The
other is a man dressed in strange clothing, with teeth and hair that
could have won prizes. I know his face, but cannot tell where from,
until…
I gasp, and try to back away. He is the Evil One! He has come to eat me! Oh, why was I so stupid as to try take the Rite before my time? Why? Why? Now I shall die at his hands without ever having hunted a Bemmoth beast and become a warrior!
Well, I shall not go without a fight: I raise my knife, and thrust it at the Evil One’s face.
Suddenly my wrist is hurting worse than ever I can remember, and my knife is juddering to a halt, embedded halfway to its hilt in the bark of a tree. The woman lowers the foot that has just kicked me, and stares at me sternly.
'Do not try that again, Leela!' she says to me.
I gasp. 'How do you know who I am?' But of course, I see the answer straight away. He is the Evil One, and she is his servant. And I am the youngest and best warrior of the Sevateem – their most dreaded enemy, undoubtedly. They would have been stalking me for months. Years! They know all about me!
'We know all about you, Leela,' the Evil One says.
See? Told you, didn’t I?
'My name is the Doctor,' the Evil One continues. 'And this is my friend…' – he pauses, and looks the woman up and down before turning back to me – '...Norman.'
'Norman?!' says the woman. Her voice has become strained, for some reason.
'What’s wrong with Norman?' demanded the Doctor, turning his back on the girl to face me. 'It’s a perfectly lovely name.'
I gasp, and try to back away. He is the Evil One! He has come to eat me! Oh, why was I so stupid as to try take the Rite before my time? Why? Why? Now I shall die at his hands without ever having hunted a Bemmoth beast and become a warrior!
Well, I shall not go without a fight: I raise my knife, and thrust it at the Evil One’s face.
Suddenly my wrist is hurting worse than ever I can remember, and my knife is juddering to a halt, embedded halfway to its hilt in the bark of a tree. The woman lowers the foot that has just kicked me, and stares at me sternly.
'Do not try that again, Leela!' she says to me.
I gasp. 'How do you know who I am?' But of course, I see the answer straight away. He is the Evil One, and she is his servant. And I am the youngest and best warrior of the Sevateem – their most dreaded enemy, undoubtedly. They would have been stalking me for months. Years! They know all about me!
'We know all about you, Leela,' the Evil One says.
See? Told you, didn’t I?
'My name is the Doctor,' the Evil One continues. 'And this is my friend…' – he pauses, and looks the woman up and down before turning back to me – '...Norman.'
'Norman?!' says the woman. Her voice has become strained, for some reason.
~~
'What’s wrong with Norman?' demanded the Doctor, turning his back on the girl to face me. 'It’s a perfectly lovely name.'
'It is not my name,' I replied. 'I am…'
'…Norman,' the Doctor interrupted. 'We wouldn’t want to corrupt the time lines, would we? So in front of little Leela here…' – the girl bristled at being described as little – '…your name is Norman. Or how about Archbishop Beneficio ffizz-ffizz McPackington the Third? Yes, I rather like that. Anyway, you can choose.'
The house-mother always told me, when you are angry, count to many before saying something you regret. So I counted. One. Some. Many.
'My name,' I said through gritted teeth, 'is Norman.'
~~
The woman whose name is Norman comes towards me again, and roughly takes me by the arms.
'What are you doing here?' she demands. 'The hour is late. You should be sleeping in your cot in the child-house.'
'Why don’t you tell me what I’m doing here?' I shout at her, fear and loathing masked as defiance. 'You know all about me, after all!'
'Yes, Norman,' says the Evil One. 'Why do you think she’s here?' And as he says it, he takes a strange metal wand from his pocket and points it at the two of us. It makes blue fire, and hums like a Stingfly. I do not like it and try to pull away, but the woman holds me back.
Suddenly, a look of realisation crosses her face. 'The Rite!' she says. 'The Rite of Adulthood! It is that night!'
'Interesting…' says the Evil One, examining the wand. He looks up at the woman. 'What night?'
'This foolish girl,' Norman says, shaking me roughly once more, 'is due to undertake the Rite of Adulthood tomorrow. Hunt a pretend Bemmoth beast. Be called an adult, and hopefully start becoming one.'
'What do you mean, a pretend Bemmoth beast?!' I demand.
'You don’t think we’d make you face a real one, do you?' the woman scowls, shaking me again. 'That’s just a story for the younglings! A piece of make believe!' She sees that I do not trust her words. 'It is a rite, a ritual,' she explains, 'not a real hunt. It is Tomas’s father in a skin.'
Now I know she is lying. I almost laugh. Tomas’s father in a skin! Does she take me for a simpleton?
'Oh, Xoanon!' the woman says at the disbelieving sneer on my face. 'You think it’s real, don’t you? You think that the hunt is real, that to become a warrior you must face a real Bemmoth beast!' She turns to the Evil One, her face unfathomably one of shock. 'Doctor, I remember now! I… that girl, that stupid, stupid girl, has come out here to get herself killed!'
~~
The realisation hit me like a fist. I remembered. Remembered being the very girl now standing in front of me, so superior, so sure of her own abilities.
And I remembered my hatred of the housemother, slipping out in the night, going on my first hunt. I’ll show them – that’s what I had thought at the time. Show them that I was a warrior, an adult. Show them I could hunt and kill a Bemmoth beast on its own territory in the middle of the night, without even the aid of the hunting drums. Show them they were wrong to ever doubt me.
Show them I was vain and arrogant and ignorant and far too much of a liability ever to be allowed beyond the village walls, let alone become a warrior: that was the reality. Oh, how could I have been so very, very stupid? It was suicide!
And I remembered pushing through the jungle, searching the night for Bemmoth beasts. And I remembered…I remembered…
But I could not remember. My memories held nothing else!
'Doctor!' I said. 'I have forgotten what happens next. To Lee…to the girl! I cannot remember! What is happening?'
The Doctor was examining his sonic screwdriver again, his face frowning in deep concentration. 'Hm?' he asked, absently. 'Well, that would be the temporal inversion. Reality is in a bit of a state of flux, you see. What happens next, whatever path is taken, hasn’t really happened yet at all.' He looked up at me, and grinned, and the madness of his face was, this time, somehow reassuring. 'I think the way forward is rather up to you!'
I knew what had to be done, of course. The girl Leela had to be taken back to the village, to the house-mother. A backside red-raw from a beating and latrine duty for a month, that was what she needed now. Is that what had happened to me? It felt like maybe it had.
I crouched in front of the child and used my most soothing voice. Taking her arms more gently this time, I said: 'Leela, we are here to help you. Let us take you back to the village, where you’ll be safe.'
The girl looked doubtful. But she was tired and fed up and secretly wanted to return, I think. She did not struggle or disagree.
'Well done, Norman,' the Doctor said, looking once again at the sonic screwdriver. 'The temporal inversion is lessening, it seems. I think your instincts are right.'
I smiled at the child again, and straightened up. 'Come along,' I said. 'Let us return. There will be plenty of time for the Rite next year.'
The wrong thing to say! The girl immediately scowled, and roughly pulled her arms from my hands. Hit me across the face with more strength than a girl her age should have so that I went flying to the ground, pulled her knife from the tree, and…
…and I run! And run! Away from the clearing, from the Evil One and his servant Norman! Away from their lies and temptations! Away!
I hear their calls behind me. Norman shouting my name in desperation as she squelches through the trees after me. The Evil One ranting at his servant as he follows her, using words I do not understand: 'temporal inversion', 'reality flux', 'corruption of the timelines'. And then words I do: 'If we don’t get her back, the whole planet will be destroyed!'
I smile to myself. I always knew I was special.
And I run!
'Come on, Leela!' the Doctor said, running past me at a pace of which I did not think he was capable. One hand was on his head, holding his hat in place; the other pumping at the air as he ran. It would have been a comical sight, had his urgency not been so transparent.
I, too, ran, the pair of us following the path that the girl had smashed through the undergrowth. She really was a poor warrior, making no effort to hide her tracks or lessen the noise that she made. But she was fast. I would give her that. Fleet as a Springbeast.
I felt strangely proud.
'We will catch her, Doctor,' I said. 'Soon! I promise!'
'Good!' he shouted back over his shoulder. He looked down to examine his sonic screwdriver, nearly crashing into a Joplin tree as he did so. 'Because the inversion is growing exponentially again! Soon may not be soon enough! We need to make sure she’s safe!'
He put on another burst of speed – how a man of his size and clumsiness could do it, I still cannot fathom, but do it he did – and pushed on after the girl. Then his foot caught in a vine, and he fell heavily to the ground. I ran past him, my mission too urgent to see that he were all right. If anyone were going to save the girl now, it would have to be me.
Suddenly, from up ahead, came the sound I had been dreading. A screech, a shriek of hate, a sickening, blood curdling, double-voiced snarl of rage and defiance. The roar of a Bemmoth beast!
And then, the scream of a child.
~~
It…
it is a beast! A Bemmoth beast! I stop, stock still in my tracks,
staring up at it. It twists both its necks towards me, its blind
heads searching me out with the echoes of its furious, hellish
chatter. The steel-spined foliage of one of its limbs thrusts at me,
missing my face by a finger’s width. Its maws spring wide,
revealing row after row of razor teeth. It roars again, then makes
another series of rasping clicks as it searches for me.
I scream.
Why? Why did I scream? Xoanon, I’m meant to be a warrior! I’m meant to be hunting this creature, not calling it to me like a petrified prey-beast awaiting its end. I screamed?! It will eat me now, and I shall deserve it!
I cannot move. I am shaking, and I cannot move. The beast’s necks snake its heads towards me, jaws open wide to consume me whole. My fingers are numb. I drop my knife. Tears well in my eyes and my whole body quakes. I hear the sound of whimpers, like a Spine weasel kitten that has lost its mother: I think they must be coming from me.
Suddenly, another roar. Another beast? A rival? No! There, at the side of the clearing, is the woman whose name is Norman. She is crouched like a hunter, a knife in her hands, and her mouth is open wide as she tries to mimic the beast’s call.
She is distracting it! Why? Why would the Evil One’s servant endanger herself to save me?
What else could I have done?
The girl was petrified, and unable to move. And the Bemmoth beast was almost upon her, the echoes of its enraged clicking having shown it exactly where she was. There was nothing else for me to do but use the skill that Tomas and I had learned together: one of us would distract the beast with its own call, and the other would kill it.
If only Tomas were here!
I hefted my blade, and called to the beast – not a good call, but enough. It turned towards me, roaring again in rage and searching me out, its interest in the girl having waned now that a rival was nearby. I called again.
The lumbering creature thundered across the clearing towards me, its necks twisting and heads snarling. I lifted my knife again, ready to thrust it into the beast’s liver… when suddenly, the Doctor limped into the clearing.
'Ah, that’s the way, Norman!' he called to me. 'Keeping her safe! Good, good!'
'No!' I snarled in frustration as the beast turned away from me to this new distraction. The Doctor backed slowly away from it, a look of shock and fear on his face, as it turned and lumbered towards him instead, clicking its deadly, blind search.
'I almost had it!' I shouted. 'And you… gah!' Honestly, if the creature did not get to him first, I was ready to finish the Doctor myself. I roared again, trying to get the beast’s attention, but it was no good: its only interest now was that infuriating man, the thorn in both our sides.
I turned my knife and held it by the blade, ready to throw it at the creature’s hide in an effort to slay it which would undoubtedly fail. But it seemed to know my intention: almost leisurely, it swiped a spined branch at me, knocking the weapon from my hand and me to the ground.
In desperation, from my prone position I roared a final time. Anything to get its attention to me. It partially worked. One head pulled away from the other, its neck twisting towards me and its jaws wide, the rows of teeth glistening. It drew back and high, ready to slam down and take me.
I am ashamed to say that I closed my eyes. If this were the end, I would not see it. The last thing I heard was the beast’s roar again, furious and enraged. And then a clump, as if the sound of a mighty tree falling.
I opened my eyes once more.
And I hack and stab and cut and thrust and slash and chop and cry and cry and cry…
Before me, the Bemmoth beast lay dead, sprawled across the floor of the clearing. One of its heads was as close to me as the span of a hand. The other stretched towards the clearing’s far side, where the Doctor was holding onto the trunk of a tree for support, fear and relief mingled on his face.
Astride the dead beast’s carcass, to my surprise, sat the girl. She was still petrified – white as a sheet and shaking like a leaf – but her knife was in her hand, and she stabbed at the creature for all she was worth, again and again and again.
She had been lucky, I saw: the beast’s heads distracted and splayed, she had managed to plunge the toy blade into the soft place between its necks with the first blow, and penetrate to its liver. Death had been instant for the creature – and had she not achieved that, I am sure that death would have been instant for her.
I saw also that she had learned the first lesson of warrior-hood: that it is a terrible, terrible thing. She was sobbing uncontrollably.
I went to her, took the knife from her quaking hands, and put my arms around her. Around Leela.
Later, I crouched, glumly, by the doors of the Tardis. Across the clearing from me, too far to hear, the Doctor was talking solemnly to the girl. To Leela. To me.
He took something golden, hanging from a chain, from his pocket, and gently swung it in front of the girl’s eyes. Slowly, I saw her body slump to the ground. The Doctor crossed back to me.
'She’s sleeping,' he said. 'I think it’ll do her good.'