Frostfire (audio story)

Publisher's summary
Vicki has a tale to tell. But where does it start and when does it end?

Ancient Carthage. 1164 BC. Lady Cressida has a secret. She keeps it deep in the cisterns below the Temple of Astarte with only one flame for warmth. And it must never get out.

Regency London, 1814 AD. The first Doctor, Steven and Vicki go to the fair and meet the fiery Dragon, the novelist Miss Austen and the deadliest weather you ever did see.

But which comes first? The Future or the Past? The Phoenix or the Egg? The Fire or the Frost? Or will Time freeze over forever?

Synopsis
In the catacombs below the temple of Astarte in Carthage, Cressida, formerly known as Vicki Pallister, tells a story to a listener who hungers for warmth. Vicki recalls a journey in which the TARDIS landed on the frozen River Thames, during the frost fair of 1814. The frost fair holds many entertainments and wonders, but none as astonishing and chilling as the egg of the phoenix, brought from Tunis. Vicki and Georgiana, wife of Sir Joseph Mallard, Deputy Warden of the Royal Mint, are both captivated by the cold fire associated with the phoenix's egg, stolen during an altercation in the fair. The travellers meet the novelist Jane Austen, and accompany her to a dinner party at Sir Joseph's home. However, the dinner party is interrupted by the growing cold and the dramatic disappearance of Georgiana.

Georgiana was enthralled by the phoenix, which is absorbing all the heat in the city — including the heat of human bodies. While Steven and the First Doctor pursue a red herring, Vicki and Miss Austen discover the location of the egg — St. Cuthbert's Church, where the entire congregation is frozen. The phoenix's mind-controlled agents — including Georgiana — take it from the church to the Royal Mint, where it hopes to hatch in the smelting furnaces. The Doctor offers to take the phoenix to an uninhabited planet close to a white-hot sun, but it refuses, not wishing to be alone. The Doctor, Vicki, Steven and Miss Austen quench the furnace, killing the phoenix — except for one cinder, which flies into Vicki's eye. There it remained for years.

Vicki parted company with the Doctor and Steven. She married the Trojan prince Troilus, joining Aeneas on his travels and eventually settling in Carthage. There, one day, missing her former life and feeling alone, Vicki cried and found the cinder, still living and able to communicate. She kept the cinder burning in an old oil lamp, and it is the cinder to whom she is relating her story. Vicki has kept it alive because it is the only being besides her which remembers the Doctor, and other times. Someday, centuries later, it will become the egg, and after Carthage has become Tunis the egg will be taken to London; the cycle will continue.

Cast

 * Vicki Pallister - Maureen O'Brien
 * The Cinder - Keith Drinkel

Biology

 * The Cinder mentions the Doctor's hearts.

Buildings

 * Vicki notes that St Paul's Cathedral is still standing in the 25th century, after the Dalek invasion in the 22nd century and four World Wars.

Individuals

 * The Doctor, Vicki and Steven Taylor are joined on this adventure by Jane Austen.
 * The Doctor, Vicki, Steven and Jane met a beadle in London in 1848.

Locations

 * The TARDIS crew attend the 1814 frost fair on the River Thames.

Time travel

 * The Cinder's timeline is a time loop, with its defeat bringing it into existence. The Cinder's existence is therefore a temporal paradox.

Continuity

 * Vicki is telling this story as an ageing woman in 1164 B.C., many years after she left the TARDIS in ancient Troy to marry Troilus. (TV: The Myth Makers)
 * The Second Doctor, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright and Jamie McCrimmon would later visit another frost fair in December 1648. (PROSE: The Roundheads)
 * River Song and an unspecified Doctor would later ice skate on the frozen River Thames at around the same time during "the last of the great frost fairs." (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)