Demon On Deonisia
A short story by Peter Jermey

First of the Raven Series and part of the Fifth Doctor Fiction collection

"So where are we off to this time?" asked Tegan, leaning gloomily upon the edge of the TARDIS console.

"Oh, here and there, here and there," smiled the Doctor.

"That means you don't know I suppose."

"I'll have you know, I can pilot this TARDIS anywhere in the known universe...and even to some of the unknown places."

"I hope that is a complete lie."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"In the past month we have been to more hell-holes than there are surf-boards in Aussi. If I believed your last statement I would think you were trying to get rid of us."

"Oh, I think that's a little..."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of TARDIS tours we welcome you to Deva Loka famed for its popular wildlife which includes our famous evil demonic snakes."

"Tegan, that's hardly fair..."

"Isn't it? Well, the flight home wasn't much better," she continued her mocking tone, "Welcome home - oh sorry we missed a bit - only a few centuries out, but why not stay and fight some maniac evil aliens hell-bent on destroying humanity as we know it?"

"Look, Tegan, I didn't ask for you to join me you know."

"Oh, and I suppose I asked the Master to murder my Aunt and ...my...". Tegan broke down. Tears flooded her face. Tears of mourning for her Aunt and the life she'd left behind.

Suddenly she felt the Doctor's warm arms around her and the words: "I'm so sorry Tegan."

"I just want to do something normal for a change," she sobbed.

"Well...okay - where do you want to go?"

"Somewhere with a beach, sunshine and friendly inhabitants," she sobbed.

"I know just the place," said the Doctor as he picked her out of his arms and wiped her tears away with his fingers, "Deonisia - a planet very similar to your own in fact."

"I hope not," said Tegan, a smile returning to her face, "not with the number of invasions we get."

"No only, sun, sea and...fields of barley!"

"Sounds right up my street."

He beamed.

"There is a lovely small island with beautif..."

"I'll go pack my bikini," Tegan interrupted frightened that this instructive lecture could continue for hours.

"Good, I'll try and pick a nice day."

"Just a day when the Martian Death Squad aren't in town will be fine Doctor."

"I can get on with some much needed repair work on the TARDIS; Nyssa can explore the local ancient monuments - she seems very interested in that sort of thing at the moment - and Adric can..."

"Adric will whinge," muttered Tegan as she left the console room.

The Doctor sighed, setting the co ordinates, "Yes - he probably will."

***

"Ow."

"Sorry."

"Well you could have shouted 'look out below' or something."

Adric was assisting Nyssa in her acquisition of knowledge as she put it. She was particularly interested in ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night - as the Doctor put it.

However, she was struggling as the TARDIS library was several storeys high and seemed to have no set order to it. She was on top of a very tall ladder with only Adric's rather unsteady hands between herself and the very solid looking marble floor. Carefully she descended the ladder.

She laid out her findings on the large oak table.

Adric read aloud the titles: "The Haunting of Borley Rectory, Phantom Spacecraft and The Secret of The Castello. Really, Nyssa, why are you suddenly interested in this...this stuff?"

"Well, I just am, I just think that there must be some kind of rational explanation of all this."

"But didn't you have this sort of gobbly-de-gook on your world?"

"On Traken, parents warned their children not to misbehave or the Melkur would get them! And anyway it's not gobbly-de-gook. I'm making a scientific study of the supernatural - now are you going to help me or aren't you?"

"I suppose I might as well," grumbled Adric disguising his interest in Nyssa's work with a bored kick to one of the giant bookcases, "there's not exactly much else to do. The Doctor has become very boring since his regeneration."

***

Mari Calagne watched as the two strangers stepped out of the mysterious blue box that had appeared on the common. As she ran towards them she noticed the blue box had the words: "Police" and "Box" written on it in large friendly letters, and another word that she didn't recognise. The strangers appeared to be in some sort of uniform, and as she had never seen any of the planet's minimal population of police, this was who she assumed they must be.

***

The Doctor and Tegan watched as a tall darkly coloured woman in clouds of purple material ran towards them through the tall grass.

"So you've come at last," she shouted - she was obviously quite distressed, "This way, quick!"

"Well, you heard the lady," said the Doctor setting off at a brisk jog in the direction of the woman. Tegan tutted, she supposed she'd better join the Doctor - even if it did mean unknown danger.

They reached the woman who introduced herself. The Doctor did the same for himself and Tegan as she led the way back through the common.

"The body's in a house upon that hill."

Tegan groaned; the hill was more like a mountain and neither the Doctor nor the local woman seemed to be slowing.

"So there's been a murder?" asked the Doctor.

"Didn't they tell you?"

"Well we did come at a moments notice."

"Well, I was putting out my laundry - to dry in the sun," she explained as if people from the mainland did not have laundry.

"Go on," said the Doctor ignoring the panting protests of Tegan a few steps behind them.

"And I heard this almighty scream and then Gagni Patellia - that's my neighbour - she came running out of her house screaming blue murder. Her daughter, Camemma, was lying dead as a dodo on her bed. I have no children, but I'm glad you've come - there must be someone or something out there that's done this and my husband isn't coming home from the fishing zones until later this week. Camemma's father is also on my husband's boat and so of course neither of them know."

Presently they reached the top of the hill. Here, there was a small plateau on which stood a group of about ten houses crowded around a pool of blue water. By the number of strange objects at the water's edge Tegan guessed that this was the community's main source of water and was used for a variety of different purposes.

Mari led them into one of the little houses, which Tegan noted, were all painted white and possessed no front doors. The coolness hit them as they entered. Tegan had not noticed how hot it was outside until this point. Downstairs was a single room devoid of any paint or wallpaper. Stairs led upstairs in one corner. There was a small seating area in the opposite corner although the house's only occupant preferred to sit on the stairs. A single window admitted light to the room. Someone had tried to liven the place up by painting a mural of the community in coloured chalks on one of the walls.

The figure on the stairs stirred. Her skin was as ice-pale as Mari's was dark and her tear-streaked face drove a shiver into Tegan's heart. Mari spoke briefly with the woman and then returned to where the Doctor and Tegan were politely hovering in the doorway.

"Gagni says that its okay to look at the body - it's in the bedroom at the top of the stairs, but I don't think you should speak to Gagni just yet."

"No - she seems very distressed," said the Doctor in an understanding tone.

"Camemma was everything to her..." began Mari, but her friend broke out into another fit of screaming and so the Doctor and Tegan made their way past the mourners and up the small staircase.

They found the body instantly. The girl was a little over seventeen by Tegan's estimation. Her skin was even paler than her mothers - signifying death. She was dressed in a simple bed-shirt on which there was no evidence of bleeding.

Even so, Tegan felt sick and she stood outside whilst the Doctor examined the body. He joined her out on the landing a few moments later having found little of interest.

"No evidence for death - she appears just to have died from old age - although everything is in perfect condition."

"Just like she was switched off?" asked Tegan.

"Yes...yes you may have something there."

The Doctor bounded down the stairs and spoke quickly to Mari.

"The elders say the water-sprites took her."

"And what do you say?"

"I...I don't know."

"Well some kind of possession could cause this - the spirit or manifestation or whatever could have entered her and destroyed the electrical impulses in her brain. Strange though, I've never heard of any suicidal fifth dimensional entities. Or it could be a soul-taker - that is a manifestation that eats the essence of other life-forms. It would have to dwell in someone who had access to her though..."

Tegan rolled her eyes at yet another spontaneous spout of technodrivel. Mari nodded pretending to understand what the policeman said - she did not wish him to think that the islanders were too far behind the mainland.

"Tell me, did Camemma have any friends her own age?" continued the Doctor.

"We are an elderly community - Camemma is...was our youngest member. She did have friends in the next community - it's about half a mile north from here - on the next hill - you can't miss it."

"I will find it with even more haste if you accompany me, and her friends are more likely to trust you than they are a stranger."

Mari said a farewell to her Gagni whilst Tegan spoke to the Doctor.

"Tegan I want you to stay here with Gagni."

"Doctor, I'm no counsellor."

"Just sit with her and listen if she wants to chat."

"I'm not good with..."

But her words fell upon deaf ears as the Doctor and Mari had already left the house and so she settled upon the task of comforting Gagni.

***

When Nyssa and Adric reached the console room after materialisation, they were surprised to find the Doctor and Tegan gone without a note or anything. Surveying the landscape they discussed where their companions had gone.

"Well I think they've gone to the beach," said Adric, "Tegan did want to soak up some sun."

"No, they would have said or left a note or...something. I think wherever they've gone, they must have followed this track."

The track led from a shallow cove past the bottom of the field where the TARDIS had been parked and along the coastline until it reached a wood in the middle-distance.

"Well, I vote we stay here and wait for them to come back - they can't have gone far."

"Exactly, we can catch them up if we hurry - come on!"

The disgruntled Adric was forced into a semi-run along the track. He was pleased when they entered the wood though as the trees gave a certain amount of shade from the severe sun.

Presently they heard voices - two men and a woman. The voices got louder until their leader a tall young man with jet-black hair turned the corner and sent Nyssa flying.

She landed with a heap in the mud.

The man seemed not to notice and as his companions appeared he started to shout, "We've found the murderers - nothing supernatural about them though. Seems, Camma, you were wrong."

The man was obviously a headstrong violent type, but even Adric could see that he was clearly frightened and didn't really believe the words his mouth was speaking.

"Look, whatever it was, it really is nothing to do with us - we've just go here."

The other two had joined the initial speaker - a tall blond man and a shorter darker woman.

The blond spoke, "well if you have just got here then this road will lead out of the forest won't it?"

Nyssa - from lack of help had had to help herself out and seeing this situation escalating she promptly put in a calm reasonable response, "Yes it does - a couple of hundred metres to the edge of the wood."

"Right you can show us then," growled the dark-haired man.

Nyssa and Adric were promptly frog-marched back along the road by the two men whilst the woman walked behind. Two, three, four hundred metres past. But there was no end to the woods. Presently they came upon a small clearing in the middle of which there was a murky pool.

"Not here again!" said the blond frustrated.

"Look it's silly to blame these two - they're obviously as stuck here as we are," the girl spoke, "Camma," she stuck out her hand. The group then followed her lead by introducing one another. The blond was called Siddart and the dark male was Raven.

They sat on the grass near the waters edge as the shaking Raven told Nyssa and Adric their story:

"There were five of us originally: Tregan, Lusa, Siddart, Camma and myself. We came here on a camping weekend - a sort of rights-of-passage kinda thing. Everything was going fine until Lusa tripped on a root and fell into the pool, we all tried to pull her out, but it was like some force pulling her into the water."

"Seems calm enough to me," said Adric disbelievingly.

Nyssa glared at Adric's rudeness and told Raven to continue.

"Camma suggested it might be water-sprites, but we didn't know what to think. We decided to pack up our things and head home. We found that the route we thought led out of the forest in fact led us back here. We tried several other routes and they all led us back here. It was like some never-ending blanket of trees. We set up camp - as it was getting dark - and we three all slept like logs, but when we awoke we found Tregan's tent and belongings had just disappeared. I went to the pool to wash and discovered his se...his severed head floating near the water's edge."

This time Nyssa interrupted, "I read of something similar happening on the human colony on Terra Beta - only that wasn't put down to a water-sprite, but a particularly nasty tree-demon known as a gwaeson - it loves guts and gore and scaring people half to death."

She seemed to have lost everyone after the word 'read' and so Camma hurriedly finished the story.

"We gave the remains of Tregan a proper burial and then set off down the road where we found you," she smiled ironically, "the end."

"I have recently made a study of many supernatural happenings and I think it's obvious - seeing as you keep being turned back here - that the power source you are looking for dwells in the pond. Or something very close to the pond..." she said, watching the large willow tree that stood near the bank. "Tell me, did you pack an axe?"

Nyssa reached out and grasped the trunk.

***

She was falling through the vortex. Colours of time swirled around her skirts wresting her from her dying home world. She was spinning through time. The vortex opened and...Pain...Solitude along...Pain.

***

Adric turned from watching the two men unpack the axes that they had brought with - intentionally for firewood not fighting evil tree demons. Nyssa cried out in pain. He rushed over to her as she fell back from the tree; he caught her seconds before she landed in the small, but deadly pool.

She opened her eyes for a brief second and mouthed 'pain'. She went limp. Camma checked her over.

"It's okay, your sister's just sleeping."

"A coma you mean? And she's not my sister."

"No a protective sleep - she will wake in a few hours. She has received intense psychological trauma, Adric - but she'll be okay."

"You seem to know a lot for a primitive."

Camma looked put out and said, "Well if you don't want help," and stormed of to help Raven and Siddart who were preparing to demolish the demon tree.

Adric sat where he was with Nyssa's head cradled in his lap.

***

The Doctor and Mari reached the community in a little under twenty minutes. There Mari led the Doctor to a bald old man who was sunning himself in the mid-afternoon light. He jumped up to greet them. Mari introduced him as Lillard, the community leader.

"So what can I do for you, Doctor?"

"I was wondering if you knew a Camemma Patellia."

"Ah, yes dear Camma."

"Then I'm afraid, I've got some bad news for you - she was found dead this morning."

"Cam...," he sat down. "Do excuse me I feel quite numb...I...I mean, how did she...?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

"I told them camping in the water-sprites' forest was dangerous."

"Forest?"

"That was where you found her?"

The Doctor had put on his thinking face and so Mari answered for him, "No - she was in her bed."

"But...Do forgive me Doctor, Mari, I am a very old man, but I had not realised I was quite as doolally as that. I thought she had gone with the youngsters to camp out."

"Do you know where this forest is?" the Doctor asked Mari.

"Yes."

"Good. We must be off at once. Community Leader Lillard thank you for your valuable time."

"But...er...Doctor won't you speak to the youngster's parents?"

"I think the youngsters themselves will be more help, thank you."

As the Doctor left, he placed a hand on Lillard's decaying shoulder and said, "I am so sorry."

***

Mari waited until they were out of earshot of the old man until she placed her question, "Doctor do you know what is going on?"

"I have a theory and if I'm right then those young people are in very grave danger indeed."

***

Camma had successfully organised the boys so as to safely take the demon-tree out. She watched from a distance as they sawed into the thick trunk and a smile broke her lips as the trunk crashed down towards the Earth.

Adric and Raven were screaming as she approached. The ground around the fallen tree was sodden with blood. The torso and legs of Siddart were protruding from the great fallen tree.

Adric turned and was violently sick. Camma placed her head in her hands as if in distress, but she was merely concealing a smile. Soon they would all be her friends...

Adric and Raven buried the remains of Siddart next to the grave of his friend's head. Raven was now visibly older than when he had entered the forest only just over a day ago. She would have to take these two quickly - the Nyssa girl would wake soon and she was a threat - she knew so much. And Nyssa had almost destroyed her with the destruction of her power source. She had had to relocate - draining power from some younger trees in the vicinity, but this meant that it was difficult to maintain her disguise and the pain had increased...She would have to think quickly.

But before she could, Raven rounded on her, suddenly realising that she was not the friend he once knew.

"It was you, wasn't it?" he snapped.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she half-smiled solidarity at Adric who looked stoically on.

"You organised the tree-felling - you knew Siddart would..."

"Oh don't be ridiculous."

"You do a very good Camma, whoever you are, but you don't fool me any longer."

His hand dropped to his waist and produced a sharp stake, which he plunged into her bosom.

"Die Bitch!" he said.

With a scream so load the ground shook, the gwaeson revealed itself. The skin of the fake Camemma Patellia hardened as wood and her hair became green and leafy. Her fingers became as twigs and her legs as thick trunks. The gwaeson was hideous.

"Come sisters, come brothers!"

All around Adric and Raven decaying bodies detached themselves from the soil and from the murky depths of the pond they arose. Within a few seconds they were surrounded on three sides by a small army of zombies: all those who had been taken by the gwaeson in the four centuries she had been incarcerated in the forest.

Adric and Raven looked at each other and at the dead army. Raven could see Siddart and Lusa near the front. They ran and were pursued. They came to a small dip in the ground and hid beneath it to catch their breaths.

"Why on earth did you stake her? She's not a vampire you know."

"I didn't exactly see you rushing to help."

"And what about Nyssa? We can't just leave her!"

"This is no time to argue - we have to think of a way out of this."

"There is only one way out: We die," said Adric as the first of the zombies reached them.

***

"The gwaeson," the Doctor explained, "are a group of creatures who are created in the vortex...a sort of tunnel between worlds...from where they land on random planets and grow - feeding on the source of life given out by any creature's death, until they have harvested enough power to free themselves back into the vortex where they can breed. Very, very nasty."

"And you think this is what killed dear Camma?"

"Yes, I also believe it has copied her cellular make-up to capture her friends as well!"

Suddenly the scream reached them, they were now not far from the woods, but silently quickened their pace. It was clear even to Mari that the temperature had just been turned up a notch.

***

Adric hit the zombie with an over-hanging branch. This seemed to confuse it for a moment, enough for them to escape. They reached the road and pelted down it. Thirty zombies followed - the gwaeson at their head.

The creatures of the night were slowly gaining on them. Adric saw the Doctor and a woman running towards them.

He shouted at them, "Adric, get yourself and your friend over here now!"

Adric and Raven were too scared to disobey.

They watched as the Doctor knelt on the muddy track and placed his hands to his head.

"What's...what's going on?" asked Raven - out of breath. He received no reply and realised that this meant he should be quite so that the Doctor could concentrate.

The zombies started screaming - one by one they fell over, becoming once again life-less corpses.

The gwaeson ran forward and reached out to attack the Doctor. She twisted at his neck - like it was merely a twig.

Selflessly, Raven ran towards the Doctor, a large rock in his hands, the gwaeson clawed at him - sharpened wood slicing through his shoulder blade so that the bone was visible. With a cry of pain he smashed the rock upon the gwaeson's head. The gwaeson fell back.

With its defences down - the gwaeson was easily overcome by the Doctor's psychic attack - it's skin started to harden a second time. It grew brittle, cold and lifeless.

"Is it...dead?" asked Raven.

"Yes...Mr...er...?" asked the Doctor.

"Just Raven."

"Well, Mr Raven, thank you for saving my life."

***

They regrouped at the Patellias' home. There the Doctor and Mari explained to Gagni what had happened to her beloved Camemma; Tegan and Nyssa dressed Raven's wound as he winced like a four year old. And Adric? Adric whinged.

***

When it was time to leave, Raven asked if he could be taken with them, claiming that he was an orphan and he now had nobody left on the island.

"Oh please Doctor," persuaded Nyssa.

"Aw, Nyssa's got a boyfriend," said Adric nastily. Nyssa went red. Raven just smiled.

"I'm sorry...I can't," said the Doctor firmly.

"Hey, you owe me, I saved your life."

"And I'm grateful, but I honestly can't take you," and then in a whisper so the other locals did not hear him, "we're not really police from the mainland - we're not even from this planet."

This did not surprise Raven, however who said, "I know, nobody on this planet could give birth to someone as annoying as young Adric."

The Doctor weakened, "A man after my own heart, come on then."

The group strolled down the hillside and into the TARDIS.

There were cheers all round in the console room, but none for Adric, he was just the punch line of a joke. And now even Nyssa had chosen a primitive in his place. It wasn't fair.

The TARDIS disappeared from the Deonisian landscape.

