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.One day I shall feed on you too.''Is that another of your predictions, most sagacious Pythia? As I recall, they were never very reliable.'183The vulture spread her feather-bare wings.'I was the world!' she shrieked.'Oh, go away,' he said.'Go back to the charnel house.I'm not stale enough to be on your menu yet.' He turned his back on the blood-red sun and pushed at the gates again, slowly forcing them open on the future.Behind him it was always setting.Beyond the gates, the sun was white and rising through peach-coloured mist.The watchers drifted through after the Doctor.There was a scent of roses in the air.A homely woman dressed in brown was waiting, carrying a long robe.'It's the rose woman,' said Innocet.'I saw her in the orchard, the day that he was Loomed.''You Eternals get everywhere,' said the Doctor.'Indeed,' the woman said, fastening the many-coloured robe around his neck.'Most of us regard being worshipped as a responsibility.We try to live up to expectations.But there are some Gods I could mention who are not nearly so considerate.'She stood back from him.'There.What do you think? The robe is woven from al your deeds and experiences.The patterns drove three of the web-weavers insane.''I don't have a mirror,' he said, fidgeting inside the garment.She smiled.'Not as clever as you think, are you? If you were really everywhere at once, you'd see for yourself.''I'll rely on your better judgement,' he said.'It could be magnificent,' she said with a shrug.'Or it could be ghastly.''That's life.''Exactly.Now off you go.The future awaits.'He walked to the edge of the pavement.The world was sliding in to meet him.Sliding under the wall into the past.As he stepped off, the rose pink mist began to clear, laying out the future for him.He moved forward eagerly.But something pulled him back.The heavy robe was snagged.He tugged at it.Patterns and memories moved on its surface.Blood seeped from its weave.The garment was caught under the pavement.The future's inexorable passage into the past was dragging him along with it.He struggled in vain to tear free.He pulled at the fastenings, but could not undo them.The robe was choking him.From the gate came the mocking laughter of the old vulture.The Doctor toppled to the ground.He gave a strangled cry of despair and was dragged head first under the wal into the inescapable past.The watching ghosts clung together in the sudden darkness.The past was an empty void.Then a wind blew up and they were travel ing, drawn down after the Doctor.They could see the wind.It tore against them in silver streamers.Innocet faced into it.'Air,' she choked through her tears.'Clean air.I'd forgotten how to breathe!'Ahead, they could see the figure of the Doctor rising and dipping on his course into the dark.A fiery glow appeared in the distance.It grew steadily until half a city was lit beneath them in the hellish glare.184A huge edifice was burning like a torch against the night.A great hal or temple.Stone was cracking in the heat and the air was filled with a grey blizzard of ash.Adjacent buildings had caught alight and a swarm of air cars were tackling the blazes with vacuum hoses.They ignored the main conflagration.Around it ran a ring of guards, not deployed to keep the crowds away, but to cordon in the people fleeing the building.Fights were breaking out.There was the fizz of gunfire.No one was escaping.A constant whispered commentary underpinned the air.A distant muttering of thousands of voices.But Dorothée could not work out if it was inside or outside her head.The Doctor swooped away over other districts of the city and, drawn by him, the watchers followed.On a square, high among the domes, stood a monument in the form of an Ω.'It's the Omega Memorial at the Capitol,' said Leela.'It's true,' said Innocet.'But this is the old city over which the Citadel of the Time Lords was built.He must have fled here when he stole the TARDIS, back thousands of years into the past where he knew he couldn't be followed.Almost to the Old Time itself.'The Doctor was hovering close to the tall monument.On its crest sat a solitary figure wrapped in a dark cloak.His thin legs dangled over the side as he contemplated a black box floating in the air just below him.'I know what that is,' said Dorothée.'That's the Hand of Omega.''So who is he?' said Romana.'He's not the Doctor,' said Innocet emphatical y [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]