Which Way to the Borderlands?

A faint shadow crossed his bent knees and he looked up into the misty air. "You did this, didn’t you?" Capt. Locke wasn’t exactly asking a question, he was making an accusation. The soldier held his sword at his side, unsheathed. Fred didn’t know what to say, he knew in his heart that to deny it would be to lie, to confess his sin would bring immediate execution. Though damned Fred still desired to find some way to redeem himself.

Before he could answer a new voice spoke: "What do you know of those sorcerers?!?" It was Oyael of the WhiteHand, and she held a most monstrous look upon her face.

Duke Harold Halifax of Hindsight sat with his Lady Tabitha within the comfort of their thick-walled home, yet the Duke was far from comforted. "Only last night I jokingly thanked the rivers that Oyael was the only spellcaster in Hindsight! Did my very words bring this down upon us?!?"

His wife looked at him with soft, sad eyes. To see such destruction, such death at her doorstep was a true hardship, to see her duke so ill at ease was also difficult, but worst of all was the feeling, the thought that it was she herself who had brought down this catastrophe. She had been dabbling in the Artes for some time, and from the start she had been hiding this terrible violation of the Law. She felt her life unraveling; first there was that bizarre accident with Madsen and Reeva, then her secret being found out by the merchant Logan Rhombus, and now this! And what exactly happened out there this morning? The report was mostly coherent, but how could such a thing be possible? The ability to move bodies from one place to another was a thing unheard of! No one had such power in all the known world.

The Jade Pagoda's inner chamber was fairly cramped with the large group of nine inside, although still larger than the outside. Melissa Innes, a mage, was both fascinated by and a little afraid of the strange technology that surrounded her. The magical implications of the idea of what these people thought of as science and of this technology in particular were astounding. If she ever managed to make it back to her old life, she could start a whole new field of study. If she ever managed to make it back to her old life...

The chances of that weren't good. She had been dragged into a war which would go on for a very long time against an unspeakably powerful enemy, which seemed to have sabotaged their ship with ease. [1] What if she died? Or worse, what if Silverhand died and she never got a chance to get back home? What made this being think she was capable of aiding him? She was a good mage, but not a genius by any means. Supposedly, those who were being brought here were the bravest heroes in the multiverse (She couldn't believe she was actually using that word in a serious context!) but she certainly didn't feel that applied to her. When the war in Te'anu had been going on, she had protested the draft once the Senate had passed a law that allowed the drafting of women and mages who could use their magic offensively, she had protested and even burned her draft card. She had taken self-defense classes and knew how to use magic offensively, but it felt wrong to her. She could never imagine killing people for any cause. How could she know that this Silverhand person really was in the right?

And if he did let her return to her old life, what then? Silverhand had told her that he'd eventually give her a choice as to whether or not she would continue to fight this war, but how soon would it be? For all she knew, it could be years. This strange man called Silverhand held her life in his hands. If she spent a long time away, people would wonder what happened to her, and what would she tell them? Her experiences would sound like sheer pseudo- magical idiocy, or like a bad fantasy novel. What would the Academia Blanc think? Would she lose her job for her crazy rantings? Would Samuel stay faithful to her, or would he assume she was dead and fall in love with someone else? Of course, Silverhand had time travel and could return her to the moment she left, but she would be years older. If a long absence would be hard to explain, that would be impossible.

No, she realized grimly, she might as well be trapped. She was trapped here, in a defective time machine, with three sets of medieval warriors who were alternate-earth counterparts, one peasant who'd been a dog, an "author" who claimed to have the power to manipulate reality, and a dragon. A dragon! Everyone knew those things didn't exist! They were just products of a hyperactive medieval imagination. Well, maybe on her world they didn't exist, but this was different. Was the world of the Fred she'd been with her world? No, that couldn't be possible, because then her world has been destroyed. She refused to accept that.

Then, a wheezing and groaning noise rang out, and she felt a jolting sensation like an elevator stopping. "I guess that means we're here," said Stacy.

One of the Freds [Melissa couldn't tell which one because she couldn't tell most of them apart yet] turned towards the others. He seemed more in command, and did not seem as confused as the others. Probably, that meant he was the one who had come from the destroyed universe, the Eternal Champion. (Eternal Champion? God. That sounded like something out of a bad fantasy novel.) "Astra Seven, Astra Eight, you will stay here to watch over Josh and Mordaunt. Melissa, you will stay here as well, as you can detect Mordaunt's magic." Oh great. She was stuck here with the dragon. Interesting that he should separate Fred and Astra Seven, clearly even he had picked up that there was bad blood between them, or something. Then again, he was the same person, he could tell... Melissa hated this. She was hating it more every minute. She couldn't do anything about it, though, just breathe in and try to be professional...

The flow of blood from Jarlath’s now-blinded eye had stopped, mostly. Annafrid was mostly calm. But Andrea Two kept pacing back and forth. "We can’t stay here ferev’r yah know," she growled. "The barbarians are sure t’ send out patrols."

"They have Astra," said Jarlath. Those words said it all. He would not leave this world without her.

Then, a noise rang out, shattering the silence of the world. It was a grating noise like the banging of rocks, the noise of a TARDIS, only something was wrong about it. In the air in front of Jarlath appeared not the familiar blue box but rather an elegant jade pagoda. [2] Was this another Time Lord, then? Was it he who was responsible for Joan's death?

A group of six people stepped out of the TARDIS. Among them were three Freds, an Astra, and a Stacy. The only other person was a young peasant boy who clearly couldn't be a Time Lord. As Jarlath looked at these Freds, however, he didn't feel the emotions of kinship and compassion he normally did when meeting new analogs. Something about these analogs seemed... off. And somehow, he could tell that the Fred and Astra in front were Eternal Champions. But he'd never seen them before...

[1]: Melissa is unaware that the saboteur of Compassion is not, in fact, the Red Faction.

[2]: The Jade Pagoda was a splinter of the Doctor's TARDIS used by him to escape the TARDIS when no other means was possible, and, during his seventh incarnation, to go places without his companions' knowledge. It can only be used independently from the main TARDIS for a limited period of time before re-merging. The Doctor only used it twice that we know of, during events chronicled in the Doctor Who novels Birthright and Sanctuary. In the Doctor's eighth incarnation, when the Doctor's then-companion Compassion had been transformed into a TARDIS after the apparent destruction of the Doctor's original TARDIS, she formed new Jade Pagodas after interfacing with the Doctor's subconscious. Because she was a more advanced type of TARDIS, she could maintain two, and for a longer period. However, the Doctor never used them during his travels with Compassion and wasn't even aware they existed. Silverhand further modified them to be more independent. Since Compassion has sustained serious damage, the space inside them is significantly reduced.

1. Confrontations...

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