Steady, she told herself. How the hell are you going to climb up there? You’re not 18 any more. You’re a middle-aged woman.

Some fleeting movement on the pennant beside her, scuttling like a spider, made Ace cry out and back away. A short, squat, crumpled figure, clothed only in thick flaps of elephantine skin the colour of faded bruises, dropped down to the floor in front of her, panting like a dog. Two stubby arms and legs hung down from the trunk like melted wax. A devilish face pushed out from between two thick folds of skin, pudgy and grey-eyed watching her with malicious interest.

‘Yes. Yes, it is you,’ said the figure, in a voice that was unexpectedly high and singsong. ‘Forgive my late arrival to you, Child of Earth. I was checking my records. Checking, yes.’

Ace said nothing. She supposed that without the TARDIS here translating, the creature must be trying to speak English. She was about to respond with some choice Anglo-Saxon for it to chew on when finally she coughed, her throat parched dry from the ordeal in the desert and now the scented smoke. The figure watched her whoop and heave, then chuckled and turned from her. It crossed to the dais and paused, as vestigial hands and feet pushed out from thick rolls of flab at the end of its limbs. Then it climbed over the sculpted bodies, caressing them almost sensually as it went. Ace could see three horns, curved like a goat’s, protruding from the back of its head, and smaller ones tracing the line of its spine. Finally it climbed onto the throne in the giant tusk.

‘Who are you?’ Ace said at last.

The creature stared at her with unblinking, malevolent eyes. ‘I am Halogi-Kari.’

Ace folded her arms. ‘Not feeling so good myself.’

‘My name is Halogi-Kari. Bringer of time and distance.’

‘Not enough distance if you ask me.’ Ace shrugged. ‘Keeping that seat warm for the big boss, are you?’

‘You misunderstand, perhaps.’ Halogi-Kari tittered. ‘You are in my sanctuary, Child of Earth. Here, there is no authority higher than me.’

‘Nothing over three-foot-two, you mean? Got it.’ Ace swallowed, more dust than saliva it seemed. ‘Why am I here, then?’

‘Your … difference was detected.’ Halogi-Kari clasped his three-fingered hands together and looked upward. There was a low chime, a creak – and another roll of heavy fabric unravelled down from the ceiling, landing just beside Ace. She couldn’t help but jump, and the thing on the throne cackled earthily.

Then, with a chill, Ace saw herself in the thick fabric panel: herself as a 16-year-old, screaming in her bedroom for help as a yellow glow engulfed her. Help that could never arrive; already the time-storm was taking her away to Svartos.