Song of the Mirror Maker, Chapter Five
Upon the next morning, Rose was woken up by muffled voices in the next room. She stifled a yawn and walked to the edge of her bedroom, peering through a slight crack in the door. She heard the voice of the servant who had been helping Theta the night before, and then saw her setting down a large tray of food.
“I don’t care if you’re not hungry!” the old woman was saying heatedly. “You’ve got to eat! How are you supposed to run the kingdom on an empty stomach!”
She blew out an exasperated breath as the Time Lord took a tiny bite of egg and gritted his teeth.
“It’s a start!” she conceded grumpily. “Hurry up and finish the rest before I come back. Don’t forget Princess Kali is coming this afternoon! You don’t want to miss your bride-to-be, do you?”
Theta choked on his juice and waved the servant away.
“Yes, THANK YOU Mrs. Atta!” he said bitingly. “I’ll call you back by the bell pull when I’m ready. Please leave me in peace UNTIL then!”
The old woman sniffed in offence and slammed the door behind her while Theta was left to clean up the mess he had made down his front.
“Just great,” he said under his breath. He didn’t even notice Rose had come out of her bedroom and was looking expectantly at him.
“Rose!” he said in surprise when he looked up. “Are you…what’s wrong?”
The look of hurt on her face was palpable.
“S’nothing,” she stammered before looking down at her hands. “I just…didn’t know you were engaged is all. I guess that's why the castle's all done up then? And why the Inquisitor kept going on about nuptials when I first arrived...”
She tried to cover her flushing cheeks by letting her hair fall forward, but she wasn’t fooling him.
“My…upcoming marriage,” Theta started. “A political contrivance to unite the two realms. It’s um…been difficult to orchestrate. Been in the works for a long time. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I don’t see why you would have,” Rose said bluntly. “You’ve been pretty occupied with more important things…like getting stabbed by a possible doppleganger spy and everything.”
She flashed him a real smile and Theta felt a frost melting from around his heart.
“Yeah,” he agreed with a grin of his own. “There was that. Look, it doesn’t mean…”
Rose cut him off with the wave of her hand as she sat down in an overstuffed chair next to his bed and began to pick off his breakfast tray.
“It’s none of my business,” she asserted, effectively covering her emotions. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”
She glanced at his face and then looked with more interest at the bacon on his plate. “You gonna eat that?” she managed to say casually.
The Overlord smirked and pushed the food toward her, charmed by her artless intimacy, even though they had only really known each other for a few days.
“If I wasn’t hungry before, I’ve definitely lost my appetite now,” he said dryly as he thought about his afternoon meeting.
He groaned and rubbed at his face anxiously.
“Maybe I can beg off...pretend to be sick or something,” he muttered to himself.
Rose chewed a bite of toast and washed it down with a cup of hot tea.
“You don’t want to see your fiancé?” she asked curiously.
Theta threw one of his light cotton sheets over his head and moaned.
“Of course not,” he whined. “She’s a nightmare!”
Rose laughed into her drink and nearly spilled it on the floor. Why did that make her so delighted, and just a little bit lightheaded?
“She can’t be that bad,” Rose said, picking up the edge of the sheet and peeking under it.
His eyes met hers and softened before squinting wickedly.
“I assure you she’s a complete beast,” he replied as he yanked the sheet back over his head.
Rose burst out laughing and had to hold her sides to keep from falling out of her chair. When she was finally able to get control of herself and straighten up, she saw Theta had come out of his hiding place and was smiling manically at her, a perfect replica of her Doctor.
She sobered up at the thought and wiped a tear away from her eye distractedly, feeling her heart skip more than a few beats.
“I’ve missed your laugh,” Theta confessed. He let his head fall back onto the pillow heavily and sighed. “I’ve missed a lot of things,” he added under his breath as he stared at the fingers on her hand as if yearning to hold them.
Rose ducked her head at the sentiment, suddenly shy.
Theta sighed again and squeezed his eyes shut, allowing Rose to marvel at the black glitter on his heavy lids. The play of the sparkles in the light fascinated her.
“How do you keep your makeup on?” she asked unbidden.
Theta turned to look at her in astonishment. “Makeup?” he asked. “What makeup?”
“Around your eyes,” Rose said obviously. “You’ve got glitter all over you. I’m just surprised it hasn’t smeared off yet.”
She leaned back in her chair as he leveled a straight look at her.
“This is not makeup,” he said a bit defensively. “This is the mark of the Gleissen. You stay here long enough and you’ll get it too.”
Rose pursed her lips. “Mark of the Gleissen? What does that mean?”
The Doctor straightened up and groaned heavily as he pushed himself up out of the bed. He checked the bandage around his torso before walking past Rose and over to a tall wardrobe.
“It’s from the legend,” he said distractedly. “Saman supposedly sang the Gleissen into being after he broke the magic mirror and divided the realms.”
“Yeah,” Rose conceded, “but what does that mean? He ‘sang the Gleissen’ into being?”
“Oh,” Theta said as he popped his head back out of the wardrobe. He had pulled a dark gray tunic out with him and threw it over his head as he gingerly raised his arms. Rose could tell he was in a lot of pain, but he was trying to hide it.
“Well, Saman was the most powerful wizard who ever lived. It literally only took a song to bring things to life. As for why he did it… He knew that breaking his mirror would ultimately be the best option to safeguard the kingdom, to keep any one person from consolidating all that power, but he also knew that in doing so, he would destabilize it and create new, unforeseen dangers. The Gleissen were one way of controlling the kingdoms and providing security. They were in essence, created to guard the realms and their inhabitants.”
“That’s why they work for you now?” Rose asked.
“They work for me and King Zeta,” Theta admitted as he secured a jeweled belt around his waist. “It’s relative to which realm they are in. There’s an equal amount of Gleissen in each kingdom.”
“And this explains the glitter how?” Rose added with the wave of her hand.
The Overlord winced as he donned his heavy leather cape.
“Another safeguard,” he answered. “The Gleissen can only be effective if the subjects of each realm are subordinate to their rule. The glitter, as you call it, is a genetic adaptation that allows the Gleissen to tap into each person and wield a certain amount of control over them. We call it the Gleiss.”
“That’s a frightening thought,” Rose said worriedly. “What if they turn on you?”
“They can’t,” Theta said seriously. “It’s not even a possibility. Saman was very precise with how he created them. They work strictly for the good of the realms, and have no interest in taking over or starting a coup, all that political rot. They’re completely separate from our society."
Rose mulled that thought over while Theta pulled on a pair of heavy black boots.
“I should go,” he said regretfully. “Hopefully it won’t take too long. I’m sure Kali just wants to make sure she’ll be getting a sizeable dowry for her creep brother. Ugh. Look, stay in the spare room and don’t move while I’m gone. I don’t want to take any chances of you being found out in my absence.”
“Wait,” Rose said as she held up a staying hand. “Why don’t you just call your guards off, and tell them I’m innocent?”
Theta lowered his head and stared at the floor.
“I can’t,” he said with mild exasperation. “This goes beyond me to national security. You’ve been identified as a threat to the realm.”
Rose raised her eyebrows in shock.
“I have the Gleiss,” he said as he indicated to the black around his eyes. “So even I have limits under the ultimate control of the Gleissen, at least on these matters.”
He risked a glance up into her worried eyes and winced. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But if the guards find you, they will...dispose of you. You understand now why it’s important that you stay put. I’ll leave instructions that no one is to disturb my room of convalescence, just in case.”
Rose shook her head in assent and watched him take his leave silently. She backed up until her calves hit the mattress, and she sat down hard. She stared down at her fingers, which had gone anxiously numb. She started to wonder how the Gleissen carried out their executions, but then quickly shoved the grotesque thought away. There was a question she didn’t want answered, especially if it came by way of experience.
She stared hard at the door that had closed behind the Overlord, feeling trapped and frightened and useless, all at once. She also realized that she hadn’t confessed what she’d overheard the previous night, and now he was out there, exposed to the betrayal of his own servants. She bit her lip hard and pulled nervously at her hair. If only there was something she could do to help. She felt her eyes going back to the hidden wall, as if to tell her brain something that it was so desperately missing.
“Oh,” she said aloud.
A slight grin spread across her face. This Doctor really didn’t know her at all, did he?
After running into the third dead end, Rose started to doubt this was a good idea. She glanced down at her soiled hands, her ripped jeans, and her cobweb-tangled hair, all generally supportive of this argument. She frowned as she sucked in her breath and made a three-quarter turn in the narrow passageway. The only choice was to go back the way she had come…if she could remember what that was.
She groped her way down the cold masonry walls and shuddered as her fingers passed over scuttling insects. She was actually thankful that she couldn’t see what she was touching. She really didn’t want to know.
She hadn’t gone very far when the murmur of voices began to drift through the heavy stone wall. She followed the sounds until she found herself in a new corridor with low-level light streaming through a small hole in the concrete. She drifted toward it and stood on tip-toe, careful to not make a sound.
“That’s hardly what we initially agreed upon,” a woman said severely.
Rose squinted through and linked the voice to a stunning blonde sitting at an oblong table. She was resting back in her chair, but her fingers dug impatiently into the patent leather arms. A sinister look flashed in her eyes, rimmed with tiny, multicolored stars that sparkled when she shook her head and pouted her perfect lips.
“Kali,” the Overlord’s voice countered. “What we agreed on was precisely these terms, written on this contract, that you’ve already signed.”
Rose gaped at Theta’s bride-to-be, and felt a singular jab of jealousy flicker through her body. The princess was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
“I don’t care what I signed,” Kali spat hatefully as she threw a stack of papers into the air. “I want what I want. Fix this now, or I’ll call the whole wedding off! You can go back to squabbling over lumps of dirt with my brother for all I care.”
She stood and turned her nose in the air and Rose stifled a victorious chuckle. Kali was all the nightmare that Theta had described, and more. Suddenly the jealous feelings receded, and Rose instead felt sorry for the otherwise forboding Overlord.
But then the table shook as Theta stood up with a jerk, letting his chair crash ominously behind him. The retinue of maids that had accompanied Kali gasped in terror as the Overlord rounded the room and bent down, nose to nose with his fiancé.
“You will listen to me. I’ve played these absurd games with you because I am a tolerant and patient man. I am willing to overlook some of these…unpleasant outbursts because I respect your brother and the mission of peace our union could bring to the realms. But do not think for one second that I will tolerate threats of any kind. If you ever do so again, you will not live to see another sun.”
Theta was practically seething with rage, and the effect it had on the obnoxious princess was potent. She shrank before him but retained her snide frown ruefully. It wasn’t until the Overlord had stepped away that she dared to speak.
“No wonder you haven’t found another queen,” she muttered, “it’s a miracle you ever found one to begin with.”
Theta trembled slightly as he approached the doorway, not breaking his fierce concentration on the wall outside the room.
“I think this concludes our meeting,” he said in a strained voice.
The Overlord swept out of the room, seeming to take the very air out with him. The maids surrounding Kali burst into tears the second he was gone, but their princess remained intransigent. Rose watched the woman’s cold eyes pierce into the doorway where Theta had departed. A thin smile spread over her face, turning Rose’s blood cold. What could the devious woman be plotting?
Rose suddenly remembered that she needed to follow Theta and gain his attention if she ever wanted to get out of these catacombs alive. She squeezed back through the narrow passageway and ran down a hall parallel to where Theta had gone. She saw a light ahead and went hopefully toward it, picking up her speed to get there before the Overlord did. Unfortunately, she tripped over a cobbled stone on the floor and went flying into the source of the light, which turned out to be a large canvas covering the opening to the passageway.
Rose came tumbling through the thin painting, creating a horrific ripping noise at the same time that she flew into Theta’s arms. Her momentum was significant enough to send the Overlord crashing down. He blinked in surprise as he stared up into her grubby, dirt-streaked face.
“What?” he demanded in shock. “What?”
Rose expelled a surprised breath and turned her head to survey the damage she’d done. A colossal oil painting of the Overlord was now torn in half. A gaping black hole made itself apparent in the center of his midsection. She turned her eyes back sheepishly and blushed furiously at his outraged expression.
“Er…sorry about your portrait,” she stuttered.
Theta’s grip on her arms tightened. “What the hell were you doing?” he demanded in frustration. “I told you to stay in the room!”
Rose bit her lower lip and was surprised to see the anger melt instantly away from the Overlord’s face as his eyes flicked distractedly to the gesture.
“I um…was trying to make sure you were okay,” she said. “And…having a look about.”
Her latter confession had the astonishing effect of eliciting a reluctant smile from the Overlord, who shifted and pulled her a little bit closer. “I should’ve known you’d get up to something,” he said wickedly. “Never a dull moment with you around.”
Rose pressed her lips together and restrained a huge smile. So he did know what to expect out of her.
Theta winced suddenly and Rose jumped off of him, realizing that he was still hurt from his stab wound.
“Are you alright?” she asked worriedly, pushing his bangs back from his forehead.
His soft brown eyes fluttered up to hers and he grinned boyishly. “Of course. I’m always alright,” he said in an affected masculine voice.
“Of course you are,” she responded in mock belief as she saw a streak of red pooling from under his tunic.
“You’re bleeding!” she cried out in accusation.
“Just a touch,” Theta replied easily, but Rose could see the pain in his eyes.
“We need to get you back to your room,” she stated with concern. “Are we anywhere close?”
The Overlord let Rose pull him up and they stood together.
“Not far at all,” he groaned as she propped him up under his shoulder. “Just do me a favor and pull the curtain over the painting before we leave. Don’t want anyone else wandering through my secret corridors today.”
Rose glanced up and saw the curtain he was talking about, apparently there to protect the portrait from direct sunlight. She helped him into the passageway before pulling the heavy red curtain over the portrait, thus hiding the entry from interested eyes.
Neither of them noticed the shadow that fell across the path behind them, as Hjinn slipped behind the painting and followed them silently.
--
When they had made it back to their private rooms, Rose gently let the Overlord down into his bed. He smiled up mischievously at her even as he winced in pain.
“You are filthy,” he declared with a wrinkled nose.
Rose frowned at him and crossed her arms.
“I was trying to help you,” she reminded him.
The Overlord mimicked her body language and folded his arms over his chest. “And how exactly were you doing that?” he intoned.
Rose lowered her eyes to the floor and shifted her weight conspicuously. “I told you, I was looking out for you. This kingdom of yours is a dangerous place.”
Theta’s voice softened. “That it is,” he agreed, “but what do you know of it?”
Rose sucked in a breath and weighed her options. Either she needed to trust him completely or not at all. This would be the deciding moment.
“Rose,” Theta breathed as his eyes narrowed. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
She nodded slowly and sat down beside him on the bed. “I think someone you trust is going to betray you,” she admitted. “I overheard a conversation yesterday while I was trapped in the wall. It didn’t sound good.”
Theta blinked blankly and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on.”
Rose swallowed nervously and continued.
“The Inquisitor,” she stated, “has claimed to have found the enchanted mirror of Saman and wants to use it against you. He’s double crossing you and Lord Zeta of the other realm, playing you off of each other as he formulates a plot to take over both kingdoms.”
She stared at him evenly, waiting for any kind of response, but it wasn’t forthcoming.
“Theta?” she asked tentatively. “Did you hear me?”
The Overlord twitched and returned his distracted attention to her. “I heard you…I just…”
He trailed off and stared into the corner of the room. Rose reached out and took his hand in hers for the first time. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Theta glanced at her hand before moving up to her eyes, reflecting a grievous sense of betrayal and disbelief.
“You heard him admit this?” Theta asked forcefully.
“Yes,” Rose answered gravely. “There’s no question.”
“Admar is…he was my closest confidant,” he said hollowly. “I don’t have anyone left to trust.”
Rose shook her head and squeezed his hand. “That’s not true,” she insisted. “You have me. You can trust me. And I will help you.”
Theta paled and rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.
“It will come to war,” he whispered. “Darker and more volatile than you can imagine. You must return to your own dimension, Rose Tyler. I must find a way back so that you can be safe!”
Rose gritted her teeth and bared down on him. “If you think for one second that I’m leaving you in the middle of this nightmare, you are dead wrong! The last time you tried to send me away, I ended up stranded in another dimension, separated from you for eternity! You can’t do that to me again!”
Theta grimaced and sat up defiantly. “That wasn’t me,” he argued. “But I’d do the same thing. Again and again and again. To keep you safe. That’s the highest priority.”
Rose huffed in outrage as she retracted her hand from his, but he snatched it back possessively.
“You are not of this realm, Rose Tyler,” he warned, “but everything in it belongs to me; obeys me! Don’t think you’re any different. You are in my domain now. You will abide your Lord.”
His eyes flashed dangerously as he pulled her tightly to him.
Rose struggled to escape his grasp.
“Don’t start that with me!” she shot back. “You might be the Overlord, but you are NOT my Lord! You can’t tell ME what to do! I have my OWN mind and my OWN opinions, and if you think for one second that-“
She was stunned when her tirade was cut short by Theta’s hot lips crushing against her own. She squealed under his attack, but could hardly move when his strong arms locked hers against her sides. He pushed forward until she leaned back, slowly returning the kiss even as she insisted on fighting him for it. When the tip of his tongue pushed into her mouth, she could only emit a moan somewhere in between desperation and desire.
It was then that he pulled back, staring at her with incredulous eyes. As her breaths came out in shallow gasps, Rose met his eyes defiantly, trying to mask her arousal.
“Are you quite finished?” she managed to clip out before standing from his bed reluctantly. Her fists curled at her sides as she glared down at him. “I’m not changing my mind,” she added for good measure.
“Okay,” Theta said dizzily. He sank his fingers into the sheets beside him and tried to center his whirlwind emotions. When she’d been telling him off, she sounded exactly like HIS Rose when she used to get angry. The desire to kiss her had been irresistible, so he hadn't. Something else had taken control, something that he didn't regret for one second, but he was mystified all the same. How did she have this power over him?
“Good!” Rose said huffily as she turned on her heel, bringing the Overlord back to the real world. “I’ll see you in the morning!”
Rose slammed her bedroom door behind her and slumped against it. That kiss had been dangerous, like a fire that threatened to consume her. She had to force herself to stand completely still, fighting the solitary and all-consuming desire to run right back into Theta’s arms, and his bed. Sighing in exasperation, she threw herself down on hers instead.
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