DW Fic: River Song and the Lost Tomb of Ardûn
Title: River Song and the Lost Tomb of Ardûn
Author: nancybrown
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: River, Jack, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some violence and torture (think Indiana Jones films level of gore)
Spoilers: up through "DW: The Angels Take Manhattan"
Words: 5000
Beta: fide_et_spe, who also helped with those fiddly little details of time-travelling British people
Summary: River's professor for her first archaeology class was a self-declared expert on late twentieth and early twenty-first century Earth history. Naturally, she hated his guts.
AN: For rabecka, who prompted "River (plus any others, bonus for Jack) - Got to love a good tomb." Also fills the Trope Bingo square: time travel
***
Another name for archaeologist is "thief." This suits River fine. She works for the University when she can, and private clients when she chooses. She's on a case for a private source now, chasing a lead in a dingy bar on a backwater planet. A stranger takes the seat next to her without an invitation.
"Rumour says you're searching for the lost Tomb of Ardûn."
She shrugs. She's been making enquiries around this system. It's not a secret. Fool's quest, she's been told, and a waste of time for such a pretty woman.
"Why? Do you know where it is?"
"Alas, no." In very little time, and very much heavy-handed flirting, he pays her handsomely in advance for locating an item of interest legend says may be found within the inner chamber. River accepts his money.
She sips her drink. "I'll meet you here in one year, just past sunset. Agreed?"
As he walks away, she pockets the payment and the rest of his wallet, pays her bill, and slips away. Finding the Tomb is a job she's working for another client, but extra money never goes amiss.
***
She'd chosen her name when she'd chosen her field, and truth be told, much for the same reasons: she would be River Song, she would be an archaeologist, so she was going to be River Song, Archaeologist. Bit of a headache there, but the woman formerly known as Melody Pond and Mels Zucker had always found thinking non-linearly an easy exercise. Cause was effect was cause. She needed to be the one convincing her parents to hook up so she could be born, she needed to kill the Doctor because she had already killed the Doctor, and she needed to study archaeology because she was an archaeologist. Obvious. Simple.
The truth was complicated with more than mere destiny. She loved her field. She'd known she would during the very first class session with her level one professor, who'd only taught for a single term before setting off on another adventure himself.
Archaeology, he'd said, was the study of provable facts to sift out ancient propaganda and lies. To be more precise, he'd said it was "your job to filter out the bullshit." River had spent her entire life believing bullshit. A new field and a new name meant a new start in every way, and what better a start than learning the tools to discover the truths amongst the mendacities?
She settled in to learn with a smile on her face. The smile didn't last.
The introductory course was supposed to be a survey of the field: famous explorers, general history, and of course, each class had a concentration specific to the speciality of the professor teaching. Her professor was an expert in the field of twentieth and twenty-first century Earth history. River herself had grown up in that time period and chose it on the basis that she'd like the easy marks. This was not the case.
"He hates me," she announced to her roommate, flopping into her bed with exhaustion.
"He doesn't," soothed Lia, conscientiously placing her own book reader into the charger before joining River.
"Then why do I have twice the workload of anyone else in the class?"
Their teacher styled himself Professor Jones. Any self-respecting expert of the twentieth century would swipe the name from the period's most famous fictional archaeologist-cum-adventurer. Besides, not only had River seen every film several times, she was hardly one to judge recreating one's self at university. The professor was rather good-looking, she admitted. She read the adoration in Lia's eyes as her roommate jumped to defend him.
"He thinks you're smart enough to handle it."
But River didn't think so.
In class, she never once had the chance to relax, or to give the easy answer. No, every time her attention wavered, Professor Jones called her name, making her answer the hardest question he could think of on today's lecture. Lia and Kris were allowed to answer queries like, "Name all four Beatles." When River's turn came, it was, "Miss Song, describe for the class the sociological impact the British Invasion had on popular culture in context of the social unrest of the time period."
Never mind that River had met John Lennon. Never mind that her foster parents had owned the White Album on vinyl. No, it was all explain this, social theory that, and who was in charge of the dig that uncovered the ruins of Mount Rushmore, and red marks all over every paper she turned in.
"Needs more detail." "Weak argument, support it better." "Show your sources and dig deeper."
She gritted her teeth, and rewrote.
***
The lost Tomb of Ardûn has five hundred stories and a thousand legends associated with it. The few details that echo amongst every retelling are these three:
1. Empress Ardûn was buried in the heart of the temple, ostensibly to show her importance, but mainly because her people wanted to be quite clear on the matter that she was dead and not coming back.
2. She was entombed with rich treasures packed in tightly like a squirrel packs its cheeks with food. (The legend actually says "like a marmba packs its throat pouch with rotting leaves," but Mels once owned a squirrel she named Harry Pothead, and River likes that image better.)
3. Her spirit still haunts the temple, bound inside, and her angered screams can be heard from beyond the walls. Hearing her scream is a certain sign of the listener's impending death.
***
"Miss Song, what were Margaret Thatcher's five greatest accomplishments, and what impact did they have on the next two decades in British society?"
He wasn't even looking at her. River got to her feet, because he preferred answers given by standing students. She bought herself time by reciting Thatcher's name, and tried to remember what she could from the nineties before her readings clicked back into place. She finished her answer quoting the textbook.
He didn't respond at first. "Your first answer contradicts your second answer. Which is it? What's the truth?"
She'd had enough of this. "Couldn't it be both?"
"No, it can't, Miss Song."
The "Miss Song" grated on her every time. "Call me River."
"Are you married, River? Are you a doctor?" His tone was mocking but she felt barbs in every word, and grew hot standing under his gaze in front of the rest of the class.
"No."
"When you do, are you going to take your wife or husband's name? Bit of an old-fashioned custom, but you're an old-fashioned woman."
Interesting. She wondered if he'd seen her records, and knew the complicated story of her own birth name. River folded her arms. "I doubt it."
"Sit down, Miss Song."
***
She's reached the moons of Daytach, a perilous journey that she thinks about later in her bad dreams, nightmares where she commits the murder she went away for, nightmares where she loses everything. On the nights she suffers those terrors, she relives the path to Daytach. During the days, she manages to forget.
Her last lead said the moons can only be seen from certain angles on certain days, and only a dead species ever called the world by its true name. The information was well worth the payment, a handful of crushed gems she bought with the cash she picked up on her side job. This is Daytach of the legends, swirling below her with giant gas clouds and storms larger than worlds.
***
"The lost Tomb of Ardûn," said Professor Jones, face gone soft in that way he had when lost in a memory. "Now there's a place I haven't thought about in a long, long time."
Nisi'Ta asked, "You believe it is real?"
"I'm positive." He quoted the well-known myth: "Under the blood-red sky of giant Daytach, beneath the forest canopy on the third moon, the Empress Ardûn stood dying, and said, 'Put my bones here, and build the greatest temple of all time to my glory.'"
Lia giggled. She'd asked about the lost Tomb in relation to Grant's Tomb, and now, their teacher was off an another ramble. River remembered this lesson well, because it was the first and the last where he didn't lob question after question at her. Instead, the class pulled their chairs around him like a campfire, whilst Professor Jones told them the stories: a hoard of gems with magical powers, an army of undead soldiers guarding the inner crypt, an impossible maze that wound for miles under the ground. River listened, a bit bored. Half the stories were obvious bullshit, and she had no idea why he bothered telling them.
"But they're all wrong," Professor Jones said. That was better, River thought, although the faces around her fell. "No hidden treasures, no ghosts, no curses, and no maze. Third moon of Daytach. Find that and the tomb is easy. But it's empty."
"And you know this how?" asked Kris, doubt all over zir face.
Professor Jones grinned, and River had to admit, his grin could charm the knickers off a statue. "Only the very best could ever find it."
***
River learned the language local to this sector as part of her later studies. She's fluent enough to ask her questions and to understand the answers she's given in return. No-one goes in the forest, those who go in the forest stay away from the temple, those who go near the temple hear the screams of the damned souls the Empress trapped there with her after they ventured too close. Go away, lady.
There's always someone who wants money or adventure, and she finds a guide: a woman with skin as tough as leather, and eyes nearly squinted shut from too many years under the scorching light of the sun and the ever-present harsh red glare of the planet above them. Her name is Alon Spet, and she carries a spear and a blaster. River likes her already. She doesn't trust her, naturally, but she does like her.
Alon Spet knows the winding road to the centre of the forest. Together, they stun the gigantic Trill-Bears that wander the path looking for prey, and when one won't stun, River shoots it. She won't regret saving her own life. Alon Spet butchers the beast, and they spend one night cooking all the meat to keep it preserved. "You don't throw away good food," says Alon Spet. Thinking of all the meals she ate in her grandparents' home, and the dubious wisdom of Augustus Pond at his dinner, River agrees.
***
Lia and Nemson were tired of studying. It was only a quiz, they reasoned, and River already knew loads about English idioms from the early twenty-first century. Surely they could take a break and get a drink?
She'd never needed much persuading, had in fact typically been the one who did the persuading, back when she'd get herself and her mother into incredibly entertaining trouble. River hadn't indulged her inner Mels in quite some time.
They closed their book readers and went to the student bar. "Just one drink," promised Nemson.
"And some dinner," Lia suggested, rubbing her pretty round belly.
Professor Jones was at the bar, chatting up a cute second year from anthropology. Despite his casual clothes in the same style the students favoured, he looked his age in the bar's dim light: late forties, more grey than brown left in his hair, wrinkles making themselves permanent. Not even the brightest smile he could muster convinced the much younger girl to join him on the dance floor, or anywhere else he was suggesting.
Nemson pressed River's shoulder. "You should go over there. Flirt a bit. Maybe he'll warm up to you."
River's eyes went wide. "Him? He hates me." Back home, back in the day, even thinking about shagging a teacher would have landed her into hot water. Ms. Heron in sixth form had been too cute for Mels to pass up, but had they been found out, Ms. Heron would have lost her job and been arrested. Here, now, the rules were different. No-one cared as long as you both (or all) kept it professional.
Professor Jones's intended object of affection said her goodbyes and walked away from him.
"Oh, go on," said Lia, shoving a glass into River's hand. "He's, what's the phrase? Mutton dressed as rent boy? Easy."
Anything was worth a try.
"Hello, Professor," she said, wondering suddenly what his first name was. She'd never bothered to look.
"Miss Song," he said pleasantly, if distantly. "Shouldn't you be studying tonight?"
She set her drink down next to his hand, just barely touching him. "Maybe I was looking for a better study partner."
Professor Jones gave her a careful look. "Are you married, Miss Song?"
She shook her head. "Free as springtime."
He patted her head. "Good night, Miss Song."
She was surprised, and a bit annoyed, when he went home with Nemson instead.
***
Alon Spet betrays her casually on the doorstep to the temple. Without shame, she robs River of all the money she has, and takes her sonic blaster as well.
"After all we shared?"
"You're about to die anyway. No point in letting you take the good things to your death with you." As if in agreement, distant screams echo from within.
"Leave me some of the Trill-Bear meat?"
Alon Spet snorts. "Yes." She tears off a large joint of the meat, handing it to River with the weapons carefully out of reach. River thanks her, and doesn't bother watching her go.
***
"You are studying the past, studying history," Professor Jones told them during a long lecture. "But remember that every point in history was once someone's far-flung future."
He showed them the Time Agency technology, which he said was on loan for them to see. (Later, River found out that was a lie, and her friends speculated he'd been sacked for the transgression.)
"Just for your information," he said, and he took them on a field trip to see the Electric on Portobello Road in London, 2013. River kept an eye out, hoping not to run into anyone she knew.
She was unsurprised when he assigned them a four-page paper on the field trip, and unsurprised when she got hers back with corrections. What did surprise her was that she'd turned in an eight-page paper instead, and had only a handful of red marks. She tried the trick for her next assignment, delving more deeply into the topic (talian fashion trends from 1975 to 2025 with references to changing social expectations and the status of women both in Italy and the rest of Europe, twelve pages for a three-page paper). He only made two corrections, both for spelling.
***
There is a labyrinth, carved from stone and barbed with traps. River has none of her weapons but all of her wits. Also, the traps are old and in disrepair. After the first poisoned arrow lumbers out at her gracelessly when she trips the rusty old spring under the stepping stone, she watches carefully for more stones out of place. The traps are easy to spot: a good centimetre above the others, thrust up with the force of the mechanism beneath.
River lets out a short laugh, nimbly dancing past each raised stone.
When she trips the completely-disguised trap hidden amongst the obvious ones, a viciously thin wire sings through the air at head-height and only her quick reflexes save her neck from a deadly chop.
She falls to the ground, panting. The wire swings back without a noise, resetting itself. Off to the side, she makes out what she thought were fallen rocks, but turn out to be very old bones, gnawed and abandoned by the local rodents. The skeletons are scattered in one pile, the skulls some way off in another, right where they'd have rolled.
Ugh.
Very carefully, River stands up, and this time, she makes her way past the booby traps with more respect.
***
A week before she graduated with her degree, and (not that she knew it then) a week before her wedding and committing the not-crime she found herself in prison for, River went to the student bar with Lia and Kris and Nemson. Professor Jones sat at their table, waiting for her.
Whilst the others made excuses to get drinks, River sat down facing him. "You hated me, didn't you?"
He took a long drink. Water, she noted. An interesting choice. "No," he said after a while. "Are you married, River?"
She smiled sadly. "No. I haven't found the man I love yet."
His eyes twinkled, and he threw down some extra credits as he stood. "I'll see you later, Doctor Song."
***
The maze isn't that amazing, she decides when she's through. She finds the shortcut, and avoids even the cleverly-hidden trap that would have dropped a three-tonne block on her head. The walls are etched with pictograms. She's still got her photoclick, and she records what she can.
The tale of the Empress Ardûn is known only from legends: how she swept in out of obscurity to conquer system after system, bringing worlds under her stern but fair control. This part of the galaxy prospered under her rule for two generations as she personally led her armies to take more territory, quickly defeating their foes and striking trade bargains and demanding tribute. Of course, the story praising her on these walls neglects the massive slave trade she used to fund her wars, and the poverty in which she left the people of her vassal states when they no longer had valuables to trade. It tells only a short account of her death, not knowing the later revelation that her own generals poisoned her slowly, then tore the empire apart in their squabbles for control.
It's all very fascinating, for something that happened twelve thousand years ago.
The screams startle her, and then she heads toward them. Not far now.
***
She was on a, well, she thought of it variously as a holiday and a work-release program from Stormcage. Prison was ever so dull. She'd helped the Doctor on a bit of a problem with Jim the Fish and a larcenous shipment of space anchovies, and was treating herself to a crisp Jolade Nectar in an out-of-the-way alien bar, laying low in the sixty-third century before she went back to her cell for a rest.
A slight headache grew in the back of her mind, a disturbance in the Force, she'd have cracked when she was younger. She took her drink to a table in the back, where a sweet-faced young thing was turning down a proposition from a middle-aged human. River gave tonight's quarry time to run before she sat down.
"Haven't seen you in a while," said her former professor. He hadn't aged, but then, he so rarely showed the signs, and like all time-travellers, his age was relative. He finished his water while she studied him.
"You were jealous," River said, finally, and she took a sip of nectar from her own glass. "You knew I'd marry him one day. That's why you were so hard on me."
His eyebrows raised. "That's what you think?"
"It's the truth, isn't it?"
He smiled, and it wasn't the intentionally charming grin he normally gave, so she was almost certain he wasn't conning her. "No. I mean, sure, part of me will always love him. Can't deny that. We all do. But your Doctor isn't my Doctor. It's like wondering how he could marry you when the Doctor before him was so caught up in Rose he couldn't think straight. It's asking the wrong kind of question."
"Then what's the right question?" She leaned forward, showing him a bit of cleavage. If half the rumours about this man were true, he was definitely worth taking home for a bit of fun before she went back to prison. She might even convince her love to join them. Her imagination sparkled with a dozen ideas.
Jack, or whatever his name was currently, tilted his head. "Are you married, River?"
"You know the answer to that."
"Humour me."
"Widowed. I murdered my husband on our wedding day. I thought everyone knew that." And she took a long drink, because she loved her husband, but sometimes their timeline even gave her headaches.
"Goodbye, Doctor Song."
He got up from the table, and walked away.
***
River is at a locked door. Her intended key is slung in the belt of her former guide, and she's not sure how this part goes. The screams have gone quiet, the dead at rest. She's more frightened now that she doesn't even have that sound for company, and she covers that fear by kicking the walls with her boot until she finds a loose stone. With the stone, she can dislodge one of the useless arrows from a trap, which helps her get a spear head loose, and now she has tools.
She manages to pry off the stone that serves as the cover for the control panel. It's all gears and pulleys from here, oiled on a constant drip, very neat even after all this time.
History doesn't serve her now. Fortunately, she always had a good grasp of physics. With a little work, she twists the arrow into one pulley and begins to crank. The levers and ancient hydraulics give way to the right torque, and the door slowly slides upward.
She sticks her rock underneath just in case, and carefully climbs through the hole she's made.
This is the inner tomb, the final resting place of the Empress. Her casket sits atop a high stone under a polished mirror of brass, which catches the tiny pinpricks of light shining down through drilled holes to the outside. Air exchanges with the world, and so do insects. As River approaches the body, she can see it has been chewed to almost nothing. Tiny carapaces litter the floor, crackling like gravel under her boots.
There are traps in this room as well, she's careful to note. After twelve thousand years, not all of them still reset. For example, the one impaling the other dead body in the room has locked into place, embedded in the flesh of the last explorer to this tomb.
River observes everything and then she tugs at the single gem of the necklace around the Empress's neck. The chain comes away with a dusty crunch. River stows it in her pocket; mustn't let down a client, even one she's robbed.
She makes her way to the sprung trap, taking note of the jagged edges of the wood. In another hundred years, they'll be weak and rotten enough to break, and some are already showing signs of wear. Activating the trap probably slammed the outside door shut again, so if someone was lucky enough to be caught when they could break the stakes, all they'd have to worry about was slowly starving to death.
The body in the trap is terribly abused, cut through with a good dozen of the spikes. It doesn't look like the lungs were punctured, but the kidneys and groin are clearly shot through, and the meat of the legs, one arm, and both feet. It has to be a horrible, painful way to die.
Which is why her heart breaks when the body gasps back to life and lets out a scream of pure agony.
"Shh," she hushes, even though he probably can't hear her. She presses her hand against his face, and he nestles into the touch instinctively, even as his body flails. "I'll get you out. It'll have to wait. I'm so sorry."
The screams go on, until his voice gives out. River can do nothing now, nothing except stroke his face and whisper to him, and wait as he whimpers in mindless pain. After far too long, he dies.
As soon as he's beyond pain, she begins the grisly work of severing his flesh from the stakes whilst he's still dead and can't feel her cutting off his feet.
***
They ran into each other during an adventure with the latest fresh-faced companion, and the freshest face of her love. Professor Jones, his hair gone white and his face full of wrinkles, flirted shamelessly with the wide-eyed ingénue, leaving the Doctor to roll her new green eyes.
"He never changes," she moaned to River, who just laughed.
"He changes enough."
"And you?" he tossed lightly over his shoulder, flirting banked for the time being. "Are you two currently an item?"
"It's complicated," the Doctor said, looking down at her own hands. She was still settling into the latest regeneration, still sorting out who she was. They might not be married, River thought sadly. Her love might be a different person now. Then again, she might not be.
River stepped over to her former teacher. "Complicated," she repeated with a shrug that suggested everything about them usually was.
He embraced River with the same fondness that he did his old friend, and gave her a soft "Thanks," as he kissed her cheek. Curious, but not unwelcome, she decided.
The Doctor asked, "What name are you going by currently?"
"I've gone back to Jack."
River smiled. "No more Indiana Jones references?"
"Never made any. You know me, River. I'm just an old-fashioned kind of guy."
***
He comes alive after she's pulled his body free, which is a blessing. She doesn't let him rest, forcing him to crawl out of the tomb before the ancient architects throw them any more surprises. Together, they make their way back out of the temple.
There's not much time to talk, and he's too weary to do more than follow her instructions, but by sundown and planetrise, they're free. This leaves them only to have to contend with Trill-Bears and worse in the forest.
"We'll spend the night here," she tells him, and lets him have most of the cooked bear. Having spent her day carving him like a turkey, she finds she doesn't have much of an appetite.
With the meal gulped down, he's soon showing the signs of his old self. "And whom should I thank for my very timely rescue?" he asks her with that familiar grin. But perhaps not so familiar: his hair is still dark, and there's hardly a line on his face.
"You don't know me?" she asks, although she's getting used to this. He shakes his head. "Professor River Song. I was hired by your husband to find you. He's out of his mind with worry."
Jack raises his eyebrows in a manner which sends her back years. "I don't have a husband right now. That I know of."
"Maybe he's your future husband, then? Time travel's hell on relationships."
"That it is," he agrees. "I take it you and I are going to meet? Because I don't know you, and I never forget a gorgeous face." He's taken her hand, she doesn't quite remember when, and he's pressing a very tender kiss to the joint of her thumb and forefinger.
With some regret, she pulls her hand back. "Down, Captain. I'm a married woman."
Then she pauses, and it's only because he just spent the last twenty years impaled and dying over and over that she doesn't slap him.
***
With classes about to start a new session, River came home, and made a stop at the student bar. Professors weren't technically banned, and plenty came to gawk at the latest crop of pretty young pupils, but River received enough concerned glances from her own students that she took a booth near the back. She didn't have to wait long.
"Is this seat taken?" he asked, and then slid into the booth without her reply.
"You look better than the last time I saw you," River said. "Fewer stakes going through your body, for one thing."
"Are you married, River?"
She set down her drink. "Happily. And that's Professor Song to you."
Jack had the best laugh in any bar in any time.
"You needed me," she said. "That's all it ever was."
"Did I remember to thank you? My memory is fuzzy."
"You did. But you can do it as often as you please."
"Thank you, Professor Song, for saving me."
"You're welcome." She ran a finger over the rim of her glass. "And thank you. I'm still furious with you, but thank you."
"Only the best could have found me. And I knew you would be the best, because you did." He'd rehearsed that line. She could tell.
"I almost dropped out of the program because of you. I hated you. Then I decided I wanted to show you up, and I stayed to spite you."
"Are you a better teacher than I was?"
"Much."
"Good." There was that smile again. "I should go."
"You should stay. This is the first conversation we've had at the same point in time. Think of the novelty factor." She leaned forward. "Think of the gossip we can catch up on." River pressed her hand against his. "I think we both have some stories to tell."
He paused, for once at a loss for words. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"That'll take some time."
"What's time, to people like us?"
He looked like he would leave her sitting there again, like he always had. Then he settled back into his seat and signalled the waiter for a water and the snack menu.
***
The End
***
Author: nancybrown
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: River, Jack, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some violence and torture (think Indiana Jones films level of gore)
Spoilers: up through "DW: The Angels Take Manhattan"
Words: 5000
Beta: fide_et_spe, who also helped with those fiddly little details of time-travelling British people
Summary: River's professor for her first archaeology class was a self-declared expert on late twentieth and early twenty-first century Earth history. Naturally, she hated his guts.
AN: For rabecka, who prompted "River (plus any others, bonus for Jack) - Got to love a good tomb." Also fills the Trope Bingo square: time travel
***
Another name for archaeologist is "thief." This suits River fine. She works for the University when she can, and private clients when she chooses. She's on a case for a private source now, chasing a lead in a dingy bar on a backwater planet. A stranger takes the seat next to her without an invitation.
"Rumour says you're searching for the lost Tomb of Ardûn."
She shrugs. She's been making enquiries around this system. It's not a secret. Fool's quest, she's been told, and a waste of time for such a pretty woman.
"Why? Do you know where it is?"
"Alas, no." In very little time, and very much heavy-handed flirting, he pays her handsomely in advance for locating an item of interest legend says may be found within the inner chamber. River accepts his money.
She sips her drink. "I'll meet you here in one year, just past sunset. Agreed?"
As he walks away, she pockets the payment and the rest of his wallet, pays her bill, and slips away. Finding the Tomb is a job she's working for another client, but extra money never goes amiss.
***
She'd chosen her name when she'd chosen her field, and truth be told, much for the same reasons: she would be River Song, she would be an archaeologist, so she was going to be River Song, Archaeologist. Bit of a headache there, but the woman formerly known as Melody Pond and Mels Zucker had always found thinking non-linearly an easy exercise. Cause was effect was cause. She needed to be the one convincing her parents to hook up so she could be born, she needed to kill the Doctor because she had already killed the Doctor, and she needed to study archaeology because she was an archaeologist. Obvious. Simple.
The truth was complicated with more than mere destiny. She loved her field. She'd known she would during the very first class session with her level one professor, who'd only taught for a single term before setting off on another adventure himself.
Archaeology, he'd said, was the study of provable facts to sift out ancient propaganda and lies. To be more precise, he'd said it was "your job to filter out the bullshit." River had spent her entire life believing bullshit. A new field and a new name meant a new start in every way, and what better a start than learning the tools to discover the truths amongst the mendacities?
She settled in to learn with a smile on her face. The smile didn't last.
The introductory course was supposed to be a survey of the field: famous explorers, general history, and of course, each class had a concentration specific to the speciality of the professor teaching. Her professor was an expert in the field of twentieth and twenty-first century Earth history. River herself had grown up in that time period and chose it on the basis that she'd like the easy marks. This was not the case.
"He hates me," she announced to her roommate, flopping into her bed with exhaustion.
"He doesn't," soothed Lia, conscientiously placing her own book reader into the charger before joining River.
"Then why do I have twice the workload of anyone else in the class?"
Their teacher styled himself Professor Jones. Any self-respecting expert of the twentieth century would swipe the name from the period's most famous fictional archaeologist-cum-adventurer. Besides, not only had River seen every film several times, she was hardly one to judge recreating one's self at university. The professor was rather good-looking, she admitted. She read the adoration in Lia's eyes as her roommate jumped to defend him.
"He thinks you're smart enough to handle it."
But River didn't think so.
In class, she never once had the chance to relax, or to give the easy answer. No, every time her attention wavered, Professor Jones called her name, making her answer the hardest question he could think of on today's lecture. Lia and Kris were allowed to answer queries like, "Name all four Beatles." When River's turn came, it was, "Miss Song, describe for the class the sociological impact the British Invasion had on popular culture in context of the social unrest of the time period."
Never mind that River had met John Lennon. Never mind that her foster parents had owned the White Album on vinyl. No, it was all explain this, social theory that, and who was in charge of the dig that uncovered the ruins of Mount Rushmore, and red marks all over every paper she turned in.
"Needs more detail." "Weak argument, support it better." "Show your sources and dig deeper."
She gritted her teeth, and rewrote.
***
The lost Tomb of Ardûn has five hundred stories and a thousand legends associated with it. The few details that echo amongst every retelling are these three:
1. Empress Ardûn was buried in the heart of the temple, ostensibly to show her importance, but mainly because her people wanted to be quite clear on the matter that she was dead and not coming back.
2. She was entombed with rich treasures packed in tightly like a squirrel packs its cheeks with food. (The legend actually says "like a marmba packs its throat pouch with rotting leaves," but Mels once owned a squirrel she named Harry Pothead, and River likes that image better.)
3. Her spirit still haunts the temple, bound inside, and her angered screams can be heard from beyond the walls. Hearing her scream is a certain sign of the listener's impending death.
***
"Miss Song, what were Margaret Thatcher's five greatest accomplishments, and what impact did they have on the next two decades in British society?"
He wasn't even looking at her. River got to her feet, because he preferred answers given by standing students. She bought herself time by reciting Thatcher's name, and tried to remember what she could from the nineties before her readings clicked back into place. She finished her answer quoting the textbook.
He didn't respond at first. "Your first answer contradicts your second answer. Which is it? What's the truth?"
She'd had enough of this. "Couldn't it be both?"
"No, it can't, Miss Song."
The "Miss Song" grated on her every time. "Call me River."
"Are you married, River? Are you a doctor?" His tone was mocking but she felt barbs in every word, and grew hot standing under his gaze in front of the rest of the class.
"No."
"When you do, are you going to take your wife or husband's name? Bit of an old-fashioned custom, but you're an old-fashioned woman."
Interesting. She wondered if he'd seen her records, and knew the complicated story of her own birth name. River folded her arms. "I doubt it."
"Sit down, Miss Song."
***
She's reached the moons of Daytach, a perilous journey that she thinks about later in her bad dreams, nightmares where she commits the murder she went away for, nightmares where she loses everything. On the nights she suffers those terrors, she relives the path to Daytach. During the days, she manages to forget.
Her last lead said the moons can only be seen from certain angles on certain days, and only a dead species ever called the world by its true name. The information was well worth the payment, a handful of crushed gems she bought with the cash she picked up on her side job. This is Daytach of the legends, swirling below her with giant gas clouds and storms larger than worlds.
***
"The lost Tomb of Ardûn," said Professor Jones, face gone soft in that way he had when lost in a memory. "Now there's a place I haven't thought about in a long, long time."
Nisi'Ta asked, "You believe it is real?"
"I'm positive." He quoted the well-known myth: "Under the blood-red sky of giant Daytach, beneath the forest canopy on the third moon, the Empress Ardûn stood dying, and said, 'Put my bones here, and build the greatest temple of all time to my glory.'"
Lia giggled. She'd asked about the lost Tomb in relation to Grant's Tomb, and now, their teacher was off an another ramble. River remembered this lesson well, because it was the first and the last where he didn't lob question after question at her. Instead, the class pulled their chairs around him like a campfire, whilst Professor Jones told them the stories: a hoard of gems with magical powers, an army of undead soldiers guarding the inner crypt, an impossible maze that wound for miles under the ground. River listened, a bit bored. Half the stories were obvious bullshit, and she had no idea why he bothered telling them.
"But they're all wrong," Professor Jones said. That was better, River thought, although the faces around her fell. "No hidden treasures, no ghosts, no curses, and no maze. Third moon of Daytach. Find that and the tomb is easy. But it's empty."
"And you know this how?" asked Kris, doubt all over zir face.
Professor Jones grinned, and River had to admit, his grin could charm the knickers off a statue. "Only the very best could ever find it."
***
River learned the language local to this sector as part of her later studies. She's fluent enough to ask her questions and to understand the answers she's given in return. No-one goes in the forest, those who go in the forest stay away from the temple, those who go near the temple hear the screams of the damned souls the Empress trapped there with her after they ventured too close. Go away, lady.
There's always someone who wants money or adventure, and she finds a guide: a woman with skin as tough as leather, and eyes nearly squinted shut from too many years under the scorching light of the sun and the ever-present harsh red glare of the planet above them. Her name is Alon Spet, and she carries a spear and a blaster. River likes her already. She doesn't trust her, naturally, but she does like her.
Alon Spet knows the winding road to the centre of the forest. Together, they stun the gigantic Trill-Bears that wander the path looking for prey, and when one won't stun, River shoots it. She won't regret saving her own life. Alon Spet butchers the beast, and they spend one night cooking all the meat to keep it preserved. "You don't throw away good food," says Alon Spet. Thinking of all the meals she ate in her grandparents' home, and the dubious wisdom of Augustus Pond at his dinner, River agrees.
***
Lia and Nemson were tired of studying. It was only a quiz, they reasoned, and River already knew loads about English idioms from the early twenty-first century. Surely they could take a break and get a drink?
She'd never needed much persuading, had in fact typically been the one who did the persuading, back when she'd get herself and her mother into incredibly entertaining trouble. River hadn't indulged her inner Mels in quite some time.
They closed their book readers and went to the student bar. "Just one drink," promised Nemson.
"And some dinner," Lia suggested, rubbing her pretty round belly.
Professor Jones was at the bar, chatting up a cute second year from anthropology. Despite his casual clothes in the same style the students favoured, he looked his age in the bar's dim light: late forties, more grey than brown left in his hair, wrinkles making themselves permanent. Not even the brightest smile he could muster convinced the much younger girl to join him on the dance floor, or anywhere else he was suggesting.
Nemson pressed River's shoulder. "You should go over there. Flirt a bit. Maybe he'll warm up to you."
River's eyes went wide. "Him? He hates me." Back home, back in the day, even thinking about shagging a teacher would have landed her into hot water. Ms. Heron in sixth form had been too cute for Mels to pass up, but had they been found out, Ms. Heron would have lost her job and been arrested. Here, now, the rules were different. No-one cared as long as you both (or all) kept it professional.
Professor Jones's intended object of affection said her goodbyes and walked away from him.
"Oh, go on," said Lia, shoving a glass into River's hand. "He's, what's the phrase? Mutton dressed as rent boy? Easy."
Anything was worth a try.
"Hello, Professor," she said, wondering suddenly what his first name was. She'd never bothered to look.
"Miss Song," he said pleasantly, if distantly. "Shouldn't you be studying tonight?"
She set her drink down next to his hand, just barely touching him. "Maybe I was looking for a better study partner."
Professor Jones gave her a careful look. "Are you married, Miss Song?"
She shook her head. "Free as springtime."
He patted her head. "Good night, Miss Song."
She was surprised, and a bit annoyed, when he went home with Nemson instead.
***
Alon Spet betrays her casually on the doorstep to the temple. Without shame, she robs River of all the money she has, and takes her sonic blaster as well.
"After all we shared?"
"You're about to die anyway. No point in letting you take the good things to your death with you." As if in agreement, distant screams echo from within.
"Leave me some of the Trill-Bear meat?"
Alon Spet snorts. "Yes." She tears off a large joint of the meat, handing it to River with the weapons carefully out of reach. River thanks her, and doesn't bother watching her go.
***
"You are studying the past, studying history," Professor Jones told them during a long lecture. "But remember that every point in history was once someone's far-flung future."
He showed them the Time Agency technology, which he said was on loan for them to see. (Later, River found out that was a lie, and her friends speculated he'd been sacked for the transgression.)
"Just for your information," he said, and he took them on a field trip to see the Electric on Portobello Road in London, 2013. River kept an eye out, hoping not to run into anyone she knew.
She was unsurprised when he assigned them a four-page paper on the field trip, and unsurprised when she got hers back with corrections. What did surprise her was that she'd turned in an eight-page paper instead, and had only a handful of red marks. She tried the trick for her next assignment, delving more deeply into the topic (talian fashion trends from 1975 to 2025 with references to changing social expectations and the status of women both in Italy and the rest of Europe, twelve pages for a three-page paper). He only made two corrections, both for spelling.
***
There is a labyrinth, carved from stone and barbed with traps. River has none of her weapons but all of her wits. Also, the traps are old and in disrepair. After the first poisoned arrow lumbers out at her gracelessly when she trips the rusty old spring under the stepping stone, she watches carefully for more stones out of place. The traps are easy to spot: a good centimetre above the others, thrust up with the force of the mechanism beneath.
River lets out a short laugh, nimbly dancing past each raised stone.
When she trips the completely-disguised trap hidden amongst the obvious ones, a viciously thin wire sings through the air at head-height and only her quick reflexes save her neck from a deadly chop.
She falls to the ground, panting. The wire swings back without a noise, resetting itself. Off to the side, she makes out what she thought were fallen rocks, but turn out to be very old bones, gnawed and abandoned by the local rodents. The skeletons are scattered in one pile, the skulls some way off in another, right where they'd have rolled.
Ugh.
Very carefully, River stands up, and this time, she makes her way past the booby traps with more respect.
***
A week before she graduated with her degree, and (not that she knew it then) a week before her wedding and committing the not-crime she found herself in prison for, River went to the student bar with Lia and Kris and Nemson. Professor Jones sat at their table, waiting for her.
Whilst the others made excuses to get drinks, River sat down facing him. "You hated me, didn't you?"
He took a long drink. Water, she noted. An interesting choice. "No," he said after a while. "Are you married, River?"
She smiled sadly. "No. I haven't found the man I love yet."
His eyes twinkled, and he threw down some extra credits as he stood. "I'll see you later, Doctor Song."
***
The maze isn't that amazing, she decides when she's through. She finds the shortcut, and avoids even the cleverly-hidden trap that would have dropped a three-tonne block on her head. The walls are etched with pictograms. She's still got her photoclick, and she records what she can.
The tale of the Empress Ardûn is known only from legends: how she swept in out of obscurity to conquer system after system, bringing worlds under her stern but fair control. This part of the galaxy prospered under her rule for two generations as she personally led her armies to take more territory, quickly defeating their foes and striking trade bargains and demanding tribute. Of course, the story praising her on these walls neglects the massive slave trade she used to fund her wars, and the poverty in which she left the people of her vassal states when they no longer had valuables to trade. It tells only a short account of her death, not knowing the later revelation that her own generals poisoned her slowly, then tore the empire apart in their squabbles for control.
It's all very fascinating, for something that happened twelve thousand years ago.
The screams startle her, and then she heads toward them. Not far now.
***
She was on a, well, she thought of it variously as a holiday and a work-release program from Stormcage. Prison was ever so dull. She'd helped the Doctor on a bit of a problem with Jim the Fish and a larcenous shipment of space anchovies, and was treating herself to a crisp Jolade Nectar in an out-of-the-way alien bar, laying low in the sixty-third century before she went back to her cell for a rest.
A slight headache grew in the back of her mind, a disturbance in the Force, she'd have cracked when she was younger. She took her drink to a table in the back, where a sweet-faced young thing was turning down a proposition from a middle-aged human. River gave tonight's quarry time to run before she sat down.
"Haven't seen you in a while," said her former professor. He hadn't aged, but then, he so rarely showed the signs, and like all time-travellers, his age was relative. He finished his water while she studied him.
"You were jealous," River said, finally, and she took a sip of nectar from her own glass. "You knew I'd marry him one day. That's why you were so hard on me."
His eyebrows raised. "That's what you think?"
"It's the truth, isn't it?"
He smiled, and it wasn't the intentionally charming grin he normally gave, so she was almost certain he wasn't conning her. "No. I mean, sure, part of me will always love him. Can't deny that. We all do. But your Doctor isn't my Doctor. It's like wondering how he could marry you when the Doctor before him was so caught up in Rose he couldn't think straight. It's asking the wrong kind of question."
"Then what's the right question?" She leaned forward, showing him a bit of cleavage. If half the rumours about this man were true, he was definitely worth taking home for a bit of fun before she went back to prison. She might even convince her love to join them. Her imagination sparkled with a dozen ideas.
Jack, or whatever his name was currently, tilted his head. "Are you married, River?"
"You know the answer to that."
"Humour me."
"Widowed. I murdered my husband on our wedding day. I thought everyone knew that." And she took a long drink, because she loved her husband, but sometimes their timeline even gave her headaches.
"Goodbye, Doctor Song."
He got up from the table, and walked away.
***
River is at a locked door. Her intended key is slung in the belt of her former guide, and she's not sure how this part goes. The screams have gone quiet, the dead at rest. She's more frightened now that she doesn't even have that sound for company, and she covers that fear by kicking the walls with her boot until she finds a loose stone. With the stone, she can dislodge one of the useless arrows from a trap, which helps her get a spear head loose, and now she has tools.
She manages to pry off the stone that serves as the cover for the control panel. It's all gears and pulleys from here, oiled on a constant drip, very neat even after all this time.
History doesn't serve her now. Fortunately, she always had a good grasp of physics. With a little work, she twists the arrow into one pulley and begins to crank. The levers and ancient hydraulics give way to the right torque, and the door slowly slides upward.
She sticks her rock underneath just in case, and carefully climbs through the hole she's made.
This is the inner tomb, the final resting place of the Empress. Her casket sits atop a high stone under a polished mirror of brass, which catches the tiny pinpricks of light shining down through drilled holes to the outside. Air exchanges with the world, and so do insects. As River approaches the body, she can see it has been chewed to almost nothing. Tiny carapaces litter the floor, crackling like gravel under her boots.
There are traps in this room as well, she's careful to note. After twelve thousand years, not all of them still reset. For example, the one impaling the other dead body in the room has locked into place, embedded in the flesh of the last explorer to this tomb.
River observes everything and then she tugs at the single gem of the necklace around the Empress's neck. The chain comes away with a dusty crunch. River stows it in her pocket; mustn't let down a client, even one she's robbed.
She makes her way to the sprung trap, taking note of the jagged edges of the wood. In another hundred years, they'll be weak and rotten enough to break, and some are already showing signs of wear. Activating the trap probably slammed the outside door shut again, so if someone was lucky enough to be caught when they could break the stakes, all they'd have to worry about was slowly starving to death.
The body in the trap is terribly abused, cut through with a good dozen of the spikes. It doesn't look like the lungs were punctured, but the kidneys and groin are clearly shot through, and the meat of the legs, one arm, and both feet. It has to be a horrible, painful way to die.
Which is why her heart breaks when the body gasps back to life and lets out a scream of pure agony.
"Shh," she hushes, even though he probably can't hear her. She presses her hand against his face, and he nestles into the touch instinctively, even as his body flails. "I'll get you out. It'll have to wait. I'm so sorry."
The screams go on, until his voice gives out. River can do nothing now, nothing except stroke his face and whisper to him, and wait as he whimpers in mindless pain. After far too long, he dies.
As soon as he's beyond pain, she begins the grisly work of severing his flesh from the stakes whilst he's still dead and can't feel her cutting off his feet.
***
They ran into each other during an adventure with the latest fresh-faced companion, and the freshest face of her love. Professor Jones, his hair gone white and his face full of wrinkles, flirted shamelessly with the wide-eyed ingénue, leaving the Doctor to roll her new green eyes.
"He never changes," she moaned to River, who just laughed.
"He changes enough."
"And you?" he tossed lightly over his shoulder, flirting banked for the time being. "Are you two currently an item?"
"It's complicated," the Doctor said, looking down at her own hands. She was still settling into the latest regeneration, still sorting out who she was. They might not be married, River thought sadly. Her love might be a different person now. Then again, she might not be.
River stepped over to her former teacher. "Complicated," she repeated with a shrug that suggested everything about them usually was.
He embraced River with the same fondness that he did his old friend, and gave her a soft "Thanks," as he kissed her cheek. Curious, but not unwelcome, she decided.
The Doctor asked, "What name are you going by currently?"
"I've gone back to Jack."
River smiled. "No more Indiana Jones references?"
"Never made any. You know me, River. I'm just an old-fashioned kind of guy."
***
He comes alive after she's pulled his body free, which is a blessing. She doesn't let him rest, forcing him to crawl out of the tomb before the ancient architects throw them any more surprises. Together, they make their way back out of the temple.
There's not much time to talk, and he's too weary to do more than follow her instructions, but by sundown and planetrise, they're free. This leaves them only to have to contend with Trill-Bears and worse in the forest.
"We'll spend the night here," she tells him, and lets him have most of the cooked bear. Having spent her day carving him like a turkey, she finds she doesn't have much of an appetite.
With the meal gulped down, he's soon showing the signs of his old self. "And whom should I thank for my very timely rescue?" he asks her with that familiar grin. But perhaps not so familiar: his hair is still dark, and there's hardly a line on his face.
"You don't know me?" she asks, although she's getting used to this. He shakes his head. "Professor River Song. I was hired by your husband to find you. He's out of his mind with worry."
Jack raises his eyebrows in a manner which sends her back years. "I don't have a husband right now. That I know of."
"Maybe he's your future husband, then? Time travel's hell on relationships."
"That it is," he agrees. "I take it you and I are going to meet? Because I don't know you, and I never forget a gorgeous face." He's taken her hand, she doesn't quite remember when, and he's pressing a very tender kiss to the joint of her thumb and forefinger.
With some regret, she pulls her hand back. "Down, Captain. I'm a married woman."
Then she pauses, and it's only because he just spent the last twenty years impaled and dying over and over that she doesn't slap him.
***
With classes about to start a new session, River came home, and made a stop at the student bar. Professors weren't technically banned, and plenty came to gawk at the latest crop of pretty young pupils, but River received enough concerned glances from her own students that she took a booth near the back. She didn't have to wait long.
"Is this seat taken?" he asked, and then slid into the booth without her reply.
"You look better than the last time I saw you," River said. "Fewer stakes going through your body, for one thing."
"Are you married, River?"
She set down her drink. "Happily. And that's Professor Song to you."
Jack had the best laugh in any bar in any time.
"You needed me," she said. "That's all it ever was."
"Did I remember to thank you? My memory is fuzzy."
"You did. But you can do it as often as you please."
"Thank you, Professor Song, for saving me."
"You're welcome." She ran a finger over the rim of her glass. "And thank you. I'm still furious with you, but thank you."
"Only the best could have found me. And I knew you would be the best, because you did." He'd rehearsed that line. She could tell.
"I almost dropped out of the program because of you. I hated you. Then I decided I wanted to show you up, and I stayed to spite you."
"Are you a better teacher than I was?"
"Much."
"Good." There was that smile again. "I should go."
"You should stay. This is the first conversation we've had at the same point in time. Think of the novelty factor." She leaned forward. "Think of the gossip we can catch up on." River pressed her hand against his. "I think we both have some stories to tell."
He paused, for once at a loss for words. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"That'll take some time."
"What's time, to people like us?"
He looked like he would leave her sitting there again, like he always had. Then he settled back into his seat and signalled the waiter for a water and the snack menu.
***
The End
***