The device at my wrist chimed twice. It apparently had a whole range of functions, sort of an a alien version of a PDA, but I'd only managed to figure out the watch. I couldn't actually read hieroglyphs on the watch but I'd managed to get it to show what Bob assured me was the time. For someone who'd never even owned a DvD player, I was proud of myself for getting that far in so little time.

Bob had reluctantly acquiesced to being pulled away from the ship's computer, grumbling something about the properties of "knack-wa-ra." His usual gripes about being taken along with me into a dangerous situation melted away as he was lovingly placed into his new leather harness by a buxom priestess. Naked breasts had a mollifying effect on the spirit.

I did my best to maintain direct eye contact with the woman as she bowed to me, stretching the ornate pattern of glyphs in tantalizing ways. She kissed bob upon the forehead with hennaed lips, whispering prayers of protection and supplication as she knelt to my side.

Amun fiddled with the sash around my waist as the ship made it's final approach towards Delmak, making sure that the leather harness holding Bob was properly fastened and concealed within the folds of the garment. Precisely what had been wrong with my previous belt was never quite explained to me, the eunuch muttered something about 'my magnificence' before thrusting the garment about my person. The sash was twisted to make Bob look like a decorative accent, smoothing out the skull's otherwise grim appearance.

Bob's jaw clicked against the metal fastenings in the harness as he rolled his eye lights up to me, "This, Harry, is precisely the life I've been talking about for years! Servants, slaves, and kingdoms, why are we even trying to go back?"

"I like my apartment," I replied. "All my stuff is there."

"Harry, a bunch of second-hand furniture and old rugs are hardly irreplaceable." Bob chided.

"And my Star Wars poster," I interjected, rubbing my wrist where my leather duster caught the jeweled pins on my wrists.

"And your Star Wars poster," Bob replied, his voice a mix of resignation and beleaguered suffering. "Because a framed print is justification for the abdication of an entire kingdom."

I ignored Bob as he continued to ramble on about the merits of an army of human slaves, choosing instead to watch the breathtaking scene just beyond the transparent window of energy. An etherial mess of swirling purple winds swept past the ship's hull, dancing strands of God only knows what caressing the black void of space.

I didn't dare look at it with my wizard's sight. Something told me that staring into infinity would be detrimental to my well-being.

The Jaffa were unperturbed by the impossible devices surrounding us. By all accounts my natural magic should have shorted something – anything - by now. Wizards and technology simply did not mix. Murphy forbade me from even entering her office while her computer was running for fear that I would make hours of paperwork disappear.

I'd ridden an airplane once, and only once. They'd managed to get it to land in time, but it was a near miss. Newer planes were supposedly less susceptible to electronic interference, but I wasn't willing to take that chance. There had been kids on that plane. It wasn't worth it.

By all accounts the ship should have been a smoldering wreck in an endless vacuum of stars, but I hadn't had so much as a hiccup in the communications systems yet. It wasn't possible, but there it was, staring me straight in the face. The old gods had figured out some way to combine computers with ritual magics, or possibly some way of replicating complex computers with magical ritual.

Microsoft, eat your heart out.

I smiled at Ul'tak as my he walked in front of me and took a knee. Sure, the guy had fed me to an evil space god but other than that he was a pretty stand up guy. I was trying not to hold a grudge. If I went after everyone who'd tried to kill me at some point or another I'd have to declare war on the entire magical world.

Come to think of it, I really had way too many people in my life who'd tried to murder me at some point. That couldn't be healthy.

"We are prepared for descent my Lord Warden," Ul'tak proclaimed, beating his fist across his breastplate in salute. "We will exit hyperspace on your command."

"Make it so number one." God I always wanted to say that.

Ul'tak stood, pivoting on his heel as he cracked the butt of his staff weapon on the deck. "Jaffa, kree da nok."

My vision blurred as time seemed to wrinkle in front of me, the magic within me howling in protest at the clearly unnatural thing happing to it. I gagged, covering my discomfort by clenching my teeth and grasping the stone table in front of me. The sleek material cracked beneath my fingers as impressions of my finger pressed into the marble.

I looked from my hand, to the table, and back to my hand again. I'd never been weak before, but it was going to take a shitload more push ups before I believed myself capable of breaking stone with my bare hands. A gift from Heka, no doubt.

"Ho-ly crap." Bob emphasized each syllable as though it were a word to itself, but it was not for me. It was for the sprawling metropolis before us. Delmak glimmered in the night's sky, many million pinpricks of light hinting at the planet sized city before us. The pyramid we were traveling in was but one of many pyramids, transports, fighters and freighters going to and from a glowing orb at the planet's northernmost pole.

Crescent moon winged ships soared through the atmosphere, dancing and twirling through the clouds in an intricate dance. They twisted and dove at impossible angles, their pilots seemingly suicidal in their desire to go faster or go closer to each other than was sane. Yet none of them crashed, none of them even so much as slowed down.

A massive pyramid, five times the size of my own at least, towered over the planet's pole. It hovered above the planet, a viscous shadow large enough to blot out the sun. Ul'tak whispered in fear and reverence, "Sokar's flagship is more dangerous than our intelligence suggested. That ship could crush a System Lord fleet."

"Lets not try that," I suggested hopefully. "I'm hoping to avoid a fight on this trip."

"Of course my Lord Warden," Ul'tak replied in a voice of relief. "Your wisdom is beyond compare."

"We are receiving the landing co-ordinates," A pale-faced Jaffa nodded. "We should be passing through the defense grid momentarily."

"Defense grid?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"Sokar's planet is armed to the teeth my lord. Anyone attempting to take off or land without permission must pass a blockade of orbital satellites and Ha'tak." He shivered. "The consequences of doing so would be regrettable."

"This just gets better by the second," I chewed my lip, double checking that my rings and bracelet were still in place. I was supposed to arrive unarmed and without a shield, but I wasn't stupid enough to actually trust Sokar's terms. Heka's hadn't noticed them when I'd gone to his palace, here's to hoping Sokar's Jaffa were none the wiser. "Why isn't that moon gaurded?"

"Netu?" Ul'tak laughed. "No man is foolish enough to go to Netu by choice. It is a planet with no escape, a place of fire and suffering full of the worst souls from the empire of Sokar. Murderers, heretics, rapists, cowards and monsters – the lot of them. No one who goes there ever returns."

"Scratch that one from my vacation plans then." I muttered to myself as the pyramid swooped along the seemingly random path through the defense grid, bobbing and weaving past invisible obstacles and barriers. The insane flight paths of the crescent ships made sense now, they were traversing the paths through Sokar's blockade.

Clouds swooped past the view-screen as thunder clouds formed around the ship, disrupted by the sudden change in atmospheric pressure. Lightning coalesced across the ship's hull, dancing across the sky as we descended towards the planet. The city's great spires and glowing towers dotted the landscape before us, glimmering palaces of marble and steel topped by mirrored pinnacles of gold.

As we drew closer I saw what looked like six wheeled vehicles trundling along well-lit highways as huge one-wheeled scooters zipped past them. The cars and scooters moved around huge insects, beetles large as a city block, that swayed to-and-fro carrying house sized wooden buildings. My face was pressed up against the window as the ship made it's final descent towards a modest pyramid in the city's center, and it was only by sheer force of will that I drew myself away from watching two of the massive beetles batting each other with their protuberant horns.

"Harry, don't you even think about it." Bob growled.

"What?" I replied, innocently.

"We are not, I repeat, not getting on one of those things." Bob hissed. "Wasn't riding one building sized creature enough for this year? You need to ride two?"

"Relax Bob, if we need to get on one you can possess it," I patted the skull reassuringly. "You can handle it."

"No I will not." Bob made a loud "yeck" sound of disgust. "Insect minds are too – simple – for my taste. Boring, no emotion to them. All stimuli, no character."

"You won't possess a giant beetle but cats and T-Rex you have no problem with?" I snorted.

"Mister has more character in his tail than a dozen of those things do in their entire body," Bob replied. "And it's adinosaur Harry. Dinosaur are anything but boring."

"Yeah, I suppose they are." I agreed, turning to Ul'tak and switching to Goa'uld as I felt the rumbling thud of docking clamps slipping into place. "Are we here?"

"Yes my Lord Warden," Ul'tak nodded. "Your Lo'tar is already waiting for you in the palace."

"What?" I blinked, looking back at the space where Amun had been only moments ago, "Uh – how?"

"The rings my Lord Warden." Ul'tak replied, pointing to the smooth circle of stone in front of my throne. "He used them as soon as we breached the planet's atmosphere."

"Oh," Right, they could teleport. I walked within the stone ring on the floor, followed closely by Ul'tak and a handful of broad-shouldered Jaffa, "Wait, if we could teleport, then why did we land?"

"Sokar is not in the habit of keeping warships above his capital, even allied ones." Ul'tak swallowed, "The god Sokar is -" He paused, considering if he should continue. I waved my hand in a circle, gesturing for him to finish. "-Sokar is, not that I could ever presume to know the mind of a god, but I believe that he wishes to remind you of your place. He also wishes to remind the other gods of your importance to his reign."

"And what is my importance?" I quirked my lip in what I hoped was a knowing smile.

"My Lord Warden, Heka was - you are – the Goa'uld who has been in Sokar's service for untold generations. The first of his followers, the most loyal. It was you who hid him from your father and nursed him to health." Ul'tak pointed to the tiny oblong pyramid soaring about the night sky, their bulbous noses and tiny nubby wings inelegantly jutting forth. "See how the other lesser gods must travel, stripped of their strength. They must match your loyalty before they have your privilege."

"I'm BBF's with Satan." I swallowed, forcing down a knot of nervous apprehension working it's way up my gullet. "And I'm going to rob him."

"It is the way of things," The Ancient Jaffa hobbled towards us, his grizzled snarl of a smile peeking past the patch covering half his face. "Greater gods prey upon lesser gods, lesser gods curry favor with their peers till they are greater. And you, my Lord Warden, have become greater."

The rings flashed as Ul'tak touched a silver braclet upon his wrist, the silver circles shooting up from the floor and shifting us downward. I slammed my eyes shut to protect from the glare as we suddenly warped down to the planet's surface.

My jaw dropped.

The palace of Delmak was everything that palace of Nekheb had not been. It was green, green as far as they eye could see. Trees, flowers and crawling vines worked their way around a wide space of intricately carved pillars and subtle marble fresco covered walls. Instead of carvings, a shimmering mass of holograms danced across the smooth marble of the pillars, their shimmering hieroglyph bathing the pyramid in brilliant light.

The scenery was less startling than those within it. Perhaps a hundred servants and Jaffa bowed in a circle around me in, unwavering in their supplication. I waved my hand in greeting, putting on my best John Wayne impression, "Howdy y'all."

Bob's exasperated jaw clench could have shifted mountains, "Yes, start with regional American pop culture. That willreally win them over."

My high priestess, clothed in a translucent garment of black lace, kneeled before me holding a cup of wine. Her freshly shaven head shone with perfumed jasmine oil as she smiled, welcoming me to the palace. "My Lord Warden, your vassals have worked hard in your absence. Your servants seek your blessing for our preparations and luck in the coming year."

As I looked around the room at the platters of food and drink carried by the servants and serfs, a cultured voice whispered in my ear, "Just drink the wine. If you don't they'll punish themselves for failing their 'god,' and you wouldn't want that."

I turned to face the angelic apparition, smiling to her as I took the goblet. "Are you speaking with me now?"

"I am speaking at you." Lash crossed her arms and leaned against a stone pillar. "If you happen to gain wisdom from my words, it is pure co-incidence."

"Of course I'm speaking with you, you dolt," Bob sighed. "You haven't gone funny in the head again have you? I really don't want to have to call Mab again."

"Not you Bob," I sighed.

"My Lord Warden?" Muminah stared at the pillar in confusion. "What do you desire."

I shook my head, "I'm just talking to - "

"It is perhaps unwise to reveal me to your followers, my host," Lash interrupted, an irritated look flashing across her face. "It would be counter productive to your wishes."

Right, these people believed I was a god after doing some basic combat magic and killing a brain snake. Having an Angel in my head, even the shadow of a fallen one, would be the last nail in the coffin on that one.

I looked the priestess in the eye, "I was just talking to myself."

Muminah stared at the ground immediately, her body twinging in expectation. Hell's bells, had there been anything Heka wouldn't hit his priestesses for doing? I raised the cup, drinking from it before handing it to her and saying, "Drink."

The crowd gasped.

She stared at the cup in wonderment, "My Lord?"

"You did a good job. Now drink from the freaking cup." She lifted the cup to her lips, gingerly taking a sip before passing it back to me. I shook my head, "Muminah, you aren't less than I am. I'm not going to hit you for drinking out of my cup."

"I – I'm not – how could I be?" Muminah's fingers shook as I took the cup from her and lifted her to her feet.

"I've had about enough of, Ul'tak get over here." If it wasn't going to get these people to stop worship me through logic then I'd damn well make it happen through superstition. I shoved the cup into the confused Jaffa's hands, "Drink."

"Jaffa do not drink - " Ul'tak started, stopping at the resolute look in my eyes. "-Er, yes my Lord Warden." Ul'tak downed the wine, his face curling at the unfamiliar taste of alcohol.

Amun walked into the room, scurrying towards me with a giant fan of feathers. I snapped my fingers, beaconing to the Lo'tar. He rushed towards me eagerly, his pudgy cheeks wriggling with every step.

"My Lord Warden?" He smiled, eager to be of service. I forced the cup into his confused hands. "My – uh – what?"

"Drink." I growled. Amun looked to the cup, to me, and back to the cup before bursting into tears of joy as he drank what was left of the wine.

"Fantastic," I slapped Ul'tak across the shoulders, "Now the three of you stop worrying. You both have permission to drink from the cup of Dresden from now on. Just tell me the truth, don't betray me and you can stop worrying about me punishing you."

"Great," I turned to the crowd. "As of right this second you all have my blessing from now on. Just live your lives and stop worrying about making me happy. No more mandatory ceremonies, no more punishments for praying wrong. Just worry about being good to each other, and for the love of all that is holy, stop worrying about not pleasing me. I'm really a nice guy when you get to know me. Now eat, drink and party."

Absolute silence followed those words, motionless and unyielding. The quiet preceding absolute pandemonium as the servants, Jaffa and serfs howled my name, chanting in reverence. "Dre'su'den, Dre'su'den, Dre'su'den the Ha'ri! Greatest of the Goa'uld! Ha'ri!"

Why do I even try?

Amun reached out a trembling hand, and tapped me on the shoulder. "My Lord Warden. You are needed at Sokar's palace."

"Yes Amun," I turned my back on what promised to be a raucous celebration and followed him out the door. I slapped my fist on my chest in a Jaffa salute as I left the room, nodding to Ul'tak. "Hold down the fort while I'm gone buddy."

Ul'tak's leathery face cracked in a wide smile as he returned my salute, "We will defend it with our very lives, and die rather than falling to false gods. We will die for our god."

"If it comes to that Ul'tak, try to make the other Jaffa die for theirs." I sighed, chasing the scurrying Eunuch. For a chubby man he could really book it.

The palace was empty except for a few Jaffa unfortunate enough to have gotten guard duty during the celebration. Their lingering stares toward the sounds and smells of the festival in the great chamber were only briefly interrupted by their hurried salutes to their new god. Hopefully the outer guards were longer in the tooth and less likely to be distracted.

I needn't have worried. As we approached the perimeter of the estate, it became readily apparent that guards were more of a formality. Hovering gun platforms sat suspended above a blue forcefield surrounding the property. It did not escape my notice that the plasma cannons could just as easily be turned on those inside the premises as they could attack outsiders, yet another layer of Sokar's precautions. He was paranoid with a capital P.

The blue barrier of energy had a single point of egress, a door wide enough for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder. As we walked towards it an orange light swiped across the two of us, swiping up and down our bodies. A scan? My hand reflexively reached for Bob. Could it sense the spirit?

The cannon swiveled towards us, training on our movement as we approached the door. No, no, no, I wouldn't be able to shield us from every angle if this went wrong. Why had I agreed to this? It was crazy. Damn fairies, nothing was ever simple with the sidhe.

My heart skipped a beat as the barricade swung open, letting the pair of us walk out into the city beyond. I spared a second to thank every friendly deity I could think of as a group of red armored Jaffa strode towards me.

"Time to play god," Lash smiled, her lips actually quirking in amusement.

"Kell kree shal mok Heka!" The lead Jaffa greeted me, kneeling before me. "My lord Sokar has send us to escort you to his palace."

I said nothing, doing my best Evil overlord impression. If I'd had Mister with me I could have gone full on Blofeld. Lash snorted, "If that beast of a cat were here it would never deign to so absurd a task."

"Ha'ri," Corrected my Lo'Tar.

"You dare to speak to me human?" Growled the Jaffa, his fingers tightening on his staff in anger.

"He dares with my permission," I intoned, crossing my arms in imitation of Heka, a twinge of anger making my eyes glow from beneath the grey cowl pulled over my head, "And you will address me by my new title."

"New title?" The Jaffa paused.

"Heka has been reborn, he is Lord Warden Dre'su'den the Ha'ri." Aumn nodded, "The god of Magic reborn."

"My apologies Lord Warden," the Jaffa bowed his head deeper, his anger forgotten. "I had not realized that you - "

"There are volumes of text devoted to what you do not know," I reverberated in my least threatening growl, "Now get up."

"Yes my Lord," The Jaffa did not stand up so much as he propelled himself vertically. "My Lord bids you follow me, he desires your presence."

I waved my hand from beneath my cloak, exposing leather duster and ring covered fingers, "Lead on Macduff."

We walked down the crowded plaza, the crowds diverging at the sight of red armor. No one dared get closer than a pace near the Jaffa or even look in our direction. As I looked at the shop windows and curious clothing of the people we passed Lash whispered into my ear, "Lay on."

"Eh?" I whispered back, watching the crowd part from a side street as another "god" approached us.

"The quote. It's 'Lay on MacDuff and be damned he who cries 'Hold Enough" Lash rested her chin on my shoulder, hovering behind me. "An oddly apt choice for today."

"I have my moments," I replied. It was annoying to have someone in my head who was better educated than me. Or was it better educated than I? Remember that whole "I have a GED" thing? Yeah, grammar was not my strongest skill.

The crowds parted enough for the two cadre of Jaffa to merge, putting me face to face with a handsome but sallow cheeked man with a thick goatee. His face was quirked into what seemed to be less of an arrogant smirk and more of a permanent facial condition. He titled his head from me to my Lo'tar before sighing in disappointment, "Not a Goa'uld I do not know then. A pity, I had hoped to save you from this foolish summit."

"Heka," He stared me in the face, his lip curling in disgust as he spoke my name. "Shouldn't you be somewhere with Moloc helping him roast an infant? Or did that interfere with your busy schedule of raping anything that passes into your field of view."

"Kill this one last," Lash smiled. "I like him."

"My leadership strategy has changed since we last met." I replied, buttoning my duster closed in precaution. It would stop most magical or mortal attacks.

"I can see that." The sneering man snorted in amusement. "I approve greatly of this sudden decision to wear clothing. I don't know if I could endure another hour of watching you flex your pectorals and re-apply animal fat to your chest."

A battle of insults it is then, clearly I'd inherited Heka's enemies, "I'm sorry. I don't seem to recall your name."

The man bared his teeth in a smile that couldn't look anything other than viscous, "Do not think that you can belittle me. You are a coward, betrayer of your father and your entire race."

"And you are a god without a name," I replied. "It must be hard to keep your worshipers without one, names hold so much power."

The man's eyes bulged as his voice went quiet, "I. Am. Baal. Remember the name, it is one that you will scream for eternity when I rip you from your host and cast you into a pit for all eternity."

Bob's voice, crackling and distorted in imitation of my own spoke before I could, voicing a scorching retort, "Empty words from a shell of a god. If you had any power to speak of you'd be a member of the System Lords, not bowing and scraping before disgraced gods such as myself or our lord Sokar."

Baal turned on his heel and stormed off in the direction of the palace. I looked down at the skull as he disappeared in the crowd with his escort, hissing at my spirit ally. "Bob what the hell was that?"

Bob hissed at me in English, "Sahib, every second you were speaking with Baal was a second longer you were acting likeyou not like Heka. I do not want you getting caught."

"No more talking for me Bob," I sighed. "That's an order."

"Fine," Bob griped, "Get yourself killed – again – see if I care."

"Not now Bob," I sighed, looking across the street at a sudden burst of noise and motion. A tiny shape, some four feet tall, barreled across the street. I watched an irate shop keeper shove his way past busy commuters, shoving men and women to the ground as he bellowed "Thief!" at the top of his lungs.

The pint sized pilferer projected himself through the toga of confused passers by, rocketing past the Jaffa and colliding solidly with my midriff. He fell to the ground, stunned, still clutching his prize as my escort apprehended him. The still kicking vandal squirmed three feet above the ground as the lead Jaffa pried his arms open and tore a loaf of bread from his arms.

The kid couldn't have been older than ten.

The shop keep wheezed his way up to the Jaffa, whispering "Thief" as loud as he dared while resting his arm on a generous gut. "That little gutter rat came into my shop, my shop and stole from my offering for the Feast of the Gods."

"Very well," The Jaffa nodded. "The boy will be punished for his crimes. Stealing from Sokar, evading arrest, and daring to touch the Lord Warden. We will send him to Netu for this."

The boy screamed in horror, kicking and snapping his jaws as though to bite the hands of the Jaffa holding him.

The man blanched, "I – I had hoped that the boy would be whipped."

"You're sending a kid to maximum security for life? On a hell planet? With no parole? For taking fucking bread?" My eyes flashed in fury. "Fuck. That."

"My Lord Warden," The Jaffa replied. "The Law is clear. He has broken it. Reparations must be made. This boy is trash, he has nothing."

"To whom?" I snarled.

"To the insulted parties," The Jaffa replied, "The shopkeep and yourself."

"Reparations? How much?" I looked at the baker expectantly.

The terrified shopkeep stammered, "My Lord Warden – I – If the boy could pay for the bread and were to pay for the loss in business required to chase him down then it would- "

I shoved a jeweled pin from my waist band into his hand with a diamond the size of my knuckle at its tip. "I just gave this to him, then he gave it to you. Good enough."

The man stared at the jewel, "Yes – yes it – "

"Great," I smiled at him, "Now go away."

The man dashed back through the crowd as though the devil himself was chasing him.

Turning back to the Jaffa I cocked my head, "I get to chose his price right?"

"Yes," replied the Jaffa, somewhat fearfully at the erratic behavior from a god.

"Great, he has to be a - " I looked at Amun, " - what do we need at the palace?"

"We could use another scribe," Amun looked the boy up and down. "He's the right age to learn his letters and Heka's swallowed poison."

"Great," I pointed to one of my escort. "Bring him back to my palace and tell them that he's the new scribe. And make sure they feed him and bathe him."

The Jaffa saluted, frog marching the still wriggling boy towards my estate.

The lead Jaffa tilted his head ever so slightly, not quite questioning but obviously perplexed.

"Nothing was gained by hurting the boy for wanting to eat."

The Jaffa nodded, "And the law is still maintained. You are wise Lord Warden."

"Look, is there any faster way to get to Sokar's palace than just walking? I know that he's probably hoping for some impressive power play by having us all walk to him, but we're already running late," I smiled, "I would take it as a personal favor."

"Sokar did not... forbid you the use of ring transporters." The Jaffa admitted, sounding out the words nervously. "It does not break the wording of the law. You are in his inner circle, so it need not break the intent. I suppose, yes, I suppose we could."

He nodded, coming to a decision, "I suppose nothing is gained by prohibiting it. Yes my Lord Warden, stand close to me."

We clustered in towards the lead Jaffa as, for a second time that day, a blinding light spirited me away from the crowd and to the stronghold of a god.