by Graham, Jo
“We’re big rabbits,” John said. “Maybe the Wraith should be worried instead.”
“Only you would say that when we’re locked in a hole in the ground.”
“What? Because I’m the bravest guy you know?” He was teasing, but she appreciated it all the same.
“No. Because you are utterly insane,” she said, intending the same spirit.
“Probably,” he said quietly, and perhaps it was the darkness that caused him to say more than that. “My ex-wife thought I was. Some of the stuff when I got back from overseas… It wasn’t anything Nancy bargained on coping with. But you know. It comes and goes. You deal with it.”
“I do know,” Teyla said. His words were very offhanded, and yet she held her breath. She hardly knew what to make of honesty from him, of things that were so raw. He was not a man who spoke easily or often, and she felt as though the wrong word might silence him, might end this tentative trust.
“What do your people do? You know. After a Culling,” he said quietly.
Teyla took a breath. Talking about this was steadying, and perhaps he did indeed want to know. Perhaps he truly was curious, as eager to learn as to teach. “We sing. We cry. We remember.” There were Wraith just overhead. Many of them. “We mourn. Sometimes it is too soon to speak of the Lost, or the situation is too dangerous. We are still in peril, and there is no time for mourning. But when there is, we drink and we scream and we lament.” She stopped, wishing she needed to say no more, but honesty deserved an honest answer. “And then when that is done we suffer in silence.” She waited, but he did not speak. “And you?”
“I’ve never been through a Culling,” he said, and she thought of those she had met in his imagining of home, when they had been trapped in an alien mindgame rather than on Earth. When she had gone to visit a place of John’s that had never existed, drunk beer with men who were dead. Teyla had not met those friends. They were gone long before the Earthmen came to Athos. They lived now only in John Sheppard’s mind, at that illusory party by a swimming pool in a place he had never actually lived. Home was an imaginary apartment full of ghosts where the beer was always cold and the lost were found.
“No, I suppose not,” she said softly. “I am sure you do not in the least understand what I mean.”
There was the sound of footsteps outside, and the bar on the door rattled. Teyla jumped to her feet, managing not to run into John in the process, as he was doing the same.
The door opened. Four human guards stood outside. The first reached in with spear leveled. “Come on.”
Blinking into the light, John stepped forward. For a moment Teyla wondered if he were going to grab the spear shaft, but he did not. It was possible, but probably not the best plan. If they did fight their way clear of these four men, the spear would give them little against Wraith with energy weapons. Better to wait for an opportunity where they had more latitude, and more chance of success.
“Come out,” the guards said, gesturing again.
John walked out, his hands held well away from his body, and she followed. One of the guards eyed him suspiciously. “Special prisoners?”
The first guard looked John up and down. In his dirty BDUs, three days growth of beard on his face, a stitched up cut across his forehead, he did not look particularly formidable. Nor particularly alien. There was nothing about him, other than his basic style of dress, which made him stand out at all. Nothing that screamed “Take me to the Wraith!” Teyla fervently hoped her own appearance was equally unnoteworthy.
The first guard shrugged. “No, just send them out with the others.” He looked at John evenly. “Better for you if you don’t make trouble. After all, you might win the Games. You look like you can handle yourself.”
“Thanks,” John said. Some time in the night he’d removed the old bandage, and the dark stitches were clearly visible against his skin. Still, it seemed to be healing.
Teyla took a step toward him, hoping that the direction to send them with the others meant her as well. She could not help but worry that as strongly as she felt the Wraith they must be aware of her too.
The guard’s eyes fell on her, then flicked back to John. “Your wife?”
“No,” John said.
“Good. It’s everyone for themselves inside the maze. You hang back and wait for somebody, you lose.” He gestured for them to walk ahead of him down the corridor.
They did, spear points at their backs. At the end of the corridor was a courtyard full of people milling around. A couple of them might have been warriors, but most of them were a mix of ages and professions, men and women of different lands, the youngest a girl and boy of twelve or thirteen who stood together nervously, the oldest Jitrine, her white hair clearly visible in the sun.
John glanced at Teyla as they were herded in with the others, and his eyebrow quirked. “Everyone for themselves?”
“Of course,” Teyla said, glancing around. There were perhaps a dozen guards, and five archers on the wall above. “Otherwise a single rush would take them down.”
“But these people aren’t going to do that,” John said. “Look at them. A crowd of civilians. People don’t act like that. They don’t act together. They haven’t got the training to take the chance. If I yelled ‘get them!’ they’d all just stand there.”
Teyla nodded. “Most people are afraid of getting hurt. And so they will go to their deaths rather than risk pain. It is the first thing you must learn in stick fighting. You must learn how to be hurt. And once you have mastered the fear of being hurt, you realize it is only pain.” She looked at him sideways. “That is why you are a good student. You aren’t afraid of pain.”
“I’m good with pain, actually,” John said.
Teyla froze as a new figure appeared on the wall above.
His long white hair almost glittered, and the somberness of his black leathers were relieved by a cloak of silvery blue that snapped and waved against the clearing sky. He wore a circlet across his forehead set with heavy blue stones, and a fancy mesh of gold and jewels covered the back of his feeding hand. His face was proud and haughty, and he lifted his chin like a god or king.
The guards did not bow, but most of the people around John and Teyla threw themselves to their knees. “It is the High King!” someone whispered, tugging at Teyla’s sleeve.
She shook his hand off. She would not bow to any Wraith.
John remained standing too, as well as a handful of others, though it would have been wiser for him to blend in. “I’ve got a problem with my knees,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, and Teyla almost smiled.
She had not paid attention to the beginning of his speech, which seemed to be laying out the rules of the game. Contestants would enter the maze in small groups a few minutes apart. There, they would face challenges and obstacles. The person who exited first was the winner and would be set free with a fabulous prize in gold. There was no mention of what would happen to the rest of the contestants, though Teyla thought she could guess far too easily.
She could see John sizing up the other players. They fell into two groups, those who hoped to win and those who already despaired. Some, like Jitrine, knew they had little chance of beating out warriors in a trial of strength and endurance. Others eyed the contestants thoughtfully, as if deciding who to get out of the way. More than one pair of eyes lingered on John, though fewer did on her. She did not look as obviously prepossessing as he did. With three days growth of beard and the cut across his forehead, he looked like a ruffian to watch out for.
Those were the contestants angling their way toward the front. Obviously the first groups would have an advantage in getting through the maze. It did not seem that the contest was only one of skill, but also of speed.
John seemed in no hurry, content to hang back as the speech ended and the eager ones crowded forward, so she remained beside him.
At the Wraith Lord’s signal, two guards stepped forward with gold staves in hand. They stretched them over a section of
pavement. With a grinding sound, the stones began to part smoothly, exposing a dark hole between them that might be deep as an abyss.
A moan rose from the crowd, except for the contestants who still pressed forward eagerly, intending to be the first. Unsurprisingly, there were six men at the fore, big men that Teyla had marked for warriors. Of course they would want to be first. The cordon of guards parted and three of the six were chosen out, matched with three random people from the crowd, two women and an old man.
Some pushed forward and some pushed back. In the milling around, Teyla saw that Jitrine had come to John’s elbow. “How is your head?” she asked.
“Better.” John put his head to the side. “Why are you here?”
“I told you,” Jitrine said simply. “I have enemies. And it seems they were more powerful than my friends. So I take my chances in the labyrinth.”
“Those chances are slim,” John said. He glanced over to the pit, where already a shout came from below. Some of the first group were losing no time in beginning to eliminate rivals.
“There will be those below who are injured,” Jitrine said, and her chin rose.
“Yes,” John said. His face looked serene. Teyla had seen that expression before when he flew, when he was judging to a nicety the distance from obstacles, avoiding shots by a hair. She had seen it fleeing the Wraith armada with Orin’s family aboard, dialing the gate with that look of concentration that was almost rapture. “Don’t worry,” he said to Jitrine. “Just stick with us.”
“That is not wise, Sheppard,” Jitrine said with dignity. “You know that only one can win. You, by yourself, might have a chance.”
“We’re not going there,” he said. “Teyla’s my team. We go together. You stick with us, and we’ll get you through.”
“People have tried that before,” Jitrine said. “It does not work. Those who make common cause are destroyed.”
“We’ll take our chances,” John said. He looked at Jitrine keenly. “Will you?”
“I am a doctor. I will go with you so far as I may, as much as the ethics of my profession allow.”
“Fair enough.”
The second group had gone down while they waited, and it was not lost on Teyla that the Wraith Lord had disappeared. Probably to join his fellows wherever they intended to watch the games from, for surely they meant to observe what happened underground! She shivered. If the Wraith had noticed her he had not acted. Probably he had not noticed her. She had not reached out with her mind, and when she did not she might seem as ordinary as any other human. Certainly when she had been captured by the Wraith before, in the Culling Sheppard and his men had interrupted, they had paid her no special attention. Perhaps they had not noticed anything at all.
The third group went down, and they moved forward, John carefully keeping her and Jitrine one to each side.
“Play it like it goes,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s not pick a fight. But if they jump you…”
“I will take care of myself quite adequately,” Teyla said.
He had the good sense to look abashed. “I know. I meant with your shoulder and all.”
“We will look after one another,” Teyla said, and gave him a small smile to indicate that she was not really angry.
“Yeah.”
There was no one in front of them. The guards gestured. Before their feet there was a steep stairway running down into darkness.
“Here goes nothing,” John said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The steps led down into darkness. John went down carefully, Teyla and Jitrine behind. Presumably there were another three people to make up their group following. The ones eager to be in the labyrinth had already descended in the first groups.
There was the glow of firelight ahead, and the corridor broadened. John looked about and nodded with satisfaction as the others came down behind. “You enter a ten by ten corridor,” John said. “It’s lit by four brackets with torches in them. Ahead of you, a ten by ten corridor runs straight ahead. There are also ten by ten corridors going off to the left and the right.” He grinned. “It’s perfect.”
Teyla looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a roleplaying game. I used to play it as a teenager. The dungeons always start exactly like this.” Jitrine was also looking at him with bewilderment. The other three people pushed on ahead, glancing back nervously at his smile and heading straight down the center corridor. They might think his amusement was a little odd, under the circumstances.
Teyla shook her head. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“It’s a puzzle. A game. I used to play a game like this,” he said.
Now she looked alarmed. “With people?”
“No, not with people!” John shoved his hair back out of his eyes. “Well, with pretend people. My friends and I had these characters…” This would take a week. “Look, it’s a really complicated game. But it’s just like this.” He looked around the smoothed stone walls, the iron brackets with torches. Yep. Just like the game. Except for that.
John took a step around, getting his back to it so no one could read his lips. “Teyla, look over my left shoulder. Up where the wall meets the ceiling.”
She breathed out. “A camera.”
“Yeah.”
Jitrine shook her head. “I do not understand.”
“They’ve got to track their bets,” John said. “Otherwise the Wraith can’t follow the game. I’ll bet there are cameras all over this maze.”
Teyla nodded. “And of course most of the contestants have no idea what they are.”
“Before we do anything too weird we’re going to have to take out the cameras,” John said. “And make it look like an accident for as long as we can.”
“You know those men in the first groups are going to ambush us,” Jitrine said. “I heard them talking. They will wait in some appropriate place and then ambush the other groups coming through.”
“That will not be as easy as they think,” Teyla said, reaching up for one of the torches. She brought it down and ground the flame out on the stone, leaving only the smoking bundle of wood. Despite the smoke, she got a second one and did the same. “Sticks,” she said, holding up the wood.
John nodded. He’d seen how lethal Teyla could be with sticks. But now she only had one good arm. “I’ll take one.”
Instead of saying ‘Get your own’ as he’d half expected her to, she handed one over with a smile. “Let us see what you have learned,” she said.
Jitrine looked at the three identical corridors, all of them leading off into darkness. “Which way?”
John thought for a second. “Teyla, which hand is a Wraith’s feeding hand? Usually, I mean.”
Her brow furrowed. “Right, I think. Why is that important?”
“Then we go left,” John said. “Look, the game master always wants you to turn right, so that’s where they’ve fleshed out the dungeon the most and that’s where the most dangerous traps are. Straight is second, and then left is the fastest way through.”
Her frown deepened. “I still have no idea what you are talking about, but left looks as good as any other way.”
“Then we go left,” John said. “And poke the ground ahead of you for traps.” He thought better of it. “Here, let me go first. You take six. I’ll do the poking.”
Teyla stepped back and let him pass her, and he jauntily started poking the floor ahead of them with the butt of the torch. Pit traps would be about par for the course.
“What about ambushes?” Jitrine said behind him.
“Where another corridor crosses or there’s a turn,” John said. “Right here there’s nowhere to hide.” About every thirty feet there was another torch in a bracket, but even the dimness between them wasn’t enough to conceal a man. Poking ahead, he casually looked up at the walls. And where there was a torch, on the opposite side there was a camera. In fact, he wasn’t certain that there weren’t small recessed lights in the
ceiling itself, turned off now.
Glancing back, he saw Teyla looking as well. “It’s like a set,” John said. “It’s pretty scary looking, but it’s nothing but a set for their games. A maze for lab rats.”
“Or rabbits?” Teyla asked, and he was glad to see her smile. She didn’t seem unnerved by the deliberate spookiness.
“Or rabbits,” he said.
Jitrine looked at him keenly. “You are not afraid because you have seen something like this before?”
John shrugged.
Jitrine squared her shoulders. “Then we may yet live.”
“I told you we would live, doctor,” Teyla said gently. “I have been in far worse places with Colonel Sheppard and come out alive.”
Ahead, the corridor opened out into another chamber. It was dark, suggesting that someone had had reason to remove the torches. “A pretty unsubtle ambush,” he murmured to Teyla. “These guys ahead of us aren’t great brains.”
“Stay back in the corridor,” Teyla said to Jitrine quietly. “We will handle this.”
John eased up toward the entrance. He could see how to play this, but it would involve Teyla doing the heavy lifting. He counted off on his fingers, one, two, three… On three he plunged through the entrance at a run, far out into the dark chamber beyond and then spun around.
Taken by surprise, the two men who had been waiting on either side of the door ran after him, one of them catching him around the knees in a flying tackle. The other one, a step behind, got Teyla’s stick across the back of the head, sending him staggering to his knees.
John rolled, laying about with the stick in his own hand. It contacted quite satisfactorily with the guy’s arm, a stinging blow that probably didn’t break bones but sure hurt. That was good enough to get his feet free, and a swift kick got the guy to let go.
Meanwhile, the third man circled Teyla warily, all too aware of his friend unconscious on the floor. She played him, the stick rising and falling in whirling patterns, silhouetted against the light of the corridor beyond. John saw her movement coming an instant before it happened, the result of practicing with her a lot. A feint, a spin, and the stick hit twice, hard on the top of his right shoulder, just on the muscle, and then the return to the groin. Her opponent collapsed to the floor moaning as the guy John had kicked gathered himself up. Wisely, he turned and ran away, skittering away into the darkness, in loud retreat.
