Post by theretsam on Nov 21, 2014 19:09:34 GMT
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety candles.
Chesty Ianstone gets to blow them all out.
What does this have to do with anything? Not much, actually. It's better than a recap.
Dr Who glared at Tegana.
Tegana glared at Dr Who.
Susan tried her biting-the-arm technique at Tegana, but it would not help. One day, perhaps, but now he smothered her mouth with his hand while he held her head under his arm.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence while the two men stared at each other.
Susan nearly fainted.
Then, just when Tegana blinked, the doors of the TARDIS flew open and Barbara shot a generic futuristic phaser at Tegana, who ducks in a reflex, thereby letting go of Susan, who is shot in the foot by Barbara's shot.
"UUAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!"
Barbara and the Doctor ran to Susan, leaving the doors of the TARDIS open. Tegana, too startled to use this to his advantage, turned around and ran away when who should enter the stables but Marco Polo!
"Mamma Mia, what-a de-vil ha s'happened here?"
He looks at Tegana, who resumes his role in an instant. "They were stealing your caravan! I caught them stealing your caravan---"
"Oh, Polo, don't stand there looking like an idiot and get some help! Can't you see Susan's been shot in the foot? She's bleeding like an ox!"
"---euaghuaghugeuaghareyoucallingmefateuagheaugheagh---"
"---have been deceiving you from the moment you met them, don't you see they are traitors and must be killed---"
"---eaugheaugeahguegahgehagheueaeaueaueu---"
"For goodness sake, Polo!"
"QUIIIEEEETTTTT-a!"
"Per favore, will somebody please explain mia what's going on-? Where did you get my key?"
Everyone was silent.
"All right-o, if you fail to tell me I will-a seriously consider ha-ving you killed-uh."
"It was me, Messer Marco."
Ping-Cho stood in the entrance, a tear running from her eye while she was staring to the ground.
"Ping-Cho? Have-a d'you-uh betrayed me as well-now? Is there rea-lly no persone I can trust on this earth, save for Tegan-a?"
"Tegana."
He walked up to her. "You fil-tha rott-a cagna of-a lesbian whore! You back-wards sim-pleton yel-low sa-vage! I should-a give-a you-a the good bea-ting!" He turned his head. "And you, Dottore..."
"Yes, Marco, yes!" ejaculated Tegana. "Kill them! Kill them!"
It was precisely at that moment that the sky broke open, that is to say the stable roofs, and a yellow-looking man came tumbling down. Upon closer inspection, he had a set of fishy-looking front teeth and an eyepatch. On his shoulder, his trusty companion the little stuffed monkey. "I will kill you nao, for the War Lord Tegana!" he screamed, in-fall, that is. After his fall his mouth made few intelligible sounds.
"...well, that-a came outta now-here. Dottore Chi, you and your com-panions will ride with me to the Khan and that will be il finito della storia!"
That-a notte we slept atta inn. We--- oh bugger, I'm not in the mood for writing tonight.
Barbara stroked Chesty Ianstone's cheek (he had washed up by this point. Three times) and whispered in his ear. "Oh Chesty Ianstone, this is our last chance. Won't you talk to Marco? Pretty please?"
"Oh, Barbara. I'd love to, but you can't talk any sense into the man now. We're long past that point now."
They stopped to the anguished screams of Ping-Cho in the room next door. "Poor Ping-Cho," said Barbara. "It's not fair. She was only trying to help us. That Marco Polo, if history knew what he was really like, then---"
Marco came in.
Chesty Ianstone and Barbara stared dumbfounded at his appearance, while the screams and groans next door continued. Marco, equally perplexed by the private-ish scene on which he had walked in, excused himself.
"Marco, wait." said Barbara. "Chesty Ianstone has something to ask you."
Chesty Ianstone glared at her mentally. "Yes, Marco, there is something. Please, give us back the TARDIS."
"I-a told you, Chesty Ianstone, I can'ta. Only a gift as mag-ni-ficent as your caravan will give me a chance-a to plea with the Khan to go home."
"But we want to go home as well. And for that, we need the TARDIS."
"You're English, right-o? The journey's not impossible. The Crusaders did it."
"You mean The Crusades. Or do you mean the Target novelization?"
"No, it's called The Crusade. That's what the audio release is called."
"What in the name of Allah are you tal-king a-bout?"
The racket in the room next door had stopped. Ping-Cho, cheeks all red, came out of the door with a shy smile, staring into the distance and not seeming to notice the three pairs of eyes staring at her. "Goodbye Susan."
Neither Chesty Ianstone, nor Barbara Right, nor Marco Polo, slept that night.
The following day, at the way station, Ping-Cho went from caravan to caravan, asking if she could join them on her way to Samarkand. When she finally finds a caravan, she pays them in advance with all her money. The way station owner, Wang-Ho ---excuse me, Wang-Lo---, an appalling stereotype of a character, regrets to inform her that she has been robbed.
"But I remember you. You traveled with Messer Marco Polo, right? What happened, girl? Did you get separated? Did you run away?"
"Oh Messer Wang-Ho, I can't marry a man old enough to be my grandfather!" She burst into tears and cried on his shoulder.
"Now, girl. (It's Wang-Lo.) Come, come. Did we --- did we actually cover that subplot? I don't remember. I thought you ran away because of your girl friend."
"My girlfriend?"
"Yes, your girl friend."
"No, my girlfriend? Susan?"
"Yes, your girl friend, Susan."
"No no, I mean did you say my girl friend or my girlfriend? Enunciate properly, man! Get it right!"
"Is it really any use arguing semantics?"
"Well, some scientists believe that... but never mind that now, why is that fishy-looking [Asian person] loading up the old Doctor's caravan?"
"Ah, it is his. You see, I thought that box was somebody else's. But it's fine, really, I have the papers here. Apparently that Doctor gave it away to... here it is, the War Lord Tegana, who signed these papers."
"Ugh, and he writes his signature in Comic Sans, too. Listen Wang-Ho, the old Doctor would never give his caravan away, and certainly not to Tegana! Those papers are false, I know they must be!"
"(Wang. Lo.) No, the papers are all in order. I cannot keep them here."
"But we must do something! Alright. I will travel with them to wherever they are going."
"You against an entire army of Mongol invaders?"
"A hypothetical army. And one thing's for certain, I'm not hypothetical!"
"Descartes?"
"Oh no, Susan taught me this. And I will not rest before the Mongol invasion is put to a stop."
"Now hold on, I thought the Khan himself was a grandson of a Mongol invader?"
"Yes, but these are different Mongols. I think. Anyway, I will fight them."
"With the skills you learned from... the other girl?"
"Yes."
"The girl? Not the woman? The girl?"
"Yes, Susan."
"That sounds highly unlikely."
Meanwhile, a day or so later, Marco Polo and his traveling companions arrive at the Khan's summer palace. Finally. To their credit, it looks pretty nice, but since this is a prose adaptation and the visuals of the original are missing anyway, I will spare you on the lavish, page-long descriptions front.
"Lovely stuff this, you know."
"Shame it's not in colour."
"Shame my granddaughter's foot has disintegrated."
"What are you looking like that at me for? It was the woman who shot her, not me."
Dr Who made a hateful fake smile to Tegana.
Then, they all kowtowed as the shadow of the MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN arrived with appropriate thunder sounds. Well, all except Dr Who, whose back was sore, and Susan, who couldn't balance at all on her one foot and was still sulking over Ping-Cho, and Barbara, who was in the other room having morning sickness, and Chesty Ianstone, who was completely wasted, and Marco Polo, who was cursing and desperately looking for the Doctor's caravan. So it was actually just Tegana kowtowing, which must have made quite the awkward scene if it were currently known to be in existence.
The actual entrance of MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN was a bit of a letdown. A decrepit, humanoid creature measuring barely five inches was carried in. Even when everybody (sans Dr Who and Susan and Barbara and Chesty Ianstone and Marco Polo, so basically just Tegana) kowtowed all the way to the ground, MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN was still the shortest man in the room, despite sitting on a throne.
"Mighty Kublai Khan," remarked Dr Who, "I wasn't expecting Gollum."
The Grand Vizier took offense. "Are you mocking our Great Khan"
"With due respect, sir, he looks like he's been aged to 900 years old and spends most of his time locked up in a cage."
"Will you not insult the Khan! He's only 748. Now will you kowtow?"
"No sir, my back does not permit it! I'm sure the Khan will understand."
"You are to be beheaded in the morning. Now, have you brought any gifts?"
"Hm? Gifts? That wasn't in the invitation! Well, Iehhh..." He searched his pockets. "Ah, yes."
Dr Who produced an empty bucket. "This bucket once held the greatest vvine in the galaxy!" He smiled nervously.
The Grand Vizier frowned.
Then Chesty Ianstone swaggered unceremoniously into the room. "Ah, Xanadu!"
Ping-Cho had followed the man with the stuffed monkey all the way up the Karakorum Road. His destination was a large encampment of Mongol invaders, so so was hers.
Ping-Cho, posing dramatically on a rock, cut off her hair and stole a uniform nearby, disguising herself as a man much like the woman she had learned so much about in legends, Hua Mulan.
Unfortunately, she could not take the Doctor's caravan before they had reached the encampment.
In a dramatic turn of events, she stole the caravan that was carrying the Doctor's caravan. She was just about to ride off to the Khan's Summer Palace in Shang-Tu, when the man with the stuffed monkey returned for his caravan and cried out.
Ping-Cho, armed with but a pair of chopsticks that she had previously used as hair needles, found herself surrounded by an increasingly expanding horde of thousands of Mongol invaders...
In Xanadu did Kubla(i) Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla(i) heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
(Fragment from Marco Polo's notes on his journey, Deleted Scenes, found and translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797 and published in 1816.)
"Well Dottore, I must say I never en-veesioned these turn of event-a."
"The Khan has found his paradise, eh? And to think all he needed was a trans-dimensional portal. Now you can go home. That only leaves the TARDIS..."
"Imma 'fraid that's not tutti, Dottore. Cathay izza 'bout-to ha've-a succession crisis the likes of which, the world ha'never known."
"Ah, and the impending Mongol invasion."
"You shoulda getta your caravan back. There's no need-a to con-ti-nue this-a hoax."
Dr Who sighed. "Oh Marco, will you ever trust us? We're fellow Europeans, remember? Christians? Well, I suppose Barbarston --- I mean Chesty Ianstone and Barbara are of the Church of England, but that church won't be invented for another 245 years. The point is, don't you think you can trust a fellow European over a Chinaman?"
"Why do-uh think I came here in the first place?"
A sea of nasty, vicious-looking heads with many swords in their hands had surrounded Ping-Cho on her horse. She rolled her head around on her shoulders and smiled faintly. "Hello boys. You want to see a trick? Here's one I learned from my Time Chick."
Next Episode: BADASS ASSASSIN AT XANADU
Chesty Ianstone gets to blow them all out.
What does this have to do with anything? Not much, actually. It's better than a recap.
MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN
Dr Who glared at Tegana.
Tegana glared at Dr Who.
Susan tried her biting-the-arm technique at Tegana, but it would not help. One day, perhaps, but now he smothered her mouth with his hand while he held her head under his arm.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence while the two men stared at each other.
Susan nearly fainted.
Then, just when Tegana blinked, the doors of the TARDIS flew open and Barbara shot a generic futuristic phaser at Tegana, who ducks in a reflex, thereby letting go of Susan, who is shot in the foot by Barbara's shot.
"UUAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!"
Barbara and the Doctor ran to Susan, leaving the doors of the TARDIS open. Tegana, too startled to use this to his advantage, turned around and ran away when who should enter the stables but Marco Polo!
"Mamma Mia, what-a de-vil ha s'happened here?"
He looks at Tegana, who resumes his role in an instant. "They were stealing your caravan! I caught them stealing your caravan---"
"Oh, Polo, don't stand there looking like an idiot and get some help! Can't you see Susan's been shot in the foot? She's bleeding like an ox!"
"---euaghuaghugeuaghareyoucallingmefateuagheaugheagh---"
"---have been deceiving you from the moment you met them, don't you see they are traitors and must be killed---"
"---eaugheaugeahguegahgehagheueaeaueaueu---"
"For goodness sake, Polo!"
"QUIIIEEEETTTTT-a!"
"Per favore, will somebody please explain mia what's going on-? Where did you get my key?"
Everyone was silent.
"All right-o, if you fail to tell me I will-a seriously consider ha-ving you killed-uh."
"It was me, Messer Marco."
Ping-Cho stood in the entrance, a tear running from her eye while she was staring to the ground.
"Ping-Cho? Have-a d'you-uh betrayed me as well-now? Is there rea-lly no persone I can trust on this earth, save for Tegan-a?"
"Tegana."
He walked up to her. "You fil-tha rott-a cagna of-a lesbian whore! You back-wards sim-pleton yel-low sa-vage! I should-a give-a you-a the good bea-ting!" He turned his head. "And you, Dottore..."
"Yes, Marco, yes!" ejaculated Tegana. "Kill them! Kill them!"
It was precisely at that moment that the sky broke open, that is to say the stable roofs, and a yellow-looking man came tumbling down. Upon closer inspection, he had a set of fishy-looking front teeth and an eyepatch. On his shoulder, his trusty companion the little stuffed monkey. "I will kill you nao, for the War Lord Tegana!" he screamed, in-fall, that is. After his fall his mouth made few intelligible sounds.
"...well, that-a came outta now-here. Dottore Chi, you and your com-panions will ride with me to the Khan and that will be il finito della storia!"
That-a notte we slept atta inn. We--- oh bugger, I'm not in the mood for writing tonight.
Barbara stroked Chesty Ianstone's cheek (he had washed up by this point. Three times) and whispered in his ear. "Oh Chesty Ianstone, this is our last chance. Won't you talk to Marco? Pretty please?"
"Oh, Barbara. I'd love to, but you can't talk any sense into the man now. We're long past that point now."
They stopped to the anguished screams of Ping-Cho in the room next door. "Poor Ping-Cho," said Barbara. "It's not fair. She was only trying to help us. That Marco Polo, if history knew what he was really like, then---"
Marco came in.
Chesty Ianstone and Barbara stared dumbfounded at his appearance, while the screams and groans next door continued. Marco, equally perplexed by the private-ish scene on which he had walked in, excused himself.
"Marco, wait." said Barbara. "Chesty Ianstone has something to ask you."
Chesty Ianstone glared at her mentally. "Yes, Marco, there is something. Please, give us back the TARDIS."
"I-a told you, Chesty Ianstone, I can'ta. Only a gift as mag-ni-ficent as your caravan will give me a chance-a to plea with the Khan to go home."
"But we want to go home as well. And for that, we need the TARDIS."
"You're English, right-o? The journey's not impossible. The Crusaders did it."
"You mean The Crusades. Or do you mean the Target novelization?"
"No, it's called The Crusade. That's what the audio release is called."
"What in the name of Allah are you tal-king a-bout?"
The racket in the room next door had stopped. Ping-Cho, cheeks all red, came out of the door with a shy smile, staring into the distance and not seeming to notice the three pairs of eyes staring at her. "Goodbye Susan."
Neither Chesty Ianstone, nor Barbara Right, nor Marco Polo, slept that night.
The following day, at the way station, Ping-Cho went from caravan to caravan, asking if she could join them on her way to Samarkand. When she finally finds a caravan, she pays them in advance with all her money. The way station owner, Wang-Ho ---excuse me, Wang-Lo---, an appalling stereotype of a character, regrets to inform her that she has been robbed.
"But I remember you. You traveled with Messer Marco Polo, right? What happened, girl? Did you get separated? Did you run away?"
"Oh Messer Wang-Ho, I can't marry a man old enough to be my grandfather!" She burst into tears and cried on his shoulder.
"Now, girl. (It's Wang-Lo.) Come, come. Did we --- did we actually cover that subplot? I don't remember. I thought you ran away because of your girl friend."
"My girlfriend?"
"Yes, your girl friend."
"No, my girlfriend? Susan?"
"Yes, your girl friend, Susan."
"No no, I mean did you say my girl friend or my girlfriend? Enunciate properly, man! Get it right!"
"Is it really any use arguing semantics?"
"Well, some scientists believe that... but never mind that now, why is that fishy-looking [Asian person] loading up the old Doctor's caravan?"
"Ah, it is his. You see, I thought that box was somebody else's. But it's fine, really, I have the papers here. Apparently that Doctor gave it away to... here it is, the War Lord Tegana, who signed these papers."
"Ugh, and he writes his signature in Comic Sans, too. Listen Wang-Ho, the old Doctor would never give his caravan away, and certainly not to Tegana! Those papers are false, I know they must be!"
"(Wang. Lo.) No, the papers are all in order. I cannot keep them here."
"But we must do something! Alright. I will travel with them to wherever they are going."
"You against an entire army of Mongol invaders?"
"A hypothetical army. And one thing's for certain, I'm not hypothetical!"
"Descartes?"
"Oh no, Susan taught me this. And I will not rest before the Mongol invasion is put to a stop."
"Now hold on, I thought the Khan himself was a grandson of a Mongol invader?"
"Yes, but these are different Mongols. I think. Anyway, I will fight them."
"With the skills you learned from... the other girl?"
"Yes."
"The girl? Not the woman? The girl?"
"Yes, Susan."
"That sounds highly unlikely."
Meanwhile, a day or so later, Marco Polo and his traveling companions arrive at the Khan's summer palace. Finally. To their credit, it looks pretty nice, but since this is a prose adaptation and the visuals of the original are missing anyway, I will spare you on the lavish, page-long descriptions front.
"Lovely stuff this, you know."
"Shame it's not in colour."
"Shame my granddaughter's foot has disintegrated."
"What are you looking like that at me for? It was the woman who shot her, not me."
Dr Who made a hateful fake smile to Tegana.
Then, they all kowtowed as the shadow of the MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN arrived with appropriate thunder sounds. Well, all except Dr Who, whose back was sore, and Susan, who couldn't balance at all on her one foot and was still sulking over Ping-Cho, and Barbara, who was in the other room having morning sickness, and Chesty Ianstone, who was completely wasted, and Marco Polo, who was cursing and desperately looking for the Doctor's caravan. So it was actually just Tegana kowtowing, which must have made quite the awkward scene if it were currently known to be in existence.
The actual entrance of MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN was a bit of a letdown. A decrepit, humanoid creature measuring barely five inches was carried in. Even when everybody (sans Dr Who and Susan and Barbara and Chesty Ianstone and Marco Polo, so basically just Tegana) kowtowed all the way to the ground, MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN was still the shortest man in the room, despite sitting on a throne.
"Mighty Kublai Khan," remarked Dr Who, "I wasn't expecting Gollum."
The Grand Vizier took offense. "Are you mocking our Great Khan"
"With due respect, sir, he looks like he's been aged to 900 years old and spends most of his time locked up in a cage."
"Will you not insult the Khan! He's only 748. Now will you kowtow?"
"No sir, my back does not permit it! I'm sure the Khan will understand."
"You are to be beheaded in the morning. Now, have you brought any gifts?"
"Hm? Gifts? That wasn't in the invitation! Well, Iehhh..." He searched his pockets. "Ah, yes."
Dr Who produced an empty bucket. "This bucket once held the greatest vvine in the galaxy!" He smiled nervously.
The Grand Vizier frowned.
Then Chesty Ianstone swaggered unceremoniously into the room. "Ah, Xanadu!"
Ping-Cho had followed the man with the stuffed monkey all the way up the Karakorum Road. His destination was a large encampment of Mongol invaders, so so was hers.
Ping-Cho, posing dramatically on a rock, cut off her hair and stole a uniform nearby, disguising herself as a man much like the woman she had learned so much about in legends, Hua Mulan.
Unfortunately, she could not take the Doctor's caravan before they had reached the encampment.
In a dramatic turn of events, she stole the caravan that was carrying the Doctor's caravan. She was just about to ride off to the Khan's Summer Palace in Shang-Tu, when the man with the stuffed monkey returned for his caravan and cried out.
Ping-Cho, armed with but a pair of chopsticks that she had previously used as hair needles, found herself surrounded by an increasingly expanding horde of thousands of Mongol invaders...
In Xanadu did Kubla(i) Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla(i) heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
(Fragment from Marco Polo's notes on his journey, Deleted Scenes, found and translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797 and published in 1816.)
"Well Dottore, I must say I never en-veesioned these turn of event-a."
"The Khan has found his paradise, eh? And to think all he needed was a trans-dimensional portal. Now you can go home. That only leaves the TARDIS..."
"Imma 'fraid that's not tutti, Dottore. Cathay izza 'bout-to ha've-a succession crisis the likes of which, the world ha'never known."
"Ah, and the impending Mongol invasion."
"You shoulda getta your caravan back. There's no need-a to con-ti-nue this-a hoax."
Dr Who sighed. "Oh Marco, will you ever trust us? We're fellow Europeans, remember? Christians? Well, I suppose Barbarston --- I mean Chesty Ianstone and Barbara are of the Church of England, but that church won't be invented for another 245 years. The point is, don't you think you can trust a fellow European over a Chinaman?"
"Why do-uh think I came here in the first place?"
A sea of nasty, vicious-looking heads with many swords in their hands had surrounded Ping-Cho on her horse. She rolled her head around on her shoulders and smiled faintly. "Hello boys. You want to see a trick? Here's one I learned from my Time Chick."
Next Episode: BADASS ASSASSIN AT XANADU