What came before:

Sam followed behind, keeping an eye on Teal'c's gait and very aware of the symbiote moving in her gut. She pictured the thing nestled in her belly, its little tentacles lodged in her body, regulating her immune system and who knew what else, and she shuddered anew. Her mind latched onto the sarcophagus, sitting in the palace, waiting for her to come and fix it so she could get back to normal. It was her one hope, and though she knew Cali had shot it to stop her mother from resurrecting Nathal, she still hoped there was some way to repair it. The little niggling voice at the back of her mind told her the damage was probably too severe, but she squashed it ruthlessly. That hope was the only thing keeping her going right now, save the need to get Teal'c out of here, and she couldn't afford to lose it. She clenched her teeth and kept going.

Chapter 4

An hour later, a stiff cool breeze had come up and Sam sniffed the air appreciatively. "Are we near water?" she asked, looking around.

"Yes," Cali answered her, looking back. "The palace is situated on a high cliff overlooking a huge waterfall. It is the most beautiful place on the planet."

"How many people live here?" Teal'c asked, his voice stronger than it had been, but still breathy. Sam looked him over, noting his color, and decided he wasn't going to drop at any moment.

Cali looked downcast at his question. "At one time, according to Nathal, there were thousands of people living here."

"At one time?" Sam asked, alarmed.

"Yes. Until they displeased my mother by rebelling against her reign." Cali's voice dropped to a near whisper. "She slaughtered them all, keeping only enough to serve as her slave population, and they are under strict orders to have no more than two children per couple."

"Population control," Teal'c said darkly. "I do not wish to know what happens to additional children."

"No," Cali said shortly. "You don't." She sighed heavily. "It is one more crime my mother must answer for." She stopped and looked at the trees around her. "It is here that we must make our decision on which path to take to safety. But we cannot stay long. Jaffa patrols are frequent here."

"What are our options?" Sam asked, sitting heavily on the ground. Her body was wavering on the brink of exhaustion, and much as she was loathe to admit it, she knew the only reason she was still moving was because the symbiote in her gut was enhancing her stamina. Without it she would have collapsed a long time ago. Then again, it was the actions of a goa'uld who had put her in the position in this first place.

Teal'c sat down beside her and leaned back against a tree, obviously close to losing consciousness.

Cali turned and pointed to her right. "The 'safe zone' as you call it, is a cave that lies in the rock face below and behind the main building of the palace. There are two ways to access it: the first is to go in through the palace, down into the cellar and through a special access door that Nathal built for me before he was killed. The other is longer, but much safer, and involves circling around behind the palace and climbing down the cliff into the waterfall, where an entrance is hidden."

Sam looked at Teal'c. "What do you think? Are you up for a climb?"

"How far down is the entrance to the cave?" Teal'c asked Cali.

"The waterfall is close to three hundred feet high. The cave is at half that."

"Very well. We will climb."

Cali nodded and turned slightly to her right, evidently intending to make a wide circle around the palace, and started to walk. Teal'c rose tiredly and started after, leaving Sam to bring up the rear. She looked up and noticed the sky was lightening rapidly, and abruptly the sun cleared the horizon.

Sam shut her eyes against the sudden brilliance, surprised at how fast dawn had come. This planet must have a short night day cycle, she thought, looking around at their surroundings. They were travelling along a barely visible trail, moving through a dense forest of towering trees. Movement caught Sam's eye and she glanced up.

"Oh wow," she breathed, staring at the leaves shivering on the boughs. Every single one had a distinctly silver tint that caught the sun's light and sent fractious reflections dancing over the smooth trunks of their neighbors. Craning her neck, she turned around and around, staring at the spectacle and squinting a little when one of the silver refractions flitted across her face.

Her boot hit a rock and she looked down to find bright red berries winking up at her from rich green bushes whose leaves were shot through with purple veins. Tiny yellow and red flowers climbed the trunks of the trees, and the dirt under her feet was a deep rich brown that was just begging to be handled. Sam slowed, stooping down to take a handful of the soil and run it between her fingers. She studied it for a moment, then felt eyes on her and looked up to catch Teal'c's knowing smile.

"It is beautiful here, isn't it?" she said, blushing at having been caught admiring dirt.

"Indeed it is," he said softly, his eyes never leaving her face.

She looked quizzically at him for a second, but he turned away. "Come, we must keep moving."

They caught up to Cali just as she raised an arm and pointed off the path to a grove of smaller trees that grew so close together, their roots had to be communal

. "Look," she said quietly. There, hanging from the thin white branches were dozens of brightly colored ornaments spinning and glittering in the newborn sun. A delicate ringing reached their ears as the swirls and chimes brushed into each other before being moved apart by the breeze. Sam hadn't heard the sounds before now because they blended seamlessly with the rush of the wind moving through the trees. The tones seemed to meld together into a song that spoke of simplicity and harmony that struck Sam with its beauty. Abruptly she realized she had stopped walking to stare and listen, and looked around, embarrassed. But Teal'c and Cali had stopped as well. Teal'c's face was turned upward in an expression of serene pleasure, and Sam was tempted to repay his earlier teasing, until she caught sight of Cali, who was looking at the ground.

"A remnant of the people slaughtered by evil," she said, her distinctive voice resonating grief and sadness. "They were artisans and craftsmen and their work was unparalleled. And now they are gone."

Sam opened her mouth to respond when she caught Teal'c's expression and snapped it shut. His eyes had darted to the side and he was crouching, motioning her and Cali to do the same. Sam complied, straining her ears for whatever had alerted Teal'c to danger, but heard nothing save the delicate ringing of the chimes. She was looking at him, eyebrows raised in a question when a staff blast came tearing out from a crop of close standing trees to her right, grazing her shoulder and knocking her back. Teal'c opened fire with his staff and two jaffa fell out of the brush, bodies smoking from direct hits.

Several more guards were now boiling from the trees, firing as they came. Sam saw Cali dive for cover, and scrambled to do the same, firing her zat as she went. She saw one jaffa go down and was sure she hit another, but then she was forced to duck behind the tree she had crawled to, watching as orange sparks cracked the wood beside her head. Keeping back, she fired several more times into the mass of guards, downing one more before a stray blast flung the zat from her hand. She pulled her 9mm and opened fire, the noise ricocheting off the trees and adding that much more confusion to the scene.

Sam could just see Teal'c behind his rock. He was still blasting away at the now entrenched squad, but she knew he'd gotten at least three and he scorched a fourth as she glanced at him. That left four jaffa and two of them were headed toward her, keeping behind the trees to avoid Teal'c's deadly barrage. She tried to fire again, but her weapon clicked, the clip emptied.

Quickly deciding that the best defense was a good offense in this case, Sam waited quietly until the jaffa were only a couple of yards away, then charged out from behind her tree and grabbed one of their staff weapons, yanking hard as she kicked out at the other, knocking it out of the jaffa's hands. It flew high and behind, and a part of her brain registered how hard she must have hit it to make it go that far.

Inserting herself between the two startled guards, she pulled her elbow up and back as hard as she could into the face of the man behind her, and felt bone crunch. She didn't stop her momentum, but used it to drive her fist into the face of the other jaffa, who dodged to the side just in time to avoid having his windpipe crushed. A second later, his fist smashed into her temple hard enough to spin her around and drop her to the forest floor. She stayed down, shaking her head to clear it and felt the cool rich soil beneath her hands. She pulled some into her fist and threw it backhanded into the jaffa's face, then swung around and kicked his feet out from under him. He was up quickly, still wiping his eyes, but the maneuver had given her the time she needed to regroup. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Teal'c had dropped one of his captors as well and was engaged with the other. Focusing back on "her" jaffa, she saw he'd started moving toward her and had launched into a quick pattern of jabs and punches that were supposed to keep her off balance. She recognized the form as one that Teal'c had taught her several years before, so she was able to counter, keeping him from landing anything significant. Her forearms would be heavily bruised, though from blocking the heavy strikes.

Before he finished his last set of punches, Carter ducked down and struck out with a revised version of another form, alternating quick jabs and feints that opened up the vulnerable points in the jaffa's armor. Dodging under a vicious roundhouse punch, she came in low and pushed up as hard as she could with her legs, driving the heel of her hand into his mouth, knocking out a couple of teeth and causing blood to gush from the wound. His hand automatically came up to cover his mouth and she rammed her fingers hard up and under his arm. Tendon ripped under the blow and he bellowed, swinging wildly with his other arm. The strike caught her across the top of the head, and she fell back, dazed, though it cleared rapidly. She lunged again, this time using her feet. A hard scissor kick smashed the jaffa under the chin, driving him back and off balance. His body overcompensated and he pitched forward just enough for her waiting jump kick to his temple. The jaffa crashed to the ground and didn't move.

Panting heavily, Sam looked to Teal'c, who was on the ground, pushing hard against a staff weapon being forced toward his throat by another guard. Sam saw blood on the ground near him and quickly traced it back to a gaping wound in Teal'c's thigh, evidently acquired by a staff blast. Sam grabbed the nearest staff weapon off the ground and shot Teal'c's assailant point blank in the back. He toppled sideways, and Teal'c looked up at her, panting.

"Thank you," he said, his body going limp, though he stayed conscious.

Cali came running out of the trees. "Are you alright?" she asked, anxiously looking them both over.

Sam didn't answer, kneeling beside Teal'c and tearing a strip of cloth from her overly long shirt. Quickly she wadded it up over the wound in Teal'c's leg, then ripped off another strip to tie it on. His face was drawn with pain and fatigue, but he managed to nod his thanks to her.

Vaguely reassured, Sam turned to Cali. "How did they find us?" she asked. "I thought you said we could evade them."

Cali looked troubled. "I do not know. I was very careful to keep us well away from their normal patrol patterns, and they are not industrious enough to change their routines without a direct order from either Kadan or Kor'ana."

"Who is to say one of them did not issue such an order?" Teal'c asked, his face still drawn.

"I suppose it's possible, but Kadan is arrogant and will not think it necessary, and I don't think Kor'ana would think of it at all. She leaves all logistics and such to others."

Sam cocked her head, a thought entering her mind. "Cali, could they be tracking you somehow? Maybe Kor'ana has finally figured out that you're, uh, different, and is using you to get to us." Or maybe you've got us fooled and you're really working with her in some ridiculously elaborate plot. We could very well be walking into a trap. But then why would she have freed us in the first place? And why would she be taking such a roundabout route back to the palace if she wanted us caught. For that matter, why hasn't she killed us both? She's had plenty of opportunities.

Cali considered Sam's words. "Again, such a thing is possible, though it is highly unlikely. I have been very careful not to show my distaste for her or her methods of 'governing'."

"Still," Teal'c said, dragging himself to his feet. Sam jumped to help him, yelping a bit when her own injuries flared. "We need to move. The sooner we arrive at our destination, the sooner we can rest and decide what needs to be done." He looked around for a moment and hopped over to a stout stick that was lying near him. He leaned down on one leg and retrieved it, then straightened, testing his weight on it.

"Come," Cali said, turning away, "we are almost there."

They moved off, staying in single file, listening as the roar of the waterfall came ever nearer. Without stopping, Cali turned to them. "We are near the palace now," she said, pointing to her left. "The falls will cover any noise we might make, but we need to move carefully to avoid leaving tracks from here on."

The girl veered further to the right, heading for a small river that was evidently a feeder to the waterfall. Without hesitation, Cali stepped into the river and moved about a quarter of the way across, walking with the current. Sam and Teal'c followed, shivering as the freezing water hit their skin, Sam keeping a close eye on her companion in case his crutch was swept out from under him.

Moving as quickly as possible, the trio eventually crossed to the other side of the river via a shallow bar that ran perpendicular to the current. Finally, they slogged out onto the bank and stood looking out over the edge of the world.

The waterfall was enormous, fed by a raging river that plunged over the massive cliff from the other side of the palace. The sound was huge, reverberating up from deep in the earth, sending powerful waves through Sam's body as she stared in awe. Rainbows shimmered in the spray sent up from the churning waters, and she could see at least five different kinds of brightly colored birds playing in the mists.

"We must climb down from here," Cali called over the roar. "It is the only safe way." Without another word, the girl started down an infinitesimal path that started just inches from the edge of the cliff. Sam and Teal'c looked at each other.

"I'll go next," Sam said, wanting to be able to help Teal'c if he got into trouble, but the jaffa shook his head.

"No, Colonel Carter. If I fall, I do not wish you to go with me." He didn't wait for her unavoidable protest, he simply dropped his makeshift crutch and started down the steep path, sliding on his rear to keep the weight off his leg. Sam watched him go, marveling at her friend's strength and balance. He was making good time, even though he was using only one leg and his hands to keep him on track. Moving to follow, and feeling every one of the bruises and contusions she had acquired over the last few hours, Sam started her descent.

Teal'c grunted as pain flared through his leg, and knew his body was close to collapse. He had lost a lot of blood and the wound in his belly had not had a chance to stop burning. He breathed as deeply as he could, forcing oxygen to his brain, and easing some of the pain. Moisture streamed from his body, making him shine in the bright sunlight, and he had begun to shake with fatigue. Leg, hand, hand, leg, hand, hand, leg hand, hand, he kept moving, using the rhythm to lull the arduous slim into a monotonous routine. Time passed, though he did not know how much, and he paused to wipe sweat from his face. Abruptly he realized that Cali was no longer below him.

"Colonel Carter!" he yelled over the rush of the falls. "Cali is gone!" He saw Sam look around him and heard her yell the girl's name, but when he looked down again, Cali was back, waving at them from a depression in the rock face just twenty feet below him. Relieved, he continued carefully down the narrow path, but slipped at the last moment and fell the last few feet to the ledge, his leg crumpling beneath him on impact.

"Teal'c!" Sam yelled, scrambling the remaining distance and landing heavily next to him. She grunted, cradling her injured shoulder, but then reached out to him. "Are you okay?"

Teal'c clenched his teeth hard, fire racing through his leg, and his vision swimming. He closed his eyes and willed the dizziness and pain away. They weren't safe yet.

"I will be fine," he rasped, looking up at her. Reaching up, he grasped a small rock ledge above his head and used it to haul himself to his feet. Sam reached out to steady him, and Teal'c saw her glance at the several hundred foot drop yawning below their little haven. When she looked back, he caught her eye for a brief moment before turning away and limping after Cali, who had disappeared down a level path that led behind the roaring falls.

Teal'c concentrated on moving forward as he reached a narrow opening in the rock. It was pitch black ahead of him. "Cali?" he called softly.

"I am here." Sepha's voice came back to them, barely audible. "Come this way. It gets a little small, but I think you'll be alright." Teal'c looked back at Carter, who raised her eyebrows at him, and stepped sideways into the opening.

It was much harder to keep his weight off his bad leg while moving to the side, but he had no choice. Bracing himself on the rough walls in front and behind him, he slid forward, moving steadily away from the light. And then it was gone completely, and there was nothing but his harsh breathing and Carter's warmth close behind him. He drew a deep breath, pulling strength from her presence, and kept going. The tunnel was tight, almost claustrophobic, and he could feel the skin on his stomach and back being scraped raw as he slid along.

"Sepha?" Carter's voice came from behind him, breaking the illusion of complete isolation. "Where are you?" He felt Carter's hand on his arm, and even in the dire straights they were in, he felt his pulse quicken.

"You're almost here," the girl called back. "Just a little more and you'll be able to see light."

She was right. A few moments later, Teal'c could see the beginnings of an orange glow flickering off the walls. Encouraged, he sped up a little, and Sam took her hand off his arm. His bicep felt warm where it had lain.

Finally, they spilled into a large chamber, and Teal'c moved quickly to prop himself against the closest wall before he fell to the ground. Carter came out right behind him and bent over, breathing hard. Sweat glistened on her forehead, and even in his pain, Teal'c noticed her color was not good.

She turned to face him, and he straightened as much as he could, trying not to show how close he was to collapse. But she was no fool, and her brow immediately furrowed.

"Teal'c, sit down before you fall down," she ordered, and he quirked a brow at her, mildly amused.

"I believe there is a saying which involves black cooking vestibules, but I will sit if you will."

She glared at him, hands on her hips, but then quickly complied, nearly sprawling to the ground as dizziness overtook her. Teal'c maneuvered his large frame to the floor, careful to keep his leg straight and racking his brain for a way to get his companion to rest.

"Colonel Carter, are you alright?"

Sam heard the question, but didn't answer right away, concentrating as she was on not vomiting all over the floor. "I'm not sure. I just got really dizzy." She swallowed an upsurge of nausea.

Teal'c nodded as if he'd been expecting this. "You are fatigued.

She nodded. "I could definitely sleep for a while. A long while."

"No, you cannot. You must enter a state of kel'noreem to allow your body to rest and your symbiote to heal you."

"Oh boy. I'd forgotten about that bit of jaffa life." She looked at him as he scooted over next to her. "What's it like?"

"O'Neill found it very enjoyable when Ma'chello's machine switched our bodies."

"Was this before or after you tried to shave his head?"

Teal'c cocked an eyebrow at her. "Before, I believe. Are you ready to begin?"

"I suppose. What do I do?"

"Close your eyes." She complied and felt him move closer to where he was sitting directly in front of her. She could feel his breath on her face, warm and familiar. A tiny flutter in her stomach went almost unnoticed in the roiling nausea, but not completely, and she furrowed her brow, trying to chase down the source.

"Clear your mind." Teal'c said quietly. Okay, no more chasing. She took a deep breath, and did her best to empty her mind of all thought. As she expected, it didn't work and she opened her eyes, locking gazes with Teal'c, who was very close indeed.

"Teal'c, you should know by now that I can't do that."

"Indeed I do." He smiled, then grimaced as his leg spasmed.

"Are you okay?" Carter asked. "Maybe you should lie down."

"Samantha." The use of her name stopped her. "You must not concern yourself with me for the moment. If you do not meditate, you will become ill and you could die. I will be fine."

She searched his earnest face for a moment, and relaxed just a little. "I'll try, Teal'c, but I don't know if I can slow my mind down enough to do this."

"You can," he said with enough certainty that she looked at him curiously. He shook his head to stave off her questions. "You simply need something else to concentrate on."

"Such as?"

He looked off in the direction they had come. "Can you hear the waterfall?"

"Of course. It's not exactly subtle."

He grunted agreement. "Close your eyes." He waited for her to comply before continuing. "Now, listen for the sound of the water. Can you hear it?"

"Yes."

"Good." Sam listened as his voice became lower, more sing song, and felt herself begin to drift. "Concentrate on the sound. Let it flow through you, filling you with nothing but its essence, carrying with it all traces of worry, pain and thought. Fill your lungs with the purity of the stream, slow your heart to beat in time with the pulse of the water. Allow any stray thoughts to move away with the current so that there is nothing but the flow of your consciousness." His voice deepened and softened lulling her past all resistance. "Rest, Samantha. Rest and heal."

Teal'c had allowed his voice to fade out, finally falling silent at the end of his quiet monologue. Carter's posture eased as she stopped fighting the meditation and she breathed easily, her body relaxed and her mind at ease.

Teal'c smiled slightly. He knew how fast her thoughts flew and that she rarely if ever stopped thinking about something. But long years with her on the ship had taught him how to help her slow down and relax. She had worked on the time bubble problem so hard for so long that there were many instances where she simply could not function any longer. Meditation had calmed her mind and allowed her to think more clearly. It had taken many hours to find a way to help her empty her thoughts, but he had eventually found that auditory stimulus had been the most effective guide. He smiled a tiny smile, remembering the hours they had spent together. But his smile faded as the now familiar grief crept back in, reminding him of all that he had lost, even as he had volunteered to regain all of their lives.

Still bare-chested, Teal'c laid down the on the ground near Carter and closed his eyes. He knew that losing consciousness would be foolish, but he really didn't have a choice in the matter. His body was shutting down. As darkness overtook him, his last coherent thought was that Sepha had disappeared.