The Valeyard raised his hands, ready for the coup d’etat…
“That’s right, Valley-boy!” Eloise said, “give us a strong down-beat!”
She tucked her fiddle under her chin, starting up a reprise of “Post to Rad-wah”:
Surfing on the web, posting to the ’group,
Surfing on the web, and posting to the ’group!
Roll ’em up, and twist ’em up a high tuckahaw,
And twist ’em up a tune called ‘Post to Rad-wah’!
The second Doctor whipped out his recorder, and began to play along. Kazoos began buzzing. Those who had dropped their noisemakers clapped in time.
“Okay, everyone – follow me!” Eloise shouted. She led them all in a circle around the Valeyard, and started the next verse:
As I jumped over to ‘This Time Round’,
I met a little duck so blue and round,
And now, it’s time for that duck to sing.
Let’s watch the Valeyard cut the Pigeon-wing!
“What?! No, no –” the Valeyard sputtered. “You’re ruining it – you’re supposed to be afraid!”
“Really, m’boy!” the first Doctor said, circling around him in a high-stepping cakewalk. “You, of all people, should know us better than that. When have any of us done what we’re supposed to?”
A thunderous boom filled the hall, drowning out the music. The Valeyard raised his arms a second time, and a voice that was not his own vibrated through him.
“Then I shall make you afra-frai-ha-ha– Hey! cut that out!!”
For right at that moment, Orange Anubis had stepped up and aimed the tip of a large golden feather at the Valeyard’s exposed left armpit.
“H-hey! he-he-he! I s-said cut it ou-ou-out!” The Valeyard buckled, protecting his ticklish spots. “EEEP!” he shrieked, for right at that moment, a twenty foot tall pink and white bunny aimed her Goddess-sized whiskers at his right armpit. As he collapsed completely on to the floor, a Groucho-spectacled cybermat leapt onto his chest, tickling the tip of his nose with the hairs of the fake moustache.
Then all mayhem broke loose:
A crowd of revellers who had got lost in the many corridors of the Capitol appeared through a door behind him. Some were armed with custard pies, some with balloons, some with musical instruments. Seeing the Valeyard unprotected, none hesitated for a moment.
A large owl, who had been perched in the rafters of the barn, watching with great amusement, swooped down and dropped an egg, which she regretfully admitted was never going to hatch, directly on the Valeyard’s skullcap. The stench was horrendous.
The Valeyard lost all control. Alternately dodging water balloons, custard pies, feathers and the paper tips of party horns, he shrieked and laughed until he went limp, exhausted.
There was another roll of thunder, and a flash of darkness filled the hall. The walls, ceiling, and floor vanished, leaving them in a suspended place outside all dimensions. The Black Guardian himself hovered above them, seething with anger.
“You may have robbed me of my mortal instrument,” he roared (“I knew he couldn’t maintain his hold on a mind that is bent on fun,” Eloise whispered to Orange.) “But you have not robbed me of my power! I will succeed in wiping you from all space and time!”
There was a second roll of thunder, followed by a flash of light. Eris Herself, her body shimmering with the dancing of atoms and the weaving of time, rose above the gathered partygoers, shielding them with her flowing cloak. As she spoke, rainbows breathed into existence around them.
“I think not,” she said, quietly. But her quietness echoed further and more deeply than all of the Black Guardian’s bellows. “You have called yourself the Lord of Chaos,” she said, “and this is your biggest lie. I am Chaos! I take what is known and turn it upside down, revealing the unknown. I weave all that is different together and create the new. I mix the opposites together, until there is no opposition. You take all that is different and try to isolate it from itself, attempting to unweave the very fabric of space-time. But you will never succeed, for the moment you begin, you will undo your own existence.”
She raised up her hand, revealing the Artifact, now at its full size, throbbing and shimmering with a life of its own, in perfect rhythm with the Goddess’s own breathing. With a twitch of her finger, she set it spinning, and as it spun, its true form became clear: a disk, like the yin-yang, with a golden pentagram on one side, and a golden apple on the other.
“The Sacred Chao!” Eloise said, in an awed whisper. *
As it spun faster and faster, the pentagram, the embodiment of order, rose from the surface of the disk, and multiplying itself by twelve, engulfed the Black Guardian in a dodecahedron-shaped cage. The cage began to spin, its edges blurring until it appeared to be a solid form.
The Black Guardian roared in frustration. “I will be free!” he bellowed.
“I think not,” Eris said, again. “You may be god-like. But I am a true goddess. And I am your mistress. Don’t ever forget that again.” Swirling her cloak to hide herself and the Black Guardian from view, she called out: “Come forth, oh Snark, my Boojum friend.”
A strange, giggling sort of snarl-growl-mutter could be heard, and the Black Guardian’s voice ended in mid roar.
There was that now-familiar ripple in the air.
Eris, the Snark, and the Black Guardian were nowhere to be seen.
Compassion was back to her chubby red-headed self. “Whew!” she said. “That’s better!”
“What happened?” Eloise asked, stunned. “Are they really gone?”
The Valeyard, slumped against the wall, still giggled weakly to himself. “I thi-think,” he said, quietly, “that they all just went back to where they came from.” He got shakily to his feet, and wiped feebly at the custard cream dribbling down the front of his cloak. “And I think,” he said, “that I should do the same. I think I have some – sorting out to do, if you know what I mean.”
“What will you do now?” the sixth Doctor asked him. Of all his incarnations, he felt closest to this one, even if the connection was less than pleasant.
“I think,” the Valeyard said, looking him in the eye, “I may just do what you almost did, and be a hermit – for a while.” Humming “Post to Rad-wah” to himself, he went into the Council Chamber, and closed the door behind him.
“Do you think he really has changed?” Eloise asked the sixth Doctor.
He shrugged. “Hard to tell,” he said. “I’ve always found myself rather confusing…”
Eloise sighed. “I think it’s the same for all of us,” she said.
The eighth Doctor looked around. “Well, that’s nearly over…”
Thomas frowned. “But there’s…”
“…just one thing he doesn’t understand…” Alryssa completed wearily.
Thomas looked determined. “Yes. Like… how did the Valeyard know our hostess’ Earth identity?”
“Easily…” the seventh Doctor said. “He shares our memories. We know her identity… therefore, so does he.”
Thomas scratched his head. “So… if he shares your memories, how come he didn’t know he’d lose?”
“Maybe he did…” put in the sixth Doctor. “He always had a self-defeating streak… I blame it on self-hatred, myself.”
“Or maybe,” Eloise ventured, hopefully, “he realized that he didn’t really lose. Mixed up as the Valeyard is, he is still the Doctor at heart. And the Doctor would never want to see the creative energy of true Chaos replaced with the stagnant darkness of the Black Guardian.” She turned to her eight assembled guests of honour. “Am I not right, gentlemen?” she asked, with a slight bow and a wink.
“By George!” the fourth Doctor said, with a flourishing wave of his hand, his thick curls bouncing. “I think she’s got it!”
“What now?” Donald butted in.
The eighth Doctor frowned. “Well, I think that’s everything tied up… If our hostess doesn’t mind, we’ll return the party to Earth, back where all this began…”
Eloise nodded.
As everyone, with much muttering, groaning, and sighs of relief, entered the Pro-Fun TARDIS, the real Lord Gallifrijan burst into the room.
The doors of the Pro-Fun TARDIS closed. There was a wheezing, groaning sound.
And the Pro-Fun TARDIS dematerialised.
Gallifrijan turned to the man who’d followed him in. “They’ve left, my lord… And after I went to all that trouble to show them the ultimate Banana Daiquiri…” He started sobbing.
The other man patted him on the back sympathetically. “I wouldn’t worry too much, Gallifrijan… Gallifrey’s future wasn’t meant to meet its past…” He paused. “Maybe I should pass that as a law of time…”
Gallifrijan had heard this before. “Yes, my lord… But as tribute for releasing me from that time loop, perhaps you would care to taste the Daiquiri…”
Rassilon winced. “Maybe another time, Gallifrijan…”
He turned to leave. “Oh, and Doctor… You’re still on the list of Names…”
The eighth Doctor frowned. “That’s odd… I could have sworn someone was talking about me…” He shrugged. “Ah, well…”