Jack was wrestled back to the room where the transport rings were housed. The other members of SG-1 were already assembled, kneeling in a line, with a squad of Jaffa lurking just behind their backs. As before, their hands had been bound behind them, and in addition Teal'c's ankles were shackled.
Nameless was inspecting the prisoners. She had exchanged the SG base fatigues for more lavish attire, including the full complement of jeweled hand-weaponry favored by the Goa'uld. Her stately walk in the Goa'uld robe made her look all the more like her infamous ancestor. He saw no trace of Margaret.
Jack was pushed forward and fell onto his knees, completing the line. He was only able to get a quick glance, but so far as he could tell, the team was unharmed.
The Goa'uld passed once in front of its prisoners, glancing at them with what seemed to be indifference, then pausing in front of Teal'c.
"Teal'c," the Goa'uld's voice was so low it was almost tender. She reached with three jeweled-armor clad fingers, lifting his chin.
"Klorel has decided to complete what is long overdue. If you have any final words for your companions, you had best speak them now."
Teal'c remained silent. Jack heard a nearly inaudible ping, and saw Teal'c flinch.
The Goa'uld slipped her fingers from beneath his chin; there was blood on the finger-devices. Short, curved claws protruded from the tips. Whether a trivial prank or a lethal assault, Jack could not tell. He reassured himself by thinking that Klorel would probably want to kill Teal'c personally, rather than allow him to be poisoned by--whomever this was.
She turned away from the group, her robe billowing slightly, and paused with her hand held out; a slave scuttled to change the soiled devices from her fingers. She stepped into the transporting area, glanced over her shoulder in a slightly sultry, lingering fashion, then nodded curtly to one of the Jaffa. The rings fell; the Goa'uld disappeared.
The team was again hoisted to its feet, and transported through the rings.
They arrived on one of the large pyramid ships. This one was outfitted not for war, but as a residence--a space-borne palace such as Ra had possessed, though less grand.
Jack's hands were prickling cold behind him, and the Jaffa soldiers kept shoving his back so that he was always on the brink of pitching forward onto Teal'c's bound and dragging feet.
Are there sixteen or twenty of them left? he wondered. Four-to-one or five-to-one--he supposed it didn't really matter, at that level, except maybe to the locals who would tell stories about it afterward.
The palace was a blur between the rush and press of sweaty Jaffa bodies. He turned to look at Daniel once, and was struck above the ear with the pole of a staff weapon.
He growled at the offending Jaffa, but was immediately struck in the knees. He fell; someone grabbed him by the hair, raised him to kneeling, and held him there.
Lighten up, not much of that left up there, he thought.
It was the large central courtyard of the pyramid ship. Ahead of him, a low platform with a throne in gold-leif, and beyond that, broad ceremonial stairs leading to some inner sanctum. Klorel, in the body of Skaara, descended the stairs, flanked to his right by the nameless Goa'uld who inhabited Margaret. A retinue of additional Jaffa filled out the procession.
It lacked the pomp of his meetings with Ra and with Apophis. Jack got the impression that Klorel had rushed to meet them. Which meant Klorel was afraid of something.
The Jaffa had spread out behind him; he could see Daniel and Sam kneeling to his left. He thought he glimpsed dark blood on Sam's shoulder, which he had missed before, and hoped it wasn't hers. The hand gripping his hair prevented a better look.
Teal'c, bound though he was, struggled with the Jaffa to Jack's right. Klorel beckoned, and six of the Jaffa soldiers dragged Teal'c forward. They used their staff weapons as cattle-prods, knocking him to his knees.
Other Jaffa were filing in behind them now. He could glimpse them from the corner of his eyes, and hear their steps as they assembled.
Klorel descended until he stood beside the throne, leaving it vacant as though his father Apophis were there. He had the scene arranged; he and the other Goa'uld to the left of the throne, and Teal'c in front and to the right. It was roughly the positions they would have taken for ceremonial occasions had Apophis been present and had Teal'c remained in his service.
From his belt Klorel drew a curved, jagged ceremonial blade, made or inlaid with what looked like lapis-lazuli. He held the knife high.
"Teal'c, heretic, traitor to my father Apophis and to all the Gods, betrayor of the honorable title of First Prime! No longer shall you disgrace my father's badge of your office!" he announced.
Oh my god, Jack thought, he's going to cut his face...
Jack lept forward, only to be stopped by the hold on his hair, the teather on his wrists, and the butt of a staff-weapon on his kidneys.
Klorel slashed downward, shearing a chunk of flesh from Teal'c's forehead. He held the bloody scrap of skin high, showing the tattoo that had been Teal'c's mark of rank.
Jack subdued a sudden retch, only to have his head jerked high again by the hair.
Blood rivuleted down Teal'c's face, over his eyelashes, but the rebel Jaffa made no sound. He knelt, watching the Goa'uld with contempt, his bloody face as stoic as the stones of Easter Island.
While Klorel's attention was high on the scrap of flesh, Teal'c's eyes shifted to something beyond the Goa'uld, and Jack saw his breathing skip. He followed his friend's gaze.
Some kind of Jaffa priest approached, his acolytes bearing a nasty-looking forked knife Jack had seen before; it was the tool used to remove the intra-abdominal pouch which housed a Jaffa's Goa'uld larva. Klorel had attempted this before, when SG-1 was on Apophis's ship, trying to avert Apophis's planned invasion of earth. Their arrival at earth had halted the proceedings long enough to allow the team's escape before Teal'c could be harmed.
"No longer shall you disgrace the honor of being Jaffa!"
It's now or never.
Jack ripped his head free from the grip on his hair, and launched himself forward.
"Skaara...."
"Silence!" It was the Nameless one, behind Klorel. "Or lose your tongue," she said.
He remembered bitterly when Margaret had come to the defense of the Goa'uld who now controlled her.
Klorel grinned. The joy Jack had seen in Skaara's smile was mocked in that evil expression. If he ever drove that worm from Skaara's body--he'd come up with a death for it so wicked even the Goa'uld hadn't invented it yet.
He had to do something, or say something. His hands were going numb, even if he freed them he doubted they'd be of much use. And the nearest Jaffa were not distracted by the execution being put on for their benefit--no chance of gaining a weapon. The team had no free member to come to their rescue, and Klorel had no unfinished warfare that might interrupt. Jack's mind raced through a thousand unworkable escapes.
His only weapon left was words.
This must have shown on his face; Daniel caught his eye, shook his head in warning. The Goa'uld would carry through their threat. Even words were denied him.
There was nothing he could do. Anything he tried would only hasten or embitter their demise.
Oh, God, they're going to kill Teal'c!
His pulse pounded in his ears and a wave of heat flooded through him, leaving him quivering inside as if he himself faced the blade. He had lost men in his command before--hell, he'd even thought he'd lost Teal'c before--but not this way, brutalized while the team watched helplessly. Teal'c had abandoned everything he knew and everyone he loved, because he believed in Jack's ability to rescue what he knew and loved from the Goa'uld. Now Teal'c would die, and probably Jack's death would follow, and neither of them would know if earth succeeded in that promise. He felt as though the fate of many worlds depended on their survival.
They're going to kill Teal'c!
And there stood Nameless, watching dispassionately as if she were bored.
Klorel's soldiers struck Teal'c to the floor and held him; he struggled yet voiced no cry. Jack guessed it was Teal'c's effort to deprive Klorel of some iota of twisted pleasure from the torture.
But for the sound of struggle and breath, the pyramid was silent. Klorel frowned.
The priest knelt behind Teal'c, to give his Jaffa audience a good view of his cruelty. The soldiers had exposed the slit in Teal'c belly where the Goa'uld larva was housed. The priest lifted the forked and glinting knife high for the watching troops to see, then waved it low over Teal'c in a ritual pattern. Jack saw an instant's hesitation and dread on the priest's face, before the priest stabbed the split blade into the opening of Teal'c's pouch.
Teal'c winced bitterly, but did not cry out. The priest cringed at the silence, glancing nervously over his shoulder toward Klorel, then jerked the inserted blade sideways, watching Teal'c's face. Teal'c did no more than shudder and gasp through clenched teeth. Jack could see him quivering. A trickle of blood started from the wound.
Jack had seen Teal'c scream in agony under the energy beam of Thor's Hammer, and had seen him desolate in grief, when he thought his family had been killed. He knew the Jaffa to be as vulnerable to physical and emotional pain as any un-modified human.
How can you be enduring this?
The priest seemed frightened now. He slipped the young Goa'uld from Teal'c's injured pouch, and handed it, squirming, to an acolyte who bore it away in a bowl of liquid. Teal'c was stiffly motionless as the knife was twisted inside him; Jack could see Teal'c's consciousness wavering. The priest reached into the wound with his hand to tear free a bloody, gooey pocket-like structure. The void where it had been began bleeding profusely. Teal'c's entire body was shuddering, but still, he voiced no sound.
Teal'c was turned toward the watching Jaffa troops so they could see for themselves the damage done to him. He was chalky and wet with sweat, bleeding steadily from the wounds in his belly and his head, his blood pooling around him on the polished granite floor. His eyes were open but fixed on some point far in space and deep in spirit. His breathing was quick and shallow.
"Such a disappointing performance," Klorel murmured.
The priest looked up at his God in terror; Klorel merely waved him off. The acolytes and priest scuttled away as quickly as they dared.
Teal'c's eyes focused a moment on Jack's.
"Earth will win," Jack mouthed, silently. He saw the slightest shifting of Teal'c's cheek against the granite, a nod that he had understood. Teal'c was dying. But he still believed in Jack.
Jack decided that he, too, should believe in Jack.
He saw Teal'c look toward Daniel and toward Sam, each conveying their silent goodbyes.
Then Klorel stepped in the way, lifting a boot to kick the dying Jaffa.
Teal'c squirmed suddenly, swinging his legs and knocking Klorel's feet from beneath him. The Goa'uld landed flat on the floor, almost on top of Teal'c. Teal'c rolled to his knees, and, to Jack's amazement, remained conscious. Klorel scrambled to get up, slipping in Teal'c's blood as he did so. For a moment they faced each other across the front of the gilded throne, Teal'c on both knees, Klorel on one, both covered in Teal'c's blood and hissing like a pair of cobras.
A disquieted murmur swelled through the ranks of the Jaffa.
With a sudden loud noise Teal'c was thrown from facing Klorel to laying on the floor at Jack's knees. There was a hole in Teal'c's side, and Jack could smell burnt flesh.
His friend was dead.
It took a moment for Jack to process that the sound had been a staff weapon.
He looked up. Nameless held the weapon, her eyes without fire. The Goa'uld continued to look completely bored with the proceedings. She abruptly handed the staff back to the nearest Jaffa.
Could that have been Margaret's doing?
Slaves rushed to assist Klorel to a stand and remove his soiled outer robes.
Jack's Jaffa captors hoisted him to his feet; he caught a glimpse of Sam, with her eyes closed and tears on her cheeks. He heard Daniel murmur an Egyptian prayer. Apparently Nameless heard it too, for her eyes flashed with an inscrutable Goa'uld emotion. Perhaps it was fortunate for Daniel that Klorel did not.
Klorel spoke to the Jaffa assembly.
"All now see what rightly comes to those who would defy their Gods. Let his name be stricken from your memory, and no rites be spoken on his behalf. And when the last of you has seen this husk, let his carcass be fed to the crocodiles, so that his treacherous soul will know no home in the afterlife."
Nameless's eyes flared brightly.
Klorel regarded the remainder of SG-1, and spoke more softly. "I shall have to think of something equally special for your deaths."
"Well don't..." go out of your way for us, Jack began.
"Ah?"
Klorels tone was menacing, but Nameless interrupted him.
"Pharaoh. Our agreement?"
He turned his eyes to her slowly, his annoyance momentarily reined. "Be quick," he spat, "They are skilled in escape."
"I trust the skill of your Jaffa," she hissed, "Confine them."
Klorel nodded to Jack's Jaffa guards; while the host of soldiers remained assembled and slaves rushed to clear the floor of Teal'c's blood, Jack and the surviving members of his team were hastened away and dropped into a stone-lined cell partly filled with water.
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