SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne (6 page)

They were going into the Ninth Circle, fully intending to hunt the devil and, if they were lucky, drag him back out with them. It didn’t bear thinking about, so of course it was all he could think about.

“It can’t be allowed to fall into the hands of the Goa’uld, surely you understand that?” the softer voice of Selina Ros said. He had noticed the symbiote had a habit of allowing its host to rise to the surface when the conversation turned uncomfortably moral. But then, perhaps everything in its world was starkly black and white?

“I just can’t help thinking it’s a case of damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” Daniel said, surprising himself with his honesty.

“Isn’t that always the way?” she said, sounding unerringly like Jack. It was precisely the sort of thing he would say.

“But it shouldn’t be, should it?” he didn’t know who he was trying to convince, himself or the Tok’ra. “Sometimes there should just be a right thing to do.”

“It would make life simpler. But — ”

“There’s always a but,” he finished for her, as though that were all she could possibly have to say on the matter. She nodded. Her faint smile didn’t reach all the way to her eyes. “We need to join the others.”

“You will do the right thing, Daniel Jackson,” she said, as though that were meant to comfort him. It didn’t.

“And that’s where the problem lies.”

He took the co-ordinates through to Hammond in the command room so that they could be input into the dialing computer. Jack and Teal’c were already there. The towering Jaffa gave him a curious look, his brow furrowing slightly around the gold glyph that marked him Jaffa. It left Daniel with the disconcerting feeling that his thoughts had been scoured, leaving his doubts red and raw on the surface. He tried to shrug it off. Now wasn’t the time to unburden himself to the others. Selina Ros was right; the Mujina could not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Goa’uld. The implications did not bear thinking about.

“Something wrong?” Jack asked.

“No more than usual,” Daniel said, managing a wry smile. “Jerichau has been telling me what to expect from this prison planet.” He told them what she had said, skimming over some of the more colorful images but making damned sure he got the point across.

“As ideas go, this is sounding worse and worse,” Jack commented, fastening one of the straps on the sleeve of his evac suit.

“Indeed,” Teal’c said. “I have heard speak of such phenomena. I believe it is quite beautiful to see the sky aflame.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful, T-man. I’m more worried about the practicalities than the aesthetics. Things like how much heat is going to be generated from the oxygen burn off and what, exactly, it’s likely to do to us. The idea of being vaporized because I spent too long staring at the sun doesn’t really appeal all that much. Not sure I want to go to my grave with a burning sky being the last thing I see, it’s a little too biblical, if you get my meaning.”

“You do not wish to die,” Teal’c said flatly, his flair for stating the obvious not letting him down. It earned a smile from Jack.

“Atta boy, Teal’c. Daniel, go get suited up.”

He nodded. Daniel walked toward the closed door, and then turned, as though pulled up by a sudden thought. “Jack?”

O’Neill turned to look at him. Daniel wanted nothing more than to take him to one side and share his misgivings about what they were getting involved in. “Something bothering you?”

Daniel shrugged. “Hard to say.” Of course, it wasn’t, it was easy to say, what was hard was to live with the consequences of what he had to say.

“Spit it out, Daniel.”

“All right, here’s the thing,” Daniel said. “Are we sure we want to do this? I mean, have we thought through the implications of bringing this creature back with us? Are we talking about trying to keep it a prisoner here, trading one cell for another? And if we aren’t, then what? It isn’t as though we can drop it off at Disney World and tell it to go sightseeing. And the only other option I can come up with turns us into a death squad. So, what are we going to do? And don’t say find it and worry about it later. The Ancients hid the Mujina for a reason: they understood the threat it posed.”

“So what do you suggest, Daniel?”

“I don’t know, Jack. I can’t see any good coming out of this. The Tok’ra called it a weapon, but it’s worse than that; you can choose not to detonate a bomb or put the safety on a gun, but how do you stop this creature from being what it is? How do you stop it from finding the one thing it knows you will respond to, and giving it to you? Kill it? That’s not what we are, is it? Or did we become the Tok’ra’s assassins when I wasn’t looking?” Daniel screwed his face up. He’d said it. He hadn’t intended to, but looking at his friend he’d not been able to stop himself. He owed it to Jack to speak up. Besides, of them all, Jack was surely the most likely to respond to the creature — after all, there was enough need in him to fuel an army of Mujinas.

“No one is killing anything,” Jack said, and Daniel almost believed him, but Jack was a soldier — he had to know it came down to assessing a credible threat and removing that threat if there was no alternative. The Mujina could not be allowed to fall into Goa’uld hands, but neither could it be allowed fall into human hands. It didn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to picture a Mayberry or a Kinsey with something like the Mujina by their side, and imagine the reflection their flawed humanity would conjure from the creature. Jack had to know full well that mankind was every bit as dangerous as anything the stars could bring down. And if he knew, then his promise had to be a lie. A well intentioned lie, but a lie just the same. “We’re on a Search and Rescue, let’s find this creature, extract it, and get back home. We can worry about the “What If’s” when we’ve made sure it can’t fall into Goa’uld hands. That’s a promise, okay? But until then we have got our orders.”

“All right, Jack,” he said, closing the door of the command room behind him.

Iblis strode purposefully through the dank corridor.
This
, he thought, and not for the first time in the year since he had awoken,
is the hive of power? This filth-ridden place?
It was laughable. These Corvani had no class. They were like grubs crawling about in their own excreta. How they had risen above the Kelani amazed him. But then, the Kelani were hardly more developed than the average monkey. He looked back at Kelkus trailing along behind him, sniffing and sniveling in his footsteps.
Monkey, yes, that was an appropriate comparison
. Iblis was tired of the wretched human, but as long as he served a purpose he would allow the man to live. He needed a disciple, and Kelkus had proven just that. Willing to do anything to spread Iblis’ influence in the Court of the Raven King without risk of exposing his nature, allowing Iblis to plant the seeds of unrest and greed he thrived upon. But it hurt him, all of this sneaking about. He battled with his ego, wanting to stride these corridors as god, as was his right.
In time,
he promised himself.
In time.
As it was, he had his own role to play and for the moment it was every bit as sycophantic as Kelkus’s.

What have I become?
he asked himself. He didn’t know the answer.

He pushed open the door to the throne room. The light streamed down in bright unbroken beams from the dozen sky-light windows around the high ceiling. Dust motes danced their dervish swirl, trapped in the beams. It was a solitary thing of beauty in a place of ugliness.

Iblis had no time for beauty.

Corvus Keen sat in the center on his chair of dead birds, his wolfhound at his feet. The man was a bloated slug, folds of fat oozing across the arms of his ostentatious chair. Iblis had to stifle the urge to laugh at the pomp with which the man dressed his world. From a distance it almost looked majestic but as he moved closer the grease and the fat stains became more noticeable. The throne was fashioned from the skulls and wings of hundreds upon hundreds of crushed and broken ravens. It was a vile construction and it stank as only carrion could. Keen sat there, drumming his fat fingers on the tiny skulls of the birds. He was surrounded on all sides by his cronies bowing and scraping and telling him what he wanted to hear. Behind them huge black velvet drapes were emblazoned with a silver sigil, Corvus Keen’s wing-spread bird. He had taken to calling himself the Raven King recently. It was an aspect of the man’s psychosis that Iblis nurtured. He seemed to truly believe that he was evolving into something greater than human. Keen wore a cloak of feathers. The gore still clung to the tips of some. It was decidedly primitive beside the crisply tailored black and silver uniforms of his soldiers.

The chamber was full. Iblis tasted tension in the air. This was good. Keen was nothing if not unpredictable, which made for curious entertainments in his domain. Iblis wondered what little delight the man had in mind for today? Torture probably. It usually was.

The crowd melted away from Iblis, allowing him to walk slowly toward the throne. He stopped at the foot of the dais and knelt, slowly, but without bowing his head, and rose. It pained him to pretend loyalty to any human. No, pain was too prosaic a term; it burned him to bend the knee. He was Goa’uld. He was no mere toady. But he could bury his nature a while longer and wear the mask of follower while it suited him. He had plans. Such plans. Keen owned these souls. Iblis owned Keen. He could live without their devotion for now.

The secret was in the game itself. Iblis was patient. He had laid out a long game. In the year since he had awoken and taken this host he had mapped out an immaculate strategy. He would not fail. When the time came he would snap Corvus Keen as easily as he would one of the human’s brittle birds. There was no rush. At least not while Keen was useful to him.

The fat man was being entertained by a nervous juggler. Everything stopped as Iblis approached the fat man. Iblis inclined his head and smiled wryly. “Please, do carry on,” he muttered, and all eyes turned on the sweating fool as he coughed slightly and shuffled his feet.

“What are you waiting for? You heard the man, entertain us.”

The fool hurled his clubs up into the air above his head and scrabbled to catch them. Too high, and too hard, their arc took them out of easy reach. Sweat beaded on the fool’s face. Iblis enjoyed the look of rapture on Keen’s features as he watched the perspiration run into the fool’s eyes.
It will all end in tears
, Iblis thought rather smugly, but then tears were Corvus Keen’s preferred currency when it came to settling debts, so that was hardly surprising. A wooden club clattered on the marbled floor. As one, Corvus Keen’s hungry court of vultures sucked in their breath. The huge wolfhound at Keen’s feet looked up at the sudden absence of sound. Seeing nothing worthy of its attention it settled down to doze again. Like its master, the dog’s fat jowls dribbled spittle as it breathed. Keen scratched the dog between the ears. It was curious how the man could look so much like the beast, and ever more so the longer they spent in each other’s company.

Iblis looked at the juggler.

“You are a tedious man, Fool,” Keen rasped. “What can you do that is more interesting? Watching you throw your clubs in the air is sending me to sleep. We have to make things more exciting. I know, you’re going to juggle, Fool, but you are going to do it like your life depends on it. Between barks from Senisia here, you drop a club you lose a finger, understand? If you make it you walk away with your fingers and fifty Raqs for your trouble. Now, pick up your clubs.”

Iblis watched the poor man gather his clubs with everyone staring at him, willing him to fail. A few fingers would put Keen in the right kind of mood to be amenable to the idea the Goa’uld was going to plant in his mind later.

Corvus Keen’s hand snaked out and tugged at the wolfhound’s ear, causing the dog to bark angrily as it looked around for the source of the unexpected attack.

The first club sailed into the air, followed along its arc by the second. The juggler caught the first in his left hand even as the he tossed the third with his right. It was a simple pattern but there was no need for anything elaborate, the threat of lost fingers added spice enough to the game as it was. The clubs flew hand over hand for six passes. He almost dropped one twice but recovered. Keen stared intently at the man. The sores around his lips and chin glistened with saliva.

The fool managed two more passes before he dropped the first club. He crumbled inward after that, whimpering and pleading for the dog to bark even as he fumbled another club and then another.

He dropped five clubs before the dog barked again.

“You owe me a hand, Fool,” Keen said, picking at the dirt beneath his fingernail disinterestedly. “But I am in a good mood,” Keen smiled gregariously. “I think I shall spare you.”

Relief swept over the juggler’s face.

It was short lived.

“I am a man of my word. I will just take the fingers; three from your right hand, two from your left, I think. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind and take both of your hands.”

Two of Keen’s loyal Raven Guard dragged the juggler away kicking and screaming every step of the way. The court was silent for a moment, not shocked by the decree so much as savoring it. Of course, every one of them knew that but for the grace of Keen there they themselves went.