SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne

by Savile, Steven

  “Acoustics like that can’t be accidental. Listen to it, Jack…’”

  Jack gave him a flat look. “I prefer the Stones.”

  “Funny.”

  “I try.” He glanced at Sam. “Carter, is this thing here or not?”

  She ran the scanner’s routines again and this time she nodded.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Jack said, with a grin. “Come out, come out, where ever you are.”

  “O’Neill?”

  “Teal’c?”

  “I do not know. Something is not right.”

  “Your Spidey sense tingling, huh?”

  Teal’c said nothing, but studied their surroundings for a moment, then turned back to face him. “The Goa’uld are said to be hunting this Mujina, but I have not seen any sign of Goa’uld presence on this world. This concerns me greatly, O’Neill.”

  “Smells like a trap, you mean?” The same thing had been bothering him. Everything was just a little bit too convenient for his liking. “I’m right there with you, Big Guy. It stinks to high heaven. The idea of trusting the Tok’ra gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “There are dangers hidden here, O’Neill. Shadows. The Goa’uld are aware that we will come looking for the creature.”

  “And knowing that, they’ll be waiting for us. You’re preaching to the choir, Teal’c. It’s a big old game of cosmic chess and they’re at least three moves ahead. Which means we have to be careful.”

  Jack moved toward one of the larger pillars in the center of the vast chamber. It was covered with crude pictograms etched into the crystalline surface. He took one look at them and gave up trying to decipher what they were supposed to mean. He wasn’t interested. Right then, something else entirely had captured his attention. A sound. It was instantly familiar but utterly out of place in the half-light. Jack moved around the pillar slowly, as though playing some peculiar game of hide and seek as he followed the sound to its source.

  “Did you hear that?” Daniel asked.

  Jack did and he knew the sound well enough; the slow wet rasp of despair.

  They weren’t alone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Karma Chameleon

  Jack found the Mujina huddled in a corner, hiding in the shadows. Naked, the creature lay on its side. It was badly burned and barely conscious, the cavities where meat ought to have been picked out by darker hollows of shade, as though in the grip of some vile wasting sickness. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Someone had shackled it, and bound its mouth with primitive iron branks. The metal plate cut deep into its tongue so that blood trickled down the Mujina’s chin as it whimpered. And then they had abandoned it here to die in its own filth.

  “Doesn’t look like Goa’uld tech,” Jack observed, crouching down to examine the bolt mechanism of the medieval torture device. The bolt was oxidized with rust, as though it had been locked in place a long time ago.

  “A scold’s bridle,” Daniel told him. “Used in medieval times to silence wagging tongues.”

  “So about as primitive as it gets then.” O’Neill looked at the bolts that secured the headdress to the unfortunate creature’s skull. It was barbaric.

  “There’s no end to a torturer’s inventiveness,” Daniel agreed.

  “I advise proceeding with caution,” Teal’c said, coming up to stand behind them.

  A burlap rag had been bound across most of the creature’s face, covering its features.

  “We can’t leave it like this,” Daniel tugged at the bolt but couldn’t wrangle it loose. “It’s barbaric.” The Mujina stirred fitfully and whimpered as he struggled with the mechanism. “Have we got something that can cut through this? We’ve got to get this thing off.”

  He tugged at the bolt but only succeeded in drawing a desperate mewl from the Mujina’s stuffed mouth.

  “I’m not sure about this, Daniel,” Jack said.

  “What’s not to be sure about, Jack? This isn’t 1599.”

  “Fine, just hope I don’t get the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’, eh?”

  Sam came forward with the zat. She hunkered down beside Daniel, shuffling forward on her knees so she could get to the bolt mechanism, and fired a single pulse at the rusted iron.

  The Mujina whimpered and twisted at the sound of the weapon so close to its face — it was an instinctive reaction to the auditory reminder of the torments already burned into its skin, Jack realized. He couldn’t imagine the extent of the creature’s suffering. Seeing the aftermath was more than enough. Sam fired again, drawing another mewling protest.

  It was hard to imagine that this thing curled up on ground at his feet was the monstrous weapon the Tok’ra had warned them about. Surely it deserved their pity, not their fear? The thought lasted for as long as it took Carter to fire a third time, disintegrating the bolt, and pull the harness off. She cast it aside. Suppurating sores wept along the side of the Mujina’s face. As tenderly as he could manage in the fat-fingered gloves, Daniel eased back the hessian blindfold.

  For a moment the face that looked back up at him was utterly devoid of feature or expression, as though sheathed in a mask of flesh-toned plastic, and then as his hand came into contact with the blistered skin it began to change. It was an ugly metamorphosis. Images — faces — seemed to flicker across the mask, all of them familiar to Jack, some intimately so, some half-forgotten, others barely remembered. He saw the ghosts of his mother and father, the disapproving frown of his high school gym teacher, old sweethearts whose names he suddenly remembered even though he hadn’t thought of them since junior high: Sasha. Vicky. All these faces, all of these memories, stirred by the single brief contact. He closed his eyes when he saw Sarah looking up at him, and when he opened them Charlie was there. O’Neill swallowed. He knew it wasn’t really his son. The likeness wasn’t true; it was an idealized recreation plucked from a father’s need. Charlie’s eyes were too bright, his smile too fierce, but still it stole his heart and he understood. The Mujina was giving him what he needed most of all. It was giving him his son back — but Charlie wasn’t its’ to give.

  “Don’t look at it,” Jack said, but looking up he knew the warning was already too late. They each of them had that look of rapt need written in their eyes. He didn’t know what they were seeing, but he could guess. Daniel’s lips moved, just the slightest of twitches, but they seemed to form the name Sha’re. It was Teal’c’s fervored expression that frightened him the most. There was something about it that went beyond seeing old ghosts.

  Moving quickly, Jack grabbed the hessian blindfold and dragged it back into place over the Mujina’s eyes and kept pulling at it until it covered most of its stolen face. Even as he did, he heard Charlie’s borrowed voice inside his head. “Why? What have I done?” It was all Jack could do to ignore it.

  When he turned around he saw that Carter was crying silent tears. She looked away from the Mujina, turning her back on it, and walked away.

  He didn’t ask her who she had seen in the creature’s face. He didn’t want to know. Some griefs still had the right to remain private.

  “Teal’c, give me a hand here,” Jack said, snapping the Jaffa out of the reverie that gripped him. Teal’c shook his head once, briskly, and growled deep in his throat. It was not a sound Jack ever wanted to hear again. Together they hauled the shivering creature to its feet and carried it out of the cave. No one said a word. Locked in thoughts of their own deep-seated needs, they stood on the ridge of rock and looked down at the impossible climb.

  “I know a secret way down. I can show you,” the Mujina said in Charlie’s voice.

  “Did you hear that?” Jack asked, but the way the others looked at him was enough to tell him they hadn’t. He wondered what, if anything, the creature had said to them.

  He rattled the side of his helmet, as though trying to dislodge Charlie’s voice from inside his head. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

  “I can’t see the path. You need to remove the blindfold. I need to see or I’ll fall.�
��

  “Not a prayer.”

  “Please.”

  He never had been able to say no to Charlie.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Last Temptation of Teal’c

  Kelnorim offered a refuge for his mind, tranquility. Emerging from the twin darknesses — of the cave and the Mujina’s influence — he felt no such calm. The Mujina had shown its face to him, and in doing so had undermined everything the Jaffa held dear.

  Could it be true? Could the acceptance of Apophis be the one thing he needed to be whole? The notion turned his blood cold. He had steeled himself in preparation for what he might see. He carried a world of guilts within him, but they were his to bear. He had thought the creature would test him with the ghosts of Chulak; the disappointment of Ro’nac, father of the Shol’vah; the melancholy sadness of his wife, Drey’auc, unable to understand why he had turned his back on them and thrown away all that they had worked so hard for; even the stubborn anger of his son, Rya’c, lashing out at everyone and everything in his abandonment. All of these travails and more he had expected, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of that conceited smile blossoming across the creature’s plain face. It had gazed at him with malign intelligence, its voice an insidious whisper inside his head.

  “Come back to me, Teal’c. Stand at my side, my First Prime. That is where you belong. It is where you always belonged. You are no traitor. No Shol’vah! You are Jaffa, first among equals, the mighty Teal’c, favored of Apophis. Come back to me, my friend, and together we will stride through the galaxies. With our combined strength we can end this destructive conflict, we can bring order to the galaxies. The power to free your people is yours, all you have to do is join me.”

  Were these the words he most longed to hear?

  If they were, what did that say about him?

  Was this the promise that would make him whole once more?

  If it was, what did that say about the man he had become?

  He thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t. The creature had read him wrong. He had no desire to stand beside Apophis or any of his kind. It had never been about power. It was always about peace. He wanted freedom for his people but not at any cost.

  Above them, the sky caught fire again.

  Teal’c grasped the creature tighter around the shoulders and refused to let it so much as wriggle as he carried it down the treacherous descent. The heat of the hellish surface rose up to engulf them. Teal’c welcomed it as though it might burn away the doubt that plagued him.

  But deep within, Teal’c felt the discomfort of his symbiote. The larva was in turmoil, drawn by the Mujina’s fork-tongued promise. Was it too hearing what the creature wanted it to hear? Was it being fed dreams of dominion? The symbiote’s agitation inevitably transferred itself to Teal’c. He refused to believe the creature’s words reflected his own desire; the possibility undermined the balance he had fought so hard to achieve. He felt his heart beating against his chest, the dub dub-dub becoming erratic as a renewed rush of dread rose up inside him.

  Teal’c turned his immense will inward, breathing deeply as he sought to master the rhythms of his own flesh. His world boiled down to a single sound: the beating of his heart. He inhaled, held the breath, and then let it leak between his lips, again and again, and with each breath the tripping of his heart slowed. He erected barriers in his mind, fencing off the doubts that plagued him behind sheer indomitable willpower.

  The creature’s face belonged to the System Lord, as did the voice, but the hands did not. Apophis’ hands were delicate and fine-boned, the skin soft and supple, while the backs of Mujina’s hands were marked with fine white scars and the palms bore rough calluses. It seemed that the creature’s guise did not stretch as far as the hands, though perhaps with time the subsumption would become complete. As it was, the flaws were enough to weaken the temptation of the creature’s impossible promise.

  Still, the Mujina’s insidious whispers touched his mind, promising forgiveness over and over again.

  Teal’c looked at it squirming in his grasp and said simply: “You are not Apophis. Your forgiveness is worthless to me because I have no need of it. My soul is clean. Now leave my mind or I shall be forced to end your life to be free of you,” his voice was soft, the threat implicit. The gentle tone made his message all the more chilling.

  The wretched creature looked up at him, a desperate longing in its pupilless eyes as it shuffled forward, dragging its feet through the red dust scattered thinly across the rocks, and then he was alone. Teal’c sensed the Mujina physically withdraw from his mind. The silence was sudden and shocking — and the emptiness left behind dizzying. A last lingering urge to fight welled up within him, a need to strike out, but he crushed it.

  The Mujina led them on a different path. It was narrow and precarious as it clung to the side of the huge hill, but even at its steepest the gradient was comfortably walkable even in the clumsy boots of the evac suit.

  Something troubled Teal’c.

  It was all too easy, this search and rescue. He looked at the others. Only O’Neill seemed tense. Teal’c had served long enough to know that if the Goa’uld had a foothold on this planet and were aware of the Mujina’s unique gifts — and their true potential — they would not allow the Tau’ri to leave with their treasure. He did not believe that the Tok’ra operative had imprisoned the creature in such a cruel manner, which meant the creature had been left there to be found. And they had had no choice but to take the bait.

  Teal’c scanned the horizon looking for the tell tale signs of the ambush he knew was waiting for them. Putting himself in the enemy’s place he considered the opportunities the harsh landscape afforded. A normal foe would look to minimize their exposure to the worst of the elements, not wanting to weaken his hand, but the Jaffa were no normal enemy. Indeed, a certain breed of leader would take pride in exposing his men to the extremes Vasaveda offered, and consider it his duty to test them to the limits — meaning it was impossible to discount even the most unlikely hiding places.

  There were six possibilities; one assumed that the Goa’uld would know the path the Mujina would use to lead them down the mountain; two relied upon the element of surprise, cutting them off even as they reached for the DHD. The other three were less obvious, and therefore more appealing to a cunning commander. It was these that concerned him most gravely. The dry gulch they had walked along afforded some measure of cover for a small war host, but it was not the only such crack through the desert-like plain between the Old Man and the Stargate. The ground was cratered like the skin of a septuagenarian. The fissures were deep and wide enough for the enemy to move unseen, like burrowers crawling beneath the surface only to rise up and strike when their prey least expected it.

  Each fissure was marked by shadow.

  Teal’c followed the shadows, reading the different paths they offered the shrewd warrior. Only one ran perpendicular to the gate, and at one point its shadow was less than fifty feet from the gate. The other two were more serpentine in nature, curving away from the gate, though at certain points the shadows encroached on the DHD. The second of these struck him as overly exposed, while the first offered just enough shelter to make any Jaffa advance virtually invisible. This was the trench he would have chosen had he been leading the attack on the Tau’ri as they retreated to the safety of the Stargate.

  “Deliver the Tau’ri to your people, Teal’c,” the Mujina’s subtle insinuation returned to taunt him. “Bring them to us and you will be rewarded, First Prime.”

  Teal’c shook his head, as much in denial as to clear his thoughts from the temptation of betrayal. He learned something in that moment: the Mujina was mistaken. He was not looking for power, he was looking for freedom. They were not guilts he harbored; they were angers that simmered barely in check. That was his strength as well as his weakness. All that he had won, all that he had lost, all that he had been and all that he might have become, all of these things came together in the man that he
was. The creature might be able to tap into aspects of his ‘self’, but not the whole. It pandered to the wants of the darker places, and perhaps in some those darker desires would subsume all others, but for Teal’c that darkness was where hope lay. That darkness was where he had first nurtured the belief that his masters were not gods, from where the strength to turn on them had come; it was not darkness at all but the first spark of light that pushed back the surrounding shadows. The creature had misjudged him.

  “O’Neill, I believe the Goa’uld will strike from there.” He pointed at the shadow-line. “If we move along this path,” he gestured toward the second fissure cleaving a line through the red earth, “I believe we shall evade their ambush. We cannot allow them to look upon the creature. I fear that to do so would turn them murderous.”

  “Like they aren’t already,” O’Neill’s voice was hollow in his ear.

  “The creature has a way of influencing the mind.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Teal’c gave the colonel a puzzled look through the helmet’s tinted visor, and a moment later O’Neill said, “Doesn’t Junior help you resist?”

  He pushed the Mujina along the path in front of him. It stumbled but did not fall. “Perhaps, but I am not immune.”

  They covered the rest of the descent in silence.

  Still there was no sign of Goa’uld presence.

  Teal’c did not allow complacency to dull the edge of his unease. They were out there. He was certain. They were being watched even now. He could sense the scrutiny.