Chapter Three

The shovel chopped away at the dark Seyan soil. As he dug his place of interment, McKay's mind wandered again, to other dark places and times, even though he didn't want it to.

He had taken a blow to the side on another failed mission not too long before soggy Dorav. He didn't recall the name of this planet but remembered that he had suffered a bruise and a lot of pain when he breathed in. All of the team had gotten banged up a bit before finding a place to hide not far—but seemingly leagues—from the stargate. There they chose to rest for the night and try to reach the gate and dial home just before sunrise.

"Everybody okay?" Sheppard inquired. McKay nodded, not yet feeling anything amiss.

Late in the night the ache in his flank awakened him. He groped in his vest for some pain reliever. Teyla was on watch at the time.

"Can I help you?" she asked him.

"Just looking for some…here it is." Pills in hand, he got up, walked over to Teyla and sat down beside her in the moonlight. She had a canteen with her, from which he drank, washing down the medicine.

"Side hurts," he said quietly, so as not to disturb the others.

Teyla frowned. "Let me check it."

McKay pulled back, modestly placing his hands on himself. "It's nothing. Just when I move or breathe it pinches a little."

They were settled on a low plateau with a view of the land stretching out for miles. McKay liked how the verdant fields below had taken on a silvery cast as the moon traveled overhead. It wasn't easy to see anything in this light, least of all a bruise on his pale body. After looking back towards Sheppard and Ronon to ensure he wasn't being observed, he pulled up his shirt and turned the affected area toward his teammate.

She flicked on her high-powered flashlight and McKay jumped at the intrusion. He had forgotten about that and felt completely naked in the glare.

"It is severely bruised," she said, lightly fingering his ribs. Her fingertips felt much softer than he expected, not that he'd spent much time imagining how they would feel. She laid her palm flat, covering the pain with warmth. "It is also swollen. Perhaps a bone is broken."

He looked down at Teyla's dark, slender fingers. They captivated him, as if her hand belonged to a magician trying to catch him up with a clever trick. But Teyla wasn't being the trickster. She removed her hand and pulled down McKay's shirt. He came to his senses and cleared his throat.

She was like Sheppard and Ronon, and could snap his neck with her pinky.

"That was…" he began. "We'll be home soon, if the gate is clear, so, ah, okay thanks."

He rose and walked back to his sleeping place. It took a while for the medicine to begin working. In the meantime, sleep eluded him. The moon looked him in the eye until he covered his face with his arm and drifted off, still feeling the woman's fingers tracing a line over his aching ribs.

McKay thought about this as he dug his grave. He thought about her appraising stare in the dungeon, how her hands had touched him then, too, and about how she had called him useless.

OoOoO

The Seyan royal palace seldom felt like home. When Teyla had first awakened in her huge suite, Prime Minister Centris had been at her bedside, holding her hand, and she thought herself to be someplace else and was afraid until her trusted Minister gave her medicine that helped her recall.

She was the sole surviving member of her regal clan, the only remaining royal occupant of an enormous ancestral estate overlooking thousands upon thousands of acres of farmland and ore mines.

Centris explained about her illness in the wake of her family's demise, about the death of Tarrissa, her sister and queen, and how Teyla alone remained to carry on this grand lineage.

The ornate home spread across a large courtyard and had fancy spires and elaborately decorated chimneys with the family crest—prickly thistle and crossed iron bars—carved and painted and tiled everywhere, lest anyone forget who lived there. Each of its dozens of rooms was crammed with furniture and soft goods of the finest quality, so beautifully turned and woven they could have been created by the gods themselves.

Centris took Teyla to the Great Hall when she felt up to walking. Paintings of her departed family hung there, as a picture history. Teyla resembled Queen Tarrissa, shared her sherry-colored skin and large, almond-shaped brown eyes. The queen in the painting was short, like Teyla. However, unlike the Athosian, Tarrissa was also quite chubby, carrying her weight with arrogance, as if she were proud of her indulgences. Her plump, dimpled fingers grasped a black metal bar in one hand and a sprig of prickly thistle in the other. Teyla wondered whether she and her sister had loved and confided in each other, for that was what sisters did.

The queen looked comfortable in her exquisite clothing, which Teyla found to be much too confining and woefully impractical. Her skirts and petticoats gathered dollops of mud from the ground and the stitched flowers on the toes of her delicate needlepoint shoes were stained black from the soil's dark pigmentation.

Centris said, "You were the younger sister. In time, you will remember yourself and then find a suitably pedigreed mate to fight the battles of your kingdom for you, so that he will become your king and the line will continue.

Teyla didn't like the idea of having a king. She would rather have fought for her people herself than marry someone to do it for her.

"Don't be silly, Your Maje. Among royalty only the king may use weapons. You have not been taught how to defend yourself. Most usually, you will visit the people, give them trinkets and cakes and then return to the cleanliness and safety of your palace. As queen you have only tertiary power and the right to legislate only under duress."

"I am under duress now, am I not?"

"Of course, for we are in crisis. But no laws need your attention at this moment."

"I wish to legislate full overseer ship for myself."

He laughed generously. "Only the king has full overseer ship!"

"Then I am king," she said.

Centris stopped laughing.

Supper was served to her in an opulent dining hall. Teyla ate alone, since every member of her family was dead. After the meal proper, before the delicate porcelain plate of sweetmeats was laid before her, the Prime Minister brought a tiny cut-crystal glass filled with a bitter brown liquid.

"Your medicine," he told her. "To give you your strength back and make you well again."

She drank this and saw the stories that Centris had told her come to life in her mind—the many years of living in this castle with her sister Tarrissa, the queen, and the king who ruled over her and over everyone in the nation of Sey.

The medicine's nasty taste was tempered by the sweetmeats that Teyla indulged in afterwards. A dozen were set on the lovely plate and Teyla usually ate them all, even though she wasn't hungry anymore.

…..

After condemning the pale man, Teyla, the self-appointed Woman King of Sey, watched from the castle's highest tower as the cart carrying him made its way to the burying pit. It was a shame that Sey needed no wizards or inventors. They needed muscle rather than great ideas. She had been told by Centris that the scientist had little potential and would likely eat more than his fair share and offer nothing in return. She had thought it wise to keep him a fair bit longer, perhaps dose him with a potion to keep him still, but Centris had disagreed.

"Even potion must be conserved," he'd said, with perfect logic. "Meanwhile we must either feed him or let him starve. Your Maje, condemnation is a merciful end to him."

As she watched, two of the field workers, collared slaves, waved and called to the professor in the cart. One slave was knocked down; the other gave up on his own. These were the people who had come with the professor to this world. They, too, had been assessed by her and deemed able to work the field. It was sad that they had to watch their friend being taken away, but some things couldn't be helped.

It was mid-afternoon. Teyla was tired, her eyelids drooping as she watched the cart disappear beyond the edge of the far field. As if reading her mind, Centris appeared by her side.

"You must rest, Your Maje. The day has been too much even for one as strong and resilient as you."

She nodded and allowed herself to be led to the high bed that dominated the room. It was covered with soft quilts and many pillows in various shapes, to support any part of her. She climbed two steps to the plush mattress, as Centris closed the curtains that hung from the heavily carved posters that stood at each corner.

"Sleep, now, my lady," he said, softly, as if soothing a troubled child.

Without another sound, Teyla shut her eyes and slept as if she had been weeks without respite.

…..

McKay stood in the early evening gloom, listening to hoof beats plod in from the distance. Blood droplets lay splattered in the grave that he'd dug. The shovel's handle was streaked with red, his soft hands having blistered until they bled. The clopping hooves came louder until, by the light of lanterns carried by the murmuring crowd, the obvious and inevitable time had come.

His executioner had arrived.

McKay's gallows was the dirt under his feet, and the riding figure carried no firearm or other weapon. He was tall, like the one Teyla had called Centris, and shared his prominent features. He rode atop a huge horse-like animal, rather like an overgrown Clydesdale with an extraordinarily long coat and two-toed hoofs. It was grey all over, including its large eyes.

Leaping from his high perch, the executioner sent up a cloud of dust when he landed. Frightened, the crowd stepped back and held their children closely. He was dressed in black canvas with a loose, heavy cape over all. From his breast pocket he extracted a small glass bottle filled with a yellowish liquid. The masses gasped and backed up farther.

"You know this," said the man, holding up the bottle so that everyone could see it clearly.

"What is it?" McKay asked the workers and villagers around him, but they seemed too frightened to speak.

His killer approached. "You are condemned to die, but the king has said you shall not be beaten to death like so many others."

"No b-beating," McKay stammered, trying to see that as a good thing. "This d-day's finally looking up."

The black-clad man held out the bottle to him. "Instead you must drink this. It is a poison. This way you will not die as violently as they did," and he gestured to the many anonymous graves all around.

McKay shook so hard he couldn't have grasped the bottle even if he were stupid enough to try.

"No…" he managed, as the executioner stepped towards him and others that he couldn't see grabbed his arms and forced his head back, prying open his jaw. Wide-eyed with terror, McKay tried to fight off this assault, twisted his body, sputtered and spit as the deadly fluid was poured into his mouth. Then his jaw was forced shut.

The cemetery was perfectly silent except for the sound of McKay breathing rapidly through his nose. That sound ended when the executioner pinched his nostrils shut. The large, grey horse shook its head, jangling its halter about. McKay stopped struggling.

He'd swallowed the yellow liquid.

The people holding him released their grip. The smartest man in two galaxies now stood by himself, looking at the many who had gathered there to see him die and then peering up at the unfamiliar constellations blooming in the evening sky.

At first, he felt a warm tingling in his mouth and throat. Not too bad, really. In a minute the warmth had become stinging, then burning, and he salivated and then shook and paled, getting thoughts in his head about Sheppard and Ronon and Samantha Carter and about his piano and his favorite cat and the stargate and the Periodic Table of the Elements and a lot of other things that had interested him over the course of his life. He cried a little bit, because he was afraid and very sad that he would never see Atlantis again or his family there.

Then he fell into nothing.

TBC…