Lost In Temptation

19. Mortal Goddess

Elizabeth:

Tick tock, goes the clock. Tick tock, goes the clock. Tick tock, goes the clock. Remembrance, brave and good, she turned away from violence, when she understood the falling of the Silence.

"Soothsayer!" I looked up from where I had been sat in my cell, drawing and writing in spirals, singing all I had heard since it started. Or stopped. "You are wanted. Stand and make yourself presentable."

I stood, but just looked at the Homo Reptilia that had come for me. Malokeh, my old acquaintance. "What say you, Soothsayer? You truly are cursed by the Gods."

"Well, you have all been calling me Cassandra of Troy, cursed by Apollo for refusing to sleep with him. Which still does not exist, even in this hell scape of an anachronism." I smoothed my long, self done dreads, carefully tied by what little ribbon I had woven. "I take it he wants to hear what he never believes? I speak no lies, yet none hear truths from my mouth."

Before I was escorted at spearpoint, none daring to touch me. They'd seen the fits and seizures I'd had, it was one of the things that gave me my name, but there he was. Yet again. "Leave us."

People left as I tilted my head to the side to look at the man. "You wanted to see me again, Winston?"

"Tick tock goes the clock as the old song says. As you always sing." I smiled a little. Like those in the Argos who believed Cassandra as she spoke of the Furies on the roof, and Clytemnestra's plot against Agamemnon, there were those who were swayed by my words. People who had briefly known who the Doctor and I were in the old worlds. "But they don't, do they? The clocks never time. Something has happened to time. That's what you say. What you never stop saying. All of history is happening at once. But what does that mean? What happened? Explain to me in terms that I can understand what happened to time."

Well. Finally you asked the correct questions. "A woman."

Flashback.

"Imagine you were dying." I smiled darkly at the Dalek before me. "Imagine you were afraid and a long way from home and in terrible pain. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, you looked up and you saw the face of the Devil's wife herself. Hello, Dalek."

It began panicking. "Emergency. Emergency. Weapon system disabled. Emergency."

All I did was take the dome off the top. "Do be quiet. I'm only here for the answers on the Silence. You know more than I do and I cannot have that."

It did, but only a few names so I took what I needed and got dressed for my trip to Calisto B. They didn't let women in without a Master, but they'd have me. They wouldn't have a chance. "Gideon Vandaleur. Get him. Now."

"Get out, Girlie. You're not welcome here, and if you don't, well. You'll find out why."

With another smile, I let down the hood of my cloak and tilted my head to the side. "Is that a threat?" I looked at all the other men in the room, staring at me. "Come on, then. To any man who can best me, you will be my new Master. But be warned. I killed my last one, Please and Thank You."

Five seconds later, when I taught them just what a woman could do, I was sat alone, unbothered by anyone as I read my book before a cloaked figure say before me. "Father Gideon Vandaleur, former envoy of the Silence." I glanced up briefly from my book, then back. "My condolences."

"Your what?"

"Gideon Vandaleur has been dead for six months." Then grabbed the arm of the robot, instantly taking control of everything through the skin contact as my eyes turned black. "Can I speak to the Captain, please?"