where have we arrived?" Tegan asked, peering from statue to statue.

Harmony lifted hands from the stone pedestal, which resembled a TARDIS
console.  It was placed in the centre of the chamber, directly under the
light.  She shot a look of inquiry at Rain.

The woman was caressing the carven features of a statue, standing
against the wall. The likeness in stone was that of a tall man, brooding of
aspect. Arms were folded into loose sleeves.  Blank eyes stared over the
central console, at the shadows lurking beyond an archway in the opposite
wall.  The figure had been carved from a buttress of rock, and remained
joined to the wall by the flowing robes.  There was something of that
quality of "being born from the Earth" which the figures on the fountain in
Little Deeping possessed.

"Heaven." Rain whispered in an abstraction.  "We have reached heaven."
She looked askance at the two women watching her.  "Well.  My own personal
heaven anyway," she temporised.

She stroked one last long lingering caress down the cold carven cheek.  Then,
silks billowing, she swirled quickly across the floor to the arched entrance,
and vanished into the shadows beyond.

Harmony let out a sharp oath.  The sword sang into the damp air, the blade
gleaming like a bar of light in the shadowed chamber.

"Come on!" she urged Tegan.  "There's no telling what mischief that Selkie
will be getting up to -- now that she's plenty of water to hand." She ran
from the chamber, leaving a bemused Tegan to stare after her.

Beyond the entrance, two flights of steps led up in opposite directions.  To
the right: they went up into an uninviting blackness.  To the left: they
ascended into sunlight, streaming in through a broad high arch.  Harmony was
just in time to see the silhouette of Rain as she fled out into the yellow
light.  The Selkie was shouting with gleeful laughter.

As Harmony started up the steps, she became aware of a strong scent, filling
the air.  It was familiar, but she could not immediately identify it.  Taking
the steps three at a time, she dived into the light. A vast vista of blue
opened before her.  From somewhere came the sound of surf pounding on rocks.
The delicate perfume was drowned in the salt tang of the sea.

squinting against the dazzling sunlight, she peered about, seeking the
fleeing woman.  At her back was a vast wall of rock, towering up, black and
sheer.  Squatting atop the cliff, like a great black toad, a massive
fortified building blotted out that part of the sky.  Harmony's stride
faltered.  For an instant, she was back on Klitas's world; but the serene
clarity of the view opening before the cliff stood in such stark contrast to
the sombre violence of Klitas' world that Harmony was snapped back to the
present.  Before her, a terrace bounded by a low parapet, enclosed an oval
area planted with a mass of red roses.  Beyond the near horizon of the wall,
a vast depth of blue sky curved down to a distant meeting with the rippling
sea, afire with the light of a low hanging winter sun.

Roses!  It was the scent of roses!

The blossoms were nodding and swaying at the behest of a slight breeze which
came off the sea.  It set the foliage whispering with a silken rustle. Neatly
trimmed grass bordered the rose beds.  Paths of white gravel wound in
precise patterns about the plantings.  At the exact centre of the arrangement
was a small white belvedere or gazebo in the clutches of rambling roses.

The Selkie woman stood at the nearest rose bed.  She was stroking, with
sensual caresses, a huge scarlet bloom.  She bent suddenly; and her pink
tongue came out to lap up a jewel bright bead of moisture from a petal.  She
straightened and turned a look of shining wonder upon Harmony.  The sheer
unbounded joy, the Selkie exuded spoke directly to the Source Priestess
within Harmony's hearts.  It was the moment of first touching the Source;
though she had never experienced such first-hand, the shock of recognition
brought Harmony to a halt.  She grounded the sword in the gravel pathway, her
mind on fire with another's remembrance of ecstasy.

Tegan's sudden scream of alarm jerked her back to their imminent peril.

Harmony brought up the sword and spun round.  Tegan almost backed into her.

Beyond the madly back-pedaling woman, emerging in a rush from the doorway,
were a dozen or so black clad men with curved swords. Their faces were grim
and determined.  They spread out in a half circle.  The tubby man in the
middle raised his sword, pointing the razor tip at the two women.

"Take them!" he ordered.

Three men rushed Harmony, swords en-guard, the pale sun gleaming from the
three foot lengths of razor-edged steel.  They thought to shock and overwhelm
the swords-woman by a sudden assault.  It was they who were surprised.

Harmony launched a blistering counter attack.  Almost negligently, her sword
brushed aside the deadly steel, and licked among the men.  One had his weapon
twisted from his grasp.  Another took a shallow cut across his hand.  In
amazement and disarray, the three fell back.

The officer signalled his men to spread, to encircle the pair.  As they
moved apart, he stepped forward, his sword at the ready.

"Yield, Lady!" he commanded.  "It is hopeless." His free hand indicated the
men moving to surround them.

It *was* hopeless.  Harmony knew the man spoke the truth; she did not need to
draw upon a life time's experience of fighting, and surviving, to know that;
but it went against the grain to give in, no matter what the odds.

For herself there could be no escape; but perhaps something could be
salvaged from this unpromising situation. There was still a chance that Tegan
might stay free.  With the proper distraction, and if Tegan reacted swiftly?
She would have to take that chance.

As though he read her mind, the officer suddenly pointed his blade at
Tegan.  "Take that one!" he commanded the three men on his left.  "She is
unarmed." The men sheathed swords and leapt at the Australian woman.

Harmony reacted with all her trained warrior's instincts, honed in a thousand
savage encounters.  "Tegan!  Run!" she yelled, and launched a dazzling attack
on the men facing her.

Tegan reacted instantly; but she did not run.  Instead, she shoved a hand
into the flight bag and drew out a half bottle of wine.  Screaming
incoherently, she smashed the bottle into the face of the first man.  He
howled, and went down clutching at his face, more surprised than hurt.

A few yards away, Harmony was battling gamely.  In normal circumstances, she
was at least twice as fast as any of the soldiers, but she was fighting a
battle on two fronts.  As well as the men menacing her, she was embroiled in
a furious struggle for freedom to act against the dedicated pacifist nestled
in her soul who held her will in a grip of iron.  The struggle with the
principles of the Source Priestess was presenting an almost insurmountable
obstacle to her freedom to fight in the most effective manner.

The distraction was telling against them both; but that other would not
compromise her deeply held principles and release Harmony to finish this
fight in her favour.  All that the Priestess would permit her was defensive
strategies - which were going to get them killed.

Steeling her resolve, Harmony fought on. Disarming one attacker with a neat
flick of the wrist, she blocked a cut to her leg, and spun to face another
thrust aimed at her middle.

Behind her, the second man darted at Tegan, who flung the shards of the
bottle at his face.  She dared not let him get close enough to where his
greater strength could be used.  She un-slung the flight bag, bringing
 it round in a tight arc.  Grunting with the effort, she slammed the heavy
bag into the side of his head.  The man snarled an oath.  His hand
snaked out, grasping the bag.  He hauled on it.  Tegan clung on for a moment,
then let it go.  The man staggered backwards.  Tegan backed off a few steps,
looking round for an avenue of escape.

The third man, still grinning at his companions' misfortune, darted
forward, hands reaching.

If she ran, the man would over take her in seconds.  There was no time to
think.  Tegan attacked.  She ducked, diving forward under his groping hands.
As their bodies came together, she straightened, allowing the man's momentum
to carry him over her back.  With a great yell of surprise, he turned a
complete somersault, before crashing to earth amid the roses, thorns raking
the exposed skin of his face and hands.  The man bellowed with rage.  He
scrambled to his feet in a fury, humiliation fuelling his anger.  He drew his
sword with deadly intent.  Aiming it at Tegan's throat, he lunged.

Harmony caught the motion from the corner of her eye.  It presented the
battling woman with a further dilemma. There was scant time to consider.  If
she intercepted the blade, Tegan would live; but her own life would be
forfeit.  There would be no time to counter the stroke she knew would take
her high up under the chin.  There could be no regeneration to save her in
this place.  Or look to her own defence, block the blade of her opponent --
and live- - while Tegan died, choking on her own blood.

The choice was stark, and not hers alone to make.  Whatever she did, would be
an expression of the new thing the Source Priestess had created when she had
guided the regeneration.  Together, they chose.

For Tegan, the moment had taken on a nightmare aspect.  Sunlight gleamed
along the length of silver steel as it flew at her throat.  Her eyes wide
with horror, she strained to fling herself aside.  In slow motion, she drew
back from the deadly point.  It came on, remorseless, straight for her
throat.

As in a dream, the chill steel kissed the skin.  Tegan's life blood welled,
crimson.

Watching from the doorway of the pavilion, Rain let out a little gasp of
horror.  It was echoed from behind her in the back of the summer house.
Rain's heart leapt with fright.  She spun round.

In the sunlight dappled gloom of the gazebo, four figures hovered.
Recognition sent a spurt of fear through her. She sent a hand snaking for the
focus crystal on its golden chain.

"Touch that focus, Selkie spawn! And I'll send you to commune with Chaos!"
one of the figures hissed.

Rain let out a little whimper of fear, and dropped her hand.

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To the Doctor's gaze, the world shattered into thousands of over-lapping
fragments, like the reflection in a pond when a stone is dropped in.  His
eyes watered and he shut them tight.  Reality became the two contacts
through each of his hands.  The sureness of his sense of touch, and the
Brood Sisters on the far side of that contact, were the only things real to
the Doctor for a timeless time.

He began to work out the value of pi to a thousand decimal places.  The
absorbing mental exercise helped to hold his mind together, while he waited
for the world to come back.

When it did, there was something terribly wrong with it.

In some mad way, the world had split into two overlapping realities.  At one
and the same time, he stood in a blinding white desert wasteland of
drifting mica dust shrouding half seen shapes of statues, and a dank cave lit
by a dim blue radiance.

At his side, Gabriela swore vehemently.

The two realities began a mad flickering back and forth, blurring into a
grey haze.

"Choose!"  Orianna commanded forcefully.

"Which?"  Gabriela cried, her voice fluttering with panic.

"CHOOSE!" Orianna screamed.

"But?..."

"CHOOSE!" Orianna screamed again.  "It doesn't matter which!  Choose!  Or we
are lost!"

There was a vast surge of power.  The two Sister-selves let out a fraught
howl of agony.  The very fabric of "what was" contorted,  writhing like a
demented snake.  The naked vortex opened around the trio like a vast, all
engulfing maw.  It sucked on reality.  The edges of the hole in the world
shimmered, crumbled, began to flow inwards with a rush.  The seething chaos
within swallowed the three for a timeless moment.  The two women screamed
in pain, the Doctor's voice joining theirs as the bedlam savagely assaulted
his senses.

The matter teetered back and forth on the edge of disaster, undecided, for an
eternity.  Then one of the realities came back into focus.

The Doctor found himself standing in the cave reality with a globe in the
ceiling casting an indigo gloom. He struggled for breath, and had to fight
hard to maintain his composure.  That was surely as close to insanity as his
mind had ever dared....

"What was that?" he demanded, surveying their surroundings.

The two women dropped his hands, stepped away, to lean on the stone
table-like structure.  They were trembling and very pale.  Orianna gave him
a wan smile, drew a shaky breath.

"There has been an irresolvable bifurcation of the time line.  A change has
been made that cannot be undone or altered.  That, Doctor," she said, "is
what a Lassiter-Monroe Constant looks like from the other side."

The Doctor started to speak, but his words were drowned out as an alarm
began a mournful wailing.  The sound echoed, magnified, from the walls of
the Gate chamber.  Orianna and Gabriela drew together, putting arms about
each other.

The sound of booted feet, pounding on stone, rose over the dreary alarm.
The Doctor motioned to the two women, pointed to the arch.

"Quick!  Over there!"

They ran to the arched entrance and flattened themselves to the wall on
either side.  The staccato noise of booted feet swelled and reverberated.
Orianna and Gabriela clutched each other, their eyes wide, their faces pale
with fright. A moment later, a dozen or so men pounded past the arch. The
Doctor gave them a count of ten to get clear, then stepped out and
glanced up the steps in the direction they had taken.  A rapidly thinning
oblong of light dazzled him for an instant.

Then he heard Tegan scream.

He started up the steps four at a time.  But he knew that there was no way
he could reach that gap in time.  Through the closing entrance came shouted
orders and the furious clash of steel.  Tegan screamed again.

The gap was only inches wide as the Doctor slammed against the steel slab
with the force of his headlong plunge up the stairway.  He slid fingers
into the gap and heaved with all his might.  The slab ground on,
inexorable.

He withdrew his fingers and pressed an eye to the narrowing gap.  There was
a momentary glimpse of men wielding swords, and of Tegan backing away as one
of them approached her, sword held ready.  Then Tegan's grimly
determined  expression changed to stark horror as the man lunged. The razor
point of his sword was aimed right at her throat.

Tegan's scream was cut short as the door grounded in its steel seat with a
very final metallic clank.

"Tegan!  TEGAN!" the Doctor raged in impotent fury.  He hammered on the
doors, seeing in his mind's eye that glittering silver steel blade slicing
into the pale skin,  the scarlet fountain from the severed artery spraying
into the air, the droplets glistening orange in the yellow sunlight.




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