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.

Nine.


"How much longer must we wait?" Nyssa implored of Sedra.  It had been a
good fifteen minutes since the soldiers had vanished into a dark entrance
at the extreme west end of the terrace, taking a pale and shaky Tegan with
them.  She had been leaning on the arm of a blond haired young woman.  Sedra
laid a hand on Nyssa's shoulder.  "Remember what I said," she warned.  "While
we are in the future shadow of the Lassiter-Monroe Constant, every action
must be considered carefully, even the simplest thing.  By regressing
temporally to arrive before the genesis of the Constant, we have not lessened
its danger, merely circumvented that peril inherent in the arrival."

Duo Danella took up the thread of narrative so seamlessly, it made it seem
as though a single person had spoken. "We must still pass forward past the
Constant in proper phase with this reality; and that is even more perilous
than moving in the Vortex in its vicinity.   Though we cannot  sense its
presence, we know it is out there now; and that it casts a long future
shadow."

"And if being in the eclipse of the Constant is not danger enough," Sedra
took up,   "there is still the Blinovitch Effect to worry about. with all
this coming and going focused on this narrow locus."

"In such circumstances, any action might precipitate a disaster," Duo
Danella added.

Nyssa nodded, and turned back to peer through the half -open door, biting her
lip with impatience.

"We will do what we can, when we can, child," Sedra promised, knowing the
girl's anxiety to be doing - a strangely  "ephemeral" attitude of
 mind with which she had never been comfortable.

A couple of more minutes passed in a fraught silence, while the Brood
Sisters watched Rain with the same consideration one would give a
rattlesnake.  The Selkie fidgeted constantly; she made a couple of motions of
a hand towards her Focus; but each time Duo Danella raised an eyebrow, and
Rain let the hand drop back to her side.

At last, Adric inquired from where he stood against the far wall:   "How much
longer?  I would estimate that..."

"It is safe to go out now," Sedra pronounced suddenly, interrupting the
boy.  "Come!  We shall seek the Doctor."

The two Brood Sisters glanced at one another.  As one, they moved to Rain.

"You will come with us, Selkie!" Sedra commanded.  "You have broken your
exile and thus forfeited the protection of the Incarnators.  Now you will
answer to the Brood for Du Lac - and for Carmalita!.."

"...And Krista..." added Duo Danella.

"...And Valeria..." Sedra took up the litany.

Rain shrank away from them, in a near panic. The two Brood Sisters each
grabbed a hand.  Without gentleness, they dragged her between them and
steered her through the door into the wan winter sunlight.

"...And Matrinella..."

"...And Juta..."

The pair continued the litany of names of the Du Lac Brood as they went down
the steps of the gazebo.

From among the rosebeds, three figures came into view, hurrying along the
paths Two were women dressed in the raven habiliment of the Brood, and a man,
peculiarly dressed in the fashion of an Edwardian cricketer.

"Doctor!" Nyssa cried.

He skidded to a halt, turned and hurried in their direction.

Rain took advantage of the distraction to make a bid for freedom.  She
twisted a hand free from Sedra and set it to her Focus.  Duo Danella
shouted a warning.  The air around the party exploded in a silent
thunderclap.  Ears popped painfully, as a thick curtain of swirling fog
materialised out of the sea-kissed air.

Nyssa, who had started to run to the Doctor, blundered into Adric.  Together,
they fell from the steps in a tangle of limbs.  For a long moment, all was
grey confusion.  Then the fog was shredded into streamers by the salt breeze.
The white walling out the world turned golden, lit by the level sun, before
it slowly thinned away.  Overhead, the sky faded back to pale blue.  Around
them, Hazy shapes came into focus, backed by the wall of rock which loomed
over half the sky.  Of Rain, there was no sign.

Adric scrambled to his feet, and helped Nyssa to rise.  The Traken girl
gained her legs just as the Doctor pounded up.

"That looked like the Exile of Du Lac," the Doctor said.

"It was," Sedra confirmed.

"She should not be allowed to wander around free - especially not with
what's up there in the tunnels;" the Doctor warned.  He turned to go in
pursuit.

Sedra laid a restraining hand on his arm.  "Wait!  You leave that Selkie
spawn to us, Time Lord.  The Brood has a particular score to settle there;
and we are better able to deal with her particular form of *magic* than you."

The Doctor started to protest, but Nyssa grabbed his arm.    "Doctor!
Tegan!  They've got her!  We must help..."

"What?..."

"Tegan," Adric repeated.  "The soldiers have taken her..."

"She's alive?"

Nyssa nodded.  "Yes.  They took her away with this other woman.  She was
bleeding."

"The other woman?"

"No!   Doctor!  Tegan!  She was cut by a sword!" Nyssa exclaimed.  She was
almost beside herself with exasperation.

"An Incarnatress," Seddra interposed. "She was on Du Lac when we traced a
Chaos Beast there.  Her TARDIS was destroyed."

The Doctor nodded grimly.  "I know,  Wayland told me."

"Doctor!  What about Tegan?" Adric was pulling at his sleeve. "She is in
danger.  We must help her!  They went this way!" The boy turned and set off
towards the west end of the terrace.

"Wait!" the Doctor commanded.  "There's no point in just running around
blindly.  We'll not be able to help Tegan if we get caught ourselves.  And
I really don't like the idea of that Selkie running around loose." He turned
to the Brood Sisters, intending to question them about Rain.

The four women had joined hands.  Their eyes were closed; there was a vacancy
about their faces.  The faintest of TARDIS take-off sounds trembled in the
air.  After a long, still moment, they broke apart.  Sedra turned a cold
smile upon the Doctor.  "Leave the Selkie to us, Time Lord.  See to your
friends." With that, the four spun and raced away among the flower beds.

The Doctor watched them go.  He was unhappy about the Brood running free,
bent on some kind of personal vengeance; but there was nothing he could think
of to do about it just then.

A bee, busy on a nearby bloom, paused to focus glittering faceted eyes on the
small group left by the gazebo.  The sun glinted from an unusual metallic
sheen to its body. None noticed the strange creature's interest in them.

"Come on!" urged the doctor, and set off towards the west end of the terrace
at a fast walk.  "We'd better see if we can find Tegan."

From his perch atop the gazebo, Agalayne launched himself in a shallow glide.
The bee took flight also, and buzzed busily after them.

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As they entered the room, Nyssa's face paled.  She flinched as she stepped
across the threshold.  The girl shuddered.  "Something terrible has happened
here, Doctor, something wicked and depraved.  I can taste it in the air, and
hear it echoing from the walls."

Agalayne soared into the room over their heads.  The winged creature was
chattering and squawking in agitation.  He looped about the room, before
coming back to alight on Nyssa's shoulders.  She raised a hand to stroke
his back, to calm the agitated creature.  "It's all right," she cooed
softly.  "It'll be all right;" but Agalayne would not be calmed.

The Doctor took in the room at a glance, paused momentarily at the wall
console, before focusing on some dark staines on the blue carpeting.  "I
rather fear you might be right, Nyssa," the Doctor agreed.

Adric wandered over to the terminal. His attention was caught by the
patterns swirling on a monitor screen.  "Doctor?" he called out.

The Time Lord ceased his dark speculation on the meaning of those stains, and
moved to Adric's side.  He cast a knowing eye over the equipment. Something
about the "style" of the equipment nagged at him, making him uneasy.  "Does
this look familiar to you, Adric?" he asked the boy.

Adric nodded.  "Yes.  Doctor, wasn't this the type of technology that
Rorvik and the Slavers used?"

The Doctor nodded. "That's what I thought."

"Then the Brood are -- "

"From E-Space."  The Doctor confirmed. "You feel the resonance of the reality
disharmony?  Yes, they originate in E-Space." He pointed to a chain and
shackle discarded in a corner of the room.  "And that - unless I'm very much
mistaken? will be more Dwarf Star Alloy.  This whole fortress is stiff with
the wretched stuff - it's a wonder the Orion Brood weren't driven mad with
claustrophobia?"

"Doctor!  Look!" Nyssa exclaimed suddenly.  She had been tuning the controls
of a security monitor; and was now pointing excitedly at the picture
displayed on the screen.  The monitor showed a view of Kendron's prison.
Clearly on the screen, though the cell was gloomy, the Doctor could make out
the form of Tegan, menaced by a dozen dark shadows.  She was standing astride
a body laid in the straw with hands planted firmly on hips in that stance of
stubborn bravado that the Doctor knew so well.

"It's Tegan!" Nyssa echoed his thoughts.

"Tegan?" he questioned softly, staring at the defiant vision in the dank
cell.  Until this moment, he had not truely believed that she lived.

He sat down quickly in a chair, studying the layout of the controls.  Then
he tapped a sequence of keys. A schematic of the complex replaced the
picture.  His eyes skimmed over the diagram, then he jumped from the chair
and ran to the doorway.  "I'm going to fetch Tegan," he called back over
his shoulder.  "Try and find Sedra and the others."  He ran from the room.

A few minutes later, he paused at the head of a dark stairwell to orientate
himself.  The air which rose up the stairs was rank.  He steeled his nerves
and started down the twisting stone steps.

A voice, sharp with warning, rose up the well with the air.  The Doctor could
make out no words; but the strong Australian accent was unmistakable.  He
increased his pace on the treacherous footing. A door arch wound into view.
Beyond was another corridor with a door opposite.  A long straight flight of
steps led down.  The sound of voices was coming from there.  He took the
steps three at a time.  Moments later he came out into a corridor lined on
the right with bars.  He ran over, pressed his face between them and called
"Tegan?"

The young woman jerked in surprise. She turned, recognising the Doctor, and
 almost flung herself at the bars.  "Doctor!" she cried out in relief.  "Oh
Doctor!  Thank God!  You've got to stop them.  They're killing her!"

"Who?"

"Harmony!" Tegan cried.  "Those women are killing her!" She pointed to the
Sister-Selves hovering about the body in the straw.

Moved by the urgency of the situation, Tegan reached a hand through the bars
to grasp  at his arm.  "Doctor?  You must do something."

The Doctor fumbled in his pocket and drew out the sonic screwdriver.  The
lock gave with a click.  He dragged the door open, and dashed inside.  The
Brood Sisters fell back from his approach, clearing an avenue to the prone
woman.  He went to his knees beside her.

Though the name Tegan had used was unfamiliar to him, recognition flared
along his nerves.  It was Dana - he felt that deep-seated tingling which
permitted recognition of one Time Lord for another, despite the changes
wrought in the woman by Rassilon alone knew how many regenerations.  The
pistol he had taken from the soldier had suggested her presence; it had not
lied; it really was Dana.

"What's the matter with her?" the Doctor demanded, studying the features.
The unfamiliar face, surrounded by a spray of long, filthy blond hair, was
contorting with some inner torment, and so pale that it scared him.  The
teeth were clenched in defiance of some unseen foe.

Tegan indicated the Brood.  They are doing something to her."

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder.  In a corner of the cell, the Brood had
come together in a tight group.  There seemed to be a mass hugging session in
progress.  The air was vibrating with an irritated echo of TARDIS engines.

"What are they doing?" asked Tegan.

"unifying the mosaic mind," the Doctor explained "Sharing  and Healing
their damaged facets."

The TARDIS echo found a level of harmony.  The huddle broke apart.  A
Sister with ruined hands stepped forward and glanced at the prostrate
 woman. She addressed the Doctor.

"The Lady is in thrall to a Darkovah," she stated bluntly.

"Darkovah?"

"An Agony Eater out of the Elder Dark.  Now that Harmony has given up the
Source Priestess to save us, it will not be denied.  The fear-spelling will
kill her!"

The Doctor nodded in grim comprehension.  "The Klitas?"

"What's that?" asked Tegan, caught by the grim tone in the Doctor's voice.

He looked up to meet her questioning gaze with eyes hooded with dark
remembrance.  "They are a race which gain their sustenance from the body
fluids of other creatures taken at the moment of highest agony and fear.  The
blood can  only sustain them when it is taken at the moment of extremis."

Tegan shivered.  "Vampires!"

"In a way,"  the Doctor confirmed. "In the youth of their kind they were
powerful pursuit hunters, running their prey down by sheer physical
endurance.  After such a hunt, their prey naturally enough, was in a state of
extreme agony and fear and the Klitas evolved to the point where only the
blood of a fear crazed victim could sustain them."

"That's hideous!" cried Tegan.

"No," said the Doctor.  "It is an outcome of their specialised evolution, but
one that has not served the Klitas well - or indeed any other race upon which
they must prey for life.  They are no longer the magnificent physical
specimens they once were.  Now they have shrunk to four feet tall humanoids,
 golden skinned, androgynous, beautiful, but deadly. They have become quite
frail physically; but nature seems to have compensated for that and their
inability to run down their prey, by endowing them with powerful mental
faculties to command their prey to come to them and also to induce the fear
and agony to bring the victim to the point where the blood is life-sustaining
to them."

Harmony let out a low groan recalling the Doctor and a horrified Tegan to the
urgency of the moment.

"That's horrible!  You've got to do something," cried Tegan.  "You can't let
her die like that."

With his gaze still on the tortured face, the doctor said softly.  "I don't
know that there is anything that can be done to help her." He looked up
suddenly into the dark eyes of the Sister with the bloodied hands, a
mute appeal on his face.

Her dark eyes hooded a moment, the same expression flitting around the ring
of concerned faces.  Then she spoke for the Brood.  "The Lady must be
shielded from the Klitas if she is to live.  Someone must touch her mind and
must also have a vast reservoir of power and love to call upon.  And that one
must be brave for there is great danger that the Klitas will either transfer
its spell to that one or snare them both in its foul clutches."

The Doctor nodded, fully aware of the hidden meanings in the Sister's studied
indirectness.  "So it is up to me to initiate a mind touch, if she's to have
any chance at all of survival." he murmured. "And you cannot help in this?"
"Not directly."

The Doctor nodded abstractedly, only half listening.  He took in a deep
breath and reached out a hand to the pale face.  Harmony stirred, pressing
her cold, pallid cheek against the back of his hand.  Blue eyes fluttered
open.  They were still that remarkable violet-blue that he remembered from so
many centuries ago.

"Theta?" she groaned. Her face contorted with agony.  When the spasm passed
she cried out again. "Theta?"

"Dana?  Dana - how?..."

"Too long to explain, Theta.  Too long...And too late..." A slow shudder ran
through Harmony.  Her eyes closed and she began to slip away from life,
retreating into oblivion, out of reach of the soul searing agony induced by
the Klitas.

Tegan put a hand to her mouth in sudden fear.  "Is she dying?"

The Doctor carefully smoothed some stray strands of hair from
the forehead with a gentleness that surprised Tegan.  He exhaled roughly,
and murmured, "perhaps."

He continued to gaze down into Harmony's face, allowing a finger to trace the
outline of her features.  "I must touch her soul and try to forge a link
between her mind and my TARDIS.  Only she has the power to shield Dana from
the Darkovah."

"Can you do it?"

 "I'm not any sort of telepathic adept," the Doctor warned.  "But that is not
the problem TARDISes have a vast symbiotic affection for their embedded Time
Lord - to the point where she might be jealous of Dana.  She might refuse
to take on a Darkovah for the sake of another especially in light of
the peril it would put me in."

He looked up at the Brood Sisters standing in a semicircle around them.  "I
am going to need some help to open the way - can you do that for me?"

The Sister held out a bloodied hand towards him.  "The Brood would be honored
to assist in any way it can.  Harmony made us a gift of the peace of the
Priestess.  She surrendered her own safety to our salvation.  We owe her our
sanity.  We will open the way; and we will hold it against the Klitas!  No
matter the peril!"

The Doctor smiled grimly up at them, unsurprised that Dana had inspired such
affection in beings that traditionally held little love for the Time Lords -
nor that she had given up so much for their salvation.

"Thank you," he said softly,

He turned back to Harmony, wriggling himself into a comfortable, cross-legged
position beside her.  With gentle hands, he lifted Harmony's head into his
lap.  Her skin was cold to the touch, markedly abnormal.  He drew a long slow
breath, closed his eyes and touched finger tips to Harmony's temple, stroking
gently.

Around the pair, the Brood joined hands.  A distant echo of TARDIS engines,
straining for take-of, suggested itself in the rank air.  The Brood took on
an appearance of shadows, waxing and waning.

Inside the Doctor's head, the Brood spoke.  "We have opened the way for you,
 Time Lord;  and we are resolved that we shall hold it against the Agony
Eater at all cost!"

The Doctor drew in a deep breath, held it for ten long seconds, and then let
it out slowly.  Uttering a quiet prayer to whatever Gods might be watching,
he opened his consciousness and touched Dana, laying his mind open to the
mind-spelling of the Klitas.  The sheer depth of agony and fear put out by
the Darkovah in its feeding frenzy, took him completely unawares.  He began
to scream.

Before Tegan's horrified gaze, deep furrows drew themselves in his cheeks as
though invisible claws were gouging the skin of his face.




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