'I take it we're there,' she snaps.

Much more lithely than she expected, the Doctor is out and helping her clamber awkwardly from the shaft. They are right inside the cavernous control room. Pelham has only been here once but she is pretty sure that the corridor where they were before was not immediately underneath it. Someone's been mucking around with the geography of the palace. Is it alive? she wonders. Does it actually know what we're thinking?

She hugs herself, afraid to admit how scared she really is.

The Doctor is orientating himself. The consoles and controls hum with an energy that this place never possessed before. Pelham thinks about the Old Ones, imagines the control room full of them, whatever they looked like. A million years ago, panicking, perhaps realising that their day was pa.s.sing, that they were making way for history.

Were they afraid, like she is afraid? Or did they think they could seal Valdemar up and walk away?

Pelham looks at the Doctor's back, as he performs some arcane task with one of the consoles. The way his arms and legs blur as he moves, suggests to her that the Old Ones were possessed with more than the standard allocation of limbs.

She realises she doesn't believe the Doctor. She knows Valdemar is real. Real and waiting.

The Doctor turns, holding two long clear vials like champagne flutes. The contents look appetising vomit suspended in transparent liquid plastic. 'Nice of them to leave some,' the Doctor says.

'What the h.e.l.l is that?' Pelham asks, feeling nauseous.

'What do we do with it, dare I ask?'

'Eat me. Drink me,' the Doctor replies cryptically.

'Alice had cake, not liquid garbage.'

'There's no other way. The effects of the higher dimensions have already taken root. We need to keep clear heads.'

'There are only two portions.'

'We'll take one between us. I'll a.n.a.lyse the other and try and synthesise more.'

'That'll take time.'

'We'd best be starting then, hadn't we?' He snaps the top from the first vial. Immediately a stench, an odour, spreads through the room like something crawled in there and died.

Pelham finds herself instinctively backing away. 'Uh-uh,' she waves her arms. 'No way. I'm not drinking that. The Old Ones, they weren't human. Maybe that stuff sorted them out but how do you know that for us it isn't poison?'

The Doctor sniffs. 'Good point,' he says reasonably. 'I know, I'll drink some. If I drop dead it's probably best not to use it.'

He up-ends the vial. Slowly, the ooze trickles out and drops into his mouth.

Pelham watches. For a moment, the Doctor is still. He seems to be thinking about what he has ingested. 'I think the effects will probably be immedia-' He stops talking.

'Doctor?' she asks. Christ, what the h.e.l.l has he done?

'Doctor?'

His eyes bulge. Slowly he raises a hand to his throat. Some kind of noise, a cross between a gargle and a choke, emerges from inside him. His eyes start to water.

Suddenly, he bunches his fists and bends over. He drops to his knees and begins to pound the floor. Oh G.o.d, thinks Pelham, it was a poison, it was a poison after all.

She is just about to move to his aid when he raises a trembling hand. His face is red, very red. However, despite the watering eyes and laboured breathing, he stands again.

'Yes,' he announces. 'I think you'll find it's probably not that nice.'

'Oh, Doctor!' she sighs and moves to embrace him. Instead, he holds out the vial. That stops her. She glares at it, like it was a spider.

'Has anything happened?' she asks, suspiciously.

The Doctor looks around. His tongue is hanging out.

'Mmm. The effects are subtle but yes, it's definitely done something. Your turn.'

'Do I have to?'

'It's too late to just say no.'

Cringing, as if the sample is alive, Pelham takes the vial.

She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. With a quick movement, she up-ends the whole lot into her gullet.

Ten minutes later, once the Doctor has helped her down from the ceiling, and stopped her screaming, she starts to feel she might actually live. She gulps in air, trying to stem the torrent streaming from her eyes.

'Did...' she coughs the words out, 'did I scream much?'

He smiles. 'A little. And some interesting new words I was unfamiliar with until now. How are you feeling?'

Pelham looks around. The stuff was so foul, she'd completely forgotten that it was supposed to do something.

Yes. Yes, there is a change. Subtle, like he said. Not so much in the way things look, but rather the way she sees them, as if certain filters and lenses have been removed from her mind.

'It may take some getting used to,' says the Doctor.

It is as if the palace has been put into perspective. It no longer seems a magical, fairy-tale structure, full of mystery.

She can see it as it really is, a rather dank, rather ordinary s.p.a.ce station, old and tatty. This control room, once so alien and unknowable, is actually bare and functional; the baroque decor, once so impressive, is actually nothing more than a few tatty plants and some chipped stone tiles. The air is warm and stale. The palace machinery thumps and b.u.mps deep below them, creaking and inefficient.

'How odd,' she remarks. 'To think this all seemed so strange.'

'Indeed,' the Doctor replies. 'We just couldn't see how things really are.' He looks down at the remaining vial. 'Hmm, unless this isn't how things really are, and we just think it seems that way.'

'Yeah, OK, Doctor. Let's not go down that road. You've got enough to do as it is.'

Yet, she can't shake off this new feeling. Even Neville seems nothing more than a tired, desperate and rather moth-eaten old man.

She turns to the entrance. For some reason she is hungry.

Too late, she registers Neville standing right behind her, his face cold and impa.s.sive. He smacks her across the face. She feels the blow, feels the red tide and the sting and then the stone of the floor crashing into her mind.

Romana is getting seriously close to breaking point. She has been alternately cooing and praising this idiot boy for hours now. Isn't it time the Doctor came and gave her something else to do?

Huvan is pacing his bedroom. There is a red flush in his face that to Romana looks conspicuously like the first sign of madness. 'I can see so much,' he crows. 'I can do anything, destroy this palace if I feel like it. I feel so happy, Romana. I don't care about anyone else, just you and me. I feel like we're the last two people in the universe, that everyone else is dead.'

'Right, yes. I feel the same way too... of course. Er... Huvan, do you... would you mind if I went to find the Doctor? I'm sure he's in some kind of trouble.'

An angry expression crosses Huvan's face. 'No! Why do you want to go? Do you hate me, is that it? Just like all the others!'

'No, no,' she replies, putting an extra-special layer of saccharine sadness in there for good measure. 'How could you think that? Listen to me. If we are to become... to get to know each other... then we must learn trust. I have to trust you and you have to trust me.'

She isn't sure whether he is falling for it. He screws up his face. 'You wouldn't lie to me, would you?' The stare is penetrating. Can he actually read her mind?

It's time for desperate measures. He's a child. A psychotic child perhaps, but still a child. In for a penny...

'Huvan,' she states. 'Don't push me. If you want me to like you, you've got to earn the right. I'm not some object. You don't own me.'

He's starting to get angry. Keep going, keep going...

'Now, I know you're a sensitive, mature man. We are both adults. Let's not rush things. I like you, you know I do, but we must allow each other room. The Doctor is my friend and I am going to him.'

She hasn't got anything else to say. She can only wait.

Huvan's lower lip begins to tremble. 'All right, all right, go.

But you will come back, won't you?'

Steeling herself, Romana takes his hand. 'Of course I will.'

She keeps her eyes on him as she opens the door. There, outside, freedom and fresh air. 'Goodbye, Huvan.' She smiles sweetly and walks out.

Closing the bedroom door, Romana leans against it and sags. She exhales for a very long time. Sorry, Doctor, I just couldn't go through with it any longer.

There is movement in the corridor. A corridor that seems suddenly full of shadows. 'Who's that?' she asks. Her heart sinks. She recognises the slinky black suit of Kampp and, behind him, a guard. Romana raises her hands. Even this seems a relief after Huvan. 'All right, all right. I'll come quietly.'

Kampp hisses and lunges at her, black eyes glistening. She sees his gloved fingers heading for her throat and leaps back.

Kampp arches himself up to strike her and Romana opens the door hard into him, its leading edge catching his head.

Rattled, the butler staggers back. Behind him, the fat guard is also preparing to attack.

Romana leaps back into the bedroom, hurling the door shut and hurriedly slamming its bolts.

Huvan leaps up, sheer joy on his face. 'You came back!'

Romana starts piling the furniture on to the door. 'I couldn't stay away,' she mutters.

The Doctor regards Neville and his guards. With the vaccine or whatever it is running through him, he has penetrated the illusions created by the higher dimensions.

He is surprised at how strongly the liquid has affected him: without its protection the men in front of him are well advanced in their condition.

Organic black fronds grow from their eyes; their skin is coa.r.s.e and leathery, their heads beginning to elongate like in a distorted photograph. They do not realise what they are becoming. Except perhaps Neville; yes, perhaps he does know.

'Give me that, Doctor,' Neville orders, indicating the remaining vial.

Sighing theatrically, only too aware of the rifles trained on him, the Doctor does as he is told. 'This is your only protection. I wouldn't drop it if I were you.'

Neville inspects the grainy liquid within. 'Really, Doctor?

Protection against what?'

'The infiltration and transformation of your mind. Without this fluid, your brain won't be able to cope with the shock of regrowing receptors for the higher dimensions. Already your physical forms are changing. Very soon you'll either die or go mad. In your case, madder.'

Neville looks up and smiles. 'Always the wit, eh, Doctor?'

'Not always. Sometimes I use simple sarcasm, sometimes...'

'Silence!' Neville mutters to himself, trying to gain time, trying not to let on how important this liquid is to him.

'You did ask...'

Neville breaks the vial open. He begins to tip the liquid on to the floor. The Doctor attempts to remain impa.s.sive as the drops burst on the stone tiles. 'You see, Doctor,' (drip) 'you see how the Magus deals with these pathetic tricks.' (Drip) 'The Old Ones were fools to resist Valdemar. He is unstoppable, immortal.'

The Doctor tries the guards, without much hope. 'This is your salvation he's pouring away. If you let him do it, he'll kill you all.'

(Drip) 'These are specially selected men, Doctor. The high guard have pledged their lives to the rebirth of Valdemar. They know the rewards that await them.'

'Interesting career decision. What are the holidays like? The standard twenty-eight days or... ?'

The Doctor leaps for Neville, but feels the b.u.t.ts of the guards' rifles on him before he even gets close. They knock his legs out from under him. He struggles, but there are three of them, grinding him into the floor. He gets a snail's-eye view of the control room.

'Turn him over,' says Neville. Hands obey. Neville is looming over him.

'h.e.l.lo.' The Doctor blows a section of scarf away from his mouth and smiles.

Neville straightens his robes. Slowly, thoughtfully, he picks up the almost empty vial. His bejewelled hands stroke its ancient length. Then, with great deliberation, he smashes it into the ground. The gla.s.s shatters, sending up a spray of shards.

'There, Doctor. There's your precious "protection". What do you say to that?'

The Doctor considers. The ground is covered with a gla.s.s frost. 'Well, I would say you're an idiot, but then again you probably know that already.'

There is another pause. 'Something I said?' asks the Doctor.

'Bring him,' Neville orders. 'And the woman.'

'Where are we going now? More gloating?'

'Oh no, Doctor,' says Neville. 'No more gloating. In fact, for you and Ms Pelham, no more anything.'

He leads the Doctor and Pelham back into the hall where the n.o.bles so recently played their games and held their masques. There is nothing now but the detritus of the black magic rituals. Even Hermia and the remains of Stanislaus lie where they fell.

As Neville leads his group into the entrance hallway, the n.o.bles emerge from hiding. The Doctor, holding up the groggy Pelham, hears a snuffling. He immediately thinks of an animal, then watches as cloaked figures shuffle into the hallway from the shadows.