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'Oh, terrific.' The Doctor peered into the water. He couldn't see anything.

Apologise for me.'

'It's not deep here,' Rust said, hauling him to a sitting position. 'Only about to your knees.'

The Doctor gripped his shirt front. 'Don't do this.'

Rust gritted his teeth, heaved the Doctor up and rolled him over the side.

Water flew into the boat. The Doctor landed on his knees, submerged to the waist. He tried to stand but couldn't get a firm foothold. Rust lifted the pole.

'I'll be back in a couple of days.'

He could see the Doctor's eyes now. In the lantern-light, their green faded, leaving only blue. Like the sky. Like nothing at all.

'Your friends aren't going to like me. What will you do when you find they've been naughty?'

'Just stay calm,' Rust said shortly, 'and you'll be OK.' He dug in the pole and the boat glided slowly away. He didn't look back.

The Doctor tried once more to stand but slipped back to his knees. Warm silt drifted up around his legs and the rotting odour thickened. He watched the light from Rust's lantern grow smaller and smaller. When it was faint as a candle, a hand made of needles plunged into his side.

The Doctor yelled and staggered up, floundered, fell. Things seized hold of his limbs, tore at him. 'Rust!' he shouted, flailing in the darkness. 'Rust!'

Needles gripped the back of his head. 'I was right, Rust! You should have listened to me!' Something thin sliced his cheek. 'Can you hear me!' he bellowed into the empty night. 'You blew it!'

Then they dragged him under the water to pick him to pieces.

Chapter Twenty-One

Well Met By Moonlight

Dawn "was violet. The sun set in a blaze of teal. When there was a rainbow, which was often, the colours were reversed, with red on the bottom. On the other hand, the foliage was green, all shades from the acid brightness of spring grass to deep, shadowed tones, and the sunlight a delicate white-gold. The air was fragrant and the sound of splashing water musically clear. There was birdsong, and birds to go with it - flashes of scarlet, blue and yellow plumage, the occasional modest brown sparrow pecking inquisitively among the bright poppies that grew by the doorstep.

The cottage was built of stone, with a wood-shingled roof and a plastered and whitewashed interior. The windows had thick oaken shutters but no glass. The fireplace was made of the same stone as the walls. A rocking chair sat on the hearth, and a simple wooden table and chairs stood by the largest window. The woven rug covering most of the floor was faded but still thick, and soft underfoot.

The cottage stood at the foot of a large waterfall that sent up a continual sparkling mist in which glimmered chromatic echoes of the reversed rainbow. Anyone climbing to the top of the falls would view beyond a range of steep, blue-shadowed mountains, clouds sleeping in their crevices.

Though no evidence of it was to be seen, something in the air hinted, with geographical implausibility, at the presence of the sea.

All the flowering trees were in bloom at the same time. The mornings came and went but they did not fade.

* * *

The Doctor was very comfortable here, but he was not happy. For one thing, he was confused, and his considerable experience of artificial environments was no help. He was in his own body. He was wearing his own clothes, including his coat, though his shoes were still, he presumed, on the floor of his room at Owl. This was no hardship, as the weather was pleasant and the ground, even on the rocky heights of the falls, never hurt his feet. His clothes were clean and whole, though both they and his body should have been filthy, wet and in shreds if his memory served him right.

Which it wasn't always in the habit of doing.

There were no 'joins' in the physical surface of this world: it wasn't computer-generated. Nor did it contain any of the deterioration of focus at the edges characteristic of mentally constructed environments. The Doctor was almost certain he was in a 'real' place, that was to say,