Hands off the threads, creep

In India long ago, the Second Doctor visits a maharaja. The Time Lord obviously enjoyed himself as he stayed for several days. He and his host "spent many nights discussing the universe". But the newcomer arouses the suspicion of the maharaja's magician, Nehra.

Nehra noticed that this other magician left a blue box in the cellar of the palace and decides to investigate. He finds that he cannot open it and that the mysterious case resists all investigation into its workings. Frustrated, Nehra turns to magic, a cantrip which would reveal the blue box's history to him.

He is amazed to have a vision of the Earth viewed from afar, with "luminous threads" wound around it, with many of them seeming to come from the blue box. More threads spring into being and, again, many of them are seen to emanate from other, similar, boxes. Sensing evil at work and that the threads of fire are a threat, he summons a demon named Vishathra to cut the threads.

As Nehra and Vishathra are chatting, the Doctor appears and tries to convince the magician that his plan is not a good one but to no avail. The demon moves to cut a thread and suddenly disappears. As the Doctor explains, the threads he saw were not choking the maharaja's empire, but rather they were the threads of the Web of Time. Vishathra had mistakenly cut his own thread, his own link to existence.

Realizing his mistake, Nehra vows a regimen of self-abnegation and asks how he can atone for his misdeeds. The Doctor urges him to pursue science and give him some time to think on how best to make amends.

The Doctor takes off but the TARDIS rematerializes before Nehra just seconds later. The Doctor steps out but Nehra does not recognize him. 

"Where is the Doctor?" he asks.

"'That,' he said with a smile, 'is a very long story.'"

A neat little tale. Vishathra was funny as he was a bit reluctant to go around cutting the threads. When told of the threads closing tightly around the world, he replies, "And this is...bad?" I appreciated the more light-hearted tone here after the more serious "Dust".

I am beginning to despair that I will never read of Jamie again.

Mark Michalowski's name rang a bell but I couldn't identify him immediately. I then realized he wrote the Seventh Doctor PDA Relative Dementias. This made me think about how I have not really tried to connect the themes/motifs that authors have deployed in their short trips with those used in their novels. I don't recall anything this light-hearted in Relative Dementias but my memory could simply be faulty. Perhaps I'll start this with the Third Doctor.