Their trek back through the dingy corridors was uneventful, which is one of the great advantages of modern technology. The only way for their torch to go out was for the battery to go flat. Not like the old days when any stray breeze would blow the thing out and then they'd be stuck in the dark, lost and unable to even see where they were going, and then eventually you would fall into the cunning trap, where you slid down an impossibly slippery slide and eventually plummeted head first into the dungeon.

That sort of thing just doesn't happen any more.

"OK, well let's move along shall we?" Jack O'Neill said. He had been leading the pack when he realised that the team seemed to be short of one member. After a quiet walk back along the path they had taken, he found the missing team member staring at the wall, or rather he seemed to be staring at a displaced and discoloured stone that some one had inserted into the wall.

"I think I found something," said Daniel Jackson, using his best distracted-by-the-cool-old-stuff-that-I-found mode of human interaction. His input/output buffers were still in circuit, but they weren't getting the attention of the main processor anywhere near as much as the rest of the people around him.

"What is it?" asked O'Neill. He was in his patient mode. Some times the distracted scientists in his team made useful observations and you could never tell when they were about to make one, or whether they were about to comment on something totally irrelevant. O'Neill had leant to wait for a moment before launching into a chewing out.

"This stone is different to the others," Jackson said softly. He pried at the edges and found no mortar between the stones, but that was no surprise, there was none joining the others either. Some one with a real eye for detail had put each of the stones together very carefully, and at great personal cost.

He pushed at the stone. There was a horrible sound like some one scraping huge stones together.

Screams rent the air.

"I think you've done something wrong Daniel," O'Neill hazarded softly. "Again."

Jackson gulped. "That was Teal'c and Sam, right?"

"Uh huh."

"And they are in trouble right?"

"I think so. Yeah."

"We should go look and see what happened. Shouldn't we?"

"Yep. We might even bend our minds to the task of helping them out."

"Now would be a good time?"

"The best."

"Let's have a look at where they were."

"I do believe that it was over there," O'Neill said and pointed the beam of his torch into the dark. It hit nothing before fading into the oppressive new dimness. It should have hit a wall, it did when he tried this trick before, but now there was nothing there but more dark. "But they're not there any more."

"Naturally," agreed Jackson. "I must say I am impressed with how you are handling this crisis."

"You mean I haven't started chewing you a new asshole."

"That's the one."

"Trust me, that is coming."

"I rather thought it might."

O'Neill and Jackson walked over to where the beam of light found nothing. The nothing in front of them seemed to go down a long way. They looked down, waved the torch beam into the gap and saw more dark, it was simply further away.

"I think that must be where they went," said Jackson.

"Down there in the dungeon," O'Neill agreed. They both peered in the direction that their torch beam was wasting it's energy by pushing at more dark than it could overcome if it took a course of steroids and human growth hormone.

"I've screwed up big time," Jackson said.

"That would be my guess," O'Neill agreed.

"What's going to happen?"

"To you, probably nothing worse than wearing that outfit. If they're OK, probably nothing else at all."

"And if they're not OK?"

'Then I might just hand you over to the Count and leave you here."

"Well at least I know where I stand."

"Just what did happen with the Count?" the question was never far from O'Neill's mind. He just had to know.

"Are you guys OK down there?" Jackson called into the dark, thus avoiding the question.

"Hey, yeah," said Carter. Her voice wafted up the slope and arrived as a feeble little voice, little louder than you'd get from a telephone.

"Are you hurt?" O'Neill asked.

"No, I'm OK, but I think Teal'c might be. He hasn't moved since we landed here. Do you have any idea what happened?"

"Pretty good idea," called Jackson.

"And that would be…?"

"Tell you when we get back together."

"What? I didn't hear that."

"Tell you later," O'Neill called down. He looked at Jackson who had the good grace to look embarrassed.

"OK," Carter called back up.

"What's down there?"

"Lot's of dark."

"We've got plenty of that up here as well."

"I think Teal'c dropped his torch when the floor fell out from beneath us. It might be up there somewhere. Can you toss it down?"

"It might get broken," Jackson called.

"Oh come on Daniel its military issue. We could use it as a club and still not break it."

"Yeah, OK," Daniel bent to the task and spent a few minutes searching the floor for the torch. He found a dead rat. He made a few sounds of disgust and then threw it away. It landed on the floor, bounced and then slid into the dungeon.

There was a delay.

"Ewau," called Carter.

"Sorry," apologised Jackson.

"What was that? A rat?"

"Something like that."

"Have you found the torch?"

He found an old D-cell battery. He decided that was a bad sign.

His hand landed on something long and cylindrical. "Ah I think I found it." He pulled at the thing that he found beneath the tapestry and discovered that it wouldn't move. "No that was the pipe carrying the water to the bath."

"Is this what you're looking for Daniel?" said O'Neill. He was leaning against the wall and looking like he was exercising a great effort in sustaining his patient mood. He was waving a torch in his hand. The dead give away about ownership was the fact that he was shining his own torch beam at it.

"I think so yes," said Jackson. He was still crouching n his knees and making a show of not getting up. He looked like he was praying, although in the outfit he wore his posture might have symbolised something else entirely.

"Here, toss it down to Sam," said O'Neill. He threw the torch across to Jackson, who dropped it because he had decided that might be a god time to climb to his feet. The torch bounced off his fumbling finger tips and landed on the floor with a clang. It bounced once before rolling against the wall. Jackson finished his laborious climb to his feet and wandered over to pick the torch off the floor. Just before his fingers reached it, the toes of his left foot bumped the torch and sent it rolling toward the black hole that marked the entrance to the dungeon. Jackson made a grab for the torch and his finger brushed it, accelerating it toward the opening, just before his head hit the stone wall with a thud like the crack of a well-hit baseball. Torch forgotten, he clutched at his head and almost over balanced into the dungeon himself. O'Neill threw out a helping hand and managed to grab one of the stud infested leather straps that crossed over Jackson's back. One of the studs cut heavily into the palm of O'Neill's hand and he very nearly let go. Jackson rolled with the action and landed heavily on his butt and leant against the wall panting and moaning.

O'Neill only had eyes for the torch. It rolled over the lip and followed the same path that Carter and Teal'c had taken, as though in slow motion. O'Neill had faced a choice, catch Jackson or the torch, and not to his own surprise, he had caught Jackson, but he watched the torch very closely. It tottered once at the edge, as though letting O'Neill have one last look at the consequences of his choice, and then again to be sure, before falling. O'Neill and Jackson listened for it but there was no sound.

After a long time falling, accelerating remorseless-ly, the torch landed once, bounced with a hollow bong. There was a wait that ended with a tinkling sound like broken glass, before finally, the landing, with a dull thud. The torch/stone impact didn't sound quite the same any more. Structural integrity was obviously compromised.

"Is it OK?" Jackson called into the dark. It was a forlorn hope, but he had to ask.

"I don't think…," called back Carter. We know this to be a falsehood because she has a PhD in physics. "No… it's OK. It's not great but it works even if the glass is broken. It doesn't throw a great beam, but it's better than nothing."

"Is it a dungeon?" O'Neill called to her.

"I think so. Hang on, I'll check a few things. Yeah, the door is locked from the outside."

"And surrounded by walls?"

"I think so. Yeah solid as…"

"Anything else?"

"There's a sarcophagus down here."

"Figures. Is Teal'c OK?"

"Aaaahhhh!" moaned a deeper male voice from the depths.

"Looks like it," Carter called up. "He has a nasty bump in his head."

"It's called the mark of Apophis," muttered Jackson.

"No jokes please Daniel," implored O'Neill.

"Down for the Count?"

"That was OK, that was a joke on you."

"That light is too bright Major Carter," said the phantom voice of Teal'c from the depths of the dungeon.

"Oh sorry."

"Is there anyone in it?" O'Neill called down.

"The light?" asked Carter. OK, so she must have landed on her head.

O'Neill groaned softly. "No, the sarcophagus," O'Neill said.

"Hang on I'll have a look."

Silence. O'Neill and Jackson exchanged looks that communicated confusion and concern.

"Well?" curiosity got the better of O'Neill. He had to ask.

"I see dead people," Carter called back.

"Really?"

"No. It's empty."

"I have an idea about how to get you out," O'Neill called down. He crouched beside Jackson and outlined his plan. His neural pathways had been busy, stringing together a threadbare piece of logic that just might work.

*

Samantha Carter hauled herself onto the floor level, dragging her way up the slope by pulling on the tapestries that O'Neill and Jackson had tied together.

On the uphill, hard work end of the slope, the light from their remaining torch caught Carter at last and… Ah, we had better look away because the structural integrity of that dress failed dismally during her descent. Carter's attempts to rectify the situation by tearing the dress into two parts and tying one as a bandeau bikini bra and the other as a wrap around sarong, did not stand up to the effort of climbing the slope. And while we're on that subject, it might not be a good idea to contemplate the image that Teal'c had, standing at the bottom of the slope, shining the torch up to light the way, while she struggled upward clad in that lot.

She landed on to the floor with a fleshy thud. Her pose would have been intensely indelicate if not for the lack of light and the discretion of the audience. All eyes were averted. It is just as well that there were no paparazzi around because that shot would have been sold to Penthouse for sure.

She hurriedly rearranged her tatters and leapt to her feet.

A sound came from the bowels of the dungeon. O'Neill was not sure what it was. It was certainly worrying.

"You ready Teal'c?" O'Neill called down into the darkness.

There was no answer.

They tossed the end of the tapestry back down into the dark.

"Teal'c?"

"…"

"So, um, Teal'c?"

More nothing came back in reply.

"Teal'c?"

"I have opened the door," Teal'c called back.

"Oh, good. How?"

"I blew a hole in it with my staff."

"That would do it."

"I will continue, and meet you back at your room."

O'Neill scratched his head. "OK. We'll be in Daniel's room getting him a more suitable outfit."

"What about me?" Carter said indignantly.

"I don't see anything wrong with that outfit," O'Neill said and then relented under her glare. "I thought all your clothes were taken," he said and handed her the tapestry.

*

At the entrance to Jackson's room O'Neill paused. He waved them to wait and pulled his AK-47 from his webbing. He pushed the tapestry aside with the barrel of the gun and peered through the opening. He pulled his torch off his webbing and poked that through the opening and had another go at checking out the contents of the room. It worked much better now that he could see.

"It's clear," he hissed over his shoulder. "I want one of us on guard at all times," he hissed at Jackson and Carter. "All of us in the one room. I'll take the first watch."

SG-1 went to move forward.

O'Neill raised his arm to stay them in place. "Did anyone else hear that?"

"What?" Jackson and Carter asked in unison.

"I thought I heard someone moving in the corridor ahead of us. Just wait here for a sec."

He walked past the tapestry opening and poked his head around the corner. He remembered the torch this time and was just in time to catch a flash of white as someone raced around the next corner and out of sight.

Puzzled by that chain of events he scratched his head and went back to join the others. "Come on," he said and waved them through the gap between the tapestry and the wall, "let's get some sleep. I'll take the first watch."