'He changed his mind. He decided he didn't want to destroy everything. I mean, who would?' Don't mention Sutekh. Don't even think about Sutekh. 'So he reversed the process and locked himself up here for all this time. Dreaming, learning. I should imagine there's an amazing amount of knowledge stored here in this palace.'

'What do you mean, Doctor?' asks Pelham.

'Well, look around. Fred here is connected to all the sensory equipment the Old Ones could muster. With his abilities, he's probably been soaking up information for millennia.'

'Never mind about him! What about me? We're talking about me! Why should I put myself to sleep for a million years? No.'

The Doctor looks at Romana, who looks back. She is calm now, determined to help.

'All you ever wanted was to be normal, to fit in,' she says. 'If you don't stop the higher dimensions spreading, that's an opportunity you will never experience.'

'I don't want to give up all this, I can do anything.'

'Anything except that which you really want,' Romana replies.

Huvan sits down, blinking away tears. 'I don't know what to do. What should I do?'

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake, put an end to it, Huvan!' Miranda Pelham suddenly shouts at him.

He looks up. The anger has gone from him; now there is nothing but sorrow. He sinks to the floor.

The Doctor sympathises, sympathises but doesn't empathise. 'I understand that this is a phenomenally difficult decision, Huvan. Not one I would like to make. However, it's time to grow up. You're not an evil man, you won't make the wrong choice.'

There, that's everything, all he's got to offer. Everything now is in the hands of the boy.

'All right. All right,' Huvan mutters. 'But what happens to me? How can I be normal?'

Again, the Doctor swaps a glance with Romana. They both know what has to be said. 'That's the phenomenally difficult part. There is a way. You won't like it, but it's definitely a way.'

Cleverly, Romana seats herself next to Huvan. 'It's your decision. We don't have the power to stop you. You must do what you feel is right.'

'What happens to me?' He is shouting again, frightened.

'Who sorts me out?'

'You do. You do it to yourself. Your powers are almost limitless. It is possible to start again, a new man who doesn't remember any of this.'

Unsurprisingly, Huvan is not best pleased to hear this.

'What? A new man? That... that's as good as killing myself.

Don't be so stupid.'

'No,' says Romana. 'One day you will remember. I promise.'

'You will be different but you will still be you,' says the Doctor. 'The man you should have been. Otherwise, look at Valdemar here. A million years of solitude before the next curious lot turn up. I said it wasn't easy and I didn't lie.

Make the decision, Huvan, before you destroy everything.'

'I can't... I can't...'

'Decide!'

So Huvan decides. Miranda Pelham weeps for him, surprising herself. The spectre of death still hangs over her, having so nearly taken her. What he had to do to himself... would she have had the courage? Yet another life ruined, all because of her own idiocy and short-sighted ambition.

She cannot help looking at the giant creature that dreams here. Valdemar, the real thing, her fiction become reality.

There is a nagging thought, a thought that won't leave her.

All those years ago, stumbling over the cult, writing the book.

Had she really been the one doing the writing? If this big guy here has been asleep and dreaming and gathering all this knowledge for a million years, who's to say he didn't... ? No, it can't be true. They couldn't all be characters, could they?

Who's writing whose story here?

'Of course,' the Doctor is saying, 'of course I knew all the time that my hypnotic suggestion would enable you to shake off his influence. You mustn't take the credit for that.'

Romana folds her arms once again. 'Oh yes? So it had nothing to do with me at all, I suppose?'

'Well, you're young, inexperienced. You must expect to trip over occasionally.'

'If you must know,' Romana states calmly, 'I think I had help from another source.' She pats a tentacle that is wider than her. 'Our friend here. I don't think he's quite as dormant as he makes out.'

'What absolute poppyc.o.c.k!' the Doctor bellows. 'I'll have to teach you humility, Romana. If you've any chance of becoming as clever and resourceful as I am '

'I don't believe you,' says Pelham. 'The universe nearly ended, all this around us and you two just stand there bickering.'

They stand in front of her, unrepentant. 'Miranda,' says the Doctor. 'You must learn to see things from the correct perspective. Now what are we going to do with you?'

MIRANDA PELHAM.

She reels. The voice is deafening, booming round her head.

She feels herself falling.

MIRANDA PELHAM.

'What is it? Are you all right?' Romana helps her to her feet.

'I don't know. Didn't you hear it?'

The Doctor shakes his head. 'Hear what?'

MIRANDA PELHAM STAY.

She puts her hand to her mouth and backs away from the body of the Old One. 'It.. it's him.'

'Him?' snorts the Doctor.

'Doctor,' hisses Romana.

'I was only saying...'

MIRANDA PELHAM STAY LEARN.

The words are more than words. She finds the language unfamiliar but there are pictures too, stories told by Valdemar beamed directly into her mind. He has been so far, understands so much, even knows about that which she fears so much. He can help her, teach her. G.o.d, there is so much they could do. She could learn to lose that fear. He knows how.

'Miranda?' asks the Doctor.

She is laughing now, tears blurring her vision. 'He needs me, Doctor. He wants me to stay... so much I can learn from him.'

'Well, I'm not sure.'

She clasps his hands. How to make him understand, how?

'Don't you see? There's nothing for me back there. Just that lousy Protectorate trying to kill me. Either that or old age.

Valdemar wants me to stay, be his companion. And that's what I'm going to do.'

'Are you sure?' asks Romana. 'After a while, it may become impossible for you to return. Realistically...'

'Realistically? You call that real? Well if that's reality, give me the dreams any day. I'm staying.'

'You have to be sure...' the Doctor begins. She cuts him off.

She is manic, unable to stop laughing.

'Oh just go, for heaven's sake, before I wake up and change my mind.'

'As long as you're all right.'

The laughter is crippling her, sending an agony of convulsions through her chest. 'All right? I'm b.l.o.o.d.y terrified!

Go, go now!'

And, at last, they do go. All three of them. Miranda Pelham wipes the tears away and sits down next to her creation.

There's a lot of catching up to do.

'Isn't it amazing,' says the Doctor, 'how quickly things recover? Not just things either.' He nods at Romana, at how fresh and young she is again. Too young, inexperienced. No, she is absolutely wrong as a companion, won't do, won't do at all. The world of Ashkellia is just as it is supposed to be.

Unpleasant, hot and filthy.

However, the gateway has disappeared, nothing there now but a patch of bare rock.

'I hope she'll be all right,' says Romana, looking at the patch. 'She seemed very nice.'

'I suppose so,' says the Doctor. 'I do hope you're not going to get all maudlin on me, I really can't be doing with it, you know.'

'Doctor,' she replies with a warm, genuine smile. 'Just once, try and be nice.'

He mutters to himself, as if the suggestion that he is ever grumpy is the utmost presumption.

'Well?' says Romana.

'Oh, all right. Just once. Come on, let's get Huvan here into the TARDIS.'

The boy, eyes betraying his childlike state, follows meekly behind. The Doctor gently one could say respectfully takes his arm. He and Romana both feel remorse, and guilt.

They prompted Huvan to commit this devastating action upon himself. His trance-like emptiness is a sad reminder of his bravery. No matter what they do, he will never be the same again.

They usher Huvan along to the blue box they left all that time ago. The Doctor pauses, perhaps hearing something in the tunnels. He shakes his head and unlocks the door.

Together, he and Romana help Huvan inside.

The door closes, just a blue box again.

'Mas-ter?' comes a welcome metal voice.

'h.e.l.lo K-9, you look much better.'

'Doctor?' asks Romana.

'Oh, what now? Do you have to keep asking me so many questions? We do have a Key to Time to find, you know.'

'What are we going to do with Huvan?'

'Don't rush me, don't rush me. I'll think of something. I always do. Now, where's that first segment? What? Well, find it. Quickly!'

And then, with the sound, the TARDIS disappears. Nothing is left, not even an imprint in the ground, to tell anyone they were ever there.

Ashkellia is silent, unthinking. Outside the tomb the atmosphere still boils, the clouds still rain their perpetual orange showers. Nothing is left here; no palace, no s.p.a.ce ships, no Valdemar. Even the hole in the planet's crust, that provided the updraught to keep the palace afloat, has somehow healed over.

Far away, a New Protectorate establishes itself over humanity, unaware of the fate of its best agent. And the Magus? Oh, the cult will live on, as cults do, but diluted and broken, eventually splitting and dividing into a thousand fragments. Undoubtedly, Paul Neville will gain a martyr's reputation that may, in time, become as infamous as the myth of Valdemar itself.

We digress. Back to Ashkellia, where to detect any kind of movement we must return to the tunnels. Follow the howling and bellowing from that inhuman hybrid throat, the sound the Doctor so nearly heard. Through the tomb of Valdemar, it chases itself; the two become one, perpetually enraged, constantly fighting itself, tearing and mauling and rending.

Its wounds are horrendous, yes, but somehow, never fatal.

Ever.

Chapter Sixteen.