by The Prophet (prophet@phlegethon.org)
Complete
Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance
Daniel/other
Spoilers for In the Line of Duty
Season 5
FR-T
Sexual references, violence
Disclaimers:
Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. The character of Ayesha, the Amahagger tribe and the lost city of Kôr were created by H. Rider Haggard. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.
The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.
Author's Notes:
Part 2 of King Solomon's Naquadah Mines, following Bad Dates and followed by You Call this Archaeology?
Enlisted Air Force personnel were permitted to train and act as pilots for a short time during WWII under the Flying Officer Program, but that privilege is once-more reserved for officers.
Acknowledgements:
My thanks to Sho for her beta reading and constant encouragement. If not for her, I'd probably have a life.
The Prophet, 30th July 2002
"So how long have you known Gooney Bird?" Sam asked Jack, as much to break the silence in the cabin as anything.
"A long time," Jack replied, fondly. "Thirty years and more, I guess. I knew her from civilian life in Chicago, although we didn't serve together until the eighties. She was a pilot on a lot of the operations I can't talk about, but I…can't talk about that," he finished, suffering a failure of synonyms.
"A pilot?" Sam was confused. "But she was…?"
"A sergeant; yes. Chief Master Sergeant by the end of her career, but NCO nonetheless. She mostly piloted transports, but she could fly anything: fighters, helicopters, micro-lights. Give her an hour's coaching in a death glider and she'd be flying rings around experienced Jaffa pilots. Our…mutual friends gave her the chance; they didn't care if you were enlisted or officer, as long as you could get the job done."
"So what happened?" Sam asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean how come this hot shot ersatz flying officer, who made the highest regular enlisted grade there is, has obviously been retired and flying an old DC-3 as an air ferry for more than a decade. And how come this is her only income? She doesn't get an Air Force pension?"
Jack looked awkward. "Anyone ever tell you you're too clever by half, Carter?"
"My dad started when I was three," Sam replied.
Jack smiled wanly at her. "There was some…unpleasantness," he admitted, grudgingly. "She did something stupid with an equally stupid and slightly more married officer. When the whole thing broke, she agreed to go without a fuss and without benefits; in exchange they let her retire with her dignity, and let the officer go without a formal warning."
"Why would she do something like that?" Sam wondered aloud.
"Beats me," Jack snarled, angrily. "Guess she was either in love with the stupid loser, or just felt sorry for his wife and kid."
Sam fell silent, startled by his vehemence, and turning over what he had told her in her head.
"Teal'c, do you know anything about the Tomb of Asar?" Jack asked, perhaps two hours later.
"I do not," the Jaffa replied.
"I do," Nefera said.
"I didn't ask you," Jack told her. "Teal'c; haven't you even heard of it?"
"Only as a myth, almost a fairy story told among the Goa'uld, of a place of unimaginable power, created by Asar as his final resting place."
"Asar?" Sam asked.
"The first Goa'uld to pass through the Chappa'ai," Jack replied. "They revere him as a kind of patron saint. I got a potted history when they were trying to put a snake in my head in his shrine," he explained, off his colleagues' looks.
"He led our people out of darkness," Nefera said. "Out of the mists of our beginnings and into the universe beyond the Gate."
"What about the Tomb?" Daniel asked her.
"According to the legends, there came a time when Asar's final host was weakening, and he grew weary. Rather than seek a new host, he chose to retire from public life. He passed the governance of the Empire to a chosen successor, Saturn – who was overthrown by an alliance of the System Lords some years later – and vanished. No-one knows where Asar went, but he is rumoured to lie in stasis at the heart of a great palatial crypt, waiting for a worthy host to find him, so that he may rise again and lead the Goa'uld back to glory."
"A sort of Goa'uld Arthur," Daniel said. "A Once and Future Emperor."
"Of course, over the years a number of Goa'uld have arisen, claiming to be Asar and seeking to reunite the Goa'uld under them."
"Once such arose in my father's time," Teal'c said. "His army was crushed by Apophis, and Master Bra'tac witnessed the pretender's death at Apophis' hands."
"All have learned that the name is not sufficient to tie our people together," Nefera agreed. "Not without Asar's powers."
"Powers?" Sam asked.
Nefera nodded. "It is said that he could bend any Goa'uld to his absolute will, perceive events as they transpired on other planets, half a galaxy away, and strike his enemies dead with a look. The System Lords were his to control, absolutely, united under Asar's gaze. The same System Lords who turned on his successor in less than a century, and on each other less than a century after that."
"That is impressive," Jack allowed. "If it's true."
"It is said that the keys to his power were buried with him. I'm sure that you will realise that when I say that the System Lords seek for his tomb, it is not with the objective of restoring him to power; although a number of ambitious Queens have sought to find Asar and raise him as their consort. But the treasures of his Tomb; the secrets of his power: Those are prizes that any Goa'uld would kill to possess, for they would hold the galaxy in their hand if they could command those powers."
"Which of course brings us back to the issue of trusting you."
"I have no interest in power," Nefera told them.
"Maybe not, although I'm not convinced of that," Jack told her. "But if Asar returns to power with your aid, wouldn't that do a lot to clean the slate for you?"
"Perhaps," Nefera admitted, warily. "But I don't really want to go back."
"Just know that if you step out of line, even once, I will kill you," Jack warned.
"Of course," Nefera accepted, easily.
"Can I ask a question?" Sam said.
"You just did," Nefera pointed out.
Sam ignored the remark. "How can the Goa'uld have legends? Wouldn't you just remember what happened?"
"Goa'uld genetic memory is imperfect," Nefera told her. "As is any form of memory; you should know that."
"Jolinar's memories are fragmented," Sam told her, a little defensively. "I have no idea what she recalled with any clarity."
Nefera shrugged. "Few possess clear recollections of anything beyond the few millennia preceding their birth," she explained. "And all memory fades over time, whether of your own life or of an ancestors. Also, those Goa'uld spawned by a Queen possess a lesser genetic memory to those birthed of two Goa'uld, who in turn recall less than a Harcesis. Only a few Goa'uld were old enough to remember even the last years of Asar's realm."
"What happened to those?" Jack asked.
"For the most part, you happened to them," Nefera told him. "Ra, Sokar, Astarte, Apophis, Cronus; they were the most ancient. Only a few might still remember, and most of those are legends in and of themselves: Thoth, Nephtys, Byelobog, Tezcatlipoca. Thus we have our legends."
"What about you?" Daniel asked. "How much do you remember from before your birth?"
Nefera was silent for a long time before answering. "Not a damn thing," she said, softly.
*
"It's warmer than I expected," Daniel said, as they climbed down from the DC-3. There was a brisk wind blowing over the tiny airstrip, but the air was dry and even warm.
"That'll change once we get up into the mountains," Jack warned him.
"You've been here before?" Sam asked.
"In '88-'89," Gooney told her. She was standing by the plane, supervising the refuelling, which had begun almost as soon as the engines were off. The fuel truck was a battered pick-up with a large tank on the back, manned by a scrawny kid who looked about fifteen, and a leather-skinned old man who sat in the cab and scowled.
"You fought with the Muhajadin?" Sam realised and accepted that much of her CO's history was a closed book, but it still surprised her when bits of it slipped out.
"Nah," Jack replied. "We were here for…something else. It's classified," he finished.
"Was it drugs?" Daniel asked.
"Hush," Jack replied.
"I thought we were expecting marshland before the mountains," Nefera said.
"That's a different route," Daniel told her. "We thought we'd skip the wading in mud and the mosquitoes."
"If that's okay with you," Jack added.
"Okay, amigos," Gooney said. "I got enough gas to take me somewhere they don't stone a girl for being a Catholic American pilot, so I'm out of here. You come back here and get Bob to radio for me when you want to leave," she told them, gesturing to the old man. "His English ain't so good though…"
"It's okay; I speak a little Pashtu," Daniel told her.
Gooney nodded. "I'll be here in three hours," she said. "You all take care of yourselves now." The boy closed the DC-3's fuel cap, and Gooney was away up the ladder. "And don't be such a stranger, Jack," she instructed.
"Watch your back, Gooney," Jack replied, fondly.
They waited until the plane had disappeared and the pick-up had trundled off towards a distant shack – 'the terminal building', Jack surmised – before gathering their gear, unpacking their weapons and heading into the foothills of the Suliman Mountains.
Knowing what was ahead, Sam was uncomfortable with only bolt-action rifles and shotguns. "I just don't feel confident going up against an unknown number of Jaffa without automatic weapons," she explained to Jack. "Rate of fire has always been our biggest advantage, but a staff weapon could outshoot one of these."
"Well, now it's range and accuracy," he assured her. "And we have less ammunition to carry. You've trained with a rifle, right?"
"An M-16, yes, Sir," Sam replied. "But not sniper work."
"You'll get the hang of it," Jack promised. "Nothing to worry about."
"Oh yeah," Daniel said, gazing at the mountain peaks, looming in the distance. "Nothing to worry about."
"Why worry about a few piles of rock?" Jack asked. "We've already illegally entered a country not exactly known for its lax judicial system."
Teal'c shouldered more than his share of the gear, being by far the strongest member of SG-1. Daniel knew that Nefera was no weakling either, but her pack was considerably smaller than any of theirs, and otherwise she carried only a long, narrow bag.
"Travelling light?" He asked.
"My needs are few," she replied. "I could reach our destination with less than this."
"I have heard it said," Teal'c commented. "That a fully-trained Ashrak should be able to cross a thousand miles of wilderness and eliminate a target at the heart of a well-defended fortress with neither equipment or weapons."
"You heard right," Nefera assured him. "But on the other hand a competent Ashrak should never find herself stark naked, a thousand miles from her target." She picked up her long bag, and unwrapped a staff weapon, decorated with the iconography of the Serpent Guard. "She should always be prepared. Trade?" She offered, gesturing to the rifle in the Jaffa's hands.
Teal'c nodded, and they swapped. The big Jaffa levelled the weapon and fired two shots at a distant rock. The blasts struck within six inches of each other, and he nodded in satisfaction.
"Just out of curiosity," Jack said. "What other weapons are you carrying?"
"Two zat'nik'tels," Nefera told him. "A hara-kash, a hand device with assault claws, a Shol'va's Salute…"
"A what?" Jack asked.
"An energy weapon that can be easily concealed in the palm; often issued to Zatarcs. I also have a knife, a shock grenade, a magnetic crossbow, twelve remote charges, and a Beretta; plus a few bits and pieces of defensive and non-combat equipment."
"You're a regular homicidal Bat-Girl," Jack told her. "Do you even have room for a change of clothes in that bag?"
"I'm good at packing," she replied.
"I'm not comfortable with you being so heavily armed," Jack admitted. "Or even armed at all."
Nefera shrugged. "So what are you going to do?"
Jack weighed up his options. "Teal'c; keep watching her."
"Like a hawk," Teal'c affirmed.
They made camp a little before sundown, still very much in the lower regions of the mountains. Jack had decided, based on their destination, that it would be best not to get too high anyway, but they had yet to be given the option.
"They just seem to get further away every time I look," Daniel complained.
"Do yourself a favour," Jack suggested. "Don't look. Just keep watching the ground."
They sat around a small fire, eating rabbits that Nefera had shot with her crossbow. This allowed them to leave their MREs uneaten, with the added benefit that it preserved their supplies of easily-carried food. Sam was in an uncommunicative mood, and kept staring off at the mountains, and with Teal'c's attention focused on Nefera, he was also less chatty than usual, leaving Daniel and Jack to carry the conversation, with the occasional interjection from Nefera.
After dinner, Sam got up and walked off, sitting herself down at the edge of the firelight, and staring into the distance.
"You feel it, don't you?" Nefera asked, moving silently up to Sam's side.
Sam turned, started, and half-drew her sidearm. "You're very quiet," she commented, trying to cover her nerves.
"Yes," Nefera agreed.
Sam turned back to the mountains, edging slightly away from the Goa'uld. "What is it?" She asked, although she knew the answer.
"The Tomb of Asar," Nefera replied. "How much did she know?"
"Not much," Sam admitted, after a moment's wary pause. "Every now and then, Jolinar would learn that a System Lord was looking for the Tomb, and would pass any information on to Anise. It was one of her obsessions, but she played it close to her chest; never let on exactly how much she knew. Like the Atanik armbands, she thought it could provide a key to defeating the Goa'uld."
"Anise was right," Nefera replied. "Assuming that the Tomb is really out there."
"Anise believed in it. Jolinar thought that she knew something more, but was keeping it a secret because she wanted to be certain she would be the one to locate the Tomb."
"The Tok'ra can not escape their heritage completely," Nefera commented.
"Do you really think that's what we're feeling?" Sam asked. "The Tomb's presence?"
"Its presence?" Nefera returned. "Who knows? But its potential, its possibilities; that's what we can feel. The mere chance that it might be there is enough to set us on edge."
"Are we sensing something real though?" Sam demanded.
Nefera smiled, enigmatically. "I guess we'll find out soon enough," she said.
*
In spite of Daniel's doubts, they reached the foothills at noon the next day and began to climb a little. The morning after, they turned north along the edge of the range, towards the Afghan border. It began to get colder.
"We'll need to head west after three or four days," Jack said, consulting the maps. "That's when the real climbing starts."
Sure enough, four days later the team found themselves faced with a challenging fifty foot ascent. Nefera produced from her pack a compact device, housing a grappling launcher, cable and winch, which she used to fix a line to the top of the rock face. Then Jack – being the most experienced climber in SG-1 and unwilling to have his team ascend a rope when there was a Goa'uld at the top – led the climb, fixing pitons for the others to follow. After almost an hour, he hauled himself over the top, onto a broad plateau.
"Hi, Jack."
"Daniel!" Jack shouted. "How did you…?" He looked around at the rest of the group, who seemed to have been waiting for him for upwards of half an hour.
"Daniel found some writings on one of the stones down there," Sam explained.
"What did they say?" Jack asked.
"Stairs this way," Daniel replied. "You were already half way up and we hated to interrupt…"
"Aaaagh!" Jack snarled. He began winding his climbing ropes, and Nefera retrieved her grapnel and line.
"The good news," Daniel continued. "Is that from the top of the stairs there's a track that heads off in the direction we're going. It looks like it's an old road to the city of Kôr – if that really is its name."
"How's the going?" Jack asked.
"Rough," Sam replied. "The road surface looks as though they stopped repairing it about six thousand years ago, but the course is still there, and should be easier than going cross-country."
Jack nodded. "That's good," he said. "But everyone keep an eye out for watch posts and bottlenecks. Roads make for easy travel, but they're also easier to guard."
*
The ancient road wound its way upwards into the heart of the mountains. If Daniel had not seen the markings identifying the time-worn steps up to the road, he would hardly have known that this path had been cut and paved by human – or maybe inhuman – hands, so long had it lain exposed and eroded. The gully cut through the rocks was easily twenty feet wide, and in places Daniel thought that he could make out wheel ruts. It was hard to be certain without a detailed excavation, but the workmanship looked as though it might have been equal to Roman construction, or even superior; certainly the work of an efficient, well-trained workforce, answering to a centralised power base, probably a wealthy one. All gone now, of course.
"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair," Daniel quoted.
"Can the poetry, Daniel," Jack told him, wearily.
They had been travelling for almost a week now – including the day spent on the plane – and tempers were wearing a little thin. For people used to moving from planet to planet in less time that it takes to say the words, it was almost insufferable to spend five days travelling a few measly miles. It was also extremely cold now, and there was snow on the ground. The gully into which the road was cut seemed to keep it clear, but in places the walls had broken, and rockfalls covered in snow and ice had to be negotiated.
"We're way off course," Jack told Daniel. "The area you and Sam picked out is further west, and a little to the south."
"I realise that, Jack," Daniel replied. This had been bugging Jack for a few days now. He was used to accurate intelligence data, not archaeological supposition, and had never had a great deal of patience with Daniel's flexible attitude to mission parameters. He felt they should be heading straight for the area identified in the initial briefing, and only widening the search if there was nothing there. The fact that they could have been at that point by this afternoon – whereas on the road there was still no end to their journey in sight – was not helping Jack's patience. "But this road plainly leads to a power centre, and that must be Kôr."
"How do you know it leads to a power centre?" Jack demanded.
"Because it's here," Daniel replied. "You don't build a road that doesn't go anywhere, and this road must have needed thousands of workers; millions of man-hours, including the quarrying for the paving stones. You can't organise that scale of labour without a central power, and central powers only build roads this big to really important places."
"Would you guys hurry it up!" Sam called back. She agreed with Daniel that the road was the key, but had been making trouble of her own. She was obsessed with reaching their destination as soon as possible, to the point that she had to be ordered to make camp overnight. She was intense, hyperactive and impatient by day, but grew sullen and withdrawn overnight. She had also become uncharacteristically abrasive, and both Daniel and Jack were worried about her.
Nefera was also keen to move fast, but not to such an obsessive degree as Sam. In fact, she seemed more disturbed by Sam's behaviour than anyone, and was always watching her from the corner of her eyes. Twice, Sam had accused the other woman of looking for an opportunity to kill her; on the second occasion Daniel had worried Sam was about to attack the Ashrak.
Teal'c was being unusually grim, dour and silent – Daniel's mind boggled at the concept, but there it was happening in front of him – and simply watched Nefera constantly. He barely seemed to have noticed Jack's fraying temper or Sam's bipolar mood swings, which was in itself a concern to Daniel. Teal'c's care for his team-mates' safety was legendary in the SGC; nigh on pathological. For him to ignore their suffering was almost unheard of.
"You feeling okay?" Daniel asked the Jaffa.
"I am well, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c replied, with a tone of voice that suggested he was unwilling to enter into further discussion.
Daniel moved back towards Jack. "I'm worried," he admitted. "We all seem to be wound up tight."
"It's these mountains," Jack told him. "It was the same last time we were here. There's something about them."
"The snow?" Daniel hazarded.
Jack shook his head, impatiently. "Something more. I can't really describe it, but you must feel it. Kind of…lonely. As though you're the only one here, even though you can see your buddies up ahead."
Daniel shivered. "Yeah," he said. "I feel it. I just hope that's all it is."
"Don't get paranoid," Jack told him. "Leave that to the old men."
*
That night, they met the Amahagger.
They were sitting around their campfire – Sam a little to one side in her own private world – when Nefera raised her head.
"Do you hear that?" She asked.
"Hear what?" Daniel asked.
"The sound of someone trying to make no sound," she replied.
Jack nodded. "How many would you say?" He asked Sam.
"Fifteen or twenty," Sam replied. "Very close."
At that moment, a spear sailed out of the darkness, and landed by the fire. A voice followed, shouting commands.
"What are they saying?" Jack asked Daniel.
"He's telling us to stand up slowly and turn to face up the slope," Daniel replied. "I think."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "You think?"
"It seems to be a kind of pidgin dialect, made up from bits of Pashtu, Egyptian, Arabic and Goa'uld," Daniel told him. "It's not easy to decipher."
Lacking any other ideas however, the five of them slowly stood and turned. After a few moments, ghostly forms began to materialise out of the night; pale shadows at the edge of the firelight. As they came closer, Daniel could see that they were men, robed in white with their faces covered. They carried long spears levelled at the travellers, and wore deeply-curved knives in their sashes.
"They are not Jaffa," Teal'c said, softly.
The tallest of the figures stepped forwards and spoke. Daniel replied, haltingly, and the man raised his spear, threateningly.
"Daniel," Jack cautioned, reaching slowly for his sidearm.
"Give me a moment, Jack," Daniel said.
"Karei!" One of the warriors called, pointing at Teal'c's forehead. His companions looked, and stepped back, warily, when they saw his tattoo.
An idea began to form in Daniel's mind. "Ay, kree," he said, speaking in the pure Goa'uld tongue. "Eh ka Jaffa."
The leader looked shocked, and backed nervously away from Daniel.
"Daniel?" Jack asked.
"I think that they understand Goa'uld," he said. "But it seems to frighten them. I think maybe they're forbidden to speak the language of the Gods." He turned back to the leader, and spoke again in Goa'uld.
"What are you telling him?" Jack asked.
"He is saying that we are envoys," Nefera explained, as Daniel kept talking. "He is demanding that they take us to the palace of Kôr. Now the man is agreeing; he says that we will be welcomed in their village tonight, and taken to the palace tomorrow."
The leader reached up and uncovered his head, then bowed low before Daniel. He had long, dark hair, and dark skin, and his facial features were a mixture of ethnic Afghan and Arabic. He had a tattoo on his forehead, showing a cross with a loop in place of the top line.
"I thought you said that they weren't Jaffa?" Jack asked Teal'c.
"They are not," Teal'c replied. "None of these warriors bears a Goa'uld symbiote."
"This is Matane," Daniel said. "He's the first warrior of the Hawk tribe, bravest and wisest of the Amahagger peoples."
Jack nodded. "Okay, Daniel. You make nice, see what you can find out."
"Okay," Daniel agreed.
"We'll go back to their village with them then," Jack said. "Everyone stay alert. Teal'c; do you know the tattoos these guys are wearing?" He asked, as Daniel explained to the leader that they would follow.
"The ankh is the symbol of Isis," Teal'c replied.
"Well, Isis is pretty soundly dead," Jack said. "So at least we know she isn't around in person."
"Not her," Nefera agreed, thoughtfully. "But perhaps one of her servants."
"What do you mean?" Jack asked.
"Well, I was thinking about the various characters in the Haggard books before we came out here. Kallikrates is a name that turns up in one form or another a couple of times in the history of my race. One of those was an under-lord to Osiris, in the service of Isis, at the time of their conflict with Setesh."
"And?" Jack asked.
"I…don't know," Nefera admitted. "History was never my strongest subject."
"What about your memories?" Sam demanded.
"I told you: I don't have any!" Nefera snapped. "Not further back than seven hundred years anyway."
"How is that possible?" Daniel asked. "I thought that all Goa'uld possessed genetic memory."
"Not all," Nefera replied. "Lack of genetic memory is a mutation; one that occurs in about one in a hundred prim'ta."
"I think that he disappeared," Sam said, uncertainly.
Jack was confused. "You do?"
"I think that Jolinar remembered the story," she said. "Kallikrates was one of Isis' most trusted servants, and so she sent him on a secret mission which was to tip the balance of the war in Osiris' favour. He and his companions were never heard from again."
"The Tomb," Daniel surmised. "That must have been what he was sent to find."
"If Isis believed it could be found, that would have tipped the balance; but why send someone else?" Nefera wondered.
"You mean how could she trust another Goa'uld with that kind of power," Sam said. "That could be why she sent others with him."
"How many others?" Jack asked.
"I'm not sure," Sam replied. "Anise might know more. Jolinar read this in one of her reports; she remembered it because she suspected that Anise had left a great deal out."
Daniel frowned. "What do you mean, 'left a great deal out'?"
"I mean that Jolinar always suspected Anise of being as open with her own people as she is with us. She was secretive, especially about the Tomb…"
"Jolinar knew about the Tomb?" Jack was puzzled, and angry. "Why didn't you say anything before?"
"I didn't remember it," Sam protested, defensively. "Jolinar's memories aren't perfectly integrated with my own; sometimes I can't recall things until they're jogged by something tangential; in this case, the name Kallikrates." She glanced at Nefera, but the Goa'uld said nothing about their conversation on the night of their arrival.
"So what do you remember?" Daniel asked.
"According to Anise's report, Kallikrates was a favoured servant of Isis; so much so that when she birthed a Goa'uld Queen, Sothis, she was given to Kallikrates as his mate. Sothis and Kallikrates served Isis and Osiris well and faithfully, and when Setesh rose against his brother, they were sent to seek allies among the other System Lords. Unfortunately for them, Setesh was too powerful at that time. He had the favour of Ra and the aid of his Queen, and none of the System Lords cared to back the weaker player in this war."
"Where does the Tomb fit in?" Jack demanded.
"I'm getting to that!" Sam snapped. "Sir," she added, a little sheepishly. "Eventually, Sothis and Kallikrates were ready to concede defeat and return to Earth – either to die with their masters or to betray them to Setesh; Anise's report was unclear.
"However, seven years before, Sothis had born Kallikrates' child, and shortly after their return, this child – another Queen – took a host. At first, Osiris thought that the child would make a good bargaining piece: A Queen from a line with a record of spawning Queens would be a powerful incentive to any System Lord. However, it soon became apparent that this Queen was something quite extraordinary: A Harkoa'uld."
"A what?" Jack demanded.
"Harkoa'uld," Nefera told him. "As lack of genetic memory can be caused by a genetic mutation, so the opposite can be thrown up. A Harkoa'uld has an abnormal degree of ancestral recall; almost as much as a Harcesis in some cases."
"In the case of this child, Ashrahar," Sam continued. "Her memories extended back to the time of Asar, and she claimed to know where the palace of Kôr was to be found."
"That must have been an exciting announcement for a besieged System Lord," Daniel said.
"And then some," Sam agreed. "According to Anise, Osiris detailed two of his best commanders to accompany Sothis and Kallikrates on their search for the Tomb, and his personal Ashrak was recalled to be Ashrahar's protector."
"That's a lot of Goa'uld," Jack commented.
"It is," Teal'c agreed. "But this must have been Osiris' last chance. Also, if he sent six Goa'uld, they should have prevented each other from claiming the power of the Tomb for themselves."
"The Ashrak would also serve such a purpose," Nefera added. "He would be loyal to his lord until death."
"Kallikrates set out with his five companions, a cadre of one hundred and seventy-five Jaffa warriors, and almost five hundred servants…"
"Travelling light, I see," Jack commented.
Sam smiled, faintly. "Of all of them, only one was ever seen again. Amenartas, the host of Sothis, stumbled out of the desert, insane and dying. Setesh had her brought to his palace and infested by one of his servants, but the Goa'uld could uncover no useful information in the woman's fevered brain regarding the location of Kôr. She herself went mad eighteen days later, and Setesh had her confined for the rest of her unnaturally long existence."
"Why not just kill her?" Daniel asked.
"He had a scribe record her every word, in the hope that she might one day reveal the location of Kôr," Sam explained. "Also," she added, sounding a little nauseous. "He was said to enjoy watching her suffering. It amused him, and he'd bring the woman out as a conversation piece at parties."
Jack grimaced. "If that's how they treat each other, no wonder we get such a raw deal."
"Well," Daniel said. "If they're still using the ankh symbol, I'd guess that at least one of Isis' former servants is still around and calling the shots."
"Probably Ashrahar," Nefera agreed. "Or Ayesha; whatever you prefer."
"If a Goa'uld Queen survives in these mountains," Teal'c said. "Why would her servants not be true Jaffa? She could easily spawn enough Goa'uld larvae to sustain an army."
"And why would she stay here, instead of coming out to rule the world?" Daniel asked.
Jack shrugged. "I guess we find out when we reach…Oh my."
Emerging from its gully, the road plunged down the eastern side of a bowl-shaped valley, maybe fifty miles across. Near to the western end, a single peak rose, pale in the moonlight. In the base of the valley, trees grew lush and green, and a warm mist rose into the night air. It was a beautiful sight, but there was something disturbing about it that Jack just could not place.
"How could we not know about this?" Sam wondered aloud. "How could nobody have spotted a place like this from the air, or in satellite photos?"
"Look," Daniel said, pointing to the sky.
Jack followed Daniel's gaze, and saw – with a slightly queasy feeling – that the starts were rippling gently. Then he realised what was wrong with the valley: The moonlight that fell upon the canopy and the mountain also rippled, as though reflected from the surface of a great pool.
"It must be some kind of cloaking technology," Sam realised. "It prevents the valley being spotted from above; I guess that would be a must if you're hiding from anyone with spaceships."
"Wait a minute," Jack interrupted. "You're saying that this Asar had the technology, thousands of years ago, to cloak an entire valley? I thought hiding a mothership was new and exciting?"
"It is," Sam said, rapturous. "Which means at least some of the legends are true. This is the Tomb, and it is the source of incredible power!"
"Don't get too excited about incredible power," Daniel advised. "It's not always a good thing to have."
The leader turned and spoke to Daniel again. Daniel answered, before turning back to his companions. "Matane says that the Hawk tribe will hold a great feast in our honour, that we can tell 'She-Who-Is-Obeyed' of their greatness and humble obedience."
"She-Who-Is-Obeyed?" Jack asked.
"I guess the same as 'She-who-must-be-obeyed'," Daniel replied. "Just a better translation," he added, smugly.
"Tell them they should take us to She-Who-Is-Obeyed now," Sam told Daniel. "Or we will be angry."
"That might be difficult," Daniel said. "I already accepted the invitation, and told Matane that we will praise his vigilance to She."
"Damnit, Daniel! This is important. Don't you understand…!"
"At ease, Major," Jack ordered. Sam bristled, but fell into sullen silence.
"We should keep on the Amahagger's good side," Daniel said. "From Curran's journals, they obey She out of fear, not respect or love, and they could make useful allies if we don't offend them."
*
The Hawk tribe's village was an impressive affair, with a high stone wall surrounding a cluster of wooden huts. At the centre of the village was a great, circular forum, and dominating this public space was a great stone house.
"That is the dwelling of our chief, Ahmay," Matane told Daniel. "My father," he added, proudly.
A crowd was gathering to see the newcomers, some of them plainly barely out of bed. They wore light robes to cover their forms, and like Matane they looked as though a blend of Arabic and Afghan blood ran in their veins. A few were fairer, displaying a Mediterranean colouring, and some were darker. Such an ethnic mix might be expected in a country which lay at some natural crossroads, but in this place, Daniel was willing to bet that the racial melting pot had been given a good, solid stir.
"The local tribe were probably Pashtun," Daniel told Jack. "But Asar probably brought his own people with him to Kôr, and Kallikrates' six-hundred-and-seventy-five would bring in their own blood: Mostly Greek and Arabic by the looks of it, but with some North African blood thrown in for good measure."
"Say what you like about the Goa'uld," Jack agreed. "They are equal opportunity exploiters."
Daniel grinned, noting with relief that Jack's tension seemed to have evaporated now that he was surrounded by dozens of armed and possibly hostile warriors; probably because he felt that at last they were doing something. Teal'c too seemed more at ease.
Daniel only wished the same could be said of Sam.
Ahmay came out to greet the tribe's guests, bowing low before Daniel. He was old, but in good shape. He hailed Daniel as a son of the Gods – much to Nefera's amusement and Daniel's consternation – and bid him and his servants – which made Daniel laugh – welcome to the village of his tribe. Then, despite the lateness of the hour, Ahmay insisted on rousing his people to build a great fire and prepare a feast to welcome the honoured guests. He told Daniel that they would eat and sleep, and then be taken to Kör in the morning.
"We shouldn't waste time with this," Sam hissed.
"Sam," Daniel protested. "If Nefera's timings are correct, then the Tomb has been here for almost twenty thousand years. Ashrahar has been here for seven thousand years. It isn't going to make any difference if we stop for dinner."
"We shouldn't give her time to prepare," Sam insisted. "We must go now or she'll be ready for us."
"She's had millennia to prepare her defences," Daniel reasoned. "And if the stories of Asar's powers are half-true, then she could have seen us coming miles away. Besides, the Amahagger want us to stay for the feast, and without them we're tracking through thirty-five miles of unfamiliar forest terrain, in the dark."
Sam fumed, but could not refute Daniel's point. "What if we found one of them…"
"Just drop it, Carter," Jack ordered. "The last thing we want is to leave a group of angry people in the direct path of our retreat from that mountain."
"Yes, Sir," Sam muttered.
Jack and Daniel shared a worried look, and Daniel was relieved to see Teal'c sharing their concern.
*
The Amahagger built a great fire in the centre of the forum, on which they began to roast goats and cattle whose ancestors might have been driven all along the great road to get here. A great pot was also placed on the fire, and great bowls of vegetables dumped into it to stew, along with a kind of rice. The travellers were given a place of honour below the chief's house, and food was served to them by bowing Amahagger.
"I always hate this part," Daniel announced.
"You do?" Jack asked. "Why?"
"I feel like I'm part of the bad old days of archaeology, going out and claiming to be gods or saviours so you can bring back a few skulls for the museum collection. Scaring the locals with your boom sticks to make them pony up the gold."
"I am not entirely comfortable with these events either," Teal'c agreed. "Sometimes it seems that we come too close to acting as the Goa'uld do."
"Besides," Daniel added. "I sometimes worry that the people who welcome us will be punished, like the Abydonians were."
"So tell them we're only human," Jack suggested.
Daniel nodded, and leaned over to speak to Ahmay. The chief laughed and pointed to a group of girls who were standing several yards away, casting bold glances at the travellers. He gestured also at Matane, who blushed. Jack felt a chill as Daniel spoke again, firmly. The chief shrugged, and returned to his meat.
"Daniel?" Jack asked.
"He says that they understand that we are men, and that there are many of the tribe's daughters willing to…ehm…satisfy us as such."
"I hate these places," Sam muttered.
Daniel shrugged, helplessly. "I told him that wasn't necessary, and he said that among the Amahagger, the women choose their husbands, and while they may refuse, it would not be for him to interfere."
Nefera grinned at Sam. "He also said that Daniel should tell us that his son's wife died of a fever nine moons ago, and he is ready to marry again." Sam blushed.
"So what do we do?" Jack asked.
"Well, as I understand it from Curran's journals – and from Haggard – if one of them wants you, she'll come up and give you a kiss. If you kiss her back, you're married. If you don't, she gets nasty and tries to have her people cook and eat you."
"Great," Jack sighed. "Just great."
"Don't worry," Nefera assured him. "They seem much more interested in Daniel than in you."
Jack grimaced. "Well that's nice to…wait; no it isn't."
Daniel meanwhile was staring in horror as a young woman plucked up enough courage to approach him, smiling invitingly. She was dark and pretty, although the ankh tattoo on her forehead was slightly lop-sided, and made her features look oddly skewed. Daniel felt a sick sensation in his stomach. The girl was nothing like Phia Lyborn, but there was the same sense of a merely physical arrangement – that it mattered nothing to the girl who he was or what he was like as a person – and Daniel was worried that if this girl tried to kiss him he would throw up; almost certainly a fatal faux pas.
The woman was almost upon him when Daniel felt a hand on his shoulder, and a voice by his ear hissed: "Ima!" The woman blanched and shied away, retreating back to the crowd with her head held low. Nefera moved her hand from Daniel's shoulder, and looped her arm through his.
"Ima?" Jack asked.
"It means 'mine'," Sam replied.
Daniel was surprised. "How do you know that?" He asked.
Sam rolled her eyes. "I don't need to understand Goa'uld to know that tone," she explained. She looked away, and caught sight of two young men engaged in some kind of ritualised posturing competition. As she did so, one of the men looked over, plainly checking to see if she had noticed them. Seeing her looking, he returned to the contest with redoubled intensity.
"Oh for God's sake," she muttered. She leaped to her feet and stalked angrily into the darkness.
"Is your servant well?" Ahmay asked, concerned. Then he looked hopeful. "Should Matane go after her, perhaps?"
"No," Daniel replied. "Thank you, but no."
"I'll go," Nefera offered. "I need to speak to her anyway."
Daniel frowned. "It's probably best to leave her for a while," he said. Nefera returned his frown, but nodded.
Jack leaned over to Daniel. "So, what's wrong with me?" He asked. "Am I too old or what?"
*
Sam stomped through the shadows of the village without much of a plan, feeling disgusted with the primitive, sex-obsessed ways of these people; and with herself for responding to it. That was what was really bothering her of course: Not that there were men with nothing better to do than prance around trying to get her attention, but that she was enjoying it. And that she was thinking of them as 'primitive'. She had not used that word as a term of condescension since meeting Daniel Jackson and the Abydonians. What on Earth was wrong with her?
"Mistress."
Sam shook her head, afraid that she might be hearing things.
"Mistress," the voice hissed again, a low, nervous whisper. She followed the sound, and found a young man – twenty or so – hiding in the shadows of a hut. He had the same look as the Amahagger, but wore no tattoo on his brow.
"What do you want?" She asked, short-tempered. He was a handsome youth, and Sam disliked how good it felt to hear him call her mistress. "Come out of the shadows."
"I can not," he said, apologetically. "I am an outcast, and forbidden to enter the town."
"Then what are you doing here?" She demanded.
"I saw them bring you in," the boy replied. "And I feared for you. All outsiders are in peril from She-Who-Is-Obeyed."
"What is your name?"
"Harruna, Mistress."
"And how is it that you speak English?"
"Ing Lish?" Harruna asked, confused.
"This language, how do you come to speak…" She stopped, putting a hand to her mouth in alarm as she realised that the boy was not speaking English; and neither was she.
The boy barely noticed Sam's shock, for he had fallen on his stomach in the dirt. "Forgive me, Mistress. I learned the language of the Gods from my father, I meant no blasphemy to speak it to you."
"That…that's alright," Sam assured him, her voice wavering. "Get up," she told him, aware that it came out sounding more harsh than she had intended. She tried to add 'please', but could not force the word out. Of course, she thought. There must not be a word for please in Goa'uld. The boy jumped to his feet, and Sam felt a thrill of power that made her gag.
"Are you ill?" Harruna asked, with genuine concern.
"I'm fine," she insisted. "Why are you so worried about me anyway?"
"I…" The young man blushed and averted his eyes.
Sam gave a low, throaty laugh – Where the hell did that come from? She wondered – and reached out to Harruna. She placed a gentle finger on his chin, and turned him back to look at her. "Have you been to the palace?" She asked.
"No," he replied, too quickly. Sam held his gaze, remorselessly. "Yes," Harruna admitted.
"I need you to take me there," she said. "Now."
"What about your friends?"
"They are fools," Sam said, sharply. She shook her head. "No; that's not…They are not fools, but they do not see the urgency."
"You must not go," Harruna begged.
Sam seized the youth by the shoulders, squeezing hard enough to draw a yelp of pain from him. "You must take me there at once," she told him.
"You will be killed," he pleaded.
Sam smiled, reassuringly. "Not with such a devoted protector to care for me," she said, releasing his shoulders. Her smile became something a little more enticing. "You'll look after me; won't you?"
Harruna's eyes widened. "Yes," he whispered. "Of course."
*
The travellers had been assigned guest rooms in the stone house, apparently kept for diplomatic visitors from other Amahagger tribes. The beds were stone alcoves, but padded with feather mattresses and covered with soft, cashmere blankets. Daniel had been given the largest room, to Jack's chagrin. Before he turned in, Daniel stopped by Sam's room, but there was no answer when he knocked on the door frame, and he did not want to barge in on Sam in her current mood.
Daniel left his pants and shirt on the floor, and crawled into bed. The mattress was lumpy, but after a week of camping it felt heavenly; soft, comfortable and warm.
Almost too warm.
Daniel put out his hand, and touched skin.
"Dyaggh!" He sprang backwards out of bed, alarmed.
"I don't think I've ever got that precise reaction before," Nefera told him, sleepily. "Except once, and he did think that he'd had me executed the day before."
"What are you doing in my bed?" Daniel demanded.
"Our bed," she reminded him. "After my little display at dinner, Ahmay apologised profusely and moved me in here with my husband."
"Hell," Daniel muttered, lighting a small lantern. Nefera smiled sweetly in the sudden light. Daniel was not sure, but he did not think she could be wearing much underneath the covers. He saw that the large alcove had two mattresses – essentially two single beds made into a double – so he stooped and started to pick one of them up.
Nefera's face clouded. "Don't bother," she snapped. "I'll go."
"What?"
"I'll sleep in one of the other rooms," she said, angrily. "Or outside or in the corridor. If anyone asks I'll say you're punishing me for speaking out of turn."
She started to rise, and Daniel laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to go," he said. "And I'm not going to turf you out of bed. I'll sleep on the floor. I've got the mattress, which should be a lot better than a mountain side, and my sleeping bag if it gets cold."
Nefera looked almost puzzled. "So it's not that you're afraid to sleep in the same room as me?"
"What? No; of course not," Daniel assured her, although wondering why on Earth he was not.
Daniel tried to pull the mattress out of the alcove, but Nefera caught hold of it and dragged it back. "You don't have to sleep on the floor," she said, with a small smile. "There's room, and I won't try anything."
"Nefera…"
"Daniel; I promise."
Daniel sighed, blew out the lantern, and slipped under the blanket, lying down with his back towards Nefera. "It's not just you I'm worried about," he whispered, and was thankful that the darkness hid his blush when he realised he had spoken aloud.
*
Jack found it hard to sleep. He got up and went for a stroll and reconnoitre, and found Teal'c standing at the door to the stone house, staring off at the pale spectre of the mountain of Kôr.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Jack offered.
"I am deeply concerned, O'Neill," Teal'c admitted. "I have felt strange of late."
"We've all been twitchy," Jack assured him.
"This sensation comes from the larval Goa'uld that I carry within me," Teal'c insisted. "It senses something that it both fears, and yet wishes to be united with."
"Senses?" Jack asked.
"As you are aware, even in its larval state the creature is aware of certain stimuli beyond normal human perception, and is capable of transmitting these sensations to me on a subconscious level."
"Like it can sense Goa'uld?"
"That is correct. I believe that what it senses is a source of great power, most likely in the form of Goa'uld technology."
"The Tomb of Asar," Jack surmised. "It's what we came here to find, more or less."
"Indeed, O'Neill; but I doubt that any of us was truly aware of the power that the Tomb contains; not even the Ashrak," he all-but snarled.
"You don't trust her," Jack noted.
"No Goa'uld can ever be trusted," Teal'c replied.
"Not even the Tok'ra?"
Teal'c nodded his acknowledgement. "I trust the Tok'ra," he admitted. "Just as much as you do."
Jack gave a pained smile, well aware of what the Jaffa meant. "Daniel trusts her," he commented. Teal'c looked at him, and Jack looked back. "Watch out for him."
"I always do," Teal'c assured him.
Jack grinned. "None of us seems to do much else, sometimes."
*
Daniel woke up, bleary-eyed and in the grip of the momentary confusion of waking. It was still dark, only a little moonlight filtering into the room. The blanket lay softly over him, and a warm presence was nestled against his chest, under his arm. He looked down at the tawny-skinned, black-haired woman lying next to him, and felt a relief akin to ecstasy. He hugged her tightly, and bent to kiss the top of her head, with tears of joy in his eyes, before something struck him as wrong.
He began to shake, gently at first, as silent sobs wracked his body.
"Daniel?" Nefera whispered, worried, and he groaned as if in pain. "What's the matter?"
Daniel turned away from her and swung his legs out of bed, sitting on the edge of the alcove and weeping, bitterly. "What was I…?" He began, once the worst of the tears were shed. "Why were we…?"
Nefera sighed. "You put your arm around me while you were sleeping," she told him. "It…I didn't want to wake you, so I didn't try to move it." She sat up, and touched him gently on the shoulder. He flinched and moved away. "What is it, Daniel?" Nefera asked. "Why are you crying?"
"I heard the birds," he said.
"What?"
"The night birds. I heard them singing, and I knew. There are no birds on Abydos," he added.
"I know," she said. "But what…?"
"Sometimes," he said. "Sometimes I wake up, and you know how there's always that moment when you're not sure what's going on and where you are?"
"No," Nefera replied. "Not really."
"Huh?"
"I do not require sleep," she said. "My body rests, but I retain a limited awareness of my surroundings all of the time."
Daniel gave a short, humourless laugh. "Nice for you," he said. "Well, I don't, and I sometimes wake up, especially if it's hot, and I think I'm back on Abydos. Then I turn over, and Sha're isn't there, and I remember everything."
"That…sounds horrid," Nefera said, as though it were something she had trouble envisioning properly. "And your own mind does this to you?"
"It doesn't help that she put images into my mind while Amaunet was trying to kill me," Daniel admitted. "Some of them have stayed with me. But just now, I woke up and…" he choked on another sob. "And there she was, lying next to me, as though nothing had happened."
"And then you heard the birds," she surmised.
"And I remembered that it wasn't her; it was you."
"I'm sorry," Nefera said, again sounding sincere, but as though she did not quite understand what or why he was suffering.
"It's not your fault," he whispered, desolate. "You just look…"
Nefera nodded. "They're probably related," she said.
"Who are?"
"Sha're and my host," she replied. "They come from the same Abydonian settlement after all; seven hundred years apart, but the blood is the same."
Daniel was taken aback. "You're Abydonian?"
"My host," she repeated.
"Tell me about her?" Daniel asked.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know," he replied. "And because she should be remembered."
Nefera laughed, softly. "Oh, Daniel; don't get sentimental. Not every Goa'uld host is an innocent."
"Tell me," Daniel repeated. "Please."
"I don't want to," she admitted. "You'll…look at me differently."
"Would that be bad?"
"I like the way you look at me," she insisted.
"Please."
Nefera sighed. "Alright," she whispered.
Daniel smiled, wistfully. "What was she called?"
"She was called Nefera," Nefera replied.
Daniel was confused. "I thought you were Nefera?"
"That's more or less the point," she told him. "I was Nefera, the handmaiden, and no-one looked twice at me." She averted her eyes demurely as Daniel raised an eyebrow to that claim. "But Nefera was my host's name. She was the daughter of a wool merchant, and very beautiful., so her father arranged her marriage to a mine overseer. This overseer was an old man, not much able to sate her passions, but he was kind to her. After she gave him two children – a daughter and a son – he told her that she was free to do as she pleased, so long as she brought no public shame to his house.
"Nefera took a young lover, a handsome youth, but in time he began to yearn for children of his own. He knew that if Nefera bore his children, she would have to claim them as the overseer's offspring, and so he began to woo another maiden. When she found out, Nefera was grief-stricken…"
"I can imagine," Daniel said.
"She pleaded with her lover, but he told her that he must be a man."
Daniel nodded, remembering all he had learned of Abydonian society. "Which meant taking a wife and having children, because otherwise he would be forever a beardless youth."
"Precisely. Nefera was determined however, and so she poisoned her husband, and told her lover that by a miracle she was free to be his wife. But he resisted, reminding her that he was a poor man, and while as a widow she had her late husband's estate to keep her and her children, she would lose that if they wed, and he could not afford to keep her, her husband's children and children of their own."
"You know, I made them change that rule," Daniel told Nefera.
Nefera smiled, faintly. "She was crushed," she went on. "But determined that she would never give in. Knowing what she had to do, she took a mastadge bone, and carved a long, slender needle. Then one night, she went to her children's' bedroom…"
"Stop!" Daniel cried, appalled. "God, stop. Are you serious?"
"I told you that you would look at me differently," Nefera said, quietly, not meeting his eyes.
Daniel swallowed hard. "So what…what happened?"
"She killed her infant children," Nefera went on, after a pause. "So carefully that none could tell what she had done. She wailed at their funeral, then ran to her lover and begged him to pity a poor, grieving widow and mother. Well, he wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, but her lover twigged what had happened, and he was sickened. He said that because he cared for her, he would not reveal her crimes, but that he never wanted to see her again.
"By this stage though, Nefera was pretty much mad with grief."
"She killed her lover?" Daniel asked.
"No. She strangled his bride to be. They found her laughing over the girl's body, and she was arrested. Her lover was condemned to hang for concealing her other crimes, and she was taken to be stoned to death. When Ra arrived, however, they were brought for his judgement, as is traditional. Her lover he killed with his own hand, while she was taken away in his sky ship. Not long before, Apophis had sent Ra a gift; a poison concubine."
"A what?"
"A human – in this case a girl – genetically altered to give out Goa'uld killing toxins in her saliva and sweat when sexually aroused. Usually the same response triggers a secretion into the concubine's own system of a poison tailored to cause immense genetic damage, thus concealing the sender's true handiwork."
"I hate your people," Daniel said.
Nefera gave a rueful smile. "This girl was well made. Ra did not detect her, but an underling who pleased Ra – one of his children – asked for the girl as a reward and died in Ra's place. To inform Apophis that he had avoided his trap and knew his intent, he sent a return gift: A woman who had killed her husband and children. Amaunet asked for the girl, to be host to her new Ashrak. Some day she hoped to send her back to make an end of the Sun God."
"Daniel laughed, bitterly. "Thank you, Nefera," he said.
"You're welcome," she assured him. "But for what? Not the story," she surmised.
"No. For reminding me – with the story, and with Phia – that humans can be almost as appalling as the Goa'uld."
Nefera was silent for a long time. "You should sleep," she said, moving to the back of the alcove. "Would you like me to leave you?"
Wearily, Daniel lay down. "That's alright," he said. "And, if I put my arm over you again…"
"I'll wake you," she promised, lying down with her back to him.
"Let me sleep," he sighed.
*
Sam followed the boy, Harruna, through the forest, chafing at his slowness. With every step she took, the need to reach the mountain grew stronger and more desperate. She felt as though she were suffocating, and that only at the mountain would she be able to draw breath. The sensation was terrifying, yet strangely comforting. With this single goal swallowing everything else, the world seemed such a simple place, free from confusion and uncertainty. All that mattered was the mountain, and the awesome power that it contained; a power that Sam would command.
And do what? She wondered, in the small part of her mind that still questioned. What do I want with all that power? Why would I want people to obey my every whim; to worship me like Harruna does? Harruna stopped, suddenly.
"Keep going," Sam snarled, and the youth cringed.
"We are close now, Mistress," he told her. "We must go carefully, or we will be seen."
Sam relented. "Very good," she told him. "Lead on."
The boy's relief was palpable, and he beamed delightedly at her approval.
Pathetic, Sam thought. She was intrigued to find that she was considering this a contemptible, but useful, trait, and equally intrigued to note that shock and horror at her changing attitudes was giving way to mild curiosity, and even relief. Once again, this was something that made life simpler. She smiled to herself, and even then she would have been chilled by the cruelty in that expression.
Harruna led Sam to the top of a wooded bank, from which she could look out onto the plain that surrounded the base of the mountain of Kôr. About half a mile to the north, a road emerged from the forest, probably the same road that they had taken to reach the forested valley of the Amahagger. Leaving the forest, the road angled upwards, rising over a great series of columns and buttresses to meet the steep lower slopes of the mountain some five hundred feet above the plateau. Through her field glasses, Sam could see that at that point, the side of the mountain had been carved into a magnificent temple entrance, with columns and carved relief cut from the living rock. She could also see figures moving on the ledge before the columned façade.
"No way to get up there unseen," she whispered. "And I don't want to announce my arrival to the occupants."
"You see now, Mistress?" Harruna asked. "It is too dangerous. Come back to the city of Hawks, and be safe."
"I must get in," Sam growled.
"Please, come back," Harruna repeated, a little too insistently.
Sam narrowed her eyes and locked his gaze with hers. "There's another way, isn't there?" She told him.
"Mistress…"
"Harruna," she said, softly. "I must enter the city of Kôr. I will enter, by the bridge if I have to. If you know another way, then you and you alone have the power to protect me." She leaned over, and kissed him gently on the lips. "I am safe with you, aren't I?"
"Y-yes, Mistress," he stammered, a shell-shocked expression on his face.
Sam grinned like a cat. "Brave, clever Harruna," she said. "Can you see me safely inside the city?"
"There…may be a way, but the paths are treacherous, and you might be k…"
She touched her fingers to his lips to silence him. "You will protect me," she assured him.
The youth grinned, stupidly. "This way," he said, leading her a little distance back into the jungle.
Sam shook her head, sadly, but smiled at his eager obedience as she followed him.
*
Daniel felt refreshed in body, but very weary in spirit as he rose the next morning. He had woken with his arm around Nefera again, and while he had not repeated his misapprehension, he felt deeply conflicted. On the one hand, he felt very comfortable around Nefera; she was pleasant and affable with him, solicitous, and concerned for him and his friends. She was also very pretty – no, scratch that; beautiful – and he could not easily deny his attraction to her. On the other hand however, she was a Goa'uld; a parasitic being, dwelling in and controlling the body of a psychologically disturbed child-killer.
He went outside and washed in a large butt of rainwater, plunging his head under to try and clear his mind. Then he went to the forum and scrounged enough leftovers to feed the whole team, before heading back inside. He stopped by Sam's room again, wondering if she felt any better, but got no reply. A little concerned, he abandoned propriety and opened the door.
Sam's bed was empty, and looked as though it had not been slept in. Her weapons and gear were stacked neatly in a corner. Daniel was no expert, but he would have said that no-one had been into the room since before the feast.
Daniel headed for Jack and Teal'c's rooms, but found the two of them talking in worried whispers in the corridor.
"What's wrong?" He asked, fearing the worst.
"Nefera is gone," Jack replied. "Your trustworthy Goa'uld has stolen a march on us."
"What?" Daniel asked, incredulous.
"It is true, Daniel Jackson. Her pack has gone from her chamber."
Daniel shook his head. "No," he told them. "They moved her things – and her – into my room because they thought she was my…Well, I'm not sure exactly what they thought we were, but they decided we were together."
"So you…spent the night with her?" Jack asked.
"Yes."
"Are you crazy? Is that your problem?"
"Colonel O'Neill is correct," Teal'c told Daniel. "A Goa'uld could have done many terrible things given such an opportunity."
Daniel frowned, tired of the insinuations that he could not take care of himself. "One," he told them. "It's not the first opportunity. Two, she could as easily have broken in. Three, nothing was done; or if anything was done it was me that did the doing."
"Huh?" Jack asked.
"Never mind."
"I'm just saying you should be more careful around her," Jack told him, sternly.
"Why? You and Teal'c seem to be being careful enough for all of us. Speaking of which," he went on, before they could answer. "Since you're being so watchful, I guess you know where Sam is."
"Major Carter is not in her room?" Teal'c asked.
"No. And it looks like she hasn't been in there all night."
Jack frowned, deeply concerned. "You don't suppose she wandered off last night and got hurt?"
"My guess would be that she's headed to Kôr," Nefera said, standing in the doorway behind Jack and Teal'c.
Jack turned to face her. "Without the rest of us? She's too smart for that."
"It may have escaped your notice," Nefera said. "But she hasn't been acting like herself lately."
"And how would you know how she normally acts?" Jack demanded, angrily. Daniel knew him well enough to realise that most of the anger was directed inwards: He had noticed; he just had not done anything about it.
"I don't," Nefera admitted. "Not in any detail. But I recognise the way she's been acting lately; like a Goa'uld."
"What?" Jack snapped.
"I would be able to sense of Major Carter had been infested with a Goa'uld," Teal'c told her.
"As would I," Nefera replied. "But that's not what I mean and you know it. You feel it, don't you, Teal'c? Something tugging at you?"
"Teal'c?" Daniel asked.
"As I told O'Neill last night, I feel that the larval Goa'uld I carry is drawn to the mountain.
"As are the remnants of Jolinar's personality," Nefera told them. "The mountain plainly exerts some hold over Goa'uld…"
"Jolinar wasn't Goa'uld," Jack retorted. "She was Tok'ra."
"She was the same at the kind of primitive level that these compulsions seem to operate," Nefera replied.
"So why are you still here?" Daniel asked. "Why weren't you affected?"
"I was. I am affected, but not in the same way. I…" She frowned in concentration, as though struggling to achieve some difficult task. "I knew that Major Carter was hiding things from you," she said at last, with effort. "I knew that Jolinar remembered more than she was telling," she added, the words coming more easily now that the secret was out. "But it is not for an Ashrak to betray a Goa'uld's secrets to any but her master – and I have no master – so I did not say anything, even to you, Daniel.
"Last night, I wanted to follow her and speak with her. I told myself I could calm her down, help her to understand what was happening, but I fear I would have gone with her when she left. The compulsion to serve, to obey, is very strong in me right now, and I am drawn not to the mountain but to the trace of Goa'uld power within Major Carter."
"Daniel."
"Jack?"
"Find the chief. Tell him we need to get to the mountain; now."
*
Harruna's alternative entrance was the gaping maw of a mine entrance, at the rear of the mountain. Once inside, he led Sam through a series of large galleries, and to a rock chimney.
"This shaft goes up for about fifteen feet before it enters one of the lower levels of the city catacombs," he explained. "From there you can get into the city proper, but I fear…"
"Silence," Sam ordered. "Climb; I will follow."
Ascending the chimney was difficult, but Sam was intensely driven and determined. Harruna proved to be an adept climber, and when Sam reached the top he was ready to pull her out. They were in a long, stone corridor, decorated with faded frescos and carved relief. There was dust everywhere, and Sam estimated that it must be years since anyone had used this part of the city.
"Much of the city lies abandoned," Harruna confirmed when she said as much. "It was built to house as many as all the tribes of the Amahagger combined, but only She-Who-is-Obeyed and her servants dwell here now."
He led Sam on, up several flights of stairs to a stone door. "Beyond are the lowest of the halls which are still in use. Are you certain…" He fell silent, reading the answer in her eyes, and opened the door. They slipped through, into a well-lit and recently-dusted version of the passage they had just left.
"How do we get to the Tomb?" Sam demanded.
"I do not know," Harruna replied.
"What!"
"I do not know of any tomb, Mistress," the boy pleaded, wringing his hands. "You simply said to lead you to the city."
Sam slapped Harruna hard across the face. He looked shocked, and deeply frightened. "Stop snivelling," she told him, harshly. "I must find the Tomb. Perhaps it is back in the catacombs; Curran did speak of being tested in the caverns under the palace."
"The testing place?" Harruna asked.
"What?"
"You seek the testing place," he repeated, delighted. "I can take you there!"
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place," Sam snarled. Harruna cowered, and she relented, stroking his face, gently. "Take me there," she said, gently. "Please."
"At once, Mistress," he promised, turning back towards the door. His eyes widened in alarm. "Mistress! Run!"
Harruna pushed past Sam. She turned, to see him throw himself towards a tall, powerful man in Jaffa armour. The warrior slapped the youth aside with contemptuous ease. Sam reached for her sidearm, and realised that she did not have one. In her rush to reach the city, she must have left it in the stone house.
She turned to run, and saw another guard with a large, pistol-like weapon raised. He fired, and her body convulsed as she fell backwards, a zat blast arcing around her.
"Mistress!" Harruna called out. Sam tipped her eyes back far enough to see the boy reach towards her, as the first guard slammed a fist into the back of his head.
*
When the rest of SG-1 arrived, they received a rather less abrupt welcome. They proceeded from Hawk territory along the road – which they were told was the property of the Gods, and thus no Amahagger was permitted to claim it, or to keep others from trespassing upon it as it passed through their lands. At the top of the bridge, two guards bowed to them, as though they were honoured – and expected – guests. Jack felt his hackles rise, certain that it could not be so easy.
"These are also not Jaffa," Teal'c whispered, although the warriors wore Jaffa armour and a tattoo of a stylised hand on their foreheads, and carried weapons that Teal'c explained were staff weapons and zat'nik'tels of an antiquated, but effective, design.
"Warriors of the Goat tribe," Matane – acting as their guide – told them through Daniel's translation, and making no attempt to conceal his words from the Goats. "They are honoured among the Amahagger with the guardianship of the mountain, but they are less worthy than the Hawks."
"Silence, dog of the East," one of the Goats commanded. "No Hawk could live on the mountain's slope."
"How many tribes are there?" Daniel asked.
"Seven," Matane replied.
"And which wears the symbol of the sun?"
"The Vulture tribe, who dwell in the mountains and swamps behind the mountain."
Daniel nodded. "The ones who found Curran and brought him here," he explained to Jack.
At the doors, Matane and the other Hawks sent as escort were turned back, and four Goats fell into step with the visitors to guide them to the throne room of She-Who-is-Obeyed. No attempt was made to relieve them of their shotguns, or Teal'c of his staff weapon.
"So what do we do once we get to the throne room?" Daniel asked.
"Kick ass, take names and find out if they've seen any sign of Sam," Jack replied. "Preferably with a little less alliteration."
After a few minutes, a second group of guards emerged, two of them dragging a young native man by the arms, and the other two dragging Sam.
"Carter!" Jack called out, running ahead to the second group.
The guards dropped their burdens heavily to the floor, turned and levelled their staff weapons. The leader of the warriors escorting SG-1 stepped forward to intervene, as Jack knelt to examine Sam.
"Are you okay, Carter?" Jack asked.
"I'm fine," she replied, shortly. "What's a little zat blast between enemies. Speaking of which."
Quicker than Jack could follow, Sam had grabbed his shotgun, pulled it from his hands, and fired it into the flank of the leader of her captors. The warrior stumbled sideways, dying, and the other guards called out in alarm.
"Ah, damn," Jack muttered. A guard loomed over him, and he grabbed its staff weapon below the head, pushing it aside so that his shot hit another of his companions, and allowing Sam to blast him with the shotgun. Teal'c lowered the tip of his own staff, dropping the final member of that patrol, as their comrades began to react.
Daniel turned as the nearest warrior swung for him with the butt of his weapon, but Nefera put out her hand and dashed the attacker against the wall with her ribbon device. In return, Daniel swung up his shotgun, and the Ashrak ducked to let him fire safely into the ersatz Jaffa coming for her. A flurry of blows from Teal'c, and a staff blast from Jack finished that patrol as well.
"That was fun," Daniel muttered.
"Carter," Jack demanded. "What the hell are you playing at? Rushing off on your own; dropping us into firefights with no warning."
"Better that than sitting around, waiting to be captured. Or walking into the arms of the enemy. Or was that your plan all along?"
"What?" Jack demanded, absolutely gobsmacked by Sam's tone.
"Were you hoping to find another Goa'uld Queen to take the place of your precious Astarte," Sam sneered.
"That's enough, Major," Jack warned.
"That's useful for you, isn't it, Jack?" Sam continued. "Being able to order me to be quiet. Is that how you got Lopez to shut up and take the fall for you?" Jack looked as though Sam had slapped him in the face. "Well, not this time, 'Colonel'. This place is brimming with power, and your weakness and fear will not stand between me and what is mine!"
"Mistress," the boy said, warily.
"And you!" Sam spat, rounding on him and seizing him by the throat. "With your soft-eyed looks and your 'secret paths'. You were leading me into a trap all along!" The youth cringed, his heart visibly torn by Sam's anger. "You'll pay for this treachery, boy."
"Sam; let him go!" Daniel cried, as his friend tightened her grip on the young man's throat.
"Coward," Sam accused him.
"God, Sam," Daniel said. "I don't know which is worse. The things you're saying, or the fact that you're saying them in Goa'uld!"
Sam froze, and after a moment, she released the youth, who backed away, then fled in obvious fear of his life. "Daniel," she whispered, confused. Tears of desperation and terror sprang into her eyes. "What's happening to me?" She asked, in plain English.
"It's…this pace," Daniel said, uncertain what might happen if he mentioned the Tomb. "It exerts some kind of influence."
"Oh God," Sam whispered. "Jack, I'm…"
"Don't mention it, Major," Jack snapped, tightly. "It wasn't you."
"What do we do now?" Nefera asked. Sam narrowed her eyes, scowling dangerously at the Goa'uld.
"Maybe Sam should wait outside," Daniel suggested. "While we…"
"No," Jack interrupted. "We all stick together. I don't want you out of my sight, Major."
"Yes, Sir," Sam agreed, meekly.
"We carry on to the throne room. We kick the ass; we take the names; and we get the hell out of dodge."
"It's this way," Sam said, gesturing along the passage."
"How do you know that?" Jack asked.
"I…don't know," Sam admitted.
Jack nodded. "You take point, Major," he ordered.
*
Ten minutes later, they reached the throne room, and by that time, Daniel was convinced that he was in hell. Sam was near to tears, Teal'c was jumpy, and Jack had buttoned down his emotions so tightly that he looked about set to burst. He did not know Nefera well enough to judge if she were acting normally, but he suspected not. The Ashrak kept looking nervously between Sam and Jack – the Goa'uld and the leader, Daniel realised; two authority figures and no real idea which she should obey – and turning to Daniel for guidance. He had a strong impulse to take the frightened girl by the hand, but he needed both for the shotgun, so he forced himself to remember what she was.
Daniel realised that he was probably not quite acting himself either. He had after all just seen his best friend raving in Goa'uld while trying to strangle a young man for no real reason, moments after she had turned on her commanding officer, and moments before calling him a coward. Daniel knew only too well what it was to lose yourself, and he knew that – since the incident with Jolinar – Sam dreaded losing control of her own body in that way. He could only guess what she – what any of his friends – were going through.
They entered the throne room through a great, arched doorway, in which a pair of mighty wooden doors, bound in bronze and inlaid with gold, stood open. Through the opening, they saw columns, many columns, and at the far end of the hall a great throne sat on a dais, covered by a great sheet of ivory silk. Slowly and warily, SG-1 moved through the columns, weapons held at the ready in tense hands.
"O'Neill," Teal'c whispered, as they neared the dais. "I sense a presence."
Suddenly, the silk sheet slithered from the throne, revealing the woman beneath. The throne was huge, yet the woman – although of little more than average height – was in no way dwarfed. She was clad in a breathtaking gown of blue silk, which hugged and flattered her perfect figure. Her hair was raven black, her skin dark and her features Egyptian. Her face was haughty and proud, her expression cruel, and she was almost impossibly beautiful. What colour her eyes might be, Daniel could not tell, because the whites burned constantly with the Goa'uld fire. She wore a jewelled head-dress, golden bracelets covered her slim, smooth arms, and a naquadah pendant, in the shape of a lotus blossom, hung at her breast.
Daniel had only a moment to take all this in, before, with an incoherent shriek of rage, Sam launched herself at the woman.
"Carter!" Jack called, as two guards appeared from behind the massive throne.
"Aray," the woman said, calmly, her voice soft and sweet beneath the peculiar resonance of the Goa'uld, which seemed in her case to be more exaggerated than with any Goa'uld Daniel had ever come across.
Sam stopped in her tracks, shotgun half-raised.
"Whatever you're doing, stop!" Jack ordered, raising his shotgun.
"Rashalok'ma," the woman said, in the same, unconcerned tone.
Daniel tried to follow Jack's example, but an arm wrapped around him, holding him pinned against a strong, slender body. "Nefera!" He gasped.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I can't…"
"I knew it," Jack hissed. "Teal'c!"
"Rashalok'ma," the woman repeated, more forcefully.
Teal'c swung his staff, clubbing Jack to the ground. His raised the weapon for another blow.
"Ai'kree," the woman said, with a casual wave of her hand, and Teal'c stopped.
One of the warriors came down and took Daniel's shotgun, and gathered up Jack's. Nefera released Daniel, and he turned on her with a look of anger and disappointment. Anything he might have said died on his lips however, at the sight of the expression of helpless distress she wore.
The woman gave a slight gesture, and Nefera knelt in supplication, as did Teal'c and Sam. A big man in a long robe – apparently some manner of major domo – came around from behind SG-1.
"Ke'i," he instructed. "Ke'i fa Ehl'lo'dis'a, Ayesha."
"Daniel?" Jack asked.
"Kneel," Daniel translated. "Kneel before Ayesha; She-Who-is-Obeyed."