“Apophis is dead.” As always, Teal’c took immense satisfaction in the declaration — and in the brief shock Iblis could not mask.
“You do not lie well, Jaffa. I shall consider the fact that you are capable of deceiving your god, but now is not the time for that punishment. The truth this time?”
Teal’c said nothing.
Iblis waited.
“Silence will not save you, Jaffa. I can make you talk, and believe me, I will not be gentle.” Iblis raised his right hand. The jewel in the heart of his palm glowed a dull red then turned angry as Iblis spread his fingers wide. “Do you enjoy pain, Jaffa? Do you think there is nobility in suffering? Let me assure you, there is not. But if you wish to suffer as atonement for your failure, pain is the very least I can offer you.”
The pulse of raw energy slammed into Teal’c’s chest and hurled him across the floor. He hit the edge of the doorframe and sprawled whorishly in the center of the doorway as the blazing light sizzled its way up over the muscles of his chest before fastening on his face. In seconds a mask of crackling energy engulfed his gasping lips. The bright energy bristled with a life all of its own, splinters of angrier scarlet darting into Teal’c’s eyes and up through his flared nostrils, invading and invasive.
In a supreme feat of will, Teal’c bit down on the screams, refusing to give the Goa’uld the satisfaction of seeing his pain.
That only served to infuriate Iblis, and intensify the fury spitting fire from his palm. The Goa’uld stood over him, the smile completely removed from his eyes as he drove the rage of the hand device deeper into the Jaffa’s skull.
Blood dribbled from Teal’c’s mouth as he forced his head forward.
His eyes rolled up inside his skull but Iblis would not allow him to collapse.
“The truth, Jaffa.”
“Apophis is dead,” Teal’c spat through the pain, baring his teeth. “I betrayed him. To the Tau’ri.”
The Goa’uld stood over him, pulling the white linen mask down so that Teal’c could see him properly for the first time. Iblis’ face was as much a mask as the white cloth. His eyes blazed with intolerable cruelty. “You sicken me, Jaffa. Do you really believe someone as weak as you could kill Apophis? You are not worthy of the air you breathe. I should tear the symbiote from your gut and leave you to rot in regret as you mourn yourself, the life leaking out of your limbs hour by hour until there is only betrayal to cling to as you slide slowly into that endless winter night where your god will be waiting for you to torture you throughout the afterlife.”
The mask of energy writhed across Teal’c’s face, turning the world violent red. Pain blazed behind his eyes as the Goa’uld’s will dug deeper, churning through his grief and guilt and leaving him raw.
“It is your Tau’ri friends who are dead, Shol’vah. How does it feel to know that there will be no salvation for them now?” Iblis smiled cruelly, and then, as though the notion had just struck him, asked: “Do you know where they are?”
Teal’c said nothing.
“No? Well, shall I tell you? Yes, yes, I think I should. These humans of yours are on their way to one of our facilities. Shall I tell you what happens there? Yes, yes, of course you are curious. They will be stripped, tortured, experimented upon, and in the end they will be destroyed along with the other cattle. That is the fate that awaits your friends. Ah, I see the curiosity in your eyes, Shol’vah! You are worried about yourself. And well you should be. Believe me when I say yours will be a fate worse than death. That is my promise to you, traitor. I shall kill you, and raise you, and kill you and bring back again and again until all traces of rebellion in your soul are purged, and you are a hollow thing devoid of mind or spirit. Your friends will not save you, just as you will not save them. Consider it my gift to the memory of Apophis.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Skin and Bones
“Let me have him, master,” Kelkus said, fawning at the feet of Iblis.
The Goa’uld looked at his apostle. “I think not.”
“Please, master.”
“Why?”
Kelkus thought about his answer, choosing his words carefully. “I would do you honor, my god.”
“Explain.”
“I would turn his flesh into an instrument of your will, master,” Kelkus said, slowly, relishing the notion unfolding in his mind. “I would cure his skin and fashion a book to record your wisdom for the ages. I would turn this traitor of the divine into a testimony of your power, master.”
“Indeed?” Iblis looked down at the Shol’vah’s unconscious body. “And you would record all of my triumphs on his body?”
“I would make it my life’s work: The Living Book of The Lord God, Iblis,” Kelkus promised. “I would record every moment from your resurrection. I would chronicle the glories of your will, the triumphs of your might, every word, and every righteous death. The brilliance, the beauty and wonder, all of it, writ on sheets cured from the traitor’s body. I would make you immortal, master.”
“I am a god, Kelkus, I have no need of words to make me immortal, but I will admit there is a delicious irony to the thought of the Shol’vah’s corpse being used to draw new followers to my side.”
“It is fitting, master. The Apostate betrayed your brother god, but by turning his flesh into a holy relic you rob him of his victory and forever make him a fundamental part of yours.”
“Your words please me, Kelkus, and you are right, again. Make it so. Turn the traitor into my scripture. I would write the first testament in tribute to my brother god, Apophis. The remainder of his flesh is yours. The future is waiting to be written on the bodies of the faithless.”
“Very well, master.” The little man tried to lift the Jaffa, wrestling his hands beneath his bulk, but try as he might, he would not move.
“Perhaps you should cut the brute down into more manageable pieces,” Iblis suggested as he stepped over the body. “I am taking the transporter to the Rabelais facility. I do not wish to be disturbed. See that I am not.” With that the Goa’uld walked out through the door.
It took all of Kelkus’ strength to man-handle the Jaffa’s deadweight up into a sitting position. Teal’c’s head lolled forward and his arms hung slackly at his side as he lurched forward into the little man’s embrace. Kelkus grunted. He braced his back against the doorway to give him the extra leverage he needed to haul Teal’c up onto his knees, and then gasping and panting, all the way across the floor to the steel table.
Teal’c lifted his head groggily.
Without thinking, Kelkus drove his knee into the side of the Jaffa’s head with as much force as he could muster. The noise was sickening as bone crunched bone. For a moment Kelkus stood there, horrified by what he had just done, and then Teal’c fell, crashing face first into the side of the operating table. The collision pushed the table into the line of drips and monitors, and began the chain reaction that brought everything down.
Scalpels and scissors scattered across the tiles. One of the drips bled out saline across the floor, the puddle swelling around the unconscious Jaffa as it swallowed the surgical implements.
Giving up on trying to get Teal’c onto the slab, Kelkus fumbled about in the saline for one of the blades, determined to please his god.
He watched the shallow rise and fall of the Jaffa’s chest.
Kelkus took Teal’c’s arm, found a vein and worked the needle of one of the drips into it, and then set the liquid to stream into Teal’c’s blood. He waited a full five minutes, believing that the chemical was taking his victim deeper and deeper into drugged oblivion. Each minute’s patience bought him that little bit more safety. He poked at the peculiar cross-wise wound in the center of the Jaffa’s stomach, sinking his finger into it all the way up to the second knuckle. Kelkus felt something squirming beneath his touch. “Curious,” he mumbled, probing deeper, and then instead of a slight shift he felt whatever it was suddenly lash out — and then he screamed and flinched as teeth sank into him. The slender whit
e symbiote came wriggling out, suckling at the blood leaking from the bite. The slurping turned his stomach. Kelkus reeled away, stumbling as he tripped over the fallen instruments. Still the white worm clung to him, gnawing deep to the bone as he tried to shake it loose.
Kelkus shook his arm more and more violently, desperately trying to dislodge the thing, until finally the skin of his finger shredded and the worm flew across the room.
He fell to his knees, gagging.
Sickness clawed up through his gut into his throat.
He looked around, frantically trying to see where the worm had fallen, but he couldn’t see it for the mess he had made trying to get Teal’c up onto the operating table. Kelkus flailed about frantically, pushing aside the fallen drips and kidney trays, and scrabbled back, kicking out left and right as he did so until his back was pressed up against the wall. His eyes darted everywhere but there was no sign of the worm.
He didn’t dare move. There was a small metal dish just within reach, if he stretched. He couldn’t see beyond it. Tentatively, Kelkus reached out, turning it over with his fingers. Relief whistled between his lips. A cold anxious sweat trickled down the side of his neck. He looked down at his ruined finger and saw the blood already clotting around him on the floor. There was so much blood. More than he could afford to spill. He wrapped his good hand around his ruined one, the blood still leaking between his fingers. He needed to fashion some sort of wadding for it to leak into or he’d simply bleed and bleed until there was nothing left. Nausea and dizziness both swarmed up inside him. Kelkus pressed his back against the wall. He needed to focus. Think. He couldn’t see the worm so he had to forget about it, as simple as that. He had to concentrate. Think. Clearly. Think.
He watched the shallow rise and fall of the Jaffa’s chest.
Think.
Think.
He could cut away the Jaffa’s uniform and fashion a dressing from the cloth. Yes. That made sense.
Kelkus crawled across on his hands and knees, cradling the wounded one to his chest as the blood kept coming. He picked up the scalpel and held it there, poised above the Jaffa’s chest waiting for it to settle before he cut away the layers of Teal’c’s clothes. Moving quickly and clumsily, he wrapped the cloth around his hand, making a makeshift bandage, and then, still on his hands and knees, bent forward and rested the tip of the blade on the hardness of the bone where Teal’c’s throat met his breast.
“One last chance to tell me your secrets, star man,” Kelkus said, his voice ragged with pain. He looked around, half-expecting to see the worm slithering across the floor toward him. He held off on making the incision for a full minute, silently urging Teal’c to open his eyes and spill everything, all of the secrets in his head, the worlds beyond the Stargate, the cultures, the lost and found civilizations, all of it. The thought set a thrill of excitement through him. He could feel himself weakening and couldn’t afford to collapse without first ending the Jaffa’s life. “Talk to me. Tell me all of it,” he virtually pleaded, and then when the Jaffa said nothing, he gave a final shrug. “Suit yourself then.”
Gritting his teeth, Kelkus pressed down, hard enough to draw blood, opening his prisoner up with a single swift slice.
Chapter Twenty-five
Shine
Teal’c opened his eyes as the scalpel’s blade sliced into his chest.
Instinctively, his hand snaked out and clamped around Kelkus’ wrist, preventing the blade from biting deep. Without the symbiote he was weaker, and his head swam with the narcotic the man had pumped into his veins. Kelkus almost succeeded in wrenching his arm free, but Teal’c drew him closer, pulling him down until they were eye to eye, and with a single savage twist he snapped the man’s wrist. The scalpel fell through his fingers as the bones cracked, digging into Teal’c’s pectoral. Kelkus screamed. Teal’c launched himself straight up, arching his back and driving the gold tattoo into Kelkus’ face. The impact was sickening. Kelkus reeled back, spitting blood as he flailed about for balance. Teal’c pushed himself up but fell, his body betraying him. He slipped and fell back, cracking his head against the floor. The world spun around him and he heard mocking laughter ringing in his ears. It was a galling sound. With blood dripping from his broken nose and cradling his broken wrist, Kelkus still managed to laugh. It was a mad burst of relief escaping him but that didn’t make it any less galling.
Stupidly, the man leaned closer.
“Not so strong now, are you, star man? Oh no, not so strong at all.”
Teal’c closed his eyes and let the rage of frustration fuel one colossal effort: without opening his eyes, Teal’c roared up at him, fists flying. Three blows hit Kelkus, face, throat and sternum. The man stopped laughing. He fell back, clawing at his neck and sucking at the air, unable to swallow any of it.
And then his eyes flared wide and he was dead. Teal’c fell back onto the cold tiles, spent. His vision swam, everything in the room losing its solidity and morphing into something else — none of it made any sense to his drug addled brain. He struggled to force his eyes to focus, but the world was having none of it. Every sharp line seemed to bleed into another shape or form.
It was only as the symbiote crawled back out through the dead man’s mouth that Teal’c understood what had happened. The symbiote slithered down Kelkus’ bloody chin. It looked weak and sickly, as though the few moments out of its incubator had drained it badly. Teal’c knew it had killed the man for one reason — to protect its incubator. Had it been able to take a host it would have been him lying on the floor, and not Kelkus. Teal’c gathered it up and fed it back into the breeding pouch in his stomach. He knelt over the dead man, able to see now the wound where the symbiote had entered him. He didn’t dwell on it; death was death no matter how it was delivered. He stepped over the corpse and out of the room without looking either down or back. He had to get out of this place and find the others. The time had come to make it his fight.
Teal’c’ rationalized what was happening. His head was fogged with the anesthetic Kelkus had pumped into his veins. It slowed the world down and leant it soft edges. He stumbled tangle-footed five times as he lurched down the winding stair, needing the wall to stop himself from falling. Every twist of the spiral stair had the world shift another fraction beneath his feet. He struggled to maintain his focus. He tried to think. He needed to find his staff weapon if he was going to have a chance of getting out of this place, and then he needed to purge the drugs from his system and clear his head. The symbiote was sick. It would take a long time for it to be strong enough to cleanse his blood and for him to feel focused and strong. He reached the door at the bottom of the stairs and stopped, listening for sounds, movement. Left or right? Teal’c drew in a single deep breath and held it. Right. He moved away from the door and stumbled as he started running. He reached out with his left hand to steady himself but didn’t slow down.
The corridor presented him with more choices: left, right, or straight on? He had no way of knowing how many men Corvus Keen had garrisoned in the complex — but even accounting for their slovenly behavior in the drill yard, it was surely more than Teal’c could handle. But he had promised those slaves a reckoning. Guilt held him in place a moment longer than was safe.
Two of Corvus Keen’s Raven Guard came around the corner and stopped dead in their tracks. The look of surprise on their faces lasted as long as their grip on consciousness. Teal’c swept the feet out from beneath the first and drove his elbow down hard into the man’s temple as the second man raised his gun. In the time it took for him to squeeze off a single round Teal’c drove his fist hard up between the soldier’s legs, hammering the blow right the way through to his gut. The gun misfired twice as the man fell. Teal’c rose cautiously, keeping his eyes fixed on the groaning soldier. The man rolled onto his back and looked up at him, still trying to reach out for his gun. Left with no choice, Teal’c leaned in and delivered an incapacitating blow. He had no way of knowing if the man was alive or dead when he left him. He didn
’t have the luxury of caring.
With the echo of gunshots still hanging in the air, he started to run again.
He had to make a choice, but it was no kind of choice at all — staggering around like some blind man looking for a weapon that could be anywhere, risking being found and brought back to face the madness of the Goa’uld, or running toward the light, and finding any possible way out of there.
He chose the light — which was easier said than done. With bare bulbs buzzing and sizzling in the chill of the windowless corridors the secret geography of the place was impenetrable. He took the lack of windows to mean he had come down one level too far and was underground. Which meant he must have missed the door onto the level above, which in turn meant he needed to retreat back to the spiral stair — but before he could back track he heard shouts of alarm and booted feet charging up behind him.
Teal’c didn’t wait, and didn’t look back. He ran, knowing even as he did that the trail of bodies he left behind would tell them exactly which way he had gone. There was nothing he could do about that. With each step the fog clouding his brain parted a little more, his symbiote starting to neutralize the narcotic. All he had to do was keep on moving and stay out of their way, eventually he would find a window and then he would be out of there.
He hit three locked doors and what appeared to be a garbage chute. Banging his fist off a fourth door in frustration, Teal’c lurched deeper into the complex. He had no sense of where he was in relation to the outside world. Behind him he heard a klaxon sound. They had obviously found the bodies.
Two more right turns and he found himself standing in front of another rusted iron door. Behind it he heard the hiss and clatter of machines. Behind him he heard the guard running. There was no going back. Hoping it would open, Teal’c pushed at the door. It groaned inward. Teal’c stepped through quickly, closing it behind him.
SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne Page 17
