The Barque of Heaven

by Stargate

  Jack rolled right over and surged to his feet. Nearby, Teal'c was having a knock-down smack fest with his opponent, driving the man back with every blow. Jack spun around further, tracking the Goa'uld-and found her stalking Daniel.

  As Teal'c dispatched the last Jaffa, Carter and Jack moved in on the Goa'uld. The sudden cessation of fighting let Daniel's voice carry over to them.

  11 ... so superior, so smug. You're nothing but a parasite, a helpless leech."

  Mat prowled toward him, hands clenching in rage. "Silence, slave. You know nothing of Us. We have ruled the stars since before your pitiful species could make fire. We shall continue on long after your miserable planet is dust."

  "No, I don't think so. You're about to die, just like Ra. Noone is going to mourn you. But before you go, I'd like to set you straight on a couple of things. I helped kill Ra. You see, I was there with Jack in the pyramid and we both sent that bomb into Ra's ship while my wife and the Abydonians rose up and killed Ra's soldiers."

  "Fabrications," Mat hissed. "We know the truth-ripped from your mate's empty shell by Amonet." Mat's hand ribbon began to glow as she raised her arm.

  "Sha're lied to Amonet. She protected me and her people. Your-mate-died alone, deserted by even his child-slaves."

  Mat howled a furious scream, flung out her arm and loosed a blast that Daniel barely ducked. In the same moment as Jack and Carter closed on her, Daniel pulled back his right arm, opened his clenched fist and let fly the object he held concealed. It hit her square between the eyes, with force enough to stagger her. Jack tackled her and with Carter's added weight, brought her down. A half-pace behind them, Teal'c reached down and snapped her neck.

  Chest heaving for oxygen, Jack staggered to his feet. One foot rolled off the bright object Daniel had thrown. Carter picked it up.

  "What on earth is that?" Jack asked.

  Daniel straightened up gingerly. "A plumb-bob."

  "A plumb-bob?"

  "The archaeologist's friend." Daniel managed a grin which soon faded. "Jack, she has to die."

  "Ding, dong. She is dead, Daniel. Again."

  "Exactly. You know they'll revive her. She's a danger to Abydos. To Earth now, too."

  "He has a point, sir." Carter turned toward the sound of Jaffa, rapidly approaching.

  "Yeah. Teal'c, dial us up. Carter, give me a hand here."

  Together they dragged Mat's body to lie face down, draped through the Stargate. Stepping back, they pulled Daniel out of range. Teal'c punched in the address, smacked the activation crystal and uttered the password in a hoarse shout.

  "An hra!"

  The Stargate churned to life, its brilliant watery glow suddenly lighting up the area as the body of their enemy disintegrated. Tensely they waited for it to settle. The backwash spiraled out then in, revealing nothing but sand and bushes around them.

  The event horizon sloshed to stability. Teal'c joined his teammates and the four of them, drained beyond thought, lunged into the Stargate and were gone.

  GATE THIRTEEN

  Sharpener of Souls

  hey stumbled out of the Stargate and turned, expecting more of Mat's Jaffa to appear, until finally the wormhole disengaged and they were safe. A cold wind whipped around their bodies as they stood on yet another stone platform. It was night here, a dark unfriendly place of stony ground between two desolate mountain peaks, their tops lost in cloud far above.

  Daniel staggered as the adrenalin from their long flight through the tunnels and the fight with Mat drained away. He had little left now; his legs shook and his head roared as blood pounded through his veins. He reached out, caught Jack's arm and barely managed to control his collapse to the ground.

  "Daniel?" Jack grabbed at him. He knelt awkwardly, wincing with his own aches.

  Daniel could manage barely more than a breathy groan. "Rest... need rest." He slumped on the cold stone, Jack hovering over him. Close by, Sam wavered on her feet, weight mostly on one leg, gamely attempting to stay vigilant and survey their new surroundings. Teal'c moved slowly to the rear of the Stargate and leant heavily against the ring to inspect the moon-clock.

  "Here, lie down for a while. We're safe now." Jack eased Daniel down onto his right side. "At least Mat's goons aren't still on our tails. We should have time to rest here."

  "We do not." Teal'c pushed away from the Stargate and sat with a thump on the stone steps. "The clock indicates the moon will set in two hours, thirty-seven minutes."

  Daniel shivered and pushed himself upright. He looked at Jack's tired face, appearing even more drained in the uncertain light as clouds shrouded the bluish moon. They had no gear left, bar their boots, pants and ragged t-shirts. Everything else was lying in a cave on some distant planet they could never return to-not that they wanted to.

  "What number planet are we up to?" he asked suddenly. "This is thirteen, isn't it?"

  "Yes, this is the last one," Sam replied tiredly. "And I think that's where we have to go." She pointed down to the far end of the canyon where shadows rippled as the clouds raced across the moon, releasing flashes of brilliance to shine out like a celestial disco. One bright burst illuminated a forbidding structure; its black stone seemed to swallow the light wherever it touched.

  "Nice," Jack muttered. "Well, at least we don't have to go looking for it. C'mon, let's get this over with."

  Daniel gathered himself and wondered bleakly how he was going to get to his feet, let alone all the way down to the edifice. Every breath was cut short with a jolt of pain under his rib cage and a corresponding stab through his shoulder. The pounding headache and every other aching muscle added a synchronized background hum of misery. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up at his teammates-saw his weariness reflected in their faces.

  "Guess misery really does love company," he muttered.

  "Daniel?"

  "Help me up, Jack."

  Jack staggered with his weight and Teal'c lent a hand to get him wobbling on his feet, blood draining from his head in a dizzying flood. The canyon stretched away before them, cold and sinister, prickling his senses with a foreboding that set his nerves on edge. There was something bad here....

  "Oh!" Sam's head jerked up and she peered intently out into the shadows.

  "What?" Jack and Teal'c both tensed, hands twitching for long gone weapons.

  "I've just remembered something. Actually, it's not my mem ory... it must be Jolinar's." She turned to stare at Daniel, her eyes huge in the moonlight. "I know why Mat seemed so familiar. I-Jolinar-saw her. It must have been over a year ago. Jolinar was working undercover in Cronus's court. He went to Mat's homeworld to do a deal, and... Amonet was there." She broke off as Daniel felt his gaze harden. She gulped and forced herself to continue.

  "Amonet had traded information to Mat for a refuge. Oh, Daniel. I'm sorry. I did know where she was."

  Distressed, she glanced away. Daniel sighed, and forced himself to stand straighter despite visions crowding his mind of Sha're surrounded by Goa'uld. And if he had known earlier where she was, what then? His tired brain couldn't settle on any kind of logic.

  "It's okay, Sam." His soft voice brought her turning toward him. "We'll work it out."

  "Okay, let's shelve this for the moment, shall we?" Jack nudged him gently and Daniel got one foot moving, then the next. As he came up to Sam, she reached out and clutched his arm. He caught her hand and squeezed back.

  A hesitant smile flickered over her face and she pressed something cold into his palm.

  "Don't want you to go unarmed."

  He looked down at his plumb-bob, shining dully in the moonlight. Daniel nodded and they slowly trailed Jack and Teal'c away from the Stargate.

  Sam fell in behind Daniel, but paused at the edge of the stone steps as a shimmer of white caught her eye and a chill of dread swept over her. She whipped her head around, but could see nothing amiss. She became aware of Daniel halting and turning to stare past her toward the Stargate.

  "Do you feel that?" he w
hispered.

  "Yes." Slowly she turned, peering through the shadows.

  "I've felt it before-on the foggy planet."

  Sam looked at him in surprise. "So did I, on planet eight, in the trees... and, oh, wow, way back on the water planet. It was the same feeling." Momentary relief that she was not imagining things gave way to a full case of the creeps at the thought of what could generate such feelings.

  The shimmer caught her eye again. There, by the Stargate, it wavered, then resolved... into....

  "Oh, boy," Sam uttered the words in the same instant as Daniel.

  A ghostly skeletal figure emerged from the shadows. Thin and lithe, its enormous eye sockets seemed too dark, even hollow. It stood no taller than her and seemed to be solid one moment and as insubstantial as mist the next, as if it hovered between the worlds of the living and dead.

  "Go, " she hissed at Daniel, unable to tear her gaze from the apparition. Whatever this-creature-spirit-was she knew instinctively there could be nothing good coming from it. She shivered.

  Daniel needed no urging to get as far as possible from it. He certainly seemed to have no desire to talk to it. She took his right arm and hauled him along. Carefully, they backed away, off the stone and onto the rocky earth.

  The creature flitted after them, but went no further than the stone paving around the Stargate. When they had retreated a short distance, Sam turned her head and hissed, "Colonel, Teal'c. "

  Teal'c got to them first, looking beyond them for a new threat.

  "There's a-um-something, actually, I'm not even sure, but it...." She trailed off, feeling foolish now that she'd been scared by that-thing.

  The colonel stopped next to her and gave her a baffled look.

  "It's evil," Daniel filled in firmly. "Evil, angry, and we need to get anywhere that's not near it."

  "And we're sure our imaginations aren't playing with us, are we?"

  "Yes, we are. I felt the same thing on the seventh planet and Sam felt it too, a couple of times. Whatever it is, it's following us."

  "A cold impression of ill-intent and dread; is this what you felt?" Teal'c asked.

  "That's it exactly, Teal'c." Sam shuddered and looked over her shoulder again.

  "I, too, experienced a similar feeling on the seventh planet, when we were isolated by the fog."

  "What? Why didn't you say anything?" The colonel glared at him. "Why didn't anyone say anything?"

  "Because whining about creepy feelings in the dark is just too much of a cliche, and we know how you feel about those. Can we go now?" Daniel tried not to lean too heavily on Sam and made little shooing motions at their leader, heroically resisting a glance back.

  "Are you going to make it?" asked the colonel, eyeing him critically.

  "I'm feeling much better now, thank you," Daniel lied through his teeth.

  "Teal'c, you holding up okay?"

  "I am fine." Teal'c's voice didn't waver but its threadiness had Sam shooting a covert look of concern at him.

  Colonel O'Neill frowned and shrugged. "Carter?"

  "Raring to go, sir."

  The colonel didn't buy it for a second. He shook his head, turned and stalked off, muttering about trading his team in for bone-head Marines after all.

  Teal'c overtook him with huge strides and led the way into the narrowing canyon. The colonel slowed to let Sam and Daniel hobble past, and then trudged along in the rear. Frequent glances over their shoulders revealed no pursuer.

  The wind picked up as they walked. Steep, bare rock rose up on both sides, limiting their view of the clouds scudding over the moon. The chill in the wind cut through their ragged clothing and sent gooseflesh shivering over all of them.

  Several feet ahead of Daniel and Sam, Teal'c let out a cry of pain and stumbled to one side. Crying out once more, he teetered off-balance and ended up with one hand on the ground, bracing his widely-spaced legs.

  "Teal'c? What is it?" Colonel O'Neill jogged past them and headed for Teal'c.

  "Come no further." Teal'c's voice was harsh and pained.

  The colonel skidded to a halt and peered in the uncertain light. A meter in front of him the ground seemed to be littered with gleaming stones; from one canyon wall to the other, they stretched on toward the black temple. Two meters in, Teal'c was frozen in his awkward position, making no move to straighten up.

  "Talk to me." Colonel O'Neill put out a hand to halt Sam and Daniel as they came abreast of him.

  "These stones-they are as sharp as knives." Teal'c grunted in pain and shifted his hand so that only his fingertips were braced on the ground. There was a sheen of wetness on his palm. "They have cut through the soles of my boots with great ease."

  "For crying out loud." The colonel tentatively touched his boot to the closest and they watched in horror as it sliced into the rigid sole as if it were made of cream-cheese. "Oh, swell. How the hell do we cross this?" He paced along the perimeter of the stone field to the rock wall, then turned and crossed to the opposite rock wall, twenty meters away. The glinting stones lay thick and unbroken by a path or any other means they could use to pass through them.

  Sam edged out from under Daniel's arm and joined the colonel. She carefully picked a stone up and grimaced at the wickedly sharp edges.

  "There has to be a way across. Teal'c, can you see any deviation in the stones? Any different shape or texture?"

  "I cannot," Teal'c ground out, his voice filled with pain.

  The colonel stalked back to them, unable to pick out anything clearly in the dim light. Sam looked at Daniel who was standing, left arm pressed tightly to his side, looking not at the ground, but at the temple, then back to the Stargate.

  "The temple and the Stargate are in exact alignment. This might be significant...." He trailed a few steps to one side, lining up between the two structures. She followed his line of sight. The clouds obligingly parted company with the moon, allowing a shaft of bluish light to shine down on them.

  "There! Do you see it?" she yelped, aborting the instinct to lunge forward. "A wide, flattish stone-Teal'c, it's just to your right."

  "Stepping-stones. Miserable son of a fake god," the colonel cursed as Sam leaned as far as she could, just making out a path of stepping stones, set about a meter apart, winding erratically into the field of deadly flint.

  Teal'c gingerly pulled himself upright and focused on the nearest step. He gathered himself, his usual steadiness notably lost. He tensed, then launched through the air. His left foot landed square on the step and he flailed wildly for balance as his momentum threatened to carry him over. Finally he put his right foot down safely.

  "Thank you, Major Carter."

  Daniel winced and sighed. "How do we get over this without falling and getting cut to ribbons?"

  They watched Teal'c rip a strip off his t-shirt and bind his bleeding hand.

  "What do we have we can use?" Sam asked.

  The colonel shook his head and made a show of covering the exhaustion lining his face. "Precious little."

  She pulled a face and pushed on with the obligatory followup. "What do we need?"

  "A rope, a plank... beer would be nice." He scrubbed his face with his hands and then lowered them, staring at Daniel. "Give me your belt."

  "What? Why?" Daniel frowned at him, hands going protectively to his waist.

  "We need some way to steady each other. We tie our belts around our wrists and take each stone one at a time."

  "Well, it won't help much if my pants fall down."

  A snort of laughter escaped Sam before she could stop it.

  "Carter. Belt. Now."

  "Sir! Yes sir!" She pulled her belt off and handed it to the colonel, patting Daniel's rump as she passed. "That's the advantage of having hips."

  "I have hips," protested Daniel as the colonel tied one end of the belt in a thick knot around his wrist, and the other around Sam's.

  "Yeah, but you don't have any meat on them." He tied his belt to Daniel's left wrist and secured the other end
to his own.

  "Teal'c, we're coming out to you. We'll tie off, then get this show on the road, okay?"

  "Understood."

  Colonel O'Neill lined up closest to the first stepping stone. "By the right, and...."

  He made the leap easily, turned and beckoned to Daniel. The stepping-stone wasn't large, but it would fit two people in a pinch. Sam held her breath as he leapt onto the stone. He teetered alarmingly for a moment until the colonel could steady him.

  "Okay?"

  "No, but keep going."

  The colonel nodded and turned to Teal'c. "Here I come, big guy."

  Teal'c opened his mouth to reply but ended up with an armful of the colonel instead. They balanced quickly, aided by the belt stretching back to Daniel. Teal'c tied his belt between the two of them and they watched anxiously as Sam sprang to join Daniel on his stepping-stone.

  Teal'c jumped neatly to the next step. Daniel jumped to Colonel O'Neill, where they shuffled about until the colonel joined Teal'c once again and Sam was with Daniel. Then the process began all over again.

  "Oof."

  "Ow."

  "Son of a..."

  "Ow, Sam!"

  "Sorry, Daniel."

  "Please do not place your hand there, O'Neill."

  "Carter, wipe the smirk off. There's nothing funny about sticking your hand in a Jaffa's...."

  "Yes, sir. Whateveryousaysir."

  Sam felt a exhaustion-fuelled sense of unreality threaten to swamp her as she poised on her stepping-stone and lined up the next jump. All around, the flint gleamed in the moonlight, looking deceptively benign. But, one false step and-she didn't want to think what the result would be. She tensed, and once again sprang into Daniel's embrace, trying to cushion the impact against him.

  "Hi there. Come here often?" she breathed into his ear.

  Daniel smiled faintly. His body felt too warm against hers and he was breathing heavily. The burst of adrenaline that had got him off the Stargate platform and moving was clearly exhausted.