Doctor Who Fiction – “Mark Of The Man”
by Michael E.P. Stevens
You. Yes, you, there, standing before me. I have seen your face before. Do you know who I am? More importantly, do you know what I am? Let me expound.
My magic is of the mind. Come with me, and I can give you Everything, and when Everything becomes inadequate I can give you more. Impossible talk? I think not.
There are places you have yet to see; you are innocent to the Universe – let me show you! Time is our host tonight; we can dine amongst the stars, on food fit only for emperors; we can inhale the fumes of a thousand intoxicating liquors, and taste them all on our tongues – then fly away to another Heaven in another Universe, and begin the feast again.
The people around us can stare; they are blind to our whims, our fancies, our raw energy and our pure power. Uninvincible, non-eternal, they shall be gone when we return. They have no inkling of the way we fly the evening air; they cannot see our tracks, our paths to other homes.
I see it in you today; you are bored by the limitations of this world – your eyes sparkle with a fuel yet untapped, and ambition unfulfilled. You are a caged animal, strong, angry, intolerant, and yet – you are frightened. Apprehension flickers on your face; should you trust me? Dare you put your faith in me?
But be my faithful companion, show me loyalty, do as I ask, help me, tend me, learn from me, feed from me, USE me, and I will set you up amongst the Gods – For I am the Time Lord.
He wants me. On this darkest day, as thunder clouds gather above our unprotected heads, he is beckoning. His is not a question – it is a command. I am to go with him.
Into his ship, his inexplicable box, in, in, in…
And now on what ground do my feet come to rest? Borne onto a hellish landscape, his cape flapping on the wind, his teeth bared in an exotic smile …. he knows all about our situation, he is the fiend of this world, and of my world.
And yet – I cannot disagree, or disobey, or speak my mind. I have no mind in his presence. I have only his shared will, rattling in my skull – the one thought is tumbling through the channels of my brain.
People here… instruments of manipulation, exploitation… animals to be taken in hand. I could use them, abuse them, beat them, have them, kill them… Is this me in here?
And chains around my feet, scars on my body, blood on my teeth, and always a golden warmth in my heart, a hunger and a hypnotism.
Sabalom Glitz, Luigi Rossini, Neman, Goth, Trenchard – whatever my name, I have been Marked.
First published: January 1990
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