STARGATE ATLANTIS: Secrets (Book 5 in the Legacy series)

by Scott, Melissa

  “South, I believe,” she said. Teyla leaned forward, looking out the windscreen.

  “Smoke,” Ronon said. They swept over a cluster of villages by the mouth of a river, cooking smoke rising into the air from stone chimneys. On the headland above there was what looked like a square tower house, a huddle of outbuildings in its shadow. A fleet of little fishing boats stood offshore. “Not uninhabited,” Ronon said.

  “They don’t look like a lot of trouble,” John said. Another fishing village further down the coast where Teyla indicated, twenty or thirty buildings together where a break in the sea cliffs was formed by an outflowing stream. “Teyla?”

  Teyla shook her head. “Come around again,” she said.

  John brought the jumper around, dropping down to 4,000 feet and slowing. Sea cliffs. Miles and miles of sea cliffs. He could see the white speckles here and there of birds roosting by the hundreds. Every bit of cliff looked alike.

  “I cannot tell,” Teyla said, frustration in her voice. “It was a round tower on the cliff distant from any river or stream, but I do not see it or anything that might have been it.”

  “These cliffs have probably changed in 10,000 years,” John said. “Erosion.”

  Ronon let out a sigh from behind John, one that sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief. It would be nice to just call the mission off and go home. Couldn’t find it, end of story.

  But no. Ronon was going to have to work with Rodney. They were going to have to get over this thing, and they weren’t going to do that by avoiding each other.

  “Let’s put it down near that little fishing village,” John said. “Let’s ask the locals if they know anything about it.”

  “Do you seriously think…” Rodney began.

  That sounded like the old Rodney. “It’s worth a try,” John said, turning the puddle jumper around and looking for some level ground that wasn’t either in the village or too far away.

  “A marsh? You had to land in a marsh?” Rodney pulled his boot out of four inches of stinking mud. “There’s a whole planet full of rocks and you had to land in a marsh!”

  “Suck it up, McKay,” Ronon said, stepping off the back of the puddle jumper confidently and striding toward the fishing village. Teyla followed him down the ramp, an expression on her face that said louder than words that it was good to hear what passed for normal around here.

  “Hang on,” John said, waiting until Teyla was clear of the ramp to close it up and cloak the jumper. “Wait for us.”

  “I can’t believe you landed in a marsh.”

  “Because in the ocean is a bad idea, and so is in the river. Which left on the cliff or in the marsh. And since I can’t park vertically…” John replied.

  Ronon turned around, arms spread. “I don’t know what you expect to get out of these people,” he said.

  “They may know something,” Teyla said. “Often there are stories about old ruins, even if there is not much that is visible from the air. And there were sea caves beneath the tower. The caves may still be there even if the tower is gone after ten thousand years.”

  “Should have brought Lynn,” Ronon said. “He’s pretty good with those things.”

  “If we find anything interesting we’ll go get him,” John said. And he meant it. He’d learned his lesson about not going back for specialists when you needed them.

  Some children with baskets were heading toward the sea cliffs, a big black dog with them. The dog snarled, but one of the kids, a girl about twelve, held him by his leather collar.

  “Hey, kids,” John said, taking off his sunglasses and giving them a big smile. “What’s up?”

  “We’re going egg hunting,” the littlest one piped up, a blond boy maybe six or seven. “On the cliffs.”

  The older girl hushed him. “You are travelers from afar?”

  “Yes,” Teyla said, coming forward with her best trader’s smile. “We have come a long distance, and we do not know our way around here.”

  “We don’t have an inn,” the girl said, lifting her chin. “Not like some. But we do have a Pilgrim House. Are you Pilgrims?” Her eyes flickered over Ronon and Rodney, then came to rest on Rodney. “Is he sick?”

  “Yes,” Teyla said. “He is our friend and he has been very sick. But it is not an illness you can catch.”

  She nodded. What Teyla had said seemed to pass muster somehow. “I’m Lyra.”

  “I am Teyla,” Teyla said. “And I am grateful for your name and your welcome.”

  Small population, John thought, looking at the kids. All that red and blond hair was recessive, and tended to be rare on planets that had a lot of contact with other worlds. These kids were mostly tow headed, with the exception of one kid with hair as red as Halling’s. Boys and girls alike wore rough wool trousers and tunics with woolen jackets and caps. There must be sheep somewhere, and that dog looked like it was probably bred for herding and sent with the kids to keep an eye on them.

  “Are you here to seek healing for your friend?” Lyra asked, still looking at Rodney appraisingly. “He ought to get well soon with so many people to intercede for him.”

  “We hope he will be well soon,” Teyla said. “But we do not know how to find what we are looking for. Perhaps you can help us?”

  “Are you looking for the Shrine?” the oldest boy asked. “I know the way. I’ll guide you for a token!”

  Lyra shoved him quiet. “You know it’s not nice to ask Pilgrims for tokens! Showing a Pilgrim the way is an act of charity!”

  “The Shrine?” Rodney asked. “Is that like the…thing… that time?” He looked at Ronon inquiringly.

  “Like the Shrine of Talus?” Ronon’s eyebrows rose. They’d taken Rodney to the Shrine of Talus a year ago and more, when he’d contracted a deadly brain parasite. It had been Ronon’s idea, and despite Jennifer and Woolsey’s objections, taking Rodney there had proved to be the right thing to do.

  “I don’t know this Shrine of Talus you speak of,” Lyra said respectfully. “Ours is the Shrine of the Bride. But Pilgrims come from a long way to seek healing for their kindred there. Lots of people are healed.” She put her hand on the head of the littlest boy, the loud one. “My brother would have died when he was a baby if it hadn’t been for the Shrine. He was born with a hole in his heart, the Bride said, but my grandfather made the intercession and he’s just fine. So I know it works,” she said solemnly.

  “He looks strong and healthy now,” Teyla said, and only John would have heard the tiny catch in her voice. Birth defects like that killed on Athos too.

  “I am!” the boy yelled at the top of his voice. “I’m really strong!”

  “I see you are,” Teyla said, and her mouth twitched with amusement. She looked at Lyra again. “We do not know how to do this correctly, how to, what is it you say? Ask for intercession?”

  “You go that way,” Lyra said, pointing. “Along the path there, the one that runs along the top, until you get to a path that goes down. It’s kind of steep, but we’ve tried to make it easier for people who are sick by putting a rope barrier along the edge so there’s something to hold onto. You go down to the Shrine. It’s one of the entrances to the World Beneath, the Land of the Dead, and you ask the Bride of the Lord of the Dead to help you.”

  “Some kind of local priestess?” Rodney asked. “It’s probably the cave that does it anyway, not flim-flam…”

  “Hush,” John said, and no, everything wasn’t back to normal, because Rodney did, looking abashed. Teyla was getting the information they needed, and if Rodney would just shut up they’d have it.

  “Anyway, the Bride examines you, and if she thinks that you can be healed she’ll take you and your intercessors into the cave. And then you come back healed,” Lyra said.

  “A device like the Shrine of Talus…” Rodney said quietly.

  “Shut up, McKay,” Ronon growled.

  John turned around. “Look, if we’ve got an Ancient device in a cave we’re on the right track. So let’s just play t
his.”

  “And if you cannot be healed?” Teyla asked.

  Lyra looked solemn. “Sometimes she says you can’t be. That’s what she says with very old people a lot. That what’s ailing them is old age, and that there is no cure for it. And so she refuses the fee.”

  “Ok,” John said. “Let’s go talk to this Bride. I think she’ll be able to help us.”

  “I hope she can for your friend’s sake,” Lyra said brightly. “Give her my greetings if you would, and tell her my mother said to bring her three eggs when we’ve finished the day’s search, so I’ll be there later.”

  “We will take the Bride your greetings,” Teyla said warmly. “And thank you, Lyra.”

  The children waved as they started up the cliff path, the big black dog running along beside them.

  Teyla frowned.

  “Something wrong?” John asked quietly.

  “No.” She looked out to sea, the birds rushing up in a whirling crowd from the cliffs where the dog ran barking. “This may be the place. I cannot tell. If so, the cliffs have much changed. I think the tower may have stood in a place that is no longer here. The sea may have taken it.”

  “Hopefully not the caves,” John said. “Sounds like a local priestess, and maybe she knows about the ruins or about the sea caves. Probably a good person to ask.”

  “Yes,” Teyla said, glancing at Rodney. “I expect that you are right.”

  The cliffs were steep, but the path was clearly marked as the children had said. Along the edge of the drop there was a rope held in place by iron stakes, evidence of some metalwork at least. They climbed down in single file, John, then Teyla, Rodney and Ronon.

  John glanced back at Teyla, who had an unusually abstracted expression on her face. “What do you think this priestess…” he began.

  The cave mouth opened up, a broad dark portal in the weathered gray stone, some strange striations in the rock around it like veins of quartz. Bells of brass hung on long pale threads around it, each one moving with the continual wind, a faint soft chiming. He saw the movement inside the door just a moment too late, red hair too vivid for humanity, blue tinged skin too pale. He saw her move, and it seemed to take an eternity to raise his P90, forever, as though he were underwater. The Wraith Queen met his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A Door Into Summer

  Teyla saw John move before she saw why. Of course she sensed Wraith. Rodney was standing right behind her and had been, his mind a constant irritation, like listening to continual chatter. She was thinking that she would have to work with him not about speaking as Guide had worked with her, but about maintaining silence…

  And then there was the Queen. She stood in the doorway of the cave, her long dress of undyed wool blending with the gray stones, and her mind leapt with delight for one moment before it was eclipsed by fear.

  Her eyes met John’s as he brought up the weapon, so slow, but not slow enough…

  …there was a high pitched scream and John’s finger jerked just as he pulled the barrel of the P90 up, bullets ringing off the hanging bells, off the stones, missing the child who hurled himself between, throwing himself at the Wraith Queen’s waist.

  “No,” Teyla said, her hand on his arm as he took a deep breath, feeling the muscles in his arm shaking. “No,” she said, her eyes on the Queen’s, the Queen’s eyes on hers, held in tableau.

  “Damn it,” John said under his breath.

  The child looked up at him, a boy perhaps five years old, his white hair shoulder length, the Queen on her knees beside him, her arms around him and her shoulder turned to the humans as though to shelter him behind her regenerative abilities. They had never seen a Wraith child before. There had been Ellia, of course, but she was already adolescent, the young queen John had killed. This child was much younger.

  Behind, she heard Ronon’s pistol power up. “Put it down,” John said. “Teyla’s got the situation under control.”

  “I do,” Teyla said slowly. She could feel the Queen’s mind in their locked gaze, fear — mostly fear there. She would do nothing to harm them while they might harm her child. He was too young to regenerate. Teyla knew that in a moment, felt the Queen’s astonishment that she did not know. And astonishment at all she did.

  Her pale bluish brow knitted. “What are you?” she asked in a tone full of curiosity.

  “I am Teyla Emmagan of Athos,” Teyla said. “Teyla Who Walks Through Gates. Osprey’s Daughter.” All her names, birth and earned name and her lineage, as was proper.

  The young queen shook her head. Yes, Teyla thought, she was young. Not so young as Waterlight, but young as Steelflower pretended to be. Her eyes flicked to Rodney. “What is he?”

  “Mine,” Teyla said, and felt Rodney’s flicker of pleasure and embarrassment at once.

  She shook her head again, long red hair half covering the child. “You are impossible.”

  “So I have been told,” Teyla said, words spoken and thought at once. “I am abomination. A cleverman of Osprey mixed his DNA with that of his captives, and I am that result, Osprey’s human daughter.” John shifted, and she thought he was looking behind her, catching Ronon’s eye. “And who are you?”

  She stood up, still holding the child before her, one hand on each of his shoulders. “I am the Bride of the Lord of the Dead, Alabaster of the lineage of Osprey, and I am the Guardian of the Shrine.”

  The child bit down on his lower lip, his eyes going back and forth from one to another. “Mama, I’m scared.”

  Ronon made some inarticulate noise Teyla couldn’t interpret.

  “There is nothing to fear,” she said, and hoped she spoke the truth. “Not if your mother will treat with us under the six symbols of truce, as is proper queen to queen.”

  “A human queen.” Her yellow eyes were expressionless, measuring, but the tenor of her mind was bright, curiosity warring with fear.

  Teyla had felt the like, knew suddenly where she had heard the name before… “You are Guide’s daughter,” she said.

  A flare of bright hope, just as quickly cut off and held close. “I am Snow’s daughter, and Guide was her Consort,” she said carefully.

  “Guide’s daughter?” Rodney’s voice went up a scale. “Oh for the love of…”

  “Ok.” John slung the P90 to port arms. “Ronon, put it away. We’re not going to shoot Todd’s grandkid while we’re technically his ally.”

  “You are allied with my father?” Alabaster looked from one to the other skeptically.

  “For some value of allied,” Rodney said.

  “No.” Ronon kept his gun leveled, the barrel over Teyla’s shoulder. “No. We’ve had enough of this.”

  She turned about. “Ronon,” she said quietly. “You cannot shoot a child.”

  He didn’t waver, his eyes on Alabaster. “What do you think they eat, her and that little parasite there? Those villagers we saw a few minutes ago. People who are stupid enough to come here looking for healing and find her instead. You think she doesn’t kill their children? You think that little girl you were talking to earlier is anything but a snack for her? You want to watch that kid wither into a ninety-five year old without having her life?” Ronon’s lips opened in a snarl. “It’s a delicacy for you, isn’t it? Feeding on children. So tasty. You like babies in arms best, don’t you? But they go so fast. They don’t usually even have time to cry.”

  “Ronon!” John stepped in front of the gun. “Put it down, buddy.”

  “No.”

  “Let Teyla handle this,” John said, his eyes level even as Ronon’s finger twitched.

  “No. This stuff has gone far enough.” He looked at Alabaster over John’s shoulder. “How many? How many villagers have you killed?”

  “None,” she said quietly.

  “Liar.”

  Alabaster’s face seemed even paler. “I have fed on many, but I have not fed enough to kill, and I have fed on no one unwilling.”

  “Parasite.”

  “I give t
hem full value in return,” Alabaster said. Her eyes shifted to Teyla, her mind open so that she could see the truth of her words. “What mother would not give years off her life for her child’s healing? What man would not do the same for the woman he loved, or for his best friend? They come to me seeking healing, and if I can give it I offer a bargain. I will heal the one they love with some of their own years, two thirds to heal and a third as my fee. If they wish, I will spread it among several people, as many as care to come and plead as intercessors.”

  “Lyra’s brother,” Teyla said, a piece fitting into place.

  Alabaster nodded. “Just so. Without healing that is far beyond the technology of this planet he should not have lived more than a few days. But his grandfather stood surety, saying that he had already had many full years. Fifteen years I took from his grandfather, five as my fee and ten to heal Jasen. I closed the hole in his heart that he had been born with.” Her eyes flicked to Ronon. “I gave him life, not death.”

  “Ronon,” John said quietly, “Stand down.”

  Wordlessly, Ronon turned and walked away, his footsteps loud on the trail above.

  “Rodney, stay here,” John said, and followed him. She could not touch John’s mind, but Teyla did not need to. She saw it all in his eyes.

  “It will be well,” she said. And why not? She was a trader and the daughter of a trader, and she was Steelflower too. Why not negotiate with a Wraith queen with no one but Rodney for backup, a Rodney whose mind was entirely open to the persuasion of a queen? Then we will see who is the stronger queen, the part of her that was Steelflower said.

  Alabaster watched them go, and when John’s footsteps had faded away she looked at Teyla instead, her shoulders relaxing fractionally. “I do not understand what passes among your blades.”