CHAPTER TWO

She rematerialised by smashing headlong into a concrete floor. With a groan, she just lay there, trying to remember how to breathe, grateful to be alive. Bloody vortex manipulator, it was like travelling in a blender! At least with her old Time Ring, she had managed to get around without having her bones rearranged.

And where in the Universe was she? Somehow, even with her eyes closed, the place felt familiar. Warily, she took a peek, flinching with the effort. Every little bit of her hurt, every nerve and every muscle aching. She didn't recognise the place she had landed. From her prone position on the ground, it appeared to be a particularly featureless, grey-walled room with a very hard floor. Yet the odd sense of de ja vu persisted.

Then, from behind her, a very familiar voice spoke. "Tejana? What the hell are you doing here?"

Energised by shock, she whirled around in disbelief. "The Master!"

He was confined to the far wall in a force field web, spreadeagled in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable position. He was looking very much the worse for wear, the immaculate Master from their days on board The Valiant long gone. His hair had gone a distinctive ash-blond colour, the transformation resulting from the shock of his botched resurrection. Instead of a tailored suit, he was wearing a black hoodie, black jeans and black work boots. All of this, including the weary, strained look on his thin face, was familiar to Tejana from the vision the Doctor had shown her of recent events. However, since then, the Master had obviously undergone a severe and prolonged beating, his features bloody and marked by cuts and contusions.

"Oh stars, can my day get any worse?" she grumbled crossly. "Where are we?"

"Yeah, well, my day hasn't exactly been peachy either, sweetheart," he retorted sarcastically. "We're on Gallifrey."

A sick feeling swirled in Tejana's stomach. "Gallifrey?"

"On the Last Day," he continued. "The day your dear old Dad used The Moment to commit genocide on his own people. Ring any bells?"

"But...that's not possible...the War was time-locked!" she gasped. "I can't be here!"

The Master rolled his eyes. "Can't answer that one. I know how I got here, no idea about you though."

"You got drawn back here with Rassilon, you stopped him from killing the Doctor," she recalled, the Doctor's memory vision clear in her mind's eye.

"Not the smartest move I ever made," the Master replied bitterly. "Old Rassilon's not too happy with me, I can tell you."

Tejana felt a twinge of fear. "He's not dead then?"

"Unfortunately, no. So how did you get here? I take it you haven't charged in here to save me, so what happened?"

"The Doctor was regenerating..." she began.

"Regenerating?" he cut in sharply. "Why? He was fine when I left!"

"The old man, Wilf, was stuck in the nuclear chamber. The nuclear bolt had been left running, it reached critical..."

"Aaah, so the Doctor had to go and take his place in the chamber, didn't he?" the Master mocked. "Always playing the hero!"

"I was on the planet Zog with Jack when I felt it start to happen," she continued, ignoring his words. "I used Jack's vortex manipulator to get back to Earth. We were in the TARDIS. He didn't want to regenerate, he'd left it too long, it was like an explosion. The TARDIS was on fire, one of the roof supports was about to fall on me, then the vortex manipulator seemed to kick in on its own and I ended up here."

The Master was about to say something when suddenly there was a noise outside the door.

"Quick! Hide!" he hissed.

Forcing herself to move, she disappeared behind an instrument console. The doors slid open and three men marched into the room. In the distance, Tejana could hear the sound of explosions. With a chill, she realised the Citadel was under attack by the Dalek fleet.

Two of the three men were dressed in the red uniform of the Citadel Guard. The third was resplendently and formally attired in the flowing robes of the Chancellor of Gallifrey. Tejana felt a blaze of hatred in her chest, hot and powerful. She recognised this man from her miserable childhood. There was nobody in Creation she hated more.

"My Lord Master," the man drawled smoothly, coming to a stop in front of the renegade Time Lord.

"Chancellor," the Master returned insolently.

"You will be pleased to know that the Lord President is much recovered from your cowardly attack," the Chancellor said smugly. "He has instructed that I escort you to the Grand Assembly of the High Council of Gallifrey. There you will be restrained and tortured to death before the entire Assembly as punishment for your heinously treasonable acts."

A cruel look passed over the Chancellor's jowly features as he took a step closer to the Master. "Needless to say, I will attend to the torture myself, to ensure that your pain is maximised. It will be my pleasure!"

The Master spat in his face. Furiously, the Chancellor snarled, "Expect no mercy from me, my Lord Master, this I promise you. Guards, take him away!"

"I don't think so," a cold voice interrupted. Without warning, a laser beam arced out, catching each guard in the chest. With a gargled noise, they collapsed on the floor and lay very still. The Chancellor whirled around in shock, to find Tejana facing him, a laser screwdriver targeted on the space between his eyes.

"Tejanakaturadilena!" he choked out in panic.

"Nice shooting!" the Master approved sardonically, hiding his own considerable surprise.

Tejana disregarded him completely. "Hello, Councillor Rohan. Or it seems I should say Chancellor Rohan these days."

"What are you doing, child?" the Chancellor demanded, shifting uneasily. "This man is a criminal, guilty of crimes without number. You cannot aid him!"

"It appears you still enjoy torturing others, Lord Rohan," she replied contemptuously, the loathing she felt evident in every line of her body. "Not today though, not if I can help it!"

Before he could answer, she shot him down too.

"Wow!" the Master exclaimed. "My old laser screwdriver, who'd have thought? Of course, they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Does Daddy know you've got that?"

"If you want me to rescue you, you'd better shut up!" she warned, stepping over to the force field controls.

"Ooh, I'll take that as a no," the Master smirked. "Are they dead?"

"No," she said curtly. "Just stunned."

Careful not to touch the lethal filaments of the force field web, she stepped close to him and began to use the screwdriver to free his left wrist. The Master studied her carefully. She hadn't changed much from the days he had held her captive with the Doctor and Jack on The Valiant - long, curly black hair confined in a plait reaching all the way down her back, defiant dark blue eyes set in a fine-boned face with patrician features. Unlike her father, who was eternally predictable, she was an enigma. He remembered the look in her eyes when she had tried to kill him on The Valiant. She was just as likely to leave him here, or even kill him herself, as she was to save him.

"So why are you helping me?" he asked, as she went to work on his right wrist.

For a moment she said nothing. Then she replied icily, "Because I hate that man more than anything, more even than you."

"Why didn't you kill him then?" he asked, expecting a Doctor-like answer, something inane about all life being sacred or some such nonsense.

Instead the dark blue eyes locked on to his fiercely and he could see the hatred flaming in their depths. "Because I know he is going to burn and that is what he deserves!"

"Gee, remind me never to get on your bad side!" the Master said derisively. "Oops, forgot, I already am!"

"Are you coming or not?" she snapped, shutting down the force field web as she spoke.

The Master tried to take a step forward, flexing his cramped muscles, but his legs gave out from under him. For a horrifying moment, his skull seemed to show right through the skin of his face, like some nightmarish x-ray.

"Stars!" Tejana whispered in a shocked voice. "You really are dying, aren't you?"

Reaching down, she helped him to his feet, supporting him as he wavered.

"If we don't get out of here soon, we're both going to be dead!" he gritted out. "Last day of Gallifrey and all that."

"I must be crazy to be helping you!" she growled. Raising her left wrist, encircled by Jack's black vortex manipulator, she extended her hand to him. "Grab on then, before I change my mind!"

She felt the warmth of his grasp, took a deep breath and activated the device, fully expecting to be contorted through time once more. However, to her complete and absolute horror, nothing happened.

"Now what?" the Master groaned.

"I don't know!" she replied, frantically tinkering with the device. "All the systems appear to be operational!"

"Give me a look."

For a moment the blonde head and the dark head bent over the vortex manipulator, for all the world like allies rather than enemies. Then the Master looked up, his mouth tightening.

"The device is fine, for a piece of archaic Earth technology. The problem is the Time Lock. The device isn't of Gallifreyan origin, so it was initially not subject to the Lock. But now that it's inside the bubble, it's become part of Gallifrey's history and can't leave."

More distant explosions shook the Citadel. Dust sifted from the ceiling as the ancient building moved and resettled.

"NO! There's got to be a way!" she said fiercely, gripping his hand even more tightly. "I spent years in E-Space thanks to the bloody Time War, I don't intend to die here today!"

The Master grimaced wryly. "Wasn't exactly on my To-Do-List, either. I'm open to suggestions."

Feverishly, Tejana considered the options: all forms of time travel impossible because of the Time Lock, all forms of space travel within this time zone impossible because of the bloody Dalek fleet. How then to leave Gallifrey? Must find a way, must find a way, must find a way – the mantra thrummed insistently in her head, the four beats tapping inside her skull, like a drum...

Gasping in shock, she released the Master's hand, recoiling as though from a poisonous snake. Immediately, the insidious sound in her mind ceased.

"What?" he demanded crossly, knowing that for once he had done nothing to deserve the horrified look she was giving him.

"The drums...I heard the drums," she whispered. "You live with that in your head all the time?"

For a fleeting moment, a look of pain passed over his features and she thought he was going to accept her unexpected sympathy. But instead he curled his lip scornfully and shrugged, not bothering to answer at all. Shaken to the core, she stared at him. All the terrible things he had done...and yet for anyone to bear that constant noise since childhood...no wonder he was completely insane!

And then, out of nowhere, the answer came to her. There was another way to leave Gallifrey and she had the two necessary elements right here in this room.

"Oh yes!" she crowed delightedly. "YES!"

With that, she leapt over to the supine body of the Lord Chancellor and began going through his voluminous robes.

"We are getting out of here and this disgusting old pile of excrement is going to help us do it!"

The Master shook his head, not understanding what she was talking about.

"He's the Chancellor!" she said impatiently. "Since the Keeper of The Matrix got taken over by the Valeyard, they never again filled the position. His duties were handed over to the Chancellor, who now carries...the Key of Rassilon! And here it is!"

Triumphantly, she ripped the Key from the chain which held it around Lord Rohan's neck, careless of any hurt she did the unconscious Chancellor. It did not look at all special, just an old iron key, no different from millions of others which opened all manner of doors across the Universe.

But the Master smiled, light dawning in his eyes. "The Seventh Gate!"

"Few know how to summon it these days," Tejana replied excitedly. "But you do! I know that you did it once before, when the Valeyard had the Doctor on trial. We can escape into The Matrix in our physical form."

"If it's that easy, why hasn't Rassilon done it before now?" the Master frowned. "He created The Matrix, it should have been the first thing he thought of."

"Because of the Time Lock! The Doctor prevented them from passing from this time to any other...and The Matrix exists in a completely different time continuum to Gallifrey. You effectively need to time travel to get there!"

"All time and no time...past, present and future, all co-existing at once, the perfect paradox," the Master muttered, his mind working lightning fast as usual. "But you and I are anomalies here...neither of us are supposed to be here. My current self is at the end of the Universe as Professor Yana and you are stuck in E-Space. So we are not subject to the Time Lock and can still pass through the Gate. But the question still remains...where do we go then? The Gate, if summoned inside The Matrix, will only take us back where we originated from – Gallifrey. It won't help us to get stranded in The Matrix."

Tejana paced up and down, thinking hard. She had completely forgotten it was the Master she was talking to and was simply appreciating the swift and complete comprehension of another Time Lord. While working with Torchwood, she had become used to dealing with the slower minds of her human friends, which tended to be very limiting.

"The old records in the Archives of Gallifrey speak of the Heart of the Matrix, the place where Rassilon retreated to and dwelt after he was deposed in the Ancient Times. The writings are very unclear and obscure, but they refer several times to something loosely translated as the "Pathway Among the Stars". I've always believed it's a Time Corridor, situated where two or more ley lines cross, sort of a back door for Rassilon."

"You believe?" the Master growled. "But you don't know. So we're going in there blind on the strength of some thesis you did at the Academy?"

Tejana's eyes flashed angrily. "You said you were open to suggestions! I haven't heard you come out with anything better, oh-so-brilliant-genius! Maybe you'd like me to wait here while you go and check the facts with your good friend Rassilon?"

The Master glared at her for a moment, but then jumped lightly to his feet and went across to the unconscious guards. His lithe movements reminded Tejana of a stalking panther, graceful but deadly. His strength had obviously returned, even if only temporarily.

"We'll be needing these then," he said shortly, tossing her a black package he took from the first guard's belt. Tejana recognised it as a survival kit, issued to all Gallifreyan military personnel in times of war. It contained rations, blankets and some medical supplies. Like a TARDIS, it was bigger on the inside than the outside. She fastened it to her own belt as the Master appropriated the second guard's kit for himself.

"And we'd better get out of here too," he continued, his tone brusque. "I need to concentrate to summon the Gate and Rassilon will have his people here looking for me soon."

Tejana nodded silently and followed him to the door.