'When I give a command, Father Kreiner,' Tarra said coldly, 'you will obey me.'

'The Doctor must be mine,' Kreiner said, trying to rein in his fury.

'You fool,' Tarra said. 'He is ours already.'

'Don't trust him.'

'It is not a matter of trust.'

'He's still the Doctor, whatever we do to him.'

'The decision has been taken, Kreiner!' Tarra snapped. 'Now be silent! You will displease the Grandfather.' She put her hands to her head as if mimicking Greyjan, who was muttering so much faster now. 'Mathara is keying in the codeways, I can feel it. The Matrix is opening to the Faction. Can you feel it?' Kreiner said nothing, just stood there, his black bulk heaving with deep breaths. 'We shall be a physical presence here.'

The lighting in the room grew brighter, harsher. The Doctor was still lying just where Kreiner had dropped him.

Kreiner heard the woman soldier scream as the power rose to a crescendo. In time, he decided, the Doctor would be screaming too.

Chapter Thirtyeight.

Burntdown days

'It's no good, Romana, Fitz yelled as the rumbling that seemed to be shaking the Capitol apart got still louder. 'We'll never make it in time! We have to take cover!'

Romana was saving her breath for running. 'No!' she said.

'It's your own fault for making this place so bloody big!' Fitz complained. As they ran, he was getting some idea of just how big it was, too, even if it was somehow shrinking. Crowds of people were pushing past at every junction, shouting, panicking, feeding the feeling that things were spiralling out of control. Two children, alone and frightened, were swept along in the throng. An old man with a stooped back called and called for someone to help him, but there was no answer.

These people were sitting ducks. Where were the airraid sirens? Where were the wardens, and the shelters? How stupid were these people?

Fitz decided to change tack. He grabbed hold of Romana, forcing her to skid to a standstill.

'You'll be no good to anyone dead!' he shouted to her.

'Get off me, Fitz!'

'If we find somewhere to hide until -'

Romana punched him in the eye.

Finding himself on the floor again a moment later, Fitz thought at first that the band of crackling blue power sweeping down the corridor towards them was a symptom of concussion. Then he saw what it was doing to the people it passed over, heard the screams.

He could see where the stooped old man had been smeared over a wall, the flesh melting down to the floor.

When Fitz smelled the burning, he knew it was far too late for hiding.

Mother Mathara clapped her hands together as a representation of the energy wave a spiralling band of brightness cutting through spacetime like cheese wire played over the main screen.

She pottered over to a lowlylooking metal box, about the size of a coffin. Blank and featureless save for a small keypad set into its top, it had been nicknamed the Junction Box by their engineers. Its function was to channel power.

'How does it work?' Kristeva had asked once, and she'd laughed.

'I don't know,' she remembered saying. 'And if I explained today, the method would probably have changed by tomorrow. All that matters is that it does work.'

Simply input the relevant codes and the prophecy would become selffulfilling, sparking and arcing across infinity.

The damage was hitting Gallifrey already. The Greyjan construct's blocktransfer computations were like surgical incisions, wound after wound opening up the Matrix, making ready for the transfer of Faction blood.

Kristeva swung round to face her. 'All is ready.'

Mathara smiled. 'Another life begins today, Kristeva,' she said, and carefully keyed in the transference codes for the conceptual shift.

'Transition successful.' Kristeva's voice was an icy whisper of triumph.

'Soon we shall have a new home,' Mathara said. 'A new outlook on the strata of reality.

When it is stable, we will go and join Mother Tarra.' She pressed her palms together as if in prayer. 'We will welcome the Grandfather at last to his new domain.'

Power slewed through the Council Chamber, and pixels of light danced round Greyjan's head. The lighting overloaded and blew, and a pale emergency white bathed the room in a sickly glow. Some of the guards simply winked out of existence as a dark ribbon of energy seemed to tie itself across the breadth of the room. There were more explosions, more showers of magnesium light searing the air.

Crouched on the floor, Mali looked round wildly in horror. She told herself that the chaos would pass, that all she had to do was remember her training, hold on for the right moment to fight back and serve her President. But still the ground trembled, and still Mother Tarra kept rejoicing in the destruction.

Somewhat typically, the Doctor waited until the room was practically shaking itself apart before getting to his feet.

'Greyjan!' he yelled, wiping the blood from his nose. Mali could hear an edge to his voice even above the power storm crackling through the Council Chamber, rougher, sharper than before. 'Greyjan, the coronet! Give me the coronet!'

'Got over our little attack of guilt, have we, Doctor?' Kreiner shouted. 'Back to saving the world, now, is it?' He and Tarra were standing side by side against the far wall, untouched and steadfast in the storm like figures from a nightmare.

The Doctor ignored him. 'The coronet, Greyjan!'

'What, this old thing?' said Greyjan, just as his hands caught fire. He blew at them, bewildered, as if trying to put them out. Then he clutched at his hearts, his fine robes smouldering under the touch of his flaming fingers. For a moment he looked agonised, then his eyes widened with joy. 'Not before time,' he gasped, before falling to the floor. A beatific smile crowned his smoking corpse as death took him once again.

Without a word, the Doctor made his way over to Tragdorvigan at his station; the man was punching ineffectually at different buttons, by the look on his face, entirely in vain.

The Doctor scowled. 'Twothirds of Gallifrey will be affected,' he shouted, peering over the man's shoulder at the screens. 'Millions will die!'

'Only the beginning, Doctor,' Tarra called back.

'Look out!' warned the Doctor, hauling Tragdorvigan out of his seat as power surged through the console. He flung the man clear just as electrical fingers grabbed at the space he'd been occupying. Mali could see that the relief on the Doctor's face was heartfelt. He'd saved one life.

But Kreiner had grabbed Tana's gun and, with precise aim, shot Tragdorvigan himself. The Doctor yelled in outrage as the man's body was knocked back shaking into a bank of instruments before melting away into thin air.

'Why?' the Doctor shouted. His nose was bleeding again. 'Why, Fitz?'

Kreiner shrugged. 'Why save him and not me?' he shouted back. Then he aimed at the last surviving guard, and fired again. 'Or him?' There was another angry shout from the Doctor as the man went down.

Mali played dead herself, trying to slow her frantic breathing, trying not to shake. This Kreiner was clearly psychotic more dangerous even than the Faction woman.

What would these people do with her world?

The Doctor balled his fists and took a step closer to Kreiner. 'What would you have me do, Fitz?'

'Kreiner,' the man in black insisted, stamping his foot. 'Father Kreiner.'

'What would you have me do, Father Kreiner?' the Doctor spat. 'Let more innocents die just so you don't feel so hard done by?'

Kreiner fired the gun into the air. 'I want you to take some responsibility, you hypocrite!'

Tarra quietly took the gun from Kreiner and Mali breathed a little more easily. 'Be still, both of you,' the skullfaced woman said. "The Matrix has been infected with Paradox now. It carries our taint.'

'The effects can be undone!' the Doctor yelled. 'I'll find a way to stop you. I swear -'

'It is too late to stop it now,' Tarra said, her voice mounting to an exultant shriek. 'Far too late.'

A grinding, wheezing noise seemed to be starting up all around them. Even the emergency lighting dimmed. The Doctor's bruised but defiant face was lit only by guttering sparks from the ruined consoles beside him, as Gallifrey's technology gave up and died.

'Behold, Doctor, the first projection from the Matrix.' Tarra cocked her head and grinned.

'Under new management.'

Ancient pews started forming from thin air, aged green leather stretched across each. Mali had nothing to gain from playing dead now, so she scrambled up to join the Doctor. Dark shadows clattered around the ruined chamber like great birds, cawing and snapping at her.

Head down, she pressed on and fell into the Doctor's arms. He held her, tightly whether to comfort her or to be comforted himself she didn't know. Either way she gripped him tightly, pressed her face against his chest, inhaled his scent of sandalwood and ... no, there was something else. His skin was icy cold, and there was a whiff of decay about him. He looked at her, puzzled and hurt as she pulled away. She found fresh tears forming in her eyes.

Above her the air was thick with birds, jostling in the darkness as the benches of the Shadow Parliament seemed gradually to overlay themselves on to the Council Chamber.

Fitz supposed he should've thanked Romana for slugging him one and saving his life. She'd thrown herself down beside him as the energy wave sizzled overhead, and together they'd dragged themselves down one of Romana's service corridors. Fitz felt a surge of hope as he saw the corridor give on to the TARDIS cradles until he remembered that, thanks to Compassion, the ships would not be flying anywhere.

They watched from the shadow of a bulky white cylinder that was clearly in for repairs. Fitz shuddered to see the crush of the crowd as they fought each other for access to the berthed TARDISes.

'We need your helpful friend to put right whatever it is she did,' Romana muttered.

'She wasn't exactly unprovoked, was she?' Fitz retorted. Even so, he too wished desperately that Compassion would show up again.

Then he had an idea. 'Even if we could just get inside one of them ... they're indestructible, right?'

The first TARDIS exploded as another sizzling indigo band of energy coursed through the cradles. Fitz bit his lip and said nothing at all, closing his eyes as the screams of the panicking crowd grew still louder.

Compassion had her eyes firmly closed. She could still visualise the last thing she had seen when she fled from Romana and Fitz. A huge skeletal thorn which had seemed to pierce reality in front of her. It had dug into her, a cold pulsating claw pulling at her insides. That was when she had willed herself to dematerialise, her stomach cramping with the effort.

Now warmth had returned to her as she felt the world shifting back into focus. After some considerable time, she opened her eyes. She was back on the heath that had held her before.

She shuddered. Back on the Edifice, the only place Nivet's limiter would let her run to.

But now the Edifice had grown so bloated it was beginning to puncture Gallifrey itself. When the energy wave hit, the one would act as a conduit for the power into the other. With the Faction ready to tap into that circuit, siphoning off all the energy they needed.

They'd timed it all to perfection.

Compassion looked up at the darkening sky and shivered.

Almost immediately, she was thrown to the muddy ground as, all around her, the simulated grass caught fire. She saw a huge bone spider suddenly rearing above her and instinctively rolled out of its way. Its saplingthick legs collapsed under its own weight, and upon hitting the ground, it silently crumbled to the consistency of chalk.

Compassion stared in horror as the conflagration took hold. Parts of the sky began exploding above her, raining down fierce sparks, and the grey clouds darkened into poisonous smoke.

She thought of running, but really, where was there to go?

'Why struggle against us now, Doctor?' Tarra called, apparently quite sincerely. 'Join us.

You will in the end, you have no choice.'

Mali knew she was right now. She glanced at the Doctor; he was ashenfaced apart from the bloody weals rising after Kreiner's assault but he said nothing. The benches of the Shadow Parliament were still insinuating themselves into the chamber, and darkhooded phantoms were filing in from nowhere to take their imaginary seats. At least the projection seemed to be keeping Kreiner and Tarra on the other side of the room. But she could hear the ravens everywhere, nestling high above in shadowy eaves.

'How are they doing this?' Mali whispered.

'Like she said, it's just a projection, utilising feedback from the Matrix,' the Doctor explained, his voice drained of all emotion. 'Some kind of relaytriggered ray phase shift I shouldn't wonder. That's the sort of nonsense their people employ.'

'Then we're finished.'

'There's one hope,' the Doctor whispered. 'The Faction don't know that the Edifice is my TARDIS. They don't know I may not be fully infected after all.'

'How can that help us?' Mali demanded, happy to be convinced. But the Doctor didn't say another word.

'There's not an event in the universe, past present or future, that we can't make our own from the vantage point we now possess, Doctor,' Tarra said. "The people of Gallifrey will fall to a new Dark Age of superstition and fear. We shall control all aspects of all life. Free will no longer exists.' Her teeth shone in the eerie light. 'But our lives, Doctor, shall be different from anybody else's. That's the exciting thing. No one in the universe can do what we're doing.'

A fine haze of water started falling from the sprinklers in the cracked ceiling, as if in a belated effort to extinguish the fading flames. The Doctor stood stock still in the downpour, Mali shivering beside him.

'What do you say, Doctor?' Kreiner shouted. 'On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays we'll knock the universe down, and Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays well build it up again.

Halfday closing on Sundays while the assorted masses worship before us. Interested?'

'In a life where death has no meaning?' the Doctor called back. 'Where heroism is redundant, sacrifice a joke?'