Doctor Who: The Magician's Apprentice CHAPTER 1 - THE WASTE LAND

This is a unofficial novelization of the episodes "The Magician's Apprentice" and "The Witch's Familiar," originally written by Steven Moffat. It's just for fun. All rights are with the BBC. The art used here is by Anthony Dry from the official "Doctor Who: The Eaters of Light" Target novelization, written by Rona Munro.

"I am half agony, half hope."

Jane Austen

In the seventh galaxy, on the planet Skaro, a young boy called Davros wandered through the battle-ruined field of Amrath, lost and afraid. He would go on being lost for a thousand centuries; and he would always be afraid. That fear would move him to do terrible things. But today, he was just a boy, and the soldier who saw him was just a man.

“Is that a kid?” Kanzo said, adjusting his wide-angle eyestalk. Kanzo was a young man in a war without end. He peered through his device, adjusting it as he squinted at the tiny black fleck in the distance. They had not seen anyone for months, much less a child.

“You’re seeing things,” Kanzo’s second-in-command muttered, hugging himself and turning away. Henrik was a good soldier, but thick-headed.

“By Kernos—that was a kid, I’m certain!” Kanzo lowered the eyestalk and turned to his friend. “He ran into the fog.”

Henrik shook his head, and Kanzo could see his breath as he spoke. “Listen mate, if anyone’s in there, they’ll be dead in ten yards! That’s the way to the Scorched Plains. You know what happens to fools who go in there. Once they pass the fog, they never come out!”

The Scorched Plains, Kanzo thought. No Man’s Land…

They’d been holed up in the Chasm Trenches for years. Apparently, the war was nearly over. At least according to the First Captain – who’d vanished into the fog himself. Now, it was just Kanzo and Herik, and a long wait for a command that might never reach them. They’d spent months shooting at shadows. Staring into the fog, slowly going mad.

“The Scorched Plains…” Kanzo echoed, taking another look down the lens.

The boy would be dead in two minutes. Kanzo hesitated for a moment. Suddenly bravery – or madness – flooded his heart. He stood, exposing himself to enemy fire. Kernos help me, what am I doing?

“Get down, fool!” Henrik snapped, but Kanzo was already climbing the trench.

Henrik tried to pull the man down. Kanzo just shook him off. “I haven’t heard shooting in days!” Kanzo argued, his eyes searching for enemies. “If that’s a kid, he might be a messenger from the main base.”

Apparently, the Enemy didn’t shoot kids. Most of the time. Some of the time. Skaro Command was willing to send kids to deliver vital information, believing their small size gave them a better chance of making the long trips unseen.

“The war might be over, Henrik!”

“Or it’s a ruse!” Henrik shouted. “More Thal lies! You know how they are. Mind games. Trickery! They were the ones who created the Plains in the first place!”

Kanzo ignored him. Henrik was blindly repeating Kaled propaganda. Even a loyal soldier like Kanzo knew not all of it was true. Kaled geneticists were responsible for what went down in the Scorched Plains, Kanzo thought. And they lost control of it…

“I’m just gonna grab him!” Kanzo said, shouting down into the trench and taking the bow off his shoulder. “Are you coming with me, sergeant?”

Henrik shook his head.

“That’s what I thought.” Kanzo turned away. He pushed on, into the fog, with nothing but a bow and arrow to defend himself. It was a Hyper-Arrow, at least – but that wouldn’t do much against artillery.

Heard the Seventh Cavalry are still on rifles and javelins, Kanzo thought. Lucky sons of—

“—Watch out for the handmines!” Kanzo heard Henrik’s voice call back to him. “They can move now! They’re evolving! You fool!”

Kanzo pressed on, and Henrik’s voice became a distant echo. Too late to turn back – now Kanzo was in the fog himself.

He plodded carefully, watching his feet.

The war had raged for untold centuries. It had no name – it was just The War. According to legend, the ancient Dals started it, and the Thals and Kaleds kept the tradition going. A tradition of blind hate and bloodshed. No one could remember what the war was about anymore. All they knew was who was Kaled and who was Thal. Who was Enemy and who was Friend.

This boy’s a Kaled, Kanzo thought as he trudged through the mud. Pretty sure I glimpsed dark hair, not blonde… Kanzo wasn’t sure what he’d do if he found a Thal child. He thought for a moment. Kill him, I suppose. He shrugged. I’d have to. They’re not Kaled. And anything that isn’t a Kaled is an enemy of the Kaleds.

He sighed. It was all so tedious.

At last, the soldier found the boy.

Kanzo had been right. It was a Kaled child. Thank Kerno for that. About four feet tall. Dressed in rags. Kanzo couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to a child. He found it hard to remember if he was ever a child himself.

“Don’t run!” Kanzo called out to the boy as he approached. He tried to speak gently. As gently as a warrior can.

The boy turned to him. Terrified blue eyes pierced Kanzo under a messy fringe.

“It’s alright!” Kanzo reassured. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just… don’t run. Don’t go any further.”

The boy was yards away. As Kanzo closed the distance, he started to notice movement beneath the mud. All around. Faint rippling.

The Things, Kanzo thought, horror steadily gripping him. They’re sleeping… let’s hope they stay that way.

Kanzo drew an arrow and approached the child with caution, his eyes scanning the ground.

They evolve, he reminded himself. They can move now. Watch out.

“I-I…” the little boy stammered, staring at the Things as they slowly, ever so slowly, rose from the ground. He was surrounded. “It… it was just a dare. They wanted to see how far out I could go… but… I-I got l-lost, I—”

“—Well mate…” Kanzo said, trying a smile. “It’s fair to say you won the game. Let’s get you home, yeah?”

The boy nodded, but Kanzo swore internally. No message from home base. The war isn’t over. Kanzo shook his head and forced himself to focus on the issue at hand. “Do you know what this place is?” Kanzo said, banishing his selfish thoughts. “You’ve wandered into the Scorched Plains.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

Kanzo cringed. Didn’t this kid’s parents teach him about the Genetic Terrors? Maybe the boy didn’t have any folks. Maybe he was alone.

Just like me, Kanzo thought.

“That’s alright,” the young soldier said, keeping an eye out for nearby handmines. The ones around the boy didn’t seem active. Fingers still curled, eyes still closed. Nonetheless, movement was movement, and that was never good. “Just keep clear of those things in the mud – you see them, right?”

The boy nodded.

“You know what a handmine is?” the man asked.

The boy nodded.

“You ever seen one before? Activated, I mean?”

The boy’s eyes went cold, and he nodded again, slowly.

Kanzo raised an eyebrow. “Really? Where?”

The boy pointed at the man’s foot – and that was when Kanzo felt its grip.

A handmine.

It had slithered up from the mud and taken hold of his ankle. Kanzo stared down in horror. He had seen friends ripped apart by Slythers, gobbled up by giant mollusks, blown to smithereens by clam drones – but a handmine was a fate worse than death.

A Slyther can only kill you.

“Oh…” Kanzo said, mouth agape. The dead fingers tightened around his boot.

The boy stared. He was scared, but the man was terrified. He was terrified because he knew exactly what was about to happen to him.

Kanzo looked at the boy. He had a job. To look after this kid, to bring him to safety. He wasn’t supposed to die here.

Not here, Kanzo thought. Not like this.

“I-it’s okay…” the man said. Now it was his turn to stutter. “Listen, kid… it’s, it’s gonna be o—”

The handmine pulled Kanzo deep into the ground. He fought it, reaching and lashing – but within seconds, he was gone.

Deep below, mud in his ears and nose, water in his eyes – Kanzo could feel himself becoming one with the handmine hivemind, its poisonous thorns twisting, crawling under his skin. In just a few moments, Kanzo was absorbed into the earth. And his consciousness with it. Gone forever – yet immortalized in the genetic cesspools of Skaro. Now he was nothing but muck and slime in an underworld of swirling, organic rage.

Nothing of Kanzo remained, except his hatred. They could use that.

The pits of mud, suddenly fed, began to resound. The vibrations spread throughout the Scorched Plains, rippling, coursing… gurgling, like a recently filled belly. Suddenly, more handmines started rising from the muck, fingers fully uncurled. Activated. Like a hive of Venus Flytraps. Now the boy got a good look at the Things, and he did not like what he could see.

Hands.

Alive, yet undead. The re-purposed body parts of fallen soldiers: Kaled and Thal alike. Racial differences and political alignments didn’t matter to the Genetic Terrors of the Scorched Plains – bio-matter was bio-matter. It was a free-for-all. The more bodies falling, the more handmines made – a self-replicating army of waiting death. Easy to imagine how the Kaled geneticists might’ve lose control of such a weapon. The handmine hivemind had spread, and spread, until there was no stopping it. Thousands of yards made un-crossable. Viral weaponry had become an eternal pest infestation.

Deadly mud.

The boy called Davros watched as the fingers uncurled. Each handmine had a single eye in the center of its palm. Undulating. Gazing.

Hating.

The eyes stared into Davros’ soul. The poor boy was so terrified, he didn’t hear the strange wheezing, groaning sound in the distance. All his attention was on the handmines. There was something so horrible, so evil about those eyes as they gazed into him. The boy would remember this moment for as long as he lived. Would remember those eyes – and the singular vision that was their motive: a fixation on destruction as a form of survival, of self-preservation, of endless renewal. The boy stared. And he would never forget.

But he would forget this part.

“What’s your name?”

Davros turned. Handmines all around him reached and snatched, yet the voice reached out to him too, smothered in yards of fog. It was a kind voice. Far away, yet warm. Even in this freezing wasteland.

In the distance, the boy saw a tall box. And a man beside it. Standing in the mud. A shadow. A silhouette. Tall and skinny, yet proud and full of power. The boy couldn’t make out the man’s face in the fog.

Davros called out: “Who’s there?”

“Who?” the man echoed, irony in his voice. “Yes, exactly!”

“What?”

“No, not quite! You were closer the first time!”

“I-I can’t hear you!” The voice was too far, and Davros was too scared.

“Here!” the man called out, and suddenly something landed before the boy’s feet.

He looked down. “What’s that?”

“Listen carefully. The chances of survival are about one in a thousand – so here’s what you do: you forget the thousand and you concentrate on the one! Now pick it up!”

The boy reached for the long, silver tool at his feet. Picking it up, Davros stared at the strange weapon, half-covered in mud. It had a green light on the end, and a button on its side.

“How do I fire it?” Davros whispered to himself.

“Point it over here!” the man said.

“At you?”

“It’s not a weapon! It’s a sonic device; it will help you hear me better!”

With great hesitation, Davros aimed the tool and pressed the button. It buzzed, and suddenly the man’s voice called out to him, clear as a fogless, smokeless day (which the boy had never known).

“Ah, there we go…” came the old man’s voice. “That’s better, isn’t it? It’s creating a sound tunnel – so we can communicate. I don’t like shouting all the time. I do too much shouting as it is, and it usually sounds like CLA-RA. Can you see me? I’m about fifty feet ahead of you. Are you alright?”

“No…” Davros said, “I’m surrounded by enemies.”

“That’s a regular Tuesday for me.”

Davros stared at the strange old man in the distance. The fog parted, just enough to make out the man’s features. A mop of white hair rose above furious grey eyebrows. He wore a black hoodie under a dark, navy jacket. He was certainly old, yet there was a youthful exuberance to him that seemed impossible. Could he be… an alien?

“Who are you?” Davros asked. “Are you the Enemy?”

“I’m here to help.”

“Why? Are you one of us?”

“No, I’m just a wanderer. I was looking for a bookshop, how am I doing?”

“This isn’t a bookshop.”

“No, this is a war. Going by the mix of technology, it’s rather difficult to pin down which. I saw a plane just a few miles off. Bows and arrows… and a number of spears in the mud – yet those curious eyeball hands scream bio-tech. Not Earth, I take it? So… which war is this?”

“It’s just The War.”

“Yes… but which planet? Which galaxy?”

“I don’t understand.”

The old man shrugged. “Never mind – let’s focus on you. Let’s focus on survival. Rather important in situations like these! Live now, make a plan later, that’s what I say! Now, listen… you have a choice.”

Davros looked around. All he saw was certain doom. On all sides the handmines reached and snatched. “A choice?” the boy said, cynically.

He saw no choices here.

“Yes!” the old man said. “Survival is a choice – make it now! Choose to live.”

“Sir…” Davros said. “If I move, they’ll get me. The monsters will get me, and they’ll gobble me up.”

“I told you, kid, you have one chance in a thousand! But that one is all you’ll ever need. And you didn’t answer my question!”

“You didn’t answer mine!” the boy snapped back.

“Oh!” the man exclaimed. “Sassy! We can work with that. And what was your question, young man?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the Doctor.”

“Doctor Who?”

The old man glanced at the fields of ruin around him. “Today, I’m a war doctor. Tomorrow, who knows? Now… your turn. My first question.” He smiled. “The only question that really matters. What’s your name?”

The boy frowned. He was shivering. And the witty remarks weren’t particularly helpful. But the old man’s voice was warm, and his eyes were kind.

“Come on!” the Doctor said. “Have faith in the future! Have faith that you have a future! I certainly believe you do. You might say the future is my field of study. And trust me, I don’t put my faith in just anyone. You’re special. I could tell, as soon as I heard your voice.” The old man smiled again, deep lines appearing in his beautifully worn face. “Look at you! Shivering in the cold, victim of a war-torn world, yet here you are being sassy and clever in the face of certain doom! So come on, young man… prove me right! Tell me the name of the boy who isn’t going to die today.”

And so Davros told the Doctor his name – and the Doctor ran away in horror.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next Chapter: The Girl in the Fiery Place