'Shut up,' said Owis. 'Shut up!' He raised a hand to hit the old woman. Chris knocked him to the floor.

Somewhere near, something struggled in a tight s.p.a.ce.

'Arkhew had a pet scrubbler,' continued Jobiska. 'It fell in through a window one day. Al silvery grey and blind, with a twinkly nose and big digger claws. Arkhew kept it in a box, fed it on worms. It was his best friend. Then Owis ate it.'

'Did not!' protested Owis. 'It's all the Doctor's fault. He wants to kill everyone!'

Innocet walked in through the door. Rynde was with her. She glared accusingly at Chris. 'Why has the Doctor come back? He should have left us buried in peace.'

'While you wager your lives away in idiot games?' said Chris.

Owis affected disinterest. 'He could afford a life or two.'

At that moment, something fell out of the chimney and slapped on to the hearth.

It was a fish. A big gla.s.sy fish with finny claws. A barrage of hailstones clattered around it. It struggled for a moment, off the hearth, onto the filthy rug, and then lay still, mouth gasping.

The Cousins stood in silence as three more fish tumbled down among the hailstones.

'Is it a sign?' said Owis excitedly. 'Or a miracle?'

Innocet clasped her hand to her throat. 'Perhaps,' she said slowly. 'The Doctor always attracted strangeness.'

'Chris!' hissed a voice.

Chris turned and saw Dorothee and another woman standing in the doorway.

The others stared.

Fish flapped around their feet, drowning in the air.

146.

'Dorothee? How did you get in here?'

Hailstones clattered down.

'Don't ask,' she said. 'Where is he?'

The two Drudges came from both directions.

'These are my guests,' declared Innocet. 'By the Laws...'

A Drudge pushed Innocet roughly aside. She turned and ran from the room.

'Get behind me,' said Chris, as the huge servants edged the guests into a corner.

Too late. The woman in a bikini stuck a knife into the headless Drudge, but even with three against two, there was no contest.

One Drudge picked up both women. The other put Chris under one arm and stil had a hand free to s.n.a.t.c.h up the fish and store them in wooden drawers in its bodice.

'It's a precarious time,' said Glospin. He was setting out the pieces on the Sepulchasm board. 'One false move and the House could destroy al of us.' He held up the counters. 'What colour?'

'Patrexes.' The Doctor tapped the faded purple discs. 'Do you plan to kill me too?'

'What?'

'The way you killed Quences. How else can you stop the House from finding out he's dead?'

Glospin selected the silver-grey Dromeian counters for himself. 'Everyone says you murdered him.'

'Boring,' the Doctor said. 'What do you think?'

'I was too ill to know about it.'

'Oh, yes. You were busy regenerating.' He studied Glospin. 'You've worn very well.'

'Yes. I put it down to the lack of sunlight.' Glospin smiled. 'Don't worry, Wormhole. Something with your provenance and questionable ancestry is far too precious to be killed.'

'Coming home is so rea.s.suring,' said the Doctor. 'However long I've been away, I know we'l still pick up exactly where we left off. I'm your Cousin, Glospin.'

'Amongst other things.'

'Meaning?'

Glospin cupped the die in his hands and rotated it slowly. 'When we last met, all that time ago, at the Capitol, I knew you were something strange. Your genetic records bore that out. But it was more than that. Somehow you don't belong here.'

'You hoped,' said the Doctor. 'Cast the die.'

Glospin threw and got an eleven to start. 'I thought you were an infiltrator or a changeling. An un-Gal ifreyan.'

'That's a good Agency word,' said the Doctor. He threw the die and got a six. 'I know another good word. Cuckoo.

What do you think?'

147.

'We haven't set a stake,' Glospin said.

'All right. I'l play you for the whereabouts of Quences's wil .'

They crooked fingers. 'And I'll play you for your TARDIS,' said Glospin with a smile.

Satthralope tried to watch the game, but she could neither read Glospin's words nor catch the Doctor's thoughts.

Then he was he was in the way, blocking her view. Quences, staring at her out of her mirror, with that thing stuck into his chest, dribbling blood down his gore-soaked robe. in the way, blocking her view. Quences, staring at her out of her mirror, with that thing stuck into his chest, dribbling blood down his gore-soaked robe.

'I am dead, Satthralope. Dead and bloodied for revenge.'

She would not believe the apparition. It did not exist. Quences had survived the Doctor's murderous attack. It had taken all her strength to console and convince the House.

The old man leered out of the mirror at her. No matter where in the House she directed the gla.s.s, he was always there, blocking her view, sluicing absurd quant.i.ties of blood.

'Quences, you old vampire!' she shouted. 'I wish you real y were dead!'

For some unaccountable reason, she thought she could smell fish.

Glospin's counters scampered round the board. He was on a winning run.

'You were the only one Quences cared about,' he said.

The Doctor remained infuriatingly smug. 'You could have joined our Sepulchasm tournaments. You only had to ask. We were often in here, playing on this very board.

'Even after he threw you out, he still cared. If only he'd known what he was playing with.'

'Fire, Glospin. The same as you.' The Doctor shook and threw again. He groaned. 'Another six. Anyone would think this board was fixed.'

Glospin rubbed his scarred hand. 'It was only when that thing attacked me that I understood what you real y are.'

'Do go on. Your fantasies are fascinating.'

'It was the Hand, wasn't it? The legendary Hand of Omega, a power out of the past. And it came to find you!'

'Glospin,' said the Doctor, 'you've had nearly seven hundred years to dream up this nonsense.'

'Am I the first to find out? Is that why you're so frightened?'

The Doctor was calm and quiet. No tantrum or fierce denial. How telling that was.

The board boomed and cracked open under the Doctor's counters. He glared at the little discs, forbidding them to drop. As they hovered above the opening, he said, 'Glospin, take over.'

'What?'

'Keep it open for me.'

148.

Glospin took over the mental reins, willing the chasm open as the Doctor leant in over the board. He slid his hand down into the depths of the pedastal and started to rummage around.

'I can't find.. . No wait, there's something here.'

Glospin let go.

The board's dimensions snapped shut on the Doctor's arm. He yel ed with pain, struggling to escape.

'Where are your powers now?' said Glospin. 'Get yourself out of this!' He hit the Doctor across the face.

And again.

Innocet burst into the room. She saw the trap and immediately set her mind to it.

The board cracked open and the Doctor fell clear clutching his arm. His nose and lip were bleeding. In his hand was a black data core, sealed with a crest.

'I think this is what we've been looking for,' he choked.

'Quences's will?' said Innocet, incredulous. 'Is that it?'

'It's a trick,' Glospin said. 'He had it al the time.'

He lunged for the core, but Innocet pushed him back.

'I don't care where it was,' she said. 'Now that we have it, we can confront Satthralope.'

'Confront her al you like. What happens when she tries to wake Quences? Or perhaps Wormhole has some legendary legendary solution.' solution.'

The Doctor lay back, watching his Cousins squabble over him.

There was a commotion outside. The Drudges loomed in, carrying Chris Cwej and two new strangers with them.

Two struggling women.

The Doctor sat up and stuffed the data core inside his jacket. 'What's this?' he said sourly. 'Prison Visitors a.s.sociation?'

149.

Chapter Twenty-five.

Sightseeing

Miracle? What miracle?

News travels fast in Lungbarrow.

It whispers along pa.s.sages, gathering resonance the way a House gathers dust.