Who Universe
The port. The Court of Principals. The Krewva Prospect. The Pythia flicked through views reflected on to her screen by panoptics throughout the City.
In the market, crowds gathered as a party of fur-clad PenShoza traders displayed fresh consignments of workers from Oshakarm and the Star Grellades. There had been no workers from the Grellades for years. They were prized for their blue-bronze skins and their temperaments. Quick to learn, but utterly and unquestioningly subservient. They were selling well. Abolishing the duties payable on such imports had been a good plan.
A small but vociferous group of protesters was bunched on the street nearby, obstructing the crowds and the unending traffic of litters and palanquins. Council Police were already eyeing the protesters' painted banners. 'FREE SLAVES AND FREE FOOD.' A year in the suet factories would cure their rebellion.
The neo-technologists were becoming gratifyingly predictable as an opposition. They seized upon any issue to rant and rave, so the Pythia fed them a few tiny morsels now and then, and they went at them with such alacrity that major reforms could be slipped past unheeded. Show them a graffito and they missed the wall it was painted on.
But Gallifrey was still restless. The thoughts of the people had become petty and aimless. Away in the cities of the South, there had been riots and at least two public stonings. How simple it would be for Rassilon's empty promises to catch and turn the mood. Other plans had failed lately. The loss of the Time Scaphe and her agent preyed on the Pythia's thoughts. The auguries of the future had become obscure and uncertain. Yet the Old Order had stood surely for an aeon. It was unthinkable that the Order would crumble. What was needed was a mighty challenge in the Games. A war. Or a legend from the Great Book.
Weary of the bustle in the market, the Pythia elevated the angle of the panoptic so that her screen filled with the cerulean blue of the sky. The morning haze from the still freezing marshlanes had lifted by noon. High in the air, an incoming shuttle from the West Marches glinted in the sunlight.
Deep beneath the Temple, torchlight flickered around the Cavern of Prophecy. Five hundred and seven exalted Pythias had sat in the wicker cage where she sat, slung high above the smoking Crevasse of Memories That Will Be. There she caught the vapours that lifted her mind into the state of the clairvoyant and the clairaudiant.
She watched the City on the retina screen in the corner of her basket. Other sisters ranged around the rock chamber attended her, robed in the rust-red devotional vestments of the Pythian Order. Her personal Grelladian guard, the un-man Handstrong, waited at the foot of the granite steps leading to the adytum of the Temple above.
Today's petitioners, most of them expecting miracles, had been cleared from the Temple courtyard. The Pythia prepared to be lowered back to the ground. She fingered the amulets and talismans that hung on gold chains from her robes. One, a jewelled periapt with a tongue of blue ice, slipped through her bony fingers. She cursed and grasped at the thing as it teetered on the wicker frame of her cage. It slid through a gap and fell directly into the unfathomed depths of the crevasse.
A gift to the three hundred and eighty-ninth Pythia from the Legendary Hero Ao, its loss chilled her with a foreboding. She began to count her remaining reliquaries, searching for other losses.
Movement below drew her from her task. A sister, one of the adepts, had entered the Cavern and stood before her.
"Well?"
"Highness, there is a man at the sanctum gate who seeks a private consultation."
The Pythia's screen flicked to a view of the inner Temple. Beside the wrought copper gates barring the innermost chambers stood two figures in fur cloaks, cowled in the pious and correct habit for men who entered the halls of the Gods.
"He is a trader from the South, Highness, with his colleague."
"Admit them." Was this what the omen had warned of? So soon? The Pythia had no hesitation in facing what must be faced.
The other sisters withdrew to their daily tasks. Handstrong positioned himself in the hollow pillar, where he could overhear and be called in case of danger.
The adept returned quickly, leading the two hooded figures. "Clean let the hearts be of each seeker," she said to them in turn.
"So shall we never doubt," they responded, and the Pythia knew from their tone that they were liars.
"Well, masters," she called from her cage, "how are affairs in the South?"
The trader stepped forward, a small shape who moved with a deliberate reverence which was too knowing, like a performer in the Jagdagian circus. His face was hidden and his colleague lingered in the shadows behind him.
The South is disturbed, Highness, said the trader. His voice was honeyed and obsequious. "I thank you for receiving me unannounced."
"Disturbance is a perception." She had already sent searching tendrils into his mind. As she suspected, it was blocked. "In what do you trade?"
"In anything that needs an advocate, Highness."
She nodded. "Then your business must be thriving. What could you possibly wish of me?"
"An audience with your Highness is already a great boon and honour."
"And?"
"Some inkling, Highness. Some glimpse of the future."
"The Gods and stars do not deal in trade statistics. I am here as their servant and mouthpiece. I advise and counsel. And I rule in their name."
"But can you see how long that rule will continue?"
The threat was barely veiled. She fingered a diamond talisman, squeezing it until it bit into the flesh of her hand. Blood on the jewel. She knew him. She wanted to blast him away for daring to come here. His hood turned slightly and she saw that he heard a warning from his colleague.
"Well, Master Trader from the South," she declared, "there are some who publicly reject the mystic faith in favour of a new God of Reason. Or is this a disturbance in my own perception?"
"I have no Gods."
"Save for your own ambition, Master Trader," she accused.
"I am told ambition feeds upon itself, Highness."
"For those who cannot see their own fate. So beware."
He came closer, having to tilt his head higher. The torchlight fell across the side of his mouth. "What better reason to consult the exalted Pythia herself? Tell me mine, if you can."
She recognized the insult and regarded him in silence. He must have known that she would see through his conceit. This was the little man who threatened everything her Order and rule stood for. He was foolhardy to come here, or more dangerous then she had imagined. Why should she do this for him?
The answer was simple. She would look and then confound him with the inevitable future she read. She sent a thought to her attendant adepts. "I am ready."
At the touch of a control, a concealed pipe below the lip of the crevasse released a fine spray of water. A blend of steam and smoke began to billow up around the cage.
The Pythia grasped at the wicker struts of the cage, taking gulps of the rich, bitter vapour. Soon, like gauze lifting on the evening breeze, her mind would rise into the canyons of stars and see infinity pricked out like a map on the drum of Time. Again the horror would fill her as the energy of the Gods she served spoke through her frail body. The instrument to dream another's dream.
She waited.
The steam began to choke her.
Her mind stayed earthbound. The vision that never failed eluded her.
"I cannot say," she intoned flatly.
"What?" mocked the figure below. "Where are your powers? Not lost surely?"
The Pythia gasped for breath.
"Shall I tell you then?" he continued. "I foresee the end of your reign, O exalted Pythia. The end of your barbaric line! But not the end of the world. After the demise of the Old Order, I see a bright future. The Gallifreyans, scourged for so long under your yoke, will emerge as the true Lords of Time!"
"Rassilon!" reprimanded the colleague, “the Other,” in the shadow.
"Remember," her opponent warned, a thrill of power in his voice. "Our secret. I have foretold it!"
He turned to go and was face to face with the massive figure of the guard. Handstrong raised his ceremonial dagger in anger.
"No!" called the Pythia. "Let them go! The game has yet to be played out." She watched the Grelladian stand back in confused obedience, letting the two figures mount the steps and vanish.
Empty. Her mind was dry of thoughts. She could see nothing — only a grey despair that was rapidly turning to darkness.
She sat rocking in her cage as the adepts emerged from their watch-places and stared up at her.
She was alone. Her hands played through her jewels again and again. Alone. And she must know the future. It had been stolen from her. No one could tell her and she could tell no one.
Then she remembered. There was another who was as lost as she was, but he was still in her head. When a situation boils, the scum always rises to the surface. In her despair, she remembered Vael.
***
The Pythia stood before the Gate of the Future. It was ajar. But when she approached, the huge bronze doors slammed shut.
Time's wall edged eternally forward, so that the past appeared to seep from under its massive stones. The Pythia had to walk steadily to keep up.
In the land behind her, history was charted like a map. The great wars and mighty deeds of Heroes were laid out in a panoply that praised the glory of the Gods and the Gallifreyan Empire. It was clear as the night stars. Even the distance was clear and close. All of history marching inexorably away from this point.
The wall was already moving ahead and the Pythia's feet were ankle deep in mud. She moved with difficulty, struggling to make up lost ground.
When she neared the great doors again, they were open wide. Beyond it, in the Future, lights were moving. Not bright torches or stars, but pale glows diffused into the coloured shadows that passed back and forth.
Once it had been clear and close as the past. But now she could make out nothing clearly.
She struggled on through the mud, reaching for the Gate and the gap. The doors slammed in her face again.
She grasped at the great handle on the Gate and clung to it, carried forward with the advancing wall.
There were ornate grilles in the doors and wall. Metal gratings decorated with beautiful carved spikes. Figures moved behind them. Heads clustered at the openings to stare out at her. There was laughter.
The wall rose up and up until it was lost in the heavy clouds. Carrion birds nested on its ramparts. A cold wind had started to blow from the past.
The Pythia beat her hand against the Gate, but it stayed firmly shut. She, most adept of the Wise, who once held the key to all the sights of the Future, was denied entry.
She knew the voices that laughed. Rassilon and his ignoble confederates had barred the doors against her.
She opened her eyes and stared down from her basket at the sisters who were in attendance below. They took it in turns to sit and watch her. Her servant, Handstrong, never left his place at the cavern mouth.
Let them wait. Fifteen days now since she had spoken a single word. And she had stayed locked in her cage above the crevasse all that time. Private audiences and public levees had to be cancelled. Anmers-Tonanstide, the Festival of the Timewright, went unblessed. The sisters daily turned a crowd of petitioners away from the Temple gates.
She had always travelled in the City in her State palanquin, ready to meet the people in the streets. Each morning she had walked in the herbal knot gardens of the Temple. These rituals meant nothing to her now.
Nor did she watch the City from her screen. It showed only a flickering pattern of static, a reflection of the emptiness in her head and heart.
Yet she ate well enough, existing on the diet of fish tongues that was the staple food of a Pythian seer.
The sisters read any news aloud to her each day, unsure if she could hear or comprehend their words. Her withdrawal from public life was causing anxiety and speculation throughout Gallifrey. The mutual pool of people's thought, impossible to ignore, chittered with unquiet rumour. It was reported that she had lost her powers. Speculation became fact in the media, which vomited out quarter-truths and exaggerations and then fed greedily on its own spew. The neo-technologists were already making political capital out of it. There were rumours that Rassilon would be called upon to challenge her authority. Worried communiqués arrived from governors on the farthest reaches of the Empire. The suet workers threatened to strike. At noon on the sixty-third day of spring, it snowed.
The Court of Principals patched over the day-to-day running of the state, but the Pythia was Gallifrey and its Empire, both constitutionally, by divination and by the investiture of the Gods. The cracks started to widen.
Rassilon remained silent, apparently content to observe where the situation would lead without further interference.
And the Pythia waited too. Or so it seemed. Only her hands moved, picking over the jewels and talismans on her smoky robes.
All would be well when the Scaphe returned.
In her mind she searched for Vael. Turning and returning every memory, searching for a chink in the wall that blocked her sight.
She was locked in with herself. In her thoughts there was no passage of Time.
The Scaphe was due at any moment now. Ninety minutes would soon be over. Time dragged slowly sometimes. But when the Scaphe returned, she would put things to rights.
Vael was there somewhere. Her pawn. She had only to find him in her thoughts. But there was a figure in the shadows who had mocked at her powers. She thought it was Rassilon. He pried among her thoughts like a thief sifting through stolen booty. She would drive him away out of the shadows, and out of her head.
She thought of torches and stars, but the veil of shadows grew denser until the darkness was complete.
The night in her head was cut by a venomous hiss. The voice of the Amphisbaena: the terrible beast from the Book of Future Legends. The fabulous serpent with a head at each end of its writhing body.
She returned to the other reality and stared at the sister adepts below her. Why were they whispering in the bounds of the holy cavern? They should be preparing for the return of the Scaphe. Ninety minutes was almost over.
She strained to catch their words.
". . . they must have given up hope on the Time Scaphe by now. How long has it been missing? Fifteen days?"
A pit gaped open in the Pythia's stomach. Her hands tugged at her jewels. The Future had been stolen.
"Fish tongues!" she cried aloud, her voice cracking with disuse. "More fish tongues!"
***
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