by Stargate
"No, no," Daniel replied rapidly, sending O'Neill a quick look.
Despite her headache, Sam immediately felt a whole lot better. Daniel obviously knew a lot more about what was going on than they did.
"Tzcatlipoca knows only that Teal'c and I are here," Daniel added. "And we made certain he thinks we've gone back to the Chappa'ai."
Atlatl bowed deeply to O'Neill. "We will await you return, Quetzalcoatl." His eyes softened as he turned to Sam. "You are both beautiful and kind, Chalchi. The children will once again sing songs of joy about the beloved wife of Quetzalcoatl."
Sam consciously kept her smile affixed while the Colonel shot Daniel a peculiar look. She could have sworn she saw Teal'c grin.
At the entrance of the palace gardens, eight jaguar warriors carrying torches took up formation around them. "What's with the fan club?" O'Neill whispered to Daniel.
"They'll stay with us until we enter the magma tunnels, what they call the Roads of Mictlan. Since your reputation precedes you, they won't follow."
"I have a reputation?"
Daniel muttered softly, "Quetzalcoatl has a reputation."
"Remember, White-owl explained how Quetzalcoatl tricked the god of the Underworld?" Sam whispered.
The Colonel's mouth rounded into an `oh'.
Inside the double pyramid, they retraced their steps until reaching the passage that White-owl said went to Xalo's skull cave. It marked the beginning of the magma tunnel that would take them to Teotihuacan's skull cave, and then the Stargate. Daniel bowed to the jaguar warriors and thanked them for their escort.
Five minutes along the tunnel, O'Neill said, "Acapulco booked out, was it?"
"Acapulco?" Daniel's face took on its characteristic puzzled look.
"More importantly, did you bring me a T-shirt?"
"From Acapulco."
"Is there an echo in here?" said the Colonel. "You know, pina coladas, fascinating stuff that just had to be translated and some guy who had problems in Australia and didn't discover a tomb."
Daniel's perplexed expression intensified by several orders of magnitude. Blinking rapidly, he turned to Teal'c and said, "I don't recall any mention ofAcapulco."
"You are correct, Daniel Jackson."
"See?" Daniel turned back to the Colonel.
"No, not really, but I'll get over it. So, T, did ya bring me a Tshirt from not Acapulco?"
"I did indeed, O'Neill. It is back at the SGC."
The Colonel beamed. "Extra Large?"
"Yeah," said Daniel. "We picked it up at the airport. Made in Taiwan. Sony about that."
Sam smiled. It felt good - no, more importantly it felt right to have the team together again.
"And it wasn't Australia, Jack." Daniel took off his pack and opened it as they walked. "Wodeski - my old professor, the one we went down to Mexico to see - once tried to secure a research grant by claiming a garden-variety Australopithecine he found was an entirely new species of hominid. It wasn't like the Piltdown man or anything." He took something from one of the inside pockets. "But it's a practice not so jokingly referred to in the academic community as Researchagranticus. Unfortunately, Wodeski inherited his father's collection of, and penchant for, black market archeological items. Despite his predilections, the professor is genuinely obsessed with archeology, and, well, he found a crystal skull and used it to get here."
"What?" O'Neill said. "He's here, on this planet?"
"Moon," amended Sam. "And you followed?" she said to Daniel.
"Via P7X-377." Daniel handed her a small yellow instrument case. "We brought some equipment to open the Stargate."
"Daniel," she said, accepting it, "the `gate is underwater."
"And enough ice to sink the Titanic," added the Colonel.
"And you have to locate the DHD and dial out without freezing to death. Yes, we know. We brought SCUBA dry suits."
Jack stared at him. "It's close to minus forty up where the Stargate's buried."
"But only twenty-eight in the water," Sam reminded them.
Daniel blinked. "Forty. Ow, that is cold. I just hope we can get it working."
"This?" Sam lifted from the instrument case a robust looking remote control and TFT screen sheathed in heavy-duty rubber.
"The submarine." Daniel rummaged around his pack some more.
The Colonel eyed the bag curiously. "Got a portable black hole in there, have you?"
"No, this." Daniel pulled out a packet of antihistamines and popped one out of its gel packet. "The stuff coming out of the volcano is really... unpleasant."
During the walk to Teotihuacan's skull cave, Daniel explained what he'd learned from Nick and Quetzalcoatl. It fit in with much of what White-owl and Two-water had told them, although a lot of things still didn't add up.
When they reached the wooden trapdoor, Teal'c carefully slid it aside and looked down. "The cavern is empty," he declared.
"What about Heart-eater?" asked Daniel.
"He is not present."
"You've met the little cockroach carrier?" said the Colonel.
"Yeah." Daniel's face screwed up in regret. "The fire priests banished him to the Roads of Mictlan for failing in his duties. He's the one that showed us this passage. I offered to bring him with us to Xalo, but he said he'd wait here. Now that it's Nemontemi, the fire priests should be arriving anytime soon, so he's probably hiding someplace. We better get moving, too."
"Okay," said O'Neill. "What exactly happens during name-ontummy - aside from the fire and brimstone stuff?"
Teal'c lowered the rope ladder and climbed down.
"On Earth," Daniel explained, "Nemontemi was considered such a dangerous time that, in the months before, the Aztecs engaged in ritualized battles called xochiyaoyotl or oxlylotl."
"Fish wars?" The Colonel shot him a look of disbelief.
Daniel chuckled. "Oxlylotl or Mexican walking fish is also the name of a flower that changes form, or becomes something greater after `death'."
"Right!" Sam said, nodding. "Just like oxlylotls turn into salamanders when you add iodine to the water."
"You actually did that?" O'Neill's eyebrows furrowed.
Sam hedged guiltily. "Uhm...my high school science teacher did."
"What happened?"
"It... died. But it evolved, first," she added quickly. Before he could comment, she turned and climbed down after Teal'c.
"Spilled blood or `flowers' kept the gods and therefore their world, alive, and got them safely through Nemontemi," Daniel said, following her. "Some historians believe that a few troops from each side fought at a prearranged time and place with the sole purpose of capturing `enemies' who were then ritually sacrificed. The fire priests here said that they're preparing to sacrifice sixty thousand."
"Sixty what?" O'Neill said when he joined them. "Anyone spell genocide? Carter, tell me again how the survey team came up with `uninhabited'?"
"Given the number of people they're preparing to sacrifice, I'd say the entire population would have to be at least two million." Daniel looked around the skull cave. "Mostly in and around the two cities, Xalo and Teotihuacan, but there's likely to be a lot of small settlements and outlying farming communities. If it's the same here as it was on Earth, every man, woman and child must come to the city where the sacrifices will be made - in this case, here at Teotihuacan."
Teal'c tossed the ladder back up into the passage. Daniel continued, "On the last night of Nemontemi, every fire across the world must be extinguished before a new fire can be rekindled in the open chest of the god-incarnate of Tzcatlipoca. Then the fire is passed out to everyone. Since the sacrificial victim on Xalotcan is taken over by a Goa'uld, I can only assume they'll use the chest of the previous host."
The Colonel stared at Daniel. "Afire. In the guy's chest."
"Only after his heart has been ripped out."
"That's just...not right."
On the steps to the lower level of the skull cave, Sam paused. "Colonel, you notice anything different ab
out the pit?"
O'Neill's face twisted in distaste when he peered over the edge. "Looks the same to me. Lots of hot, globby magma."
"I'm certain the level has risen."
He turned to her and said, somewhat hopefully, "Maybe it's supposed to do that?"
The false memories from Oannes - and their stint on Netu - had had an admittedly powerful impact on Sam, but she had rationalized those and dealt with them. Her brief time as Jolinar's host rarely bothered her now, especially since the death of Mar- touf; it was as if a cycle had somehow been completed. But as Sam watched the magma, something, perhaps the smell, triggered Jolinar's memories of Bynarr, the way she had been with him. Her headache abruptly intensified, and the images coalesced. The visceral impact drew a sharp breath from her. It hadn't been torture or rape; it had been something far worse, as if a piece of Jolinar's soul had been infected, and it had slowly eaten away at the perfect beauty of her time with Martouf. Now it was trying to infect her mind.
"Carter."
She flinched. The Colonel was standing directly in front of her, his eyes void of emotion. But he knew. She knew he knew because occasionally, very rarely, his own carefully fabricated mask slipped, and she saw the raw pain beneath.
Sam wet her lips. "I'm...not sure, sir. Maybe I misjudged it the first time."
His expression said bullshit, but he turned and continued down the steps.
"In few hours," Daniel said as they crossed the skull cave, "this place will start filling up with bodies."
Perhaps the residue of Jolinar's memories affected her perception, but in the fiery light of the cave, the skulls seemed alive. Sam took one last look around, trying not to imagine what it would have been like for the victims. Trying not to imagine what it must be like for the children.
And trying to convince herself that Two-water and White-owl really were safe.
They entered the sloping magma tunnel, and the terracotta glow was soon replaced by the familiar viridescence. "The situation here on Xalotcan," Daniel continued. "Is different from our other encounters with the Goa'uld."
"Oh, yeah?" O'Neill looked back past Teal'c, who was bringing up the rear.
Sam felt it as well, a sense of being watched.
"Like the Greeks, the Aztecs imbued their gods with human traits," Daniel continued. "They were incestuous, squabbled, and killed one another, meddled with humans for sadistic or sexual pleasure. In short, they were the most bloodthirsty gods in human history. Over the centuries hundreds of thousands of people were sacrificed to them."
"And this is different to the Goa'uld, how?" The Colonel stopped and motioned for them to be quiet. Teal'c looked around, his expression uncertain.
Sam couldn't hear anything, but the sensation was still there.
"It's not, that's my point," Daniel added when the Colonel motioned for them to continue. "The presence of the Goa'uld here is almost incidental. Deposing them will not change the Aztec way of life, which revolves around ritual sacrifice. Jack, these people believe implicitly that to die a natural death means being consigned to Mictlan, Hell." He turned to Sam, his eyes strangely compelling in the spectral light. "There is no greater glory than to give your life to the gods."
"You'd think they could come up with a more original line," O'Neill muttered.
Sam hardly heard the Colonel, only the soft cadence of Daniel's voice as he continued; "They believe that the surface of the ground is but a thin crust between the world of the living and the spirit world. In the same way that the Day of the Dead is a celebration of life in Mexico, Nemontemi was - still is on Xalotcan - a celebration of everlasting life. For flesh is born from pain, and dwells in pain, and only through the freedom of death can one embrace the rebirth of the soul. Just as crops grow and are ploughed back into the ground, so too are bones like seeds, while flesh and blood becomes the food of the living."
His words were mesmeric; stripping away five years of carefully erected psychological barricades. She could see her arm coming down; ready to tear the heart out of the terrified little boy, to smell his death, as exquisite as nectar. Soon she would know the sweet taste of blood...
"Carter."
... on the obscene planet where she knew what it was like to run like a wolf, where the hot surge of desire to hunt and kill, to drink of his life was as powerful and lustful as any -
"Carter!"
Sam staggered and gagged. Once again, his voice had pulled her back from the abyss. What the hell was wrong with her? That was the second time in less than an hour. She looked at O'Neill, confused. "Sir?"
The Colonel's dark eyes bored into hers. Oh yeah, he knew all right. Great team bonding stuff, that mission to Artemis' planet. Really, just great. She reached into the side of her pack. "Headache."
Daniel's frown turned contemplative. "Yeah, me too."
"I, too, find this place disturbing." Teal'c's eyes narrowed, and he again looked back the way they had come.
"Maybe it's the thin air." O'Neill paused then added, "Break out the C4 with that Tylenol, Carter."
With so many faults and cracks in this area of the tunnel, it was probably the best place to create a blockage. Sam pulled off her pack.
"You're going to blow up the tunnel?" Daniel said in alarm.
"No," O'Neill replied.
"Oh, good."
"Teal'c and Carter are."
"What? Why?" Daniel cried. "Jack, they won't follow us. No one, not even Chalchiuhtlicue dares walk the Roads of Mictlan during Nemontemi, unless of course she's with Quetzalcoatl. Mictlantecuhtli, the god of the Underworld, supposedly prowls the tunnels, looking for victims to consume."
Consume. The word triggered another bout of visions, and Sam's self-doubt returned in full. Artemis had taken her mind and given her a lust for something that would have made Hannibal Lecter shudder. Then Jolinar had climbed inside and rummaged around some more, adding a few of her own uniquely inhuman horror stories. But Sam had dealt with the memories, rationalized them, categorized them and filed them away.
She bit her lip and focused on setting the charges. Nothing to get excited about, really; it was years ago. Long forgotten. They'd dealt with worse since. Blown up planets, hell, she'd even blown up a sun. Memories couldn't hurt you.
Just haunt you.
Teal'c carefully placed the C4 in the cracks, as high up the sides of the tunnel as he could reach. Pity it couldn't blow up a few of the demons that lurked in the not so-deep recesses of her brain. Sam downed the Tylenol with a swig of water. Lots of water. As they continued to climb, the air would grow even thinner.
"Daniel," said O'Neill. "It'll only take a zat blast to hole the little blockage we're going to create. This is just to make it harder for anyone, including old Mick, to come prowling after us."
Daniel looked uncertain, but Sam said, "I'll set the timers for ten minutes." She forced herself to smile. "We should be home in time for the Christmas party."
The Colonel's eyes lit. "They're gonna have cake, right?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
am woke to the sound of soft footfalls. She reached for her sidearm but the Colonel placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Wordlessly, she stood, pulled on her jacket and balaclava, and picked up her P90, all the while trying to ignore the pounding in her forehead.
O'Neill said nothing as he handedher a small packet andcrawled into her recently vacated sleeping bag. Good, that meant everything was quiet. She signaled that she was going up to check the weather. He nodded, pulled the folds of the bag around him, and closed his eyes. She popped two Tylenol from the packet, swallowed them with half a liter of icy water and then headed up the tunnel.
Other than the now constant tremors and the crackle of ice underfoot, it was relatively quiet. Sam walked outside and looked around the valley. Except for the roiling, fire-tinged clouds that shrouded the volcano, the air was crisp and clear. Perhaps it was an optical illusion but the mountain seemed more threatening. A particularly foul smell wafted across the valley and into the ca
ve. Grotesque images tugged at the fabric of her consciousness.
Sam hurriedly turned back inside, leaned against the cave wall, and rubbed her eyes. Janet had once told her that smell was the most evocative of the senses. The stench of the skull cave had been a redolent reminder of Netu and also Artemis' planet. But while all of SG-1 had enough fodder to feed a dozen lifetimes of psychotic nightmares, the strange visions and compulsions that attempted to ooze their way into her mind had not waited until she was asleep.
Every SG team member had learned to employ psychological defenses against the horrors they'd encountered. Daniel immersed himself in musty books and Teal'c in kelno'reem. Having lost his family, the Colonel now went fishing. She worked on her motorbike. All induced a Zen-like state of relaxation. Sam snorted softly. Someone had even written a book about it.
Pulling her balaclava on, she walked outside again, and looked down to where the Stargate was buried beneath the ice and snow. Since their radios weren't working, it was equally likely that the signal from the remote control wouldn't reach the submersible. Her original plan had meant using the naquadah reactor to power the geologists' laser cutter. They could rig a tripod on the ice above the DHD, then -
A soft sound alerted her. She lifted her P90, clicked off the safety and backed into the shadows.
"Hey, Sam, just me," said Daniel.
Sam lowered her weapon and walked into the cave. "Sorry," she mumbled, then pulled the balaclava down from her mouth. "Did I wake you when we changed watch?"
Daniel brought the hood of his jacket over his head then wrapped his arms around himself and bounced on his heels. "Ahhg! It's cold up here! And no, you didn't wake me. Call of nature."
"Storm's passed." She pointed outside.
"I feel like my eyeballs are going to freeze." Daniel rubbed his gloved hands together. "How on Earth did you and Jack survive Antarctica?"
"It wasn't as cold as this." Nevertheless it had been a sobering - and humbling - experience. Sam had always thought of herself as a practical person as well as a good theoretical scientist, but it wasn't until joining SG-1 that she learned that knowledge, even practical knowledge, wasn't worth squat unless she could use it in real-life situations. In Antarctica, her failure to apply simple common sense to the problem had almost gotten her and the Colonel killed. It had taken Daniel, who wasn't even a physicist, to figure it out. Just like he'd figured out how to get the Stargate working in the first place.