Editor's note: Nightshade was originally written with a mature audience in mind, and contains strong language. Some characters also express racial attitudes prevalent in parts of British society at the time the book is set. Nightshade may therefore not be suitable for younger fans of the series.

The Changing face of Doctor Who: The illustrations contained within this ebook portray the Seventh Doctor Who, whose physical appearance was later transformed when he was fatally wounded by gunfire. His companion in this adventure is explosives expert Ace, a teenager from the 1980s.

Prologue

All around the cluttered cloisters, musty rooms and high, vaulted halls there was a deep and tangible hush. The only light in the virtually impenetrable gloom was of a peculiarly pellucid green, spilling out feebly from every heavy wooden door and misaligned stone. Everywhere, there was a terrible sense of stagnancy, imbuing the whole place with a fetid, neglected atmosphere, as though some great cathedral had been flooded by a brackish lagoon.

From out of the cobwebbed shadows emerged a little group of very old men, resplendent in their ornately decorated robes.

The least ancient of the group, a white-haired individual with piercing eyes and a down-turned, haughty mouth, lifted the hem of his robes as he detached himself from the others, sending little flurries of dust over the flagstones. He murmured a few words of apology to his comrades and melted away into the shadows.

After a time he came to a small door inset in the crumbling stonework. He looked about him, senses alert, and lifted his hands to grip the lapels of his robes. His twinkling eyes darted from side to side. It was time.

A man with a face like a deflating balloon, dressed in dark gold robes which were too big for him, crossed the corridor, mumbling happily to himself. The white-haired man pressed himself into a doorway until the fellow had passed. It wouldn't do to be discovered now.

When he was certain that he was alone, the old man opened the door with a spindly key and squeezed himself through into darkness.

Beyond the door was a flight of stone steps, which he descended nimbly, leading into a huge, ink-black, domed chamber.

Arranged in a row were eight featureless objects about the size of horse boxes, their dull grey surfaces tinged by the familiar underwater-green.

The white-haired man lifted the heliotrope robes from around his shoulders and let them slip to the floor. He steepled his bony fingers and looked up at the ceiling high above his head. What was the night like out there? It had been so long since he'd ventured outside, smelled fresh air, seen the first frosts, watched the pale silver and bronze leaves disappearing under melting snow...

But now all that would be different. It was time to go.

There was a noise from somewhere close by and the old man hastily unlocked one of the featureless grey boxes.

'I must be quick,' he muttered. 'Yes, I must be very, very quick.'

A look of profound sadness seemed to come over his wise old face as he gave the hall one more sweep of his searching gaze. Then, with a heavy sigh, he vanished inside the box and closed the door.

There was a raucous, grinding moan and, quite suddenly, the old man and his protesting grey box simply faded away.

For a long time the seven remaining boxes stood in silence with only the steady drip of the leaking roof to disturb the gloom. Then the man in the dark gold robes appeared in the doorway, tutting to himself. He regarded the seven boxes, and the space where the eighth had been, with some annoyance.

'Oh no, no,' he said. 'This really won't do at all.'

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