Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday (TLFT short story)

Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday was the seventh short story in Time Lord Fairy Tales.

Publisher's summary
The planet Winter was once ruled by an evil tyrant who built a Doomsday Machine. When he was defeated, the machine's seven vital operating keys were hidden across the planet. Now, a villainous queen is plotting to locate the keys, but Snow white is determined to stop her...

Plot
Many years ago, the planet Winter's peace is ruined by the arrival of an evil tyrant named King Drextor after many years of benevolent kings and queens. Drextor has taken precautions to make sure that he would not be deposed by creating a machine that would allow his rule to continue unopposed. On his coronation, the machine is completed and King Drextor explains how it would make the air burn and could only be switched on with seven keys that are stored in secret locations around his palace.

Unfortunately for King Drextor, the woman that he loves poisons his wine, killing him. After the evil king's death, the council decides to display the machine in the royal palace to remind people of Drextor's tyranny and hide the seven keys in each of the provinces so that the machine can never be used. The people of winter are free from tyranny until the throne is taken by Queen Salima.

The palace groundsman, Malpeth White, falls in love with a kitchen maid named Elsa and they both give birth to a pale-skinned girl who they both name Snow White. During her life, Snow White works as a cleaner in the palace, until the day she enters the room where the Doomsday machine is being held. As she is cleaning the machine, Snow White hears two people enter the room: Queen Salima and another man.

The young girl overhears Salima talking to the man, who is an engineer. She tells him that if he cannot make the Doomsday machine work, she will have no choice but to be at the beck and call of the council, and that when the machine is working, she will truly be the queen of Winter. The engineer confirms that the machine cannot work without the seven keys which cannot be recreated, but the council don't know about a facility that will help in finding the keys.

The engineer also says that the Doomsday machine communicates with itself through the air as well as gears and wires and that it knows where the missing keys have been hidden and their locations will be shown on a screen. However, the first key's location remains unknown and only clues to its location are known. One by one, the locations of the other keys are shown on the screen and Queen Salima states that she will find each one of them.

Snow White listens carefully to the engineer's explanation of how to operate the machine's screen. Once the Queen and the engineer are gone, Snow White emerges from under the machine and considers what to do next. If she tries to tell the council, then it would be unlikely that they will believe her and the Queen would likely kill her for finding out her true intentions. She then decides to try and find at least one of the keys before Queen Salima can.

The young girl closes the door and operates the screen to locate the keys. As she tries to figure out where the keys are, Snow White passes her hand through the screen and finds out that it also acts as a gateway to the other rooms. She passes through the screen to find herself in the room that she has been looking at. After pulling her head back through the screen, Snow White considers that if she can get into each of the rooms, she would only have to collect the keys.

Unfortunately, the screen is only wide enough for Snow White's head to fit through, so Snow White slides the panel back over the screen and leaves to ask the seven minesmen who work for her father in the palace grounds for their help in collecting the keys. The oldest of the minesmen, Elgar, agrees to help Snow White after he and his fellow minesmen have been constantly criticized by the Queen.

After Snow White explains her plan to them, the minesmen share their broth with her. The next day, the minesmen manage to successfully find each of the seven keys and bring them to Snow White who tells them to destroy each of them. But before they can begin destroying the keys, Queen Salima enters and lunges at Snow White just as the young girl breaks one of the keys, resulting in an explosion that kills Queen Salima just as she shoves Snow White aside.

The explosion also destroys the other keys. Once Snow White gets back up after huddling in the corner, the minesmen rush over to her to see if she's OK. Snow White looks down at the burnt corpse of the wicked Queen Salima.

Characters

 * Snow White
 * Salima
 * Elgar

Worldbuilding
to be added

Continuity

 * The Eleventh Doctor mentions being told the bedstory of Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday in TV: Night Terrors.