Author's Note: Hi all, quick update this time. Thanks to the following people for reviewing the last chapter, this timely update is for you: GuesssWho, BLEACH IT WHITE, xxTeam-Masterxx, MayFairy, MountainLord-92, Lexy Summers, Ahsilaa, Gerldine, irishartemis, Aietradaea, KlinicallyInsaneKoschei (x 2), SawManiac211, Lost Moon, EDZEL2, Catelly, Imorgen, Theta'sWorstNightmare and noideagirl.
Special thanks to Aietradaea for reading this through for me before posting, just to make sure I have not literally lost the plot entirely. And yes, in case anybody was unsure, the first part of this chapter is a re-cap of some of the last one, from Tejana's point of view this time.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Imprisoned inside the thought bubble, unable to move, Tejana had felt as if she had been struck blind, deaf and dumb. Her entire being had been so full of terror and revulsion that her soul had been sent reeling, stumbling in anguish through a broken darkness that was too much for her to ever comprehend. And throughout it all, there had been the Cruciform, whispering incessantly inside her mind.
Then, without warning, it had all been over and soft light had pooled around her like liquid. It was pale and dim, but compared to the eternal darkness, it was radiant enough to make her feel as if her skin was being seared from her body. She wanted to scream and scream and scream, but all she could manage was a pitiful whimper, like a wounded animal. The air stirred briefly and she was being lifted. There were strong arms around her, a familiar, spicy male scent, the scraping sensation of rough braid against her cheek, but none of it seemed real, none of it made sense, not after the abysmal things she seen and heard, things that still paraded indelibly behind her tightly-closed eyelids. The arms disappeared and she was laid on the floor, the metallic surface warm and smooth beneath her head. She had no idea what had happened or where she was, but she didn't care. Automatically, she curled into a ball, desperately wishing the ground would open and swallow her up. Anything, anything, to erase the images in her mind, anything to make it stop. Somewhere deep inside, her innate stubbornness was ordering her to stop being so gutless. She had to get up, to fight as she had so many times before, to refuse to allow the Cruciform to win. But to her shame, all she could do was to lie there on the floor and cry like a baby. Weak, pathetic sobs tore through her and she could do nothing to prevent them.
"Ana?"
A tremor of fear shivered along her skin at the familiar voice and she moaned, wrapping her arms even more tightly around her head.
"Ana, it's me, Koschei. It's OK, I'm here, I've got you."
His voice. The voice of the man she loved, the man she wanted more than anything else. But it was also the voice of the Cruciform, the voice of the thing inside the thought bubble that had whispered in her ears of things so vile and disgusting and depraved that the white part of her soul had recoiled in absolute horror, begging to die rather than be forced to listen to any more. But as shattering as that had been, it had not been the worst of her ordeal. The worst had been feeling the other part of her, the long-hidden dark half, responding to his voice with pleasure, rejoicing in the things he said, feeling a wild, delicious, spreading excitement, an evil, illicit craving that grew and grew and grew like a cancer inside her. Now she couldn't be sure where her light ended and her darkness began. It was all jumbled up in her mind in a terrible, formless grey mist. With a gasp, she cringed away from the sound of his voice, afraid - so very afraid – of what might happen if she continued to hear it, of what she might end up doing.
But then she felt his hands on her body, warm and reassuring, and a shock of instant recognition pulsed through her hearts as he drew her into his arms. Forcing her eyes open, she looked up into his face and realised that the voice calling her name was not the Cruciform. He was really there, really holding her. He had come for her, just as he had once promised he would.
If you choose to stay, Ana, there won't be anywhere in the Universe you can go that I won't find you and bring you back...
She buried her face in the shoulder of his hoodie, unrestrained relief and gratitude mingling with her fear and dread as the helpless, unstoppable tears continued to flow. "Koschei...oh gods, inside that thing...I saw...I heard..."
"I know," he murmured. And from the bleak tone in his voice, she knew instantly that there was no need to say more – he understood better than anyone else in the Universe could have. "I know, sweetheart. But it'll be all right now that I'm here. The Cruciform is geared to my DNA, not yours. It can't hurt you any more."
She felt him kiss the top of her head as he cradled her fiercely in his arms and she clung to him as tightly as she could.
Who knows how long Kelios forced him to endure that hellish thing during the Time War? she thought in horrified empathy. How on Gallifrey did his mind survive undamaged? Then, like a bolt from the blue, she remembered his murderously out-of-control behaviour on board the Valiant and suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps it hadn't, after all. They had all assumed his deranged, unpredictable behaviour back then had been because of the drums. But what if it hadn't been that at all? There was no doubt that the drums had crippled him in childhood, slowly turning him into the vengeful, vindictive, deadly, rage-filled psychopath her father had clashed with over and over again throughout the centuries. However, throughout his life, he had always been able to control the constant noise in his head, it had not controlled him. Never, in all the years she had known him, had his derangement had been so apparent, so evident, as it had been during the Year That Never Was. Had his prolonged exposure to the Cruciform caused that final descent into absolute lunacy? And had the Doctor somehow known about it – was that why he had put the memory blocks in the Master's head, to try to preserve what was left of his sanity?
Before she could gather her confused thoughts together to make any sort of sense, she heard a deep, scathing chuckle from close by. "Is that what you think? Oh, now that is funny."
Tejana jumped at the harsh sound, the truth of her surroundings beginning to register with her at last. To her despair, she realised they were back before Kelios's obsidian throne, in the room that had once been the bridge of the Cruciform. She had tried so hard to prevent the Master from coming here, but now it seemed it had all been for nothing.
"You don't know, do you?" Kelios continued, the lash of his contempt spilling across them like acid. "She hasn't told you! All the pieces there in front of you, so very obvious, and you still haven't figured it out!"
Tejana's stared up at Kelios in panic, her stomach plummeting like a stone as it instantly hit home what his derisive words meant. Oh gods, the twisted bastard had guessed about the baby, just as John Hart had earlier. And now he was going to tell the Master, before she ever had the chance to say anything.
No, she thought wildly. No, no, no, not like this, please, not like this. I was going to pick my moment, I was going to tell him so carefully, it was going to be so right, so perfect...
"Haven't figured what out?" the Master snarled, his arms tensing around her, every muscle as hard and as unyielding as iron. "What don't I know?"
Oh, don't...oh please don't!
"You've been asking all the wrong questions, Koschei. If you've remembered that the Cruciform is programmed to respond only to your DNA, perhaps you should have been wondering why the thought bubble absorbed Tejana in the first place."
And there it was, the sudden understanding spreading across his face as his ever-sharp mind put two and two together, his brown eyes widening in incredulous disbelief, the breath catching painfully in his throat.
"Ana?"
For several heartbeats, she couldn't reply. Kelios was forgotten, wiped from her awareness as though he had never existed. There was only the two of them, she and the Master, locked here together in this one endless fragment of time. His eyes held hers and she couldn't look away. All at once, she felt as if she was standing on top of a huge precipice, wavering in the wind, about to lose her footing, about to fall...Catch me, Koschei, oh, please catch me...
"Our...son," she choked out, tears running unchecked down her cheeks, afraid, so afraid of what he was going to say, afraid he would be angry, afraid he would spoil the specialness of the moment. "I'm sorry, so sorry, Koschei. I wanted to tell you...but not like this...not like this..."
His entire body was rigid, frozen in shock. Only his eyes moved, sliding slowly from her face down to her belly.
"Our...son?" he whispered.
She nodded wordlessly. Then he put out his hand and placed it gently on her stomach. She could feel the warmth of it through the thin silk of her slave garment, his intimate touch heating her skin. His expression was the closest thing to awe she had ever seen on that arrogant face. Her own hand moved to cover his, all her anxiety vanishing as the intense emotion in his eyes swept through her. She had no need of the psychic link to read his exultation, it was all there for her to see. An answering surge of pure joy burnt in her hearts like a cleansing flame, sweeping away all trace of the foul touch of the Cruciform, rendering it utterly unimportant.
Was this how it would have been between them, so long ago, if Rassilon had not cursed him with the drums? The Could-Have-Been Tejana and the Could-Have-Been Koschei, welcoming the miracle of their Could-Have-Been-Son? Had they really managed to fight Time itself and win?
Then Kelios spoke again, his voice laden with spite, and the beautiful illusion of happiness shattered around her like a fragile glass ornament, leaving behind only the razor-sharp shards of reality.
"Such a beautiful moment! Such an occasion for celebration, a brand new branch for the Oakdown family tree. But wait...there has been no official wedding celebration, has there? No sanction from the High Council for your union, no marriage agreement between the House of Lungbarrow and the House of Oakdown. What a shame, Koschei! It seems your son will be a bastard, just like me!"
As if a switch had been thrown, Tejana could feel all the Master's joy transform back into hatred and rage, the brown eyes reverting into the cold stone she had seen so many times before, as he tore his gaze away from hers and glared up at his half-brother. In that instant, all she wanted was to slap the sneer off Kelios's darkly handsome face. What in the name of all the gods does it matter any more? Her son would be the last of his line, the last pure blood Time Lord. She was the only Time Lady left. When it came time for her son to mate, he would need to choose someone from another species to join with. And thus the diluting of the Time Lord bloodline would begin, out of sheer necessity. Gallifrey was gone forever and they were a dying race. Their time was almost over and soon their people would disappear from the Universe altogether. All those stupidly rigid social codes and mores that had once been so paramount on their home planet, so intrinsic to the way the Time Lords lived their lives, what were they worth now? Since the absolute devastation of the Time War, they could not be more redundant, more irrelevant. Nonetheless, it was apparent that to these two bitter men, both still nursing the grudge of centuries, nothing was more important, no matter how ridiculous and senseless it all was.
"Ana belongs to me," the Master hissed. "She's given me her birth name. She's worn my marriage flowers in her hair. She shares my life and my bed. She's my wife in every way that matters, now that Gallifrey's gone! Our son will be true-born, a pure-blood Time Lord. He will be nothing like you!"
"Whatever you say," Kelios replied, giving a casual shrug. "After all, it will hardly matter to you, since you won't ever have the chance to see him."
With a chill of unreserved fear, Tejana saw the thought bubble reforming into a perfect sphere, its silver surface darkening to a pulsing crimson as it began to move inexorably towards them. This time, however, she knew that it was the Master it intended to take, reclaiming him as the heart of the Cruciform.
Kelios was laughing psychotically in the background. "But you can rest assured that your son will be in the best possible hands," he smirked. "Mine!"
A nightmarish vision of the future crashed through Tejana's brain: The Master lost to her, trapped and tortured forever inside the Cruciform, driven deeper and deeper into the pitiless realms of insanity until there was nothing of him left but a gibbering madman. Her own tortuous existence held at Kelios's mercy, subject to whatever degradation he decided to inflict upon her, forced to watch as he brought up her precious son, teaching the child to mirror his own filthy, twisted beliefs, turning him into a monster in his own image. And all the while, the Cruciform, spreading devastation and death throughout the Universe, wherever Kelios chose to roam...
"No!" she screamed, fighting to place her body between the sphere and the Master, desperately hoping it would take her again instead. She knew that further exposure to the sphere would probably kill her and, by extension, the baby. But better for them both to be dead - far, far better - than the future Kelios had planned for them. "NO!"
But the Master seized her by her upper arms and pulled her loose from him, shaking her slightly as he tried to cut through her panic.
"Listen to me, Ana," he said roughly. "You have to trust me."
She stared at him wildly, her fear so great that she could hardly take in what he was saying. Trust him? But she had never trusted him. She loved him, but after everything he had done, trust was the one thing she could never give him, the one thing he had always known better than to ask her for.
Then he was grasping her head with both hands and kissing her, his mouth exploring hers with his usual sensual dominance, holding her small body hard against his. But as soon as his lips touched hers, she realised this was no ordinary kiss. A surge of white light seemed to pass from his head into hers and suddenly she was reliving memories that didn't belong to her, seeing through eyes that had never been hers...
He was still clinging unashamedly to the Doctor's hand, as though it was the only solid thing in the Universe, terrified that if he let go, he would find that the rescue was all a dream and he was still helplessly trapped within the torment of the thought bubble.
The Doctor's blue eyes were full of compassion, an expression which would usually have elicited an angry and violent reaction from him. But on this occasion, he was too weak and confused to care.
"It's all right, Master, I've got you," the Doctor said, rubbing his back soothingly, the same way one would comfort a frightened child. "No-one will hurt you, I promise."
They were sitting on the cold, metal floor of the Axis, as far away from the thought bubble as they could get and still be in the same room. The gigantic sphere was still lying open, split in half like an enormous clam shell, robbed of its pearl. It looked harmless enough now, motionless and quiescent. Whatever the Doctor had done to it with his sonic screwdriver seemed to have temporarily disabled it. The Master could see soft colours dancing over the translucent surface, edged with light and shade, like broken fragments of transient dreams, as delicate and as fragile as soap bubbles. The Master shuddered from head to toe, knowing that if they were shattered dreams he was seeing, they had been stolen from inside his head.
All around them were the remains of a small army of droids, all of them frozen in a variety of different poses. Most of them looked aggressive, as though they had been attacking when they were deactivated. From the trickles of black smoke still drifting out of their ears, the Master guessed their positronic brains had been fried by some sort of sonic disruptor, probably augmented with a frequency accelerator.
The younger Time Lord, Damon, was working frantically at the semi-circular control panel, system diagnostics flashing above him on the holographic view screen.
"I told you, disconnecting him isn't enough," he exclaimed angrily. "The Cruciform has been weakened, but it still has enough of a psychic link with him to remain operational, even without him physically being contained in the thought bubble. Killing him is the only way to sever the link and fully destroy it. By allowing him to live, you're endangering everything!"
"No! There has to be another way, some other weakness!" the Doctor snapped. "We just have to find it!"
"I don't know..." Damon replied, his voice tight with frustration at the Doctor's continued refusal. It was obvious that he thought it was pointless to search for any other solution. Killing the Master would be so much easier, so much more straightforward, an instant end to the nightmare.
The Master stirred weakly, his unerring instinct for survival screaming out in warning. Damon had made it perfectly clear just how much he hated him. If the young Time Lord decided to come for him now, there was nothing he could do to stop him. His ordeal inside the thought bubble had damaged him much too badly, both physically and mentally. His only chance was to make the Doctor listen to him. But the Doctor merely tightened his grip on him reassuringly and kept his blue eyes steadily focused on Damon.
"Think!" he insisted. "There's always a way! We just have to find it!"
The drums were pounding inside the Master's head, louder than ever before, as if the Cruciform had somehow found the volume dial and turned it up to maximum. He knew he had to get the Doctor's attention, but he couldn't seem to make his vocal chords work. Desperately, knowing his life was on the line, he tried again, forcing the sound out, past the drums and between his lips. "Psychic...pollen..."
At last, the Doctor's gaze flashed to meet his. "The psychic pollen? What about the psychic pollen?"
"Hot," the Master managed, the air leaving his lungs in a tortured gasp.
He couldn't summon enough strength to say any more, but he didn't need to. The Doctor's eyes widened in sudden understanding, his quick mind putting two and two together, instinctively following the Master's thought processes, just as he used to when they had come up with their childish pranks back at the Academy.
"Of course...for psychic pollen to remain active, it has to be heated!" he said excitedly. "No wonder this ship is so oppressively muggy. Damon, what does Kelios use to maintain the temperature of the pollen?"
"An Xtonic crystal," Damon answered.
The Doctor's head shot up in angry surprise. "An Xtonic crystal? Are you insane? Do you have any idea how unstable and dangerous that is? Not to mention breaking about fifteen intergalactic laws as laid down by the Shadow Proclamation?"
Damon shrugged. "The Time Lords have never recognised any laws but their own, Doctor, you know that. Besides, the Universe is at war. The petty rules and regulations of the Shadow Proclamation are hardly relevant any more, are they? And the galvanic radiation from the crystal was the only way to expose the pollen to the necessary amount of heat."
"Somehow, we need to shut it down. We have to de-activate the psychic pollen."
"Impossible. The pit containing the pollen and the crystal is shielded by Fenito glass. Even if you could breach the shield to try to remove the crystal, you'd be vaporised by the radiation within seconds," Damon argued. "And even if you did manage to miraculously remove the crystal as a heat source, it would still take months, possibly years, for the psychic pollen to cool enough to cripple the Cruciform."
Unexpectedly, the Doctor grinned and gave him a wink, before springing to his feet and advancing across to the console, leaving the Master slumped on the ground behind him, his back propped against the wall.
He almost looked as if he was dancing, the Master found himself thinking bitterly, as he fought to clear the haze obscuring his mind. Like some kind of damn pixie, full of glee, no matter how serious or life-threatening the situation was. No, not a pixie, a hobbit, that was it. This eighth incarnation of the Doctor had always reminded him of one of the hobbits out of that stupid Earth story, 'Lord of the Rings', with his untidy mop of hair and his ridiculous child-like capering.
"Ah, but the thing is, Damon," the Doctor was saying now, as he took over the controls. "Like Alice, I've been known to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast!"
Damon stared at him in bewilderment. "Who's Alice?"
"Never mind," the Doctor responded. "Have you ever heard of a planet named Midnight?"
The young Time Lord shook his head with another blank look. "Is that where Alice lives?"
The Doctor scowled at him reprovingly. "Forget about Alice, would you? Midnight is a planet in the star system Xion. I've always meant to go there, but I've never got around to it. The point is, the sun of that system constantly bombards Midnight with Xtonic radiation."
"So?"
"So, the surprising thing about Midnight is that, despite absolute exposure to the sun, it's a frozen planet, covered with diamond glaciers. In fact, it's possibly where your Xtonic crystal came from in the first place."
"Frozen? But...how is that possible? The intense degree of heat from the galvanic radiation..."
"Because," the Doctor interrupted. "The thing people don't realise about Xtonic rays – except for me, of course, because I'm clever - is that they're unique, in that they have two spectrums, a positive spectrum and a negative spectrum. And the negative spectrum has endothermic properties. The rays from Xion happen to be negative spectrum rays."
"You're saying Xion is a cold star?" Damon spluttered. "It burns cold? I've never heard of such a thing."
"Which is why you need me, of course," the Doctor answered absently. "Now, based on that educational little lecture, how do you think our toasty little parasitic friends are going to like it if I reverse the spectrum of the Cruciform's Xtonic crystal from positive to negative?"
"You can do that?"
"Oh yes, I'm the Doctor, I can do most things," he responded, pulling a lever on the console. Behind them, in the centre of the huge room, a section of the floor began to retract, revealing a glittering expanse of tiny crystals, each one glowing like a miniature star, creating a breathtakingly refulgent tapestry of light within the dim room, beneath the clear barrier of the Fenito glass.
"Fascinating!" the Doctor sighed, as he took it all in. "Look at you all! Aren't you just beautiful?"
But the Master cringed back even further, trying to make himself as small as possible, as though he was afraid the light from the psychic pollen would somehow take hold of him and draw him back into the clutches of the Cruciform.
Snatching his eyes away from the glorious sight, the Doctor began to type urgently on the console. Overhead, data streamed across the holographic screen, line after line fitting itself together like a bizarre game of Tetris, until the entire screen was full.
"That should do it," the Doctor said in satisfaction. Even as he spoke, the screen began to flash red and the word "WARNING!" began to scroll across it in huge letters.
"WARNING. SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED. WARNING. SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED," an automatic voice began to intone loudly.
"Better get on with it, " the Doctor grinned. "I'm guessing Kelios won't miss that little clue, even if he is slightly caught up in his negotiations with the Dalek Emperor!"
"LITTLE clue!" Damon muttered sarcastically, as a siren began to wail madly in the distance. "You think?"
The Doctor merely ignored him and strode over to the pit of psychic pollen, where he stood at the very edge, looking down through the thick glass shield at the large, clear crystal embedded at the centre of the field of shimmering diamond-like particles.
"Doctor? Doctor!" Damon yelled over the cacophony of noise. "You shouldn't get too close to the pit. Even Fenito glass isn't one hundred percent as a shield against the effects of the pollen. DOCTOR!"
The Doctor didn't answer. The light seemed to pool around his feet, gleaming and iridescent. And for just a few, fleeting seconds, the Master could see a reflection in the shining surface of the Fenito glass. It was looking back at the Doctor, just like the reflection in a mirror, but it was a different face altogether. A short, odd-looking little man, much older than the Doctor, wearing a tweed jacket and a red bow tie, with receding sandy hair and a malicious smirk on his face. The Master felt a shiver crawling up his spine at the sight, a strange sixth sense telling him that this was some sort of weird premonition, something in the Doctor's life that was yet to be. But then the Doctor shook himself, like a wet dog shaking drops of water from his back, and the image quivered and vanished, to be replaced by the Time Lord's own familiar reflection.
"Let's get this done," the Doctor gritted out, as though nothing had happened, and the Master couldn't be sure whether he had seen the peculiar image or not.
Reaching out with his sonic screwdriver, he pointed it at the Xtonic crystal. Again, the Master heard the high-pitched buzzing sound, as the invisible beam of the screwdriver began to penetrate the glass shield. At first, nothing seemed to happen. But then, the translucent crystal seemed to dim, as though clouds were forming inside it. A steady white mist crept across its transparent surface, turning it opaque. And, one by one, the glittering points of light nearest the crystal began to go out.
"It's working," Damon cried excitedly. "The pollen is reverting to a dormant state."
As they watched, the condition began to spread like wildfire throughout the entire pit, thousands upon thousands of the tiny lights extinguishing in a wave of destruction, leaving behind a grey, inert sludge. Spider-webs of frost began to form on the inside of the glass shield, growing and expanding like pale, beautiful flowers. The temperature in the Axis began to drop dramatically, going from extreme humidity to sharp, biting cold, in a matter of a few seconds. The smooth, metal floor beneath the Master was suddenly icy enough to hurt, even through the protective barrier of his clothes; and the exhaled breath of all three Time Lords hung whitely in the air before them, condensing in the frigid air.
Damon glanced around in alarm as feathery ribbons of glittering ice began to crackle up the walls, coating the instrument panels in an arctic shroud of white. "Whatever you've done, even the Fenito glass can't contain this, Doctor!" he exclaimed. "It's not just the psychic pollen – the entire ship is going to freeze!"
"Which is why we're getting back to the TARDIS right now!" the Doctor retorted, bounding back over the Master and sliding his arm around him, endeavouring to get him to his feet. "Help him!"
Damon hesitated for a moment, unwillingness in every line of his body. But then he gave in and hurried over to sling the Master's other arm around his neck, helping the Doctor to support the injured Time Lord's weight.
"No!" the Master rasped. "We can't leave yet."
"What are you talking about?" the Doctor snapped, still trying to make him move. "Believe me, Master, now is not the time to be difficult!"
The Master shook his head, his features twisting in fierce determination, the pride and the hate welling up inside him as he thought of his half-brother's sneering face. "The Moment is mine, Doctor. It was a part of the little that's left of my soul and he stole it from me. We have to get it back!"
Everything was whirling, the white light fading, and she was back in the Master's arms, still kneeling in front of Kelios's obsidian throne. Only a few seconds had passed during the memory transfer. His hands were still clasped around her head, his fingers tangled in her hair, his mouth hovering just above hers, as if reluctant to end the kiss, his brown eyes connecting intensely with hers.
"Trust me, Ana," he murmured again. "Just as I trust you."
With that, he pushed her sharply away from him, out of the path of the oncoming sphere, sending her sprawling across the ground to safety. Then he climbed lithely to his feet and stood facing Kelios, completely ignoring the pulsating orb that loomed behind him, his handsome face stretching into a deadly, sardonic smile.
"You're a fool, brother!" he mocked. "You always have been and you always will be. You're so eager to point out the things I've missed. But perhaps there were some pieces here today that you should have been putting together!"
With that, he stepped backwards and vanished through the skin of the thought bubble, intentionally allowing the glutinous sphere to absorb him. Tejana gave a shriek of anguished protest, but it was too late, he was gone.
Immediately, the entire Cruciform shook, as though it was trembling in ecstasy. Like an addict getting high on their drug of choice, Tejana thought in horror, struck afresh by the awful abomination of the thing Damon had helped to create so long ago. Even as she watched, the dust and grime and the filth of the ages vanished from the walls, seared away by an incredible surge of psychic power, as the Cruciform shed its ancient disguise as the Temple of the Pythia and renewed itself in its true form, rising from its own ashes like the legendary phoenix. Gleaming metal walls shone like new, scanner screens and data terminals sprang to life, and long-dead instrument panels lit up all around the room, every single one of the ship's systems coming back on line.
Kelios stood, his face contorted in fierce triumph, his arms spread wide, as if to embrace his creation. "And so it begins!" he cried. "Lady Tejana, you are privileged indeed to witness this moment in history, the last moment of freedom the Universe will ever see. Behold, the Cruciform rises again, the key to my ultimate victory. Your precious life-mate is the one who is a fool, too stupid and arrogant even to realise when he's lost."
"That's because he doesn't know how to lose!" Tejana retorted proudly. "He's been knocked down over and over again in his life, but every single time he's come back, stronger than before."
"Not this time," Kelios sneered. "This time it's really over for him and for you, my lady. Let me prove it to you. The Cruciform has been slumbering for so long, and now it's hungry...so very hungry. It draws its power from the darkness in my brother's mind. So I will give it something juicy to feed on."
Giving her an evil smile, he strode over to one of the instrument panels and began punching some buttons. Alarmed, Tejana scrabbled backwards, only to find herself coming up against John Hart's legs. Looking up, she saw that the ex-Time Agent still had his gun pointed at her, but his eyes were focused on her face, raw and savage with determination. With a faint stir of hope, she realised he was still stubbornly fighting the stasis. Kelios might write human minds off as pathetic and easy to control, but she doubted he had ever come across a human quite like John Hart before.
Still smirking, the Shabogan turned back to face her, his expression one of supreme confidence. "Watch, Lady Tejana," he told her maliciously, gesturing towards the thought bubble. "Watch and see what he sees."
A kaleidoscope of confused images danced and swirled across the surface of the sphere, a jumble of faces and places whizzing past at light speed. Tejana caught glimpses of herself in the Doctor's TARDIS, laughing with Ten at one of his ridiculous jokes; watching television in her tiny flat in Cardiff with Owen, the exasperated expression on his face, "No, Star Trek is not meant to be a comedy, Tejana!"; picnicking by the river with Turlough, stretched out on a blanket beside him, looking up at the blue, blue sky; the Master holding her close to his chest, carrying her over the threshold of their TARDIS on the Eye of Orion.
"Every single one of your memories, drawn from your mind while you were held within the thought bubble and stored at the heart of the Cruciform," Kelios explained with a nasty grin.
So what? Tejana wanted to ask, unsure what significance these fleeting snapshots of her life could have to the Cruciform. But even before she could speak, Kelios's purpose suddenly became heart-wrenchingly clear. The images flowing across the bubble slowed and she found herself looking at a dim room, lit only by a desk lamp. But the light was more then enough to see the two people passionately embracing on the couch, illuminating every facet of their ardent love-making. Her own face, alight with desire, her own voice calling out Jack's name, over and over again.
I will give it something juicy to feed on...watch and see what he sees...
"No," she gasped, knowing only too well the bitter, overwhelming rage that would explode inside the Master as the lustful, traitorous images sank into his mind, his pain and anger fuelled by his terrible, poisonous hatred of Jack. "No, you can't."
"I already have," Kelios taunted. "He sees it all. Every kiss, every caress, every last piece of your betrayal. Can't you feel it?"
Sure enough, the very air around them seemed to swirl with dark, furious energy. Tejana trembled at the unbelievable strength of it, crouching back against Hart's legs, like a small animal sheltering against a storm.
"I didn't betray him!" she yelled. "It wasn't like that!"
"It matters not. The power builds!" the Shabogan gloated, his dark eyes gleaming with exultation. "With you and your child as catalysts for his pain, the potential of the Cruciform is unlimited! Soon, nothing will stand against me. My conquest of the Universe will be assured!"
There was a deep rumbling somewhere beneath them and the Cruciform began to shake again. Only now the quaking was more intense, as if the long-buried ship was trying to shake itself free of the mountain that entombed it.
"Tick tock, goes the clock," the Master's voice laughed suddenly, echoing creepily around the vast room.
For the first time, Kelios seemed to hear it. He whirled around wildly, trying to track the source of the sound. The floor was heaving under his feet, making it difficult for him to stand upright. The entire ship was lifting itself. Tejana could imagine the dirt and boulders streaming off its sides like water, erupting down the mountain outside in a spectacular landslide as the Cruciform slowly rose to the surface of Mnemosyne.
"No!" Kelios screamed. "NO! What are you doing? I haven't ordered this!"
"Tick tock, goes the clock, too late now to run," the Master's voice crooned, the sound circling Kelios, mockingly changing direction in mid-sentence, like a ventriloquist throwing his voice to different corners of the room. "Tick tock, goes the clock, the time of Chaos comes!"
"You are my creation! I made you!" Kelios howled, clinging to the control console to maintain his balance, desperately trying to type some commands into one of the terminals. "You will obey me!"
Mad laughter greeted his words, mingling with the churning upheaval of the ship. Caught up in the confusion, Tejana nearly jumped out of her skin as she felt an arm slip around her. With a gasp, she realised it was Hart, crouching down beside her. With Kelios so distracted, he had finally managed to break free of the stasis field.
"What the hell is going on, Princess?" he growled.
"I don't know," she responded frantically. "Something's gone wrong with Kelios's control of the Cruciform. I think it's breaking free of him!"
And then, at the end of the room, they saw the black-dressed form appear in the doorway, advancing towards them, heedless of the pandemonium he walked through, smiling terribly as he came.
"Blondie!" Hart exclaimed in shock. "But how did he do that? How did he escape from the thought bubble without us seeing him?"
Staring at the familiar figure coming closer and closer, Tejana's throat went painfully dry. "He didn't," she whispered.
Hart's head jerked around in puzzlement. "What?"
"He didn't," she said again, fear rising inside her like a tidal wave. "Because that isn't the Master."
