"What can an angel say the devil wants to know?"

 -- Fiona Apple

 //"I could have told him it wouldn't work," murmured the old man to his cards. "My gambit, now." He selected three cards from his hand and slapped them face up on the table. They were a black king, the ace of swords and the multicolored minstrel. He then laid three more cards face down. "Ante up."//

 "Ouch," he commented.

 He lay there a moment, then sat up.

 Eerie phosphorescent moss shone with a wane, green light, casting emerald shadows over the bones chained to the opposite wall. A rat with glowing red eyes sat up and chittered at him. The wavering orange glow of a tallow dip was broken into harsh squares by the metal grate in the heavy door of rusted iron and age-blackened oak. Moans and muffled screams echoed as if from far away.

 "Oh, come now," the Master snorted. "Surely you can do better than this!"

 With another thud, he landed flat on his back beneath a smoke-torn sky. Sitting up, he recognized the violated landscape of No-Man's-Land, Skaro. Something creaked and whirred in the shadows. A Dalek trundled out.

 "Ex-ter-min-ate!" it grated. "Ex-ter-min-ate!"

 "Ah, yes, much better," commented the Master as he stood up and ran for his life.

 He spent most of the day running and a good portion of the night too. If it wasn't Daleks, it was mutants, and if it wasn't mutants, it was demons. He stopped a moment in the ruins of a building and squinted into the darkness.

 "All right, not bad, could be worse," he panted. He was tired, he was hungry and he had a cramp in his left leg. The Master leaned against the crumbling gray stone and rubbed the aching muscle. "Definitely out of shape, old man."

 A woman screamed. He straightened, frowning and peered around the corner of the building.

 She was slim and young with paper-pale skin and tangled black hair. She cowered against another ruin while the three demons stood chuckling cruelly before her. A sword licked between the trio and their victim, slitting the front of her ragged tunic to reveal the swell of small, shapely breasts.

 "Gauche *and* sexist," The Master grunted, unimpressed. "*These* are the true joys of evil? Bah!" He fully intended to sneak around the trio and find a more secure place to try and rest up. Half-way around, one of the demons saw him and barked a warning.

 He stumbled, and they were on him. The one with the sword swung at his head. The Master dodged the slash and grabbed the sword in a Wing Chun maneuver learned from a disgraced Shaolin. To his surprise, he disarmed the demon - quite literally and quite messily. The other demons charged and the Master swung the sword up cutting a large chunk from the second demon. The third demon was on him, trying to wrestle the sword from his grip even as it tried to take a bite out of him.

 WHAM! A thrown brick bounced off the third demon's head. The Master stabbed and yanked and spun away, leaving the beast falling in its own blood as it tried desperately to hang on to its now-exposed intestines.

 The girl clutched another brick. "Thanks, now pardon me while I get the hell out of here." The Master dodged the edge of the ruin and was on the run again. Footsteps pounded behind him. He glanced back to see the girl, still hanging on to a chunk of brick, running at his heels.

 "This way!" she panted. He changed direction. They scrambled through a tangle of deformed bushes to reach a short staircase that led to what had once been a basement. It stank, but there was a reservoir of water.

 The Master drank and looked at the sword. The blade was a translucent white crystal material. The hilt and pommel were wrapped with braided gold-colored wire and the cross-piece flared out with a suggestion of wings.

 "Very pretty," he remarked. He looked over at the girl. "I suppose now is when you sprout your fangs and try to surprise me."

 "If you like," she said coolly. "Hello, Daddy."

 He was surprised. He promptly sat on the floor. "*Daddy*?"

 "My name is Hecate," she said as she fumbled with a string, trying to tie the front of her tunic closed. "My mother was the Rani -- and you're my father."

 "How is that possible-- never mind." He knew how. After that nasty business with the baby tyrannosaurs rex (thanks to that totally dotty incarnation of the Doctor's) he and the Rani had taken the opportunity to get to know each other extremely well. "Silly question, but how did you end up here?"

 "Mummy was attempting to open a dimensional gateway into E-Space that the Doctor had closed and I fell through it, but I didn't end up in E-Space," Hecate shrugged. "I seriously doubt she's even noticed I've gone."

 "Lovely," the Master sighed. "Well, my dear, any idea how we get out of here?"

 "No."

 "Didn't think so," the Master rubbed his chin. He looked at the sword again. "I've seen this sword before, or read a description of it --"

 A white bird landed on the bushes, leaning in as if listening.

 "I found it, poking around the Change Vortex," offered Hecate.

 "Change Vortex?" the Master frowned.

 "It's a barrier, like a whirlpool of energy; all sorts of queer stuff gets washed up there." Hecate sat down, shivering.

 The Master frowned, wondering if he should do something comforting or paternal. Having no good ideas on how to do either, he sat down with his back to the wall and offered to stand first watch. Hecate curled up on one side and fell asleep.

 The white bird flew away, nodding as if pleased.

 /Behold Time's Champion! Master of Destiny!/ intoned a thundering voice. The sword began to glow.

 "What?" asked the Master.

 /You have taken up the Sword of Light and Darkness. The Sword which will pierce all evil. The Sword which was cast aside./

 "Oh, really?" the Master smiled.

 /Turn, now and smite the Evil One. In doing so you will set yourself free./

 The Master smiled. The Sword of Time's Champion, eh? He remembered reading a thing or two about this sword.

 "Sorry, no, got better things to do," he said, grabbed Hecate's hand and dove into the Change Vortex.

 There was brilliant light and two sound of soft-tissue impact. Both men blinked in time to see the Master and a young girl picking themselves off the ground. The girl pushed aside her tangled black hair to reveal a ragged tunic that gaped open almost as widely as Wil's mouth.

 "Hullo, Doctor," said the Master.

 "Hullo, yourself," the Doctor looked at the sword. "Didn't I just break that? What are you doing with it?"

 "It seems I'm Time's Champion," said the Master.

 "You!" the Doctor sputtered. "Why you?"

 "Probably because it would annoy you," said the Master, sticking the sword into his belt. "Oh, by the way, I'd like you to meet..."

 Hecate stepped forward. "Faustinavratalunminadar," she said. "The daughter of Romananvratalunvar." She smiled at the Doctor. "Hullo, Daddy."

 The expression on the Doctor's face was priceless. The Master began to chuckle. He patted the sword. Power had always been the means to an end and now he knew what his end was -- the universe would be a lovely present to give to this deliciously wicked girl child.

 "Well, now, Doctor," said the Master, "as you were saying, I believe we have a universe to save?"

 To be continued...