The sound of tempered steel against stone rang out again, twice. Karlanan moved up on O’Neill, who waited until the other man was exactly one stride away to whirl in place and knock him sprawling. Accidentally, of course.
His solicitous murmuring, and Karlanan’s enraged response, followed Carter as she faded back between the pillars and out of the hall to join the crowd gathered in the market square.
From the anonymity of the crowd, she waited and watched as the procession gathered on the steps of the hall. This time the audience pressed itself back hard, out of the way, leaving a broad path from Gate to hall. She strained to see, among the Chosen, the taller figure of the colonel. He was the last to come out of the shelter of the portico, and as he turned to speak to Daniel, she could see a thin line of red disfiguring the white linen of his robe.
Daniel was the only one wearing glasses, of course. He didn’t seem to be injured at all. He covered his face and turned his head away for a sneeze as O’Neill spoke to him.
The sun was high in the sky, directly overhead.
The crowd fell silent.
And then the ground began to shake.
Around her, voices murmured as if in prayer.
The shaking increased.
The Gate billowed open. A cry rose up from the crowd, a cry of awe and, perhaps, disappointment, as if they were hoping that maybe, somehow, this time it wouldn’t happen.
The Gate stabilized, and through it marched a pair of Serpent Guards, their cobra-like helmets giving them a stature well over that of anyone in the cowering crowd. The two stood at attention, energy staffs held butt down before them. Their kilts and sandals evoked the pictures on ancient tombs.
Next came another pair of Guards, taking position just beyond the first two. The latest pair carried long trumpets, and as their cobra helmets split and folded into themselves, forming an elaborate collar around their necks, they raised the trumpets to their lips and blew, a long, shuddering, hollow note resembling the call of a shofar.
Absolute silence fell over the crowd.
Carter managed to pull her gaze away from the Guards long enough to glance at O’Neill and Jackson. The two members of the Earth team were staring at the Guards with grim, fixed expressions. The rest of the little party was silent too, although she could swear she heard someone sniffling.
Under the urging of the red-clad Council of the Rejected Ones, the Chosen were ushered into the wide path, toward the Gate and the Guards. The young ones stumbled, milling around, unwilling to take the lead. O’Neill and Jackson hung back, to lose themselves as much as possible among the rest. The crowd of Chosen passed close to Carter, nearly close enough for her to reach out and catch at the long loose sleeves as her teammates went by. She stifled the impulse to whisper something, a question, an encouragement, anything. They never looked around. The last few in the group pulled heavy carts heaped with cloth, pottery, metal, furs, gorgeous long feathers of a million colors, jars sloshing with oil, man-sized baskets of grain.
The M’kwethet tribute paused at the foot of the platform. The mournful horns sounded again, their echoes absorbed by the mass of watching humanity.
One more figure stepped through the Gate, this one clad in a richer material than the Guards. Instead of a cobra helmet, this one wore a white headcloth folded to form a triangular frame for the face, with lappets hanging down over his bare shoulders and a band of gold and turquoise holding it in place on his forehead. His eyes were outlined in kohl, heavily shadowed under thick, arched brows. His chest was bare over a kilt, also white, that fell in starched pleats to mid-thigh. The deep crossed cut that signified possession by an alien was stark upon his bronzed flesh. It meant that he was a Jaffa, not a Goa’uld, though the resemblance…
For one frozen moment Carter thought she recognized the figure. Then she realized that it was a stranger, shorter, more muscular than the last living image of a tomb painting she’d been unfortunate enough to see. Instead of the lethal ribbons twining about his hand and arm, the man wore a broad leather-looking brace on his left arm, laced together on the inside, extending nearly from wrist to elbow. She couldn’t see all the details, but there was a large round gray thing in the middle and assorted bits of decoration studded around it.
Behind him, the Gate hissed into empty silence, and once again she could see the buildings that formed the east end of the square through the arch.
“Where is the tribute of M’kwethet?” the white-clad man said, his voice splitting the silence.
“The tribute is here.” It was Jareth, elbowing his way to the head of the Candidates. “M’kwethet is grateful to fulfill the requirements of the Goa’uld. We bring the number required, the best of our best, the product of our lands that the Goa’uld have granted us.”
The ambassador of the Goa’uld looked them over, Candidates and carts alike, as if they were all the same to him. Carter held her breath as the dark gaze swept over the two men so obviously older than the rest, but he didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.
“We will accept your offering,” the ambassador said at last. He touched a knob on the bracelet at his wrist, pointed at the carts, and as if by magic a long ramp unrolled from the Gate to the ground. He touched the bracelet again, and stepped clear as the Gate’s inner ring spun slowly back and forth, pausing the requisite seven times before it reopened behind him with a roar of unspace. Automatically, Carter memorized the symbols. Meanwhile the ambassador vanished through the gray surface without a backward glance.
The Serpent Guards moved down the steps. Somehow the four of them managed to overwhelm the Chosen, herding them like sheep up the ramp. The people of M’kwethet watched as their children groaned, pulling the loaded carts upward, to the shimmering round blankness that led… somewhere. The Guards made no effort to help. When the carts slipped backward, they stepped backward, lowering the energy staffs to aim in the direction of the struggling youngsters. Jackson stepped back to help. So did O’Neill, though a grimace twisted his face as he tried to push the cart upward.
One by one, before the silence of the crowd, the Chosen disappeared, stepping through the shimmering surface. Vanishing.
Through the Gate.
Into oblivion.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The space between worlds is cold, colder even than the guts of Cheyenne Mountain. O’Neill and Jackson were prepared for it, but even they were shivering as they stumbled through the Gate on the other side. The Chosen weren’t so lucky; despite the fact that they had been warned in their briefing, many of them fell to their hands and knees, weeping from the shock. Their escort of Serpent Guards stood by impassively, apparently in no hurry to gather their charges and herd them to their ultimate destination.
They had exited the Gate into a great hall, one that made the Agora of M’kwethet look like a small lobby. A high, arching roof, held up by lotus-flower columns and spreading rib supports, was painted blue and figured with shining white clouds. The floor beneath their feet was a mosaic of millions of thumbnail-size chips of colored stone, forming a fantastic swirling pattern in glowing hues of blue. The walls were paintings, oddly two-dimensional, of men wearing kilts and double crowns surmounted with spitting cobras. They were seated on thrones, their hands crossed over their chests and holding crooks and flails. Behind each man so enthroned stood impossibly tall, impossibly lovely women, also wearing crowns, dressed in sheer pleated cloth and wearing broad, bejeweled collars. Their hands were outstretched to rest on the shoulders of the enthroned; it was difficult to tell whether they were entreating, supporting, or commanding.
Before the seated kings stood painted Serpent Guards, also dressed in kilts and leather-looking armor, their eyes red with a paint that glowed. Beneath the feet of the Serpent Guards knelt row upon row of men and women, dressed in apparel that ranged from raw furs to formal and glittering laces. Beneath it all ran a line of pictures and symbols.
Daniel Jackson polished the frost off his glasses and raised his head, the better to
see the paintings. His lips were parted slightly, moving, as he studied them. All around him the rest of the Chosen murmured, shocked, and then fell silent as the hall took their words and threw them back in hollow echoes. There weren’t enough other people around to soak up the sound: a small group standing by one of the hallways, debating animatedly; servants carrying trays to another arched doorway. It reminded Jackson irresistibly of reconstructions of the palaces of the pharaohs, only much, much larger and finer in every detail.
“Daniel?” O’Neill asked softly as he came up behind the other man. It was a warning as much as a question.
“Hieroglyphics,” the archaeologist murmured. “Middle Kingdom or—no, that part has to be earlier.”
“This might not be a good time,” O’Neill went on more urgently.
Daniel looked up to see the Serpent Guards finally moving in on the huddled teens, keeping them together in a space away from the Gate. He and O’Neill were the only ones who had ventured very far away from the safety of the group. “Um, I see what you mean.” The two of them casually drifted back to join the others. The Chosen watched them with wide, scared eyes, as afraid of the two strangers from Earth as they were of the Serpent Guards who stood at attention nearby.
O’Neill ignored them, turning a full 360 degrees, searching through the maze of color. There—camouflaged by the mosaic floor—there was the control panel, off to one side of the Gate, in a little alcove, right where he would have expected to see it. He released a sigh of relief he hadn’t even known he was holding. At least something had gone right on this mission,, finally. There was a DHD here, even if it wasn’t exactly pocket-size. The Serpent Guard standing by, apparently the Gate operator, waved acknowledgement and greeting to their escort. There was only one Guard at the console, and he was already half-hidden by the alcove. This might actually work. Now if he could only work out the details, like getting his hands on that bracelet, and getting rid of that inconvenient Guard…
The ambassador, who had led them through the Gate and then vanished on his own business, reappeared, having somehow managed to make the passage through the Gate without any sign of discomfiture. He looked over the huddle of Chosen and their wooden carts filled with primitive agrarian goods with an expression of weary disdain. He spoke, and the structure of the hall made his words into thunder.
“I am he who is called Nekhmet, servant of the Goa’uld. This is a place of the Great King, Apophis, Ruler of Worlds, Slayer of Enemies, He Who Is the Master of All, the Living One, Mighty One, Husband of the Great Royal Queen. You are his cattle. The fortunate among you will serve his servants and live forever. Enter into his palace and learn what it is to be the Chosen of the Goa’uld.”
Apophis.
O’Neill could see the convulsion of hatred in Daniel’s face and their eyes met, knowing, acknowledging. Neither one had speculated about the identities of the particular Goa’uld on the other end of the M’kwethet Gate. The fact that they were inimical to humanity was more than enough to know. Each knew what the other had suspected, and now it turned out to be true.
But that this was the actual home of Apophis, who had stolen Daniel Jackson’s wife, Sha’re, and Skaara, the boy Jack O’Neill had taken under his wing—to know that for certain—that was almost too much to bear.
Servant of the servants? O’Neill wondered whether they’d ever get within striking distance. He was a military man, a soldier, not an assassin. But for the chance to destroy Apophis, he might be willing to reconsider.
For Jackson there wasn’t any indecision involved. O’Neill hoped the young scientist could hang on long enough for the colonel to get them both out of here.
Or rather, to get Carter and Teal’C, and then get them all home again.
“So that you will know the power of Apophis,” the ambassador went on, “observe.” He raised one hand, and the Chosen could clearly see the leather bracelet wrapped around the Jaffa’s arm. Nekhmet raised his other hand and manipulated the round dial somehow.
The two Earth team members had seen Goa’uld technology, both mind-controlled and otherwise, used before, but even they were not prepared for what happened next.
From the bracelet came a flash of light, so bright the young people cried out, while the two older men shielded their eyes. They expected to see one or more of the Chosen lying dead when their vision readjusted.
Instead, they found themselves… elsewhere. The lotus-columned hall had disappeared, and instead of mosaic they found soft earth beneath their feet. The very scent of the air had changed, from dry dust to green growing things, trees and grass and butterflies that brushed against O’Neill’s cheek and danced in the breeze before him. The walls around them were gone.
O’Neill whirled.
The control panel, with its arcane symbols, was gone. The Gate, too, was gone. All sign of human or alien habitation had vanished as if it had never been.
They were standing in the middle of an open field, bounded by tall trees. Blue mountains wreathed with clouds defined the horizon. A lake shimmered in bright sun. The breeze was just cool enough, the sun just warm enough. O’Neill had seen valleys like this in the Lakes district of upstate New York in summer, except that here there weren’t any mosquitoes.
Valleys in upstate New York, however, didn’t yet feature Serpent Guards or Egyptian-style courtiers, and the minions of the Goa’uld were still very much with them. Three of the Chosen fell to their knees before them.
“Where did it go?” Daniel asked, shaken. “How the hell did he do that?”
“I don’t know,” O’Neill answered grimly. “But we’d better hope he changes it back, because that’s our only ticket out of here.” He wished suddenly that Teal’C had come with him; the former Jaffa First would have known what was going on. Of course, he’d probably have been killed the moment the Serpent Guards laid eyes on him, too. “It doesn’t feel like Chulak, anyway.”
O’Neill took a deep breath and turned to look at the ambassador, only to find that Nekhmet was looking back at him, brows arched in unmistakable surprise. The colonel wasn’t behaving anything like the kids, wasn’t showing the panic and disorientation. Nekhmet was finally realizing, too, that two of his captives were considerably more mature than the rest. He signaled to the Jaffa, and O’Neill and Jackson found themselves separated from the rest, unsubtly urged over to the other man.
“Kneel before the servant of the Great One,” one of the Jaffa suggested, dropping one end of his energy staff on O’Neill’s shoulder. The blow to the strained muscle evoked a gasp, and O’Neill staggered.
Since he was going to his knees anyway, he decided to make the best of a bad situation and fell the rest of the way, catching himself with his hands. That aggravated his aching shoulders too, and he bit back an exclamation.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Daniel dropping as well, bowing deeply and then sitting up, his hands clenching as he sat back on his heels. He carefully refrained from looking up at the man.
He was obviously a highly trusted Jaffa if he was allowed to use the bracelet, O’Neill thought rapidly. He was more than your average Jaffa, but obviously less than Apophis or any other Goa’uld. Another tiny piece of the puzzle that was the alien race.
“Who are you?” the ambassador demanded. “You are different from the others. Why?”
O’Neill was still trying to find the right words—a smart-aleck response wouldn’t quite work in this situation—when Daniel spoke up. “We’re here for the Great Ones,” he said, his soft voice carrying conviction. “We seek Apophis, to give him the service he deserves of us.”
Oh, nicely done, Daniel, O’Neill thought. The kid—well, he was a grown man, but O’Neill thought of him as a kid nonetheless—was one of the least convincing liars he’d ever met, but Daniel could tell the truth all day long and look you in the eye while he was doing it. It took a definite talent.
“Where are you from?”
“Where could we come from but M’kwethet?” Daniel bow
ed his head, breaking eye contact. “You have shown us a great wonder, and we fear you.”
Let’s not lay it on too thick. O’Neill could see the others out of the corner of his eye, staring at Jackson in amazement.
Nekhmet wasn’t immune to shameless flattery. “It is but a taste of the power of the Goa’uld. Obey and serve, and you will see many more wonders, even greater than this.”
“How could anything be greater?” Daniel asked, with just the right note of fear and insistent curiosity in his voice. “You have taken the place where we came from beneath our very feet, and now we’re in some other place. How can this be? Where is the place that we were?”
O’Neill had eased himself back on his heels too, and was keeping his eyes cast down, listening hard, letting Daniel run the show for the moment. It was far more difficult for the colonel to play meek and diffident than it was for Jackson. Jackson had a streak of sheer iron in him, but he was at heart a far nicer person than O’Neill was.
Nekhmet was, unfortunately, not inclined to lay out all the answers in a convenient fashion.
“It is not your concern. Do not ask questions. Your place is to obey.”
Daniel nodded, and then, gracefully, leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the earth at Nekhmet’s feet. The little finger of his left hand tapped twice against the grass.
O’Neill could take a hint, but he didn’t have to like it. He too leaned forward, though his gorge rose in protest against both the gesture and the vulnerability of the position. He rested his weight on the palms of his hands, and let the grass brush his face. It was petty, perhaps, but that was as far as he would go, even in pretense.
Nekhmet seemed satisfied and utterly unconscious that the two men before him had managed to avoid answering his questions. He stepped back and growled an order to the Serpent Guards in their own guttural language. The next thing O’Neill knew, he was being jabbed ungently in the kidneys as a signal that it was time to get up and get moving. He thought about rolling and bouncing to his feet, reviewed his various aches, cuts, and bruises, and reconsidered. He would save the dazzling surprise of his superb physical fitness for some other time, perhaps when he actually felt a bit more physically fit. But when he did, he promised himself, that particular Guard had a shock coming.
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