'Oh, I'm sorry,' she snaps, sarcastically. 'I've been stuck in here for a day now, without a word to anyone. Typical that when Neville finally sends me someone, he doesn't want to talk. Anyway, I thought that your Romana seemed very intelligent.'

The Doctor ponders. 'Hmm, she started well...'

'Doctor. The power?'

He realises Pelham, for all her seeming innocence, knows a thing or two about interview techniques. She isn't going to let go.

'It's perfectly simple. The power was never off.'

'I don't understand.'

'Let me put it this way. When a person is asleep, they're still alive, aren't they? Everything is still switched on; otherwise, they'd be dead. Sleep is simply a different form of consciousness. I was an alarm clock, telepathically speaking.'

'So you gave Neville exactly what he wanted. And ended up here.'

'Oh, I expected Neville to go back on his word,' the Doctor replies, indifferently. 'They always do.'

'Then why the h.e.l.l did you switch the palace on?'

The Doctor cannot answer. He doesn't know. Or maybe 'it seemed a good idea at the time'. 'Don't worry, there's nothing he can use here,' he says, avoiding the question. 'Oh, the quality of the catering will probably improve, but it won't help him with Valdemar. I must get back to the TARDIS. At any cost. No, I don't think he can do any particular harm.'

Pelham shakes her head. 'If you had known anything about Neville...'

'If I had... ! All right, tell me about Neville. That's obviously why he has put me in here with you.'

'OK,' she says. 'We've got nothing else to do. It all started...'

'No, no,' he replies, irritated, 'the short version. I need to be out of here, very quickly. He plans to reawaken Valdemar, doesn't he? Why?'

'Revenge, power; to regain those possessions and lands lost to him. It's a good story, I fell for it myself. And not just me.

It's ten years since Neville became the Magus of the cult of Valdemar. From my little book, and a club of a handful of nutters, the cult has become the most powerful magical organisation in the New Protectorate.'

The Doctor turns to look at Pelham. He wonders at her motives. She isn't stupid, she isn't easily swayed, so why is she here?

'I was afraid.' She supplies an answer for him. Her bright blue eyes darken for a moment. To the Doctor she seems, for the first time, old. 'He was fanatical, ruthless, charismatic. I fell for him, I guess. I lost everything in the revolution and hanging around with him seemed a good idea at the time. I was thirty-five years old. Old being the operative word. You know, back in the old days, a long way back, all you got was about thirty-five years. Now, all you get is about a hundred.'

The Doctor hears the tremor in her voice. Miranda Pelham is afraid of her own mortality.

'Valdemar was my life's work,' she continues. 'I may never have believed it but Neville is good, very good. If there was some chance, any at all... Somehow he managed to raise all this funding and I really didn't have anything better to do.

Like you, however, I'm starting to regret that decision.'

Pelham sneaks a glance at the Doctor and he realises there is something she's not telling him. 'And it was as simple as that?' he asks, probing. 'Really?'

'Really.' She keeps her face straight. 'What about you? I still don't know anything about you. You could be Valdemar himself for all I know.'

At last, the first restraint comes loose. The leather snaps apart and the Doctor raises his freed right arm. 'I might, at that,' he says mysteriously. When she flinches he gives her his disarming smile. 'Shall we go?'

'How did you do that?'

He unwraps himself from the remaining restraints.

Distracted, he replies, 'You know, if I spent less time answering questions and more time getting on with the job, I'd never get into half the trouble I do get into.' He moves to unravel her restraints.

'One thing, Doctor. You said Neville couldn't use the power of the palace. How can you be so sure?'

'Who said I was sure? I'm taking a chance and I don't like it. However, Valdemar is not what he thinks it is. Whatever is down there in that tomb, it's not some sleeping all-powerful G.o.d. For Neville to achieve anything, he would need a highly disciplined psychic controller. A telepath of unbelievable sensitivity. And that, Miss Pelham, only occurs naturally in the human race about, ooh, once every thousand years. The chances of Neville having one on board are negligible.

Obviously, if that were the case, the danger to the universe would be... ah, there we are.'

Most of the restraints are off but Pelham does not move. In fact, as she lies there her strong face drains of colour. She stares at him and he wonders whether she is going to be sick.

'What? Come on, come on, chop chop.'

Her mouth moves but the words don't emerge. He puts an ear to her lips and feels warm breath trickling into his head.

'Tell me,' he says.

'You...' The words are whispered. 'You haven't met Huvan, then?'

'Huvan? I've heard the name.' He goes cold just as the cell door is opened. He barely hears Kampp enter the room.

'Time enough, Doctor,' the butler purrs.

He feels light, gorgeous. The pain, the black dog that hounds him, biting at his confidence, ruining his life, has gone.

Huvan doesn't like to admit it, but he feels good. Life is not the empty black hole it has always been. He wouldn't do it in public, he wouldn't want anyone to know, but he can't help smiling.

It must be the Lady Romana. It has to be. She walked into his life like an angel, out from the tomb. He couldn't breathe when he saw her; that's how he knew. And now he cannot bear to be in the room with her, so certain is he that he will mess everything up. She brings meaning to him. Oh, that's good; that's a good line. Better write it down now before he forgets.

Huvan sits up. He scribbles on the yellowed paper, not realising that the pencil is six feet away, writing on its own, stabbing through the air over his table. He just wants to get the line committed; he is already sixty-three lines into his 'Ode to Romana', the work he will present to her when it is done. Isn't it amazing how a man can write the truth about his feelings, when speech is so ugly and stunted? Visions of her grat.i.tude overwhelm his imagination. She will fall to her knees, tears in her eyes.

Even the palace has changed since she arrived. Huvan knows there is a presence here, something he cannot explain, something not even the Magus can explain, he bets.

All his life he has known he is special. The Magus tells him often enough, has worked on him enough. Huvan remembers the endless operations, painful operations; so much a part of his growing up; they became normal, even attractive. Every time he resurfaced on the operating table, Neville's face was there, rea.s.suring him it was all for his own good, that he would have died without these messy procedures.

Huvan is afraid of nothing, he is certain of that. Nothing except Hopkins, the creature that would destroy them all.

And even he has paled, a childhood nightmare.

Inevitably, work on the poem is disrupted by more rewarding musings. This new lightness he feels has not served to help him forgive. He thinks about Hermia, that blonde witch, the one he would have given his life to. Until Romana. How mistaken he had been. Smiling contentedly, Huvan settles back on to his bed. The pencil drops to the floor with a wooden plunk. Time to go over the retribution, the punishments; those deceptive blue eyes, that flawless skin, those caustic snarls she gave him when all he wanted to do was be nice...

The door opens and breaks into his fantasies. The Magus himself.

Instantly, Huvan is up and on his feet.

'Relax, my boy,' says Neville, in that brown, warm voice of his. 'I trust you are well.'

How can Huvan explain his new self? How can speech describe what he is becoming? And it is all thanks to the Magus, of that there can be no doubt.

'You do not need to speak,' says Neville. 'I can see.'

'What's happening to me?' asks Huvan.

'Are you in discomfort? Pain?'

'No. The opposite, Magus. I feel... born again.'

The older man smiles. 'Good. That is good. I have rekindled the power of this palace. Can you feel its blood running around us, in the air, beneath our feet? This is your time Huvan, you have much reason to be happy. At last, the universe will understand what you are, what I have made you. We live in exciting times.'

Huvan likes it when the Magus talks like this. 'What...

what..' he asks, stumbling over the words, 'what is it you want me to do?'

Neville shakes his head. Modestly, he says, 'We are past what I want, Huvan. You must seize this time. This is your moment.'

Huvan considers. 'Yes, but what do I have to do?'

'Wait. Just wait. Tonight, I will arrange a meeting of the full cabal.'

'Will those others be there? I don't...'

'Have no fear. From tonight you will be feared, respected, even loved.'

And now Huvan can't keep that smile hidden. 'Really? Me?

I've been waiting so long, so long. Will Romana be there?'

Neville frowns. 'Romana? Ah. I see. I think that can be arranged. You have a special.. feeling for her?'

Huvan turns away. 'No, it's just...'

'Look at me!'

The barked command ruins everything. Huvan feels tears welling up. He recalls what the Magus can do to him when he is angry. He obeys the order.

'Never lie to me again,' the Magus says, a fury barely contained within him. 'Never forget he to whom you owe your life.'

'I didn't mean anything.'

'You have feelings for Romana?'

Huvan nods. 'Feelings' such a superficial word for what he really means.

Oddly, the Magus is not angry. His voice has returned to those soothing familiar tones. 'Then, of course, she shall attend.'

He turns to leave. Huvan cannot let it go at this, even in his fear. 'What's going to happen, Magus?'

Neville does not turn back, but Huvan can see he is shaking with excitement. 'My boy. For twenty-two long years I have nurtured you, raised you with more care than I would my own son. Let me tell you what will happen tonight. The final moment is upon us. The time has come to resurrect the Dark One.'

The party has started again, perhaps it never ends. Unaware of Huvan's, and for that matter, Neville's intentions, Romana has been wandering the palace, avoiding the occasional leather-clad guard, trying to find the Doctor. Because he is apparently nowhere, she has in her desperation reluctantly decided to appeal to the foppish n.o.bles.

When the power came on, she knew the Doctor had done it.

For whatever reasons, he has given Neville exactly what he wanted. Now they have nothing to bargain with. Unless the bargain has already been made. Either way, she has to find him.

The piazza in which the children fritter the days away has grown into a minor palace of its own. Thick with green ferns and chequered marble flagstones, new additions include ornate noisy fountains and cold, unblinking statues of athletes. Steam rises from the numberless stone pools in which she finds Stanislaus and the others.

'Romana,' he shrieks with delight, blond hair plastering his forehead. The beautiful Hermia, flushed and somewhat less delighted to see her, brushes the strands back. Somewhere in this balmy decadence, the others are laughing and running.

'I need to speak to you,' Romana says, realising she will have to be direct.

'Really,' yawns Hermia. 'Will it take long?'

'Hermia!' Stanislaus reprimands, without conviction. 'Join us, please.' He invites Romana into their water.

'No, thank you.'

Hermia pouts. She drinks from a sparkling goblet.

'I'm not sure the Magus would like us to talk to you. In fact, I think he would probably be very angry. Why can't you just leave us alone?'

For a moment, Romana is irked. Who does this brat think she is? She restrains herself. 'Fine, I would prefer to conduct my conversation with intelligent life forms, so feel free to find something more deserving of your attention any time.' An icy smile forces its way on to her lips. Hermia blushes.

At least Stanislaus is listening. Listening intently. Now, how to phrase this? 'I can't find my companion,' she tries. 'I was wondering if you might know where Neville would put him.'

'Tenny, no!' snaps Hermia, without a second thought. Mind you, Romana muses, a first thought is trouble enough.

'What makes you think he would have put your companion anywhere?' asks Stanislaus, but not unreasonably.

Hermia is making a face. 'That funny-looking old man with the hair. I thought he looked odd. Not normal at all. Ugly. We shouldn't allow ugly things in here.'

'Believe it or not, Hermia, he is trying to help you,' offers Romana.

'The only person who wants to help us is the Magus,'

Hermia says triumphantly. 'Why don't you just go away?'

Romana is unable to hold herself in any more. Putting her hands on her hips in best fishwife fashion, she starts on Hermia. 'You really think I would have come asking you people for help if I had any, and I mean any, alternative? I don't know the palace, I've only just arrived.' She turns to go, sick of the whole preening lot of them. 'I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you.' Almost a snarl but not quite; her composure has been developed over centuries.

Just as she starts off, Stanislaus rises from the pool, his toga unleashing a cascade of water. 'Wait! Of course I'll help...'

'Tenny!'

'Oh, shut up!' he shouts suddenly. 'I'm bored with you.'

Romana tries to conceal her surprise. Stanislaus gestures to the scattered ma.s.s of revellers, the palace, everything. 'In fact, I'm bored with the whole thing. Come on Romana, let's find this friend of yours.'