The monk looked at the ovoid curiously. The Doctor put it into his palm, and soft blue lines appeared in the colour, stretching away from the young man's fingers and crisscrossing the egg.

The Doctor nodded. 'You've been in contact with a minor temporal anomaly sometime in the last thirty-six hours,' he diagnosed. 'This is excellent. You know, Chris, if this is a natural phenomenon, we could have this sorted out by teatime tomorrow.'

They both started laughing. Kadoguchiroshi and the young monk looked at them, puzzled.

The Doctor took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. 'Do we have enough time for a tea ceremony tonight?' he asked.

Kadoguchiroshi smiled. 'The more quickly it's done, the longer it takes. I don't think you're quite ready.'

'That's the nub of my problem,' said the Doctor. They were walking through the garden, through the sound of distant chanting and the wind in the bamboo. There was a milk-coloured moon overhead, providing enough light to see by. 'I'm not ready. I want to be ready.'

'You speak as though you know the hour and the place.'

'No,' said the Doctor. 'But I want to. I want to choose. If I've got to regenerate again, go through that miniature death one more time, I want it to be on my own terms.'

'You want it to mean something.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'Everything I do is for a purpose. Too many people just die, die for no reason.' The Roshi said nothing, considering a leafless tree.

'I have to admit there's something a little bit attractive about the prospect.

Pa.s.sing the baton. Putting down all the burdens and letting it all be washed away. . . ' The Doctor shook himself. 'Time won't have her Champion for much longer. Chris has to be ready. Recent events have shaken him badly.'

'You can reach Hekison village within a day,' said the Roshi. 'Be careful of brigands and wolves.'

'We'll stay until tomorrow morning. And we'll be back within a day or so.'

The Roshi nodded. 'Perhaps you will be ready by then.' The Doctor gave him a troubled look as he walked on.

25.Chris was sitting in the travellers' quarters, struggling to undo his samurai topknot, and thinking about a dream he'd once had. He'd seen that girl with the face of a clock once before, in another one of those those dreams. 'Is this your new steward?' she had asked the Doctor. 'Or have you brought me a sacrifice?' dreams. 'Is this your new steward?' she had asked the Doctor. 'Or have you brought me a sacrifice?'

It was like a riddle he'd been given to solve. He was kind of the Doctor's steward now, or really his squire, the way he had been Roz's squire. Like an apprentice. But a sacrifice?

If the Doctor asked him to die, would he do it?

Risking your life was one thing, but knowing you were going to die, knowing there was no escape. . . 'Make it quick,' Liz had told him, and he hadn't been able to do it, hadn't been able to spare her those slow hours of knowing knowing.

For Chiyono, it had already been years. How could she bear it?

What was more creepy was the idea that the Doctor wouldn't trust him to be brave enough. Maybe he would even trick him into dying. If it was the right thing to do.

Chris wished he was more like the Doctor. He knew the Time Lord wouldn't hesitate, didn't have doubts. At least, very few.

On the other hand, always knowing the right thing to do even if it meant getting your friends killed must really suck.

Should he ask the Doctor about the dream, the new dream, his night-after-nightmare? He had a weird feeling the Time Lord already knew about it.

Anyway, the Doctor liked him to figure things out for himself. Like what had happened to the Castle.

Chris looked up. Kadoguchiroshi was there, holding a sputtering lamp.

The old man sat down in front of him, putting the lamp between them. His wrinkled face looked weird in the flickering light.

'Kosen was really the pupil, and the other guy was the teacher. Right?'

The Roshi just smiled. Darn, thought Chris.

'Do you know why we call him Snowman?' asked the old monk. Chris shook his head.

'Then let me tell you another story. It was ten years ago, in the middle of a very bitter winter. I had travelled over the mountain to visit another monastery, and I was returning. I had stopped at the shrine to Jizo Bosatsu on the mountainside where you met me when I saw a hand push its way out of the snow.'

Chris listened, pulling at his hair.

'I was more easily surprised in those days,' said the Roshi. 'I was quite startled to see a hand creeping out from under the snow like a pale spider. I went at once to fetch a branch and dig out the poor buried unfortunate.

'It appeared that he had been trying to climb out of a ditch when exhaustion overcame him. But he was lucky.'

26.Chris said, 'The snow insulates you.'

The Roshi nodded. 'Without that white cloak, he would certainly have frozen to death. I dug him out of the snow and carried him down the mountainside on my back.

'The chief monk examined him, and we found the signs of the jiki-ketsu-gaki jiki-ketsu-gaki on his throat and wrists. At that time she was a great danger to those pa.s.sing through the mountains. I had taken special care to avoid her Castle.' on his throat and wrists. At that time she was a great danger to those pa.s.sing through the mountains. I had taken special care to avoid her Castle.'

'The Castle we landed in.' Chris thought of the humanoid figure carved into the shrine stone, the face he hadn't been able to make out. He imagined the monks hastily making the shrine, eager to leave. . .

The Roshi said, 'No one expected him to live. But I knew that someone who had survived the jiki-ketsu-gaki jiki-ketsu-gaki and the snow would not easily relinquish life. and the snow would not easily relinquish life.

I placed him next to the fire in the infirmary and watched over him until he recovered.

'He stayed with us for three months. He lived like a monk, cooking and working and attending sermons.'

Chris grinned suddenly. 'Did he shave his head?'

'No. He'd never have the patience to become a monk. His mind is in a hundred places at once. Every day he looked up into the mountains, towards the demon's Castle. He was like a ghost that could not rest until it had finished a task.'

Chris realized that his topknot had come undone by itself while he was listening. He shook his head, letting his yellow hair fall down to his shoulders, and took out his comb.

'I've heard the story of the snowman and the hungry ghost,' said Aoi. 'So you were the one who destroyed her!'

The man smiled. 'Second time lucky.'

'Enough,' said Aoi's father. 'Wandering monks and pilgrims bring the Roshi news from all around. He must have told you more about the fallen G.o.d. Tell me what you know.'

'My nose itches,' said the little man. Aoi's father raised an arm to strike him, almost casually.

'Yes, he did,' said the giant quickly. 'Though he didn't tell us very much.'

Kiiro had discovered the Doctor's jacket pockets. He began to empty them, strange objects tumbling out on to the gra.s.s. Pieces of string and strange coins and toys. And there was the rainbow-coloured egg. Aoi reached out for it and held it in his palm. The snowman watched him as he marvelled at the pattern of colours swirling over its surface.

Aoi's father said, 'Tell me, then, whatever he told you.' The yellow-haired bushi bushi nodded. nodded.

27.'My nose still itches,' said the snowman.

28.The Room With No Doors Chris opened his eyes. He was in the Room With No Doors.

He sat up.

It was just the same as the last. . . how many times? There was nothing else in the room but him. No bed, no table, no chair.

He drew his knees up to his chest, sitting back against one of the walls.

He could see, even though there was no particular place the light was coming from.

He'd explored the room, of course. There had been plenty of time in those endless, vaguely panicked nights. Six walls, smoothly joined at the edges. A high ceiling, out of reach. The air was neither warm nor cool. The floor was hard, but not particularly hard, just not soft. Made of the same impenetrable stuff as the walls.

The first time he'd had this nightmare, it had gone on for hours. Eight hours he'd checked the alarm clock next to his bed. That was how it always went, hour after hour of sitting in the Room, unable to wake up. Each time he wondered if he ought to ask the Doctor about it. Each time, for some reason, he didn't.

He wished he could dream up a comic book or something.

Imagine being stuck somewhere like this. Being a prisoner or something, in solitary. Absolute solitary. No little slot where the food came in. Nothing.

Man, that was creepy. Chris hugged his knees. Imagine being stuck here forever. Oh, man.

Oh, of course! That was where this came from, of course! His grandfather's funeral. He laughed out loud. It was so simple.

Poor old Granddad. Chris had been only five when he'd died. Poor old loony Granddad, everyone in the extended Cwej clan pitching in to help look after him and chase the s.p.a.ce lobsters out of his beard. He'd driven them to their wits' end, but they'd loved him. Chris's father had insisted on a traditional funeral, open coffin and everything.

Chris had a vague memory of being carried out of the funeral home by his mother, crying, because he didn't want Granddad to be shut up in that box 29 forever.

He had been much older when he realized that the coffin would have been vaporized after the service. There was no room left on Earth for the dead.

Chris shrugged his shoulders, leaning back against the wall. 'That's all it is,'

he told the nightmare, his voice echoing. 'A childhood scare. Do your worst.'

He didn't wake up for five hours.

30.

3.How to lose

Someone shook Chris. He opened one eye. The Doctor was standing over him, holding a lamp.

'Time to go, I think,' said the Time Lord.

Chris sat up. 'It's the middle of the night,' he protested. The Doctor looked vaguely agitated, but didn't say anything. 'Is something wrong?'

'I hate goodbyes,' whispered the Doctor. 'And I want to get an early start.'

Chris groaned theatrically. 'Well, couldn't you start without me?'

The Doctor looked at him, sharply, the lamp flame reflected, jumping, in his eyes. 'I'd rather not,' he said, very softly. 'There may not be much time.'

'Something is wrong,' said Chris, scrambling out of bed. But the Doctor had already turned and gone out of the room.

Chris frowned. It wasn't fair dragging him out of bed and then not telling him what the problem was. Unless the Doctor was just being weird to keep his companion interested?

Chris had the sudden, wild idea of getting back under the covers. He didn't want an adventure. Let the Doctor go off and fool around with the time distortion. He'd stay here, nice and warm and actually safe for once, and get a few more hours' sleep.

Chris groaned and reached for his kimono.

The Doctor patted his horse rea.s.suringly on the neck. He led it through the blackness towards the exit, motioning for Chris to do the same, and stepped on the man sleeping in front of the gate.

The Roshi looked up at them. He was curled in a pile of straw. 'Oh, I beg your pardon,' he said with a polite smile.

The Doctor made a face, as though he had just squashed his fingers in a door, and couldn't quite believe he'd done it. He looked down, looked back at Chris, muttered something inaudible, and slunk past the old monk, leading his horse.

31.Chris looked down at the Roshi. 'How'd you know?' he said.

The Roshi said nothing, smiling up at him. He fluffed up the straw, lay back down and went to sleep.

After a moment, Chris followed the Doctor, his horse's hooves loud on the dry earth.

The village was a cl.u.s.ter of huts at the nub of four rice paddies. The fanners were hidden beneath wide straw hats, keeping the sun off their shoulders as they worked.

They'd ridden for most of the morning, galloping down roads and across fields. The Doctor rode hard, forcing Chris to keep up with him. He didn't understand the Time Lord's haste.

The Doctor got down from his horse when they were still a klick from the village. 'We both look very intimidating,' he said.

'Me more than you,' said Chris. 'Do you want me to stay behind?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'We won't stay long. I just want to pick up the gossip and ask for directions.'

There was a group of children playing at being samurai outside the village, defending a mound of dirt and shouting as they waved sticks at one another.

They fell silent as they caught sight of the two strangers. Wide black eyes in small faces, watching them.

One little boy ran back into the village. Another ran up to Chris and started pounding on his shins with the stick.

'Ow!' protested Chris. 'I surrender!'