Romana brought two fists down on the Doctor's chest, but his inert body absorbed the blows without reacting.

'Still no sign of regeneration,' she said as if she was being deliberately insulted.

The House was rumbling a commentary of its own.

The new woman called Innocet repeatedly waved a green bottle under his nose. He gave not so much as a twitch.

She shook her head. 'It's as if he's cut himself free.'

Leela picked at an amulet on her necklace.

Dorothee half smiled. 'When I asked him about the ballet in Paris, he said he might be there. I knew he'd do that.'

She shivered. 'Stupid. I don't think I'll go now.'

The lamps flickered and dimmed. There was a groan from the corner.

Innocet turned. 'Chris? Is that you?'

Another groan.

She touched her palm against the Doctor's head. 'His consciousness is closed. But what about his subconscious?'

They al turned to look at Chris.

'Bring him into the circle,' said Innocet quickly.

Chris put up no resistance as they lifted him across and laid him beside the Doctor.

They linked hands again. As Innocet concentrated, Dorothee felt a dizzying energy pulsing round them. She couldn't have pulled her hands away if she'd tried.

A pale glow like a candle flame appeared hovering over the centre of the circle. There were shadows moving in the flame. It expanded slowly, absorbed them all into the heart of its aura. Around them, the shadows coalesced into solid thoughts or memories.

Back. Back...

'Doctor?' 'Doctor?' 'Doctor?' cal ed by so many different voices.

He is lying in the TARDIS, outraged that he could do such a thing to himself.

He is lying in the TARDIS. Nausea overcomes him. The Queen bat was ancient and almost dry...

182.

He is lying under a tower of steel. It feels as if his neck is broken, but such moments are prepared for.

He is lying on a laboratory floor. The TARDIS brought him home. Home? Do you call this home?

He is spinning in the darkness. But it's not a death sentence, oh no. The Time Lords are just confiscating one of his lives.

He is lying in the TARDIS. Al that work has left him a bit worn out. Never mind, we'll see where this leads, hmm?

Come along, come along.

'Seven lives,' whispered Innocet. 'This is his seventh life.'

They hovered like ghosts, their hands linked in a circle.

The sun was setting, slashing the sky with blood. A towering wall of ancient stones was caught in the gory light.

Seen from above, the fortification stretched as far as you could imagine. Birds wheeled in the air below them.

'Wait for me,' called Chris, and grabbed Dorothee's hand, breaking into the circle.

'Are you OK?' she shouted through the rushing air.

'Suppose. There just wasn't enough room for both of us in my head.'

They flew downward. The wall was so ma.s.sively fixed in s.p.a.ce and time that the world was sliding out from under it.

'It's him,' shouted Leela.

A tiny figure was standing before a great doorway, dwarfed by the blackened gates.

As they came closer, they saw that the Doctor was wearing only his hat and a vest, which he kept tugging down for decency's sake.

He was pushing at the gates, but they would not give. An old vulture with an eyepatch flapped lazily down and landed beside him. There were jewels among her ragged feathers.

'Is that you, Sybil?' he said.

'The Gate of the Future is shut,' she croaked.

'Permanently? Or is it just early-closing day?'

She stood on one leg, scratching her head with her other jewelled claw. 'I used to be able to see the Future,' she said. 'But it was denied to me. Now I only see the Past.

Dorothee had seen her sort before. The type who comes up to you at a bus stop and tells you their entire life story.

'Once I ruled a whole empire,' said the old harpy. 'I foresaw and controlled events and was una.s.sailable. Now al I see is the aftermath and feed on its carrion.'

'No more than you deserve,' said the Doctor.

She craned her scraggy neck towards him. 'I know you. Daily I feed on the death you cause. Once you denied me entry through the Gate.You tried to escape your past, but now you cannot reach the future either. One day I shall feed on you too.'

'Is that another of your predictions, most sagacious Pythia? As I recall, they were never very reliable.'

183.

The vulture spread her feather-bare wings. 'I was the world!' she shrieked.

'Oh, go away,' he said. 'Go back to the charnel house. I'm not stale enough to be on your menu yet.' He turned his back on the blood-red sun and pushed at the gates again, slowly forcing them open on the future.

Behind him it was always setting. Beyond the gates, the sun was white and rising through peach-coloured mist.

The watchers drifted through after the Doctor. There was a scent of roses in the air. A homely woman dressed in brown was waiting, carrying a long robe.

'It's the rose woman,' said Innocet. 'I saw her in the orchard, the day that he was Loomed.'

'You Eternals get everywhere,' said the Doctor.

'Indeed,' the woman said, fastening the many-coloured robe around his neck. 'Most of us regard being worshipped as a responsibility. We try to live up to expectations. But there are some G.o.ds I could mention who are not nearly so considerate.'

She stood back from him. 'There. What do you think? The robe is woven from al your deeds and experiences.

The patterns drove three of the web-weavers insane.'

'I don't have a mirror,' he said, fidgeting inside the garment.

She smiled. 'Not as clever as you think, are you? If you were really everywhere at once, you'd see for yourself.'

'I'll rely on your better judgement,' he said.

'It could be magnificent,' she said with a shrug. 'Or it could be ghastly.'

'That's life.'

'Exactly. Now off you go. The future awaits.'

He walked to the edge of the pavement. The world was sliding in to meet him. Sliding under the wall into the past.

As he stepped off, the rose pink mist began to clear, laying out the future for him. He moved forward eagerly.

But something pulled him back. The heavy robe was snagged. He tugged at it. Patterns and memories moved on its surface. Blood seeped from its weave.

The garment was caught under the pavement. The future's inexorable pa.s.sage into the past was dragging him along with it.

He struggled in vain to tear free. He pulled at the fastenings, but could not undo them. The robe was choking him.

From the gate came the mocking laughter of the old vulture.

The Doctor toppled to the ground. He gave a strangled cry of despair and was dragged head first under the wal into the inescapable past.

The watching ghosts clung together in the sudden darkness. The past was an empty void. Then a wind blew up and they were travel ing, drawn down after the Doctor. They could see the wind. It tore against them in silver streamers.

Innocet faced into it. 'Air,' she choked through her tears. 'Clean air. I'd forgotten how to breathe!'

Ahead, they could see the figure of the Doctor rising and dipping on his course into the dark.

A fiery glow appeared in the distance. It grew steadily until half a city was lit beneath them in the h.e.l.lish glare.

184.

A huge edifice was burning like a torch against the night. A great hal or temple. Stone was cracking in the heat and the air was filled with a grey blizzard of ash.

Adjacent buildings had caught alight and a swarm of air cars were tackling the blazes with vacuum hoses. They ignored the main conflagration. Around it ran a ring of guards, not deployed to keep the crowds away, but to cordon in the people fleeing the building. Fights were breaking out. There was the fizz of gunfire. No one was escaping.

A constant whispered commentary underpinned the air. A distant muttering of thousands of voices. But Dorothee could not work out if it was inside or outside her head.

The Doctor swooped away over other districts of the city and, drawn by him, the watchers followed.

On a square, high among the domes, stood a monument in the form of an .

'It's the Omega Memorial at the Capitol,' said Leela.

'It's true,' said Innocet. 'But this is the old city over which the Citadel of the Time Lords was built. He must have fled here when he stole the TARDIS, back thousands of years into the past where he knew he couldn't be followed.

Almost to the Old Time itself.'

The Doctor was hovering close to the tall monument. On its crest sat a solitary figure wrapped in a dark cloak. His thin legs dangled over the side as he contemplated a black box floating in the air just below him.

'I know what that is,' said Dorothee. 'That's the Hand of Omega.'

'So who who is he?' said Romana. is he?' said Romana.

'He's not the Doctor,' said Innocet emphatical y.

They caught angry thoughts from the figure, but whether these were relayed through the Doctor or directly from the man himself, they could not tell.

'I warned him. I warned Ra.s.silon that if force was used against the dissenters, if their sanctuary in the Pythia's temple was violated, then I would leave his accursed planet to its own devices!'

He pul ed off his shoe and threw it, but the missile shot straight through the box as if it did not exist.

'But if I go, there will be no way back. Ra.s.silon wil be left with absolute control. No checks, no balances. G.o.ds, how I long to be free. Free of schemes, ambitions, and free of my dark, brooding self.'

For a second, Dorothee thought he was going to throw himself down from the monument. He nearly stepped out, but instead he pulled back and slid down the curve of the edifice. He dropped the last twenty feet and landed like a cat.

Figures moved out of the shadows around him. A knife flashed, but the box was suddenly among them, flinging bolts of energy at the helpless a.s.sa.s.sins.

'So Ra.s.silon seals his own fate.' The figure's thoughts were weary and saddened. 'But there will be much to prepare for my departure and one impossible farewel to make.'

He laid a silky grey rose at the foot of the monument. Then, throwing away his other shoe, he loped off into the city.

The Doctor followed.

'Are these really his memories?' complained Dorothee. 'What's this got to do with the Doctor?'

Romana and Innocet exchanged glances, but said nothing. They were moving deep into the slums of the lower city, down il -lit streets and alleys peopled with ragged shadows.