The Spear of Destiny (6 page)

‘Oh, Doctor. I … But the spear
…’

‘Yes, the spear,’ said the
Doctor. ‘The spear. But which spear?’

He nodded towards the door of the
TARDIS, where the spear was leaning.

‘But you just gave that back to
him.’

‘No, I gave him the copy we were
going to leave in the museum. That one is the real one – I hope.
It was all such a rush.’

He winked and Jo burst out
laughing. ‘That’s brilliant!’

‘Thank you. One of my better
improvisations, I’d say. Bit of a nuisance.’

‘But, anyway, why didn’t the
spear hit you?’

‘Temporal grace,’ said the
Doctor. ‘No weapons can function inside the TARDIS – even
something as simple as a spear. Once I was inside, I was safe.
It was easy enough to sidestep it and catch it. Then I simply
swapped the spears and walked back out of the old police
box.’

Jo smiled. ‘And what about the
Master?’

‘Oh, well, they’ll find the
capacitor I was talking about under the temple, and then they
might take me, and the Master, more seriously. But you know him.
He’ll talk his way out of it in the end. Though it might take a
little longer than usual. The only thing I can’t work out is
where his TARDIS is. Or
Skithblathnir
, I should say.’

Jo fell silent.

‘What is it?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Is something wrong?’

‘The Master’s TARDIS. You think
he made it look like a Viking ship?’

‘That seems likely. It must be
where the legend comes from. It would have made it easier for
the Norse to understand if it looked like one of their own
ships.’

‘Oh,’ said Jo. ‘And how big would
it be?’

‘Any size at all. Why?’

Jo rummaged in her pocket,
looking for the piece of wood from the model that she’d snapped
off: the tiller. Instead, she found a strange metallic
device.

‘Doctor, is this something
important? I found it. I … well … I broke it.’

The Doctor took it from her,
studied it briefly, and then laughed so hard it almost drowned
out the sound of the TARDIS materialising at UNIT HQ once
more.

‘My dear girl,’ he said. ‘You
appear to have removed the dimensional stabiliser from the
Master’s TARDIS. He’ll have a hard time travelling without it.
Jo, you are quite superb! Even I would be hard put to make a new
one.’

‘What, even you, Doctor?’ said
Jo, laughing.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘using
Viking-age technology – yes.’

And with that he pushed his way
out of the TARDIS, and back into the safe warmth of the British
summer in 1973.

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First published by Puffin Books 2013

Text copyright © Marcus
Sedgwick and BBC Worldwide Limited, 2013

BBC, DOCTOR WHO (word marks,
logos and devices), TARDIS, DALEKS, CYBERMAN and K-9 (word marks
and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting
Corporation and are used under licence.

BBC logo © BBC, 1996

Doctor Who logo © BBC,
2012

Licensed by BBC Worldwide
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All rights reserved

The moral right of the author
and copyright holders has been asserted

ISBN:
978–1–405–91211–2

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