Sin had always had bloodl.u.s.t and the moment of another's death helped sate it, but now he felt a new sensation. He couldn't identify it except by proxy; he had felt this sensation at the back of the mind that used to intrude into his own until today.

Revenge.

Sin advanced on the Doctor.

The Doctor shuffled slightly sideways, moving un.o.btrusively towards the fallen sword. Sin turned to keep him in sight, then launched himself at the Doctor. The Doctor ducked, hurling Sin over his shoulder. Sin crashed to the ground, then sat up. The corpse-like heat form of the Doctor was closing, but another was already nearby. Sin had no real discrimination where this unusual heat trace was concerned and turned to attack the nearest target.

Sin turned towards Romana, brandishing the knife. She dodged his first slash, scarcely believing his ferocity. The Doctor la.s.soed Sin with a loop of his scarf and hauled backwards, jerking the mannequin off his feet. Sin sliced clean through the scarf and rolled to his feet as the Doctor took a long leap for the fallen sword.

Sin lunged forward, stabbing at the Doctor's throat, but succeeded only in pinning the Doctor's hat to the wall of the TARDIS. The Doctor rolled, stabbing at Sin and embedding the tip of the sword in his chest. Sin merely plucked it out. The weapon was almost as big as himself, but Sin's programming was equal to the task of using it.

He swung at the Doctor, who leapt up onto a boulder to avoid being cut off at the knees. Romana's hand brushed against the knife which pinned the Doctor's hat to the TARDIS. The blade had buried itself in the door quite efficiently. She looked back at Sin as the Doctor knocked him off balance with a kick to the head.

Sin was catapulted backwards, sliding towards her. Romana tugged the knife and hat free, and loped forward before Sin could stand. His head started to turn, but too late to prevent her from pounding the knife into his forehead, nailing the hat in front of his eyes.

Sin dropped the sword and tore the knife free from his wooden scalp. He whirled to respond to Romana's attack. The Doctor dived into Sin's path and rolled, scooping up the sword and swinging it outwards.

Bullets and knives couldn't do much damage to Sin, but a blade set at exactly the level of the joint that articulated his head, and wide enough to cover the complete diameter of his neck, was perfect to lever off his head.

Sin's body hurtled to the ground, the joint at the neck sparking, while his head sailed through the arched gate. There was a distant thud and what might have been a grunt of pain as it bounced from the top of the seven-thousand-step staircase.

Romana looked at the Doctor in surprise as he dusted off his jacket. 'Very impressive.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Cleopatra's bodyguard knew a trick or two.' He tossed the sword carelessly aside and went up to the TARDIS door. He gasped, patting his pockets. With a sigh, Romana handed him the key.

He let out the breath he had been holding and opened the door with a belated grin.

HsienKo froze as the silhouetted figure turned towards her, backlit by the flames from the burning door. Somehow the footsteps behind her didn't seem half as terrifying as the sight of the figure ahead raising its hands in an obvious aiming movement. HsienKo flung herself to the ground as shots boomed thunderously in the enclosed tunnel.

Screams rose from behind her as the man ahead strode forward, two pistols firing in sequence. The footsteps behind her stopped as the men making them died with the echoes of the shots. HsienKo palmed the Walther PP from her belt and she knelt down as the figure stopped a couple of paces away.

It was a familiar short but lean mop-haired man in a dark coat with two shoulder-holsters. 'Anyone opposing the Sakura Kai's plans deserves a break.'

She almost laughed with relief that it was Yan Cheh. Woo reloaded quickly as she scrambled to her feet. 'Believe it or not, I'm actually glad to see you.'

'It looks as if I'm the only friend you've got right now. Is there no honour amongst thieves any more?'

'Or policemen. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Sung-Chi Li has got my men fighting amongst themselves. Doubtless he thinks he can call in his j.a.panese friends in the confusion. Is the tunnel to the Jade Emperor temple blocked?' She pointed back the way he had come.

'All the tunnels are blocked. You can't stay here, though.

Whatever you were working on isn't going to happen with all your equipment destroyed.'

'It might. The mountain has its own energy, which might just be enough to bring me Weng-Chiang. Li won't rob me of that.'

Woo's face had taken on a strangely haunted expression she didn't really understand. 'Li wants to call the j.a.panese?'

HsienKo wasn't interested in such trivia and marched back up the tunnel. 'We caught him trying earlier. We had to break the power to our transmitter to cut him off before he could give them our position.' She blinked a few times in the sunlight as they emerged onto the summery platform that was the foundation for the Azure Clouds temple. The temple itself was on the far side. She would have to get to the Jade Emperor temple the long way round.

A group of angry footsoldiers spotted them from the garden glades of Zhanlu terrace, and started running for the Bridge of the G.o.ds.

Woo shouldered HsienKo to the ground as the leading soldier took a shot at them. Drawing his Colts, Woo fired back as rapidly as he could squeeze the triggers. The first few men spasmed and fell, but blocked the bridge rather than tumbling from it. 'If the force in Manchukuo ever took control of the Dragon Paths, it would be a disaster. Why would Li turn traitor?'

They ran upslope. By the time he had reloaded both guns, she was holding the Walther to his head. 'Manchukuo? No Chinese would call Manchuria that, even as a slip of the tongue.'

'Yin and Yang. Li is a Chinese helping the j.a.panese, and I'm the reverse, yes. I'd hoped that my actions here would be a hint that for now I'm on your side.'

'And later?'

'Earlier. Earlier, I was against you, because I thought you would detract from the resistance to a j.a.panese invasion. Now it doesn't matter. So long as you're resisting those traitors who've perverted my empire's government we're on the same side.'

She looked at him for a long moment, weighing up what he'd said. Traitors were obviously untrustworthy, since by definition they had to lie to stay alive. On the other hand, it really didn't matter any more whose side he was on, so long as she got to the Jade Emperor temple in time to execute Magnus Greel for herself. She supposed that a quick death would have to do, instead of the lingering punishment his inhuman acts had deserved, but just so long as she did so herself...After that, she could escape to anywhere with a single step. Either way, it didn't matter whether Woo would change sides after this or not.

She said, 'That's just a bonus. Weng-Chiang is all that matters to me. He has haunted my dreams all my life.'

'Then once he's been and gone you'll no longer be a problem to me either way.'

She hated people stealing her words like that. 'I'm glad we understand each other.' She squeezed the trigger. Woo started as the blast echoed in from the surrounding rocky peaks. There was a scream from behind and he spun to see a Tong hatchet man drop lifelessly from a tree. She continued firing and another soldier fell from an outcropping with a series of b.l.o.o.d.y craters in his chest, almost flattening Woo.

HsienKo removed the empty magazine from her gun as they turned back towards the Azure Clouds temple. A number of men were blocking the path. This group had evidently been on a work detail as they had no guns, but their blades and nunchaku nunchaku would be just as deadly to the unarmed HsienKo. would be just as deadly to the unarmed HsienKo.

Woo tossed one Colt to her and drew the katana katana he wore on his back. he wore on his back.

He warded off one man's hatchet with a backhanded block and put three shots into his chest from only an inch away.

HsienKo caught the Colt and fired in one smooth motion, blowing a spearman off his feet, while Woo spun the katana katana and severed a hand that was swinging a knife towards him. and severed a hand that was swinging a knife towards him.

The knifeman curled up in a foetal ball with a scream, while HsienKo picked off the remaining men.

A few shots bounced from the stones around them as more men fired from the Bridge of the G.o.ds. Woo pulled the pin from the grenade he had taken from Romana at Jining airfield, letting the safety lever fly off. When he had counted to three, he hurled it. It exploded in the middle of the wooden bridge, blasting the gunmen over the edge.

HsienKo was impressed, but had other worries. She hoped Kwok hadn't run into similar trouble, but dismissed the idea as she jogged past the Azure Clouds temple towards the path that was beside it. Kwok was even more able to look after himself than she was.

Kwok had ignored everyone who was ignoring him and shot anyone who didn't. He had made sure that the Jade Emperor temple was secure, certain that HsienKo would come here.

He was glad, therefore, to see her approaching from the path round the Daiding guesthouse. He was less glad to see that Yan Cheh was with her. He aimed at Yan Cheh who was fast enough to draw as they closed together. In the s.p.a.ce of two steps, each had a pistol pressed to the other's jaw. Yan Cheh showed no more fear than Kwok felt. 'An eye for an eye?'

'No,' HsienKo interrupted. She pushed their arms away, interposing herself between the men. 'Save your ammunition for the real enemy.'

Kwok looked into her jade eyes. She was serious. He slipped the safety catch on and Yan Cheh lowered his gun.

'What happened?' Kwok asked as she approached. 'Sin went crazy, then so did everyone else.'

'Li electrocuted Sin; it must have overloaded the circuit that linked us. Then Li blew up the heat exchanger, so we had to shut down the reactor. I imagine he's the one who has set the Tong against each other as well.'

'Are the Doctor and Romana here?' Yan Cheh asked.

'No.' Kwok was glad of that. 'They pa.s.sed on the other side of the plateau and went up to their Time Cabinet.' He pointed. Yan Cheh immediately ran off towards the path up to the South Gate of Heaven. Kwok looked at HsienKo. 'The Doctor killed Sin. I saw it from here.'

She nodded. 'Perhaps it's for the best. Is the temple prepared?'

'Yes. With the reactor shut down, surely the resonance circuit won't work?'

HsienKo laughed and pointed to where tiny blue sparks were setting leaves alight. 'The spirit of the mountain is keeping the circuit running.'

Twenty-Three.

9 had been slowly climbing the steps to the South Gate of KHeaven for several hours. He was about halfway up when his aural sensors detected small impact sounds. At first he had been unable to calculate the source, but it was somewhere ahead of him. The fact that m.u.f.fled cries of 'ow' and 'oof' had continuously accompanied them suggested that an injured human was descending the steps.

He was not prepared for the scratched and sc.r.a.ped white-painted head that bounced off the last few steps and rolled over to a point right below K9's snout, where it lay gurgling faintly. K9 recognized it at once, however, as the head of the automaton which had attacked them aboard the Stinson Trimotor.

Its eyes narrowed defiantly as K9 directed his blaster-beam at maximum power. The wood charred away ever more deeply until the circuitry and organic processors within had been boiled away; only a blackened charcoal husk remained.

K9 wagged his tail slightly, satisfied that this machine would pose no more threat to his master.

In the caverns, sharp reports continued. Now, however, it was the long-sought release of pressure as rock finally splintered and shifted. Crystalline veins cracked and shattered as the rock which enclosed them twisted and drooped. Blue sparks slithered around the rocks, released from their crystal prisons.

A fireball of blue lightning burst forth from the roots of a small tree, blasting the charred wood into a cloud of ashen splinters. Fingers of spitting blue fire clawed their way out of the earth, wrapping themselves around the gilded cornerposts of the Jade Emperor's temple. A Tong soldier unfortunate enough to be standing in the path of one of the electrical serpents arched with a sizzle as his flesh blackened.

Neighbouring combatants paused in the process of knocking seven bells out of each other, and scattered in search of cover as more bolts lashed across the ground around their feet.

The gathering clouds around the peak shimmered faintly with internal sparks, while globes of translucent energy seeped out of cracks in the rock face. They swirled around in the air above the writhing currents, every colour of the rainbow represented by many fireb.a.l.l.s.

HsienKo moved, almost entranced, towards the portals of the temple. 'Wait out here,' she told Kwok. The extent of the effects she had unleashed had taken her quite by surprise, but this was after all the plan she had begun, so she would see it through. Lightning blazing from the clouds above silhouetted her in the temple doorway, the static electrical charge in the air making her hair wave gently as if she were underwater. She hardly dared peer into the temple, her green eyes as bright as the fireb.a.l.l.s that whirled around the temple in frenetic orbits.

She stared with a childlike wonder as the temple's interior filled with sparkling light from the tendrils of electricity that were constantly flowing in from every point in the building.

She could scarcely hear herself over the build-up of thunder, but could feel herself laugh in delight for the first time since she was a child receiving some much-desired gift, and for much the same reason.

The Doctor hurtled into the console room deep in the TARDIS and skidded to a halt, measuring off distances by the stripes on his scarf. 'Put up the TARDIS force field.' Dropping the scarf he started punching b.u.t.tons on the console.

Romana did so. 'What exactly did you mean by the "the only thing we can try"?'

'We can't stop power building up in the resonance circuit at least not without dematerializing the mountain, and I can't see us managing that without the energy in the circuit blowing up the TARDIS. When the energy reaches its critical point, the zygma beam will short out along with the energy in the circuit '

'Because the power levels aren't controlled any more?'

'Exactly. Greel will be snapped back here, causing a temporal embolism, and the feedback will blow the resonance circuit and the surrounding area. Fortunately the TARDIS'

relative ma.s.s is far greater than that of his zygma cabinet.'

Romana looked at him, shocked. 'You're not thinking of time-ramming it?' Such recklessness was hardly Academy behaviour.

'If you've got a better idea, now's the time. We have to snap the zygma beam before it springs back by fifty years and blasts the whole mountain and that town down there into so much ash.'

'But there'll be a ma.s.sive feedback of chronon energy.'

Romana paled.

'If I'm right, the Earth's magnetosphere will absorb the energy via the Dragon Paths and spread it more thinly; and, I hope, harmlessly.'

Kwok followed HsienKo into the temple. He couldn't let her face any danger alone. He didn't know for certain that this was dangerous, but why else would she warn him to stay outside?

She looked back, an exultant look on her face. She didn't seem angry that he had disobeyed her. 'Can't you feel it?' she shouted. 'Power to go anywhere, at any time!' Suddenly she gasped, convulsing. 'What?' Hollow pain flashed across her features, and Kwok reached out to her. A huge spark of energy leapt from her, slamming him into the wall.

Kwok blinked; he was stunned, wondering if the shock was giving him hallucinations. The huge rectangular ma.s.s in the centre of the temple flickered black, bronze and blue, as the Time Cabinet and the Doctor's TARDIS vied for the right to occupy the same point in s.p.a.ce and time.

The console room shook, forcing the Doctor and Romana to hang onto the edges of the console to stay upright. The walls darkened, flashes of bronze lacquer snaking across them as the Time Cabinet tried to a.s.sert its right to existence in the s.p.a.ce.

Romana looked up at the scanner. 'Doctor, look.' On the screen, HsienKo's face had contorted into pain incarnate.

The Doctor looked shocked. 'It's the chronon feedback.'

HsienKo could feel time searing through her like grit scouring through a gla.s.s tube. Was this what happened to Greel? She could feel the flash burning under her skin and realized that this was what the Doctor had spoken of: the Dragon energy which irradiated her was changing as she changed history.

She turned her head at the cost of great pain and saw Kwok pulling himself upright. He was losing her now, and she couldn't even control her mouth long enough to tell him how much she loved him. She could imagine the pain that must course through him at that, and his pain hurt her.

That was the worst of all.

The time rotor stuttered briefly but the Doctor made a quick correction, and it surged back to life. Almost immediately, the lacquered bronze which had been so stealthily infiltrating the TARDIS slithered back into nothingness.

Kwok struggled to his feet as HsienKo looked round at him.