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He turned to look at me.

His face was a forest of tiny crimson thorns.

Extract from the diary of Bernice Summerfield

The pressurized tunnel had been rearranged to connect us to the vast central caravan. Waves of cold radiated at us from the bulging walls. As the three of us crossed the open ground, escorted by the two rakshassi, and started up the steps of the cathedral-like caravan, I could see, through the mist of condensation, rakshassi in pressurized globes attaching ropes to anchor-points all around the caravans. I was confused. If they were intending to pull the caravans across the ice, why attach ropes all the way around?

Sherringford was having a bit of trouble walking on his shiny new wings. It's not the sort of thing that you can practise beforehand.

'I take it,' the Doctor said to him as we walked, 'that all of this business has been in order to rescue your putative god and get it to Earth.'

The door in front of us began to creak slowly open, like something out of an old horror film.

'Indeed,' Sherringford said in a hiss-laden voice. 'Azathoth suspected that natural gateways had long existed between Earth and Ry'leh - the occasional Indian mystic had managed to open a window through which they had seen the occasional rakshassi. Tir Ram's thuggee forebears believed Ry'leh to be the realm of Siva, the Destroyer, and built a temple to worship in.'

'Not far wrong, were they?' I murmured.

'However,' Sherringford continued, 'neither Azathoth nor Her faithful followers could open the gateway between the worlds from Ry'leh.'

'Why not?' The Doctor seemed genuinely eager to know. 'I would have thought that escape would have been Azathoth's priority. After all, what sort of god would put up with the shame of eternal detention on a cold ball of rock?'

Sherringford's spiked face swung around until his facial spikes were quivering a few inches from the Doctor's snub nose.

'As you have already found, the only way to open a gateway is by use of certain musical tones which vibrate at some underlying universal frequency

- that harmony of the spheres. One of the drawbacks of this form is that we cannot sing.'

'And Azathoth couldn't conjure up a voice box?' The Doctor kept his face straight as he baited Sherringford. 'Not much of a deity, if you ask me.

What do you think, Bernice?'

'Perhaps Azathoth could have equipped her flock with harmonicas.'

'Or kazoos,' he agreed. 'I'm a dab hand with the old comb and paper.'

Sherringford turned away.

'Azathoth had been weakened in Her long battle against the forces of darkness,' he explained.

It was too much like 'God moves in mysterious ways' for me, and he didn't exactly sound convinced himself.

'It was fortunate for Azathoth,' he went on, 'that I had discovered our father's diaries in the Library of St John the Beheaded. He reproduced the chants he had heard. I was intrigued, and began to experiment with opening a gateway. Travelling to India, I stayed with Tir Ram and managed, with the help of his wise men, to find my way to Ry'leh. After Azathoth had opened my eyes to the Truth, I willingly returned to Earth to make preparations to open a larger, more permanent connection so that we could spread the Word far and wide.'

'And that's where Maupertuis came on board?' the Doctor asked.

'Indeed. Poor Maupertuis. He was so looking forward to his invasion. We needed him to create a diversion, of course. Once I had determined how to move Azathoth from the city of Kadath in the Cold Wastes to the Plain of Leng where the transfer had to take place, I needed to keep the nearest garrison of Shlangii busy while the gateway was opened and Azathoth escaped to Earth. I knew Maupertuis through the Diogenes, and I knew how bright the flame of glory burned within his breast.'

We were walking up the steps to the big doors now. The caravan loomed overhead, dwarfing everything nearby. It looked like a fitting place for a God. No, actually it looked like a very big dog kennel, but I'm a sucker for religious architecture.