SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne (9 page)

“You’d think whoever carved this staircase into the side of the mountain could have made it a little bit easier to climb,” Jack muttered to himself.

The wind worsened the higher he climbed, until it was almost fierce enough to pry his fingers off the rock-face. He clung on for dear life. Each new riser was one closer to the old man’s face. He could make out the dark hollows of the eyes beneath the heavy overhanging brow. They were maybe twenty steps above him. The problem was that more than half of those steps had crumbled away and left a scar of raw stone across the old man’s cheek.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

“What is it, Jack?” Daniel sounded breathless.

“We’ve run out of ladder.”

“How far are we from the top?”

“Far enough.”

“Great.”

“Can’t say I am too thrilled about it myself.” He couldn’t see an alternative route — at least not an easy one. That meant at least fifty feet of free climbing with several hundred feet of free falling beneath them. “Still, onwards and upwards.”

He gritted his teeth and reached up, trying to force his fingers into the stone. The last thing he wanted was for the suit to tear but, given the circumstances, he didn’t have a lot of choice. “Up we go.”

Jack managed four feet more before he ran out of hand holds altogether. Hanging there by the bloated fingertips of his gloves, he angled his body around so that he could draw the gun from the holster at his waist. He aimed up at the sheer rock and squeezed off a dozen shots in quick succession. Flakes of stone powdered as layers of rock broke away. By the time the dust cleared Jack could see a series of uneven handholds where the bullets had bitten into the face. He holstered the pistol and climbed quickly hand over hand.

The others came up behind him.

Five red spurs of oxidized iron rimmed the opening of the old man’s eye. Jack grasped one and heaved himself through. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find on the other side, other than an all-encompassing darkness. But it wasn’t dark, not properly. A peculiar phosphorescence emanated from the lichen lining the passage as it twisted away down into the belly of the rock. The weird illumination was enough to light the way, but not enough to banish the hiding places offered by the shadows. Stalactites dripped down from the roof of the passage, in places meeting the stalagmites that had risen up beneath the steady drip, drip, drip.

“What do you make of this place?”

“I’d say it satisfies the basic needs of shelter,” Carter said, “and if that fungus is edible, sustenance.”

“If you’re asking
me
what I think,” said Daniel. “I’d say it’s creepy.”

“You think? Teal’c?”

“Major Carter is correct in her assumption that the cave offers the basic necessities of warmth and shelter,” Teal’c agreed, looking around at the curious constructions.

“So we’re talking possible Mujina refuge?”

“Possible,” Sam said. “But there could be an entire planet of possible places.”

“But not through the old man’s eyes,” Daniel disagreed.

“That’s good enough for me. Okay boys and girls, in we go,” Jack gave the order, indicating eyes right to Sam and Teal’c, eyes left to Daniel. He peered deeper into the darkness. He was sweltering within his suit despite the respite from the fluctuating freeze and burn extremes of the world above. The world below offered its own set of torments. Suffering wasn’t unique to the surface.

“Would you look at this place,” Jack marveled. He reached out, his fingers lingering over the crystalline base of one of the pillars. It was huge, more than double his arm-span in circumference, and appeared to be pitted with hundreds upon thousands of these intricate hexagonal flaws, like the facets of a diamond. He felt his words resonate through the structure, amplified by the crystals. “Weird.”

It wasn’t only the sound, it was the light as well; the phosphorescent lichen imbued the strange walls with an eerie glow all of their own. Jack peered at — into — the glassy surface, trying to make out what, if anything, was hidden beneath. The more he concentrated on a patch of the peculiar light the less he was able to actually focus on it until his vision became a complete blur and a strange ache took root behind his eyes. And still he stared at the wall until it looked as though life pulsed away deep within the crystals.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, the contact breaking the hypnotic lure of the light.

The deeper they went, the more remarkable the structures of the tunnel became. At first it looked as though the stalactites and stalagmites had simply fused together to form a honeycomb but it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t the case. There was a damn sight more than nature’s intelligence at work here — there was the grand design of madness to it all, to every fissure and join of rock.

“It’s man-made, everything, every last detail. Amazing,” Daniel breathed. “Well, not man, of course, but just look at it, it’s incredible. I mean all of it, right down to the smallest manipulation of the existing strata. Every crystal has been shaped to reflect some bigger pattern. It’s almost as though—”

“Spit it out, Daniel,” Jack said.

“Don’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“There’s something about the entire place, an atmosphere. It feels almost holy.”

“Are you saying it’s a temple?”

“Possibly,” Daniel said, “I mean, look at it, if ever there was a case of a mind searching for some bigger meaning, some plan to it all, this would be it.”

“You think the Mujina made this place?”

“Someone did,” Daniel said. “And it’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“It’s nuts is what it is,” Jack said, trying to take it all in.

“It’s so human, think about it, the mind on the verge of madness takes refuge in order and patterns, and what greater pattern is there than the one that gives order to the universe?” Daniel sounded like he was quoting one of his books.

“It is the secret of creation,” Sam agreed. “Everything from bacteria through to plant life, mineral compositions, even something as random as beauty, has its roots in the symmetry of patterns. Break anything down to a quantum level and the pattern becomes obvious.”

“But this? A church? Seriously?”

“Why not, Jack?” Daniel’s smile became infectious as his enthusiasm for the idea increased. “Imagine yourself in the creature’s place, ripped from your home, and transported here to rot. You’re bound to ask why? And isn’t that the fundamental question all religions ask of their deities? Why? It all comes down to how you interpret the notion of god. Listen and tell me this isn’t a religious experience.”

Daniel took a small device from the depths of his suit. It took Jack a moment to realize it was nothing more scientific than a long metal pin. Daniel bent it, fashioning a U out of the pin. Holding it lightly between thumb and forefinger, like a makeshift tuning fork. Daniel tapped it gently off the wall. Despite being muffled by his helmet O’Neill heard the note hang softly in the cavernous space. Then Daniel set the end of the tuning fork against the crystal wall and the nature of the harmonic changed completely as it became the longest and loudest single note he had ever heard. Each facet of the crystal wall played its part, absorbing the sound and then amplifying it all around him, the glass walls coming together to carry the note to a crescendo. The fragile sound hung there for what seemed like eternity and then it was simply gone.

“Acoustics like that can’t be accidental. Listen to it, Jack…’”

Jack gave him a flat look. “I prefer the Stones.”

“Funny.”

“I try.” He glanced at Sam. “Carter, is this thing here or not?”

She ran the scanner’s routines again and this time she nodded.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Jack said, with a grin. “Come out, come out, where ever you are.”

“O’Neill?”

“Teal’c?”

“I do not know. Something is not right.”

“Your Spidey sense tingling, huh?”

Teal’c said nothing, but studied their surroundings for a moment, then turned back to face him. “The Goa’uld are said to be hunting this Mujina, but I have not seen any sign of Goa’uld presence on this world. This concerns me greatly, O’Neill.”

“Smells like a trap, you mean?” The same thing had been bothering him. Everything was just a little bit too convenient for his liking. “I’m right there with you, Big Guy. It stinks to high heaven. The idea of trusting the Tok’ra gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“There are dangers hidden here, O’Neill. Shadows. The Goa’uld are aware that we will come looking for the creature.”

“And knowing that, they’ll be waiting for us. You’re preaching to the choir, Teal’c. It’s a big old game of cosmic chess and they’re at least three moves ahead. Which means we have to be careful.”

Jack moved toward one of the larger pillars in the center of
the vast chamber. It was covered with crude pictograms etched
into the crystalline surface. He took one look at them and gave up trying to decipher what they were supposed to mean. He wasn’t interested. Right then, something else entirely had captured his attention. A sound. It was instantly familiar but utterly out of place in the half-light. Jack moved around the pillar slowly, as though playing some peculiar game of hide and seek as he followed the sound to its source.

“Did you hear that?” Daniel asked.

Jack did and he knew the sound well enough; the slow wet rasp of despair.

They weren’t alone.

Jack found the Mujina huddled in a corner, hiding in the shadows. Naked, the creature lay on its side. It was badly burned and barely conscious, the cavities where meat ought to have been picked out by darker hollows of shade, as though in the grip of some vile wasting sickness. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Someone had shackled it, and bound its mouth with primitive iron branks. The metal plate cut deep into its tongue so that blood trickled down the Mujina’s chin as it whimpered. And then they had abandoned it here to die in its own filth.

“Doesn’t look like Goa’uld tech,” Jack observed, crouching down to examine the bolt mechanism of the medieval torture device. The bolt was oxidized with rust, as though it had been locked in place a long time ago.

“A scold’s bridle,” Daniel told him. “Used in medieval times to silence wagging tongues.”

“So about as primitive as it gets then.” O’Neill looked at the bolts that secured the headdress to the unfortunate creature’s skull. It was barbaric.

“There’s no end to a torturer’s inventiveness,” Daniel agreed.

“I advise proceeding with caution,” Teal’c said, coming up to stand behind them.

A burlap rag had been bound across most of the creature’s face, covering its features.

“We can’t leave it like this,” Daniel tugged at the bolt but couldn’t wrangle it loose. “It’s barbaric.” The Mujina stirred fitfully and whimpered as he struggled with the mechanism. “Have we got something that can cut through this? We’ve got to get this thing off.”

He tugged at the bolt but only succeeded in drawing a desperate mewl from the Mujina’s stuffed mouth.

“I’m not sure about this, Daniel,” Jack said.

“What’s not to be sure about, Jack? This isn’t 1599.”

“Fine, just hope I don’t get the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’, eh?”

Sam came forward with the zat. She hunkered down beside Daniel, shuffling forward on her knees so she could get to the bolt mechanism, and fired a single pulse at the rusted iron.

The Mujina whimpered and twisted at the sound of the weapon so close to its face — it was an instinctive reaction to the auditory reminder of the torments already burned into its skin, Jack realized. He couldn’t imagine the extent of the creature’s suffering. Seeing the aftermath was more than enough. Sam fired again, drawing another mewling protest.

It was hard to imagine that this thing curled up on ground at his feet was the monstrous weapon the Tok’ra had warned them about. Surely it deserved their pity, not their fear? The thought lasted for as long as it took Carter to fire a third time, disintegrating the bolt, and pull the harness off. She cast it aside. Suppurating sores wept along the side of the Mujina’s face. As tenderly as he could manage in the fat-fingered gloves, Daniel eased back the hessian blindfold.

For a moment the face that looked back up at him was utterly devoid of feature or expression, as though sheathed in a mask of flesh-toned plastic, and then as his hand came into contact with the blistered skin it began to change. It was an ugly metamorphosis. Images — faces — seemed to flicker across the mask, all of them familiar to Jack, some intimately so, some half-forgotten, others barely remembered. He saw the ghosts of his mother and father, the disapproving frown of his high school gym teacher, old sweethearts whose names he suddenly remembered even though he hadn’t thought of them since junior high: Sasha. Vicky. All these faces, all of these memories, stirred by the single brief contact. He closed his eyes when he saw Sarah looking up at him, and when he opened them Charlie was there. O’Neill swallowed. He knew it wasn’t really his son. The likeness wasn’t true; it was an idealized recreation plucked from a father’s need. Charlie’s eyes were too bright, his smile too fierce, but still it stole his heart and he understood. The Mujina was giving him what he needed most of all. It was giving him his son back — but Charlie wasn’t its’ to give.