Chapter 28
Children of the Goddess
Jack found his knife, Daniel's handgun and the ammo on the table in his room when he dressed at sunrise. Shan had given him pants and shoes, made from the same soft leather as his shirt. The pants were too big. Jack knew he had lost a lot of weight over the last three weeks. He'd had to pull his BDU belt tighter some time ago. These pants had a belt as well, a braided cord with loose straps hanging down from it. Jack realized he could tie his knife to the belt. He tucked the gun into the waistband, then shoved the clip of ammo in the chest pocket of his shirt.
Silently he entered the larger room of the house. Shanera and Jasper were nowhere to be seen, but a fire was going in the oven and water bubbled in a pot on the stone stove.
Jack went outside and looked out over the valley beneath him. Far away he could see the ruins of what must have been the palace. When he heard footsteps, Jack didn't turn.
"If we are going to find your boy, we will find him there."
"I know."
"Shan will stay here and tend to the wounds of your wild dog. Have we not returned in four days, she will come after us."
"Good." Jack was relieved. If the young woman was as stubborn as Daniel, she wouldn't have agreed to stay behind. But it was good someone remained at the house. Jack was sure Shan could locate them if she was forced to follow. He only hoped she would be strong enough to resist the "call of the water".
"She is a strong woman," Jasper said, as if he had read Jack's mind. "She has fought the call for years, whenever it reaches her."
After a quick breakfast of dried meat with cactus soup, Shan gave them two pouches with water and food. They also took blankets for the night. The couple kissed and hugged each other, and Jack left them to it and checked on Cupcake, who was still weak but happy to see him. "I'll bring Daniel back," he told her as he scratched behind her pointed ears. "You just hang in there so you'll be fine when we return."
She licked his hands and yipped approvingly.
###
Riding was a nice change from the endless walking. The carrier beasts were horses with short black hair and bushy gray tails. Their heads were bulky, and their bodies brawny and sturdy. O'Neill was grateful for the ride because he still felt unfit to walk hours and hours. Not that he wouldn't have tried if he had to. But this was much more comfortable.
"There is something I have to tell you," Jasper said once they had been riding in silence for an hour. "There is a sealed chamber near the palace. I have never told Shanera about it, but I believe that the children need to go there to become completed. She searched for such a place while under the influence of the beings in the water. But she never found it."
"Why? What's in there?"
"I don't know. I could never unlock the door. And when Shan became so detached and obsessed with the water... I decided not to try again. But all these years she has waited to become completed and it has never happened. Whatever is in the water always tells her she is not ready."
"How old was she after she got shrunk?"
"We guessed that she was near mid-childhood." When Jack looked at him blankly, Jasp explained, "She must have been nine summers old. Mid-childhood is after ten summers. Then she will slowly enter adulthood and the age of marriage. It is common to marry when a woman has seen fifteen summers."
"And now she's what... twenty?"
"Twenty-one summers."
Jack did the math and slowly nodded. "So you've been here for twelve years... summers... . And she grew up normally... aside from the changes we talked about?"
"Yes. We moved into this house seveond the lake. One can still see circles for fights and race tracks," Jasper said. "Climbing towers and areas for steeplechases, too."
Jack imagined how groups of Jaffa might have trained the little super-hosts until their bodies were able to use the improved senses to full capacity.
Obviously, Nirrti wanted her perfect hosts fit and able to defend themselves.
After all, he had done something similar with Daniel, if for different reasons.
"Where is that chamber you told me about?" Jack asked Jasp when they had crossed the courtyard and dismounted. They tied the horses to iron rings embedded in a stone wall.
"It is not far from here. Should we look for your child at the water first, though?"
"No. If Daniel is alive and able to walk around, he might have found that chamber." Daniel was drawn to mystical and historical secrets like moth to light, and Jack relied on the kid's habit of finding just the right spot to get into trouble.
They bundled up food bags and blankets, and Jasper waved at Jack to follow him.
They entered a world of small, narrow alleys between derelict houses and pavilions.
It was an entire city, and Jack wondered briefly how many people had lived here and served Nirrti's insane experiments or worked in the mines. He wondered what had happened to all those children who had been brought here to become the perfect host. Since there was no such thing as a hoc'taur out there, Jack assumed that the experiment had failed.
Did they all die? Or did she send them into the mines to work there when she discovered they weren't as perfect as she expected them to be? And where did she fail? As far as Jack could see, Daniel would make a perfect host.
Crap.
Deeper and deeper, they merged into the net of streets and buildings, sometimes rubble or bushes blocking their way, causing them to climb or crouch. But Jasper seemed sure of himself, and Jack tried to stomp down his impatience and worries.
Finally they reached a round pavilion with many carvings and ugly statues on its roof. Jack recognized some of them as serpent guards and one of them as Nirrti, who was standing in the middle of the roof, holding her hands over the heads of little stone children, seated at her feet.
It was disgusting.
Suddenly he remembered Ra.
Ra, who had surrounded himself with young boys...
Maybe Nirrti's shrinking program wasn't originally her idea, after all. Ra had probably looked for the perfect host as well, aside from whatever pleasure he'd gotten out of those kids.
Jack felt the cold anger wash over him again, making his blood boil. It was a good fuel for his desperate hope, a motor that kept him from giving up. He wasn't ready or willing to accept Daniel's death, or worse. Because giving up meant that, in a perverted twisted way, Nirrti had won. And there was no way in frigging Netu Jack would let her.
He hurried around the pavilion, growling with frustration when there was no door or window.
"I told you it was sealed," Jasper said apologetically.
"Well, Daniel would get in," Jack muttered.
"He would? How? I tried for years."
"Daniel is just good with this stuff. And he can read Goa'uld."
"But..." Jasper shook his head. "How can he read the language of the goddess? It hasn't been used in hundreds of summers."
"Not on this planet, maybe. Where I come from, the Goa'uld are very much alive, and we've been fighting them for years," Jack said. "Daniel is a linguist. Someone who studies languages. He's also a ..." Jack searched for a word that explained the term archaeologist. "...he studies history."
"He is a seeker then," Jasper said. "A seeker of ancient knowledge."
"Yeah. That covers it, I guess." Jack knocked against the solid stone wall. "You sure that sentinel sleeps during the day?"
"Yes. At nights, it is safe to stay in one of the buildings. It never attacked us as long as we stayed in the house during dark. And Shan was able to move around in the streets as well. It only tracked her and brought her back here if we left the valley and tried to cross the mountains."
O'Neill gazed at the sun, figuring they had approximately two or three hours of sunlight left.
He circled the building once more, using the barrel of Daniel's gun to tap the walls for cavities, hidden doors, whatever.
He was halfway around it when he froze.
There was an answering knock from inside.
Or probably his ears were tricking him...
Holding his breath, Jack began to tap a short message, then waited.
The answer was low, but when he pressed his ear to the wall, he heard it repeated several times.
It was a simple tap-code, used by the military to recognize each other as friend or foe.
"Gotcha," Jack whispered.
"What is it?" Jasper watched with narrowed eyes. "What are you doing?"
"He's in there." Jack used the barrel of the gun again and tapped once, then paused and tapped four times, then paused again, tapped once, once again, paused, tapped three, three, paused, five, four...
D-A-N-N-Y
It wasn't SOP, but Jack figured if it was Daniel, he would react to something familiar best.
A moment later the answer came... Five taps, four taps, pause, one tap, five taps, pause, four taps, three taps.
Y-E-S
Jack tapped the answer fast and then waited, holding his breath again.
There was a cracking sound and the walls seemed to tremble.
He grabbed Jasper's arm and pulled him away from the building.
Together they watched as a dark opening appeared to their left, becoming wider and wider until it was large enough to let a man through.
Then nothing happened.
Jack had his gun ready and silently moved to the entrance, positioning himself next to it, pressed flat against the wall.
It could be a trap, after all, and he wasn't going to walk in there without caution.
Minutes, which only were seconds in real time, went by before a small familiar voice called from inside, "Jack? Jack, is that you?"
Closing his eyes as relief washed over him like warm summer rain, he swallowed once before he was able to answer. "It's me, Daniel. Why don't you come out of there?"
"Can't."
The relief was replaced by suspicion again. "Why not?"
"Locked myself in," came the answer.
"It could be a trap," Jasper said urgently.
"I know that," Jack hissed. Louder, he asked, "Daniel? Locked in where?"
"In here. So I can't get out. I am completed now, Jack. The water calls me."
Oh, peachy.
When Jack turned his head to the left to peer inside the entrance, he could see burning torches hanging attached to the walls and candles lit in the background somewhere.
"You stay here, I'll go in. I'll call you when it's safe," he told Jasper, who just nodded.
Jack moved through the entrance and quickly stepped inside to melt with the shadows of the wall where the torchlight didn't reach.
The pavilion consisted of a small round room with an altar in the background, where all those candle's flames flickered in the air, illuminating a large stone pictograph of Nirrti as she was shown in Earth mythology. Jack had seen that image in one of Daniel's PPP's when they first had the "pleasure" to hear about Nirrti on Cassandra's planet.
In the middle of the room was a device that looked similar to the shrinking machine they had found in the temple ruins near the other Stargate. Like a giant shower.
And there, sitting cross-legged on the smooth black stone floor, was Daniel.
"I'm alone. There's nobody here," Daniel said.
Jack tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants and, aware that he was making himself vulnerable to anybody who might be hiding in one of the many deep shadows, went over and crouched in front of the boy.
"Hey, kiddo." He reached out a hand, but Daniel shook his head.
"Don't. It's a force field. You'll get hurt."
Snatching his hand back, Jack just looked at Daniel.
Daniel's eyes settled on him, wide and too old for the young face. Otherwise, he sat there, motionless, and his voice was detached, vacant. "Jack."
"What happened?"
"I'm completed."
"How?"
"I used the DNA resequencer."
"Of course you did." Jack sighed.
"I had no choice," Daniel replied without emotion.
"Right. How's that work?"
"The tablets and wall writings I read, say that the resequencer changes DNA to complete the process of turning the children into a hoc'taur, the perfect host. Once it's done, they have to go to the lake to be chosen."
"There are Goa'uld in that lake, right?" Jack felt the hairs on his neck rising.
"Yes. Nirrti is a queen. She spawned her young on this planet."
"She... what? F... Daniel, are you sure?"
"Yes."
They gazed at each other, held apart by an invisible barrier.
Jack wished he could do something, anything, to change that mask-like expression. "So you locked yourself in here..."
"I can do stuff. Light torches and candles. Like when we were at Kheb. Only now it's really me, not Oma deSalla. I turned on the force field in this room," Daniel said absently.
"But you can't get it down again?"
Daniel shook his head. "I think it's a specially designed field. The children were kept here after they used the resequencer until it was time for the joining by the water, and then a guard or Nirrti herself let them out."
"But you could open the door to the pavilion."
Daniel nodded. "Yes." He stayed where he was, and neither his voice nor the blankness on his face changed when he said, "Nirrta, the sentinel, dropped me in a large courtyard..."
"Been there."
"...and I found writings on obelisks. They weren't important. Daily instructions for the chosen ones to be trained. But I wandered the palace grounds and found more. The writings led me here, and I found the prints to press for the door. Now that I'm completed, I can open it with my mind."
"But not the force field?" Jack raised an eyebrow. He took his gun and reached out with it until the force field bristled and became visible as a yellow energy barrier for as long as his gun touched it.
"Maybe... if I tried real hard, I could. But I chose not to. I don't want to go to the lake."
"Good choice." Jack said. "Listen... I brought a friend. He'll help us to get out of here and find the gate."
Daniel shook his head. "I can't leave. If I don't get a symbiote, I'll die. My body and my mind need the symbiote to maintain their new powers and changed DNA. And I won't give in to it, so I'll stay in here."
"You're wrong about that, buddy. Remember what Ashu told us about her son? Jasper? I found him. And the woman he took with him. She's alive. Grew up on her own without having a snake in her head. You won't die, Daniel." After a pause, he asked, "The Goa'uld... You hear them talking to you? In your head."
"Yes. Like hundreds of voices hissing and mumbling. If I get out of here, I'll follow the call. My will to fight it is getting weaker and weaker each day."
"They are Goa'uld, Daniel. They want you to believe you'll die if you don't go into the water. They're making you think you don't have a choice, but that's not true."
"I'm completed. I either need a symbiote, or I'll die," Daniel repeated like a parrot.
For crying out loud...
"Jasper," Jack called his companion, who hurried to his side immediately.
Daniel and Jasper gazed at each other in silence for a moment. Then Shan's husband said in awe, "You are Daniel. A rejuvenated one."
"Yes. You are Jasper, Ashu's son."
Jack wished Daniel would stop talking in such an articulated manner. The kiddie-speech had fit the little guy much better.
"I am. And my wife, Shanera, is well and alive. Jack told you the truth. You will not die without a creature in your head. All the gods tell are lies and evil."
"Wait a minute..." Jack looked hard at Daniel. "Why can't you sense we're telling the truth? Did the doohickey take away your feeling-radar?"
Daniel blinked. "I know you're convinced you're telling me the truth. But I do know it's not true."
Cursing under his breath, Jack realized the kid probably had a point. Shan never got completed, but Daniel had used the DNA sequencer. So maybe he really HAD to go and get snaked. But hell would freeze over before Jack allowed him to be taken as a host. He'd keep Daniel away from the lake until help arrived from home. There had to be another way to help him. Under no circumstances was Daniel going into the water.
With a frustrated sigh, Jack turned to Jasper, who was examining the walls next to the open door. "How far is it from here to the Stargate?"
"We have to wait till sunrise. The sentinel will leave Daniel alone, but hunt us if we go outside at night. This is fascinating. They wrote down the whole completion process. I do not understand the physical and mathematical process, but it is all here." Jasper stepped into the shadows, mumbling that he had to study the walls further.
"Sam will know how it works," Daniel said.
"Okay. Here's the plan. We'll stay till sunrise, and then Jasper and I find the gate and dial home."
Daniel didn't respond. Nor did he move.
"I think I found an opening button," Jasper called from somewhere in the dark. "It's a glowing red hand print in the wall behind this pillar."
"If you open it, I'll leave," Daniel said.
"I won't let you." Jack returned the cold, blank stare with steady calm. A calm he didn't feel.
"You won't have a choice."
The torches and candles flickered and then died.
For a moment blackness engulfed them before each torch and candle was lit again.
Raising an eyebrow, Jack said, "And that's gonna stop me from holding you here... how?"
"I don't want to hurt you," Daniel explained, taking several steps back until he reached the altar. The candlelight was reflected on his face, making it appear less childlike and more like...
Jack had seen "The Omen".
Daniel looked like the kid from that movie.
"You won't."
"Will."
"Daniel, listen to me," Jack said. "Don't let those snakes win. You gotta fight it! Aren't you hungry? We brought food with us. Nice... cactus bread."
"Don't shut down the force field. I'll sleep now. When the sun is up, go and get help. The call isn't that strong at daytime," Daniel replied in his detached voice and lay down at the bottom of the altar.
Like a sacrifice.
O'Neill contemplated going in so he could stay with Danny. But the thought of Jasper being the only one outside the force field wasn't exactly reassuring. He wouldn't let himself be locked in there with Daniel, being dependent on Jasper to let them out. He didn't know the guy well enough to trust him that far. Besides, something could happen to Jasper, and then what?
He drew in a sharp breath and settled down next to the force field, keeping an eye on the kid inside. Daniel appeared to be asleep, curled up, his back to Jack.
"Daniel?"
No reply.
"I'll be right here, okay? Not going anywhere." When there was still no reaction from the tyke, Jack said softly, "Sleep tight, bud."
###
Some time later, Jack snapped his eyes open, instantly alert, not sure what woke him.
It was completely dark in the chamber, no light coming from the torches or candles anymore. A cold wind brushed through the open entrance of the pavilion.
"Daniel?" Jack hissed, already on his feet, gun in hand, even though it was useless since he couldn't see a frigging thing. "Jasp?"
"Do not move," a hollow voice warned him out of the darkness. "The child must reach the water."
Crap.
"Jasper! It's me, Jack! Where's Daniel?!"
"He has convinced me to open the field. He will be chosen by his master soon."
Double crap.
"Listen to me! I don't know what he told you... but we have to find him before he..." Jack had moved around in the dark and bumped into something... someone. He grabbed for Jasper's shirt, giving him a rough shake. "Where is he?!"
"We can't follow young Daniel. The sentinel will attack," Jasper replied like a man in trance.
"Help me!" Jack shook him harder. He'd have hit him if he could have seen his face.
"I can't."
Pushing the man away, Jack tried to find the entrance or the walls of the pavilion. He followed the whiff of air, and finally his hands touched rough stone. Carefully feeling around the wall, Jack found one of the torches and heaved it out of its handle.
Now what?
"You can't help him," Jasper said dreamily.
"The hell I can't."
"It is his fate."
"No, it's not. Did you allow Shan to go to the water? Would you ever give up on her?!" Jack could hear his own harsh breaths. Why did very word, every sound, seem so much louder when it was dark and you couldn't see? He heard a rustling of clothes next to him and closed his hands tighter around the torch, ready to hit Jasper over the head if he tried something stupid.
"He promised to explain all the writings once he returns. He speaks the language of the gods. Even when he wasn't a child, he could speak it. He told me."
"He studied them," Jack snapped. "He's been tortured, imprisoned and taunted by the Goa'uld often enough to know the language. I told you, he..."
"He said he will help Shanera so she won't hear the call of the water anymore."
"Yeah. By bringing her down here, too."
Jack fumbled around in the dark, trying to find a stone, anything, to spark a fire so he could light the torch.
"I never believed in the old goddess," Jasper mumbled.
"No. You didn't. And you shouldn't start now," Jack snarled. "I need light!"
"The sentinel will see the light."
Realizing there was no point in trying to light the torch, Jack said, frustrated, "Jasper, you have to get your act together! I need you to guide me to the lake."
"But young Daniel..."
"Young Daniel needs our assistance." Jack was sure Jasper wasn't a threat. Just brainwashed by a little brat with super powers.
"He told me to stay."
"Think of Shanera," Jack barked. "Think how she struggles to keep away from the evil lake. You really want Daniel to go there? After all those years you fought to keep her away from it?"
"I love my wife," Jasper murmured. "I don't want anything happen to her."
"And I love Daniel. He's not meant to be a god. He's just a guy who was forced into this mess by a mad woman who wanted to shrink him."
"He did not use the shrinking device in free will?" Jasper was very close. Jack could hear and feel his breath, which smelled like cactus bread and a little sour.
"No, he didn't."
There was silence, and Jack decided to try his own luck against all odds. Using the torch like a blind man's cane, he worked his way to the entrance.
Once he had left the pavilion, he paused, trying to figure out where he had to go. Hell, it was darker than a night on new moon at home. They had practiced seeing in the dark, moving around blindfolded, in Special Ops training.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down and move slowly, shuffling forward as he kept both feet on the ground. He focused on his hearing.
Footsteps.
Jasper was following him.
Jack waited, the torch ready to strike.
"I will lead you."
Jack relaxed his arms. "Let's go."
He had no choice but to believe Jasper would lead him in the right direction and not try to kill him on the way for whatever reason. Clutching the other man's elbow with one hand, O'Neill went along, hating to be dependent like this. But he knew if he wanted to reach that damn lake anytime soon, this was his best option.
He had no idea how long they stumbled through the darkness, only accompanied by Jasper's curt orders to turn in this or that direction or a warning not to fall over a boulder.
Suddenly Jasper stopped walking, and Jack ran into him. "Hey!"
"We are almost there," Jasper said.
And now Jack could see it too.
Not far from them was an illumination, a pool of light.
"Go," he ordered tersely.
And so they continued.
###
The lake's surface shimmered in an orange light, reminding Jack of his Minnesota pond at sunset.
"Why's it glowing?"
"I do not know," Jasper said. "It just does. Only at nights, though. The water is black by day."
They stepped closer, but Jack pulled Jasper back when they were getting too close to the shore. "Careful there. They have a habit of jumping you and entering through your throat."
"No. They only take the chosen children. Never a lower being like us."
"Just... careful, okay? These guys have been without hosts for a long time. They might not be so picky anymore." Jack winced and took a step back as the smooth water surface began to ripple and splash.
Glad he was able to see again, Jack took lead.
"There is a ceremonial place not far from here. I always assumed the children were led into the water there. It was where Shanera stood and listened to the voices," Jasper said, sounding more like himself now.
They reached the place only moments later. Burning torches hung from high obelisks at the four corners.
Jack saw a small figure standing alone in the middle of the place, where the four beams from the torches met, forming a circle of light.
He was about to tell Jasper they had to move closer when the sentinel's aggressive scream erupted in the air, and the giant creature appeared above their heads, its shadow dimming the torchlight.
"Run! Behind the obelisks!" Jack yelled and started moving, jerking out Daniel's handgun. Before he cowered behind the huge obelisk, he fired at the creature as it came down. With a screech of pain, the sentinel changed course and gained height. It was now circling in the sky, just in reach of the torch lights. A dark, plump body with large wings.
"Jasper," Jack yelled. "You okay?"
"I am well!" The other man emerged from the darkness and crouched next to Jack.
"Look... I need you to watch my six... give me cover. Can you use this?" He reloaded Daniel's gun and handed it over to him.
"I have never..."
"One of us has to distract that thing. I'll go and grab the kid," Jack said impatiently. "The bird is hit, but I guess its Goa'uld keeps it from dying."
"The... The sentinel is powerful and strong. I have never been able to hurt it before," Jasper said. "This weapon gave him pain." There was no fear in the other man's voice. Only amazement and... hope. "If this weapon can give him pain, it may be able to kill him."
"Yeah. Probably. For now, all you have to do is keep him off me or the kid."
"I will get the child. You will use this weapon," Jasper decided.
"No."
"It is our only chance. You are trained to use this weapon while I only know how to use a spear. I am free of the child's spell. I will return with him here."
Biting his lip, Jack realized the guy was right. He gave a terse nod and said. "Don't let him talk you into anything. Carry him if necessary."
Jack watched as Jasper scurried off, then took a deep breath and gave a warning shot to get the beast's attention. With an angry scream, it moved its head from left to right, looking for him.
Jack ran from his cover, waving both arms, yelling, "Hey! I'm here! Come get me, you son of a bitch!"
It attacked immediately, claws outstretched, glowy eyes fixated on its victim.
O'Neill waited, weapon in both hands.
When he could see its dirty gullet through the open beak, he fired.
Once.
Twice.
Still it was moving, screaming...
Jack ran backwards, firing at the eyes.
He missed one, but hit the other.
There was a warm rain of blood as the screams became gargled and the inhuman left eye flashed gold once more before it went dark.
O'Neill had to throw himself on the ground and roll away to avoid being hit by the heavy body.
For a second Jack felt like he was in a vacuum. It seemed deadly silent around him after the outraged screams of the sentinel and the gunfire had stopped. Then there was a new sound, jerking him back into the here and now.
The high-pitched squeals of the snake that had lived in the sentinel's body and was now writhing on the ground. Fighting his disgust at the smell and looks of this dead giant predator, O'Neill stepped closer to the bird.
Just as the heavily damaged snake hissed at him and tried to get ready to jump, he grimaced in disgust, and fired.
With a last painful screech, the Goa'uld died.
O'Neill didn't stop.
He fired until the gun was empty.
