This chapter gets a little more... intense. Hope you like it! (please let me know!... :) )

GOING HOME

Chapter 6 -- The Tunnel of the Stars

The following day passed much like the first. Sam and Teal'c finished scanning the main hall, and moved onto the surrounding narrow corridors.

Meanwhile, several levels below, Daniel, Asheron, and Jabaroth continued to search the archives, looking through as many of the ancient texts that they could find.

And every time Jabaroth found something and brought it to Asheron, he said something like, "The Radiant One has favored me by finding this."

Finally, Asheron simply couldn't take it anymore and he turned to glare at Jabaroth. "Someone told you she's dead, right?"

With perfect faith, Jabaroth replied, "A goddess cannot die."

Asheron stood and slapped his hands on the table. "She wasn't a goddess. She was an alien inside a human host with enough advanced technology to make her powerful. She was no goddess and she certainly did die."

"Ishtar the Radiant will not approve of you speaking this way, my lord. She called you her beloved --"

"I was her slave," Asheron grabbed Jabaroth and slammed him against the nearest stone wall. Pushing his face very close, he whispered harshly, "I cut her throat when we were in bed, priest. She's dead, and she is never coming back."

Daniel was shocked, not just by the words, but by the savage hate in Asheron's face. By the time Daniel recovered and started to move forward to try to separate them, Asheron had shoved the old man away and was gone.

"Are you all right?" Daniel asked, as Jabaroth rubbed at his throat, watching after Asheron.

"So it's true," he whispered. Daniel's hope that Jabaroth understood were dashed by the priest's next words. "I heard the stories that he turned against her, that he tried to overthrow his own goddess, the fountain of all life on Inannar. But I didn't want to believe that our king could do such a thing."

Daniel struggled how to explain, since he knew they still needed Jabaroth. The priest could completely sabotage their efforts if he wanted. "She tortured him, Jabaroth. She murdered his wife before his eyes. Isn't it natural that you would come to hate the one who hurts you?"

"But she gave him immortality!" Jabaroth said in bewilderment. "I see him, as unchanged as the day they left, and I know. How could he turn against someone who gave him that?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, it wasn't her gift, it came from someone else." But the uncomprehending look was not encouraging. Daniel sighed. "I know it's hard to understand. A lot has happened in the last thirty years. But it doesn't really matter -- as soon as we find what we're looking for, we're all leaving, including Asheron. All right?"

Jabaroth nodded, and Daniel hoped that meant the priest was at least thinking about what he'd said.

Later, up in the gate hall, Daniel joined the other three around the lamp and sterno stove, where they were sitting on their blankets. "Well, that was fun."

Asheron just grimaced and sipped at his tea.

"What's this?" Sam asked in concern. "What happened?"

"I lost my temper," Asheron admitted. "Jabaroth must be the last person in all Inannar who still has faith in Ishtar. Two days of him was too much. So I pushed him against the wall and told him she was dead."

"And Malek didn't stop you?" Sam asked in surprise.

"He does not steal control, Sam. Unless our life is endangered," he amended. "But he was also angry."

Daniel shook his head. "I hope that he's not going to start sabotaging us. Without his help we may never find what we need."

Asheron pulled up his knees and rested his hands on them. "Malek and I have been thinking. Maybe our plan is wrong -- you two wandering through the temple," he indicated Sam and Teal'c with a wave of his fingers, "and Daniel and I buried in the archives. It shouldn't be this difficult."

Sam nodded. "That's what I was saying yesterday. Egeria had to know that she might not be able to come herself. That's why she was hiding the jar in the first place."

"Was there any more writing on the tablet?" Teal'c asked. "Perhaps further directions?"

Daniel poured water into his instant coffee and stirred it. "No. Only what Asheron read in the briefing: "through the lake of the moon, the tunnel of the stars, and to the place of Ishtar's radiance." The back was blank."

"Maybe there's another tablet," Sam suggested. "We could go to P3X873 ourselves."

No one seemed very thrilled by the idea, and silence descended.

"This is my fault," Asheron murmured, and buried his head in his arms.

"How do you come up with that?" Sam demanded.

He lifted his head, but his gaze was distant. "If I hadn't kept my past so secret Deineri would have known it. When Egeria blended with her that last day she would have learned it too. Even just my name -- it's derived from Ishtar -- that might have been enough to remind her."

"Maybe," Sam rolled her eyes and continued tartly, "And maybe if Egeria had just told someone her daughter was here, the Tok'ra could have found her a thousand years ago." She wrapped one hand around his shoulder and leaned her head against it. "Asheron, you did what you had to do. I know you have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, but honestly, playing these 'what if' games just hurts you. You can't change what's happened."

"No," he agreed and got to his feet. "I can't, but I -- " Abruptly, he stopped and turned to peer into the darkness of one of the aisles. The other three also turned, and Teal'c drew his zat.

But there was silence in the great hall, and after a few minutes, Sam whispered, "What is it?"

He answered, frowning faintly and still looking down the aisle, "There was a sound." But after a moment, he turned back around. "I hear nothing more. Perhaps it was a rat."

Teal'c deactivated his zat and put it back on his belt, and they all relaxed.

Asheron wandered around the gate platform and out of sight. Daniel and Sam shared a glance, and she shrugged.

He stepped over the transport rings embedded in the floor and stood in the middle, imagining the rings rising up around him as they had in the past. So many times, he had stood here to be taken to Ishtar. Why was everything in this place a bad memory?

These rings also brought you to me, Malek reminded him quietly. They brought you to Sam. Is that so bad?

Of course not. Without you, I wouldn't exist. You helped a beast remember he was a man.

You were never a beast, Malek said with infinite gentleness. You did what you had to do to survive a monster. I know, Asheron, because I was there. And I regret fiercely that I could spare you none of it. But in the end, you had the victory, because Ishtar died and you did not.

It feels very little like a victory, Asheron said and then sighed. But I know you're right. These are just transport rings, like any others we've used in the past thirty years, not symbols of the past.

He started to step outside the rings, but checked his foot, struck by a thought. Symbols.... Malek, would you describe the transport rings as a 'tunnel of the stars'?

Malek caught his rising excitement. You think that -- But they needed no conscious thoughts exchanged now, sharing the idea as one.

"Sam!" Asheron shouted. "Daniel, Teal'c -- come here! I think I have the answer."

All three rushed around the gate platform. It took only Daniel seeing him standing in the middle of the transport rings to understand. "The 'tunnel of the stars' -- it's not the Stargate, it's the transport rings."

"So then if the 'place of Ishtar's radiance' isn't the planet, where is it?" Sam asked.

"It is the planet. But it is also the shrine," Asheron answered, moving quickly to the controls, on fire with his new idea. They all automatically moved to the center of the rings. "At the top of the ziggurat."

He set the controls and stood next to Sam. The rings rose up, whisking them out of the great hall --

.

And into the shrine.

Narrow windows of colored glass let in the late afternoon sunlight, causing a warm glow to fall upon the tiled floor and the alabaster statue of Ishtar on an ornately carved pedestal in the center of the room. She was naked, with her hair swirling about her body in artistically sculpted waves.

Sam turned to take it all in. The room, like the great hall below, was octagonal. Faded red velvet drapes hung down the walls on either side of niches, in which smaller versions of the same statute, but in bronze or gold, stood. There was no obvious stasis jar, but then, she hadn't expected it to be easy to find. She stepped away from the rings, as did the others, ready to start looking. If it was too difficult, she would return below to fetch the scanner.

Hearing a strangled gasp to her left, where Asheron was, she turned to see what he had found. Instead, someone had found him.

"No!" she shouted.

Asheron had fallen to his knees, and his back curved in a painful arch, as brilliant golden light poured from his open mouth.

Jabaroth stood behind him, jabbing a Goa'uld pain trident into the Tok'ra's back. "Betrayer," he hissed. "Traitor, defiler!"

He pulled the trident away, and Asheron toppled backwards.

Sam reached for her zat, realizing too late that she'd left all her weapons at their camp in the main hall below. The only one armed was Teal'c, with his zat.

Unfortunately Jabaroth knew it too. He held the trident at Asheron's throat, and looked to Teal'c. "Throw the zat'nik'tel to the floor and kick it to me, Jaffa, or I will kill him."

Sam looked on, feeling helpless. "Teal'c," she could barely get the name past the lump of fear in her throat. Asheron was lying there, motionless, but his eyes were open, fixed on Jabaroth. The prongs of the trident visibly dug into his neck, ready to activate the power or simply stab right through his skin.

"I will do as you demand." Teal'c let the zat fall to the floor and kicked it lightly toward the priest.

But then Sam saw that Teal'c was not the only one armed. While Jabaroth had his eyes on Teal'c and the zat, Asheron twitched his hand and the blade of his knife slid into view. With a practiced twist of the wrist, the knife slid out, until he was holding the handle.

Jabaroth let the zat go past, and it hit the wall behind him. He looked at SG-1 with a triumphant gleam. Sam jerked her gaze away from Asheron, not wanting to draw attention to him, but too late.

Jabaroth glanced down and saw the knife. Before Asheron could move, he activated the trident again.

Asheron's whole body flexed, trying to escape the pain firing every nerve. The knife fell from his hand, as he writhed against the floor. The priest stepped on the blade and slid it to join the zat. Only then did he relent, lifting the trident slightly away from Asheron's skin. But Sam could tell by his smile that it wasn't over. Panting for breath, Asheron glared at him, with his eyes hard and nearly black with rage.

"Don't you remember your punishments, my lord?" Jabaroth asked in a vile, silky voice. "I do. I remember how many times she had to teach you obedience. Again and again because you never learned. Chains, poison, fire... there were so many. You were always so willful, except when you crawled, begging to give her pleasure..."

Asheron blanched, his hands balling into fists against the stone floor. "You will die, Jabaroth," he hissed. "I swear by Egeria, I will have your blood on my blade, and you can share your goddess' fate in hell."

"Not today, traitor." And the priest activated the trident again, pinning his chest.

Asheron strained, energy pouring out of his mouth and eyes, silently screaming. To Sam, it seemed to go on forever. Jabaroth didn't relent, didn't stop, even when the Tok'ra started to convulse, his arms, legs and head striking the marble floor in random frenzy.

"Stop it!" the cry tore free from Sam's throat. "Stop it, you'll kill him!"

Jabaroth didn't even look at her. "You may be his whore, but he belongs to Her Radiance Ishtar. She wants him punished."

In his usual calm voice, Teal'c said, "She will be angry if he dies."

That made the priest pause, and he withdrew the prongs enough to deactivate them. Asheron fell limp against the floor and made no sound. Sam watched his chest anxiously, waiting for movement. But there was none.

"He's not breathing," her voice shook. "Please, please let me go to him."

"Fine. No tricks," Jabaroth cautioned and moved back to pick up the zat and pointed it at her. "You two, stay where you are. If you come nearer, I'll kill her."

Sam paid little attention, rushing forward to throw herself to her knees at Asheron's side. She touched his neck to search for a pulse. "Please, Asheron, Malek," she murmured. "Come on. Come back to me."

For one long interminable moment, there was nothing, and then she felt a flutter under her fingertips. "Thank God. He's still alive." But still not breathing.

Even as she started to lean forward to give some rescue breaths, he gasped and started gulping air as if he'd just been underwater.

His eyes opened, glazed and full of pain.

She took his hand. "Hey, Asheron. Are you all right?"

He blinked twice and focused on her face. "We're not in sync yet," he muttered. She inwardly winced, wondering if getting stuck with the trident was worse when hosting a symbiote. Trust the Goa'uld to invent ways to torture each other.

Asheron struggled to sit up, a difficult process even with her help. His body didn't seem to want to listen to him, twitching and jerking involuntarily. His skin had a scary grey tinge to it, and he was squinting against the brightness of the lights as if he had a migraine. He was not well, and she feared that another session with the pain stick would kill him. Worse, she suspected only one shot with the zat might do it too, at least until Malek repaired the damage to their nervous system.

But he still tried to smile at her in reassurance. "We'll be fine, Sam."

She noticed that at least he was honest enough to admit that he and Malek were not fine right then. She would never have believed it anyway -- not while he was leaning on her so heavily and she could feel his hands shaking on her arm.

But he was alive and sitting up, so she turned a little of her attention outward to see what her teammates were doing.

"So now what?" Daniel demanded of Jabaroth. "You have the weapons. What do you want?"

"There's something in here that you want. Something you plan to use to help your pretender usurp Her Radiance. Find it," Jabaroth barked.

Daniel hesitated, glancing at Asheron.

"I'll kill her," Jabaroth threatened. "She means nothing to Ishtar."

"Do as he says," Asheron said. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Daniel and Teal'c did as he requested, and began the search.

Sam watched them, as they started to look behind the curtains, raising clouds of dust, and in the niches, searching for secret panels or disguised stasis boxes behind the small statues.

Only a few minutes passed until Asheron stopped trembling, and he seemed more in possession of himself when he looked at her. His grip loosened and he took back most of his own weight. He slid a few inches to the left, hiding the movement from Jabaroth behind Sam's body between them. She wondered what he was doing, then realized he was trying to position himself for a grab at the knife. She shifted her weight to her other foot, giving him a little more room to slide closer.

But they needed Jabaroth distracted or it would never work. Jabaroth had stepped away from the knife in order to watch Daniel and Teal'c and to cover the two of them with the zat, but the blade was still six feet away. Asheron would have to reach it and presumably throw it, before the priest could fire an activated zat.

Abruptly Asheron's grip tightened again on her arm and he slumped, nearly knocking her over. She barely caught him and felt her heart seize with panic. "Asheron!"

While he was draped across her, he murmured quickly in her ear, "Behind the fish." Then he straightened. "I'm fine," he insisted loudly. "Just a little dizzy."

She stared at him, before she understood what he had done. The big faker. She swatted his knee, and was only partly joking when she chided, "Don't scare me like that. I thought you were dying."

Jabaroth was scrutinizing them suspiciously, but then took his gaze away to check on Daniel and Teal'c. "Still as weak as I remember," he murmured, with a smirk.

To her surprise, Asheron smiled ever so slightly, a very dangerous look that promised bloodshed and violence. "I always pay my debts, priest."

After the exchange, she looked at the central statue of Ishtar, wondering what fish he was talking about. Then she saw it. The massive grey stone pedestal was intricately carved with bas-relief flowers and vines all around, latticed around central decorative hubs as big as dinner plates. Each hub was a different design -- some were a single flower, others an animal shape. Only one was two fish, curled together in a yin-yang-type symbol.

She had to hide a smile. Fish represented water, the aspect of Egeria as goddess of the fountains, and the two fish entwined represented her belief of the host and symbiote blended together in harmony.

From this distance, she couldn't tell if the symbol was part of the jar itself, perhaps the lid, or if it could be removed for a hiding place behind it. But she had no doubt that Asheron and Malek were right. The stasis jar was there.

"Where is it?" Jabaroth demanded impatiently. She flinched, for a second wondering wildly if he had read her thoughts.

"We don't know what we're looking for," Daniel snapped. "We don't even know if it still exists." He moved to the central statue, leaving Teal'c to continue searching the wall.

When Sam had first met him, Daniel would have said something when he reached the fish. Only a few years ago, he probably would have hesitated long enough to give it away.

But Daniel was a lot more canny these days. His hand passed right over the fish without pause, as he lightly traced his fingers across the surface of the pedestal.

But then he turned his head to look at them and met Sam's gaze. She knew he had recognized it too. "You guys okay?" he asked.

"Just keep looking, Daniel," Asheron instructed. "I'm sure we'll find it very soon. Right, Teal'c?"

The Jaffa glanced back over his shoulder. "Indeed."

And just that easily the plan was set into motion. They all knew that Jabaroth would destroy the jar and the queen inside it, if he got to it first. Therefore he could not be allowed to have it.

Teal'c had his back to the rest of the room, investigating a niche. "In fact, I believe I may have something. However, I require assistance from Daniel Jackson."

"May I?" Daniel asked Jabaroth, with O'Neill-like sarcasm.

Jabaroth jerked the zat in assent.

Teal'c stood almost perfectly opposite from where the knife lay, a position that Sam knew was not coincidence. She had no idea what Teal'c was going to do, but she knew he was getting ready for his diversion. She and Asheron both tensed.

Go on to the conclusion