'It's missing a piece, one of the mirrors.'

'Lost forever, I hope.'

The Doctor turned his unreadable eyes on him for a second, then strolled to the edge of the platform and peered up the track. 'Well, actually, at the moment it's in Scale's camera obscura at the Crystal Palace and may as well stay there it can't do any harm once the rest is gone.' He tapped his foot briefly, as if that might hurry the train. 'I hope you didn't mind my hustling you away like this. I thought it best for you to return to London as soon as possible.'

'Yes,' said Chiltern. 'I had the same idea myself. I felt rather in the way here, frankly.'

'I wouldn't say that. But it's true there's not much you can do. And I thought it would be better for Miss Jane at Mrs Hemming's house.' The Doctor glanced back at Constance, who was sitting with her hands in her lap, head down. 'I hope things will be different for her when this time problem is solved.'

'Do you really believe they will?'

'It should make some sort of difference. The stresses aggravated her condition. Millie couldn't come out on her own before, only in the trances.'

'But she isn't disturbed so much by the fact that the other one can emerge at will as by the knowledge that there is is another one. Her very sense of self is disrupted.' another one. Her very sense of self is disrupted.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor unhappily. 'Existential shock.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I'm sorry, never mind. What about you?'

'Me?'

'You've had the same sort of revelation, after all.'

'That I'm only a piece of a whole, you mean. And with no true memories. Well, I've had my little nervous episode. And now here I am.' Chiltern looked at him with weary frankness. 'I suppose I shall just continue on as before. I seem to have stood in for Sebastian quite effectively at the clinic.'

'He did it out of love,' the Doctor said abruptly.

'I'm sorry?'

'Sebastian. He wanted you to be well. He thought he could do that for you. Make things right.'

'Yes.' Chiltern's eyes focused on some private sorrow. 'Why should he be whole when I wasn't? I understand.'

'He never meant for this dreadful thing to happen to you.'

'Good intentions,' said Chiltern grimly.

'Unintended consequences,' said the Doctor. 'Forgive him if you can.'

Chiltern smiled with bitter amusement. 'What makes you think he's the one who needs to be forgiven?'

The Doctor frowned bewilderedly, but before he could say anything the train whistle sounded in the distance and Chiltern turned and hurried back to Miss Jane. The Doctor watched him gather the luggage and, when the train arrived, escort her on. Two people with only partial existences. How nice if life were a fairy tale: they would be two halves of one whole, meant for each other. I could make a decent living, the Doctor thought, as a writer of sentimental fiction. He allowed himself a moment to admire the departing locomotive. One of the best things about the nineteenth century, no doubt about it.

A heavy arm fell across his shoulders. 'Bidding adieu, Doctor?'

'Just seeing Chiltern and Miss Jane off.'

'Back to London?'

'They would have been underfoot.'

'You certainly hurried them away.'

The Doctor tried to shrug. It was difficult under that weighty arm.

'Shall I tell you what I think?' said Sabbath conversationally.

'Can I stop you?'

'No.' Sabbath strolled towards the far end of the platform, propelling the reluctant Doctor along with him.

'Can it wait? We really should be on our way to the machine.'

'Ah yes, of which you so ingeniously gained the location. I wonder, did Sebastian Chiltern tell you anything else of interest?'

'Such as?'

Sabbath spun the Doctor to face him, keeping a massive hand on his shoulder. 'That train's first stop is Newton Abbot in twenty minutes. I could be there in the Jonah Jonah well in time to intercept your friends and bring them back here.' well in time to intercept your friends and bring them back here.'

'What for?'

Sabbath shifted his grip to the Doctor's shirt front and shoved him hard against the station wall. The Doctor grunted. If the staff down the platform in the ticket office heard anything, they didn't check to see what it was. Released, the Doctor smoothed his shirt fastidiously.

'Bit testy today, aren't you? Bad night? Temper, temper,' he said warningly as Sabbath took a deep breath. 'You really don't want to go beating me up in public in this charming little village. Extremely bad form.'

'Seventeen minutes,' said Sabbath. 'Answer me, or I bring them back.'

'Why should I give you an answer when you've obviously got one all worked out? You tell me: did Sebastian Chiltern tell me anything else of interest?'

'I think that you discovered that Sebastian isn't the one who went into the machine and became fractured. I think he had a twin, and that think that you discovered that Sebastian isn't the one who went into the machine and became fractured. I think he had a twin, and that twin twin was fractured into two selves, and those two selves are the thing that chased you on the moor and the man you just put on the train. And if that's so,' Sabbath grabbed the Doctor's shoulder again before he could dodge away, 'then it's a definite possibility that killing Nathaniel Chiltern will kill the other one, just the way it worked with Octave. That's the only reasonable explanation for why you so suddenly wanted to get him away from here away from me.' was fractured into two selves, and those two selves are the thing that chased you on the moor and the man you just put on the train. And if that's so,' Sabbath grabbed the Doctor's shoulder again before he could dodge away, 'then it's a definite possibility that killing Nathaniel Chiltern will kill the other one, just the way it worked with Octave. That's the only reasonable explanation for why you so suddenly wanted to get him away from here away from me.'

'Good work,' said the Doctor sourly. 'You get the school prize.'

'Did you think I wouldn't work it out?'

'Not at all. I hoped we'd be on our way before you even noticed they were gone.'

'You've done it again,' said Sabbath, almost in disbelief. 'You've risked sacrificing billions to save one miserable life.'

'You're so certain certain,' snapped the Doctor. 'Certain that the death of Nathaniel will kill the other. Certain that will solve the problem '

'It will will solve the problem.' solve the problem.'

'Oh really?' The Doctor's voice rose. 'What if the damned machine is no longer with the third Chiltern? What if he's hidden it, and you strike him dead?'

'The immediate danger is past.'

'Until someone else finds it!' shouted the Doctor. He knocked Sabbath's hand from his shoulder. 'That thing is a time bomb, it's temporal radioactive waste, it's death! Preventing its use now, in this year, only delays the inevitable catastrophe. We have to get rid of it!'

The station manager, a portly little man in wire rims, crept timidly from the office. 'Everything all right, gentlemen?' he asked, more hopefully than sternly.

Sabbath and the Doctor both beamed at him. The station master didn't really find this a reassuring sight. 'Just dandy,' said the Doctor.

' "Just dandy",' Sabbath repeated in disgust when the station manager had withdrawn. 'When do they start saying that?'

'Can't remember.' The Doctor rather ostentatiously smoothed his coat shoulder where Sabbath had gripped it. 'Shall we go? People to see, things to blow up.'

Chapter Twenty-four.

Sabbath and the Doctor sat at the foot of the waterfall. The Doctor had removed his shoes and socks and dipped his feet in the clear water. Sabbath remained shod. Shafts of light fell dramatically through the trees.

'This area attracted a number of Victorian landscape painters,' said the Doctor.

'At the moment, natural beauty is not high on my list of concerns.'

They had searched for hours. First the house in Capel Gorast, which though decrepit was substantially intact and more resembled a small castle than a house. When this finally proved fruitless, Fitz and Anji went into Llanrwst and Sabbath, the Doctor and the Angel-Maker into Betws and made inquiries about any mysterious, misshapen strangers arriving by train or carriage. No such person had been spotted. At which point, they returned to the house and started investigating the grounds and surrounding forest.

The Doctor had come across the remains of the eponymous chapel, now fallen to ruin, the roof collapsed and the whole claimed by brambles and nettles. A piece of the chancel arch still stood, and he pulled away the growth at the top of one of the columns to see the capitol more clearly. A worn stone head grimaced at him, carved stone hawthorn branches issuing from its mouth and surrounding its face like a leafy halo.

'And what is that, then?'

The Doctor jumped and glared at the Angel-Maker.

'I wish you'd stop doing that.'

'Sure and it's a monster,' she said, peering at the carving curiously, 'and in a holy place!' She stood on tiptoe to see better. 'It must be that he's in pain and the vines growing from him like that.'

'It's a green man,' said the Doctor. 'Come on, there's nothing here.'

She examined the face a moment more before following him. 'Green,' she said. 'Is it then one of the Gentry?'

'No one knows what the green man represents. Maybe rebirth. Maybe the spirit of the forest.'

'Is it a good or an evil spirit?'

'No one knows that either. Listen to me, Miss Kelly, you really must stop sneaking ' The Doctor turned to continue his lecture to her face, but she was gone.

The Doctor and Sabbath weren't actually resting by the waterfall they had just finished talking with two fishermen on their way home who, of course, hadn't seen anything unusual.

'We're too early,' said the Doctor. 'He hasn't arrived yet.'

Sabbath nodded. 'The crates containing the machine will have slowed him down.'

'Well, he has a spatial plane interfacer, so carrying the machine won't be a problem for him. But he might still be a while.'

'It would be difficult for him to travel by train without attracting attention.'

'If he used a carriage, he'd have to trust the driver.'

'A journey by horse would take several days.'

'Particularly as he's almost certainly travelling only at night.'

They fell silent. The Doctor's eyes roved over the trees. No sign of the Angel-Maker, but he knew she was nearby.

'So,' he said, 'we simply have to wait for him to turn up.'

'Unless he has another hiding place even his dead brother didn't know about.'

'There is that,' sighed the Doctor. He pulled his feet out of the water and drew his knees up under his chin, wrapping his arms around them, his pale eyes fixed on the foaming falls. There were bits of twig and green leaf in his dishevelled hair. Silva daemonium Silva daemonium, thought Sabbath with ironic erudition. To him, at that moment, the Doctor looked much younger than that fool he travelled with. A sick boy. Sabbath wondered idly whether the loss of his heart, which had saved his life, would in the long run kill him.

'That's four times now, you realise.'

'Doesn't count,' said the Doctor. 'You had the ride of your life. Fair exchange.'

Sabbath shrugged graciously. 'You know, Doctor, even allowing for the, ah, unique circumstances of your last near-death experience, it's extraordinary how often you're plucked out of trouble at the last minute.'

'Is it?'

'Rescuers turn up. Weapons jam. Your companions, who, if you will forgive me, don't strike me as more than usually competent, save the day. Buildings explode immediately after you find the way out. Cities fall just as the TARDIS dematerialises.'

'Exaggerated reports, I assure you.'

'Electrical currents short-circuit. Evil masterminds make foolish errors. If you fall out of a window, there's something to catch you. If you're drowning, a spar floats by. You find your way unsinged out of burning houses.'

'Where do you get all this stuff? I don't remember half of it.'

'You survive alien mind probes that would boil the average brain in its skull. You are dug unharmed from beneath fallen rubble. No one ever shoots you in the head. Deadly drugs turn out not to affect you. Villains tie you up too loosely, and hide-bound tyrants' convictions falter at your rhetoric. In short,' Sabbath finished smoothly, 'in your presence, the odds collapse.'

'What have you been doing studying up on the legends of my presumed people, the so-called Elementals? I wish you'd stop using that word, by the way. Whatever I may be, it's not a chameleon or a sprite.'

'I use the word as it refers to an ultimate constituent of reality. And listen to your own words: "Whatever I may be" But what is that? Has anyone ever taken you apart to find out?'

The Doctor grimaced. 'Not yet.'

'But not for want of trying. More lucky escapes.'

'Really, Sabbath, this is quite silly.' The Doctor began to put back on his socks. 'Certainly I've been lucky in my time, perhaps unusually so, but a series of anecdotal incidents doesn't add up to a pattern.'