Stargate SG-1: Trial by Fire: SG1-1 (33 page)

he torch had burned down to a tired red glimmer. It didn't
matter now. Jack hadn't slept a wink, and he heard them
coming, despite Tertius' deafening snores. A broken nose could
play hell on one's personal acoustics. But he had a feeling he'd
have heard them even if they'd glided down the corridor four feet
above the ground and wearing white sheets with eyeholes. Practice
makes perfect.

Four of them, counting the steps. Two to a man. You could hang
between them like a sack of potatoes or a six-year-old on the way
to the dentist, but it wouldn't work. If you didn't come willingly,
they'd simply drag you to where you were going. They never
talked, and they didn't care. For some reason it made you feel more
helpless, more like a thing. Less than human. Some wind-up toy.
Press the right buttons, and it screamed.

His right hand developed a life of its own, fingers trailing over his
chest, scouting for the odd spot of skin that would suddenly tingle
and ache. Funny, that. No marks, no scars, just a memory of pain.
Somehow the sarcophagus had left those nerve endings untouched.
The fingers listened as his heartbeat raced away. Between two rapid
thuds he realized that he wished Teal'c had come. A staff blast or
five would have knocked a hole even into that wall, and they'd be
long gone.

And what about the kids?

Loser!

He rolled on his side, nearly falling off the stone bench, got
up, and tiptoed over to Tertius. The snoring was deceptive. Above
that Tyrean purple nose, the man's eyes flew open as soon as Jack
touched him.

"They're coming," mumbled Tertius. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

Bolts slid back and rattled. No quiet touch on a pane to shift the
pull of gravity. Just bolts, sliding back and rattling. Homey, like
Baal had discovered a foible for the quaint. Jack was still trying to decide if this improved the outlook when the door opened to
reveal four men. Four. He'd known that. Two to one. All of them
shorter than he, which surprised him. He'd instinctively anticipated
the 6'8" Rent-A-Goon variety. Instead it was two Jaffa wannabes
and two priests. The sourpuss he remembered from that kangaroo
court on the island. His colleague was thin-faced, fat-bellied, and
goggle-eyed, and looked as baffled as Jack felt.

"May I ask you to come with us?" Goggle-Eyes enquired
politely, smiling.

Tertius cocked a sardonic eyebrow. In combination with the
torchlight and the nose, it lent him the air of a wayward lesser
demon who'd accidentally participated in a rodeo. "We'd be
delighted," he said and stood.

Delighted wouldn't have been Jack's choice of words, but who
was he to argue? For a second he wondered what would have
happened if Tertius had said, Sorry, guys, we're kinda busy right
now.

The politeness of the approach might have deteriorated a little.
As it was, nobody even tied their hands. The priests led the way out
of the cell, leaving the wannabes to herd them past other cells full
of uneasy whispers, through barred gates, along moldy walls slick
with green moisture after the rains, around dozens of corners, and
finally to a confined set of stairs. He'd been here before. The stairs
led to the western corner of the courtyard. From the top spilled
a warm, unsteady glow and the rhubarb of excited voices. The
audience were getting restive.

"Do not be afraid," Goggle-Eyes said, almost kindly. "Examine
your heart and soul, and you cannot fail to make the right
decision."

Goggle-Eyes seemed to think Jack was human. Things couldn't
be afraid.

The walls either side of the stairs were white, limestone scrubbed
and tinted rosy by the light. The rhubarb grew louder with every
step, and he wanted the quiet of his cabin. Behind him he could
hear Tertius. Did Tertius like to fish? Did androids dream of electric
sheep?

What?

Get a grip, O'Neill! You're losing it!

He stopped briefly at the top of the staircase, blinking against the
brightness of countless torches outside. Then his eyes adjusted, and
he saw a phalanx of Temple Guards, ready to escort them. Beyond,
an anonymous sea of faces. Purple-framed white faces, gaping
eyes and mouths that breathed a communal sigh of anticipation.
It briefly floated above the crowd and sank back into utter silence.
Then the Guards started moving, some falling in behind him,
separating him from Tertius and ushering him through a passage,
cleared of people and lined by acolytes, towards the open space
before the tower. Gaping eyes and mouths, stuck between rapture
and greed, tracked his every step. Any second now they'd suck him
in, swallow him alive.

From somewhere among them, a familiar grating voice advised,
"Chin up, duckie!"

Peeking past the shoulders and pungent underarm aroma of
two acolytes, Daniel watched Jack approach the arena. He seemed
to walk on eggshells, and if he got any more tense, he'd shatter
into pieces too small to find. Suddenly, and for no reason Daniel
could detect, some of the tension sloughed off and there was a
minute smile and a twitch, as though he'd meant to turn around
and stopped himself at the last moment. A split-second later, some
of the lilac and fuchsia mass opposite broke into flutters and settled
down again. Ayzebel's women were over there. Kelly. It had to
have been Kelly, unable to keep her mouth shut, as usual. For
once Dr. Jackson felt profoundly grateful for the Professor's oral
dysfunction.

Jack looked more alert now, half-hooded eyes scanning the
crowd, doing what training and experience demanded he do,
assessing the situation. He'd spot them, Daniel was almost certain
of it. Directly behind the cordon of acolytes stood Flavius and the
second Phrygian commander with twenty soldiers.

It'd been a gamble, and one that had required an awful lot of
persuasion. Strictly no caps, and the Phrygians hadn't liked that.
Plus, there'd only been two spare robes to disguise the officers.
The men had been forced to strip off their armor and rely on their own plain cloaks. As it turned out, they were in good company. The
people who'd come down from the mountain villages wore similar
outfits. Raising goats obviously didn't generate enough income to
afford dyed linen or silk.

The thought of Phoenician socio-economics, reassuringly bland,
provided some sort of a mental breather. Jack was a mere ten feet
away now, and it would be much better if all he saw was the wealth
of emotion applicable to obsolete gross national product.

Dark, searching eyes met Daniel's and lit up with a flash of
relief Relief? Daniel was surprised enough to grin, the end result
probably being on a par with Teal'c's early efforts. But Jack had
moved on already, and behind him followed Tertius, studiously
inspecting the flagstones for fear of giving his men away. The pair
were surrounded by a contingent of ten Temple Guards.

As far as Daniel could tell, these ten were the only ones out
in the courtyard. Two more flanked the tower gates and the rest,
sixty strong, were posted around the colonnade, currently minding
the children in their cells. At the first sign of trouble they'd close
off the court and trap everyone inside a killing ground. Diagonally
across, at the eastern perimeter of the open space, Daniel picked out
Hamilgart, engaged in crowd control, like the rest of the acolytes.
On the man's face hung a chilling mix of fascination and pure
terror. He knew the script, didn't he?

If - no, when - push came to shove, it would be up to Flavius,
Daniel, and the Phrygians to protect Jack and Tertius, at the same
time hopefully luring the Guards under the arcade into the open,
where they'd be targets for Sam and Teal'c and the archers. Daniel
felt an urge to check if his team mates were in position and curbed
it. Even a single glance could draw attention to the roof, largely
because everyone else was mesmerized by the goings-on outside
the tower.

The Guards lined up Jack and Tertius some distance apart from
each other and hustled back in one hell of a hurry. For a moment
nothing else happened, and Jack seemed to be held in place by sheer
puzzlement. Suddenly he teetered as if drunk. The accompanying
gasp from the crowd went up like an explosion, only to fizzle to
breathless silence. Craning his neck Daniel nudged the acolyte in front of him. The man shifted a few inches, cleared the view.

Ablution with scented water, Dr. Jackson's foot! His mission
objective had just changed.

"Holy crap!"

Having watched the ground disappear from around the small
round tiles where the two men stood, Teal'c shared the sentiment.
Two large, ring-shaped segments of the floor had rapidly sunk out
of sight; he could not tell how far or by what mechanism. Truth
was, he did not care. However it had been effected, the drop was
too deep for anyone to survive a fall. At the center of one chasm
O'Neill balanced precariously on a stone pillar. Twelve meters to
his left, Tertius was in the same predicament.

A ripple of panic and confusion spread down the line of archers,
but the initial shock passed and they settled back, watching, waiting.
As was his companion.

"What do you intend to do, Major Carter?"

"Short of mounting an air rescue, you mean?" Her voice sounded
tight and terse with restraint, and she refused to take her eyes off
the scene below. "We can't do a damn thing right now, Teal'c. Their
best chance is for us to go through with this exactly as planned
and hope nobody knocks them over in the meantime. It'll be up to
Daniel and the boys downstairs to get them off these things."

She was correct. Teal'c returned his attention to the unfolding
events, trying as best he could to ignore the small figure of a man
standing perched above an abyss.

Within the tower, movement could be discerned now. Filing
around the golden idol from both sides came the priests, led by
Kandaulo. They descended the steps and in a slow, dance-like pace
dispersed into a semi-circle, flanking their High Priest. When all
motion had subsided at last, Kandaulo raised his hands.

"Ye who are faithful, behold!" Light and clear as glass the old
man's words drifted across the courtyard. "Behold the heretics!
Behold the traitors! Cut off from communion with you, by their
deeds and by the holy will of the Lord Meleq!"

"Bull!" hissed Major Carter. "Your will, you vicious old goat!"

"But Meleq is merciful. They shall be purified by his holy fire, and so their souls be penitent, they shall be redeemed. Pray for
them! Pray so that Meleq may appear and cleanse them!"

A murmur sprang up from the crowd, gradually gaining in
volume and solidifying into a chant, until Teal'c could make out
the words.

Submit, oh child, that thou mayest be cleansed from thy
transgression.

Submit, oh child, that thou beestpurified in Meleq's fervor.

Submit, oh child, that thou shalt be consumed by the blessed
Mysteries ofMeleq.

Submit, oh child, that thou mayest be cleansed...

It was repeated endlessly, tonelessly, mindlessly by a
congregation who seemed to have fallen into a trance. To the Jaffa,
fear was kek, weakness, a kind of death, but if asked, he would
have admitted that this frightened him. He began to understand
how Hamilqart could recall so little of the Purification he had
witnessed years ago. There was no rational thought left; these were
people who had surrendered control to the one conducting their
chorus. Kandaulo must have craved this status. The power of it was
truly intoxicating.

The chant continued unabated. Suddenly Major Carter tensed.

"What in the name of... Teal'c! Look!"

The dark chasms encircling the pillars had begun to glow with
a faint, scarlet light that grew in intensity, just as the chant had. He
conceived an impression of gazing into a pair of giant eyes, gleaming
spitefully as though they knew of the helpless lives trapped in their
pupils. Teal'c dispelled the notion. It was unproductive.