Complete
Action/Adventure, Drama
FR-M
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. 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:
J.R.R. Tolkien really did write the Lydney Park Report, although it had nothing to do with nightgaunts.
Acknowledgements:
Let the word go forth from this time and place: Sho is the greatest beta of them all!
They ran through the narrow ravine, side by side, driven on past all normal limits by the force of their terror. The night air was cool, but it seemed to press close about them nonetheless. A man and a woman, both young, both strong, but both of them reaching the end of their endurance. Behind them they could hear the haunting voices of the pursuing hound; their true voices, not the mockeries they used to hunt with.
"I can't go any further," the woman gasped.
"Yes you can, Selia," the man replied. "You must."
"I can not, Kerris," Selia replied. "I am sorry, old friend but I can go no further."
"Just a little further," Kerris told her. "There is a cave by the river, sheltered by gorse and by the water; you can hide there while I draw them off and run for help."
"But you'll be killed," she gasped.
Kerris shook his leonine head. "I will be faster on my own," he assured her, almost dragging her onward. "It's less than a mile to the pastures now. I'll find a horse and come back for you."
They splashed through the river and Kerris dragged aside a patch of gorse. As he had promised, there was indeed a cave, small and shallow, but shelter nonetheless. "In you go," he told Selia.
"You will come back?"
"I promise," he said.
Selia pressed her lips soundly against his, then ducked into the cave. "Good luck," she whispered.
"And you," he replied, a little stunned by the kiss.
Kerris ran on, down the crag towards the pastures. He emerged from the rocks, looked out over the rolling grasslands of the valley and saw...nothing. Not a horse was in sight. "No!" he gasped, horrified. Where were the horses? There had to be a horse. Out on the pasture a shape moved and he realised: The hounds had known he would come here; they had already chased all of the horses away.
A piercing scream echoed from the crag. Kerris turned and ran back the way he had come; back towards the cave. He rounded a bend and stopped in horror. The pack of shadow hounds filled the narrow ravine; soft, scrabbling footfalls told Kerris that more of the beasts had landed behind him, blocking his retreat. In the midst of the pack stood two tall horses, yoked to a chariot. The chariot was driven by a man with wild, silver hair, dressed all in black. His eyes were dark and fierce, he had a hoary, unkempt beard and his right hand had a silvery sheen to it; the hand which held Selia's limp form against his chest.
"No," Kerris choked.
"You were close, boy," the charioteer said, his voice hard and cold, yet somehow free from malice and almost admiring. "The best chase I have had in a long time. I am proud of you. You might actually have escaped me, had you but the strength to leave the girl behind sooner."
"Please," Kerris said. "Please, let her go. Do what you like to me, but let her go."
"What if I offered to let you go, if you left her here."
The temptation ripped at Kerris' heart. He looked at the still form of Selia and the thought took him that maybe she was dead already. It would not be a betrayal to leave her if she were already dead, would it? He banished such thoughts however. He stood straight and said to the charioteer: "I leave with her, or not at all."
"Such devotion to another man's wife," the old man laughed. "But the hunt is over; I am done with you both."
Hope flared for a moment, then died. "You do not mean to free us," Kerris realised.
"Only in a metaphysical sense," the huntsman admitted. "I am not without gentility, however. As you cared for each other, I shall grant you one final favour. Come; take the girl from me and I shall let you die in each other's arms."
His whole body trembling, Kerris approached, lifted Selia down from the platform and lowered her gently to the ground.
Her eyes flickered open. "Kerris?" she whispered. "I came when you called, but..."
"I did not call," Kerris sighed.
"Nor did she have time to scream," the huntsman remarked, as he stepped from the chariot.
Selia turned and stared up in horror. The rider hefted a three-headed harpoon, and Selia buried her face in Kerris chest. Kerris shook with fear, but he clutched her tight and tried to will himself to be brave.
The hunter looked at the harpoon, critically, and after a moment the central prong stretched, growing long enough to pierce two hearts at a single stroke.
"I am sorry," Kerris whispered. He pressed Selia's head against him, rested his chin on the top of her head and squeezed his eyes shut. He heard the footsteps of the huntsman as he walked around behind him. There was a moment of absolute stillness, even the hounds falling silent in anticipation of the kill. Then the harpoon plunged down.
*
Stargate Command
SG-7 looked at the MALP footage of the sunlit world. The Gate on P26-1A7 was situated on a hill, overlooking a deep, glacial valley almost five miles across. A sparkling silver river snaked across the valley floor, flanked by gently waving willows. As the team admired the view, three major structures stood out from the rolling green of the natural landscape.
On the far side of the valley, at the base of a massive, truncated spur, the broken shell of a ruined temple jutted from the bare earth like shards of black glass embedded in the hillside. To judge by the vegetation which grew around but not upon the ruin, the temple had been abandoned for many years, but the ruins themselves were entirely clear of any growth, the edges of the shattered walls as sharp as the day they had been cracked open. To the best of SG-7's collective understanding, the walls would never decay any further, only wait, just as they were, until some hapless organic lifeform brought them the power to return to life, for this was a Scourge temple.
Not far from the temple lay the remains of a city. It had clearly been great once; it sprawled across the valley, as large as the city of New York and perhaps as grand, once upon a time. Unfortunately, its occupants had been unfortunate enough to rouse the power of the dormant Scourge. Now the city lay in ruins, and had done for longer even than the temple. The towers had been thrown down, the walls fused and blackened by some manner of energy weapon. In all that ruin, nothing moved.
This devastation was the inevitable consequence of rousing The Scourge; only those who had been fast enough to flee, to run beyond the range of The Scourge's bio-transmissions, might have survived. But then, something had happened to destroy the temple. There should have been no way that anything could return to live within a dozen miles of even a dormant Scourge presence, yet there on the valley floor was a settlement; a fortified town, surrounded by a wooden palisade and the silver ribbon of a moat. The buildings were in good repair, ordered fields flanked the town and figures – human figures – moved in the streets.
The screen flickered and now they were watching a bird's eye view of the same valley, shot from a reconnaissance UAV.
"I was starting to hope we'd seen the last of The Scourge," Ferretti sighed. "I guess it was too much to believe."
"Don't give up hope, Lou," General O'Neill advised. "The MALP has been scanning for Scourge bio-transmissions for the past eighteen hours: So far, nothing. Also, there's no sign of vector nanites – dormant or active – in the soil and air samples."
Merlyn frowned at the images of the settlement, turning from the screen to study the preliminary analysis in her mission folder. "If they have a rigidly enforced taboo against straying within range of the temple, it is just possible that it has simply remained dormant for all these years."
Pearson shook his head. "We've carried out a full analysis of the MALP's signal record from P3A-126," he said, "and there were regular bursts of low-frequency transmissions even before SG-12 triggered the defences and woke up the Mind; a sixty-two microsecond modulating pulse every thirty minutes or so; almost like a very slow heartbeat. This temple is considerably deader than that, although I don't think we should rule out the possibility of an even deeper hibernation state."
"Well, if it's dead then I want to know what killed it," O'Neill explained. "Something destroyed that temple and there's no sign that they used a nuke to do it. If there's an effective way to root out an infestation without scorching half a continent, I want to know about it."
"What about the dead earth?" Roberts asked. "Couldn't that be a result of contamination."
"The dead earth extends less than a hundred yards in any direction," O'Neill replied. "No nuke that we know of is that selective. Obviously, if you get a strong reading on the Geiger counters we'll assume nukes and pull you out, but at present we're assuming this is a remnant of the effect which The Scourge used to leech the soil of 126 of all its nutrients. Likewise, if Lieutenant Rasputin gets a whiff of any hostile voodoo, you're to fall back to the Gate and report to the Delta Site for decontamination."
"Standard Behemoth protocols?" Ferretti asked.
O'Neill nodded. "You'll have no IDC for Stargate Command. Your return will be via the Animal House; quarantine at medical discretion."
Ferretti groaned. "There's nothing like a hero's welcome."
"And this is nothing like a hero's welcome," O'Neill agreed, grinning. "Suit up, SG-7; you ship out in two hours."
*
Merlyn spent most of her prep time in the anthropology library on Level 26, reading up on what Dr Jackson had labelled ‘siege cultures'; social groups which existed in a constant state of defensive readiness and fear of the other. She was not an anthropologist or a diplomat by training, but as SG-7's cultural specialist she felt it to be her place to know as much as possible about the likely pitfalls of any encounter. Although absorbed by the material, Merlyn kept half an eye on the clock and allowed herself only ninety minutes of reading time before heading to the women's locker room.
She was quite surprised to find Alexa Rasputin there, already dressed in her BDUs and staring at her reflection in the mirror as though expecting it to say something.
"Lieutenant?" Merlyn asked warily.
Alexa started with a gasp. "Captain! I...I'm sorry, I was just a little..."
"Easy, soldier," Merlyn said. "Take a deep breath and tell me what's bothering you, since I don't need to be psychic to know that something is up."
Alexa nodded and took several deep breaths before speaking again. "It's just that this is the first time we'll have come across The Scourge since 126," she explained. "I'm scared, Captain; I mean, I am seriously terrified."
"I thought you'd been working on your psychic defences?"
"Oh, I have, Captain," Alexa assured her. "I've spent pretty much all of my off-duty time working on them; I am getting a reputation as a bit of a stick-at-home."
Merlyn nodded her understanding and her sympathy. She had heard some of the rumours: that the lieutenant shunned company because of a past tragedy; that she had a secret love affair with someone inappropriate, another officer in her chain of command, an enlisted man or even another woman; that the KGB had surgically removed her sense of fun. Merlyn was sure that there were many more, less kind speculations as well. She knew this in part because she had a similar reputation, although hers was earned by purposeful effort, not by necessity; and while she could say that she did not indulge in drinking or dating because of her faith, Alexa could not reveal her reasons so long as her very particular talents remained classified. Moreover, Merlyn could not fail to notice that while self-imposed isolation was her lifestyle of choice, Alexa Rasputin was by nature a gregarious young woman.
"The trouble is that I have no-one to practice with." Alexa continued. "I can train myself to resist external probes or influences until I am blue in face," she explained, her definite articles slipping as they sometimes did when she was upset, "but without any probe or influence to resist...There's just no way to know whether I've achieved anything at all. I won't know. If my work has done no good, I will have no way of knowing until I have already failed you."
"I see how that could worry you," Merlyn agreed, struggling to find some words of comfort for the younger woman, but in all honesty too worried herself. The Russian's extrasensory talents would be a great asset against The Scourge, but they also made her vulnerable to its influence. At their first encounter with the alien force, Alexa's defences had proven to be barely sufficient and Merlyn knew that if they failed that asset would become a liability. "You held out last time," she offered at last.
"Barely, and only with Sergeant Pearson's help. He has told me that he would sooner die than be linked like that again. So what happens if I go bad?" Alexa asked, plaintively.
Merlyn shook her head. "If it helps, I'll ask Lieutenant Roberts to keep an eye on you. I'm sure we can count on him to drop you before you do too much damage."
Alexa relaxed slightly. "Thank you, Ma'am," she said. "That makes me feel a lot better."
"It does?" Merlyn asked, surprised. "Well, alright then; whatever works."
"I just don't want anyone else killed because of me, Ma'am."
"Anyone else?"
Alexa gave a helpless shrug which told Merlyn that this was one of the many aspects of her past that the Russian was not permitted to discuss. She had a number of those, as did Ferretti; even Pearson had one or two black ops stories that could never see the light of day and as for Roberts...Well, the only episodes in Roberts' past that he was allowed to discuss he chose not to. Merlyn sometimes felt a little out of her depth. Her life was an open book, should anyone wish to read it; aside from the Stargate Program, whatever secrets she had were her own and not the State's.
"Anyway," Alexa continued. "Thank you. I'll see you in the Embarkation Room."
With a sigh, Merlyn turned to her locker. Almost uniquely among lockers, the inside of the door was clear of pictures. In fact, Merlyn's locker was probably the neatest locker of any officer in the United States Air Force, if not the world. It had a crispness and an order that the keenest and most fresh-faced boot lieutenant could not have matched, yet there was nothing forced about the organisation; she simply lived an ordered life.
Mindful of the time, Merlyn removed her neatly folded battle dress uniform from its shelf, took off her boots and stripped off her base fatigues. She dressed again, then carefully folded the fatigues and placed them on the shelf in a neat pile before putting her boots back on. She then took the little silver crucifix from around her neck, laid it in a velvet case and replaced it with a plain gold cross. She closed the locker, then knelt, closed her eyes, bowed her head and said a brief prayer for the safety of her team. Finally, she crossed herself, stood up and left the locker room.
She hit the prep room with minutes to spare and found the technician checking the seals on Lieutenant Roberts' Omega biohazard suit. She nodded a greeting and began to don and seal her own protective gear, a mind that had been trained to operate according to routine and formula fitting itself easily to the methodical process.
"I always feel strange wearing this," Merlyn admitted.
"That's probably just because you know each suit costs rather more to manufacture and maintain than a family car," Roberts suggested, his voice distorted by the helmet. His seals approved, he strapped the holster for his MPX to the side of the armoured suit.
"I'm sure that's a part of it," Merlyn agreed. "But it's almost like the suit is part of me; as though I were growing a carapace rather than putting on a suit."
"Someone told me that it's one of the most ergonomically perfect designs in the world," Roberts noted. "Flamboyant, shiny-faced loon though he may have been, Anubis apparently had an eye for efficient design: Well, either an eye or whatever it is that semi-ascended ethereal energy beings see with."
Merlyn nodded, uncomfortable with this reminder that the suits were constructed around the basic design of the armour Anubis had provided for his supersoldiers; she usually chose to allow that fact to slide from her efficient mind. Prior to her encounter with the psychic spoor of one of the Old Ones on P8F-951, she had been convinced that Anubis was the closest thing in the world to pure evil. Since then she had marked him down to a modest rating of ‘mostly evil', but the idea of wearing his colours – at whatever remove – was still a little difficult for her to accept.
"And of course," Roberts went on, "these aren't stock suits." It was a rare privilege; ever since The Scourge had been added to the list of SG-7's duties under the Behemoth Protocols, they had been provided with their own, tailored Omega suits.
"Hmm," Merlyn mused. "So, how are you feeling, Lieutenant?"
"Jittery," Roberts replied, candidly. "The last time we encountered the Scourge I had to shoot and kill a number of friends; some more than once."
"They were only simulacra," Merlyn reminded him.
"True, but that only makes it easier in retrospect. I really don't like The Scourge, Merlyn, and I'm not ashamed to admit that they scare me." He took his M181 from the armoury officer and, despite a slight shiver in his voice, checked it over with steady hands.
Merlyn donned her helmet and clamped the seals shut around her shoulders. Her hands were trembling.
Roberts reached up and checked the seals for her. "And you, Captain?" he asked.
Merlyn almost sighed aloud in relief. She felt a burning need to confess her feelings, but as their superior officer she had not felt able to confide those feelings in either of the lieutenants unsolicited. "I am deeply and profoundly frightened," she told him.
"Look on the bright side," Roberts suggested. "They may be dead."
"There is that," Merlyn agreed, but she was thinking: Does no-one understand?
Roberts drew a sharp breath. "That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?" he asked.
Merlyn could almost have kissed him. "Yes, Roberts," she said. "The Scourge are an obscenity, but I understand them; they're pretty straightforward. What really scares me is the knowledge that there is something that scares them."
"Because the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend."
"Right. In fact, the enemy of this enemy may not even have a word for friend."
"Well, thank you Captain," Roberts said.
"For what?"
"For making me even more scared than I was," he replied with a wry grin.
Merlyn smiled. "After you, Roberts," she said.
"Oh no, Ma'am. After you."
*
P26-1A7
"It's an impressive view," Ferretti said. The Stargate stood on a raised platform of stone, flanked by four pillars of carved stone. Ferretti reclined at the edge of the raised platform and chewed a long blade of grass. His helmet lay beside him, Pearson having declared the air quite definitely nanite free and safe to breathe. "A little bleak with all these ruins and so forth, but really quite breathtaking."
"It's a good arrangement," Roberts said, studying the town through his field glasses; Ferretti had assigned him to assess the town's defences, partly because it was something he was good at, but mostly because it kept him from becoming all maudlin and gothic over the ruins. "The palisade must be fifteen or twenty feet tall and over a foot thick, with a walkway and a sloping earth bank behind it. Then there's a lower bank and a moat all the way around with a drawbridge at the only gate. The moat is probably pretty deep; fed by a river which runs along the valley floor and comes out the other side to continue on its way. That's not a natural island, though; they must have created it themselves.
"The guards have muskets or rifles or something and there are larger guns mounted on the parapet. I think those must be some kind of floodlights around the wall, probably oil lamps with reflectors; the ground around the perimeter would be as bright as day with all of those lit."
"Where would they get the oil to light all of those?" Ferretti mused.
"Rape," Alexa said.
"I beg your pardon!"
"All that yellow stuff in the fields is oil-seed rape," Alexa explained. "Given the proportions of rape to grain and pasture, they obviously place a lot of importance on the oil. No farmhouses, though," she mused. "All those fields, but not a single farmhouse. The farmers can't all live in the town, can they?"
"There's a second cluster of building about ten miles downriver," Roberts said. "I can't make out any details from here, but at a glance I'd say it was a sort of industrial complex; the place where they do all the smelly stuff. It looks like there's smoke rising from it; probably a refinery for the rape oil, or maybe a steam mill. The farmers might either live there or just dorm there to cut down on the travel time. Looks as though that one's moated as well, but there doesn't seem to be a palisade; not on the same scale."
"I guess they're more frightened down this way," Alexa said.
"Down this way? You mean closer to the temple?" Ferretti asked, rhetorically. "I wonder why that could be."
"It's odd," Robert said. "The roofs of the main settlement, including the shelter over the walkway, are all covered in spikes; like the ones they use to keep pigeons off shop fronts."
"What's odd about that?" Alexa asked. "No-one likes pigeons."
"Well, certainly not these ones," Roberts agreed. "You can see the spikes from here, Alexa; the pigeons would have to weigh one-hundred pounds!"
"So the Scourge who attack the village are airborne?" Ferretti asked. "Not a pleasant thought. Pearson, has there been any sign of Scourge transmissions?"
"According to the MALP there's been nothing at all for the last twenty-one hours," Pearson assured them.
"That's good to know. How about you Rasputin?"
Alexa shook her head. "I can't feel the presence of The Scourge," she told him, but she sounded ill-at-ease and her tone was not comforting. "There is...something," she confessed, when Ferretti fixed her with a questioning look, "but it's not in the air around us; it's somewhere over that way." She waved her hand in the direction of the ruin and the temple.
"Listen carefully, Rasputin," Ferretti said. "Is it nasty?"
"You might call it a well-wisher," Alexa suggested, "in that it wishes us no particular harm."
Ferretti shrugged. "Maybe I've been working at the SGC for too long but that's good enough for me. Captain Lloyd; are you with us?"
"Sorry, Sir," Merlyn called. "I think I've finished the translation of these obelisks."
"What do they say?" Ferretti asked.
"Do you really want to know, Sir?"
Ferretti looked thoughtful. "You know I can't resist it when you ask me ominous questions, Captain; tell all."
"Well, all four stones are covered in text; thirty-two lines in total, but no two lines are the same script. I've translated enough of them to be certain that they all say the same thing: ‘Go back'."
"Are they talking about the Scourge?" Roberts asked.
"I think so," Merlyn replied. "They're several millennia old, however, which suggests that they were placed here long before that town, or even the city next to it were built."
Ferretti nodded. "Well, so long as they're not current, let's go," he said. "Roberts; you're on point."
"Temple, ruin or town?" Roberts asked.
"I think we should be polite," Ferretti said. "Town first, don't you think, Captain?"
Merlyn nodded, uncertainly. "That's probably for the best."
"You don't sound sure."
"I'll just feel better once we've confirmed that the temple is dead," she admitted. "But you're quite right; we should make our business known to these people as soon as possible."
Ferretti gave a self-satisfied grin. "I'll make the diplomatic corps yet," he crowed.
*
The main gate of the town had a lot of traffic, mostly on foot but there were also wagons and horses. Everyone they saw looked like they were locals, but no-one spared the strangers a second glance, so there must have been at least a semi-regular flow of travellers to the town. Furthermore, no-one batted an eyelid at the sight of the weapons which SG-7 carried, and well they might not; most of the people that they saw carried a pistol on their hip. Their apparel drew rather more eyes, but then the Omega suits were fairly distinctive. As they approached the gate, the sun was dipping towards the horizon and the people were all moving back into the town.
"Looks like there's a curfew of some sort," Roberts said. "Maybe the monsters come out at night."
"I just wish I could tell you not to be so silly," Ferretti sighed. "I miss those days."
Two men stood guard at the gate and they eyed SG-7 warily as they crossed the drawbridge. They had the look of militia, well-trained but not living the military life; they carried repeating long-arms, heavy automatic pistols and knives, but wore no real uniforms to speak of.
"Interesting," Merlyn mused. "The weapons are the equivalent of the mid-twentieth century on Earth, but they're still using oil lamps; no electricity."
"Nor even gas," Pearson added. "Unless...Maybe they just want to make sure that the light cannot be interrupted by a loss of supply?"
"Hold, strangers!" one of the sentries commanded as they approached. "What's your business in Yeth?"
"You're up, Merlyn," Ferretti said.
"Total honesty?"
"Yeah, why not."
"We are travellers," Merlyn told the guard, "seeking knowledge of the ruins and hospitality for the night."
"What are you called?" the other sentry asked. "Where do you come from?"
"My name is Captain Lloyd, although most people call me Merlyn. These are my comrades: Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Ferretti, Lieutenant Tim Roberts, Lieutenant Alexa Rasputin and Sergeant Xander Pearson. We have come through the Stargate."
"Through which Gate?" the second sentry asked.
"The Stargate," Merlyn repeated. "That's our name for the ring of stone on the hill; we use it to travel between worlds."
The first guard looked stunned; the second was taken aback but maintained his presence of mind. "You came through the Great Eye?" he asked.
"I guess so," Merlyn replied.
"Well then..." The guard thought for a moment. "Alright; go through the town, following the main road as far as it will go. That will take you to the big house."
"The big house?" Ferretti asked, alarmed.
"I think that's big house, Sir," Merlyn assured him. "As in a house that's big, rather than prison."
The guard gave them an odd look. "Anyway, ask at the door for Tamira. She'll know what to do and if anyone knows what you want to know it will be her."
"So this Tamira is a historian?" Merlyn asked.
"She's the headwoman of the town," the first guard explained, recovering his self-possession somewhat.
"Cool," Ferretti said. "We don't even have to ask to be taken to their leader; they just send us straight to the chief."
"The headwoman," the guard repeated, insistently.
"Is there a difference?" Merlyn asked.
The guard looked a little baffled by the question. "The chief is the head of the town," he explained. "The headwoman is the head woman; the head of all the women in the town."
The second guard snorted, good-humouredly. "For what difference it actually makes. When the old chief died – that's Tamira's husband as was – Tamira took charge for a few weeks, until we could sort out electing a new chief, what with Arrik being too young for the post. Well, that was six years ago."
"But she's not the chief, Gedder," the first guard insisted.
"No, Regin," his comrade agreed, patiently. "She's not the chief; just near as damnit. Anyway; straight down the road to the big house. Move along now; you're holding folk up and it's nearly dark."
"So do we need to be off the streets by dark?" Merlyn asked.
Gedder looked at her as though she had just asked him if it might be a good idea if she should not beat her best friend liberally about the head and neck with a live electric cable. "If you know what's good for you," he assured her. He sounded scared.
"Definitely something that comes at night, then," Ferretti said as they moved on.
"The threat has to be rational rather than supernatural," Merlyn suggested. "Something that can be known. Gedder looked surprised that we came from the Stargate to look at the temple, but there was no sign of superstitious fear; no talismans or gestures to ward off evil."
"Well, apparently they feel that it's something that can be repelled with firearms," Roberts said.
"And light," Pearson added, as they passed a group of men with long poles who were lighting the oil lights which lined the main street; similar lights hung outside each house in the road and the householders were hurrying to light them against the gathering gloom.
"And just look at those lamps around the walls," the sergeant went on. "The reflectors are like great, crystal hoods, silvered on one side. The light they give must be incredible."
Alexa pointed along the road. "So; do you think that's the big house?"
"Well, it's definitely a big house," Ferretti allowed.
The big house of Yeth was a three storey mansion in a town of bungalows and long halls, flanked by a row of silos and warehouses and what looked as though it might well be a church. The architecture was more formal and precise than that of the other houses, with broad, keystone arched windows and neatly dressed stone walls in place of rougher stone construction and low, mortared arches. In common with the smaller houses however, the tiled roof was studded with spikes, everything from six-inch spurs to nine-foot pikes, jutting out at all angles.
Lights blazed through the slats of the shutters on every window on the lower two floors of the big house, but the upper storey was dark; the upper windows were boarded up and, rather alarmingly, the heavy boards were marred by deep claw marks.
"Eek," Alexa said, staring at the scratches in dismay.
"Seconded," Pearson agreed.
"I'll go with eek," Roberts said. Merlyn just nodded.
"I think we can call the motion of ‘eek' carried," Ferretti declared. He strode up to the door of the big house and knocked.
"None of the other houses have marks on the walls or shutters," Roberts noted.
"Nor do the downstairs shutters on this house," Pearson added. "It must just be because this house is so tall. To get to any of the lower windows a winged aggressor would have to come down past the spikes."
"Ouch," Ferretti said.
"Even to reach the second storey they'd have to skim the rooftops," Pearson went on, "but the third...I guess the builders just overstepped themselves."
Ferretti raised his hand to knock again, but at that moment the door opened. Golden light poured out, illuminating the five travellers and silhouetting the slender girl who stood in the doorway with a large-calibre carbine braced, one-handed, against her hip.
"Good evening," she said, nervously. "What can I do for you?"
"We were told to ask for Tamira," Ferretti replied.
The girl nodded. "Come in, please," she said, standing aside. As they trooped through the door, she eased the hammer of her weapon down and applied what the travellers took to be some kind of safety before placing it in a hangar by the door. Once they were inside they could see that the girl was wearing a black and grey pinafore dress and a headscarf to hold back her brown hair; a small automatic was holstered at her hip.
"Do you always keep a loaded weapon by the door?" Roberts asked.
"Yes, Sir," she replied with a smile. "That's why they call it a door gun. Shall Mistress Tamira know your names or should I simply tell her that there are travellers to see her?"
"She doesn't know us," Merlyn replied.
"I shall tell her you are here and ask someone to come and take your weapons," the girl said with a nod. "Please instruct them if there are any particular precautions that your weapons require to be taken; they seem strange to us."
As the girl walked briskly away, the team turned to Ferretti for a lead. "Clear and safety," he told them, removing the clip from his MPX and locking the selector for the weapon's onboard disruptor. "Keep your sidearms, though, since they evidently wear those about the house."
Two men came with a trolley for the weapons. "We will store them in the gun room," one of them said, in response to Ferretti's question. "They will be quite safe and easily accessible if you need them."
Roberts occupied himself with an inspection of the door gun while they waited for their hostess to appear. "Fascinating," he said.
"What is it?" Merlyn asked.
"Look at the curve on this stock and the balance of the trigger," Roberts explained. "I thought the girl was being sloppy, but it's actually designed to be fired one-handed from the hip." Keeping his finger well away from the trigger he broke open the breech; the barrel levered down like a sporting shotgun. "Smooth bore, large calibre; basically it's a heavy gauge, sawn-off shotgun." He replaced the weapon on its hangar.
"So it's designed to make a mess of someone at very short range," Ferretti realised.
"Someone...or something," Alexa added, ominously.
"So what are you saying, Roberts?" Merlyn asked. "That this weapon is designed to be used one-handed, specifically to blow away unwelcome callers while you've got one hand on the door handle?"
"You seem to have grasped the basic principles of the door gun." The team turned and saw a woman coming towards them, the girl who answered the door following close behind her.
"Mistress Tamira?" Ferretti asked.
"I am she."
The headwoman of Yeth was a formidable sight. She stood a hair under six feet tall and had the robust physique of a countrywoman, with large, powerful hands that looked accustomed to hard work. She was dressed much as the sentries had been, in heavy work boots, rough-woven shirt and pants and a padded jerkin that could as easily have been body armour or a body-warmer. The pistol holstered on her belt was a solid-looking, practical weapon, rather than the delicate thing her servant wore or the hand cannons sported by the guards. Her greying, honey-blonde hair was pulled back into a long ponytail and her eyes gazed directly from a careworn face that almost seemed to have ‘no timewasters' tattooed across its brow. She was the picture of rural aristocracy, and Ferretti – whose knowledge of the rural aristocracy was largely limited to a handful of lassie movies and earthbound Dr Who episodes – could easily picture her wandering the green slopes of the valley with a pair of large dogs and a shotgun under one arm.
Ferretti stepped forward and made the introductions for his team.
"Delighted," Tamira assured him, seizing his hand in a powerful grasp and favouring him with a broad smile. "It's almost dark outside, so of course you'll stay the night."
"We would be glad to," Ferretti agreed, although it had not been phrased as a question.
"Of course. Now, come through and we'll try to make you a little more comfortable, Colonel; or should I call you Louis?"
"Call me Lou," Ferretti replied. "Only my mother ever called me Louis, Mistress..."
"Just Tamira," she assured him. She took him by the arm as she led the way from the hallway.
"I think the old man's scored," Robert noted.
"It's usually you who does that," Merlyn noted. "Maybe you're losing your touch?"
Tamira took SG-7 to a small parlour. "Matia," she told the maid, "bring refreshments for our guests."
"Yes, Mistress," the girl replied.
"You will have to excuse me for a few moments," Tamira said. "I hope you won't think me rude, but I have a family matter to attend to, then I shall be at your disposal. Please make yourselves comfortable and ask Matia if there is anything you need."
"You are too kind," Ferretti said.
"You are my guests," Tamira insisted. "Guests are a rarity in Yeth and like all rarities, something to be treasured."
"Alright," Merlyn said. "This is weird."
"How so?" Ferretti asked. "They seem perfectly friendly. Sergeant Pearson; give me a hand out of this suit. I think it might be polite to lose the body armour."
"Yes, Sir," Pearson replied.
"That's exactly my point," Merlyn agreed. "The friendliness, I mean. Lieutenant, would you do the honours?"
Roberts came over and cracked the seals of Merlyn's Omega suit.
"This is a people who are terrified of the dark," Merlyn went on. "A people who fear something beyond their walls so much that they have floodlights and armed patrols to keep it at bay, yet they welcome strangers in to their homes." She struggled a little and Roberts was able to peel the close-fitted suit from her shoulders; from there it came off easily enough. "Thank you," she said.
"Always a pleasure," Roberts assured her with a roguish grin.
"Well, clearly the something has wings and claws," Pearson pointed out. "Presumably then they can tell that we're not ‘it', since we have neither."
"No," Roberts said. He turned so that Merlyn could release his suit fastenings. "Merlyn's right; well...sort of. Something is off, but..."
"They're not afraid," Alexa said. "Or rather, they are afraid but it's an old, stale, rational fear. If you live on the steppe and you know there are wolves, you're scared of the wolves," she explained. "As a child, you're afraid that the wolves will come onto the farm, break through the window and kill you. As you grow up you realise that that's silly, but you still fear that the wolves might go for your horses or catch you when you're out riding, until at last you learn that if you take a precautions then you and your stock will all be safe.
"But that doesn't mean you stop being afraid of the wolves."
"So you're saying that they aren't terrified of the dark," Merlyn suggested. She finished with Roberts' suit then moved on to help Alexa, as Ferretti was struggling a little with Pearson's. "They just know that there is something out there that stays away if they have enough lights; something dangerous, if they get sloppy."
"Something that frightens them," Alexa agreed, "but in the way grown-ups are afraid of a threat that they know and understand. If you fear a house fire that might kill your family, you fit smoke alarms rather than living in the open air."
"So what are they afraid of?" Ferretti wondered.
"Of the shadow hounds," Matia replied, as she entered with a tray. "This is our local beer. I hope it is to your taste, for there are few other alternatives at present. Ordinarily Mistress Tamira keeps a good larder," she added, apologetically, "but the caravan from Nelas is overdue by two weeks and we are running short of luxuries."
"Is that usual?" Roberts asked, concerned.
"Oh, yes. The caravans come twice a year but are often up to a month late. Other than the caravans we have only what we can grow here. It is good fare to live on, but not terribly exciting, I am afraid." Matia set the tray on the table and passed a flagon to Roberts.
Roberts took a sip and smiled at her. "It is excellent," he assured her. "Tell me, Matia; what are the shadow hounds?"
"You do not know of them?" Matia gasped. "Oh, Sir; it is fortunate then that you reached this house before nightfall. The shadow hounds are vicious creatures which haunt the shadows and snatch away the unwary."
"Snatch them away?" Merlyn asked. "You mean they kill them?"
"Perhaps, Mistress," Matia replied. "That is the most horrible thing; we simply do not know. People simply...vanish."
"How many people vanish?" Roberts asked.
"Oh, not many, Sir; not now. Before, when the hounds first appeared, they say that they would take up to a dozen in the space of a night, then not appear again for a week. Now we count it an evil time if we lose so many in a whole year; now that we have the ward-flares."
"Ward-flares?"
"Come and see," she said, motioning them towards the windows. "It is about the time of lighting. Look up to the walls."
Obediently they gathered around the shutters. Matia unlocked a window seat and took out a door gun, checked that it was loaded and then opened the shutters so that SG-7 could see the wall.
"You're very cautious," Roberts noted, standing close to the young woman.
"We have learned to be so," she replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the window. "The hounds rarely come so early as this, but it is the careless who are taken and I have no wish to be snatched away by those horrors." She raised her free hand and pointed at the wall. "See; the lighters."
Following her finger, Roberts saw a figure, silhouetted against the darkening sky. He carried a long rod in his hand. Two others flanked him, glowing lights held above their heads and door guns pressed to their hips.
"Surely those are incandescent bulbs," Merlyn said. "You do have electric lighting."
"I have heard that some of the outer settlements have rediscovered the rudiments of electrical science, but we do not use it here," Matia replied. "Those are chemical lights; very bright but short-lived. We use them for emergencies and when we need light without heat, such as for handling large quantities of flare oil."
The lighters reached the nearest of the bulbs. Two men stood by it and one of them worked a handle; this caused the casing to shift and open in some fashion. The lighter then lowered the rod to touch the lamp inside and a brilliant white light blazed forth.
"Good God!" Pearson gasped.
Merlyn coughed.
"Sorry, Ma'am," Pearson said, chastened.
"The flare oil burns hot and bright," Matia explained as the hood was closed.
The reflectors caught the light and directed it, turning the air before the ward-flare to grey and illuminating a million dancing dust motes. All around the palisade these brilliant beacons were bursting into life and turning the twilight to an eerie, silver noon. The light which leaked back through the reflectors was less than that which shone outwards, but still bright.
"How do you sleep?" Ferretti asked.
"Our bedchambers have no windows," Matia replied. "Only when we are so secure do we dare to be in the dark." She reached for the shutters, but Roberts stepped forward and closed them for her, taking care not to interfere with her line of fire.
Matia nodded her thanks. "My Mistress will join you shortly," she announced, safely stowing the door gun and locking the seat.
"Why do you lock it away?" Roberts asked. "What if you needed it in a hurry?"
"All of the adults in the house carry keys to the gun room and window cases," she assured him. "It is a risk, but we prefer to be certain that the children can not easily reach them. Shall I have your..." She struggled for a word, eventually deciding on: "...overcoats taken to be cleaned and stored?"
"Best not to, I think," Ferretti decided. "Sergeant Pearson will attend to it."
"As you prefer," she agreed. "Please call if there is anything else you need. Supper will be served in one hour."
"She seems pretty blasé about these shadow hounds," Ferretti commented.
"As I said," Alexa told him, "they have rationalised and taken ownership of their fear. They take all reasonable measures and accept the rest until there is more that they can do. You would probably find that those actually on the walls are more nervous."
"Something still doesn't fit," Merlyn said. "If these shadow hounds are The Scourge, why isn't the temple active. The temple on 126 was able to rebuild itself on the psychic energy from just six people."
Ferretti nodded. "Well, let's see what we can learn from the history of this place. It may be that the hounds are some kind of natural predator for The Scourge. Lieutenant Roberts, make yourself scarce before the lady of the house returns. Find Matia and see what you can learn from her; I think we can probably trust Tamira, but it's always worth getting another viewpoint."
"Sir," Roberts replied with a brief nod. He stood and slipped quietly out.
"Do you think it's right to actually detail him to seduce the locals?" Merlyn asked, not quite able to conceal her disapproval behind a mask of flippancy.
"I am doing no such thing and you know it," Ferretti replied.
"Yes, Sir," Merlyn agreed. She did recognise that Roberts had a knack not just for seduction, but also more generally for making women like and trust him. Given the little she had learned about his past, that worried her slightly, even when she was forced to concede its utility.
Footsteps on the stairs marked the return of Tamira, who entered the parlour accompanied by a younger woman; clearly a relative, although markedly slighter and more delicate of build than Tamira.
"This is my daughter, Kirra," Tamira announced. "Kirra, these are our guests: Colonel Louis Ferretti; Captain...Merlyn Lloyd?" Tamira looked unsure.
"It's Meredith, actually," Merlyn corrected, "but most people just call me Merlyn."
Tamira nodded in satisfaction. "Lieutenant Alexa Rasputin," she went on, "Sergeant Xander Pearson and...Oh! Where is Lieutenant Roberts?" she asked Ferretti.
"I think he was looking for the bathroom," Ferretti fibbed.
"I see. Well, I hope you have been comfortable here. I am dreadfully sorry for neglecting you, but Kirra and I had to light the prayer lamps for my eldest daughter, Ninya, and Kirra's twin brother, Arrik." Tamira settled herself on the couch beside Ferretti.
"Prayer lights?" Merlyn asked, curious.
"They are on duty at the palisade tonight," Kirra explained, as she took a seat. "We place flare lanterns in the windows to light their way home; for good luck."
Merlyn nodded. "I understand," she said. "Matia told us about the shadow hounds," she went on, turning to face Tamira. "I was wondering if you could tell us anything more about them? About where they came from, specifically; and what they have to do with the ruined temple."
"Ah," Tamira sighed. "That is a dark tale. It happened almost fifty years ago, when my mother was a young girl and our people still lived in the great city of Erana, that has now fallen into ruins.
"Once, Erana was a place of industry and science, and also a place of learning. There was a university there were wise men and women studied our past. There was one man, Professor Heres, who believed that there was some terror in our past that we had forgotten. Heres held that since we could not remember where we had gone wrong, we were doomed to face that horror again. This belief led him to lead an archaeological team to the dead zone at the foot of the great spur, where they uncovered the ruins of the temple.
"Heres came back changed. My mother said that when he returned from his expedition she barely knew him." Tamira's eyes grew haunted. "Professor Heres was my grandfather."
"That was when the temple began to grow?" Merlyn asked.
"Yes," Tamira replied. "Then you know already what happened?"
"Not here," Ferretti assured her. "We have seen it elsewhere." He took Tamira's hand and held it in a comforting grip. "Please continue, if you can."
Tamira swallowed hard, momentarily choked with emotion. "Kirra; would you...?"
"Of course, mother," Kirra agreed. "I know the story," she explained to the visitors. "My great-grandfather went back to the site with many more expeditions. Some came back changed; others never came back at all. Then Heres was granted permission to construct a new building at the university; the structure that grew up, with frightening speed, was like nothing that had been seen on this world before. Soon, however, similar structures were rising up all through the city. The face of Erana changed, almost overnight, and everywhere the buildings rose, people began to change or to vanish completely. That was when they realised that the temple that was being uncovered on the hillside was no longer a ruin; it was not even being uncovered anymore. It was rising out of the earth and growing as it came."
"Why would it work so slowly?" Alexa wondered.
"It may have been weaker than the temple on 126," Pearson suggested. "It seems to be a smaller site; the Mind here may not have been powerful enough to direct such an effort with such efficiency."
"Merlyn," Ferretti said, in response to Tamira and Kirra's confused stares, "perhaps some exposition of our own?"
Merlyn nodded. "We have encountered this force before," she told the two women. "It is called The Scourge."
Tamira nodded. "We have heard that name, but go on."
"Well," Merlyn explained, "we have only learned a little about what The Scourge is and what kind of a threat it poses to our world. We have come through the Stargate – the Great Eye – to learn how The Scourge was defeated on your world, or at least how you defend this settlement from them."
"You are from the Great Eye?" Kirra asked, with fear in her eyes.
Tamira looked at them with new suspicion in her gaze. "You have the power to walk among the stars and yet you come to us for help?"
"For knowledge," Ferretti explained. "We didn't build the Stargates; we just use ‘em. Anyone can, if they know the right buttons to press."
"So the power is not yours?" Tamira asked. "And you have come to us because you do not have the power to destroy The Scourge either?"
"That's right."
Tamira pursed her lips. "Then listen," she said. "Although I do not think you will like what I have to tell you. You see: We didn't destroy The Scourge; we never even had to learn how to live with it."
"What do you mean?" Merlyn asked, confused. "The Scourge presence here is dormant at best."
"The Scourge were only here for a total of seventeen-and-a-half months," Tamira explained. "Nine months after the original Heres expedition, they were well established in the city; three months after that we recognised the threat for what it was and those who remained free tried to resist; it took less than two months for them to realise that that was futile. We had no weapons that could harm The Scourge, or I should say that they had no weapons that could harm The Scourge; technologically we might as well be a different race altogether for all the learning that we have preserved."
"Matia mentioned that the outer settlements had ‘rediscovered' electricity," Pearson remarked.
"So much was lost," Tamira sighed.
"When they saw that the fight was hopeless, the people fled," Kirra said. "They left their books, their machines and their homes and fled here, to the bend in the river at the hill of Yeth. They realised that for the time being, this was beyond the reach of The Scourge. Many of them made their homes here, where they could still see their beloved city and dream of going back to it, although the wiser among them decided that this was not far enough. They went downriver to Athera, or further on to found new towns at Nelas and Mehri."
"For a while it looked as though The Scourge had all that they wanted with the temple and the city," Tamira went on. "The people began to hope that the terror was over, but then, after four months in Yeth, the war machines came."
Pearson looked up. "What are war machines?"
*
Roberts found Matia in the pantry, busying herself with some sort of stock take.
"Deciding what needs to be ordered from the caravan?" Roberts asked.
Matia jumped at the sound of his voice. "Oh, Sir," she panted. "Sneaking up on a girl like that; you almost gave me a heart-twist."
"My apologies," Roberts assured her. "I hope you're alright."
"Oh, I'll be fine once I get my breath back, Sir. I was just seeing what we had to pad the meal a little," she added in explanation. "Seeing as there's five extra mouths for dinner and we don't eat a big evening meal; but there's so little left in the larder but what we grow ourselves and...But you don't want to hear about my troubles, Sir; what can I do for you?"
Roberts shrugged. "Actually, I wanted to hear about your troubles."
"Sir?"
"How bad is it really, living here, surrounded by shadow hounds? How does it compare, say, to living down the river?"
Matia looked panicky for a moment. "Well, I don't know why you'd ask me, Sir," she assured him. "I've lived in Yeth all my life."
"Hmm." Roberts looked doubtful. "I suppose this town is just about big enough that you could make that lie work, but you don't sound quite like everyone else here. Your accent is different; not very different, but quite distinct from Tamira's or from the guards on the gate, the servants who took our weapons, the man who told me I'd find you here or in fact from anyone I overheard in the street. I'm a linguist, you see; I'm good at accents."
Tears shone in Matia's eyes and her mouth began to tremble.
"Oh no," Roberts told her, laying a gentle hand on her arm and proffering a handkerchief. "No, Matia. I'm not here to make trouble for you; although I would be interested in knowing why coming from out of town would be considered trouble."
Matia began to cry and Roberts gathered her into his arms. "It's okay," he whispered. "It's okay." Once, a long time ago, he had prided himself on his ability to hurt, but he had long since ceased to take any satisfaction in inflicting pain on others, especially when he did it without meaning to.
"You promise as you won't tell a soul?" Matia whispered, desperately.
"You have my word," he replied.
"I...I ran away," she confessed. "No-one's supposed to leave Athera," she explained.
"That's the factory town, yes?"
Matia nodded. "There's a lot of trade between Yeth and Athera; the one provides raw materials, the other processes it. All of Yeth's flour and oil comes from Athera, although the grain and the seed comes from Yeth."
"And the flare oil?"
"Oh, that's mixed in Yeth," Matia replied. "The Lords of the Athera forbid flare oil. So many things are forbidden in Athera: You mustn't leave; mustn't mix flare oil or burn oil for light; mustn't burn a light of any kind after sunset; and you mustn't fight it if your name comes round in the lottery."
Roberts felt a shiver run up his spine. "The lottery?"
"Every six months, the Lords – that's the heads of the families who own the mill and the oil press and the tannery – hold a lottery and choose four people to go to the shadow hounds as a sort of tithe. Anyone whose name comes round in the lottery has to go, unless someone will volunteer willing to go in their place."
"And your name came round?" Roberts guessed.
"No, Sir. But I knew it was going to. I'd crossed the Lords, see. One of their boys, Sir; he..."
"I get the picture," Roberts assured her. "I take it that the lottery is not entirely fair?"
"Well, no-one has proof that it ain't," Matia admitted. "But none of the Lords ever comes round, nor their families or friends; but those as cross them come up more often than not. They say that just shows as they're supposed to rule."
Roberts snorted, angrily. "That's ridiculous. Why does no-one stop them?"
"They're too strong," Matia replied. "If anyone starts looking dangerous, their name comes up in the lottery. The Lords call it the Will of Nor."
"And who is Nor?"
*
Tamira sent Kirra to the library for a book, while she launched into a description of the Scourge war machine. "When The Scourge could not reach the people of Yeth with their slaves and their doppelgangers and their obscene guardians, they sent the war machines instead," she told them. "According to the old tales, they walked upright on two or four legs and stood almost three times the height of a man. They had a slippery skin of metal; mottled-black like the living surface of their structures."
"Actually that's a nano-layered mineral deposit rather than..." Pearson began.
Ferretti cut the sergeant off. "We're familiar with it," he assured Tamira.
The headwoman nodded. "They had a mass of tentacles all around their body, as hard as steel and strong enough to wrestle an ox to the ground, and some manner of energy weapon able to kill a strong man with a single blast."
Kirra returned and handed her mother a large, leather-bound book.
Tamira opened the book and set it on the table. "This is an account of The Scourge Invasion, as it was called, although really they came from within our land, not from outside it. As you can see, the book is fully illustrated."
The page which lay open showed a picture of a war machine, a massive, brutal thing, just as Tamira had described it.
"And these went past the limits of the other units?" Pearson asked.
Merlyn shook her head in bafflement. "How could they leave the broadcast range of the bio-energy transmissions?" she demanded. "We know that Scourge units are powered directly from the core of the temple."
"We think," Pearson corrected. "Detailed study was never an option."
Kirra shrugged. "Certainly, none of our people ever knew how these were able to come further than the other servants of The Scourge, but they did. They ranged as far down as Athera in search of prey and all they carried back to Enara were never heard from again. We thought that we were done for; that was why, when Lord Nor came, we asked no questions."
"It was less than a week after the first war machines came that the Great Eye opened and a man came forth," Tamira said. "He was clad in black and he carried a three-pronged spear with which he is said to have slain a dozen war machines as he made his way to Yeth."
"How do you ‘slay' a machine?" Ferretti wondered.
"I do not know," Tamira replied, "but the books always say that he slew them. He came to Yeth, he called himself ‘Nor', and he promised us salvation. Of course, the people accepted at once."
"Oh dear," Alexa sighed.
"They were desperate," Tamira reminded the Russian. "And Nor was as good as his word. He called up his winged hounds from out the shadows – which seems to have been the first thing to give the people an idea that the man they had trusted might not be quite what they had thought – and on a moonless night they fell upon the city like a dark cloud.
"Throughout the night the sounds of inhuman screams came to Yeth across the valley and in the morning the city was clear. The Scourge were gone, their buildings thrown down and their temple shattered. The people rejoiced."
"And after they rejoiced?" Ferretti asked. "What happened then?"
*
"After that all was well for almost ten years," Matia told Roberts. "Then the hounds came for us. They started picking people off, as I said; a raiding pack would come every few weeks and take a dozen or so from their beds. Not bad after The Scourge, but still..."
"Did no-one ever go after them?"
Matia shook her head. "The first time, no-one was ready. Second time they hit Yeth, some twenty men chased ‘em toward the spur; they never came back either. The Yethan figured that Nor had just left a couple of his hounds behind and they'd bred. They tried to hunt them, tried to guard against them, but nothing worked until they discovered that they hate light. They started with watch fires, then after twenty years some bright spark come up with the flare oil; they went to the outer cities for the hoods."
"And that worked."
"More or less; if folks was careful."
"And what about Athera?"
Matia looked awkward. "Well; I reckon as the Lords of Athera knew better than the Chief of Yeth how lordships think, being as how they were lords themselves. So they figured as quick as you like that it was Lord Nor sending his hounds after the people. And they knew how to deal with a lordship, so they sent a man to the old temple ruins to see Lord Nor and said: Look; we'll give you four every six months and you leave us alone otherwise. Right?"
"That's obscene!" Roberts snapped, appalled.
Matia shrugged. "I guess you gotta think at the time they were losing ten times that many; and maybe the lottery was fair at first. Back then it was better to live in Athera than in Yeth."
"But then Yeth built the ward-flares."
"Yeah. The numbers being taken dropped and if you did get snatched, you'd know at least as it was probably your fault and not dumb luck. You only get snatched if you don't light your lamps or if you listen to the voices and go out in the dark."
Roberts was once more confused. "The voices?"
*
"They're mimics?" Ferretti asked.
"More than that," Tamira said. "The shadow hounds take voices from your head and make them call to you from the wilderness. They cry out with the voices of the dead. In the early days of the flares, they spoke as though they were those already taken; many were tricked that way. Of late we have not been so easily fooled, but it is still a trick that can distract the strongest. They seem to know which voice will most confuse and disorientate their prey."
"Telepathic hunters," Alexa whispered, speaking to herself. "They must skim the voices from their victim's mind; that's why they sound like the one you most want to hear." She shivered; she knew at once whose voice she would hear if the hounds came for her and she wondered if she would hear it calling from the wilderness or speaking to her in the private corner of her mind.
"It was only a few decades ago that we became aware that Lord Nor had remained on this world," Tamira went on, oblivious to Alexa's murmured concerns, "in command of his shadow hounds. We realised that we had exchanged the horror of the Scourge for a new and more insidious threat; a threat that we brought upon ourselves."
"You can't blame yourselves for this Lord Nor," Ferretti assured her. "It wasn't your grandparents' fault any more than it was your grandfather's fault that he was controlled by The Scourge."
Tamira shook her head. "They knew the dangers. They also...They knew how to use the Great Eye to leave this place; to flee from our world and leave The Scourge behind."
"Or take it with them," Merlyn added.
"Excuse me?"
"Think about it, Tamira," Merlyn said. "If your ancestors had fled through the Stargate, one or more of them might have carried Scourge vector nanites – the tiny machines which allow the Scourge to control a person and tap into their psychic energies – in their blood. They could have spread the infection to another world, and another, and another. Maybe they brought a new horror down on themselves and their children, but they prevented a far greater one from spreading across the galaxy. Take some comfort in that."
Tamira hung her head, tears in her eyes. When she looked up, her face almost shone with gratitude. "Thank you, Captain," she said. "I do take comfort. Although the people of Athera might find it less of a consolation."
*
"So when folks in Athera got to hear about the flares, they wanted the same thing," Matia went on. "But of course the Lords wouldn't have it. They'd got too used to using the lottery to get rid of rivals and prop up their control."
Roberts had a sudden concern. "Do the people of Yeth know about this?"
"They know," Matia admitted. "They know, but they can't do nothing about it. They don't make their own oil, see. All the Lords have to do is stop sending the oil and Yeth is doomed. Sure, Yeth'd stop sending grain, but the Lords have stores as would last for years. They wouldn't be the ones growing thin."
"So if anyone found out that you were from Athera...?"
"I'd be sent back. It's a breach of treaty for me to be here, a fugitive as I am."
Roberts shook his head, sadly. "The Lords really have Yeth over a barrel, don't they?"
"Over a barrel?" Matia asked, confused.
"It means that they have power over you," Roberts explained.
"Ah. Then you might say that you have me over a barrel," Matia noted.
"A position that I do not intend to abuse," he assured her.
Matia smiled, warily. "You are a good man, Lieutenant Roberts."
"Just Roberts will be fine, Matia," he assured her. "And I'm really not that good," he added with a heartfelt sigh. "But I do strive for legal, decent and truthful at least. Now," he added, brightening at once. "It must be getting on for dinner time, yes?"
"Oh!" Matia cried. "The dinner; I still haven't found anything..."
"Then, as I have monopolised your time, I will help you look," he promised. "Maybe I can scrape together one of my mother's recipes."
"That would be most kind," Matia replied.
"Don't thank me yet," he cautioned. "My mother is a terrible cook; all salt and vinegar, beetroot and potatoes. Still; we'll see what we can do."
*
Dinner was not a terribly formal affair and SG-7's rumpled fatigues attracted no adverse comment. Talk at the table focused on the defences, only once straying – or rather being driven by a pointed comment from Roberts – into the uncomfortable territory of Athera's harsh, feudal state.
Tamira looked awkward as she explained: "We are not proud of the fact that we support – however unwillingly – the Lords of Athera. There is little that we can do, however; they control the oil supplies and their wealth buys them many things, including information and sabotage. We once tried to construct out own oil press; the building was burned down within weeks of commencement of the construction and the Lords sent us a message saying that any repeat of the attempt would be seen as a sign that we no longer needed their oil."
"Well; isn't that true?" Ferretti asked.
"Of course," Tamira agreed, "but they knew as well as we that our stocks, even supplemented by hand-pressing, could not sustain the ward-flares for more than a few weeks; it would take at least a month to have a press of sufficient scale in working order. The truth is that we need them and we count ourselves fortunate that they make no attempt to extend their rule to our city."
"I wonder why that is," Roberts said.
"If Yeth resisted, the Lords would have to send an army; that army would be vulnerable to the hounds while it laid siege to us," Kirra explained. "Besides, they fear what Lord Nor would do if they tried to extend their domains."
"He might decide that the treaty was null and void once the Lords controlled both towns?" Merlyn asked.
"More than that," Alexa realised. "They are afraid of you."
"We have fought for many years," Kirra agreed, proudly. "They are protected by their foul treaty; they have grown soft while we grew hard."
"No," Alexa said. "They are afraid of you; of your family. Why is that?"
"I do not know what you mean," Tamira insisted, and Alexa let the matter drop.
"What did you mean?" Ferretti demanded, when the team were alone in the parlour. They had assembled around a conferencing module – a sort of video speaker-phone for field teams – in order to make their report to the SGC at the appointed hour.
"I do not know, precisely," Alexa admitted. "Only that it was a source of shame to both women, although also of pride. I do not believe that the concealment was malicious or intended to mislead, just that it is a matter of which they do not speak."
"You sound unsure," Merlyn noted.
Alexa shrugged. "They were both difficult to read," she admitted. "I believe that they may have some degree of psychic ability; Kirra especially. It would not be unusual for a twin," she added in a near-whisper.
The module flickered into life and a holographic image of General O'Neill appeared above it. The technology was experimental, based on the workings of the Goa'uld vo'cume but constantly updating its audio-visual projection via a radio receiver.
"Hello," O'Neill said. "Hello? Is this thing on?"
"Yes, Jack," Ferretti replied. "Receiving you loud and clear...and bright. Stupid visual medium..."
"You think you've got problems? Every time I use this thing people assume I can see them." To date the device could not send an image back to Earth; the holographic image generation required a dedicated suite of cameras and microphones in the SGC; a converted stationery cupboard known to the staff of the SGC as ‘The Diary Room'. "It's all ‘it looked like this' or ‘it was this big'. Anyway, that's my stuff. How are things on P26-1A7?"
"Fraught," Ferretti replied.
"It seems that The Scourge were destroyed by the forces of a being called Nor, whose servants now abduct anyone who goes out at night. The creatures hate the light so they keep them at bay with powerful oil lamps, but the need for oil this creates has put them in hock to a nasty pack of racketeers in the next town."
"Hmm." O'Neill looked pensive. "So in case of Scourge invasion that would be Plan-B at best, yes?"
"At best," Merlyn agreed.
"We can't make it back to the Stargate until local morning," Ferretti said, "in about nine-or-ten hours. I also think that we might be able to help these people out a little for a minimal outlay and a decent payoff."
"How so?" O'Neill asked. "Remember Lou; we're a government department now, not a crusade."
"Sergeant," Ferretti prompted.
"Yes, Sir," Pearson acknowledged. "The Yethians...Is that right?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"Oh, sorry, General O'Neill," Pearson said. "I was asking Captain Lloyd. I forgot that you couldn't...well, you know."
"Quite. How is it the one guy in this conversation with an inkling of how the thing works who forgets what it does?" O'Neill mused. "So what is it Lloyd?"
Merlyn shrugged. "I didn't think to ask, I'm afraid," she said.
"It's Yethan," Roberts said.
"Well I'm glad we've got that sorted out," O'Neill assured them, "but need I remind you this call is going on our bill."
"I'm sorry, Sir," Pearson said again. "The Yethans..."
"Same plural and singular," Roberts hissed.
Pearson took a breath to compose himself. "The Yethan mix ordinary rapeseed oil with an extract from the bark of the local variety of willow tree to produce what they call flare oil. Quite aside from flare-oil's potential utility as a cheap and very effective incendiary, the reason that it works seems to be that the deep taproots of the willows are drawing waterborne naquadah particles up from deep reserves. That suggests a pretty substantial local supply."
"I've discussed the basics of a deal with the headwoman," Ferretti said. "If we supply them with mining equipment and technical and engineering consultants, they would be willing to establish an extraction operation and give us a very favourable rate on export. The only really big outlay at the beginning would be a set of about fifty halogen floodlights and a naquadah generator."
O'Neill frowned. "Colonel, you know the protocols regarding the release of advanced technology as well as I do."
"But these people need this, General. It's not like we haven't bent the rules before."
"With respect, Sirs," Merlyn interjected, "I'm not sure this actually counts as advanced technology to these people, anyway. What little we've learned of them demonstrates that their society had reached an advanced, post-industrial level before they encountered The Scourge. They knew how the Gate worked. They had a city with a university, but only one city. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that if we investigated the remains of that city we would discover that these people are recent arrivals on this world."
"How do you get that?" Ferretti asked.
"Hey!" O'Neill protested. "Who's in charge here?"
"Sorry, Jack."
"Right. Thank you. How do you get that, Captain?"
"It mostly comes down to the proximity of the city and the temple," Merlyn explained. "I can't accept that these people lived for very long that close to a Scourge temple site without ever investigating the ‘dead zone'. We know it was there; Professor Heres went to investigate the site where nothing would grow. I don't think he was looking for a forgotten episode in the planet's past; he was looking for something that his people had never known."
"So what are we talking about here?" O'Neill demanded. "Settlers, separatists? Religious fanatics? Convicts?"
"Well, I have no idea, Sir," Merlyn admitted, "but in all honesty I don't think that it matters. I'd guess that they were separatists of some sort, but as Headwoman Tamira said, they might as well be a different species from their grandparents, let alone the original travellers."
"So you think this is worth it?" O'Neill asked.
"Substantial naquadah supplies and a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from helping folks in trouble," Ferretti said. "Sounds like a win-win to me."
"Alright then," O'Neill said. "I'll make the arrangements and send SG-17 out to do a preliminary geological survey of the area while you talk specifics; they can be with you tomorrow."
"Thank you, Sir," Ferretti said.
O'Neill waved away the thanks. "Anything else you need?"
"I'd like to get started on some research before we leave," Merlyn replied. "Lord Nor rings a few bells, but...If Eleri is around, could you ask her to pack up the Unausprechlichen Kulten, the Lydney Park Reports and Paths into Myth for me and send them out with SG-17, Sir."
"Eleri?" Alexa asked Pearson in a whisper.
"The captain finally got budget approval for an RA," Pearson explained. "Miss Eleri Goffanon. If I were being charitable I might call her a kooky flake, but she does seem to know her stuff and she takes the work seriously."
"I'll make sure you get the other two," O'Neill assured Merlyn, "but I can't promise I'll be able to ask for the Untersprechen lichtfus kitchen."
Merlyn laughed. "That's good enough; she'll know the one."
"Alright. I'll contact you again when SG-17 come through. O'Neill out."
The image sat still for a few moments, looking from side to side as though studying SG-7's knees in great detail. "Does anyone know how you turn this thing off?" he asked.
*
Later that night, Tamira's son, Arrik, rested in his patrols. He propped his rifle against one of the roof supports, sat on the parapet in the protective sphere of a ward-flare's radiance and gazed at the chaotic dance of the dust motes. A hot cup of apfer was clutched tight in his shivering hands.
"Arrik!" The voice was distant and thin, as though echoing up from some great depth. "Kirra! Ninya! Help me, please!"
Arrik started up and dropped his cup, but a hand clamped down on his shoulder before he could move to the edge of the walkway.
"Don't be a fool, Arrik," Xar cautioned. "It is not your brother out there and you know it."
"No!" Arrik snapped. "I do not know it. We must be certain. If we take a chemical light..."
Xar turned Arrik to face him. "If we take a chemical light then they will only lure us out so far that our light will fail before we get back."
"But Kerris..."
"Kerris died because he went out to discover if it were truly Rens calling to him. Kerris has been gone for weeks now; he is not coming back, Arrik; I'm sorry, but you simply must accept that."
Arrik slumped against his friend's shoulder. "I know," he sighed, wearily. "Oh, Xar, I know, but...I miss him so much."
"I know," Xar echoed, as he guided Arrik back to his seat. "Here." He poured two more cups of apfer and pressed one into Arrik's hands. Then he pulled a flask from under his cloak. "A little nip to keep the chill at bay," he said, adding a dash of the strong spirits to each cup."
"Do you ever hear Selia call to you?" Arrik asked.
"Every night," Xar replied, his voice suddenly hollow with remembered loss. "I hear her so often that I do not know if it is truly the hounds, or memory, or mere imagining. Even when I am in my bed I hear her."
"And when you are in Ninya's?" Arrik asked, more harshly than he had intended.
"I sometimes think that is the real reason that I do share her bed," Xar admitted. "Do not look at me with such reproach, old friend. I am certain that your sister lies with me so that she can blot out Rens' voice. We are not in love, Arrik," he explained, with a trace of bitterness in his voice. "We are in pain."
Arrik looked away, appalled, but his question could not be contained and he turned back to Xar. "Are you never tempted to go to her?"
"I used to be," Xar admitted. "But I am not like you, Arrik; I am a coward at heart and I gave up on Selina weeks ago. Your family are the heroes in this town; I might almost say that you are too brave for your own good."
"We've rested long enough," Arrik said. He pushed himself to his feet and turned his back on Xar, not wanting to look at him for the moment.
"Arrik, I..." Xar fell silent as the light from the ward-flare flickered.
As one, the two young men turned to look at the flare. It was almost painful to gaze into the flame, but it was not as painful as it should have been.
"Oh Calamity," Arrik gasped.
Xar stooped and checked the oil reservoir at the base of the tank; it still read three-quarters full. "The wick must be burning down too far," he said. "Get the tongs from the case."
Almost numb with fear, Arrik stumbled to the metal emergency case set against the wall and opened it. Within were chemical lights – long rods, topped by a glass sphere, within which a smaller sphere rolled freely – a small flask of flare oil, a pair of tongs, a pair of trimming shears, a lighting rod and the alarm horn. Arrik reached for the shears, but even as he touched them, the light died.
"Ye Calamity," Xar gasped. "Arrick!"
"Here." Arrick pressed the shears into Xar's hands; the metal was cool and damp.
"Arrick," Xar said, with all the appearance of a calm he did not feel. "Check the lighter."
Xar turned the wheel which opened the reflector casing. As he did this, Arrick took the lighting rod from the box and pressed the firing stud. No flame leaped from the tip; the damp had found its way past the seals of the emergency case and killed the lighter.
"Arrik!" the voice called again from the darkness, only now it was joined by other voices.
"Xar!" Selia's dulcet voice echoed out from the shadows.
"They're coming," Xar realised.
Arrik stooped and pulled two of the chemical lights from the emergency case. He gave them a fierce shake, hard enough to shatter the fragile inner globes and allow the chemicals within to mingle. As the reaction began, the globe started to glow with a fierce light. He set one of the lights in the post beside the ward-flare.
"Sound the alarm," he told Xar. "I'm going for another lighter."
"Arrik!"
"I'll leave you my rifle. Good luck, old friend."
With that, Arrick was away, running towards the next flare and the next emergency case. By now, somebody must have seen that one of the lights had failed, but that was no reason to be careless. Forcing himself to ignore the voices that called to him from the darkness, Xar stumbled to the case and ripped the horn from its mounting. He blew three sharp blasts to indicate that he was at number three flare, pause, then repeated the signal.
"Please hurry," he whispered, gripping his rifle tight. "Please."
*
Ferretti woke at the sound of the alarm horn. As he tumbled out of bed and groped for his fatigues, other horns around the town echoed the call; their urgency was unmistakable, even to an outsider. Still half-asleep, Ferretti took three goes to find the correct legs of his trousers and hauled his vest on over his t-shirt, then staggered bleary-eyed into the corridor. At the sight of his waiting team, Ferretti stifled a curse against the energy and alertness of youth.
Pearson at least had the decency to look as though he had hurried to dress so quickly and Alexa, although giving every appearance of having been up for hours, did have great, dark bags beneath her eyes to show that she had in fact been up for hours. For Merlyn to look as though she had just risen from a good night's sleep and dressed in leisurely fashion was bad enough. To add insult to injury she appeared to have found some opportunity since the team had turned in six hours ago to have her fatigues pressed. As for Roberts...
"Congratulations Lieutenant," Ferretti groused. "I didn't think it was possible to put an Omega suit on single-handed."
"I think he had help close at hand," Merlyn said, in a voice like sugar-sweet poison.
Roberts ignored this display of hostility. "Our weapons are in the gun room," he said. "This way."
‘The gun room' summoned up visions of a little room lined with hunting rifles and sporting shotguns in decorative mahogany cases. The reality was more like a household armoury. Tamira, Kirra and several of the servants were already armed with pistols when SG-7 arrived. Some were in the process of loading rifles, others carried two or three of the chemical lights. Each of them wore a long, loose cloak over either their outdoor clothes or in a few cases their nightwear.
"What can we do to help?" Ferretti asked.
"Ardis; their weapons," Tamira ordered. She snatched another of the cloaks from a rack inside the door and tossed it to Ferretti. "Put these on," she told them. "It makes it harder for the hounds to gain a grip."
A servant wheeled out the trolley with their weapons and Tamira passed around the cloaks.
"There is a problem at number three flare," Tamira explained.
Kirra looked sick to her stomach. "Arrik's flare," she whispered.
*
Xar forced himself to move back to the flare. By the glow of the chemical light he used the tongs to pull the wick a little further out of the oil reservoir. Away in the darkness the horns were repeating the alarm, but it would be several minutes before help could arrive. Only the watchers were ready and armed and those on the other flares could not leave their posts. Along the wall, Xar saw the light of Arrik's chemical light swallowed up by the next flare.
"Please let the box be dry," Xar whispered in desperate prayer to nobody specific. "Please let the box be dry."
After what seemed like an eternity, the chemical light began bobbing its way back along the walkway. It's light seemed less brilliant, however, and Xar realised that the light from the bulb beside the flare was also fading.
"Arrik! Hurry!"
"Xar!" Arrik called. "I've got...Ah!"
Arrik cried out in alarm as an inky-black shape dropped from the sky, stooped under the spiked roof and struck him as he ran. The chemical bulb spun away and over the edge of the walkway, rolling down the steep embankment to smash on the street below. The hound's long-fingered hands clutched and gripped and it swooped out from the covered walkway again, wings beating powerfully as its burden flapped helplessly beneath it. On the parapet, Arrik huddled low as the shadow hound bore away his cloak.
"Arrik!" Xar dropped his rifle and started towards his friend.
Arrik tried to rise, but fell down again. "My ankle!" he cried. As Xar approached he thrust the lighter towards him. "Quickly!" he gasped in pain and fear.
Xar snatched the lighter and ran back to the flare. He touched the stud on the handle and the lighter burst into life. Xar lowered the flame to touch the wick and with a sizzle the flare ignited. Xar drew breath to give a sigh of relief, but then Arrik screamed.
Now, Xar let the lighter fall and seized his rifle. Arrik clutched at the walkway fence with tenacious strength, but the hound held his ankle in the unbreakable grip of both hands and one prehensile foot as it tried to drag him out into the night. With uncanny awareness its faceless head turned towards Xar as he raised the weapon to his shoulder and fired three times; twice he missed but the third bullet tore a hole in the membrane of the hound's black wing. Unfortunately, the pain seemed only to rouse the beast, which strove to rise with redoubled strength. With a last cry, Arrik was pulled from the walkway and disappeared into the darkness.
"No!" Xar screamed. He pointed his weapon out into the night, but there was nothing for him to shoot at.
With shocking suddenness, Xar felt himself slammed against the railings. The wooden balustrade cracked and Xar's rifle toppled away into the moat, twenty feet below. The long fingers dragged at him, grappling through his cloak to fasten on his arms. The wings which tore at the air also beat painfully at Xar's face.
A flash like lightning cut through the darkness and the shadow hound gave a shriek of pain. There was a second flash and the wings stopped beating. The hands still clutched but the hound's weight – surprisingly little of it, as it turned out – hung limp. Xar shoved himself back from the broken railing and fell to the walkway with the dead hound still locked onto him.
Shouts and gunfire split the night; the repetitive crack of repeating rifles joined by a rapid, high-pitched chatter.
"Roberts! The flyer."
"I can't get a clear shot, Sir. I'll hit the boy!"
"Hit him!" Tamira yelled. "Better dead than..."
"There are too many of them. They're closing in around the kid." A new sound joined the fire, a deeper rattle.
There was a snap as the flare casing closed. The darkness was dispelled in a moment and the hounds fled; their mimicked cries of human pain and fear were almost enough to make Xar vomit.
A strange woman with short-cropped red hair crouched beside Xar and peeled one of the hound's hands away from Xar's arm. After a moment, Ninya joined the other woman, her eyes filled with tears.
"Xar!" Ninya cried. "Are you alright?"
"Arrik," Xar gasped. "They took Arrik. Calamity, Nin; I'm so sorry."
The redhead dragged the carcase away from Xar and Ninya clutched him close. "It's not your fault," she sobbed. "I'm just glad you're alright."
Further along the walkway, Kirra pressed against the railings and leaned out into the night, screaming her brother's name.
"Looks like they've all gone," Roberts said.
Alexa nodded. "There was a presence about them; it seems to have gone."
"What the hell is this thing?" Ferretti asked, pointing at the weird and unnatural body that lay still upon the walkway.
"A shadow hound, I guess," Pearson replied. "Funny. I guess I though they'd be more...you know?"
"Hound-like?" Ferretti guessed.
"That's the thing."
"Look at it," Roberts said. "The skin almost seems to absorb light. They were clearly aware of us, but there're no eyes or sense organs of any kind."
He was right on both counts. The skin looked like velvet, but so black that any light which fell upon it was swallowed up completely. The precise shape of the body was thus hard to make out, but the creature clearly possessed six limbs, four of which ended in a long-fingered hand, complete with opposable thumb. The other two were broad, membranous wings; like the wings of a bat, the membranes extended down the length of the body and the hind legs, although the wings did not look strong enough to allow the creature to carry off a full-grown man. The creature's head, mounted on the end of a long, serpentine neck, had small horns, but bore no hair, no ears, nor any face of any kind.
"Ah," Alexa breathed. "That was what I sensed: Not a presence; it was a kind of psychic echolocation."
"But what is it?" Ferretti demanded.
"Well," Merlyn said, hesitantly. "I can't be sure until my books arrive, but I think it's a nightgaunt."
*
Kirra had ignored all of her mother's attempts to comfort her. As soon as they returned to the house she had run off to her room. Tamira had suggested she might need some time alone after losing another brother, but for some reason that escaped Merlyn, Alexa had gone after the young woman. Tamira herself had returned to her bedroom not long after that and SG-7 had followed suit. As she retired, Merlyn saw Matia follow Roberts into his room.
The following morning, Merlyn rose early as usual and went about her morning routine of prayers and ablutions as best she was able. She had to find a servant to show her to the bathhouse and was none too pleased that the servant in question was Matia, whom she had hoped to avoid. Merlyn always felt uncomfortable around Roberts' conquests and the girl was such a chatterbox, but in the end all she did was lead her to the women's bathhouse, show her where the pump was and leave her to wash.
Merlyn was usually either first or second to be up and washed when the team were offworld and it was no great surprise to find Roberts already seated in the kitchen. With Matia out of bed it stood to reason he would be as well, and while he tended to bathe more slowly than Merlyn, Roberts never prayed.
"Good morning," Merlyn said, cordially.
"Morning, Merlyn," Roberts replied. "There's porridge in the pot and what passes for coffee hereabouts on the stove; they're both clean. Apparently, if we want anything more elaborate, we'll have to fix it ourselves or wait for the family to get up."
"Matia didn't offer to make your breakfast?" Merlyn asked, tartly.
Roberts stood up and went over to the fire. He spooned the thick porridge into an earthenware bowl and filled a pewter tankard with scalding coffee. He set these down before the captain.
"They have actual coffee?" Merlyn asked.
"No," Roberts admitted. "I provided the coffee. Did I do something to upset you, Ma'am?"
Merlyn recoiled, defensively. "What makes you ask that?"
"Just that you appear to be upset with me," he replied. "That bothers me when I don't think I've done anything to deserve it."
"Deserve...!" Merlyn's hand shook on her coffee mug. "That girl..."
"Is a girl," Roberts agreed. "I should have hoped you knew me better by now, Captain Lloyd."
They locked gazes and Merlyn saw that Roberts clearly felt as aggrieved as she did. That was surprising; she knew that he saw nothing to be ashamed of in his manifold affairs, but he had always accepted that she could not view his behaviour in the same way. He had met her disapproval with equanimity, not with such an expression of anger.
"Is that coffee I smell?" Ferretti asked, as he stomped into the kitchen.
"USAF finest," Roberts replied, as though all were well.
"Bleah. Still; better than nothing," the colonel grudgingly conceded. "We make contact in thirty-two minutes; what say I ask General O'Neill to reserve the recon of that plantation world for us?"
"PA5-966?" Merlyn asked. "Sir, you know Goa'uld plantations are as heavily guarded as naquadah mines; 966 is a fortress."
"But the coffee would be good," Ferretti suggested. "Even in prison the coffee would have to be good. Anyway, since the two of you are so bright and breezy, I'll let you trek back to the Stargate and pick up our things. I spoke to Tamira last night; she's eager to speak with General O'Neill and she has also offered you the loan of a pony cart to carry the cases."
"But SG-17 will have a FRED with them, Sir," Merlyn protested, unwilling at present to spend much time on her own with Roberts.
"I'd rather bring the stuff in with a couple of friendly faces and a minimum of unfamiliar equipment," Ferretti told her. "Everyone's going to be edgy today; apparently Tamira's older son and the older daughter's fiancé were both snatched, fourteen and three months ago, respectively. People are starting to think that Lord Nor has it in for the family. That's also why SG-17 will be billeted – by kind invitation – with the second family of the town; for some reason, Tamira thinks it would hurt the case for us to be too closely tied to her kin."
"I'll go down and see to the cart," Roberts offered. He stood and took his plates to the sink. "You finish your breakfast, Captain."
"So formal?" Ferretti asked Merlyn.
"He's probably just bitter that we'll miss the bacon and eggs," Merlyn said.
"Maybe, but..." Ferretti took a sip of coffee. "Augh; this stuff is the pits. Nine double-six, here we come."
*
Alexa woke to a certain degree of confusion. It was not often of late that she had found herself sharing a bed and the fact that she had fallen asleep in her clothes did not help matters. She felt fuzzy-headed and grimy as she pulled herself away from the warmth of Kirra's body, carefully sliding her arm out from beneath the other woman's weight. After what seemed like hours the young woman had finally cried herself to sleep, only for Alexa to find that her weight lay firmly on her arm. Unwilling to risk waking Kirra and unleashing another flood of tears, Alexa had done her best to sleep with her arm still trapped. Apparently Kirra had not moved all night and Alexa's arm felt swollen and numb; after a moment the pins and needles kicked in.
Alexa looked down at Kirra and the wave of emotion that rose up and flooded her mind almost knocked her down. The raw pain of Arrik's loss, a pain so in sympathy with Alexa's own, almost overwhelmed her completely. She half-fell beside the bed and groped for her pack. With shaking hands she fumbled with her cuff buttons, then gave up and merely stripped off her fatigue shirt. She tapped sharply on the inside of her elbow, then pressed the pen down on her skin. With a sharp, stinging sensation the pen released its soothing chemicals into Alexa's system. Slowly the ache of Kirra's loss subsided and Alexa sat back, contemplating the secrets that she kept from her team mates.
Secrets such as the fact that the intrusion of The Scourge into her mind had not only frightened her, it had ripped away some kind of veil which had lain over her psychic senses, leaving them sharper, more accurate, but equally more difficult to control, and rendering her mind more open to invasion.
Or the fact that the Special Directorate neurologists had prescribed her a substantial, daily dose of experimental depressants designed explicitly to inhibit those enhanced senses and abilities, suppressing them to something approaching their previous level. Aside from the Special Directorate personnel involved, only General O'Neill, Colonel Ferretti and the CMOs of the SGC and Gamma Site knew either of these two facts, but there was another secret, deeper still; the secret known to Alexa herself and to no-one else on Earth.
"Alexa?"
Alexa did not jump, having sensed the change in Kirra's mind as she woke. "Morning," she said, deliberately omitting the ‘good'."
"Do you think there will be any word?" Kirra asked.
"I do not know," Alexa admitted. "Let's go and find out."
*
As the sun rose, the flares were extinguished and the watchers came down from their posts to sleep. Ninya, the elder daughter of Tamira, entered through the stables in order to avoid her family and found instead a stranger trying to hitch a pony to the small wagon.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Trying to avoid someone," the man replied, turning towards her. He had fair hair and fair skin, and the bluest eyes Ninya had ever seen. "Also, making a terrible mess of trying to hitch this cart."
"Here," she sighed. "Let me."
He nodded. "Thank you."
"I saw you on the wall, last night," Ninya realised.
"That's right," he agreed. "My name is Roberts; you must be Ninya; Tamira's eldest."
"That is correct. May I ask where you are taking the cart?" Habit lent her hands more certainty than her exhausted state should have allowed as she untangled the bridle ropes and hitching lines and reset them in their proper places.
"Out to the Great Eye," he replied. "Your mother has allowed us the use of it to collect some friends and equipment."
"You came through the Great Eye?"
"We did," Roberts confirmed.
"Are you here to save us from Lord Nor?" Ninya asked. "To drive away the shadow hounds and make our lands safe?"
"No."
Ninya nodded her head. "Good," she said. "I don't think we should trust to saviours. Our last saviour has now robbed me of a best friend, two brothers and my betrothed."
"Your betrothed?" Roberts asked. "Then the other man on the walkway...?"
"...was not my betrothed. He is just another who has lost someone."
"He means so little?" Roberts pressed.
Ninya found herself unable to meet the stranger's sapphire gaze.
*
Pearson followed the smell of coffee from his room to the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of the instant brew that was included as part of SG team field rations, drained it with every sign of enjoyment, then poured a second cup.
"How can you like this stuff?" Ferretti demanded.
"It's a Zen thing," Pearson explained. "You attain a state of removal from the superficial olfactory sensations and focus on the sweet, sweet caffeine."
Ferretti shook his head. "You talk pretty fancy for a high school drop-out, Pearson."
The sergeant gave an offhand shrug. "You can take the boy out of the geek but you can't take the geek out of the boy," he said.
"Can you actually be in the geek?" Merlyn asked,
"If you get lucky," Pearson replied.
Merlyn blushed, as, for some reason, did Pearson.
"Speaking of geeks, I need you to rig up the video camera to the auxiliary port on the conferencing module," Ferretti added. "Tamira wants to speak to the General and it's probably easier to set up the camera rather than try to explain that he can't see her; after all, we still have trouble with that concept."
"I'm on it, Sir."
"I'd better be going," Merlyn said. She left the dregs of her coffee and transferred her plates to the sink. She passed Alexa at the door.
"Captain," Alexa said; she looked exhausted.
"Lieutenant."
"Good God, Lieutenant," Ferretti gasped, shooting a nervous glance over Alexa's shoulder to make sure that Merlyn had not overheard his blasphemy. "You look like death warmed through," he told Alexa. "Sergeant; a little...Make that a lot of coffee over here."
"Sir."
"Didn't you sleep at all last night?" Ferretti asked.
"A little," the Russian replied. "Aside from the excitement there was a psychic ‘babble' all night. Even when I did get to sleep I could hear it in my dreams."
"Sucks to be you," Pearson said, kindly, setting a cup of coffee on the table beside her.
Alexa smiled at the sergeant. During the first encounter with The Scourge, the lieutenant had merged her mind with Pearson's in order to shield them both from the overwhelming psychic influence of the Mind which controlled the temple on P3A-126. As a result, although he had not learned as much about her as she had about him, no-one on Earth knew as intimately as Xander Pearson just how much it sucked to be Alexa Rasputin.
"How's the girl?" Ferretti asked.
"She just lost her twin brother," Alexa replied, bitterly. "Other than that, she's pretty good."
Ferretti winced. "I'm sorry, lieutenant," he said. "I forgot."
Alexa shook her head. "I'm the one who should apologise, Sir. I'm tired and cranky; it was a perfectly fair question. I don't think it's sunk in for her yet," she went on. "Kirra still expects her brother to come back."
"So how long does that stage take to pass?" Ferretti wondered.
"I'll let you know," Alexa promised.
"I'll go and fetch the camera from my pack," Pearson said, tactfully.
Ferretti watched as the sergeant left the room, then turned back to Alexa. "Are the injections holding up?" he asked. "This is the first major presence we've come across since 126, isn't it?"
Alexa nodded. "It gets difficult towards the end of the night and I can't sleep worth a good goddamn. I'm sor..." She broke off and chuckled.
"It's alright," Ferretti assured her. "Merlyn isn't here." He paused, then for good measure added his own, "damnit."
Alexa laughed, but it was a brittle, weary sound.
"Maybe we should talk to your Directorate liaison, Major...What is it again?"
"Major Nadyezhda Nikolaiovna Khorkhulyova?"
"Yeah, her. We'll talk to her about switching you to two half-doses: Morning and evening. Might help you sleep better."
"Well, it might help if I had the time to gather my defences before turning in; I was pretty much at collapsing point once Kirra had cried herself out."
Ferretti sighed. "I get why you did it, Rasputin," he said, "but I think you need to focus. You're more vulnerable than the rest of us to this kinds of psychic presence; defending yourself has to be the priority."
Alexa nodded. "I know," she agreed. "It's just that...the wounds in my psychic defences are still raw. Her pain, so like mine; it shot through my screens like a bullet. Did I ever tell you my theory about extrasensory perception, Sir?"
"I don't think so, no," Ferretti replied.
"Are you interested?"
"If it's not too technical."
"Well, the standard view is that ESP is an evolutionary adaptation; the next stage of human mental development after complex thought, communication, self-awareness, aesthetics and humour."
"That much I get, yeah."
"Well," Alexa explained, "my theory is that telepathy and ESP predate verbal communication; that evolution gave us defences to prevent our brains picking up on all the electromagnetic crap that allowed us to form primitive social bonds once we'd developed speech, writing, self-expression and the rudiments of the fart gag."
"Fart gag?"
"The cognitive ability to deal humorously with unwanted bodily function is universally recognised as a vital stage in the development of social psychology," Alexa assured him, with a perfect straight face. "Anyway, in my theory, modern psychics are not more evolved, they are less evolved. Through a freak of genetics, we lack the vital defences which most human beings possess, rendering us vulnerable to external influences and uncomfortably aware of the feelings and thoughts of others."
"That's a pretty grim way of looking at it," Ferretti told her.
"Maybe, but I feel that the fact that my talents have been increased by an alien presence shredding a hole in my psychic defences tends to support my case. And I'll tell you this, Colonel: It isn't a gift. I thought it was once, but I was wrong."
"We'll talk to the Major and sort something out," Ferretti assured her. "You're going to be alright."
"Thank you, Sir," Alexa said. "I mean it," she added, when he tried to wave her thanks away.
"For what?" he asked.
"For believing that," she replied. "The others say it but they do not believe: General O'Neill, Major Khorkhulyova; even General Vukoticha doesn't really believe that I can be saved anymore. They think I'm just going to go slowly mad as my natural defences are eroded further and further."
"Not on my watch," Ferretti promised.
*
Merlyn walked into the stables and found Roberts with his arms around a young woman. "Lieutenant," she said, stiffly. "It's time we were on our way."
The woman pulled away from Roberts. "You do know how to drive a cart, don't you? I could come with you..."
"No," Roberts said, firmly. "Thank you for your help, Ninya, but you need to get some rest."
Ninya gave a hollow laugh. "I do not think I will rest well today."
"Xar might also have trouble sleeping," Roberts suggested.
Ninya nodded. "Aye. It's a thought." She inclined her head to Merlyn as she left the stables, a gesture which Merlyn returned without ever taking her eyes from Roberts.
Roberts opened the stable door while Merlyn climbed up onto the driver's seat. He waited for her to drive the pony forward so that he could close the door again before climbing up beside her. They sat in tense and acrimonious silence as the little cart rattled down to the gates and out into the valley.
"You know," Roberts said at last, "if we keep this up, people are going to think we're married."
"I accept that you and I have some differences of opinion regarding morality," Merlyn hissed. "I try not to be judgemental, but I have to draw the line somewhere."
"So I understand. Have I done anything to make you think I've crossed that line?"
Merlyn gave a frustrated laugh. "Just what is it you think you are doing here, Lieutenant?"
Roberts turned to face his captain, his blue eyes flashing with a cold fire. "Perhaps more to the point, Captain, just what is it that you think I am doing here?"
"Don't be obtuse, Roberts! You spent the night with Matia, who can not be more than sixteen, and then I found you this morning with your arms around another woman."
"Captain," Roberts said, stiffly, "I should have thought that you of all people would have realised that I am capable of forming relationships with women – even attractive women – without necessarily having to get them into bed."
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Merlyn demanded.
"It means that until this morning I had assumed that you and I were what a disinterested outsider might consider to be friends and that I have never made any attempt to seduce you you, despite the fact that you are attractive. I take it you do consider yourself a woman?" he added, archly. "Or would that imply too flawed a nature?"
Merlyn was taken aback. "Are you saying you didn't...?"
"Matia is a very frightened young woman – and nineteen, by the way – with a secret she is desperate to hide from the people who have adopted her," Roberts interrupted. "Now, I think that Tamira knows full-well that she's sheltering a refugee from Athera, but Matia is convinced that if she were exposed she'd be thrown out. She is terrified of losing the only decent home she's ever known, the only people who ever treated her decently and the only man she's ever loved. Of course she was grateful for an outsider; someone she could talk to without fear. I know how hard it is having a secret you can't share, so I stayed up half the night listening.
"Then, the very night she made this full and sweeping confession, that last of her fears came true and she lost the man she loves."
"Arrik," Merlyn realised.
"The son of her mistress, with whom she is passionately in love and for whom she feels utterly unworthy, was carried off by a winged horror. She hides it well, but she was in a terrible state when we got back to the house last night. I spent another two hours trying to convince her it wasn't her fault."
Merlyn hung her head. "I'm sorry, Roberts. I assumed..."
"And Ninya? Ninya has lost another brother to these nightgaunts and was likewise upset. She also feels responsible; she was on a floating patrol and thinks she should have responded to the alarm faster. I know I'm not usually the human face of SG-7 but this" – he taped his breastbone, over his heart – "does work for some things other than maintaining my circulation. Sometimes women just find me easy to talk to; occasionally I stop to listen."
"I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm just not..."
"You're not much good with the subtext, no," he agreed. "Just one more reason why we desperately need to get you laid."
"Lieutenant Roberts!" Merlyn gasped, appalled.
"Well, really. It would save these embarrassing moments."
"You can drop this subject right now, Lieutenant," Merlyn said, with mock sternness. "Before I start asking about your past."
Roberts gave a theatrical shiver. "Ooh; I love it when you're strict."
"Stop it," she said.
"Sorry, Ma'am." Roberts gave a melancholy smile. "Still; lightened the mood a little. I apologise for snapping at you earlier, Merlyn. I know we don't see eye to eye and I've gotten used to you nagging me..."
"I do not nag!"
"...but I like to think we've at least started to understand each other a little."
Merlyn nodded. "I think we do; a little. If nothing else, I do understand why you were upset. But...is there something else still troubling you?" she asked.
"I kind of promised I'd do something to help bring Arrik back," Roberts admitted. "Not entirely and not in as many words, but taken together what I said to Matia and what I said to Ninya could be construed that way."
"Lieutenant Roberts! I've often suspected you of having a chivalrous streak and now I've seen it proven."
"It's not...I just don't like to see good people get ground down by bullies. I never have done."
"I thought you used to be the bully?"
"So I was a hypocrite as well," Roberts accepted with a shrug, but Merlyn caught a flash of pain through the nonchalant air and let the subject drop.
"Do you think we can help Arrik?"
Roberts looked even more melancholy than before. "I just don't know," he admitted, then he brightened. "That's your job, isn't it?"
"Well..."
"Excellent! I'll leave it with you then, Captain."
"You do that, Lieutenant," she told him in a voice that was half-chuckle, half-sigh.
*
For most of the day, the table in the dining room was covered in books and papers as Merlyn worked to cross-reference the descriptions of Lord Nor and his servants with the books which her RA had sent. Eleri had added to Merlyn's list two commentaries on Unausprechlichen Kulten as well as throwing in the SGC's well-travelled copy of the forbidden Necromomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul al-Hazrad for good measure. She had also stuck a post-it note on the cover of the latter volume, advising Merlyn that no good ever came of black magick.
"Black magick?" Roberts asked, as he watched Merlyn remove the post-it with meticulous care and a pained expression. "With a ‘k'?"
"Yes," Merlyn replied, wearily. "Eleri is – for want of a better word – a witch."
"A witch?" Roberts laughed. "We're talking about the bubbly piece with the over-exposed cleavage?"
Ignoring his salacious description of Eleri Goffanon, which she knew was intended purely to aggravate her, Merlyn explained: "A white witch, specifically. She's a practicing Wiccan and self-proclaimed psychic; and when it comes to the ars magica an insufferable know-it-all. Unfortunately, when you're recruiting an RA for this kind of work you really don't have much material to chose from. She was the only one of the four interviewees who wasn't a wannabe Lyn Newton."
"What did we do with the other three?" Roberts asked, deeply concerned. Lyn Newton might have been a tragic lunatic, but between her own actions and those of her brainwashed son, some twenty-five people had died and Merlyn had almost been added to that number.
"They're being watched," Merlyn replied. "Closely."
The people of Yeth ate a large and early breakfast, took a kind of elevenses, then had their main meal in the mid-afternoon. Dinner was a lesser affair – hence in part the last minute attempts to pad it out for the hungry travellers the previous evening – and it was usually the afternoon meal that was eaten in the dining room, when the workers were in from the fields but before the watchers went out to the palisade. The servants were beginning to hover, anxious to lay the table, by the time Merlyn was satisfied with her identification.
"Well?" Ferretti asked, when Merlyn had joined the team in the parlour. Tamira and her daughters were there also.
"The creatures that the people of Yeth call shadow hounds are also known as nightgaunts," Merlyn explained. "They are the servants of Nodens, which is cognate with the Celtic Nuada, implying a long history with Earth." She gestured to a modern volume which looked rather out of place among the ancient tomes which were her usual stock in trade.
Alexa caught sight of the name at the top of the page and had a moment of worry. "J.R.R. Tolkien? Are you sure this is reliable, Captain?"
"First and foremost, Professor Tolkien was a linguist and a scholar of folklore," Merlyn reminded them. "The Lord of the Rings was just the saleable tip of a new English folklore that he developed in meticulous detail."
"What are we dealing with here?" Ferretti asked. "A Goa'uld?"
"I do not believe so," Merlyn replied. "The Necronomicon describes Nodens as Lord of the Abyss and God of Dreams. I think he may be what the Pnakotic Manuscripts call an Elder God; an ancient being, largely benign, but helpful or harmful to human beings and other mortal races, pretty much as the fancy takes him. More specifically, Nodens was a god of wild places and wild things and he was a hunter. Nodens was the master of the Wild Hunt and I believe that was what drew him here: The chance to hunt one of the deadliest foes of all."
"The Scourge," Roberts realised.
"Yes. Unfortunately, he has chosen to stay and now has nothing of such size or importance to hunt. Instead, his nightgaunts are gathering prey – any prey, whatever and whomever they can find – to be his quarry."
"Gathering?" Kirra asked. "You mean that this is not their hunt? They come and terrorise us and take away our families, but this is only a precursor to their sport?"
"That is correct," Merlyn replied. "If these texts can be relied upon, then the hunt will probably take place in a few days time."
"Then Arrik..."
"Is probably alive and well," Merlyn assured her. "If you can set out tomorrow and locate Nor's lair, then there is every chance that you will find your brother and be able to bring him back."
"But what if tonight is the hunt?" Kirra demanded.
"The Wild Hunt does not ride in the dark of the moon," Merlyn assured her. "You have time. With your permission, Mistress Tamira, I believe that I speak for all of my team mates when I say that we would all like to accompany any such attempt."
"We will be most grateful," Tamira assured them. "Your people are the most generous it has ever been my privilege to deal with, Colonel Ferretti."
They talked plans, eventually selecting the ruins of the temple as the most likely sight of Nor's lair. After a time, Matia came and called them for the meal and Roberts was able to tell her the news.
Kirra lingered while the others went through, catching Alexa just before she left. "Please, Alexa," she said. "What is the dark of the moon?"
"When there is no light from the moon," Alexa explained, confused. "Perhaps you don't call it the moon," she supposed, when Kirra still looked baffled. "The satellite which orbits and reflects the sun's light down on the earth. The big light that shines in the sky at night?"
"Oh," Kirra said.
Hesitantly, Alexa left Kirra and went to wash for the meal.
Kirra still looked confused. "But," she began, speaking to herself. "But our planet has no moon then."
*
Although they left the parlour together, the company filtered into the dining room only in dribs and drabs.
"Merlyn," Ferretti asked, when the room was still quite empty. "This Nor; how bad will he be?"
"It depends, Sir," Merlyn replied. "If he has manifested completely, he could kill us all with a wave of his hand. If his presence here is a mere psychic projection, however, we will be able to banish him simply by confronting that projection."
"So which is it likely to be?"
Merlyn gave a helpless shrug. "Most likely somewhere in the middle."
"What about those books of yours?" Ferretti pressed. "Isn't there some...some kind of spell in there that would help to level the playing field? Something like the control chant you used on the shoggoths?"
"Callsign notwithstanding, I'm not a wizard you know," Merlyn replied, tartly.
"Just throw me a frickin' bone here, Captain," Ferretti pleaded. "You just volunteered us to go toe-to-toe with a god!"
"I know, Sir and I'm sorry; but any of the phonic formulae in my books..."
"The what now?"
Merlyn sighed. "I suppose you could call them spells, if you really must, although it really isn't anything magical. Anyway, whatever the semantics, they can create an irresistible compulsion in the mindless psyche of a shoggoth, but a being of Nodens' power is a different kettle of fish. By his nature he would be susceptible to the formulae, but not without a key; something to alter the formula and make it specific to him. A ‘true name' if you want to look at it mystically."
"And we don't have one?" Ferretti guessed.
"No, Sir."
"Can we get one?"
"I doubt it, Sir. The fact that they grant such power means that these creatures guard their names very carefully."
"There must be some way!"
"We could steal his wallet," Roberts suggested.
"That's not exactly helpful, Lieutenant," Merlyn told him. She looked pensive for a moment. "There may be something I can do about the nightgaunts, but it depends how many of them there are."
"There are a lot," Roberts assured her. "I counted at least thirty or forty last night."
"You could count that many so fast? In the dark?" Tamira asked, doubtfully.
"It's an old trick," Roberts replied. "You count ten and see how much space they take up, then estimate how many tens there are. It was hard to tell, even with the night scope, but I'd certainly say no less than thirty circling the town last night."
"We're lucky only two or three risked the spikes to attack then," Pearson noted.
"Not really," Roberts replied.
Ferretti looked troubled. "How do you mean, lieutenant."
"Just that the ones who attacked were the ones that could; the others were too big to fit under the parapet roof."
"Oh, whacko," the colonel groused.
At that moment, the door burst open and Ninya hurried in. "Has anyone seen Kirra since we were all in the parlour?" she asked, her voice calm but her eyes frantic with worry.
"I think she was talking to Alexa," Pearson said.
Ferretti lifted his tac radio. "Lieutenant Rasputin," he called. "Rasputin, please respond."
"You now those bad feelings you sometimes get," Roberts said.
"Yeah," Ferretti replied.
"I'm getting one now."
"Me too," Merlyn agreed.
"Well that's me three then," Ferretti added. "Ninya; what made you ask where your sister was?"
"She was taking so long," Ninya explained, "so I went up to fetch her. She wasn't in her room and she wasn't in the parlour; then I noticed the gun room was open. Her best rifle is gone, along with some of the alien weapons."
"Damnit," Ferretti muttered. "Which ones did they take?"
"The rifle and one of the small ones that chatters," Ninya replied.
"An MPX and the M181," Roberts said. "It seems that Kirra doesn't feel tomorrow is soon enough."
Ferretti shook his head, sadly. "And Rasputin's gone after her to try and bring her own sister back."
"I beg your pardon?" Merlyn asked.
"Lieutenant Rasputin had a twin sister who was lost on one of the Russian Stargate missions," Ferretti explained. "However, I don't think that's important right now. What's important is that they are out there. I suggest we head out ASAP and find Rasputin and Kirra before they do anything – else – stupid."
"Agreed," Tamira said, decisively. "Ninya, load up the wagon with as many chemical lights as possible; we will be unlikely to return before nightfall."
"Yes, mother."
"Pearson," Ferretti added. "See if you can mount some mobile lights along the wagon rails."
"Roberts can see to that," Merlyn suggested. "Sergeant; can you fetch some of the heavy batteries out of storage?"
Pearson nodded an acknowledgement of the captain's order.
"Grab a signal relay as well," Ferretti added. "I don't want us drifting out of radio range."
"Yes, Sir; Ma'am," Pearson agreed.
As Roberts moved to follow Ninya, Merlyn touched his arm to halt him for a moment. "Calm her down if you can," she said. "I'm beginning to think that this is a disturbingly quixotic family and we don't need anyone else dashing off."
Roberts nodded. "You got it," he promised.
"Alright then, Merlyn," Ferretti said. "You're with me to the armoury; weapons and Omega suits." As they headed for the gun room he reached for his radio again. "SG 1-7-niner from SG-7-niner; we are leaving the town on an urgent retrieval mission. Sit tight and keep this frequency clear; we'll be on open channel."
"Roger that," Major Chard replied.
*
Alexa sat uncomfortably astride one of Tamira's finest horses as it cantered gently up the slope towards the great spur. She was unfamiliar with the style of saddle and was having more difficulty than she would normally have done communicating her wishes to the animal. She would sooner have ridden bareback – it might have felt more fitting for the daughter of a long-line of Mongol horse thieves – but there was a long pole fixed to the saddle, designed to carry a chemical light while leaving the hands free, and that would be important once the sun set.
"Are you sure you know where we are going?" Alexa asked.
"Positive," Kirra replied. "The stories say that Lord Nor went into the temple but they do not say that he ever came out again. That must be where he has made his lair."
"Perhaps," Alexa allowed. "Do we have any way of finding him once we get there?"
"The ruin isn't really that big," Kirra assured her. "It should be simple to locate him."
"Don't bet on it," Alexa cautioned. "Scourge temples are built mostly underground; well, the only other Scourge temple I ever saw was. The caverns went down for miles."
"I don't think we have enough chemical lights for that," Kirra admitted, despondently.
"Well, that at least I have in hand," Alexa assured him. "I brought an electric lantern and two flashlights, we will not want for illumination." She leaned forward and patted the horse's flank; the mare could feel her rider's tension, but she was showing no sign of fear herself. "The horses don't fear the darkness," she realised.
"No," Kirra agreed. "The hounds never attack animals; only humans. We leave the horses to roam wild on the pastures at night. Sometimes the hounds drive them up towards the end of the valley, but they never harm them and the horses always come back again."
"I wonder why."
"They are well fed and cared for."
Alexa smiled. "No; I mean, I wonder why the nightgaunts never attack animals. They don't have mouths," she realised. "They can't feed on meat or blood; perhaps they're some kind of psychophage."
"Of what?" Kirra asked.
"Psychophage," Alexa replied, shifting the weight of the M181 across her back. "A thought-eater; a creature which feeds on psychic energy. Animals generate a far lesser psychic charge than humans; it has something to do with our capacity for imagination, I believe. Some people have also been identified as possessing a lower than normal level of psi-energy; usually people who lack imagination and creativity. Sometimes these people can feed on others, consciously or subconsciously bleeding off the energy that they require in a form of psychic vampirism. This draining leaves the victim listless, uninspired and subdued, but seldom does more for the vampire than intensify their craving. The feeder often becomes aggressive, violent even; the victim just fades away."
"Why would anyone do something so horrid?" Kirra asked. "And why would anyone let someone do that to them?"
Alexa shrugged. "According to the studies, those psychic vampires who know what they are doing are sociopaths, and like many sociopaths are intelligent and highly skilled at covering up their true nature. The victim, meanwhile, is a rational soul who doesn't believe in psi-energy or vampires. Then, once a victim is hooked, they lose the ability to break free: the ultimate in abusive co-dependency."
"How do you know all of this?" Kirra asked. She was horrified, but also clearly gripped by the same grim fascination that had taken hold of Alexa had been when she first found the dusty files of Project Jaroslav.
"My country performed these tests about twenty-five years ago," she explained. "Actually, a great many countries have studied vampires over the years; these studies focused on the psychic form of vampirism. The subjects that they chose had all displayed almost superhuman strength and resistance to injury when running on a psi-energy high and they hoped to harness that ability – along with the vampires' sociopathic natures – to create the ultimate assassin. In the end it proved that what was happening was that the men involved were simply in the grip of a psychotic frenzy and so the tests were discontinued, but they kept files full of notes on the subjects. They even identified a number of psychological types which were best suited to act as ‘hosts' for these vampires: tortured artists, repressed homosexuals, pederasts, hypochondriacs; anyone who feels somehow that they deserve to suffer.
"But psychic vampires are still human; they still need to eat food, drink water, breathe air. A true psychophage would theoretically be adapted until it could subsist on psi-energy energy alone; it might even become nothing more than psi-energy. But that's mostly theory."
"Any if this creature were no more than psi-energy?" Kirra asked. "How would you kill it?"
Alexa shrugged. "It would be nearly impervious to physical harm," she admitted. "You can use a low-frequency transmitter to ‘jam' psychic abilities however; you could probably use a similar method to hurt or even destroy such a being. You would just have to match and invert the operating frequency of its own psychic waveform." The young Russian smiled. "You have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, have you?"
Kirra shook her head.
"Don't worry," Alexa said. "I'm a little hazy on the subject myself. Sergeant Pearson is the man who knows his waveforms. Come on," she sighed. "Let's press on a little."
*
"We'll bring some chemical lights as a backup," Roberts suggested, "but these halogens should be able to light this cart up like nothing on this world. We've got floodlights all around and I've bolted a couple of stands to the floor so we can swivel the spots like searchlights. The nightgaunts won't know what hit them."
Ninya tried to smile in response to his confidence, but tears welled up in her eyes once more. "It's my fault," she confided in a whisper. "I failed Arrik and now Kirra is gone as well. It was bad enough losing Rens and Kerris, but now I'm going to lose the rest of my family and it is all my fault."
"How do you make that out?" Roberts asked, gently. "So you were a little slow to respond: no-one else was much faster, Ninya. What difference do you think you would have made anyway?"
"You don't understand!" Ninya wailed. "I wasn't where I was supposed to be! I should have been closer, but I...I stopped on the wall to listen to the hounds." She swallowed hard before carrying on in a more measured tone: "They called to me in Rens' voice."
"Rens? Your fiancé?"
Ninya nodded, despondently. "He has been gone so long now; I knew it wasn't him but I...I wanted to listen. I stopped in my patrol because I wanted to hear his voice again, even though I knew it was just a shadow hound. Then after I had listened for a while I..." She stopped.
"You answered?"
Ninya nodded, mortified. "I spoke with it, Lieutenant Roberts, and it answered me as Rens would have done. I have never heard of a shadow hound being able to do that and I began to forget what it was. I...Calamity claim me, I flirted with it!" she cried. "I let a faceless thing woo me and I did not hear the alarms until the horns went on the tower close by me. Even then, when it called to me to stay and speak with it some more, I hesitated. I betrayed myself and my fiancé's memory by making love to that thing..."
Please, God, let that be the old-fashioned, flirting sense of ‘making love', Roberts thought to himself.
"...I betrayed Arrik by not coming to him in time and Kirra by letting her twin be snatched. I have failed everyone who cares for me and for whom I care."
"No," Roberts insisted, firmly. "You will fail them if you carry on feeling sorry for yourself instead of doing something productive."
Ninya looked startled by his hardness, but as he fixed her with his cool, blue eyes she slowly regained her composure. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Is this the first time you've spoken to the nightgaunts?" Roberts asked.
"Yes," Ninya replied, "although...It isn't the first time they've tried to get me to speak to them. I have been sneaking out to listen to them sometimes. Nights when I haven't been on watch or..."
"With Xar."
"With Xar," she agreed.
"Haven't you missed someone off the list of those you betrayed?" Roberts asked.
Ninya blushed. "Xar and I...It isn't serious; we're just friends really. He lost his wife a few months ago, at about the same time that Kerris died. We just comfort each other really."
"Sure. That's why you were even more worried about him than you were about Arrik."
Ninya blushed. "That's not true...I..."
"I never knew your fiancé," Roberts said, "and I never knew Xar's wife. You don't need to be defensive with me."
Ninya hung her head, embarrassed.
"Now, just focus on what's ahead instead of blaming yourself for what happened. We are going to go out there and we are going to bring our lieutenant and your brother and sister back."
"You promise?" Ninya asked.
"If it helps, then yes; I promise."
Ninya stretched up to kiss Roberts on the cheek. "Thank you," she said.
Ninya turned back to the cart as the rest of SG-7 arrived, accompanied by her mother. Most of the attention in the room focused on the naquadah generator that Pearson had brought from the stores and Roberts took advantage of the distraction to take a good long look at Tamira. She had the same gleam in her eye that he saw in her daughter's; the same flicker of guilt.
"What is up with this family?" he whispered, when only Merlyn was close enough to hear him.
"I don't know," Merlyn admitted, drawing him aside – ostensibly to help him into his Omega suit – while the others loaded up the cart. "Tamira seemed pretty with it, but whenever she thinks no-one is looking she stares out of the window and wrings her hands in guilt; it's like a bad melodrama."
"I'd say it was the siege atmosphere," Roberts suggested, "but I haven't seen any sign of it elsewhere. The guards and servants are largely sane and from what little I saw of him, Xar was just a guy trying to deal with some pretty tangled feelings. Matia's crazy with guilt and worry of course, but no more than a regular teenager in love. Tamira's family though...It's like they blame themselves for all the troubles of the world."
"Do you think that could be a problem?" Merlyn asked.
Roberts shook his head. "They seem competent; just...a little self-loathing. I doubt Ninya will let herself be distracted again, but she might be slow to take the initiative; she seems convinced that all she can do is screw things up."
"All set?" Ferretti called down.
"Yes, Sir," Merlyn replied, tweaking the final seal closed. "Don't forget your cloak, Lieutenant."
"No Ma'am. Do we really need the reactor?" Roberts mused as they climbed aboard the cart. "It seems a little over-the-top for a few spotlights."
"My idea," Ferretti admitted. He sat alongside Tamira and Ninya on the bench seat, while the rest of SG-7 gathered in the back and stowed their packs and weapons securely.
"When all's said and done, we're heading into a Scourge temple. I want to have something there that can make a big bang if we really need one, and we're all out of nukes."
Pearson leaned back against the side of the cart and gave a contented sigh. "I love the smell of suicide in the morning," he said.
*
"The Temple of The Scourge," Alexa said, staring in remembered horror at the broken walls of the structure. It was far smaller than the last such temple she had looked at and it did not radiate the same psychic menace, but there was power here; a great and ancient intelligence that probably did not wish to be disturbed by the likes of her. "I'm not sure this is such a good plan," she admitted.
"Where would he be?" Kirra wondered.
"You mean, if I were a godlike being able to walk the universe at will and command an army of photosensitive bat-monsters to do my bidding and gather prey for my wild hunt, where would I go?"
"What?"
"Never mind."
"So...where do we go from here?"
"We follow Rasputin's law," Alexa replied.
Kirra looked confused. "And what is ‘Rasputin's law'?"
"Bad, bad people like tall, tall towers or deep, deep dungeons. Since there are no towers here, we go down. Look for an opening. A door, a cavern, a tunnel; anything that goes down."
Kirra looked, but all she could see in the light of the electric lantern were walls and shadows. Then something moved in one of the shadows under the furthest wall of the temple, a darker shape that sprang straight upwards. Another shape followed it, rising almost silently from the ground into the sky. "Ah...Alexa."
"Yes."
More shapes followed; many more. Now the rustle of a great many leathery wings could just be made out across the intervening distance. "I think I've found an opening," Kirra said.
Alexa turned and saw the stream of nightgaunts issuing forth from the crack in the ground. "Oh...fine," she muttered.
*
As the cart emerged from the gully, the night was closing in fast, barely held at bay by the powerful floodlights. The darkness out here in the wilds had an almost tangible quality and every member of SG-7 could feel unseen eyes watching them. Somewhere up ahead they could hear rushing water, as of a waterfall or perhaps a stretch of rapids.
"Lights ahead!" Roberts called. He lifted a pair of night glasses to his eyes, but the halogen glare interfered with the light intensifying optics and he could barely see a thing in the gathering night; he could just make out the two lights, and behind them something rising into the sky like a fountain. "Ninya," he said.
"Lieutenant Roberts?"
"There isn't any kind of waterspout in the temple ruins is there?"
"No," Ninya replied, nervously.
Ferretti raised his own night glasses and gave a low whistle.
"The lights must be Alexa and Kirra," Roberts suggested, taking his M181 from the bottom of the cart. "Tamira; there are about fifty nightgaunts in the sky above them."
"Hyah!" Tamira snapped the rains and drove the ponies on. "I have to focus on the ground," she told them. "You must watch the sky and keep those hounds away from us."
"Yes, Ma'am," Ferretti replied. He dropped down into the well of the cart and Merlyn passed him his MPX. "Fifty?" he asked, doubtfully.
"Sir?" Merlyn asked, worriedly.
Ferretti and Roberts exchanged a look of concern, then wordlessly passed their night glasses to Pearson and Merlyn respectively.
"Look straight up," Roberts suggested, "out of the main glare of the floodlights. I didn't want to spook them," he admitted, indicating Tamira and Ninya with a nod of his head. "With any luck the lights will keep the nightgaunts off."
As she looked at the swirling sky above them, Merlyn realised that what she had taken for the rush of water was no such thing; it was the beating of a multitude of leathery wings. She swallowed hard. "I sincerely hope so," she replied.
Pearson stared through the glasses at the nightgaunts swarming above them. "And where," he asked rhetorically, "is Vin Diesel when you need him?" He reached out and angled the side lights upwards a little more; it would reduce the effectiveness of the night glasses, but it would probably keep the nightgaunts a little further away.
"They've split up!" Tamira called, suddenly. "The lights have split up!"
"Damnit! They must be able to see us," Ferretti said. "Why don't they head towards us?" he wondered as the lights moved perpendicular to the wagon's approach.
"They are," Roberts replied, "but there are too many after them and they don't have as much light as we do. They can't head straight down so they're trying to split the pursuit then swing around and back down to the light."
"That's a pretty slim hope," Merlyn noted.
"The one on the left is closer," Roberts said. "We'll get that one first and then swerve over for the other."
Tamira looked questioningly at Ferretti who nodded his agreement.
"And if you have that thing you were mentioning, Captain?" Ferretti asked. "To help with the nightgaunts."
Merlyn took a slim, leather-bound notebook from her pack. "I really need to be still, Sir, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be. There may be more than I can deal with, however."
"Just give it your best," Ferretti told her.
Tamira snapped the reins and urged the ponies on faster; after a moment the light turned and made directly for them. After what seemed like an age, the light grew closer and slowly the shape of a horse and rider became visible. A kind of selfish hope grew in Ferretti's heart when he saw that the light came from an electric lantern of the kind used for camp lighting by SG teams on overnight assignment, but as the cart and the horse drew to a halt alongside each other it was Kirra and not Alexa who slid exhausted from the saddle.
"Kirra!" Tamira sprang down from the seat and embraced her daughter. "Oh, Kirra! Are you alright?"
"Got to get away," Kirra panted. "Got to get away. We...No. We have to find Alexa. She only has the chemical light; it won't last much longer."
Roberts sprang forward onto the driver's bench. He snatched up the reins and passed them to Ninya, himself taking the shotgun position.
"Come on up," Ferretti urged, reaching down to grab Tamira's hand.
Merlyn helped Kirra up then turned to Ninya. "Go!" she yelled.
Ninya gave a sharp crack of the reins and the ponies started forward. They were weary already from charging after Kirra's light, but Ninya pushed them as hard as she could. Roberts looked back at Tamira and Kirra and saw that they were almost consumed by their relief, both Alexa and even Arrik forgotten in the moment of reunion. Ninya had clearly allowed herself no such moment of merciful distraction; she had almost forgotten the presence of her kin and her eyes were set on the goal and she drove the ponies forwards with a fierce determination.
"I never should have left her," Kirra snivelled.
"Whose idea was it to split up?" Merlyn asked.
"It was hers. She said it would split the pursuit so one of us might make it back; but it's my fault."
Roberts turned back again, steadying himself against the jolting of the cart. "How do you make that out?" he asked her.
"I was the one who wanted to go," Kirra replied. "It's all my fault we were out here."
"But she made her choice," Merlyn assured the girl. "I just wish I knew why. It can't just be sympathy; Alexa is many things and not all of them good, but she's not stupid."
"The light is fading!" Ninya warned.
Sure enough, the second light, which bobbed and wove around the hillside in a vain attempt to throw off the pursuing nightgaunts, was becoming dimmer each moment: the chemical reaction was losing its potency. Pearson leaped to his feet, steadied himself and aimed one of the spotlights towards that fading star, but they were still too far away.
With a sudden lurch, the light dropped suddenly and vanished altogether.
"The cleft!" Kirra wailed. "She's fallen into the cleft!"
In the darkness, they saw a spike of flame leap up from the M181's plasma lance. Half-a-dozen nightgaunts went up in flames and fell in a burning mess to the ground.
"No," Ninya realised, flailing madly at the reins. "The horse must have fallen, but she has not. We can still..."
The plasma lance flashed three more times, then there was nothing.
Kirra was distraught. "Oh, Alexa! I'm sorry!"
"I was too slow," Ninya said, letting the reins go slack.
Merlyn and Roberts exchanged a meaningful look.
"Keep going," Roberts snapped. "Quickly, Kirra; turn up the hill and get to the temple. We know that's where they're taking her."
In a moment, Ninya's gloom evaporated. "Yes," she said. "Come on!" she exhorted the ponies. "Faster!"
Pearson risked a quick look at the sky through his glasses. "Well that can't be good," he muttered.
"How many?" Ferretti asked.
Pearson looked at the colonel with fear in his eyes. "None," the sergeant replied.
*
Alexa woke with a splitting headache and a cold, flat stone pressing against her cheek. She tried to think how she had come to be wherever she was, but for a moment her mind recoiled from the memory of rustling wings, of clutching, tickling fingers and of giggling, gibbering voices. Spots and flashes of colour swirled before her eyes, each one driving a needle of pain shooting through her entire nervous system. Her skull throbbed as though there were two too many brains vying for space inside. She opened her eyes, but the darkness remained, broken only by the flickering of the phantasmal images.
You are awake.
Alexa cringed as an awesome, psychic presence pressed against the edges of her mind. "I am?" she mumbled. "Oh buggeration."
The presence chuckled in dark amusement. I Apologise for the roughness of my nightgaunts, it said, in a voice both sensuous and sepulchral.
No, she thought. Not it. He. There was something decidedly masculine in the presence, even if not precisely male. "Lord Nor, I presume."
Indeed. Please accept my assurance that there was no malice intended, the presence continued. They were merely... excited. It is not often that they face such a struggle to capture their prey. You led them quite a chase after you escaped them in the ruins: Most impressive.
"I'm glad you enjoyed the show," Alexa said, slowly and painfully pushing herself into a sitting position. The phantasms shifted around her, seeming somehow more alert. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to force her aching mind back to some semblance of concentration. When she opened her eyes once more, the phantasms had resolved themselves into more definite shapes; the silhouettes of dozens of nightgaunts.
Even as they dragged you down into my lair, you gave them such a fight. I do not think that anyone on this world has actually dared to raise a hand to my hounds in decades. I think they were a little overstimulated.
"So when they broke my finger, they just being friendly?"
Quite.
"Why don't you show yourself," Alexa challenged. "Stop hiding in the dark and let me see you."
Hiding in the dark? The presence that was Lord Nor chuckled again and Alexa felt the sound rub against her every sense like silk-wrapped sandpaper. Why, Alexa; I only hide in the light. For you alone I chose to be as I really am and to face you in my own, natural habitat, as it were.
Alexa forced herself to laugh, although what she really wanted to do was scream. "I am honoured to be allowed to enter your ‘natural habitat'," she lied. "It's very impressive: a dark and foetid cave full of chattering nightgaunts."
This time the chuckle rose into a full-throated laugh, or at least the nearest equivalent that could be achieved without the use of a throat: Alexa was increasingly certain that the being had no physical presence at all. Sweet Shura, it purred.
"Do not call me that," she hissed, angered that he had the effrontery to use the diminutive form of her name without permission. He had spoken the word like a caress, its sound sliding around her psyche and doing pleasant things to strategic parts of her being, but even half-awake, weary and battered and with her defences all but eroded away she knew that for a trick.
Perhaps the presence recognised that she was wise to its deception, for he quite suddenly switched to a more formal mode. My contrite apologies, Alexa Vasiliovna, he said. But you wrong me also, my dear one. My natural dwelling place is not within the rather squalid remains of a Scourge Temple. I live within the mind; or more specifically, at this moment, within your mind.
*
In the harsh light of the halogen floodlights, the temple looked even more eerie than it had done in the torch beams. The ruins lay in eerie quiet, the silence broken only by the fall of the ponies' hooves and the squeak of the wheels.
"Over there," Kirra whispered, pointing towards the crack from which the nightgaunts had emerged.
Ferretti nodded. Roberts tapped Ninya on the shoulder and she halted the cart. At a signal from Ferretti, SG-7 dropped quietly from the cart and brought their weapons to their shoulders. A zone of protective light spread some thirty feet in all directions and the team moved to the edge of that zone before lowering night vision goggles over their eyes. The team fanned out and headed into the ruins. In a matter of moments, Roberts' shape was lost among the shadows and the others were little more than grey ghosts.
Roberts was on point and came to the shaft first. It was a great, yawning cleft in the bedrock on which the temple was built, beneath which a shadowed chasm plunged down towards the heart of the planet.
"Movement?" Ferretti asked.
"Negative," Roberts replied. "There's something at the bottom; a light. I don't actually want to think about what it might be."
"Take a look; we'll cover."
While his team mates took watch, Roberts stripped off his goggles and looked down into the chasm. Far, far below, something gleamed. Something red. At the edge of Roberts' olfactory acuity there was a whiff of sulphur.
"This goes a very long way down," Roberts reported. "There is a way down, a pathway on the right wall, but night vision is quickly going to get very limited. I'd say we'll be working at visual range of less than five metres."
"So much for subtlety then," Ferretti declared.
"We've got the field kits for the MPXs, so we can swap the optical sights for flashlights," Pearson suggested. "I doubt we'll be doing any sharp shooting down there. If we get the cart over here then the lights should provide some cover on the way back up as well."
Ferretti nodded. "Do it," he said. "Roberts; keep an eye on this hole and shoot anything nasty that crawls out of it."
"Sir."
With Pearson's guidance, Ninya drove the cart around the broken walls to the cleft. "Hold up!" Pearson said. He stooped in the pool of light and lifted something from the bottom of a wall. "Lieutenant Rasputin's MPX, Sir."
Ferretti took the weapon from Pearson.
"She still had that when we left," Kirra told them. "How did it get back here?"
"She must have put up quite a fight," Pearson suggested.
He aimed one of the spotlights down along the ‘path', a narrow ridge which clung to the edge of the chasm and descended to an opening thirty feet down.
"That's a tight squeeze," Roberts noted. "Just one nightgaunt could make short work of us while we get down there."
"Perhaps there is another way?" Tamira suggested.
Ferretti shook his head. "There's no time to look," he told her.
"But perhaps we should come back in the morning."
"I know you're scared," Ferretti told her. "It's okay. We're all scared; you'd have to be either crazy or stupid not to be afraid. It's alright; you don't have to come down there, but we're not leaving Rasputin down there."
"Or Arrik," Roberts assured Ninya.
"I don't want to leave my son," Tamira insisted, appalled at herself. "I'm just so frightened."
"I know," Ferretti said again. "But to you this is something that happens. I'm just not so used to losing people; that's my luxury," he assured her, "not your weakness."
"Perhaps I am used to losing people," Tamira admitted, a trace of anger entering her voice, "but I will never come to accept it. I do want to see my son again and I would rather like to see you return safe and well, Colonel."
"I have an idea," Merlyn suggested, heading off the debate. "Why don't the three of you stay out here with the cart and make sure we have something to come back to?"
"We won't be able to line up a shot while we're on the path," Roberts added. "If you can take a station on the far right of the cleft you can cover us with rifles without our being in the line of fire."
"You must think we're so pathetic," Ninya said. She gave a bitter laugh. "And Xar thinks our family are so heroic."
"We don't think you're pathetic," Merlyn assured her. "In fact, you seem to be the only ones who think that. It's like your whole family is eaten up by guilt."
"Eaten up," Kirra whispered. "Psychophage."
"Not really the time for family therapy, Merlyn," Ferretti said.
"I'm sorry, Sir," Merlyn said, chastened.
"Wait a minute." Roberts looked at Tamira's younger daughter. "What did you just say, Kirra?" he asked.
"I? No; it was Alexa," Kirra said. "She told me something about psychophages: creatures that feed on psychic energy. She thought that Lord Nor might be one of them."
"So what did she say?" Ferretti asked.
"That they like to feed on certain types of people. People who feel they should suffer; people who feel guilty about something."
"So your family is like the all-you-can-eat buffet then?" Roberts asked.
"I suppose so," Kirra admitted.
"Why is that?" Roberts asked.
"Roberts," Ferretti sighed.
"Actually, I think this might be important," Merlyn said. "Tamira; what do you know?"
All eyes turned towards the headwoman, who blushed and looked away.
"Mother?" Kirra asked.
Tamira slumped down on the side of the cart. "I suppose I learned it from my mother," she sighed. "She taught me to take responsibility for my mistakes, but she always seemed to feel responsible for everything."
"I remember," Ninya said. "It was like she was carrying a great load on her shoulders; and then, after she died, it was as though she had passed that burden on to you."
"That is precisely what she did," Tamira admitted. "When my mother was on her deathbed, she called me in to her room and she told me..." She closed her eyes and composed herself. "She told me that when her father was taken by The Scourge, he took her from her bed one night and brought her to the temple."
"Your mother was infected by The Scourge," Merlyn realised. "They put her in one of the chambers."
"They put her in a war machine," Tamira explained. "She was the power source in a Scourge machine. She saw through its eyes as it was sent to kill, destroy and kidnap."
"That's horrific," Ferretti whispered.
"It's the same thing that happened to SG-12," Merlyn realised. "They could see through their simulacra."
"She was not responsible for what it did," Ferretti assured Tamira.
"But she thought she was," Merlyn mused. "Just as SG-12 did. They..." Realisation dawned in her eyes.
"They felt responsible," Pearson said.
Roberts closed his eyes in horror. "They felt guilty."
"Which made it easier for The Scourge to feed on them," Merlyn concluded. "Diabolical."
"But...No-one who was taken by The Scourge ever came back," Ninya said.
"One did," Tamira corrected. "After Lord Nor's shadow hounds destroyed the city and the temple, one war machine remained. He tore it open and freed my mother from its workings. She found her way back down to Yeth after eight days, where my father's family took her in."
"Which explains her guilt," Ferretti agreed, "but not yours. You can't feel responsible for what happened to your world."
"Yes I can," Tamira replied. "I can, because of what I am."
"I don't understand," Ferretti said.
"I think I do," Merlyn told him. "When Tamira said that her mother was a young girl when The Scourge awoke, we all assumed she meant a child. How old was she?"
"She was fourteen when she was taken," Tamira replied. "Almost sixteen when she came to Yeth."
"And your father married her almost as soon as she returned?" Merlyn asked.
Tamira nodded. "No-one batted an eyelid; everyone was so glad to be alive and there was plenty of room in the valley so there were a great many young couples and early babies that year."
"Early..." Ferretti's face rumpled in a frown of confusion. In some areas, Ferretti's brain was second to none, but in terms of social relations he was rather clueless.
Tamira could not meet Ferretti's gaze. "When my mother came out of the temple, she was pregnant."
*
Yours is a unique mind, Alexa Vasiliovna.
"I assure you it isn't," Alexa replied, feeling around in the darkness. She was certain that there was something – or rather, someone – else in the chamber besides the hounds and the ethereal presence of their master. She could perceive the presence as a slight shimmering, almost like a pallid afterimage of the Aurora Borealis and each nightgaunt was a silvery silhouette with a bright spark at its brow, but there was something else that burned with a faint, golden light. It was hard to see where, however, as her ability to judge distance using this newfound faculty was extremely limited.
As she moved, she found that the nightgaunts seemed keen to avoid her, probably as a result of her knife work in the tunnels as they dragged her down, and so she had some liberty to move around. Groping along the cold stone, her hands touched warm flesh, eliciting a squeak of terror.
I see you have found my other guest, the presence commented.
"Arrik?" Alexa asked.
"Who...Who are you?"
This little one is much more like the run of the mill on this world: Small and so limited. You are unlike any other on this world, Alexa Vasiliovna.
"That's probably because I am not of this world," Alexa replied, tartly. "Arrik," she whispered, as she laid a hand on the boy's face so he could feel her warmth. From personal experience she knew that whatever voices they might speak with, the grasping hands of the nightgaunts were invariably cold and clammy. "My name is Shura; I'm here to get you out of here. I came with your sister and my friends will be here soon."
"We'll never escape," Arrik sobbed. "You shouldn't have come here, Shura. Not for me."
"We will escape," Alexa contradicted him.
The presence laughed, mockingly. Such unwarranted confidence; so glorious to taste something so sweet and so different after half a century of fear and dejection. But the boy is right, Alexa Vasiliovna.
"Shut up," Alexa hissed.
"I'm sorry," Arrik snivelled, trying to still his tears.
"Not you," Alexa sighed, reaching out and cradling him against her. "You don't hear it, do you?"
"Hear what?"
You are quick, Alexa Vasiliovna, the presence commended her. Some people take hours to work that one out.
"Never mind," Alexa told Arrik. "It doesn't matter." She looked out into the darkness and focused her thoughts, making her words sound only in her thoughts. I am taking this boy and I am leaving, she declared. If you hold us here, you will have cause to regret it.
Excellent! the presence applauded. Ah, my dear you are so much better than anything I have tasted in so very long. But although you are clever and strong and very brave indeed, I am afraid that you are mistaken. You will not be leaving; the boy will not be leaving; and I will not be sorry. Continue to fight me, however... The sense of the presence pressing down on her mind grew stronger and her headache returned with a vengeance. ...and I will make you very sorry indeed.
The warmth of the boy in Alexa's arms grew suddenly cold and Arrik cried out in alarm. Alexa touched his face again and felt the skin slough off beneath her touch. A stench of putrefaction struck her nostrils and made her retch.
"What is happening to me?" Arrik cried. "Oh, Calamity; what is happening?"
"Nothing," Alexa assured him, wishing that she could be more certain. "It's in your mind. They are making you believe this is happening, but it is not. Think about it: If your body were rotting away, you couldn't know it."
"But I can feel it!"
So can I, she wanted to reply, but that would not have helped either of them. Instead, Alexa gathered her strength and concentrated on the psychic defences she had been practicing since her first encounter with The Scourge. This mind was quite unlike that of The Scourge; it was less powerful, but more subtle by far, not that it was easy to think of a force that might be less subtle than The Scourge. The presence was still far too strong for her to meet head-on with her puny, human brain, but in awareness of her limitations, Alexa had studied a kind of mental jujutsu; a series of techniques for evading, deflecting and redirecting psychic assaults without being crushed in the attempt.
With a great effort, Alexa forced the image from her mind and felt once more felt the smooth, unbroken skin of the boy's face under her palm. The strain of fighting the influence made sweat stand out on Alexa's skin, despite the cool air of the cavern, but that was the easy part. The real challenge would be to defend the body as well.
Although physical proximity was not really a factor, Alexa pulled the boy into a tight embrace. She could feel his mind trembling beneath the assault of the presence and for a moment she balked at the task ahead of her. Arrik's mind was such a small and fragile thing, the will of the presence so huge and merciless: it seemed an impossible task.
But Alexa Vasiliovna Rasputina did not like giving up on people. She believed that no spirit was so lost as to be beyond recall; she had to. So she reached out and drew Arrik's psyche into her own, wrapping his light in hers and placing him within the protective sphere of her psychic kung-fu. It hurt for her to do this; it hurt because it felt so good to be so close to another human being, yet she had to restrain herself from making that final contact and so defiling the sanctity of Arrik's mind as surely as the presence had tried to do.
Slowly, the boy stopped shaking. More slowly still, the presence withdrew, angry and disconcerted.
I will not let you hurt him. Alexa told the presence.
Very impressive, the presence murmured. The voice was a projection of his self and so he could not conceal his emotions from Alexa. He could not hide the fact that he was afraid of her; not very afraid, but undeniably just a little bit frightened. Nor could he hide – however much Alexa wished it were otherwise – his desire for her.
*
"So," Ferretti asked his team mates, "did that whole confessional session actually achieve anything?"
"I think they've made great progress today," Pearson replied, glancing to where Tamira and Ninya crouched, rifles in hand, ready to cover SG-7 once they began their descent: Kirra stood behind them on the cart, ready to direct the second spotlight as needed. "We should consider marketing this, you know."
"Family therapy through shared peril?" Roberts asked. "You think it would catch on?"
"Why not? Either your emotional problems are sorted out or you get eaten by monsters; either way it's goodbye to family arguments."
"Will you two give it a rest!" Ferretti snapped. "Merlyn; you said this might have some bearing: Did it?"
"Not on the immediate situation," Merlyn admitted, "although I guess we know why the people of Athera are afraid of Tamira's family."
"And why no-one wants to ask her to step down and let a new chief take over," Roberts added.
Merlyn nodded. "More importantly, we also know a little more about how The Scourge work. They make their victims feel responsible for the actions of The Scourge to make it easier to bleed them."
"So we now know that not only are The Scourge dangerous, parasitic and predatory, they're also proper bastards?" Ferretti asked. "Does that really constitute an advance in the sum of human knowledge?"
"Every little helps, Sir," Merlyn assured him.
"Hmm." Ferretti looked unconvinced. "Take point, Mister Roberts; let's get this show on the road."
"Some road," Robert muttered.
Let's get this show on the ledge, then," Ferretti agreed, as he followed the lieutenant to the cleft.
"Sergeant Pearson?"
Bringing up the rear of the team, Pearson looked up at the voice. "Yes, Kirra?"
"There was something else," Kirra told him. "Alexa said you would understand...about frequencies. Something to do with a being that had become pure psi-energy and using frequencies to cancel it."
"Was that all she said?" Pearson asked.
Kirra nodded. "She did say that she did not understand it either."
"Thank you, Kirra," Pearson said, although he was not sure if this was actually any help just now. It did remind him of some purely theoretical work he had read about in some of the files shared by Blue Book and the Special Directorate, but that was theory and he was not good with theory.
"You realise, Colonel," Merlyn pointed out, "that if the catacombs follow this shaft down then Nodens' lair could be miles below the surface."
"Yes, Captain," Ferretti replied, impatiently, struggling to keep his footing on the narrow ledge. It was difficult to see where he was putting his feet, as the team's own bodies cast shadows all along the path.
"And that we have no way of knowing that this first opening will even lead us anywhere but a nightgaunt's nest?" Merlyn pressed.
"Yes, Captain. Your point being?"
Merlyn thought for a moment. "No point," she admitted.
"Mind your eyes," Roberts called back. "I'm lighting a flare."
The phosphorous glow burst in front of them, then vanished as Roberts tossed the flare into the opening. With a squawk of rage and pain, a nightgaunt sprang from the tunnel, dislodging the flare and sending it tumbling away into the depths.
The nightgaunt circled out and swooped towards Roberts, but it recoiled as a bright light fell full upon it. The creatures spasmed once, then as two rifle shots echoed around the chasm it twitched again, and by the time the sound of the second volley reached SG-7's ears the winged horror was tumbling away after the dwindling light of the flare.
"You want to try that again, Lieutenant," Ferretti suggested.
"Sir," Roberts replied, lighting another flare and tossing it into the opening. This time there was no response.
"A promising start then," Ferretti declared.
Roberts nodded. "I'm going in."
*
What do you want? Alexa demanded.
So many things, the presence replied, so few of which you could possibly hope to understand in your present state.
The nightgaunts closed in around Alexa. Dozens of long-fingered hands pawed at her, clutching her hair and her clothing and trying to pull Arrik from her grip.
No! She tightened her hold on the boy. "No! Leave him alone." She clung fast, but the nightgaunts were too many and too strong. They tugged her hair, pinched her skin and tickled her sides until she could not hold on, and then they snatched the boy away, dragging him into the darkness.
"Shura!" Arrik managed to call out, before a particularly large nightgaunt slapped its hand over his mouth. In a moment they were too far away, and too many nightgaunts stood between them, for Alexa's uncanny and unprecedented night vision to spot them.
The boy will come to no harm at this time, their captor promised. You have my solemn word on that.
Perhaps you will forgive me if I am not comforted.
So angry? Yet it was you who brought this about.
Alexa refused to dignify that claim with a reply.
I have so often worn a human shape that I am possessed of human frailties; the worst of them is jealousy.
My heart bleeds for you.
It could be arranged; or perhaps another heart...I am stung that you would let this boy call you by your familiar name and blood does soothe my passions sometimes.
What do you want? Alexa asked again. It was not a demand this time but an acquiescence; Alexa acknowledged that her unseen tormentor held all of the cards at present.
As I explained, I suffer from many human frailties, "but not so many as you."
Alexa almost jumped out of her skin as the voice moved from her head to her ears. In the darkness in front of her, a shape coalesced around the shimmer that was the presence; a human shape, but the same silvery shade as the nightgaunts, rather than the gold of Arrik.
Slowly the nightgaunts moved away and as they did so the image faded until Alexa was in almost total darkness again; all she could see were the sparks at the brow of each nightgaunt. Alexa realised with a start that she had owed her ability to see the gaunts at all to the psychic echolocation of the winged monstrosities themselves. That spark must be the source of the psychic waves.
"Close your eyes, Alexa Vasiliovna," Nor said. "I shall make a light for your comfort, and so that I might see your face."
"I'm not sure that will be terribly comforting," she replied, but she closed her eyes. Light blossomed behind her eyelids and when she looked, four braziers were burning in a square around herself and Lord Nor. The nightgaunts skulked in the shadows; of Arrik there was no sign. To her surprise, Alexa saw that her pack lay against one of the walls; she supposed that the nightgaunts must have brought it.
Alexa turned her attention to Lord Nor. He was tall and fierce-eyed; a hoary old man with a spray of silver hair and beard, clad all in black. If pressed to describe him, Alexa would have said that he looked the way Einstein would look if he spent six months on an intensive exercise kick, only not as funny as that suggested. There was actually very little amusing about Lord Nor; he looked as though he could kill with a wave of his silver-skinned hand, if not with a glower from his beetle-browed eyes. There was, moreover, a potency about him; an air of vitality and – dare she think it – virility which bordered on the breathtaking.
"Where...Where is Arrik?" Alexa demanded.
"Safe," Nor replied in an offhand fashion. "The boy will not be harmed until tomorrow night."
"What happens tomorrow night?"
Nor chuckled, misty-eyed with fond anticipation. "The Wild Hunt," he replied. "I shall turn the boy loose, give him grace of one turn of the glass, then give chase. If he can return to the protection of his town then he and his will enjoy my protection forever."
Alexa fixed Nor with a sceptical glare. "And how many have made it back?"
"None," Nor admitted. "Although some have come close. The boy's brother almost made it and he was burdened with a woman he loved. Perhaps this boy will be the first. I hope so."
"You do?"
"Of course, Shura. I may call you Shura, may I not?"
Alexa squeezed her eyes shut so that she did not have to look at him as she said: "Yes."
"Well, I should hate to think that my future consort had come to me in search of a worthless child."
"I..." Alexa swallowed hard. "I take it then that I am not to be hunted?"
"Never! You are too powerful to waste in the hunt, my darling Shura." He came forward and took her hands in his. "You are quite the most impressive creature I have encountered in many a century. I have such great and glorious plans for you, my love."
"The idea of becoming the consort of a god is very flattering, but I don't plan on getting married just now," Alexa replied.
Nor cupped her face with one hand, then pressed his cheek to hers. "I think I can persuade you," he murmured into her ear, "if you will let me."
At such proximity, that awesome physical presence enfolded Alexa, threatening to overpower her. She knew that she had mere moments until her will to resist was obliterated. She could not fight it and so she turned and plunged into the flow; to keep from being washed away she turned her head to shore and rode the wave. When Nor drew her hard against him, she turned her face to him and fastened her lips against his with a voracious and unfeigned passion.
Nor swept Alexa into his arms and laid her down on a bed that formed itself out of shadows. His beard tickled her skin in a way that she did not like; he must have sensed her discomfort for in a moment the whiskers had vanished into his skin.
"That's a neat trick," she said, first kissing the now-bare cheek and then worrying it gently with her teeth.
"I can be whatever you want me to be, Shura. Man, woman or beast. I shall show you carnal pleasures the likes of which no mortal woman has dreamed," he whispered.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," Alexa replied with a throaty chuckle.
*
"I don't like this," Ferretti said. "It's too quiet. We've been down here almost two hours and the only nightgaunt we've seen was the one at the door. Does anyone else wonder where the other three hundred went?"
"Yes," Pearson admitted. "But I really didn't like to ask."
"On that subject, mind your feet as you come through," Roberts advised. "The floor's a little slippery down here."
"Water?" Merlyn asked.
"Um...No."
"Oh," Merlyn gasped, horrified.
"It's like the aftermath of a horror movie," Ferretti agreed. "I guess we know where some of the nightgaunts went at least."
"What did this?" Pearson asked. "Did they fight among themselves?"
Roberts crouched down and pushed aside the body of a nightgaunt, its spindly throat slashed open. He picked something up and held it high over his shoulder so that the others could see it: A Russian army combat knife.
"Ra-Ra-Rasputin," Pearson said, approvingly.
"You go grrl," Ferretti agreed. "I wouldn't have thought she had it in her."
"I always did think our little Russian could be quite a handful in a scrape," Roberts assured them.
"What happened to Rasputin?" Merlyn asked, concerned.
Roberts touched one of the pools of nightgaunt blood; it was cool, but still liquid. "I can't tell how long ago this was shed," he admitted, "but there isn't any human..."
"What is it?" Ferretti demanded.
Roberts moved forward. "Human blood," Roberts replied. "Not much, and about a day old. I think it must be Arrik's blood."
Ferretti's face became grim. "Can you track it?"
"For a way at least," Roberts assured him. "After that...I guess we'll see."
The blood trail was difficult to follow, but Roberts and Ferretti were skilled. They followed the trail as it ran down into the earth until at last they stopped.
"Have you found them?" Pearson asked.
"You could say that," Ferretti replied. He took a step back as a group of nightgaunts rounded the corner ahead of them.
Merlyn turned, slowly. Behind Pearson, shapes moved in the darkness. "It might be more accurate to say that they have found us," she noted.
SG-7 moved into a defensive position, but the situation looked grim.
"Merlyn," Ferretti said, "that thing?"
"There are too many, Sir. It would only slow them down."
"Every little helps," he reminded her.
"Yes, Sir," Merlyn agreed.
"Wait," Roberts said; he sounded confused. "Something's wrong."
Pearson nodded his head, slowly. "Something is definitely screwy," he agreed.
"Such as?" Ferretti asked.
"I hadn't noticed these things being shy before," Roberts explained, "or giving a da...fig for their own lives. So..."
"Why aren't they just attacking," Merlyn realised.
Ferretti nodded. "Then everyone stand ready, but don't start anything. If they'll let us, start moving slowly back the way we came. I think it may be time for some kind of plan B"
*
Alexa felt violated. She felt sullied, dirty, polluted. She tried to cling to those feelings, but she could not help herself; try as she might not to, she felt good.
"I don't know about undreamed of," she whispered, a hoarse voice from a raw throat, "but those were some pretty spectacular carnal pleasures." She bent her head to kiss his chest and the hollow of his throat, but did not raise her head to his face. Somehow, she dared not look on his features, mortally afraid of something that she knew she would see there.
Nor's fingers gently caressed her scalp. "And yet, so paltry when compared to that which I have yet to show you."
"And what is that?"
The fingers stroked her skin and Alexa felt his presence pass though the wound in her psyche. The pressure inside her aching head built, until the pain first became blinding and then transcended agony to fill her with a kind of twisted ecstasy. Light exploded behind her eyes and for a moment she could see a world opening before her; a world larger and more incredible than she had ever seen before. She could feel herself growing; she knew that the pain came because she was becoming too large for her own skin.
The pressure receded and Alexa dwindled back into herself. "God," she breathed, awestruck.
"I want you," Nor murmured.
Alexa laughed in disbelief. "You're insatiable," she accused.
"You are so much more than this pitiful shell of flesh and bones, Shura," Nor assured her. "I have had your body, that is true..."
"And don't I know it."
"...but I want you. The real you. The great and glorious power that lies trapped within this sack of meat."
"Hey! Less of the meat-sack, thank you. The sack of meat seemed good enough for you the last...however long."
"Only a few hours by your reckoning."
"Only?"
"Without these clumsy, mortal husks, time has no meaning," Nor replied. "A lifetime of these crude animals lasts but a heartbeat, and a single moment can be an eternity."
"And that's what you want?" Alexa asked, breathlessly. "To take me out of my husky and...What?"
"Share eternity with you. Without the burden of flesh, your shining spirit can rise up and take its rightful place as my consort. You would be as a goddess, Shura."
"A goddess?" Alexa gasped, intrigued in spite of herself.
"Yes. You would rule over the nightgaunts with me. We would hunt together, standing side-by-side in our chariot and bringing terror and death to the most vile creatures in the universe."
"Like The Scourge?"
"Yes."
"What about...What about the shoggoths?"
"Yes."
"Those slimy fish-frog things that tried to eat my team?"
"Deep ones?" Nor scoffed. "They would be nothing to us. Barely a distraction. Too weak to put up a fight; too unimaginative to even entertain us with their fear."
"Ah," Alexa realised. "That is why you hunt humans."
"Yes. They are so...inventive."
"What about Arrik?" Alexa asked. "If I become your consort, will you let him go?"
Nor laughed. "And why would we want that?" he asked. "Trust me, my love; when you are as I am, a goddess supreme in her power, you will care nothing for the child. Indeed, perhaps he might make a suitable part of our nuptial hunt. We will pursue him together and revel in his fear."
Alexa's heart beat faster with excitement at the picture Nor painted for her and she hated herself for it. She began to fear that she might have let the wave carry her too far; that she might be unable to ever draw herself out of Nor's spell. "You...you said part of the hunt?"
"Oh yes," Nor replied. "You have brought me so many more than my nightgaunts have ever managed. The boy's mother and two sisters: the last of my flesh upon this world."
"Your flesh?" Alexa asked, with a hint of jealousy.
"The results of my flirtation with a local chit," he replied, offhandedly. "They mean nothing to me, I promise you. In fact, it is appropriate that all trace of that particular lapse of judgement be expunged on the night of our wedding."
"So there are four to hunt?" Alexa asked, not daring to be more direct.
"There are eight. Your erstwhile comrades are here as well." Nor tilted Alexa's head back and kissed her, hungrily. She closed her eyes so as not to look into the unknown terror of his face. "Give them no mind," he whispered. "Some of them may die, but some may survive. I have not hunted so many over so short a distance in decades. And you will be free," he added. "Free from doubt and fear; free from your nightmares. Free to be with me forever and to make all of your dearest dreams come true."
"I...I don't know," Alexa admitted.
"Look at me." Nor said.
"No."
"Look," he insisted, pressing on her mind with his own.
Alexa slowly opened her eyes and saw before her, as she had known she would, the face of Major Leonid Balkan.
*
The nightgaunts pressed in on SG-7 from in front, heedless of their lights, but those behind retreated into the shadows to let the humans pass.
"We're almost back to the main shaft," Merlyn cautioned. "Mind your footing, Sergeant."
"Yes, Sir," Pearson agreed.
"Something's coming!" Roberts warned. The nightgaunts had begun chittering madly and something was indeed thrusting its way – or perhaps being thrust – through the mass towards SG-7.
"Stand to!" Ferretti called. He and Pearson raised their weapons to the gaunts behind them.
The first rank of the nightgaunts parted and a figure lunged towards Roberts. Merlyn raised her MPX, but Roberts pushed the barrel aside and caught hold of Arrik as he collapsed, exhausted.
"Arrik," Merlyn gasped, crouching at the boy's side as Roberts laid him down then rose to cover them again. "Arrik. What happened?"
"Lord Nor," the boy whispered. "He wants to hunt us for his sport. Shura said she'd get me out, but..."
"Shura?" Merlyn asked.
"Rasputin," Roberts explained. "Where is she?" he asked the boy. "Where is Shura?"
"Back there, in his cavern," Arrik replied. "I couldn't fight them. I wanted to stay with her but...She should not have been there. She came for..."
"For you, yes," Roberts sighed. "And now you feel guilty and yadda yadda yadda."
"Well if she's still in there, alive, we're going back," Ferretti decided. "Nightgaunts or no nightgaunts. Ready weapons and..."
Go back!
"It's him!" Arrik cried, terrified. "He's come for us already!"
"What the hell was that?" Ferretti demanded, turning his head to and fro in search of the source of the voice. "Where is it?"
Foolish man. In this realm, I am everywhere.
"Nodens!" Ferretti snapped. "Also known as Lord Nor. My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Ferretti of the United States Air Force. You are holding a member of my team against her will; unless you return her we will be forced to consider it an act of war."
Laughter rolled around the caverns, rich and mocking. Against her will? I think not. Shura has given me ample proof that she is more than willing to be held by me, Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Ferretti.
Hoping that Nodens was less omnipresent than he thought he was – or at least that he fell short of omniscience – Pearson took an instrument, a small EM scanner, from one of the equipment pockets of his Omega suit.
"Then let me speak to her!" Ferretti commanded.
She hears you. Nodens replied.
"Then let her speak to me."
If she wishes it, I shall not deny her. I give you a choice, Lou – I may call you Lou?
"I can't stop you."
How true. You may stay and listen to Shura, or you may leave. The choice is yours, but this will be your last chance to depart in peace. With a soft padding of feet, the nightgaunts behind them retreated, leaving the passageway clear.
"We'll take our chances," Ferretti replied.
"Sir," Pearson said. "We should at least get the boy to safety."
"He is lying," Arrik whispered. "He means to hunt us."
"I'll take him. Make sure he gets back okay," Pearson went on.
"Sergeant?" Ferretti looked shocked.
"Please, Sir." Pearson waved the scanner in his hand, trying to attract the Colonel's attention without letting the note of fear leave his voice. "For the boy's sake."
"Sure," Ferretti spat. "For the boy's sake. Get out of my sight, Pearson."
"Sir."
Merlyn and Roberts looked stunned as Pearson came through to take Arrik, who was still protesting.
"Sergeant?" Merlyn asked, looking for some explanation in his face.
Pearson looked away. "I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said. "Come on, Arrik. Your family are waiting outside."
Arrik gave a strangled cry. "Here! No! They have to get away!"
"And they won't do it without you. Now come on."
"I never thought I'd see that," Roberts whispered, as Pearson vanished into the shadows. After a few moments, the nightgaunts returned to block their retreat once more.
"Everybody's got a limit," Ferretti said, trying to disguise his disappointment.
Well said, Colonel, although the same does not apply to me.
"Shut up and let me talk to Rasputin!"
"I'm here, Sir." Alexa's voice sounded from the air around them, but it was less pervasive and intrusive than that of Nodens.
"Are you alright, Lieutenant?" Ferretti asked. "Has he hurt you?"
"Yes," Alexa replied. "To both questions. You should have left when you had the chance, Sir."
"Not without you."
"I...I do not think that I wish to go," Alexa said.
"Lieutenant...!"
Enough! Your talk has no meaning to her now and I will not allow my beloved to be sullied by associating with you for another moment. The Wild Hunt is begun, Colonel. You shall die swiftly, but your cowardly sergeant and my pathetic bastard offspring will be given a short period of grace before I release the nightgaunts.
"How long?" Ferretti asked.
There was a pause and then Nodens laughed again. That will be up to you, he chuckled. My beloved has devised a wonderful sport. The hunt for those above will begin only when my tunnels are once more free from intruders. They have until you are all dead.
"Oh...balls," Roberts whispered.
Ferretti's face set in stubborn determination. "Roberts, take the front; I've got the six. Merlyn; do your thing."
Merlyn looked at the tunnel ahead and the tunnel behind, both clogged with expectant nightgaunts. "Yes, Sir," she replied, handing her MPX to Roberts.
The nightgaunts surged forward and flashes of disruptor fire lit the tunnel.
*
"Excellent," Nor purred, watching the fight unfold in a window which hung in the air before him.
Alexa looked away.
"It does not entertain you?" Nor asked. "But this was your idea."
"Human frailties," she replied, with a wavering smile.
"Of course, my darling. Let me take you away from all this."
The cavern seemed to spin around her, and Alexa found that they were sitting in the window of a café, looking out across Red Square. The interior was a strange mishmash of designs: 80s Russian seating and tables; a wooden counter and espresso machine that came straight from an upmarket coffee bar in Italy; a 50s American jukebox; table staff in the uniforms of the Special Directorate commissary; and one especially cute waiter whom she remembered from Tabor's Algerian Restaurant.
"What the hell is this?"
"The Balkan Café," Nor reminded her, still wearing Leonid Balkan's face. "In Moscow. I told you that I can make your dreams come true."
Alexa shook her head. "But this isn't right. The café is off Petrovska, not on Red Square, and this is...Of course. You've never been there, anymore than I have. This is my dream. The café as I see it; although I must admit I rarely dreamed of coming here naked. You took it...Took it from my mind!" She stood up, sharply, and retreated across the floor, trying to gather her defences against his awesome presence.
"Do not be afraid," he said, rising smoothly to follow. "I shall never hurt you, Shura. And when you are as I am, you will be able to shut me out of your mind if you wish it."
"You...You promise?" She backed up until the jukebox was in her way; she could have sworn that before the jukebox had been at the other end of the café.
"Shura," Nor murmured. He put his hands gently on her hips. "The choice before you is simple: I offer you an eternal bliss of instant and unending gratification, the thrill and joy of the hunt and the pleasures of any flesh we might choose to don; the alternative is a sad and meaningless death on a backwater planet that nobody cares about."
"And my team?"
"You will forget them."
"You..." Alexa paused. "You promise me that I will not grieve for them when I am like you?"
"You will not give them a second thought, save perhaps to savour their final anguish."
Alexa nodded. "Then let's do it. God me."
"As you wish, my love." Nor raised his hand to her brow. "Close your eyes. It shall take but a moment."
"No!"
"Shura?"
"Not a moment," she panted, barely able to contain her fear and excitement. It felt like the first time she had made love, only a hundred times more intense and hopefully without the mind-numbing disappointment at the end of it. "Didn't you say? A moment into eternity? Make it last, my love."
"Yes," he whispered, ecstatically.
"And make love to me while you do it," Alexa begged. "A sort of...farewell to the flesh party?"
"Yes."
*
Tamira and her daughters were waiting fretfully when at last they heard Arrik's voice.
"Let go of me you traitor! Let me go!"
"Stop struggling," Pearson replied. "You'll have us both over the edge."
"You coward!" Arrik spat.
The three women looked at each other.
"Arrik?" Tamira called. "Sergeant Pearson."
"Mother!" After a moment, Arrik scrambled from the cleft and threw himself into Tamira's arms. Kirra hovered by them, while Ninya came to help Pearson out.
"One eighty-nine point five-four," he told Ninya. "Can you remember that for me?"
"One eighty-nine point five-four," Ninya replied.
"You too, Kirra."
"One eighty-nine point five-four," Kirra repeated, obediently.
"Good!" Pearson moved to the cart and jumped up into the back.
"But where are the others?" Ninya asked.
Kirra grabbed the side of the cart and looked up at Pearson in concern. "What about Alexa?"
"Don't listen to him!" Arrik commanded.
"Arrik," Tamira said in a soothing voice, "Sergeant Pearson is a friend."
The boy exploded. "No! He isn't. He left them. He ran off and left them all!"
Pearson ignored the accusations and snatched up the signal relay. He unplugged the device from its field battery and flipped it over. A large hatch on the bottom was emblazoned with a sticker: "No user serviceable parts within," he read. "Removing this hatch invalidates your warrantee."
Kirra scrambled up alongside Pearson. "Is it true?" she demanded. "Did you leave them behind?"
Pearson took a screwdriver and set about invalidating the relay's warrantee. "What was the number?" he asked her.
"One eighty-nine point five-four," Kirra replied. "But I don't even know what you mean. What is One eighty-nine point five-four?"
Pearson laid a hand on her cheek and looked into her eyes. "It's a frequency," he told her.
"A...oh." Kirra smiled. "A frequency."
*
Merlyn sat cross-legged between her two team mates. She tried to shut out the cackling and shrieking of the nightgaunts and the hiss and crackle of the disruptors and she began to chant. It was a simple enough formula, just a little difficult to perform under these conditions. At first she faltered, the pre-Ancient syllables emerging at slightly the wrong note, but as she repeated the chant for the second time she grew more confident and she found her pitch. Slowly, as often happened when she was singing, the world fell away from Merlyn until all there was in the universe were her and the song.
Roberts heard the chant rise in volume behind him. An eldritch and unnatural note crept into Merlyn's sweet, clear voice, a strange resonance that made Roberts' hair stand on end. "I really hate it when she does that," he said.
"Don't knock it," Ferretti said. "It's working."
Sure enough, the lead nightgaunts were slowing in their assault and some of them were even turning on their fellows. It looked as though Merlyn had been right to doubt her ability to exert the formula's compulsive effect on so many of the winged creatures at once, but in such a confined space a few was all that was needed to halt the tide.
The chanting stopped. "Did it work?" Merlyn asked, her voice weary.
"It bought us a little time," Ferretti assured her.
"I think we can move now," Roberts added. "Forward or back?"
"Forward," Ferretti said. "I don't care what she said. We are bringing Rasputin back."
*
Alexa squeezed her eyes closed in concentration, trying once more to let the crashing waves of ecstasy wash over her instead of carrying her with them. She tightened her arms around Nor's torso, but dug her fingernails into her own palms. Slowly, the jukebox at her back dissolved into the wall of the cavern and Alexa let herself slide down it, drawing Nor with her. Her hands flailed for purchase on the rough floor and for a moment she feared that she had misjudged. At last she touched cloth, however.
"Do it," she whispered. "Set me free, my love."
Nor's lips brushed her forehead and she felt a part of him dissolve into her, flowing through the ragged tear in her psychic defences to join with her mind. She felt herself expanding again, her self filling the cavern, encompassing him as he encompassed her.
"Oh. My. God!" she gasped.
*
After no more than a hundred yards, SG-7 had to stop again. Either the ‘spell' had worn off or all of the compelled nightgaunts had been slain. Merlyn squatted down and began to chant again, but in heart she knew that she could not keep doing this. It drained her too much; another two chants and she would be spent.
Once more the world flowed away, but this time something remained to distract her.
Merlyn.
"Nodens!" Her concentration shattered, the world swept back in on Merlyn. With a muttered curse, she began the chant anew.
Merlyn, please listen.
Merlyn's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "Rasputin!" she cried.
"What?" Ferretti asked, barely able to spare the time to speak. "Merlyn; what is it?"
"The key, Sir," Merlyn breathed. "I have the key." She closed her eyes and began to chant, but this was a very different chant.
*
Nor shuddered in Alexa's arms, but she was barely aware of it. All concept of herself as a woman of flesh and blood was disintegrating. With the last of her mortal strength, she groped in her pack. After a moment her hand found what it sought, drew it out, pressed its cold barrel hard against her flesh and squeezed the trigger over and over again.
Nor screamed in wordless rage and his cry echoed through the tunnels and out into the ruins.
*
What was that?" Kirra asked.
"I don't know," Pearson admitted, "but it sounded sincerely pissed off."
"Is it ready?"
Pearson handed the relay to Kirra, stepped down from the cart and swung the naquadah generator onto his back. "It'll have to do."
*
"Nooo!" Nor recoiled from Alexa's still form. "What...? What did you do?"
With a supreme effort, Alexa pushed herself upright against the rock wall and let the injector pen fall from her hand. Her thigh ached where she had injected herself with six doses of the Directorate's psychic inhibitors at once. "I closed the door," she murmured, sleepily. Already she could feel the drugs taking hold, shutting down the sections of her brain which were used by her abilities.
"Why!" he demanded. "You could have been a goddess!"
"Because I don't want to be like you," Alexa replied. "You're worse than The Scourge. Cruel, capricious, and deeply stupid."
"How dare you...?"
"You are powerful," she admitted, "but you are crude. You think you fashion reality out of fantasy, but all you think of as real is just shadows and smoke! Your café was a farce and that likeness of Leonid Balkan an insult. Look at the face you are wearing!" she challenged. "You can't even see it, can you? You can't see that you are wearing a dead face! Try as I might, I can not remember Leonid smiling at me; I can't remember his voice as he told me about the café; and I can't remember the look of love in his eyes. All I remember is his dead eyes staring at me, his last, gasping words; that is why all you can muster of him is a grotesque façade, with none of the warmth and substance that made me love him."
"Impudent witch!" Nor snarled. "I will crush you!"
"That you can do," Alexa agreed, her voice slurring. Clearly the overdose had done more than simply put her talents to sleep. "That power is well within your grasp, My Lord Nechtan Nor Boand Eógan Nodons Tadg Nodens Nuada Airgetlám mac Elcmar dé Danaan Ailech."
The dead face of Leonid Balkan grew pale. "How...?" he whispered.
"You meshed your mind with mine," she reminded him. "I would not have been able to plumb your secrets without that, nor if you had not been quite so easy to distract. I suppose that is a problem with taking a male avatar."
"My name will not avail you," he assured her, slamming his will against her feeble shields. His human shape evaporated like smoke, leaving only his colossal, invisible presence all around her. The flames were snuffed out and all was darkness.
Alexa screamed as his will stabbed into her, coursing through her veins like liquid fire.
You will beg for mercy before you die. The pressure on Alexa's mind receded slightly. Ask it of me now, and I shall make your end swift and painless. I shall not offer this mercy again.
"If you're smart, you'll kill me now," Alexa croaked.
You dare threaten me?
Alexa laughed, although it hurt for her to do so. "I'm not the one you need to worry about," she assured him.
What do you mean?
She waved a hand, limply, failing to produce the desired impression of airy nonchalance. "Just that if I were a mighty being who'd let his true name slip in exchange for a quick shag...Okay, a long, slow, literally mind-blowing shag, the one I'd worry about is the sorceress."
What...? Nor's focus left Alexa, and she sensed that he had finally put a name to the nagging sensation that had been worrying at the back of his mind. No!
"Yep."
*
"Naï, Naï, Nechtan Nor Boand Eógan Nodons Tadg Nodens Nuada Airgetlám mac Elcmar dé Danaan Ailech," Merlyn intoned. "Naï, Naï, egh'le n'chru ter yegl'gn, Nechtan Nor Boand Eógan Nodons Tadg Nodens Nuada Airgetlám mac Elcmar dé Danaan Ailech!"
"It...Whatever she's doing, it's working," Roberts gasped, struggling with the uncanny feelings of dread which the chant awoke in him. Around them the nightgaunts were milling about in confusion or fleeing in outright fear.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Ferretti gasped.
Roberts knew what the Colonel meant. The words of Merlyn's chant were echoing through the tunnels, rolling around and crashing together as though they were tangible objects. Roberts could almost feel them sliding across his skin, through his ears and into his body. He wondered if he were more resistant than his CO because of the psychic insensitivity which Alexa so often mocked.
The memory of the Russian's chuckle as she derided his extrasensory incapacity reminded Roberts of their purpose here. "I can keep watch over her if you want to go after Alexa, Sir?" he offered.
Ferretti shook his head. "I can barely walk with this noise, but I can shoot. I'll watch; you go."
Roberts nodded. "Sir."
Ferretti watched him go, then turned his gaze back to Merlyn. To his horror he saw that her eyes were open, but had rolled back in her head until only the whites showed. "Come on, Merlyn," he whispered. "Tell me that's enough. Give me some kind of sign that we can snap you out of this." As he stared, tears of blood began to seep from the corners of her eyes. "Please."
*
Make her stop!
"Wouldn't if I could," Alexa gasped.
The pressure on her mind was different this time; compressive rather than explosive. Instead of trying to expand her psychic ‘self' beyond the confines of her brain, Nor was crushing her down; before long, her mind would collapse and she would be dead to the world, although her body might continue to breathe.
All I wanted was to make you a goddess! He bellowed. Why couldn't you just accept that?
"The price was too high." Alexa could feel the strain in him. Merlyn was casting a spell of forbiddance that would drive Nor and his hounds from this world – in theory for all time and most likely for Merlyn's lifetime at least – but he was strong; he was fighting her, and even if Merlyn did win out in the end, it would not be before Alexa was slain.
I loved you, Shura. Now I hate you for making me do this.
Alexa wanted to say something pithy, to end on a defiant witticism, but the pain was too great. All she could do, as the darkness consumed her, was scream.
The scream seemed to go on forever.
*
Alexa's eyes flickered open and the light stung her eyes. "This isn't as bad as I expected," she said; her voice was a hoarse whisper.
"Drink this."
Alexa looked around and saw Kirra proffering a glass of water.
"Welcome back," the girl said.
"I...I'm not dead?"
Kirra shook her head.
"So...What happened."
"We thought we'd lost you, kiddo."
Alexa turned at the new voice and smiled. "Colonel Ferretti. You're alright. And the others?"
"It was touch and go with Merlyn for a while," Ferretti replied. "She chanted herself out; we had to cart her back here, utterly exhausted, damn near comatose and covered in blood and vomit. And...bloody vomit," he added.
"But she did it?" Alexa asked. "The name? She was able to send him away?"
Ferretti nodded. "With a little help from our friendly, neighbourhood scientist."
"Huh?"
"That thing you said," Kirra explained. "The frequency. Pearson made a frequency machine and used it to kill Lord Nor."
Alexa shook her head. "I sincerely doubt he's dead. But I think he's gone," she added. "So Sergeant Pearson made a psi-jammer?"
"Out of a naquadah reactor and a portable comms relay."
Alexa gave a painful chuckle. "Regular MacGuyver, isn't he." She coughed and took another sip of water. "Do you think he'd be offended if I told him that what he did was supposed to be impossible?"
Ferretti shrugged. "We're just being super nice to him at the moment because we all thought he'd gone yellow on us. In our defence, that's what he wanted Lord Nor to think, but it would have been nice if any of us could've considered that he might have something up his sleeve."
"Well, good for him, anyway," Alexa said. "Good for all of us."
"Yeah," Ferretti replied, gruffly. "Anyway, now I know you're okay, I need to check on Merlyn. Good to see you awake, Rasputin."
"Thank you, Sir." Alexa waited until Ferretti was gone, then asked Kirra what exactly had happened.
"Well, Pearson switched the frequency machine on," Kirra explained. "Then there was a huge scream in all our heads, then silence. After a while, Lou brought Merlyn up out of the ground, all pale and bloody. A while after that, Roberts brought you."
Alexa grimaced. "Was I...?"
"He'd wrapped you in his cloak," Kirra assured her. "He was carrying you so carefully, cradling you like a baby. He wouldn't let anyone else carry you until we got you back here."
Alexa sat up and looked around. They were in a small room with a single, barred window which smelled of disinfectant. "Where are we?"
"Yeth hospital," Kirra replied. "Anyway, once we got here he brought you in and got one of the nurses to clean you up, then he went and sat beside Merlyn. I don't think he's moved since except to wash a couple of times."
"Could you...Do you think you could ask if he'd come and speak to me?"
"Sure," Kirra agreed, rising to her feet. She looked a little upset to be dismissed.
"Not straight away," Alexa assured the girl. She took Kirra's hand. "When you see him. Stay awhile. I could use a little chitchat right now. It's good just to hear words with my ears, not my brain."
Roberts came to visit in the middle of the night. "Not disturbing you, am I?"
"I don't sleep much," Alexa assured him. "There's a lot of noise outside, anyway."
"Everyone's awake," Roberts explained. "The people of Yeth have been crashing about in the dark every day since Nor was driven off. I think someone's going to get hurt sooner or later."
"They're not planning on canonising Merlyn are they?"
"They seem to be convinced it was Tamira's doing; the Colonel seems to have talked her into going along with it. We'll be leaving tomorrow, now you and Merlyn are both awake."
"Is she...?"
"She's wiped," Roberts replied. "Utterly exhausted and...scared of something, still. She won't say what, but I don't think it's anything tangible."
Alexa nodded.
"So what's on your mind, Alexa?"
"When you found me..." she began, then stopped and looked at him in mute appeal.
"There were signs of a struggle," he told her.
"Oh, good."
"But the kind of struggle where both sides are trying for the same end," he added, tactfully.
"Oh."
Roberts sat on the bed beside Alexa an put an arm around her shoulders. "I think we all got the picture when Nodens spoke to us," he told her. "It's okay. So you had to lie back and take one for the team: believe me, you're not the first."
"I had to do it," she told him. "It wasn't that I wanted to...although..."
"Just don't cry," Roberts begged. "I've had enough of that, between Matia thinking she'd doomed Arrik, Ninya thinking she'd killed her brother, Matiya thanking me for bringing Arrik back..." He sighed. "If a part of you wanted him, and a part of you enjoyed it..."
"Oh, all of me enjoyed it," Alexa admitted, shamefaced.
"Good," Roberts said.
"Eh?"
Roberts shrugged. "Well, the Colonel would probably rather tell himself you were acting under compulsion," he explained. "Merlyn may feel the same and I can't speak for Pearson on this one, but I know that as far as I'm concerned, you pulled it out of the fire for us all. Frankly, whatever you did to get there is okay by me and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Do you think I'd rather you'd been head-raped by an alien superfiend?"
"Well...if you put it like that..."
"So, how are you feeling?" he asked.
"Tired, vulnerable...but better. Thank you. It's good to know you don't think I'm complete trash."
"You?" Roberts laughed. "Trust me; no-one will think that while I'm around."
"Sorry; I forgot how jealously you guard your status as team trollop."
"Just remember it in future and we'll let this time slide. Now you need to sleep," he announced.
Obediently, Alexa lay back in the bed and let Roberts pull the sheets over her. She almost felt like a child again, although Roberts certainly did not resemble anyone in her family. "No goodnight kiss?" she asked.
Roberts smiled and laid a kiss on her forehead. "Just don't ask me for a bedtime story," he cautioned.
"Goodnight, big brother," she teased.
Roberts replied in all sincerity: "Goodnight, little sister."
Something in his voice seemed to soothe Alexa's worried mind and soon after Roberts left she found herself drifting into sleep. Only as the last trace of consciousness left her did it strike her what it was that had put her so at ease.
His last few words had been spoken in Russian.