by Jamie Duncan
She nodded. “And there’s got to be more stairs around here. Service entrance, maybe.”
She gathered her strength and heaved herself to her feet, then went to lean on the door next to him. One ear pressed to the door, she listened carefully. Through the sound of Teal’c’s labored breathing she could make out the steady pulsing of the alarm and a distant shout, but nothing else. There was no way to know if anyone stood guard outside the door. She drew back her head at the sudden sound of footsteps, coming from the small hallway and dwindling again in the direction of the mezzanine. Maybe their luck was improving.
After checking Teal’c to make sure he was ready, she keyed the control and stepped to the side as the door panel slid open. She checked the hall. It was empty, except for a single Jaffa past the doorway at the far end. Sam crept along the wall, pausing beside the fallen Jaffa to slide his knife out of his boot. She left the zat in her waistband, not wanting to alert the guard when she opened and charged the weapon. The knife was riskier but quieter. Fortunately for her, the other Jaffa wasn’t wearing a helmet. She pulled herself to her full height and balanced on the balls of her feet—he was a little taller than she was—blew out a breath and lunged forward, circling his neck with one arm. She yanked his head back and sliced her knife across his throat. He slumped without a fight, and she lowered him to the ground, used his sleeve to wipe the blood off of her blade before tucking the knife into her waistband and nodding to Teal’c. He braced himself on the wall until he got to the doorway, and she looped his arm over her shoulders.
“Geez,” she gasped, stepping around the dead Jaffa and into the dimness of the hallway beyond. “All that muscle is really heavy.” He tried to pull away from her at that, but she held him firmly. “Joking, Teal’c. You’re a—” She grunted as she got a toe under her discarded jacket and flipped it up to catch it with her free hand, grinning to feel the powerbar still in the pocket. “You’re a featherweight.”
“I am not,” he contradicted her softly. She handed him the jacket and they got moving again. She could feel the heat of his wound against her side, but he made no sound of pain or protest.
The hallway wasn’t long—about thirty feet—and ended at an intersection. At one end of the new corridor was yet another intersection, at the other a doorway, a regular, human-type door. A left turn would take them deeper into the complex, maybe toward the armory and their gear; a right turn would lead toward the outside wall of the building—always provided her geography wasn’t too screwed up. Teal’c was already leaning right, so she let his momentum carry them in that direction.
“Door will be guarded,” she said, as they eased along the hallway toward it. Teal’c was getting heavier, his legs starting to buckle a little every couple of steps. “Hang on, hang on, hang on,” she chanted under her breath.
This door opened onto a stairwell and another door at the bottom, pale light showing through its grated window. Outside. She got Teal’c into the stairwell, where he leaned on the railing, and turned back to pull the door shut behind them.
She never saw the blow coming. It caught her on the side of her head and spun her away from her assailant, so that she hit the floor on her hands and knees at Teal’c’s feet. She heard the crackling, springing sound of a zat firing and Teal’c’s grunt of pain. The current discharged along the railing in blue arcs, and Teal’c tumbled after them, rolling heavily down the stairs and colliding with the wall at the bottom.
With a snarl, Sam lashed out, getting her foot between the Jaffa’s legs. Twisting her body, she used her leg like a lever and threw him off balance. She only had time to register a blur of motion, then she was rolling, tangled in his limbs, and crashing down the stairs with him.
The fall knocked the wind out of her, even with the Jaffa as padding, and she lay on her back on top of him while the world whirled and canted and rocked back into its regular upright geometry. When she was able to breathe again, she craned her neck to look back up the stairs. There was no other pursuit, for now. Getting her elbows under her, she pushed herself up and rolled over onto her stomach. Nothing broken. Everything bruised.
The Jaffa was dead, his head twisted at an awkward angle.
“Teal’c,” she whispered and spat a bit of blood onto the floor. She’d done a number on her tongue.
He’d hit the wall with his back, and, unlike the Jaffa guard, he wasn’t lying akimbo. Everything seemed to be in its place. But he was out cold. Sam let her head fall onto his shoulder as she shuddered in a breath and let it out slowly.
“Teal’c,” she said again, her mouth next to his ear. “Please, wake up. We’re not safe here.” She tried slapping him again, but with no luck. “Please, Teal’c. I can’t lift you if you don’t help.” She managed to get to her knees and then unsteadily to her feet. She got a hand under his armpit and one on his arm and pulled. Getting him going was practically impossible. Her eyes were tearing up from exhaustion and hurt and fear and it made her furious. Heaving with all her might, she got him upright, stepped over his legs and braced him from the other side with her knee while she grabbed him under both arms and tried to drag him. He wouldn’t budge. Too many days without food or water, and she was dizzy and too weak to pull him the stupid three feet to the door. “Damnit, Teal’c! Wake up! The door’s right there! It’s right there!”
She leaned away from his weight and pulled again, but her boots lost purchase on the concrete floor and she fell, cracking her elbow hard enough to send lightning up her arm. With a wince, she let out a hopeless little laugh. “You know, in other circumstances, this would be kind of funny.” Except it wasn’t.
She sat up. Teal’c’s head was in her lap. She bowed as low over him as she could and patted the side of his face. “Okay, okay,” she conceded. “We’ll take a minute and regroup.” She pulled the zat out of her waistband, wincing at the zat-shaped bruise against her spine, and put it on the floor beside her. “Next escape, you are so carrying me.” Her ears were ringing and the floor was rising and falling under her like a rolling sea. She rested her head against the wall and thought of the Colonel and the look on his face when Daniel had lifted his head, blood on his lips…
Daniel was grinning at her when she opened her eyes. But it wasn’t Daniel at all. She reached out for the zat. A hand grabbed her wrist to stop her and the face came closer, large, pale eyes peering at her through a curtain of dark, curly hair.
“My brother says you’re worth something, Major Carter,” the woman said with a faint twitching of the lips that might have been a skeptical smile. “I hope he’s right.”
If there was one thing Jack tended to lack on missions, it was healthy curiosity. He left that to Carter and Daniel, and spent his time worrying about other things. Like how to get out of a stroll into a yawning dark hole with a Goa’uld literally breathing down his neck. This whole adventure was taking on some ridiculously cliché overtones, the kind he was going to mock like crazy if he lived to tell anyone about it. Now was the moment he wanted to turn to Carter and ask her what she thought was down there and if there were any weird energy readings, but he knew that answer already. His body was telling him, via the slippery nausea and the creeping panic, that something down there was Very Bad. As he stood there alone with Aris and Sebek, he had a weird sensation of his limbs having been amputated: no Daniel, to bury his clear-cut objectives in moral quandaries and fascinating cultural details; no Teal’c, to exchange a knowing glance with; no Carter, to say, with respect, “I don’t think so, sir” when he made a suggestion. No team, to order into position as they set about exploring.
Aris Boch stood at Jack’s left elbow and stared into the darkness with him. “We’ll need light,” he said, and glanced at Jack. “Don’t suppose you know how to turn those on?”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Can’t read the instructions.”
Behind him, Sebek huffed out a silent laugh, which raised the hair on Jack’s neck again. “It is fortunate that you amuse us.”
“Yeah,” Jac
k said. “Fortunate.” He shifted the focus of his attention to Aris, whose weapon was within grabbing distance. As if reading his intentions—and given the situation, it wasn’t hard -Aris drew the weapon and secured it in his hand.
“Don’t try it,” he said softly. “I’d hate to have to kill you.”
“And leave you without a tour guide?” Jack said. He and Aris exchanged a long, steady look. There wasn’t any way out but in.
“Provide light,” Sebek said.
“With what? Do you want me to glow?” Jack craned his neck to look over his shoulder at Sebek. “Seriously—no idea here.”
“Then you may use your implements.” Sebek’s arm curved around Jack, holding out Jack’s small flashlight. Jack took it from Sebek’s hand and swayed to the left, away from that arm, bumping gently into Aris in the process. “And you also, hunter,” Sebek said.
Jack clicked the light on, then off. “Okay,” he said. Sebek shoved him from behind, not quite hard enough to knock Jack off balance, but enough for him to get the message.
Just past the threshold, the smell hit him: old, musty, like a stack of used books. Whatever was in there had been closed up too long. The dry air whispered past him like ghosts escaping as the pressure equalized. Jack squinted ahead and switched the flash on. The blackness seemed to swallow up the light, giving no comfort. Aris’ version of the flashlight was a stick that stuttered to life, a soft blue, when he shook it, and it seemed to fare no better. Jack hesitated until Sebek jabbed him between the shoulder blades with one of his gold-capped fingers.
“Move forward!”
“Hey,” Jack said, in pointless protest. He switched off the light, let the darkness press against him, close and cloying. “If you’re in such a hurry, by all means, step right on by.”
“Do not try our patience, human.” The snake hung back in the doorway, framed by the dim orange of guttering torches in the antechamber.
Aris fiddled with his stick until the blue flared brighter. “That’s better,” he said, and charged past Jack as though he had no fear of what might await them inside. Jack’s instincts were screaming a warning, but he felt no obligation to give it to Aris. If Aris went down, it meant one less obstacle to overcome on his way out.
“Come on,” Aris said, a disembodied voice in the dark.
Jack sighed and followed the sound and the intermittent wink of blue. He could hear Sebek behind him, but didn’t bother to look.
A few paces in, he smacked into Aris, who was broad and unmoving in his path. “What?” Jack said. Aris turned and pushed him aside.
“Step carefully,” Aris said. “There’s something strange about this place.”
“You just now figured that out?” Jack said. A low ambient glow rose in their space, gathering intensity like a bulb on a dimmer switch until he could make out shapes, and then distinct images. On either side of them, walls of solid stone stretched to a low ceiling, rough-carved, perhaps two feet overhead—close enough for Jack to feel a little cramped. Aris was already stooping, even though he had plenty of clearance. Each wall was covered with writing, floor to ceiling, the same little picto-do-dads that had been etched on the vault door. Jack resisted the urge to touch them. Probably not a good idea. The light extended about ten feet ahead of them, and at its edge the engravings were interrupted by plain, flat pillars that flanked the hall. If he squinted a little, Jack could see the writing start up again on the far side of the pillars and fade into blackness.
“Look at this,” Aris said, striding to the edge of the illuminated section. After a slight hesitation, the hallway ahead of him grew brighter. Another few paces. The glow seemed to run ahead of him, beckoning. The corridor stretched another thirty feet straight ahead, then forked into two, a right and left turn at sharp angles.
“Guess it wouldn’t be prudent to split up,” Jack said. He moved a bit further down the corridor, counting steps. Maybe the people who’d built this place could tell one hallway from another, but there was no chance he’d be able to. Each wall was the same, as far as he could tell. Of course, the writing was probably different, and maybe Daniel could tell, but to Jack’s untrained eye it was as meaningless as chicken scratch. Less, even. Sebek didn’t seem like he was going to offer up any advice, though, so Jack could be wrong about Daniel. Or maybe Daniel was clamming up in there, somehow. Wishful thinking.
“Choose a direction,” Sebek ordered.
Jack turned back to make a smart remark and was momentarily startled by the sight of Daniel’s face, watching him intently. No matter how long they were at this, the sight of not-Daniel was going to be a nasty shock every time. But then his attention was captured by something else. “Hope you weren’t planning on leaving anytime soon,” he said, and pointed back the way they’d come. The ambient light lingered behind them, slowly fading now, but augmented by a weird, shifting glow. Where the door had been, there was now a seamless patch of wall, black, without writing. The dark surface was vaguely iridescent, oddly slippery to the gaze, like it was there, and it wasn’t, like it was solid and somehow fluidly rippling, too.
Aris shouldered past Jack and Sebek and holstered both his glowstick and weapon, so his hands would be free to touch. He ran his fingers around the outline of the door, then across its surface, and his frown cleared. He nodded, confirming an unspoken assumption. He thumped the barrier with the back of his knuckles, snatching his hand back quickly and shaking it vigorously. “Force field,” he reported. “Not rock or metal.” He looked down at his hand and rubbed his knuckles. “Tingly.”
Jack started back toward him, but Sebek stepped into his path. “Our goal is that way,” he said, aiming his chin over Jack’s shoulder. “Move.”
Jack turned and looked down the corridor toward the juncture. He sighed. “Onward, then.”
“Looks like it.” Aris made no move to come back to the front, and Jack pursed his lips. He should have known.
Something brushed past him.
He turned, arm outstretched, ready to strike with the flashlight, but there was nothing there. The low-grade nausea that had been dogging him since his first hour down in the mine rose, bile burning the back of his throat. He lost his balance and staggered sideways, crashing into one of those blank pillars. Not enough support to keep him on his feet, though, and he pitched over onto the ground. He beat back panic—so not like him; he and panic weren’t that well acquainted—and tried to focus. Something was making him feel this way, something out of his control. He had to get control.
Dimly, he could hear Sebek moaning. Too bad he couldn’t get over there to shake the damn snake loose—he could snap his neck so easily… Daniel’s neck Jack put his hands over his ears and struggled to catch his breath. He couldn’t hurt Daniel. Not now. Not yet.
Aris knelt beside him and hauled him up to a sitting position. “Fight it,” he growled. “Pull yourself together.”
“We have to get out of here,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “We can’t stay down here.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Aris hissed. Behind him, Sebek thrashed on the ground. Jack stared at him, until Aris shook his shoulders, hard. “You’re going to help me, and then I might help you. Might. But you have to get up. Get moving. Fight this.”
“Fight what?” Jack shook his head, but the dizziness came back with a vengeance. “What the hell is it?”
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Aris said. He pointed down the corridor. “As soon as you choose. Right or left.”
“Damn it,” Jack said. He pushed Aris’ hand off his arm and crouched by the wall, half sitting, half standing. Sebek had rolled over on his belly and was quiet. “Guess you’d better pick him up, too.”
Aris gave him a sharp look. “Don’t even think about killing him.”
Jack opened his mouth to say that was his friend trapped in there, that he wasn’t going to consider that option now… but he’d be a liar. He had pictured it all, in those moments of rage, down to the sound Daniel’s neck would make when
it snapped, the crunch of bone beneath the force he’d apply. He shuddered and closed his eyes. “Hurry up,” he told Aris. “Let’s get to it.”
CHAPTER NINE
The watery sunlight seeped through the latticework across the window and drew clumsy, blurred lines of shadow across Teal’c’s face, his bared chest. Sam’s hands moved in and out of the light as she swiped the rag gently across the burn above his hip and sat back a little to squeeze the blood into the bowl at her knees. With a grimace, she leaned in close and peered at the wound. It was ugly, a charred arc glistening black. It would be red if the sun weren’t so wan. But the staff blast had hit obliquely and the wound wasn’t deep, thank goodness. It was painful, but hopefully not life-threatening. Sam suspected that she’d do better to worry about the quality of the water and the rags she was using to bind him up. The cloth was blackened with soot, and an oily film floated on the surface of the bowl, making slow-moving rainbows that scattered when she finally dropped the rag into the bloody water for the last time.
Teal’c’s chest rose and fell slowly but regularly, and his eyes darted behind closed lids. As she sat on her heels, watching him, her teeth in her lip, Sam tried to make her brain think forward. Without the tretonin there was no way for him to fight off infection. She closed her eyes briefly and rubbed the nails of her curled fingers against her lips. “Damn,” she breathed.
From where he sat huddled on the other side of Teal’c, Aadi narrowed his eyes at her and repeated the curse softly as if trying it out. Sam was too tired to bother explaining.
“Perhaps some food,” a soft voice said from beside her, and small, rough hands lifted the bowl, passed it to someone out of sight.
Sam looked at the woman who settled down next to her. She wasn’t exactly pretty, Sam decided, or not anymore. She looked hungry, and probably older than her years. The hair pulled back from her face and escaping from a knot at her neck was black shot with grey. The same black soot that drifted down over the whole city had worked into the lines around her eyes and mouth, as though she were a pencil drawing, sketched in haste. Her face was angular, with prominent cheekbones over hollow cheeks, and her upper lip puckered at the corner with a scar that curved up along her nose and out to the corner of her eye. A close call, that one.
