'Fire? Is this...' he searched for a word that would not seem too trivial. 'Relevant?'
'Oh yes. Believe me, yes. Fire killed Gaddis. A creature of fire killed the housekeeper at the Grange. Some sort of molten lava moulded into the flames killed Dobbs.' His voice was like ice. 'It is very relevant.'
They both stared into the flames of the fire in the grate, watched them lick orange, yellow and blue round the coal that Betty had thrown on. Watched the sparks and the smoke rise and twist up the chimney and out of sight.
'It is only fairly recently that fire has been associated with hell,' Stobbold said. It seemed as good a place to begin as any. 'Dante, you will recall, saw hell saw his Inferno as a cold place. The lack of heat, lack of warmth was a part of the suffering engendered there.'
'Easy to see how fire became a more potent symbol of suffering,' the Doctor said. 'It has been associated with power ever since it was discovered. The power of Thor sending his lightning bolts down from the heavens; the breath of that most powerful of mythical creatures, the dragon.'
'But also of rebirth,' Stobbold said. 'The phoenix rises from the flames, is born out of them.'
'But it rises from the ashes of its own destruction wrought by that very fire,' the Doctor pointed out. 'Is that what he's doing?' His voice drifted, became quieter and more distant. 'Is he out to destroy or to recreate in another image? Is he an alchemist, using the fire to bind his essential elements together? But if so, into what form?'
'Who?' Stobbold asked.
'Nepath.'
'Not Lord Urton?'
The Doctor stared at him. 'Lord Urton is dead,' he said, his tone almost gentle, sad. 'Lady Urton is dead. Do you begin to understand now? The foreman at the mine is dead. We must destroy what they have become, what Nepath has made them.'
'Destroy them?' Stobbold shook his head, this was becoming ever more difficult to comprehend. 'And these fire creatures of which you spoke?'
The Doctor stood up. One hand waved in the air dismissively. A flame shot up within the fire, echoing his action. The coal hissed and crackled as he spoke. 'I don't know,' he said, sounding tired and impatient for the first time. 'It's to do with the mine. Something Nepath found there. The stuff that Dobbs and I saw. Bubbling, liquid fire. Magma or lava or somesuch. And Nepath has a way of controlling it. He can make these objects with it, objects that can refashion themselves.'
'Through some mystic process, you said.'
'There's nothing mystic about it,' the Doctor snapped. 'That's just sales talk. The material he uses does it. That is what it does.' He had been pacing up and down in front of the fire. Now he stopped and snapped his fingers a rifle crack of sudden sound. One of the lumps of coal split in two, one half rolling down to the brass fire surround. 'Or is it using him?' he wondered aloud. 'What is Nepath after? What has it promised him?'
'You talk as if...' Stobbold's throat was suddenly dry, and he swallowed. 'As if this material, this magma, were a living thing.'
'Yes,' the Doctor said quietly, his expression blank, as if he were just realising the same thing. 'Yes, so I do.'
As he stood motionless in thought, the flames seemed almost to freeze over the glowing coals.
A good fire was laid in the grate. The flames seemed almost to freeze over the burning logs.
Roger Nepath leaned forwards to watch the fire more closely. Behind the chair, Lord Urton stood stiff and still and silent. The flames moved again, tracing the movements they conveyed. The logs crackled and spat. The effect was a staccato, halting approximation of the speech it relayed.
'Some sort of liquid creature? Liquid fire? Molten rock? A single entity. Is that possible?' The tall, yellow flames that approximated the form of a man resumed their dance back and forth across the grate.
'You tell me,' crackled a lower orange flame as it licked round a log. If you screwed up your eyes, Nepath thought, if you squinted at the patterns you could believe that you really were looking not at the fire but at a figure seated in a chair. The tip of the flames twisted, as if the figure's head were moving to watch the yellow flames' flickering progress.
'Not there yet, are you, Doctor,' Nepath said quietly. 'Nearly. But not quite.' He leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. 'And by the time you are, it will be too late. Far, far too late.'
Behind him he heard the door to the drawing room open. He did not need to turn to see who it was, he already knew.
'Come in, my dear.'
Lady Urton led the visitor over to stand beside Nepath's chair. They all stood, looking into the flames, watching the Doctor and Stobbold as they continued their discussions.
'What is Nepath after?' a semblance of the Doctor's voice crackled. 'What does he value more than anything else in the world?' Again, the flame*Doctor stopped his pacing, seemed to turn to speak directly to the four people in the room watching. 'More than the world itself, perhaps?'
The Doctor was looking directly into the fire, as if searching for an answer to his question within the heat and the flames.
Stobbold himself had no answer to offer. He stood up, stretching. The evening was drawing on. He went to the window and tugged aside the curtain. peering out into the dark. A smattering of water splashed against the other side of the glass. He could hear the rain outside now, could see a line of puddles forming amongst the slush of melting snow. Almost like a line of footprints, filling with water.
'It's raining,' he said.
'Temperature must be rising,' the Doctor replied absently.
'It is. The snow seems to be melting.' Stobbold let the curtain fall and turned back to the Doctor. 'Is this significant, do you think? This rise in temperature?'
'Well,' the Doctor said slowly as he turned away from the fire. Behind him a yellow flame twisted across the coals. 'It isn't what usually happens after dark in winter.'
'I suppose not. So what does it mean?'
'What does anything mean?' The Doctor sounded sulky, as if annoyed that the answers were still evading him. 'You're the theologian.'
'That may be.' Stobbold tried to keep his own tone light, hoping to lift the Doctor from his sudden gloom. 'But I think what we are missing is a meteorologist.'
'We're missing something, certainly.' He tapped his forefinger against his chin. 'Something obvious.'
'About Nepath? Some secret?'
'There is something about him, I'm sure. Some explanation, some clue. A key that will unlock the mystery for us.'
This seemed optimistic to Stobbold. He doubted that any one piece of information, however pertinent, could explain everything that was going on. So much had happened, so much that was extraordinary, and in so short a time. 'Perhaps,' he hazarded, 'when we receive a reply to your telegram...'
'Yes,' the Doctor said quietly. 'Perhaps...'
Nepath gave a snort of laughter at this and clapped his hands together. 'Perhaps not, I think,' he declared. Shaking his head in good humour he turned to the two women standing beside his chair.
Lady Urton took a step back respectfully as Nepath smiled at Betty Stobbold. She gave no indication that she was aware of him. She continued to stare fixedly into the fire. Her hand was at her neck, clutching the small pendant, the statuette of Agni the fire god. He could see it glowing faintly through the narrow gaps between her fingers, tiny flames licking the surface from within.
He reached out his hand towards her. 'May I?'
Now she did turn, did look at him, noted his outstretched hand. He beckoned with his fingers, encouraging. Her blank expression still fixed in place, Betty reached out with her free hand and gave him the screwed up paper.
The paper was rolled into a ball. She had clutched it so tightly and for so long that it was difficult to uncurl. Nepath carefully teased at the edges, unpicking the paper until he could smooth it out over his knee and read the immaculate handwriting.
Shaking his head, he read it again. 'Such presumption, Doctor,' he murmured. Then he looked up at Betty and smiled. 'Thank you, my dear. You have done so well, so very well. We are grateful.' He turned back to the fire. 'I am sorry that my sister cannot be with us. She would want to express her own gratitude I am sure.'
With a sudden, almost violent motion, Nepath crushed the paper back into a ball. His face scrunched with the effort and emotion as he squeezed it tight. Then he hurled it into the flames.
At once the fire roared up. It seemed to leap on the ball of paper, to flow into and through it. The edges uncurled again slightly, blackening under the onslaught. A thin line of charred paper detached itself from the edge and twisted and turned its way upwards, carried on a rising current of hot air before disintegrating. The paper continued to blacken and unfurl until the fire devoured it.
Chapter Fifteen.
Torchlight They had adjourned to the study by the time they heard the door. Neither the Doctor nor Stobbold was hungry, and neither mentioned the possibility of supper. It was getting on for midnight and the rain was dearly audible, blowing against the study windows.
Stobbold looked up at the sound of the front door opening. The Doctor was already alert, listening. He too had heard it. They exchanged glances as the sound of the door being quietly closed reached them through the night*still of the Rectory.
'Expecting callers?' the Doctor asked quietly.
Stobbold shook his head and went out into the hall. His whole body felt taut and alert, worried at who or what he might find. He relaxed immediately and let out a long sigh. 'Betty where have you been?' He started down the hallway towards her. 'You must be freezing without your coat. And wet through.'
The Doctor caught Stobbold's arm, holding him back. 'I don't think so.'
'What?' He looked from Betty's neutral expression to the Doctor's grim face. 'What do you mean?' He shook his arm free.
'I don't think she felt the cold.' He raised his voice. 'Did you? And you don't seem to have got too wet.'
Now that he looked, her clothes and skin did seem remarkably dry. Yet he was sure it was pouring with rain outside.
'I avoided the rain,' she said.
'But where have you been?' Stobbold shook his head as she approached. 'I thought you were asleep.'
'Had a nice walk?' the Doctor asked. His voice was level, hard.
'Thank you,' she said. 'It's lovely.'
'Is it really.' It wasn't a question.
'Oh, come now, Doctor,' Stobbold retorted. He had no idea what was up with the man. 'She must be exhausted. And freezing. Come into the warm.' He led his daughter into the drawing room. The Doctor followed them, keeping his distance.
Stobbold led Betty over to the chair nearest the dying fire. Once he had sat her in it, he took the poker and coaxed some life into the glowing coals. Flames licked out and the room immediately seemed warmer. When he turned back to check on Betty, he saw that the Doctor had sat himself in the chair opposite and was watching her closely.
'You know,' he said, and Stobbold knew at once he was speaking to him and not to Betty, 'something's been bothering me.'
'Just one thing, Doctor?' He tried to make light of it as he stood in front of the fire.
'How did Lady Urton know that the Professor and I were inside the Grange that night?'
'She heard you,' Stobbold said. 'Lord Urton too, from what you said.'
The Doctor was shaking his head. He wagged a finger in admonishment. 'I don't think so. No,' he decided. 'I think someone told them we were coming. Someone who saw us leave the Rectory, and either ran on ahead, or arrived soon after us.' He leaned forwards, staring intently at Betty's face. Or at her neck.
Her hand went instinctively to the pendant, and Stobbold fancied for a moment that he could see it glowing behind her hand. A trick of the light, he decided. A reflection from the fire.
'Or perhaps,' the Doctor was saying, 'she has some way of communicating from a distance. Firelight telegraph system.'
'What are you talking about?' Stobbold demanded. He was getting enough of the gist to be angry.
'Smoke signals perhaps?' the Doctor asked wryly.
'Doctor,' Stobbold said with enforced patience, 'I think we deserve an explanation for these ramblings. What exactly are you suggesting?'
'I am suggesting that there is a very good reason why we have had no reply to my telegram.'
That surprised Stobbold. 'What has that to do with Betty?'
The Doctor's voice was a charged whisper. 'Everything' He leaped to his feet and thrust out his hand, close to Betty's head. Stobbold flinched. Betty did not move, she sat rock still as if not noticing.
'May I have the receipt?' the Doctor asked.
She did move now. Her head tilted and she looked up at him. 'Receipt?' A flash of puzzlement crossed her face, then was gone.
'The receipt for the telegram.'
'I...' She frowned and looked away, as if trying to remember. 'I lost it.' Her voice seemed to come from a long way away.
'What is this, Doctor?' Stobbold asked. He was surprised at how quiet and calm his own voice was. But even as he asked he knew the answer.
The Doctor shook his head and dropped back into his chair. 'I don't think you ever had a receipt, Betty,' he said. 'Because I don't think you ever sent the telegram.' His voice was quiet, almost a murmur, a contrast to his sudden shout of anger: 'Did you!' He was on his feet again, his movement punctuating, emphasising the words.
This time she did flinch. Her whole body convulsed at his thunder*crack voice. She blinked.
'Enough!' Stobbold shouted back. He struggled to control his voice. He caught the Doctor's elbow and drew him away, towards the door. 'Can't you see you're frightening her, Doctor?'
The Doctor stared at Stobbold, the amazement apparent in his eyes. 'You don't see it, do you?' he asked in a husky voice. 'You really don't.'
'See what?' Stobbold asked in a hushed whisper. 'You can tell she hasn't been herself lately, Doctor. Please have some respect for her feelings.'
He laughed at that, an explosion of mirthless noise. 'Feelings?' The Doctor stepped to one side of Stobbold and pointed back across the room, at the figure of the girl sitting absolutely still in front of the fire. 'It was you who chided me for my lack of feeling, you will recall. It was you who was so keen to mourn the people they have killed it it has killed.' has killed.'
'Not in here,' Stobbold hissed. 'I have no idea what you are talking about,' he said angrily, 'but I will not discuss this in front of my daughter, do you hear?'
The Doctor nodded. Anger and contempt mixed in his voice. 'Oh yes, I hear.' He turned and strode from the room.
Stobbold watched him go, heard the sound of the front door, and looked back at his daughter. For a moment they were both still. Then she turned her head, and looked back at him.
And he could see nothing in her expression. Nothing at all.