Shining Darkness Page 7

  So when, two years ago, four creatures from another world appeared and announced: ‘We are your new gods – you will worship us!’, the Jaftee almost wet themselves with excitement.

  ‘We have heard,’ said the aliens (three rather dull ones with just two legs and arms each and a more interesting one with three!), ‘that the Jaftee are most hospitable to their gods.’

  This declaration – made in the central meeting pit of the Jaftee underground city – was greeted with whoops of joy and excitement. Just think, the Jaftee whispered to themselves, for once we don’t have to come up with new gods to worship. These gods (although they knew they weren’t really gods, but they didn’t like to say anything in case it made them go away again) had come to them.

  (There had been much debate about whether these new gods could really be gods: by the Jaftee’s own logic, they could only believe in things for which there was no proof. And surely the actual appearance of them was all the proof needed for the Jaftee to not believe they were gods. Others pointed out that just because the newcomers called themselves gods, it didn’t prove they were. The debate had raged for all of a week before someone had decided that it was an exciting enough development that the ‘gods’ should be given the benefit of the doubt. For a while, anyway.)

  ‘And,’ continued the gods, trying to sound all deep and powerful and, well, godlike, ‘we have come to bring the Shining Darkness to you all!’

  There was a chorus of shouts from the Jaftee. They had no idea what it meant, but it sounded terribly exciting: Shining Darkness. Darkness, they muttered in awe, that shone! Cool!

  ‘So what must your followers do?’ asked Enchikka, High Priest of What We Believe Today, doing the low-bowing and abasement thing that seemed to meet the approval of these Gods of Shining Darkness. ‘How can we make you happy?’

  ‘The Gods of Shining Darkness need your help, oh faithful followers,’ said the three-legged, three-armed one. He raised an arm and pointed upwards, towards the ceiling. ‘In Heaven, we are at war with the forces of evil,’ he said. ‘A war for the very survival of organic-kind.’

  There was more cheering and shouting from the Jaftee. They didn’t know what ‘organic-kind’ meant, but it seemed awfully impressive. And there was mention of a war – and wars were always exciting, weren’t they? Lots of fighting and shouting – and maybe some killing (although, as a rule, the Jaftee weren’t that keen on the killing, unless it was particularly spectacular and showy killing). And Heaven, of course, which the Jaftee particularly loved – mainly because Heaven was another of those things for which there was no proof whatsoever. Which meant that you could make it as fabulous or as strange as you wanted to, and no one could ever prove you wrong.

  ‘And how can we help the Gods of Shining Darkness?’ asked Enchikka, loving the fact that there were lots of capital letters. Capitals were good when it came to religions.

  ‘Oh faithful followers,’ intoned the three-legged one again (more cheering). ‘Your faith is so pure and strong that our enemies would never dare to intrude into your city. For that reason, we wish to entrust to you a Sacred Artefact—’

  At this point, the three-legged one (whom the Jaftee later discovered was called ‘Mesanth’) was completely drowned out by an almighty roar of Jaftee voices. This was a really good one: Sacred Artefacts were just the dog’s doodahs. You could put them on display, worship them, kiss them, charge money to touch them. You could hide them away and let only the High Priests see them, which made them all the more special. If you could be bothered (and, frankly, the Jaftee usually couldn’t because by that point they’d normally moved on to something else) you could ‘lose’ the Sacred Artefacts and then spend ages having quests to find them.

  The Gods of Shining Darkness seemed particularly pleased at this response from their faithful Jaftee. And, within hours, they’d brought down from Heaven (the Jaftee thought it best not to let on that they knew the Gods were probably flying around in the sky in some big, metal box and hadn’t actually come from ‘Heaven’) a whopping great circular thing, all crusty with bits of metal and glittering crystals. As Sacred Artefacts went, it was the business!

  The Jaftee – with lots of bowing and murmuring and wailing – helped the Gods to install it at the centre of the meeting pit on a stone pillar. It looked fab, especially when they’d installed a few extra flaming torches around it – sparkly and just a bit tacky.

  ‘Keep our faith,’ said Mesanth gravely. ‘The faith of Shining Darkness.’

  The Jaftee hollered and waved their hands in the air, each holding a little burning stick. They liked this religion.

  But, as was the way with the Jaftee, mere weeks after the Gods of Shining Darkness had returned to Heaven, promising to return for the Sacred Artefact at the Appropriate Juncture, one of the Jaftee discovered a crack in a wall that bore an uncanny resemblance to a particular constellation in the night sky. And so the Adorers of the Fractured Stars were born, the Gods of Shining Darkness’s Sacred Artefact was dragged off its plinth and shoved in a storeroom, and the Jaftee forgot all about it.

  The first that Enchikka knew about the return of the Gods of Shining Darkness was when someone spotted Mesanth – or, at least, someone very like him – along with two others, wandering through the city’s passages. It seemed that they’d managed to get past the temple beast (which was no great surprise, since the temple beast wasn’t actually that impressive, despite all the noise it made) and were on their way to the meeting pit. They were considering letting the temple beast starve to death, to be quite honest. It kept killing the Jaftee sent to feed it, and it was getting harder and harder to find people willing to do it.

  ‘Have we still got it?’ Enchikka asked one of his underlings breathlessly as soon as he could find her.

  ‘Have we still got what?’ Narucchio seemed puzzled – although her attention was clearly divided between answering Enchikka’s question and adjusting her feathered headdress (a chicken had, reportedly, been heard to say that the end of the world was coming; and so the Jaftee had slaughtered it, examined its entrails for any sign that this might be true, and then decided to worship it as the Chicken of the Apocalypse. Well, the bits that were left of it. Most of which were now adorning Narucchio’s coppery hair.)

  ‘The thing,’ said Enchikka, a little flustered. ‘The Sacred Thing of the Flaming Shadows.’

  ‘Oh, the Shining Darkness one, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, whatever. What did we do with it?’

  Narucchio gave a shrug, tipping her head this way and that as she examined herself in a shiny mirrored bowl.

  ‘Didn’t we put it in a cupboard?’

  ‘Well find out!’ snapped Enchikka, swiping Narucchio’s headdress and holding it out of her reach until she agreed to go and search for the wheel-thing. ‘If they’ve come back for it, they might not be too happy that we’ve stuffed it away in a junk room. They might think we weren’t taking them seriously.’

  ‘What they going to do about it?’ asked Narucchio grumpily, keeping an eye on her feathers.

  ‘Dunno,’ replied Enchikka tightly. ‘But they’re gods, aren’t they? They might do something godly – smite us down or plague us with boils or lice or—’

  ‘Point taken,’ said his underling, raising a hand. ‘I’ll get someone onto it.’

  ‘No,’ said Enchikka firmly. ‘You’ll get onto it. They’re here now, and there’s only so long we can fob them off with feasts and dancing.’ He fixed Narucchio firmly with his yellow eyes. ‘And if they start demanding sacrifices, you know who’s going to be first on the list, don’t you?’

  Enchikka didn’t see Narucchio’s leathery little feet for dust.

  ‘So,’ said Donna as they realised that the Jaftee had seen them, sheltering in the entrance to the ledge. ‘Who’s going to ask for your ball back, then?’

  Mesanth gave a weary sigh and stepped forward. As he did so, half a dozen of the Jaftee jumped to their feet and began pointing at them, muttering and whispering.r />
  Donna and Ogmunee followed him out onto the ledge, which caused even more excitement amongst the Jaftee who started jumping up and down, their hair bouncing around like tacky fun-wigs. It was like being at a particularly bad Cher convention.

  ‘Faithful Jaftee!’ said Mesanth, holding his device in front of him: it picked up his voice and amplified it, sending it booming out across the pit. Even Donna was impressed.

  The Jaftee fell silent and stared up at them.

  ‘Faithful Jaftee!’ said Mesanth again, warming to his role. ‘Your Gods have returned!’

  He paused. There was silence. Even from their high vantage point, Donna could see the Jaftee glancing at each other with their tiny, dark eyes.

  ‘Shouldn’t they be kneeling or wailing or applauding or something?’ Donna said, getting a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Your Gods have returned,’ Mesanth said again – and this time his voice didn’t sound quite so godlike, ‘to collect the Sacred Artefact with which we entrusted you, many moons ago.’

  ‘Karris doesn’t have a moon,’ Ogmunee pointed out sourly. Mesanth glared at him.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it has a Sacred Artefact, either,’ added Donna, unhelpfully.

  ‘Perhaps one of you would rather do this, then,’ said Mesanth, moving the device away from his mouth.

  ‘They are more familiar with you,’ Ogmunee said, folding his arms. It was obvious that he didn’t want the role of God in this ridiculous pantomime. And Mesanth seemed to be losing his confidence.

  ‘Oh, give it here,’ snapped Donna, snatching the device from him. ‘Amateurs!’

  Mesanth reached out to take it back, but it was too late – Donna drew herself up to her full height and raised the scanner.

  ‘Where is your High Priest?’ she shouted, and winced at the amplification the device gave her voice. Even the Jaftee flinched. ‘Bring forward your High Priest!’

  She moved the scanner away and spoke out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘They do have a High Priest, don’t they?’

  Mesanth nodded – and raised his front hand, pointing.

  A Jaftee wearing some sort of feathered headdress, followed by another one with its hair all tied up in a messy beehive on top of its head, were striding up onto the platform at the centre of the pit. At this, the other Jaftee fell to their knees in abasement.

  ‘Why didn’t we get that?’ grumped Mesanth.

  ‘Welcome!’ called the one with the beehive. ‘I’m Enchikka, High Priest of What We Believe Today. And you are…?’

  ‘We are your Gods!’ boomed Donna. ‘And we’ve come for the return of our Sacred Artefact. The big round one,’ she added, in case there was any doubt.

  ‘Ah,’ said Enchikka. ‘Yes. That one.’

  ‘Yes,’ repeated Donna, getting the very strong feeling that things were starting to go just a little bit awry. ‘That one.’

  ‘Well,’ said Enchikka, looking just the teensiest bit shifty. ‘We have, um, placed it away for safekeeping.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good, Enchikka. Your Gods are pleased.’ She turned and grinned at Mesanth. Godhood? Piece of cake!

  ‘The thing is,’ Enchikka continued, ‘we have other gods now.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Donna – repeating it because she’d let the amplifier slip a bit. ‘Sorry – what d’you mean, you have other gods now?’

  Enchikka gestured proudly towards the pillar next to him. Donna had to squint to see anything – it looked like a few chicken bones and some feathers, laid out on the top.

  ‘The Chicken of the Apocalypse,’ Enchikka said reverently.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Chicken of the Apocalypse. In its entrails we have seen the future.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘More gravitas!’ hissed Mesanth in her ear. ‘Sound like a god!’

  Donna cleared her throat.

  ‘Your Gods are displeased,’ she called. ‘You shall have no gods besides us.’

  Enchikka gave an awkward little shrug.

  ‘It’s just…’ he began. ‘You know how it is. Things change. New gods come along…’

  ‘Your chicken is a false god,’ declared Donna suddenly, starting to get the hang of it.

  ‘Is it?’ asked Enchikka, his eyes suddenly bright. ‘A false god?’

  ‘Yes – do not anger the True Gods by turning away from them!’

  Despite the fact that it was all rather silly, Donna was enjoying this deity business.

  ‘Your Gods are benevolent,’ she said solemnly, ‘but also capable of great anger.’

  There was a muttering and a chattering amongst the Jaftee. Donna couldn’t tell whether it was a good muttering and chattering or bad muttering and chattering. She suspected the latter. Right, she thought. Let’s grab this Sacred Chicken by the horns!

  ‘The Chicken of the Apocalypse is a false god, and you must turn away from it.’

  She heard Ogmunee sigh behind her.

  ‘But you are old gods,’ shouted Enchikka, almost apologetically. ‘We have moved on – the Jaftee look to the future, not to the past.’

  ‘These lot may be old gods, sunshine,’ Donna said, jerking her head in the direction of Ogmunee and Mesanth, ‘but I’m certainly not. I am your new God – your new Goddess,’ she corrected. She gestured up and down herself dramatically. ‘Behold: me!’

  There was more chattering, and she noticed how some of the Jaftee had started to touch their own hair. Their own red hair.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Behold me – behold Donna.’ She took a step forward and shook her hair like someone in a shampoo commercial. ‘Behold – The Ginger Goddess!’

  ‘The Ginger what?’ boggled the Doctor to Li’ian, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  The two of them were watching the proceedings from a small tunnel entrance on the opposite side of the ledge. By keeping flat to the floor, they’d avoided being seen by the Jaftee. Mother lurked in the shadows of the tunnel behind them, still on all fours.

  Not long after they’d encountered the broken robot, they’d heard Donna and her two companions bickering and sniping at each other, and had managed to stay back until they could find a way around them. It had taken a while, but eventually they’d emerged onto the same ledge as Donna and the others, but at the far side of the Jaftee’s amphitheatre.

  ‘She’s impersonating a goddess,’ said Li’ian with disbelief in her voice.

  ‘Must be something about travelling with me,’ the Doctor said with a grin. ‘They’re always doing it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we go and find the segment? I thought that was what we were here for.’

  ‘Let’s see what happens here, first. If she persuades the Jaftee to go and fetch the segment, we might get caught while we’re poking at it. And I’m not sure the Jaftee can cope with another set of gods, just at the moment.’

  Enchikka’s little heart almost burst with excitement.

  To be honest, he hadn’t been all that impressed with the Chicken of the Apocalypse. It had kept the Jaftee busy for a couple of weeks, but there was only so much mileage you could get out of a bird’s carcass – only so many ways you could arrange the bones, only so many headdresses you could make from the feathers.

  No one had expected the Gods of Shining Whatsit to reappear – they’d been visited by gods from the stars twice before, and none of them had left anything behind and none of them had returned. So they weren’t really expecting these new ones to come back either. Although, mused Enchikka, if they’d thought about it for a few moments, it might have been obvious: people – gods, particularly – don’t usually dump something as big as the Sacred Artefact on you, ask you to look after it, and then clear off never to be seen again. Until the Ginger Goddess had spoken, Enchikka would have been just as pleased if the Gods had stayed away. He wasn’t sure what shape their Sacred Artefact would be in, and he suspected that if it had been broken or battered that they might not be too happy.

  But
this Donna – this Ginger Goddess… Now she was something new! And she had hair a bit like the Jaftee. Not quite like the Jaftee (it was darker and curlier) but close enough. The Jaftee were going to get some mileage out of this particular Goddess!

  * * *

  ‘The what?’ gasped Ogmunee, echoing the Doctor’s disbelief way across the other side of the Jaftee amphitheatre.

  ‘Sssh!’ hissed Mesanth. ‘Look! They’re bowing down – they’re swallowing it.’

  And indeed they were: as Mesanth and Ogmunee watched, the Jaftee began to chant. Gently at first, it built up slowly, more and more voices adding to it as the other Jaftee picked up on it.

  ‘All hail the Ginger Goddess!’ they sang. ‘All hail the Ginger Goddess!’

  The priest, Mesanth noted, was whispering to the other Jaftee – the one with feathers in its hair. It pulled them out, threw them to the ground, and rushed out of the chamber.

  Donna would never have admitted it to anyone, but she was actually getting quite a buzz out of this deification business. How many people, she thought, got to be goddesses? Especially ginger goddesses. She’d spent her whole life laughing thinly at ginger jokes and comments; occasionally, she’d shouted back (or even, on one occasion, slapped a guy for comparing her to a Duracell battery). But she’d never really been happy with it. As a child, her hair had been brighter – almost as coppery as the Jaftee – and she’d been teased relentlessly. Her mum had told her not to be so sensitive (way to go, Mum!); her dad had told her that ‘red-haired’ (he never used the g-word) children were special. Quite how, he’d never explained, but Donna had appreciated the effort.

  But now here she was, on an alien planet, being worshipped for her gingerness. If only her dad and gramps could see her now – see how special her hair had made her! And for one silly moment, she even wished her mum could be there to witness it. Maybe Mesanth had a video camera in his shoulder belt…?

  The chanting was getting ridiculously loud by now: ‘All hail the Ginger Goddess!’ they were shouting, over and over. David Beckham, eat your heart out!