'Why, Eton? Explain yourself.'

'Please, Father -'

'Tell me why!'

Toes curling with embarrassment at having to witness such an intimate scene, Nivet turned his back on the congregation, attempting to consider how he could make this powerless Type 102 open her doors. But any efforts to ignore Vozarti's anger seemed doomed to failure the Castellan was screaming loud enough to wake the dead. The fact that Eton looked to be almost twice his father's age only made the situation more uncomfortable. The words may have sat well with the silverhaired curmudgeon that had made lives hell at the Academy, but from this freshfaced upstart they sounded almost ridiculous. Nivet could see the guards were failing to stifle their nervous laughter, but Vozarti was oblivious to all.

'It's just a bit of fun,' Eton said, gesturing to his dishevelled appearance.

'Fun?' Vozarti had turned crimson. 'It's profane. It's sick, twisted treachery.'

'It means nothing -'

'It brought you here, didn't it?'

'I don't know how we arrived here, but listen, there are spiders -'

Vozarti wasn't listening, staring at his son as if hypnotised. 'What future does Gallifrey have if bright, able children like yourselves turn to superstition, to the dark rites?'

Eton nodded impatiently. 'Spare me the lecture, Father. You're so pompous, so full of the meaningless history of our stagnant society -'

But son had finally pushed father too far. Vozarti swung a fist at the olderlooking man, connecting with his chin. Eton went down, while Ressadriand jumped in the air, his face a caricature of fright.

'Please, Castellan Vozarti,' Ressadriand stammered. 'We only want to go home. Please.

That's all we want.' The boy was practically wetting himself. 'We did bad things but we never will again.'

Vozarti stared on as Ressadriand sank to his knees. Nivet turned back to the Type 102, shaking his head. Then he noticed that the pink patch on its cheek had grown larger, reaching down to her ear and her neck. He stared at the pink puckered flesh in fascination, trying to shut out the soundtrack of Ressadriand's gibbering.

'Please, Castellan Vozarti, we're ... we're so terribly, terribly sorry, you see. We'll do anything to make amends, anything -'

The rambling promise ended in a chorus of alarmed shouting and staser fire. Nivet turned incredulously, expecting to find that Vozarti had decided to shut the boy up for good by opening fire. Then a guard's head rolled to a stop by his feet and he saw that a giant spider, its bloated body like a stone covered in wet earth and blood, was pulling itself silently from the heath. As its thick legs trampled the guard's corpse, the ground parted in eerie silence to allow another of the monsters through, creeping up clumsily from whatever fossilised underworld lay beneath them.

Ressadriand was staring in dumb horror, Eton was screaming and Vozarti and the guards were firing. Nivet decided he'd settle for running, but his legs would not respond. They seemed frozen, immobile and useless as the statue standing behind him.

The Chaos Ritual was nearing its climax.

Kellen watched Tarra again as she snarled and spat and shouted her lines from the ancient parchment she'd taken from Eton's room. Some of the words he half remembered from school lessons about the dead language of Old Gallifrey. Most were just noises, triggers to feed the hysteria growing in the sweaty room.

The Visualiser had been dragged into the centre of the chamber, and static flickered noisily over its screen, faster and faster, as if in a race against the flames licking the air before it. And tied up against the wall, Fitz was screaming and screaming, the sound of his distress meaningless, just another layer of sound haunting the ritual.

An image was struggling through the interference on the Visualiser's screen. A hum of power was rising from its insides. Kellen led his acolytes, as Tarra had instructed him, in clapping out the beat of his double pulse. 'I chain you all to my flesh!' he yelled, chiefly because he thought it sounded good. 'You are bound to me. Let the energy feed us and take from us, feed us and take from us ...'

The rest of Kellen's disciples took up the feverish chant. Before the flames, a mustardyellow glow began to insinuate itself, in the shape of a man.

Kellen felt the air grow tangibly colder. He looked around and shivered as he saw the others had noticed it too, palefaced and sweating, chanting faster and faster. Even Fitz had stopped yelling; he was looking on in dumbfounded amazement as the dark shape formed in front of him.

Tarra stopped shouting and dancing, and came to a panting halt behind Kaufima. Kellen was impressed: the mask she wore was even more macabre than her usual attire; she'd powdered her chin with chalk or something ... He was strangely touched that she must've arranged for a new costume for the occasion. She must be out to impress him after all.

'Do you see him?' Tarra asked Kaufima, and the girl nodded, still repeating the mantra along with the others. Tarra clearly wasn't satisfied with her response. 'Do you see him?' she shouted again.

'Yes,' Kaufima shrieked, even though she was looking down at her feet. 'Yes, I see him.'

Kellen actually jumped as Tarra's big skull mask swung up to face him. He stared into those dark sockets and shivered again. She was shouting at him over the din in the room. "The materialisation remains undefined. The ectothermic balance must be shorted.'

'What do you mean?' Kellen mouthed back at her. 'How?'

Tarra grinned, grabbed Kaufima by the hair and smashed her face against the metal casing of the Visualiser. Stunned, Kaufima could not protest as, widi unnatural ease, Tarra lifted her up and threw her into the fire. Her shouts of terror gave way to the crackling of flesh roasting.

With every moment the flickering image of the man grew more definite as they dragged him into existence.

The chant broke down. People began to scream and mill about in panic. Kellen found himself staring again into the pits of Tarra's skulleyes, haltingly reading the final words to bring the ceremony to its climax.

It was an accident, he told himself. A horrible accident.

So why was Tarra giggling?

Now she threw open her arms and exalted over Kaufima's burning corpse. From within the tendrils of smoke curling up from the cadaver, the onearmed figure finally solidified before her.

Chapter Twenty-three.

Familiarity breeds

Vozarti swore. Yet another of the giant bone spiders was pulling itself clear of its wideopen grave. That made four of them, now. Ressadriand had run away without hesitation, but Eton remained rooted to the spot, still screaming as the guards were ripped apart in front of him.

Vozarti took hold of his son and threw him bodily away from the closest spider as it bore down on him. 'Run, you little idiot,' he insisted. 'Run!'

Eton, tears streaming down his lined face, turned and ran as instructed, but covered only a few metres before the spider brought him down. Vozarti watched just long enough to be convinced there was nothing more he could do for him, shutting his eyes as the mandibles came down on his son's chest.

I'll never be old again, he realised as two more spiders made for him. He felt like a child, bringing a popgun to bear on bugeyed monsters from the darkest corners of the universe.

They must be fought. Who had said that? He'd heard that somewhere ... A child's maxim. A scandalous ideal.

We've bred the most terrible things.

The monsters' jaws were clacking as they advanced, eyes vacant and dull. There was no intelligence behind those eyes, no sentience distinguishing Vozarti from any other piece of meat in this stinking field.

He stumbled backwards, still firing his staser in vain, Vozarti considered running. His son was dead, his guards were dead, there was no one left to witness his devotion to duty now except Nivet. Even as he turned, one of the spiders caught his legs, pulled them from under him and crunched down. He felt bones snap, knew he'd never stand again.

Things that stand against everything we believe in.

Vozarti dug his hands into the wet turf and tried to drag himself free of the monster's jaws, but the creature held firm and only his flesh was giving. The spider tugged savagely and Vozarti was rolling over and over through the wet bracken and mud, the filth that filled his nose and mouth choking off his screams. Eyes wide in panic and pain, he saw that Nivet was staggering backwards, face as pale as that ridiculous statue. And behind the technician ...

The Castellan was hauled screeching into the spider's slobbering maw, but still Nivet stared on. Every instinct he possessed was still screaming at him to run for his life, and yet his legs seemed dead already.

Even as he was being devoured, the Castellan met Nivet's eye, waving his arms, pointing trying to warn him ...?

The spell was finally broken, but too late. Turning, stumbling, Nivet glimpsed a huge gaping mouth opening wide around him, then fell into slippery screaming blackness.

'I think we've found the inner sanctum.'

Mali nodded in reply. The Doctor held her gaze for a few moments, his own eyes lost in shadows, before moving gingerly forward into the gloom beside her.

There was a power in the air, a pressure. Mali could feel it. Something ancient and unscientific, stinking of must and dust. It made her feel sick; she longed for the clean and clinical corridors of the Capitol, the safe smell of normality. Right now, she couldn't imagine ever feeling clean again.

Her head bumped into something sharp, and she couldn't help a yelp of surprise escaping her.

'What is it?' the Doctor said sharply.

Mali cursed, feeling blood on her forehead. 'I've cut myself on something.'

'Let me see.'

'It's nothing,' she said.

The Doctor pushed her aside. 'I mean, let me see what you've cut yourself on.'

The lighting in the room began to grow brighter. The walls themselves seemed aglow. Mali was reminded of the way the light had increased gradually in that first chamber, then later in the corridors when walking with the Doctor. As if something here was suddenly aware it had company and was leading them to somewhere special in the web of tunnels.

'That settles it; the Doctor whispered. 'Look.'

Mali realised she'd cut herself on the beak of a small metal bird. The ornament seemed welded into a round indentation in the wall, as if to be served on a softly glowing dish. The circular design appeared many times throughout the chamber. In the corner of the room was a deformed hexagonal growth, solid bone festooned with tusks and teeth and beads.

'I thought my TARDIS was dead, destroyed,' the Doctor said softly. 'I was wrong. The Flower of Remembrance was the clearest sign of all.'

Mali tapped the cut on her forehead, the sharp pain convincing her she wasn't delirious. "The Edifice ... it's your TARDIS?'

'So it would seem.' He sucked his finger. 'If its exterior were mapped on to the interior dimensions, just like your war TARDISes manage to do, that could explain its size ...' He frowned, patting the metal bird on its battered head. "This was my pet canary. But ossified?

How?' He paused. 'And why?'

Mali doubted the Doctor seriously expected her to answer. Before she could say as much she saw he was transfixed by motes of dust dancing in the soft light. There seemed more and more of them, tiny specks of colour in the air, and Mali felt an instinctive fear as the smell of age grew stronger and as a face formed out of the dancing lights. It was an imposing face, white hair swept back from the lined forehead, strong beak of a nose jutting out. But the eyes ... they held Mali. They were black as night, staring. Mad eyes. they held Mali. They were black as night, staring. Mad eyes.

'Can he see?' she hissed.

'I don't know,' said the Doctor. 'But I'm beginning to.'

'Who is he?'

When she tore her eyes away and turned to the Doctor it was in time to catch a tear trickle down his cheek. 'He's me. He's been holding on. All this time.'

The face of the former Doctor, a thousand whorls of dust, looked at them apologetically. 'Got lost ... in the time vortex.' The black eyes flickered over their surroundings. "The TARDIS brought me home.'

The Doctor stepped closer, eyes down on the floor, like a simple peasant uncomfortable in a splendid church.

'How long have you been here?' he asked softly.

'No idea, old chap,' the dust Doctor answered, smiling kindly. 'Once I started threading electrons on a string ... one a second for eight hours a day. But when the string was two tenths of a millimetre long, I had to give it up. I was becoming obsessive, you know.'

Mali told herself the apparition was joking, but still processed the nonsensical information anyway. If true, he'd have been here for over five thousand years ...

'Silly old fool,' the Doctor said, and she could hear the smile in his voice trying to mask the pain. ' Should've used hydrogen atoms: you'd have twentyfive metres or so by now, you could've decorated the room.'

The face in the dust closed its dark eyes. 'Had to be careful. Didn't want to give myself enough rope to hang myself with. I have to hold on ... to hold on ...'

The Doctor's voice grew a fraction harder. 'I'd have thought one of the spiders you've got running round the place could have nibbled it through for you in an emergency, couldn't it?'

'My scouts. The lookouts.' The dust Doctor's eyes snapped back open. 'The spiders were to tell me ... tell me when help was at hand.'

'Why spiders? They're important to me too, but I can't remember why ...'

'Seemed right at the time.' The floating face crumpled in misery. 'Too late now, of course.

Can't control them ... not any more. Slipping ...'

'No,' the Doctor said. 'No, I've come now. I don't understand all that's happening but ... I can help, I'm sure I can. So please, tell me, there are things I must know -'

'Now, now, my dear feller,' the dust Doctor said with new and abrupt enthusiasm. 'Put on a smiling face. Come along. Smile, smile, smile.'

Mali moved closer to the Doctor, saw the anguish in his eyes. 'No, listen, please -'

'Do it!' The dust Doctor's face was furious. Then, he started to laugh. The laughing was taken up by the acoustics in the room, every syllable wrung out of it again and again, which seemed to amuse the laughing face all the more.

The Doctor clamped his hands over his ears, sinking to his knees. 'No!' he shouted. 'Stop this! We have to talk!'

Mali stared round the room; the face was starting to fade as the laughter ebbed away. 'It's no good, Doctor,' she yelled. 'He won't listen! He's insane, do you hear me? Insane.'

'Maybe so,' the Doctor shouted, 'but we have to get him back. He's all that's holding the Edifice together. He's -'

Even as he spoke, huge splits appeared in the glowing walls of the sanctum. Giant spiders, their bone bellies bloated, polished ivory skin slick with blood, moss and mud, began to push through the wounds in the walls.

Mali stared desperately at the Doctor. 'His lookouts, he said!'

'Once they might have been,' the Doctor replied, clearly terrified himself. 'Now they're as deranged as he is.'