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One extreme had to be reached, its nadir plumbed, before a new order could assert itself. Once the darkness was complete, only Rassilon could light the new lamp, but the flame would gutter dangerously for a long time.

from Rassilon the God

Prydonian Cardinal Borusa.

A tongue of flame leapt up from the abyss and touched her cage.

There was a gasp from the assembly of lords and councillors in the cavern, but the Pythia was unscathed. Only in her mind were there real flames. Vael had burned away the cords that she had woven. The threads that united them — that bound him to her. The anger that compelled him had finally consumed him.

How wasteful. Now she was alone.

Their eyes were all on her. One name, they thought. That was all they wanted. A tiny boon so that their teetering Empire would go on forever.

She gave a deep groan. She owed them nothing. The world tasted of dust. She felt her age for the first time. Her hands were only mottled skin stretched across brittle bone. Her world was corrupting. The people squirmed like maggots on the filthy accumulation of Gallifrey's past.

The Eye of the Sphinx began to weep. The great tears of the Cat rolled down the Pythia's gilded face. It wept for the age that passed with the coming of the future. The Pythia's remaining eye stayed dry as ice.

"My successor! Where is he?" she cried. "Where?"

Figures scurried in alarm below. She heard drums beating outside and the distant fizz of Council Police guns. Handstrong stood by the stair with his ceremonial sword raised. There was the crash of overturned icons in the Temple above.

The future had rejected her, now she would take her revenge upon its snub.

"Sisters. My sisters," she called to them alone. "This world is doomed. I curse it. As I die, so shall it wither. Go now my followers, and flee this world. Seek out the fire fountains of Karn. There you shall endure for ever. The gods shall protect you in their cupped hands."

She gripped the weave of her basket and cried aloud, "Let the world hear my curse. I am Gallifrey, sky and rock, flame and flood, womb and bone. When I am no more, the world shall be barren and empty of new life. It will live a slow ageless death and come to nothing in its own dust. I have spoken these words. Let them be fulfilled."

From her robe she pulled an ancient sacrificial blade. She reached up and cut the umbilical rope that held the basket. It plunged into the abyss and there was silence.

Lord Dowtroyal gathered his papers and left the Temple.

"But she gave no name, my lord," called one of his secretaries, scampering to keep apace. "There is no successor."

"She said, 'He'," proclaimed his lordship.

"A man, my lord? Surely not."

"Did she speak any other name? He will suffice. She foresees the future, but who says it has to be propitious for her? The Empire's just been spared a revolution."

The secretary nearly dropped his document files. "But you cannot mean . . ."

"We can all hazard a guess as to His identity. We have the successor from the crone's own lips! He!"

He burst into a great rolling laugh as he picked his way through the riot debris in the snowy courtyard. The place was deserted, but the frosty air was thick with rumour.

The driver was waiting at the gate with the covered skimmersledge. Dowtroyal snapped his fingers as he heaved himself inside. Another figure leant back in a mound of cushions.

"Right into our hands," blustered Dowtroyal. "Just as was predicted! She's dead, of course."

"I hate predictions," said the other gloomily.

Dowtroyal looked startled. He turned to the driver. "Thrift, whatever your name is, back to the Academia now. The new Pythia won't want to be kept waiting!"

He burst into another fit of laughter as the sledge pulled away. The merriment echoed up through the walls of the silent City. Finally it was drowned by a cry — the anguished shriek of a mother faced with the limp form of her stillborn child.

It had begun to snow hard.

The Doctor looked like a kid