* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 "Death, sorcerer!"

 Blastock had been beginning to lose confidence. He had spent an interminable age wandering through this baffling labyrinth, losing face with his men with each wrong turn and every retraced step. Even in the cool, fresh tasting air that seemed to flow from every direction in this place, he had begun to feel a hot flush of frustration burning at his neck and brow. He had struggled to maintain his *ettursant* with every new setback, his self-imposed veneer of detached fury fraying with every new, unwelcome distraction. Getting lost was cutting into his valuable killing time.

 At last he and the others had stumbled across the wizard's apprentices, and if that had been nothing more than blind luck, Folintarc and the others had been wise enough not to make the observation. It was, after all, uncommon good luck. Blastock had heard tales of Keownar wizards before, evil, reclusive madmen who locked themselves away for years with their books and their devices. They only kept the company of depraved little wretches like these ones, caught up in their dreams of power and sorcery and too young and too smart labyrinth, losing face with his men with each wrong turn had three whelps attending him, suggesting power and wealth.

 And now here he was, helpless, caught empty-handed in his sanctum. His head was Blastock's now, and there would be none returning to the Chattermalian moot tonight with a finer prize.

 He drew his sword and charged at the wizard.

 ***

 Crispin despaired.

 This was all his fault. If he hadn't had the idea to raid the lab, if he hadn't wrecked that Givenchy madwoman's lab, none of this would have happened. The Doctor had said the accident threatened all of time and space.

 Everything. Unraveling towards complete oblivion. Crispin had never had cause to consider what that might mean, but right at the moment it loomed emphatically. Everything gone that ever was or ever would be.

 A few hours ago his life had been his own. His timestream had been fixed, not thrashing about like a severed hose. He imagined the universe as it had been, as an infinity of movement, influence, interactions. A billion billion billion individual tributaries turbulently flowing together and apart. Atoms, galaxies, people in confluence, a big picture too vast to comprehend. He had fundamentally understood his place in that. Understood that there was too much to take in, that in the end all that really mattered was his own short course through that churning stream, how *he* perceived it, the interactions that affected *him*. Now...

 Crispin had not wanted to believe in oblivion. He had not wanted to imagine the universe suddenly deciding it had no more use for him, a terribly vague existential fear he imagined was probably quite common. He had retreated from his Protestant upbringing when he was growing up, its answers not equal to the questions he was always asking. By the time he had begun university, his spiritual beliefs had evolved into an eclectic blend of Eastern thinking, based around his somewhat ambiguous understanding of notions like karma and reincarnation. Though he would have been the first to acknowledge his grasp on the subject was tenuous at best, still those beliefs had comforted him when he had stopped to contemplate the greater mysteries.

 Not much of a philosophical foundation, he sometimes thought with a touch of amused self-deprecation, but at least he had his *convictions*. That was what really mattered - taking stock of a bewildering universe and deciding what was important. There was always something important to see, to say, to *do*. There was always something to stand up for, to fight for, to make better. Never mind the hereafter, the next life or whatever Valhalla you went in for, it was what you did *now* that counted. More than anything else, if you found something that mattered to you, you took hold of it and fought for it. The only things that caused change were luck and the actions of determined people.

 And now, either by bad luck or misplaced determination, he had caused the End of the Universe. Crispin was, rather understandably, inconsolable.

 He had barely been aware as Stuart and Anna led him, arms laden with the vital organs of Givenchy's experiment, back to the console room. He was consumed, imagining how it would feel in the hours to come as his timestream, cut off from the fabric of the vortex, became frayed into strands and dissipated. The concepts the Doctor had been describing were completely beyond him, but as he had listened, he had begun creating representations in his mind.

 He saw the vortex as a rope, a long, unbroken line of interwoven threads, impossibly thick. His own life, and the lives of everyone - every*thing* - were strands, ducking and weaving through the fabric, seemingly chaotically but corresponding to some more primal pattern visible only from outside, from the vantage point that the Doctor's perspective occupied.

 The destruction of Givenchy's lab had suddenly, cataclysmically created a point along the temporal axis at which time fissioned. At that instant the universe fell apart, as if a great pair of hands had suddenly grabbed the rope and twisted it open.

 And here he was in the middle, watching as parts of reality fell away from him and fell together elsewhere. He imagined that even at that moment, his own thread was unraveling from the greater whole, about to whip away at any moment. For that matter, *was* he imagining it, or would he, like that lady doctor, split and fray into time and never be seen again?

 Pain finally dragged Crispin out his doom-laden fog. The muscles in his arms and legs were beginning to complain, unused to the weight. Thinking about it, he was surprised by just how much he had agreed to load up with - it looked like Stuart had loaded have the lab on Crispin's outstretched arms. He hoped the console room wasn't too far now.

 Anna and Stuart were walking just behind him, whispering quietly to one another. It came to him suddenly that they were becoming close, even intimate. He smiled to himself. Just one more of his secret plans in ruins - she was supposed to have been impressed with *him*.

 "-think he's all right? He's very quiet." He could hear them, didn't want to eavesdrop. Crispin concentrated furiously on focusing past them, listening to the soft rhythmic fall of his sneakers on the floor, the gently pervasive hum of the TARDIS corridors, and up ahead, the sound of the Doctor singing distractedly to himself as he circled his control console, waving something from his toolkit that seemed to be whistling a harmony.

 And as he stepped into the room. he heard the unmistakable sigh of metal sliding against metal behind him and a sudden rush of footsteps.

 Crispin turned and pushed forward, letting the stack of broken lab equipment fall away from him. They tumbled free, crashing over the head and shoulders of the Chattermalian who was rushing forward to tackle him rugby-style.

 The Chattermalian fell stunned at his feet amid a pile of scattering wreckage. Crispin looked up and saw that two more of the barbarians that had chased them earlier had grabbed Stuart and Anna and wrestled them to the ground. A fourth was charging across the room towards the Doctor, waving a sword in one hand and balancing his weight with a lowered handaxe in the other.

 "Doctor, watch out!" Crispin drew back his foot and kicked at the stunned Chattermalian with the heel of his foot. The barbarian gave a surprised "Nugh!" and fell still.

 "Death, sorcerer!"

 The Doctor was just standing there as the bulky Chattermalian leader charged at him. Crispin watched at the sword began its descent, arcing towards the Doctor's head. In the same instant he realised that the real blow would come from the axe, swinging up to meet the Doctor's belly. He tried to shout again, to will the Doctor to move, but it was too late.

 With a casual shrug of one shoulder, the Doctor nudged his toolkit off the console. It met the axe with a jarring collision that sent both flying to the floor.

 The Chattermalian tried to adjust the angle of his sword swing, but it was too late - it struck the console beside the Doctor and bit deep into the wood paneling. A shower of sparks erupted and the Chattermalian flew backwards, his feet trailing behind him. He landed heavily against a glass cabinet which displayed innumerable clocks. A good number of them fell on top of him when it disintegrated with the impact.

 "Crispin, quickly!" The Doctor snatched his frock coat up from a hook on one of the support pylons and stabbed at a control on the console.

 "What about Anna and Stuart?" Crispin turned to see his friends lying unconscious and very securely tied up. Their Chattermalian captors were picking up their weapons. He glanced at the leader and saw him beginning to stir.

 "There's nothing we can do at the moment. Come on!"

 He was right. Crispin sprinted from the opening doors as the Doctor stabbed frantically at a few more controls. Then he too abandoned ship.

 ***

 Grace hovered behind the Abbott as he worked the controls of his own TARDIS.

 "What happened to the transmission? Can you get them back?"

 The Abbott didn't answer for a moment. With an infuriatingly measured air, he checked and rechecked the communications instrumentation, studying readouts and murmuring softly to himself. He was, she decided, despite all his protestations to the contrary, just as bad as the Doctor.

 The monitor fizzed with snow then filled with the face of a young woman. It wore an expression of surprise mixed with secret amusement.

 "Abacusundrevalojorephar, isn't it? I was rather expecting the Doctor."

 "My Lady President." The Abbot bent low in formal greeting.

 Grace rolled her eyes. The President of the High Council of Gallifrey smiled sweetly back.

 "Romana," Grace said archly. "Why is it we only seem to meet when the universe is on the brink of destruction?"

 "Well, it's an occupational hazard on my part," grinned Romana, "but I think you just have astonishingly bad luck."

 Grace was surprised to find herself grinning back, still more so when she realised that Romana had spoken in Gallifreyan, and that she suddenly understood alien languages again. "At least I have my health," she smiled.

 Romana frowned. "Well, actually -"

 The Abbott shuffled uncomfortably, sensing that the conversation might begin to stray from the important matters at hand if allowed to continue. "The Doctor is somewhat indisposed at the moment," he interrupted with subdued desperation. "I imagine he shunted your signal to my TARDIS - it's the sort of thing he would do."

 The woman on the screen smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

 "His predisposition to interference gives him rather a predictable tendency to manipulate those who become involved in his dramatic escapades to his own agenda."

 "I am more than familiar with the Doctor's dramatic escapades, thank you. And " - she held up a hand to forestall the Abbott's protest - "I don't believe they have anything to do with our situation. In fact, it's Grace I really want to talk to."

 "Me? Why?"

 "Well, for one thing, your psychosymbolic architecture is currently occupying a large chunk of the Matrix where the Doctor's TARDIS records used to be." Romana's smile widened into gleeful anticipation. "I think we have rather a lot to talk about, don't you?"

 ***

 Crispin put his shoulder to the door and forced with all his strength. Nothing. He was going to need a month of physiotherapy after this. If, he reminded himself, a snarling Chattermalian maniac didn't behead him with an axe first. He threw himself at the door again. This time it gave, and he tumbled inside.

 "Doctor!" he hissed from the dusty floor. "Hurry up! They're after us!"

 The Doctor was standing in the middle of the Clacktown street, circling slowly and studying an electronic device of some sort that he'd drawn from a pocket. After a few second he blew out a puff of air and ran his fingers through his hair, still thoughtful. Then he turned on his heel and jogged towards Crispin's hideout, dropping the device back into a coat pocket.

 When he was through, Crispin slammed the door shut and fell with his back against it. He was out of breath from running and even the muscles that had been okay before were now protesting in outrage. The physical pain was far from the worst of it though. He fixed the Doctor with an angry glare.

 "Well?"

 The Doctor returned the look, his eyes full of concern. "I think they'll be safe for the moment. It's me the Chattermalians want."

 "You?! Why?"

 "I didn't have time to explain before," said the Doctor apologetically. "The Chattermalians may seem like mindless Viking raiders, but it's far more complicated than that. Most aspects of their culture are highly civilised, even during the worst periods of this planet's history."

 "They didn't seem very civilised to me! They killed people - the Keownar, remember? They tried to kill you, too."

 "The Chattermalians *are* civilised, Crispin. They have one of the few genuinely representative governments in the galaxy, they are accomplished artisans and musicians, they provide a comfortable existence for their entire population. They even get on well with their neighbours."

 "Get on well with them? I wouldn't call living next door to someone who might brain me with an axe an ideal neighbourhood. How can you defend them?"

 "Well, unfortunately while all of what I've described is true, they do have a particular character flaw. They are profoundly suspicious of technology. Any device more than a single step up from the Iron Age is regarded as the worst form of diabolical magic."

 "So," said Crispin, "we're being hunted by Luddite the Barbarian?"

 "Precisely," grinned the Doctor. "The problem is that in a way they're right to fear technology. At this moment in their history, they exist in almost perfect harmony with their environment. Their landuse is sustainable, their mineral requirements are minimal and their population pressure is balanced and steady. An ideal society, environmentally speaking."

 "And the Keownar?"

 "Are rather more like every other humanoid society in the galaxy. Always seeking to improve themselves. Learn, explore, develop. Their architecture, for example, is unbelievably advanced, more so than you would expect. Utterly infuriating to the Chattermalians. Literally so, in fact."

 "Pardon?" Crispin was getting caught up in this social studies lecture in spite of himself. The Doctor's enthusiasm for the subject was infectious. Somehow the threat of dismemberment seemed less pressing at the moment.

 "Their warrior elite, some of whom we've met, spend months developing a mental state called *ettursant*, which roughly translates as 'awareness'. A warrior in *ettursant* sees the world in two ways - things are either natural, meaning they are of an acceptably low technological level, or -"

 "Or they're unnatural," finished Crispin, nodding, "in which case they're sorcery."

 "Exactly." The Doctor beamed warmly. "And anyone they meet that they associate with technology, they kill without hesitation."

 "Which is why they tried to kill you, because they saw you were in charge of the TARDIS."

 "And also why Stuart and Anna are safe for now. The Chattermalians will assume the three of you are my apprentices, but," the Doctor smiled apologetically, "I'm afraid I'm the only prize worth having. Culling a powerful sorcerer will make them heroes."

 Crispin stood, trying to work the kinks out of his muscles. He wandered about the dark room, a sort of antechamber leading to the rest of the house. It had obviously been abandoned for some time. Perhaps the former occupants had also had Chattermalian problems. He moved over to a window and twitched the curtain aside.

 The streets were empty. Word of the Chattermalian raid had gotten out, it seemed. The sky was beginning to darken already - but surely when they'd arrived a few hours ago, it had been morning? Were the days really that short here? Or was there a more sinister explanation? He turned with a puzzled grin, expecting that the Doctor would shortly launch into a lengthy discussion of planetary physics and axial tilts and so forth. But he wasn't there.

 The Doctor was gone. In his place was the last person Crispin ever expected to see again.

 "Givenchy!"

 To Be Continued...