Chapter 4 - The Myroscoh

They split into small groups and filtered, like branching strands of a stream, through the trees, placing their footing carefully on the broken paths, stepping from one clump of reeds to the next to cross short stretches of open water.

"We must not all take the same path," Tanna had said. "The ways might sink with the weight of so many."

John and Rodney were separated and so John couldn't hear Rodney's grumbling, and he missed it. 'You call this a path?' he'd be saying. 'I'd call it a swamp. Or the Everglades. Hey, there aren't crocodiles here, are there? Or iratus bugs! Because one of us (ie Sheppard) would be just bound to run into one without the benefit of a handy defibrillator and a voodoo practitioner to bring them back to life and that would be just so typical!' The words ran in John's head, as if he had his very own copy of Rodney McKay and just had to press play to hear the comforting stream of irritation. Except Rodney didn't seem to care what happened to John now, so he wouldn't say that anyway.

And he couldn't hear Rodney, because Rodney was somewhere over to his left and whenever John glanced that way he could see his old friend conversing, hands waving expressively, with one of the locals - Cullen, John thought his name was. He was young - younger than Tanna. About the same age as Ford had been when they'd lost him. But Cullen had long blond hair, with tiny sections braided above each ear. He was tall and slender and occasionally his laugh would ring out, light and carefree.

"Like a fucking elf," mumbled John bitterly.

"Huh?" said Ronon, stopping his halting progress to turn around.

"Nothing. Keep going."

Ronon glanced down at John's hand, which, he realised, he was pressing into his side to quell an ache. He'd been badly hurt there when Michael's lair had blown up and collapsed on them. Ronon had been with him then.

John let his hand fall and glared. "Keep going."

Ronon shrugged, turned and, plunging his spear into a boggy area, poled easily over the obstacle. John trod stiffly in short steps and couldn't avoid some of the softness. Wet seeped between his toes.

They had to skirt a wider patch of water and the small groups came together. Teyla, who had been in Rodney's group, was still pale and she was wiping her mouth, one hand on a spindly willow to support her weight.

"Teyla? What's up? Are you sick?"

She smiled, though there was a line between her brows. "It is nothing, John. Perhaps the berries did not agree with me." She tucked her tangled hair back behind her ears and took a deep breath. "There. I am better now."

Her colour did seem to be returning and she was steady enough on her feet. Nevertheless, John reached out and laid his fingers on her brow. And, though he'd meant the contact to be a fleeting check, and Teyla's skin was cool to his touch, John found that he didn't want to move his hand. In fact, he wanted to move closer to her and for her to hold him in her arms so he could bury his face in her shoulder and the world would go away, just for a moment.

"John?"

He snatched his hand back and shook his head. "You're…" He cleared his throat. "There's no fever. You're okay."

"Yes," she said. "I am well. But you -"

"I'm fine." He turned away. And Ronon was watching him too. Ronon, who was solid and dependable and never said much but was always there for him. If John stepped up close to him, he'd catch the scent of suede and leather and when Ronon hugged you, you really knew about it - completely enfolded in those strong arms and crushed to his chest.

Fuck. What was wrong with him? He didn't, he really didn't have the hots for his teammates. No. No, it was just that… just that he had an urge, a craving for something - for some kind of contact.

John huffed, and shook his head. He didn't need that kind of thing. He didn't need anyone else to prop him up, didn't need anyone else's strength. He had his own strength. He was just cold, despite the warm sun filtering through the trees, and he was hungry but nauseous at the same time and everything hurt and he was tired. But he was still strong enough to manage.

"Sheppard?"

John ignored Ronon's enquiry, even though he wanted to respond, somehow - but he didn't know what to say or do or what he wanted in return.

Tanna had reformed the groups and they set off once more on three different paths, all heading more or less in the same direction. John stumbled after Teyla's group.

Teyla and Ronon - they'd never let him down. They never had and they never would, even when Teyla had Kanaan and Torren and Ronon had Amelia and one day perhaps a small version of Ronon or a tiny Amelia.

But Rodney… well, maybe he just didn't know how to stay loyal to his friends now that he was with Keller. Although he didn't seem to have a problem with Ronon or Teyla - he'd made no cutting remarks to either of them.

John stumbled over a root and swore, clapping his hand to his flaring side where he'd bashed his ribs in the Jumper, and been stabbed by that Wraith plant hive ship tendril-thing, and before that in the heat of the desert where there'd been the decaying Wraith supply ship, the super-Wraith had tossed him away like a rag doll and he'd cracked those same ribs.

Through the trees, John caught a glimpse of Rodney, deep in conversation with Cullen, their heads bent close together. And then Cullen touched Rodney's arm and nodded and Rodney smiled at him. Huh. Well, shit. And they'd only just met.

So much for Keller. So much for missing her and being worried about her. So much for marriage and kids and all the crap that Rodney had said he was on track for.

There was a cold, hard lump in John's chest and it was difficult to breathe. And he simply couldn't make any attempt at denial for one single more second. He felt too physically bad for that, and too guilty for getting his team into this situation and too old.

He missed Rodney. He missed his friend desperately and missed all the things they used to do together, all the stupid back-and-forth of sniping and teasing, all the backslaps and nudges and sly finger-flicks. He missed Rodney's presence at his side, his broad shoulders, his flapping hands, his quick smiles and the look in his eyes when he traded gazes with John and they both knew without any words passing between them - they both got the joke or the reference or the solution to a problem - they connected.

He and Rodney had meant something together. John didn't know what that something had been but, on his own, without Rodney, he didn't know what he was any more. Maybe he never had - not until he sat in the Weapons Chair and a crazy guy in an orange fleece had ordered him to think about the solar system and his place in it.

Rodney had been the star to John's planet. But now John was a lonely, frozen comet, streaking through empty space.

The brushwood thickened for a while and then thinned again and Rodney now had a hand on Cullen's shoulder and was talking non-stop in his helter-skelter rush of words. His blue eyes were intent and Cullen's attention was totally engaged.

John's nausea increased. So, Rodney was into guys, was he? Well, they could have him. Any of Tanna's men could have him, or Tanna himself. They were welcome to him.

Maybe he would be able to eat something now. John pulled his piece of jerky from his pocket and bit hard into one end, working it between his teeth, softening it, until he could wrench a piece off. It was tough and dry but the meaty flavour gradually trickled down his throat. Then his stomach heaved and lurched. John spat and retched and reached out, staggering, for a handhold.

He would have fallen, but suddenly there was a strong grip on his elbow, holding him upright. Then an arm slid around his waist and John couldn't help leaning into the solid body, weakly.

He coughed and there was a leather flask at his lips. John took it and drank thirstily.

"Slow. Slow sips."

He nearly spat it out. It was Rodney's boyfriend - Cullen - looking at him with concern, his arm around John's waist.

John pulled away. "Thanks," he said, gruffly.

"You are welcome, John Sheppard," said the sickeningly attractive elf wannabe.

Shit. The guy was just being nice. And John was being a miserable bastard. "Thank you," he said again. "I probably would have ended up in the drink." He jerked his head toward the lake.

"Probably," said Cullen. He held out the canteen to John again, but John shook his head. "I will walk with you a while, if you will allow. We cannot have honoured guests landing in the 'drink'."

"Honoured?"

"Very much so," said Cullen. "As you will see, when we reach Sumark."

John hoped so. He didn't feel up to doing the usual flung-in-a-dark-cell thing. Not at all.

The lake and Cullen's words, however, had taken John's thoughts in a different direction, reminding John of a time when he had had a thorough dunking, honoured guest or no.

The kids of the Island fort had little coracles that they played around in, and one morning John had ventured out of the main gate and down onto the rocks where they'd launched their little round craft and were paddling about in the calm water. It had to be calm because the boats were shallow, temperamental craft, which the kids usually only launched into the river on the other side of the castle.

A boy had offered John a go in his boat and John had accepted. And he'd kind of got the hang of the thing, but when he came to climb out all the kids had turned to watch, expectantly, and John, not heeding their avid attention, had been half on the rocks and half in the boat when the thing had skittered away and dumped all of him in the sea. It turned out that getting out of a coracle was a two-person job.

He told Cullen the tale, but found himself struggling for breath as well as the right words. The crushed reeds beneath his feet blurred and mashed together and he hadn't realised he'd stopped moving.

"We cannot rest yet," said Cullen. "Tanna is keen to reach Sumark by high noon."

"I don't need to rest. I'm fine." He looked up and wasn't sure if the black shards that floated away were birds or tricks of the light or something else. Did he hear a harsh croak and a flurry of wings?

Light shimmered on water and John blinked. He turned his head away from the brightness and between the spindly trees glimpsed a figure, watching him. The figure moved on, a dark shape amongst the tangle of spindly withies.

"Come, John Sheppard," said Cullen. "We must keep moving."

There was pressure against his back. John shrugged it off and his feet made their way without him having to think about it too much, left following right following left, on the narrow trail, bright water to his left, thickets of marshy growth to his right.

On and on, swimming through the scent of sun-warmed, rotting vegetation and the clouds of insects which flew up in his face, blinking and blind at the sudden change from dazzling reflected light-on-water to black dappled shade. John detached himself from his body, regarding the grinding and jabbing, the aching and pinching with resigned, half-aware endurance.

Sometimes he stumbled and was held up. Sometimes he jerked away from assistance. Sometimes he allowed himself to be guided for a time.

And then the ground was firm and the groups merged together and ahead there were hills, wooded around their feet and rising to bleak moorland heights with clouds scudding over them against the blue.

But before the great hills, one small hill stood alone, clad in short, smooth turf, steeply rising like a broken bone of the land into a double-peaked mound. And the peaks were ringed with walls of stone topped with wood. They had reached Sumark.

The front face of the hill was nearly vertical, but there was a path that led around to one side and curled up between Sumark and the valley between the fort and the main body of hills. The climb seemed like a cruel parting shot at the end of a torturous journey, but Tanna and his men urged them on and shouted greetings came from figures on the high walls.

They came to a gate and were let through and the familiarity of the scene made John want to drop to his knees. The walls, encircling both rounded peaks, were figure-eight shaped. And the space within them was filled with small, round huts, some standing alone, some clustered in groups, sharing walls as if they belonged to a family group. John knew that inside each of the huts would be simple, sparse furniture and a carefully-tended hearth in the centre, and no chimney because the smoke would seep out through the thatch. But there would be meat and fish hanging up in the steeply-pitched rafters, bathed night and day in the smoke to preserve it. The rafters would be full at this time of year - stores built up to last throughout the winter.

Smoke and the scent of wet wool and a wooden mug of beer in his hand - these were the things John remembered with longing. And the familiar voices of the new friends he had made and the one old friend - who was no longer his friend, for no good reason that John could fathom.

One mound was higher than the other and on the crest of its curve was a round hut larger than the rest. Tanna went in with some of his men, leaving the others outside - to attend their guests or to guard the prisoners?

Teyla sat down on a bench in the shade. Rodney sat next to her. Ronon stood, leaning on his spear, his eyes in shadow. John was rooted to the spot, the laboured rhythm of his legs still with him, even if they were no longer moving.

The fort was well-placed to view the whole northern plain and John looked at the land over which they'd travelled. The Myroscoh, as Tanna had called it - a wide expanse of green-brown, flecked with the bright white of water, it stretched to where the sandy mounds of ancient dunes rose in the north and all the way to the haze of the east coast. And far to the west there was a white spot which marked the other coast and the watch place that could be seen both from the Hill and the Island.

Tanna came out of the great hut and there was bustle and shouted orders and some of the men departed through the gate, presumably to resume their watch at the White Rock.

Then, inevitably, Tanna told them they must give up their weapons, and if things had been normal, Rodney and John, despite the potential for the situation to go badly wrong, would almost inevitably have reenacted the bit in the Lord of the Rings where the companions object to giving up their weapons before entering the hall of the Rohirrim. John handed over his sidearm and so did his teammates, even Ronon, who never gave up his energy weapon without a fight.

Then they were led inside.

On an ordinary mission, Teyla would have taken over at this point. She would have done the introductions and started the whole diplomatic process and John would have nodded and smiled and said something meaningless and non-threatening to neutralise the presence of his P90 and his obvious military garb. Ronon would have grunted acknowledgement of any greeting. And Rodney would have kept the sneering to a minimum, quelled by Teyla's firm respectful tones and John's sidelong glares and sometimes his surreptitious nudges and the occasional casual shuffle disguising a less-than-casual stomp of one booted foot on top of another.

But Teyla didn't speak the language here and John wasn't going to let Rodney lead, even if he'd seemed so inclined.

It was dark inside, so of course there was the inevitable blinking and stumbling over the threshold, although John didn't hear any stumbling behind him so presumably his teammates had skipped over that part. The inside was as he had expected - a central hearth with a brightly-burning fire, and logs laid on the ground - at the moment pushed back against the walls, but ready to be rolled forward as seating for any gatherings.

And across the fire, in a sturdy, high-backed chair, sat an elderly woman who watched their approach with fixed, unsmiling attention. She wore a long dress of emerald green and rich brown, trimmed with fur, and her hair, beneath a circlet of dull bronze, fell in two long iron-grey braids which trailed down past her knees. She was lean and gaunt but, though her seat was banked up with blankets and furs, her bearing was upright and uncompromising. She was flanked by two female attendants, one standing to one side of her chair, the other sitting at her feet. And in the shadows behind her were two male guards, spears in hands, eyes fixed on the visitors.

Here, then, was Gronya, the Lady of Sumark, known by her people as the Lady of Slate.

John circled the fireplace and stopped before her. He felt like he should bow, but nobody had ever bowed to Coll or Breesha. He should probably do some kind of formal greeting, but couldn't remember if he'd been taught one. Should he even speak first, or leave it to her?

"Er…"

"Your companions may sit." Her voice was dry and firm.

The guards immediately rolled logs from either wall toward the centre of the room. Rodney sat down, wincing audibly. Teyla sat next to him. Ronon hesitated, but John nodded to him and he lowered himself to sit, his injured leg stretched out. One of the guards took away the spear he'd been using as a crutch - which still didn't leave them truly weaponless, because there were always Ronon's knives.

John still didn't know what to say and his casual slouch and winning smirk had deserted him, even if they'd been remotely appropriate for the situation. He stood before the Lady and was acutely conscious of his salt and sweat-stained clothes, the ragged edge of his shirt where he'd torn off a strip to bind Teyla's wrist, and the warm, scratchy mix of mud and water between his toes, where his boots had leaked. He had two days' growth of beard and hadn't seen a mirror but figured he had more than a few visible bruises.

"You are John Sheppard," said the Lady. "And your friend is Rodney McKay," she continued, turning her gimlet gaze toward the seated team. "And, though they were but brief visitors to this world, I know that this man is Ronon Dex and the lady is Teyla Emmagan." She spoke as if she had heard all of their names before their arrival. Her eyes became even more penetrating. "It is a pity Teyla Emmagan does not know our speech. I would have preferred to converse with her."

John would have preferred it too. "Teyla would be glad to learn," he said. His voice rasped, brokenly. He cleared his throat. He wanted to project lack of threat, not weakness.

The gimlet gaze then fastened itself on John, looking him up and down. What did she see? A dangerous man, who could kill either with weapons or with his hands and had been required to do so, many times? Or a ragged, weary wanderer, lost and begging for aid?

"The last time you came to this world, you travelled through the Great Ring," she said. "And thereby destroyed it, or so I hear."

"It's still there," he said. "Just broken. Very broken." He could tell her that he and his team were of value to his people, that they had much to offer, that they were looked-for and their rescuers would be rewarded. But she would see through the half-truths. John shivered. He was too far from the fire to feel its warmth.

"Hmm." The Lady shifted in her seat and adjusted one of the furs to draw it around her shoulders. "It was no great loss. Our history tells that once wonders came from the Ring, but also horrors that none wish to recall or recount. I am content that we should be cut off from both of those things, if that is that case."

"It won't work again," assured John. His lips were clumsy. He floundered for words that would affect this matriarch of her people. He'd won Teyla over by telling her about ferris wheels and football. Maybe he should try that. "The Gate's broken," he repeated lamely.

"And yet you have come back," she riposted. "How?"

She leant forward in her chair and John almost gave into an urge to drop to his knees, as if she were a Wraith queen. He was feeling pretty creaky anyway, and if he was down there already it'd be less far to fall. But he wouldn't fall. Even though he could feel his body trembling, John refused to fall. He crossed his arms as tightly as he could, to hold himself together just a bit longer.

"We came in a ship," he croaked. "We were escaping. From enemies."

"I think you do not mean a ship with sails."

"No." He shook his head, just slightly, but the dark corners of the hall merged and blurred with the light from the fire. "A flying ship. We crashed. In the sea."

"If you crashed in the waters at the Point of Ayre you were lucky to make it to shore."

"Yeah. Yeah, it was a close-run thing." He could feel the pull of the current still, dragging him down, a heavy weight on his weary shoulders. Someone shifted behind him and there was a sharp huff.

"And these enemies - will they follow you here? Will you be the means by which the horrors of old return to this world?"

He got the impression that, if that was the case, she wouldn't waste any mercy on her guests. "They won't follow us." Fighting against the current, he lifted his heavy head and met her eyes. "They don't know where we went. Our friends don't either, so…"

She raised one eyebrow. "You are stranded. But your friends came for you last time. Won't they come again?"

Her eyes were hypnotic. Maybe she really did have some Wraith blood in her. John rubbed his forehead but his mind didn't clear. "No. Maybe. Probably not." Her face faded in and out and cold seawater hissed in his ears. "I'm sorry. I don't…"

"Look, are you going to help us or not?"

John flinched. The strident voice was, of course, Rodney's.

"Because if you're not, then why not just tell us now, so we don't have to waste precious energy that actually, and it may have escaped your notice, some of us are pretty much catastrophically low on? So, come on - just say it!"

John caught flickering hands out of the corner of his eye, and knew he should intervene, but something was ringing in his ears along with the tumbling flow of Rodney's rising diatribe. Was he still standing? Or had he slumped down to the beaten-earth floor?

"Just tell us to fucking well fuck off!" Rodney ranted.

Now that was funny. Had John giggled? Had he gone right over the edge of exhaustion into hysteria?

"And then we'll bid you a cheery goodbye, shut the gate behind us on our way out and drag our sorry asses over the hills and far away."

Yeah. Yeah, McKay, you tell her.

"We'll go to the Hill where they look after people properly, rather than this piss-poor excuse for a hillfort, this stupid little anthill, this-"

Laughter rang through the hall and rose with the smoke high into the rafters.

John, finally, slumped to his knees.

The laughter faded and there was a moment of silence, apart from the crackling spit of the fire.

And then the Lady spoke. "I am pleased that you have lived up to your reputation, Rodney McKay," she said. "I hardly credited my daughter's description of your fiery tongue, but now I hear that she was right."

Fingers snapped and the guards strode into John's wavering view.

"See that our guests are given all that they need," she said. She rose slowly from her chair and John looked up at her face as she bent down toward him. "My people, long ago, named me Lady of Slate," she said. "And whether that is a kindness, meaning that I am not as unyielding as granite, or a subtle insult warning of my hardness and my sharp splinters of temper, I have never cared to ask." She placed a cool hand on his cheek. "Neither you, John Sheppard, nor your companions, will need to travel to the Hill to find good hospitality."

He licked his dry lips but words failed him completely.

"And, as for your friends of the far away Hill," she continued, "I had already sent for the Lady Breesha, who is my only daughter, even before you entered my hall."

John's breath rasped in his throat and the ringing in his ears rose. Rodney's voice came from a long, long way off, at least as far as the Hill, or maybe as far as Atlantis.

Darkness rushed over him and he let it carry him away.


Don't you just love Rodney when he gets all Rodneyish? I do! And the folk of Sumark are going to be friendly, which is good. I'm looking forward to reintroducing Breesha. She's one of my favourite OCs.

Sumark, by the way, is based on Cronk Sumark - Primrose Hill. Which I attempted to visit last summer and was very, very annoyed to find that the only footpath that made it accessible has all been grown over by impenetrable gorse. I just couldn't get up there and it's been years. I suppose, thinking about it... over thirty years. Well, things are bound to have changed in that time. Anyway, it was a hill fort at one time, or at least a small camp/outpost type thing.