DOCTOR WHO.

BATTLEFIELD.

by MARC PLATT.

PROLOGUE.

Three sisters bore him down to the boat. Swan-haired and regal, each was crowned with a circlet of silver and robed in weeds of darkest green. Sisters, yet each also a queen from one of the Thirteen Planets. Summoned, even in the final throes of war, to another Universe as the prophecy decreed. Two queens to carry the High King. One queen to tend his wounds.

The aged king was armoured in black with the crest of the Pendragon on his breastplate. Lying still on the pallet, he gazed up into the endless blue of the sky over Avallion.

He searched for the corridor gate that led back to the home dimension, but he could no longer focus on the invisible as Merlin had once shown him.

With the bulk of his army scattered, this final battle had become a rout. He had been trying to rally his forces, any forces at all, when out of the smoke came three of Morgaine's rabble. Three grey knights from her personal entourage, fiercely trained and with the arrogance of near victory in their gait.

They had circled round him, just out of reach, neither attacking nor parrying, but they laughed mockingly at their lucky catch.

He knew they were confining him in a cage until Mordred might arrive to take the glory as the High King's executioner. Where was the honour in that? But what did Mordred have to do with honour? There was no honour even in Mordred's conceiving.

'Excalibur.' he had warned the grey knights, lifting the fabled blade for them to recognize. Together, he and the weapon were one; sword and swordsman understood one another and were terrible in the havoc they could wreak.

But the knights only backed off a little.

Instead he had made to run, but only to draw the knights back in on him.

Three against one. Excalibur leapt eagerly out and slew the first two with one swing that nearly carried the king's arm from its socket.

The third knight ducked and brought his sword in low.

The blow caught the king on the right knee, slicing into the hydraulic muscle of his armour's joint. The old warrior pitched forward in the mud, but his jewelled sword swung itself back and took off the knight's arm.

As the king lay alone and cold, trying to gather his fleeting senses, he had heard the knight weeping in pain.

Then there was quiet. No birds sang near the battle. The yells and screams of the fighting had grown more distant.

Close at hand, a sudden voice whispered, 'My lord king.'

He opened his eyes and saw Bedivere bending over him.

The young black-armoured knight was helmless. He was pale and there was a crimson gash across his forehead.

'Water.' said the king. He tried to raise himself, but his armour was lifeless and he could not manage the effort alone. He felt Bedivere lift him easily in his arms and start to carry him. He swooned.

He was weary of fighting. Full weary of the hatred that beset the world like a plague. And weary of Morgaine's endless plans to a.s.sert her dark order on them all. A weary and old king. She worked ceaselessly to overthrow him with her black arts. Everything around him was crumbling. Everything he knew and loved was either smashed or stolen. Most of all, he was weary of having to make decisions alone where Merlin once would advise him. But he would never cease to resist her monstrous duplicity.

He had smelt the lake before he saw it. The lake on whose banks the Pendragon had once defeated Vortigern the Usurper. On the Isle of Apples, away from the world, the willows were burgeoning into new leaf. Avallion in springtime. Yellow flags grew among the rushes at the waterside. He saw them fluttering like battle standards as the three women settled him on to a pallet constructed from linen and spear shafts. The prophecy was familiar, but the outcome either eluded him or he refused to remember.

Bedivere stood watching nearby, his handsome head bowed to hide his tears. Beyond him, along the bank, a group of local peasants stared, uncomprehending, by their rough huts of wattle. Now the women were loading the king into the boat. His chest was tight and wet inside the dead armour and he began to cough, feeling a trickle run down through his beard. He moved his hand against his side and shuddered.

'My sword! Excalibur!' Surely it could not have left him now? 'Excalibur!' Why did they not listen? Merlin would have listened.

Queen Selysette of Lyonce leaned in over him to wipe away the blood.

'My sword! I must have it! And the scabbard!'

She nodded gravely to Bedivere who had drawn closer on the bank. The king heard his faithful young knight pounding away into the distance.

'It will come,' said the queen.

Mist drifted across the sky overhead. Or was it smoke from the battle? A full minute pa.s.sed before the king realized that the boat was moving away from the sh.o.r.e. But the queen had given her word. The sword would come.

The gentle rhythmic swish of the boat's fins as it paddled over the lake eased his mind. The mist closed in and the king scarcely noticed as a shimmering dome rose like a bubble around the boat's occupants. It sank slowly beneath the surface of the lake and the light around it deepened into a water-dappled green. It seemed to the king that he was sinking down a great well. And then the well became a tall tower with walls of water lifting high above him. They glittered and streamed with rising columns of tiny bubbles. He began to be afraid. He dared not move or breathe for fear that one tiny disturbance would bring the walls cascading down upon him in a torrential flood of retribution.

This was a trap. Some hateful witchery of Morgaine's devising, like that with which she, in the guise of Nimue, had thought to entomb Merlin in the ice forest beneath Breceliande. Yet while the king lived, all those days of chivalry were not dead. He could rebuild his world again.

He had fought alone against worse odds than this and battled worse monsters. And everything that Merlin had taught him as a boy, everything the aged wizard and counsellor complained that he had forgotten, was coming back to him. Clear and fresh as the air after a storm. The son of the Pendragon would return. It had been foretold.

He could fight alone again.

The high walls of water above him teetered in and blocked the light. Plunged into darkness he cried out again for his sword.

A new but dim light appeared from the side. The king managed to raise himself, but the pallet on which he lay lurched as the queens lifted it from the dry-docked boat.

He watched the light approach as they neared its source, until they finally emerged into a wide and familiar hall.

The dark glossy walls rose high into the gloom. He could make out arrays of heraldic devices along the consoles that lined the wide floor. The solemn tranquillity of the place was almost tangible. It had been genetically designed to be so. It should have been like coming home.

A single shaft of light fell from the roof and illuminated a black slab of obsidian like an altar at the centre of the hall. There was a figure standing in front of the slab, silhouetted against the light. As the king's cortege crossed the floor, their footsteps echoing back at them, the figure stretched out its arms in greeting and stepped backwards into the pool of light.

The king caught his breath in disbelief. 'Merlin!

Against all hope...'

The wizard smiled impishly at his aged royal pupil. 'I see you've been killing people again, Arthur. Another fine pickle you've got yourself into!'

The armour ran faster than Bedivere's legs could carry him. His own muscles ached to tearing point as he almost fell down the bank towards the willows and skidded to a halt at the water's edge. The boat was gone.

Staring out across the lake, he thought he glimpsed the featureless shape of the boat disappearing into the mist. He clutched his king's sacred sword and its scabbard in his fists.

What could he do now? How could he return Excalibur?

At all costs the sword must be kept from the enemy. But there were no allies to turn to. No prisoners were being taken. All captives were being put to the sword by the victors on Mordred's orders.

Avallion was a prison. His helm had been shattered in the battle and he could not leap through infinity to his own dimension without it. He was trapped in a cold and barbaric reality, a universe away from home and love. But he must forget his honour and hide himself, living on his wits until his mission was fulfilled. That was nothing.

Galahad had endured far worse for the Grail.

He looked out over the lake again. The mist had suddenly cleared to reveal the far bank, but there was no sign of the boat.

He heard the clank of armour and saw a group of grey knights running along the bank towards him. There were more coming from the other direction. He had nowhere to run to, but they would not have Excalibur.

Flinging aside the scabbard, he began to wade out into the water. The knights began to splash in after him, swords raised.

Powering up the tension of the hydraulic muscle in his right side armour, he lifted Excalibur high behind him.

With a yell, he pitched the sword as far out over the water as the armour would throw it. He felt a fierce stab of pain as his arm fractured, and then he was dragged back by force and found a sword at his throat.

Excalibur gleamed in the sunlight as it began to fall over the centre of the lake. Before it struck the surface, there was a flash of white and the sword vanished as if it had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away by a burning fist of fire.

The arm around Bedivere's throat wrenched back in anger. The other knights were forming a circle around him in the water.

'Where's Arthur?' yelled the voice at his ear. Bedivere knew the voice only too well and loathed it with all his heart.

'Safe away from you, Mordred Fitzroy! King's b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

There were no more questions to ask. And nothing that Bedivere would answer. Staring up at the sky towards home. he hardly felt the sword that cut into his throat.

'A once and future king?' complained Merlin. 'Dear oh dear, I thought we'd given up all that nonsense.' He shook his head of unruly red hair in irritation. 'Isn't enough ever enough?'

Arthur raised himself painfully from the side of the chair where they had sat him. He slammed his gloved fist against the carved arm. 'You gave your word!'

'I most certainly did not! You've been listening to those minstrels again. They always exaggerate.'

'Teeth of Heaven!' A series of coughs tore up from Arthur's aching lungs. He pushed away the queen who moved in to tend him and wiped the fresh blood from his mouth himself. 'You are never here when I have need of you, Merlin.'

The wizard shrugged and smiled weakly, revealing the laughter lines on his avuncular face. 'I can't be everywhere at once.'

But there was still mischief behind his eyes. And he still looked younger every time he returned.

Arthur rested his head back on the side of the chair. He looked around the dark ribs of the King's Hall ship that Merlin had cultured for him long, long ago in the vat-cellars of the High Tagel. The consoles bleeped quietly as they awaited his instructions. Always ready to jump the stars or outfly the swiftest ornithopter.

'Ten years of war have we suffered. My wife and friend are lost to me. The alliance of the Round Table is broken.

My kingdom is slipping away. The land dies.'

'Morgaine has grown in power.'

'She will destroy us all with her black arts.'

'I doubt that. Arthur. But it may be a long struggle.'

'I thought I had lost my tutor too. And then you return against all odds, but only to s.n.a.t.c.h away my remaining hope.'

'Oh, don't be so gloomy. And never trust people who make prophesies.'

Arthur lifted his eyes in disbelief. 'But you do naught else!'

'It's one of my more annoying habits.'

The High King of the Thirteen Worlds gripped the arms of the chair and struggled to rise. He cursed as his knees buckled under him. The dead armour was c.u.mbersome and he was too weak to move against it. He sat back temporarily defeated. But he would find a way.

He missed Lancelot. And he longed to see Guenever again and ask for her forgiveness.

Merlin took a salve-sponge from one of the queens and began gently to wipe the mud and blood from the aged king's face.

'My dear Arthur, I think it's time I came clean with you.'

'Excalibur,' he muttered. 'Where is it?'

'You see it's all very well calling me tutor, but I can't even begin your education until I find out how all this ends.'

To Merlin's surprise, the king appeared to rally from his misery. 'So it is true then,' he said eagerly.

'True? Why? What else have the minstrels been saying?'

'That you live your life backwards.'

'No, no, no!'

From his tatty embroidered Afghan coat, Merlin tugged a floppy hat of brown felt. He flailed it into shape as he tried to contain his annoyance. Around its brim, the saffron Katmandu bandana was creased and tangled. A pair of finger cymbals tinkled to the floor. 'My life may be rather haphazard - in a temporal sort of way. But I cannot predict the future...'

'You deny it yet again!'

'Of course I do! And you know that.'

'So you cannot say the hour of my death.'

The wizard smiled inwardly that the old king could still beat his tutor into a corner. He looked forward to beginning the young king's education. But there seemed no way to convince his old friend that time was pa.s.sing.

All things had their time and that included the time to let go of what you loved.

'I shall rise again,' continued Arthur. 'There is no question. I decree it. And I shall see Morgaine defeated.

And you, Merlin, I rely on to see me win through!'

Merlin's twin hearts sank. 'I'll see what I can do, my lord,' he said quietly. 'It may already be in hand.'

The king grunted. Satisfied at last, he leaned back into his chair. 'And find my sword too.'