Weight on her shoulders.
A puff of labored breath against her hair.
The scuff of sole against gravel.
Warm skin and sunscreen and that sweet scent that belonged only to John, all of it tainted by the tang of blood.
"Leave me." John's voice was little more than a groan, but Teyla continued on, relentless.
"We will stop when we reach the next Puzzle Stage. You can rest while Rodney solves the puzzle and then you will be ready for the next round." And the next, and the next…
John's answer was a resigned gasp, but she felt a little of his weight lift from her shoulders as he mustered yet another ounce of strength.
The walls they walked between were tall and smooth. The creamy white marbled surface was cold to the touch, but otherwise felt like nothing else she'd ever experienced. John called it a giant Kong toy, whatever that meant. Ronon called it soapstone - a Satedan element that felt soft but would not flake or scratch and was slippery when pressed against. Rodney used a lot of words like "Teflon" and "Silicone" that held no meaning for her, but ultimately summarized the problem best: "We can't break, dig under, or climb it, so who cares what it's made of."
They had tried breaking, digging, and climbing the wall in the moments after the trap had sprung. Now, they walked in claustrophobic canyons between the indescribable walls with only a thin strip of blue sky visible overhead as if to taunt them. Splotches of blood on the tidy, white gravel trailed them.
When they reached the next turn in the canyon maze, Teyla's shoulders were aching and John's weight hung heavily again over them. She suppressed her own anxious sigh when a large courtyard opened before them. The now-too-familiar Puzzle Stage - a raised platform with a central podium - loomed over the space like a judge's throne. John sagged immediately to the ground and dropped his head to his knees. Ronon and Rodney just stood, facing the podium and their own fears.
"Let me look at your wounds," Teyla ordered, kneeling beside John. It took a couple more soft words of prodding and a final sharp command for John to comply. When he did, it was with a groan and a flop of his head against the rubbery wall that caused a very slight, very low vibration to run along its weirdly malleable length.
Teyla tugged gently on John's right leg, murmuring encouragement as she straightened the savaged limb for a better look. The compression bandages wrapped around John's upper thigh were soaked through, the flesh underneath was swollen and oozing more than blood. She fought tears of frustration as even her gentle probing brought gasps of endurance. John lay against the wall, his eyes tightly closed, his fists and his shoulders tight.
"I must change the bandages. Again," she informed him. He just nodded with a hard swallow.
Behind her, Ronon and Rodney approached the puzzle stage and she kept a fraction of her attention on them, ready to lend assistance if needed. They had been lured into complacency by the first two puzzles that had been easy (for Rodney) and benign. She would not make that mistake again.
"The first two must have been meant to teach us how the system works," Rodney said in an exaggerated stage whisper as he followed a bit too closely behind Ronon's right shoulder. "The main chemical constituent of glass and Hooke's Law aren't exactly challenges."
Both men were shooting nervous looks around them as they walked. Rodney kept glancing back at Teyla and Sheppard who really didn't look so good after that monster snake-thing had taken a hunk out of his leg on the last puzzle stage.
"The third one meant to kill us." Ronon's succinct summary only caused Rodney to draw even closer.
"Yes. Or kill one of us, at least. That thing went straight for Sheppard. It's a good thing you carry a sword."
Rodney shivered a little, remembering the long poison-green beast bursting out of the puzzle stage podium with such force that it had knocked Rodney down with a mere brush against his leg. He'd thought he was dead. Instead, the enormous snake - as thick around as Teyla - had lunged at John and locked 2 inch fangs into his thigh. What followed was yelling and chaos and blood everywhere. Ronon's blaster seemed not to even warm the armored scales, but the sword had cut through its body like a hot knife through butter. Or was that a knife through hot butter? He could never remember.
He glanced again at where Teyla was tending John. A lot of the yelling had been John which was disturbing on a whole other level.
"Just get the answer right, this time, McKay."
"I got it right the last time!" Rodney squeaked in protest. "What do sunrise, shadows, and Caesium have in common? The only possible answer is measuring time. Although it was the Caesium that gave the riddle away. It's obvious that Caesium 133 is closely associated with atomic clocks on Earth, so working backwards, it makes sense that the periodic transition of day/night and shadows in the form of sundials have also been used to demark the passage of time throughout ancient history - "
"Then why were we attacked?" Ronon interrupted.
"How should I know! Time was the right answer, though. You have to wonder why these riddles are so Earth-centric in terminology. We'd have been screwed if the questions used some other culture's preferred element for time-keeping, or even another culture's name for the element - "
"Sheppard doesn't have time for us to wonder. We need to get out of this damn maze."
Rodney opened his mouth to rebut, but hesitated as Ronon's words tickled something in his brain.
"Answer the puzzle, McKay." Ronon stepped to the side and grabbed Rodney's arm so as to push him onto the platform. They'd reached the puzzle stage.
A sense of dread filled his stomach. The puzzles had been fun at first. He'd felt smart and helpful. Now, his answers were coming to life like a wicked Genie who twisted the wisher's good intentions into evil. Time was the answer to the puzzle, and now, Sheppard didn't have time; the beast's venom was as effective as any countdown timer. If they didn't get John help before the poison overwhelmed his respiratory system...
"You do it," Rodney blurted, pulling away from Ronon's grip. Ronon just stared at him. "No, I mean it. I got the answer right, I know I did. So, maybe it's not about the answer but about the answerer."
"McKay!" Ronon's growl was dangerous and his grip on Rodney's arm was getting painful.
"I… have my reasons. I just have this gut feeling that there's more to this maze than the puzzles. He stared Ronon down and was a bit pleased with himself that he managed to hold his gaze. "I'll help you answer the questions, I'll give you the answer. Just… you be the one to stand at the podium."
Ronon's expression grew conflicted. He flicked his eyes around the courtyard, futilely looking for the door that they all knew wouldn't open until the question was answered. His gaze finally fell on John and Teyla and his face settled into determination.
"Ok." Ronon stepped onto the platform.
Rodney followed close behind. As before, there was what appeared to be a stone tablet on the podium. Rodney had his suspicions about what kind of material it actually was, but the riddle was always there, carved into the tablet. You only had to speak the answer for the doors to the next level to open. Or the giant snake to jump out.
Ronon took a deep breath, then stepped up to the podium.
"Like the crossbow pulled to fly an arrow and the pebble rolled down a hill that starts an avalanche, the application of this with strategy and cunning multiplies itself."
Rodney's heart stopped. Not literally. But it might as well have because they were dead. He didn't know the answer. It wasn't about physics or chemistry. Or physics. He didn't know anything about arrows and pebbles. He could calculate the rate of descent of a pebble in any atmosphere if he knew the temperature and density. The other puzzles had all been easy. For him. They were going to die. The door would never open to the next level of the maze and they would starve and Sheppard would foam at the mouth and die of snake venom and -
"Energy."
Rodney blinked. "What did you say?"
Ronon looked excited. Well, excited for Ronon. "Energy. The answer is Energy. It's a passage from Viro Sal's Treatise on Combat. All trainees study it. Like the crossbow pulled to fly an arrow and the pebble rolled down a hill that starts an avalanche, the application of energy with strategy and cunning multiplies itself."
"I'll be damned," Rodney murmured. He poked furiously at his scanner. It was still completely blank as it had been since the maze walls materialized around them. "The podiums are somehow reading our minds. The puzzles do depend on who's standing there. It's a good thing you paid attention in school. Ronon?"
"Rodney!"
Teyla's shout startled him and he jerked his head up to see her racing across the courtyard towards them, waving her arms. He spun back to the podium to see Ronon gasping within a glowing field that had formed around him like a dome around an anniversary clock. He took an involuntary step away, watching Ronon pound against the field, then clutch at his chest. He was suffocating.
"Rodney. What is the field made of? How do we disrupt it?" Teyla had reached the platform and was pounding her fists on the field from the outside with as little effect as Ronon.
Dumbly, Rodney looked at his scanner. It was still dead.
"I… don't know. Scanner doesn't work." Ronon was turning a deeper red with each passing moment and all Rodney could think of was that he was going to watch his friend die.
Teyla turned her fists on him, pounding his shoulders until he dragged his gaze away from Ronon to look at her. Her expression was fierce. "Think, Rodney. What could the field be made of? What would you do to disrupt any field. Think! It's just another puzzle. This whole damn place is just another puzzle!"
"Just a puzzle?" he repeated. That tickle in the back of his mind went off again.
"Yes! Rodney, solve the puzzle. Please." She began striking the field again. Ronon was beginning to sag against the inside, his shoulder pressed close to where Teyla pounded.
The answer to the puzzle that set the snake on Sheppard was Time.
Only time could save Sheppard from the poison.
Ronon's answer was Energy.
Could it be that energy would save Ronon? What kind of energy?
The application of energy with strategy and cunning multiplies itself.
Small explosions went off inside Rodney's brain and he snapped his fingers, willing the rest of the answer to flow. He fumbled at his waist for his wraith stunner.
"Teyla! Stand back. I'm going to try disrupting the field with the stunner."
Teyla instantly whirled aside and Rodney fired. Nothing happened. Nothing useful at least - the field shimmered slightly as it absorbed the stunner's blast in a swirling wash of barely noticeable color around the field, then settled. Rodney fired again, paying close attention to the pattern of the swirls, then adjusted the settings on the stunner. Each setting triggered a slightly different swirl and color pattern, but none disrupted the field entirely.
"Rodney," Teyla pleaded clenching and unclenching her fists.
Frustrated, he fired several times in succession on the setting that seemed to evoke the deepest colors and swirls. The patterns joined and the field darkened, but it did not collapse. Ronon, however, did collapse - slowly and horribly - to lay crumpled in a ball at the bottom of the bell.
"Nothing!" he shouted. Teyla howled in frustration of her own and began pounding on the field, even before the swirls had stopped from his last fire. Where her fists struck the swirls, they flickered ever-so-slightly. Had the stunner weakened the field? No. Once the swirls faded, Teyla's fists had no more effect than at first. Was it the combination of…. Energy!
"Teyla! Fire at the field with your handgun once I agitate the field with the stunner."
Teyla was shaking with fury, but she instantly drew her weapon and readied it. Rodney began pumping bursts from the stunner into the field again until it was almost opaque with swirling colors. "Now! Fire! See what happens with a round or two, then keep firing."
The first bullet ricocheted almost into Rodney's foot, but Teyla quickly adjusted her angle and fired again, then three times in succession. The bullets sparked, leaving behind an expanding ring of flickering energy. She threw him a hopeful look.
"It's working. Fire as many as you can as quickly as you can. Concentrate on one spot."
"I have 10 more rounds in this clip. I will then have to reload."
"Let's hope 10 is enough so we don't have to start over. Go."
Rodney pumped electromagnetic energy into the field while Teyla blasted it with kinetic energy in the form of projectiles. The flickering grew dense, expanded, then with a anticlimactic pop, the field vanished. Rodney almost shot Ronon with a last stunner burst but managed to jerk his finger off the trigger in time.
Teyla lunged and caught Ronon's head before it hit the platform.
"He's breathing," she choked out.
"He's...fine…" Ronon croaked. The large man allowed Teyla to help him sit up. He took deep deliberate breaths and seemed less shaky with each gasp of fresh air.
Rodney didn't know what he could say to make either Ronon or Teyla feel better, so he just blurted out the thoughts that were crashing around in his head at the moment. "Energy. The answer was energy. It took multiple types to collapse the field, but the puzzle's answer was also the solution to the attack. We need to remember that for the next puzzle."
"I didn't...get it...wrong?" Ronon panted, throwing Rodney a closed look.
"No. You got it right. Which isn't reassuring. If that's the reward for being correct, what must happen if we get it wrong?"
"If we get it wrong, we don't have the solution to the attack." Ronon's expression was as thoughtful as he ever got. "And the solution to Sheppard's problem is time. We need to move. Now."
Ronon heaved himself to his feet with only a little help from Teyla. Rodney grinned, surprised and pleased that Ronon had also figured out the secondary puzzle.
"Agreed."
"Go help Teyla."
Rodney jogged after Teyla to where John lay slumped against the wall, his own weapon drawn but in a loose grip against the ground. His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply.
"He must have been roused by the gunfire," Teyla murmured gently, returning the gun to John's holster.
"Ev'ryone s'alright?" John slurred when they tugged him into a more upright slouch.
"Thanks to Rodney," Teyla replied firmly. Rodney blushed.
"And Teyla," he replied at last. "It took both of us to collapse the energy trap."
Together, they heaved, and pulled John up to stand on his good leg.
"Move!" Ronon bellowed from beside the hole in the courtyard that had opened, as expected.
Even with both of them supporting most of his weight, John barely had the strength to limp along between them. As Rodney and Teyla coordinated their steps to move more efficiently, that tickle went off in Rodney's brain again.
It took both of them to rescue Ronon.
It would take all of them to carry John out of here in turns.
This place was puzzles on top of puzzles.
"Leave me," John gasped as they entered the maze that would certainly lead to more puzzles. Teyla shot Rodney a look of deep concern.
"Don't be ridiculous, Sheppard. We don't leave people behind. You know that." And besides, Rodney added, but only to himself, we may not be able to get out of this place alive without you.