Nivet joined him, but Klenchron and the guards remained rooted to the spot as the spiders seemed to scent the air.

A spider made of bone, the Doctor had said.

Their great legs twitched, and eyes like polished onyx gleamed in the gloom.

Bone like everything else in here.

Bristling white mandibles flexed and convulsed under the maw of the creatures' mouths.

They were illusions, they had to be, in the same way the spider the Doctor had seen had been a shadow. But Vozarti could see the debris on the floor squirm under the bellies of these monsters as they shifted their bulk to survey their prey.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

'Listen to me, you men.' Vozarti's voice rang out around the chamber. 'You'll do as I say.

Combat Elite Mali acted on her own and she's gone, lost out there. She could even be dead and all for acting on her own orders and not mine. We are going to survive this. We are going to get out.'

Keep talking, he told himself as the spiders began to edge closer. Keep talking, you'll think of something.

And he did, too. The flood of relief nearly robbed him of speech. "The patches on the wall,'

he croaked. "The spiders got through there, maybe we can too. Fire! Fire at those patches perhaps they've been weakened!'

A volley of staser fire rang out, but one of the spiders took several of the shots, pale halos lighting over its broad, quivering body. It took a second for Vozarti to identify the guard responsible.

'No,you fool, leave it!'

The guard's jaw was slack with terror, his eyes closed as he fired blast after blast at the spider. Vozarti saw the creature tense itself, as if getting ready to spring.

'The walls!' he roared. 'Keep firing! Keep firing!'

The spiders started their scuttling advance.

'Well I think you should go first; Ressadriand said, staring into the inky blackness ahead.

Eton gave him a scornful look. 'Our glorious leader.'

'I'm not a leader of men,' Ressadriand hissed angrily. 'Your father's the Castellan you must've picked up something useful from him.'

'Oh, so suddenly it's all right to be bom of a High Councillor. It's not something to be laughed at, is that right?' Eton shoved Ressadriand backwards against the smooth bone of the tunnel wall. 'You're pathetic.'

Ressadriand let the wall support him for a few moments, closing his eyes and conceding that Eton had a point. They'd been wandering round this gutted skeleton for what felt like days, and during that time Ressadriand had blamed Tarra for invoking powers too strong for them to control, Kellen for not helping them disconnect the Visualiser in time, even Eton for getting in his way at the crucial point. But all this was his fault, and he knew it.

'Perhaps this is some kind of service shaft,' Eton hazarded. 'You know, like the lower walkways in the Capitol.'

'No, I don't know, actually. Only plebs take the lower walkways.'

Eton ignored him. 'If we can head upwards and reach one of the main corridors, I'm sure we'll get through to the crew and sort this whole thing out.'

'You're sure?' Ressadriand waited to be convinced. He was absolutely terrified. The ceremonies had been a bit of fun, a bit of rebellion, something to spice up a stultifying life.

Suddenly, attaining some quiet scholarly position and atrophying in a polished mahogany corner seemed like a wonderful life.When they got back from this miserable place and had ridden out the storm his folks would kick up, he'd pack up the coven for good. There had to be better ways of impressing women than Ressadriand opened his eyes and found his erstwhile acolyte had already pressed ahead into the thick darkness ahead. 'Wait for me!' he called, and Eton seemed to obey.

'Thanks.'

'I wasn't waiting for you,' Eton whispered. 'I was listening. I think I heard something up ahead.'

'You're sure?' Ressadriand took Eton's sleeve in his hand. 'What do you think it was?'

His only answer was from the scuttling sound in the dark. The picture it conjured was so vivid, he was glad Eton had chosen not to elaborate.

'Goodbye, then, Compassion,' breathed the Doctor, and placed his lips against her sallow cheek. 'I'm so very, very sorry.'

Mali watched as he awkwardly embraced the statue. The sky seemed to be clearing, and a pale radiance bathed the heathland stretching out all around them. It was as if the place was at peace now.

The Doctor moved away from his ship and joined her. His face was almost as stony as the statue. 'I failed her,' he said simply.

'This entire mission has been a failure,' Mali said. 'We need the Type 102 in the forthcoming War, without it we'll -'

'The forthcoming War, the forthcoming War,' the Doctor parroted. 'You're obsessed. Your lives revolve around it, endlessly, don't they?'

'We must prepare for our future, Doctor,' Mali said patiently.

'Why? Why, when you can prevent that future, build another, better future in its place? A Gallifrey to live for, not die for.' The Doctor grabbed hold of her hands and squeezed them tight. 'The future is not immutable. You can change it.'

'You speak like the Faction,' Mali sneered. 'Preventing a war we know will come can only create paradox.'

'To argue paradox is to run round in circles,' the Doctor said, throwing down Mali's hands in disgust. 'Why don't you just do something?'

'We are servants of history.'

'So throw off your bonds, before it's too late.'

Mali's eyes narrowed. 'Before it's too late for you, Cousin Doctor?'

The Doctor glared at her, his eyes a flat grey, top lip curled in disdain. He turned away then pointed to something far off in the distance.

Mali could just discern a hazy image now squatted on the horizon, broad at the bottom and tapering at the top, dark as mud all over. A weird mist was coiling around it, one that seemed to sparkle like signal interference. "That wasn't there a moment ago,' Mali ventured.

'Agreed,' the Doctor said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if suddenly pained.

'Are you all right?'

'I'll be fine,' he said through gritted teeth. 'Tell me. That shape. Does it remind you of something?'

Mali considered. I've ... I've seen it before ...'

The Doctor nodded impatiently. 'Yes. Yes, you have. In Timon's quarters.'

'It's like that bottle,' she breathed. "The Klein bottle.'

'And will we find a genie inside it, or the spider at the centre of its web?' The Doctor stared unblinking into the bright white of the sky over the flickering structure. 'Whichever, I think we're nearing the heart of the Edifice. And I think it's there we can expect to find some answers.'

Chapter Nineteen.

Barbarian culture

Kellen felt a thrill of excitement. Tarra was really caught up in the Rites of Salvage, gyrating her lithe body on the slab, spinning and chanting hymns to the loa, leading on the coven to greater heights or to new depths, he supposed, he didn't really care which. He saw the way Kaufima was losing herself in the simple repetitions of the chant, the way her sweatsoaked hair clung to her neck as she moved round the remembrance tank, in a world all her own.

She'd been such an uptight bitch when she'd first joined them, and now look at her.

The ceremony was all a lot of nonsense of course Kellen had studied the remembrance tank that Eton and Tarra had stolen from the Museum of the Arcane, and there was nothing mystical about it. All you had to do was turn the thing on and feed in the dataextract the automatics would charge the biomass and take care of the rest, no matter what Tarra's books claimed. But the fact remained that the atmosphere in the cavern was electric. He had engineered this night, he had the power to make them feel this way. The buzz it afforded him was like nothing he'd ever known.

'Enough,' screeched Tarra. 'We have pleased Sour Time, the malefactor of the spirit, and she has picked a life from her rotten teeth and placed it within the circle.'

Kellen regarded her closely as she moved over to the grimy lid of the oversized coffin. Her fingers coiled around the handle and tendons twitched in her wrist as she prepared to haul open the covering.

Taking his cue, Kellen set a phosphor charge. 'Release the dead spirit back from Mictlan's vale, so he may stand again at the portals of this reality,' he intoned. Kaufima would once have fainted at the mere mention of the forbidden world of the dead. Now she was practically licking her lips as Tarra hefted up the lid of the remembrance tank. There was a hissing sound, as if a snake pit was opening beneath her.

Rusty orange vapour rose from the tank interior, and Tarra's form grew indistinct. The image of her shadowy body lent her vibrant voice still more charge. 'We have remembered you well, Lord President Greyjan. Rise up before us now and be known to your followers and creators.'

Kellen held his breath. All eyes were on the battered casket leaking its sickly smoke. There was a clattering, thumping sound from within, as if something in the cabinet wanted to get out but didn't know quite how. Then, to stifled gasps of amazement, a figure appeared, leaning on the tank's edge for support. It was a man, heavily jowled, dark thinning hair greying at the temples. Dazed, he looked around him, but one eye was lazy, gazing straight ahead.

'We welcome you, Lord President Greyjan,' Kellen announced impressively. 'Great Sage of Paradox, we have restored you to life, that your life's work be completed.'

Greyjan's words came bitterly slowly. 'I did complete it, you fawning little guttersnipe,' he complained. 'I killed myself.'

'You did,' Kellen enthused, looking to Tarra for support. She merely looked back at him, lingering in the shadows, so he continued. 'You chose death in ignorance over embracing the truth, and sharing those dark secrets with the Matrix when your life had run its course.'

'You make it sound so bloody heroic,' Greyjan said with a kind of bemused horror.

'Gallifrey faces its darkest hour, Lord Greyjan,' Kellen said earnestly. 'And you must blot out all light remaining. Soon now, the current President, woefully unable to cope with the chaos ahead, must renew her oaths of office at the ReafHrmation Ceremony.'

'Tedious affairs,' Greyjan muttered miserably. 'Almost lethally dull.'

'When you arrive in front of the masses to contest the President's right to rule,' said Tarra, her brown eyes sparkling, 'that perhaps will liven the ceremony up a little.'

'Why should I?' wondered Greyjan.

'Because you must,' Tarra said. 'We have brought you back to life. You must do as we say.'

Kellen felt a stab of nerves. This was still a President, even if Tarra had been doctoring his bioextract to make him easier to manage. To be ordering him around ...

But Greyjan seemed to concur with Tarra's reasoning. 'Fairly facile little stunt, though, isn't it? Makes for tawdry entertainment.'

Kellen smiled slyly. Even presidents answered to him now. 'I promise you, My Lord, the entertainment is only beginning.'

The spider reared up over the terrified guard. Nivet looked on with a horrified fascination as the creature supported its mass with half its legs in order to seize the man with the other four.

Then its mandibles bit into flesh, and the screams echoing round the chamber muted into thick gurgles.

Seconds later, its bony carapace spattered with blood, the spider settled back to decide who would be next.

'Fall back!' Vozarti yelled. 'We'll try to circle round them. Get to the doors!'

Nivet, stomach heaving, stooped to pick up his gear and was astonished to hear a burst of static issue from the tinny speaker of Mali's cannibalised communicator. He swapped incredulous glances with Klenchron. 'I'm getting a response from Gallifrey, Castellan!'

'We need reinforcements,' Vozarti shouted. 'Tell them, tell them!'

Klenchron shook his head. 'I'll try, but I think the signal's too faint.'

'But the fact they're getting through at all could mean the walls are weakening!' Nivet shouted.

The static seemed to attract the spiders. Nivet saw all three were moving closer, even as Klenchron kept stabbing at buttons on the comms lashup.

'Leave that, come on!' Nivet told him.

But Klenchron wasn't giving up, muttering fervently into the communicator. 'It's our only chance, we have to get through -'

'Leave it!'

With a chilling burst of speed the bloodied spider lurched towards Klenchron, its bony legs crackling.

'Run,you idiot!' Nivet shouted, but he knew it was too late.

Klenchron looked up and didn't even have time to scream before the spider's jaws were closing about him, lifting his pudgy body into the air. Nivet, rooted to the spot, saw staser fire blast into the spider's back to no effect whatsoever. As he watched, the communicator fell from the creature's maw to the ground in a great flood of bloody spittle. Klenchron's headless corpse followed it.

The other two spiders scuttled over to surround the receivers, transfixed by the intermittent broadcasts, as if trying to decipher meaning from the signals. Nivet couldn't get over their sheer size. He felt himself starting to tremble helplessly.

'Over here,Nivet!' Vozarti shouted. 'Now!'

Nivet turned and fled to join the guards huddling with Vozarti in front of the dull patch where the spiders had entered.

'It's giving!' the Castellan hissed, and Nivet turned to see the wall finally begin to crack and welter under the onslaught of closequartersstaser fire. Seized by desperation, Vozarti shouldercharged the weakened area. There was a crack, and for a moment Nivet thought it was the sound of a shoulder blade splintering. The guards joined him, kicking at the wall in desperation, all of them frenziedly focused on escape.