Timewyrm: Revelation
What do people think about poor Fivey's treatment by the Seventh Doctor's screwed up mind in this?
The Timewrym series is a set of four New Adventures books which are, from my skim reading and wikipedia assessment, quite weird. However I do like the last one "Timewyrm: Revelation" by Paul Cornell, which examines the Doctor's mind and what happens to his previous selves after their time is up. The Timewyrm is mucking the Doctor's head up for reasons I can't entirely remember and Ace ends up having to travel into his mind to try to sort things out, harrassed by a childhood bully. The First Doctor is a librarian looking for a perfect flower, the Third is a prisoner of his own nightmares and the Fourth is a rather obtuse ferryman. The Second appeared in a previous book and the Sixth is locked in a room somewhere in accordance with the whole Seven-killed-him-off-early idea. Ooh and there's everyone the Doctor feels guilty for killing/letting die hanging around as ghosts too - including flamey-exploding!Adric.
But poor Fivey seems to have it worse as he was opposed to whatever scheming the Seventh Doctor was up to in his Timewyrm-induced confused state, so he ended up tied to a tree and perpetually tortured. Ace cuts him down so he can go and pick the perfect flower to take back to the First Doctor, and that along with whatever Seven was up to sorts the whole problem out.
I've included the text of the Fivey-part here for those who haven't read it:
***
She had seen it from a long distance, the Tree. A gigantic ash. Its shape filled the sky. It grew upwards as far as the eye could see, its branches seeming to meld into the darkness.
Overhead, a storm was brewing.
This was the root of the Doctor's self. Everything else, all he was or wanted to be, was built on the upper branches of this tree.
And there was somebody tied to the thing.
Ace ran closer, feeling a knot of fear form in her gut. She stared up at the captive in disbelief.
It was a young man. He had hair that might once have been fair, had it not been smeared with blood and dirt. His white clothes were in tatters. His eyes were closed.
A wound had been inflicted on him, a great incision in his side, and round his throat were the burn marks of savage strangulation. His mouth was white with lack of blood, and he wheezed as if every intake of breath was an effort.
Above the man, the three runes that Ace had recognized as the Doctor's signature were carved on the tree, brought together as one sign.
She got the awful feeling that this was his handiwork.
The man's arms were tied back around the trunk, and his feet dangled inches from the ground. His whole expression was one of pain. He blinked as Ace approached.
"Don't . . . come any closer. Save yourself," he whispered through clenched teeth. His voice high-pitched with agony.
"No," replied Ace, shocked. "I'm Ace, I'm here to rescue you."
Then she noticed something else.
In front of the tree grew a flower. It was a tiny thing, but quite astonishing. It was some way between a rose and a daisy, and, well, everything else you could think of. A mixture of grand design and simplicity, its petals shone with multicoloured life. Their edges were intricate, and Ace couldn't quite see where their tiny folds ended. Fractal. Right.
Ace knew, in that moment, that this was the whole torment of the Doctor's conscience, to be aware of this perfect flower, to remember it from a single glimpse, long ago, but to be unable to touch it.
She drew her sword, intending to cut the dirty cords that held the man in place.
A rasping hiss came from the branches of the tree.
Sliding down the trunk came the thick trunk of a gleaming metal snake, it eyes flashing with dark intelligence. The Timewyrm.
"Yes," the Wyrm whispered. "I am here. I fell here from the bridge. I am consuming the Doctor faster than ever, playing on his every doubt and fear. Do you know the meaning of the storm forming overhead, Ace?"
"No." Ace didn't really want to play games, here, but information was always useful. Her younger self would have attacked the snake instantly, but she knew now that a real warrior doesn't just leap in and bash away. There really weren't, now she searched for them, as many memories in her mind as there should be, but a sense of self remained, a comforting strength. She looked the snake in the eye. "So tell me."
"That storm is the Doctor gathering his mental energy. He intends to crush us all out of existence, to erase the Timewyrm data and everything else alien in his brain. That includes you."
"Yeah?" Ace felt a tremble inside, but her sword didn't flinch. "Go ahead, Professor."
"But it won't work," the Wyrm laughed, hissing over its new teeth. "I am not simply a foreign datum, to be wiped from the Doctor's memory. I am part of his mind now. I am integral with his experiences. I have read all his memories, and become part of them, also. He has fought me and will fight me wherever he goes. Even if the actual Timewyrm virus is extinguished, here, in the deepest pits of the Doctor's mind, his guilt will construct me once more from his awful memories. He will use me to punish himself for your death. Ah, I planned deeply and right!"
"God, Doctor," muttered Ace to the sky, "why did you have to get so screwed up?" This nightmare just went on and on.
Death might be quite welcome, compared to the endless coils of this creature. She turned to it once more. "What if I free this bloke?"
"You will not," smiled the Timewyrm. "Boyle-" Chad Boyle stepped from behind the Tree.
Oh yeah, thought Ace. He'd fallen too, hadn't he? Carrying the Timewyrm in his head. Great.
The little boy was grinning as always. He was covered in spiked armour, shiny and pristine, almost a humanoid approximation of the Timewyrm's snakeform. He carried a vast axe, its edge razor sharp. "Hello again, Dotty," he laughed. "Isn't this a great game? Won't it ever stop?" There was a strange edge of hysteria to his voice, as if that was a question he'd been asking himself.
Ace raised her sword. In doing so, she felt that awful draining of age and experience again, her future flooding away. With every year that flew off her, she wanted to lunge at Boyle more, to spill his blood.
"Go on!" the bully chided. "Use your sword! Try and take my life!"
The years were flying away, and Ace knew that this must be the wrong thing to do, that killing Boyle here would mean the Timewyrm would win, and wipe her from history. But it was so hard. It was what the Cheetah People would do, what a soldier would do, what the Doctor -
No. She lowered the sword, and felt the power and grace of experience return to her.
"You're a little boy," she said to Boyle. "And you don't know better. But I do."
Ace lifted the sword and broke it over her knee, throwing aside the pieces. Then she advanced on Boyle.
The child backed away, stammering. "That's not what you're supposed to do. You're not playing the game! You're not obeying the rules!"
Ace quietly took the axe from the scared boy, and pulled the helmet from his shoulders. "No. I'm not. Life isn't about games." She reached the tree, and glared at the snake.
The Timewyrm was looking around, as if trying to marshal non-existent forces. Ace raised her axe to cut down the Tree's prisoner.
"Please don't," cried the Timewyrm desperately. "I want to live, too. Ishtar doesn't want to die. Please!"
Perhaps only a year ago, Ace would have said something pithy and grinned at the destruction of an enemy that had put her through so much torment. Now she only nodded. "That's something else that the Doctor got wrong. Something you'll have to take up with him."
She carefully undid the binding that held the blond man to the Tree. He fell into her arms, his eyes wet with tears of relief.
"Hello," he whispered up at Ace. "I'm the Doctor, or rather I was, a long time ago." He attempted to stand, but found that he couldn't. Ace supported him. "I wanted a place to play cricket, you see, a sunny glade and a pot of tea, but he wouldn't let me. We were at war, he said." The old Doctor's voice was full of injured innocence. "And we were all needed. The other Doctors all co-operated to some extent, but I - I objected." He stared at the landscape all around, as if seeing it for the first time.
"That's what I call being brave," muttered Ace.
"Perhaps. It wasn't his fault he imprisoned me . . . he couldn't help it. Now," the fifth Doctor's voice hardened, "there's something that I have to do. Help me to the flower."
The Timewyrm and Boyle looked on in terror as Ace put the young Doctor's arm over her shoulder, and stumbled with him towards the bloom.
Above, the storm was gathering strength.
Supported by Ace, the fifth Doctor reached out, his hand closing on the stem of the flower. "I remembered what it was that you had lost, Doctor," he sighed. Then his voice became harder, more determined. "Now I return it to you."
The fifth Doctor picked the flower, and smiled a triumphant smile. Somewhere, a vast sigh was heard and a group of tormented figures faded into the dear country of nostalgia and fond memory.
The exploding boy and his friends were no more, and they rejoiced in it as they departed.
The blond Doctor stood straight, his wounds healing, and looked about him with a new vigour, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"I'd better take this to where it can do most good," he muttered, glancing at the flower that he had placed in his buttonhole. "I'd say brave heart -" he glanced at Ace and smiled a lovely, honest smile, which faded into a strange sort of puzzled frown. "But I think you have one anyway."
And with that he was gone, a vision fading on the warm breeze that was gathering across the wasteland. Ace found herself smiling also. On the distant horizon of the Pit, dawn was coming.
(bit later)
In a rose garden, the first Doctor gazed down at the perfect bloom that the fifth Doctor had brought him. The Sarlain. It had taken well to the garden, and the old Doctor smiled and nodded. This was the bloom that he had been trying to cultivate for so long.
The younger Doctor smiled, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and stood up from where he had been squatting, admiring the flower.
"Well, I must get on," he smiled. "There's the ground to prepare, and I have to get my old bat out of storage. It's good to be out and about again. Will you be there for the match?"
"Of course," giggled the old man, clutching the lapel of his scarlet Prydonian robes. "I have always been there for the game."
***
So yes - any thoughts? Fivey being the conscience of the other Doctors? Him being the only one to object to the Seventh Doctor's screwy schemes? Everyone being so wedded to torturing the poor dear that even his other selves do it to him? Doctor/Doctor bondage really being that canon?
The Timewrym series is a set of four New Adventures books which are, from my skim reading and wikipedia assessment, quite weird. However I do like the last one "Timewyrm: Revelation" by Paul Cornell, which examines the Doctor's mind and what happens to his previous selves after their time is up. The Timewyrm is mucking the Doctor's head up for reasons I can't entirely remember and Ace ends up having to travel into his mind to try to sort things out, harrassed by a childhood bully. The First Doctor is a librarian looking for a perfect flower, the Third is a prisoner of his own nightmares and the Fourth is a rather obtuse ferryman. The Second appeared in a previous book and the Sixth is locked in a room somewhere in accordance with the whole Seven-killed-him-off-early idea. Ooh and there's everyone the Doctor feels guilty for killing/letting die hanging around as ghosts too - including flamey-exploding!Adric.
But poor Fivey seems to have it worse as he was opposed to whatever scheming the Seventh Doctor was up to in his Timewyrm-induced confused state, so he ended up tied to a tree and perpetually tortured. Ace cuts him down so he can go and pick the perfect flower to take back to the First Doctor, and that along with whatever Seven was up to sorts the whole problem out.
I've included the text of the Fivey-part here for those who haven't read it:
***
She had seen it from a long distance, the Tree. A gigantic ash. Its shape filled the sky. It grew upwards as far as the eye could see, its branches seeming to meld into the darkness.
Overhead, a storm was brewing.
This was the root of the Doctor's self. Everything else, all he was or wanted to be, was built on the upper branches of this tree.
And there was somebody tied to the thing.
Ace ran closer, feeling a knot of fear form in her gut. She stared up at the captive in disbelief.
It was a young man. He had hair that might once have been fair, had it not been smeared with blood and dirt. His white clothes were in tatters. His eyes were closed.
A wound had been inflicted on him, a great incision in his side, and round his throat were the burn marks of savage strangulation. His mouth was white with lack of blood, and he wheezed as if every intake of breath was an effort.
Above the man, the three runes that Ace had recognized as the Doctor's signature were carved on the tree, brought together as one sign.
She got the awful feeling that this was his handiwork.
The man's arms were tied back around the trunk, and his feet dangled inches from the ground. His whole expression was one of pain. He blinked as Ace approached.
"Don't . . . come any closer. Save yourself," he whispered through clenched teeth. His voice high-pitched with agony.
"No," replied Ace, shocked. "I'm Ace, I'm here to rescue you."
Then she noticed something else.
In front of the tree grew a flower. It was a tiny thing, but quite astonishing. It was some way between a rose and a daisy, and, well, everything else you could think of. A mixture of grand design and simplicity, its petals shone with multicoloured life. Their edges were intricate, and Ace couldn't quite see where their tiny folds ended. Fractal. Right.
Ace knew, in that moment, that this was the whole torment of the Doctor's conscience, to be aware of this perfect flower, to remember it from a single glimpse, long ago, but to be unable to touch it.
She drew her sword, intending to cut the dirty cords that held the man in place.
A rasping hiss came from the branches of the tree.
Sliding down the trunk came the thick trunk of a gleaming metal snake, it eyes flashing with dark intelligence. The Timewyrm.
"Yes," the Wyrm whispered. "I am here. I fell here from the bridge. I am consuming the Doctor faster than ever, playing on his every doubt and fear. Do you know the meaning of the storm forming overhead, Ace?"
"No." Ace didn't really want to play games, here, but information was always useful. Her younger self would have attacked the snake instantly, but she knew now that a real warrior doesn't just leap in and bash away. There really weren't, now she searched for them, as many memories in her mind as there should be, but a sense of self remained, a comforting strength. She looked the snake in the eye. "So tell me."
"That storm is the Doctor gathering his mental energy. He intends to crush us all out of existence, to erase the Timewyrm data and everything else alien in his brain. That includes you."
"Yeah?" Ace felt a tremble inside, but her sword didn't flinch. "Go ahead, Professor."
"But it won't work," the Wyrm laughed, hissing over its new teeth. "I am not simply a foreign datum, to be wiped from the Doctor's memory. I am part of his mind now. I am integral with his experiences. I have read all his memories, and become part of them, also. He has fought me and will fight me wherever he goes. Even if the actual Timewyrm virus is extinguished, here, in the deepest pits of the Doctor's mind, his guilt will construct me once more from his awful memories. He will use me to punish himself for your death. Ah, I planned deeply and right!"
"God, Doctor," muttered Ace to the sky, "why did you have to get so screwed up?" This nightmare just went on and on.
Death might be quite welcome, compared to the endless coils of this creature. She turned to it once more. "What if I free this bloke?"
"You will not," smiled the Timewyrm. "Boyle-" Chad Boyle stepped from behind the Tree.
Oh yeah, thought Ace. He'd fallen too, hadn't he? Carrying the Timewyrm in his head. Great.
The little boy was grinning as always. He was covered in spiked armour, shiny and pristine, almost a humanoid approximation of the Timewyrm's snakeform. He carried a vast axe, its edge razor sharp. "Hello again, Dotty," he laughed. "Isn't this a great game? Won't it ever stop?" There was a strange edge of hysteria to his voice, as if that was a question he'd been asking himself.
Ace raised her sword. In doing so, she felt that awful draining of age and experience again, her future flooding away. With every year that flew off her, she wanted to lunge at Boyle more, to spill his blood.
"Go on!" the bully chided. "Use your sword! Try and take my life!"
The years were flying away, and Ace knew that this must be the wrong thing to do, that killing Boyle here would mean the Timewyrm would win, and wipe her from history. But it was so hard. It was what the Cheetah People would do, what a soldier would do, what the Doctor -
No. She lowered the sword, and felt the power and grace of experience return to her.
"You're a little boy," she said to Boyle. "And you don't know better. But I do."
Ace lifted the sword and broke it over her knee, throwing aside the pieces. Then she advanced on Boyle.
The child backed away, stammering. "That's not what you're supposed to do. You're not playing the game! You're not obeying the rules!"
Ace quietly took the axe from the scared boy, and pulled the helmet from his shoulders. "No. I'm not. Life isn't about games." She reached the tree, and glared at the snake.
The Timewyrm was looking around, as if trying to marshal non-existent forces. Ace raised her axe to cut down the Tree's prisoner.
"Please don't," cried the Timewyrm desperately. "I want to live, too. Ishtar doesn't want to die. Please!"
Perhaps only a year ago, Ace would have said something pithy and grinned at the destruction of an enemy that had put her through so much torment. Now she only nodded. "That's something else that the Doctor got wrong. Something you'll have to take up with him."
She carefully undid the binding that held the blond man to the Tree. He fell into her arms, his eyes wet with tears of relief.
"Hello," he whispered up at Ace. "I'm the Doctor, or rather I was, a long time ago." He attempted to stand, but found that he couldn't. Ace supported him. "I wanted a place to play cricket, you see, a sunny glade and a pot of tea, but he wouldn't let me. We were at war, he said." The old Doctor's voice was full of injured innocence. "And we were all needed. The other Doctors all co-operated to some extent, but I - I objected." He stared at the landscape all around, as if seeing it for the first time.
"That's what I call being brave," muttered Ace.
"Perhaps. It wasn't his fault he imprisoned me . . . he couldn't help it. Now," the fifth Doctor's voice hardened, "there's something that I have to do. Help me to the flower."
The Timewyrm and Boyle looked on in terror as Ace put the young Doctor's arm over her shoulder, and stumbled with him towards the bloom.
Above, the storm was gathering strength.
Supported by Ace, the fifth Doctor reached out, his hand closing on the stem of the flower. "I remembered what it was that you had lost, Doctor," he sighed. Then his voice became harder, more determined. "Now I return it to you."
The fifth Doctor picked the flower, and smiled a triumphant smile. Somewhere, a vast sigh was heard and a group of tormented figures faded into the dear country of nostalgia and fond memory.
The exploding boy and his friends were no more, and they rejoiced in it as they departed.
The blond Doctor stood straight, his wounds healing, and looked about him with a new vigour, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"I'd better take this to where it can do most good," he muttered, glancing at the flower that he had placed in his buttonhole. "I'd say brave heart -" he glanced at Ace and smiled a lovely, honest smile, which faded into a strange sort of puzzled frown. "But I think you have one anyway."
And with that he was gone, a vision fading on the warm breeze that was gathering across the wasteland. Ace found herself smiling also. On the distant horizon of the Pit, dawn was coming.
(bit later)
In a rose garden, the first Doctor gazed down at the perfect bloom that the fifth Doctor had brought him. The Sarlain. It had taken well to the garden, and the old Doctor smiled and nodded. This was the bloom that he had been trying to cultivate for so long.
The younger Doctor smiled, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and stood up from where he had been squatting, admiring the flower.
"Well, I must get on," he smiled. "There's the ground to prepare, and I have to get my old bat out of storage. It's good to be out and about again. Will you be there for the match?"
"Of course," giggled the old man, clutching the lapel of his scarlet Prydonian robes. "I have always been there for the game."
***
So yes - any thoughts? Fivey being the conscience of the other Doctors? Him being the only one to object to the Seventh Doctor's screwy schemes? Everyone being so wedded to torturing the poor dear that even his other selves do it to him? Doctor/Doctor bondage really being that canon?