too, a strong sense of something out there moving, but just at the
comer of their vision. "The scream came from the direction in which
Alsiros took his party."
"Damn." Those young kids...
"Do you believe that some enemy hunts this place?"
"All I know is that those people back there didn't decide to commit
suicide by dismembering themselves."
Teal'c cast a look at her, fast and unreadable, and she felt that gap
again, dark and unbridgeable. She actually understood Daniel a hell
of a lot more than she did Teal'c. The colonel had forged an instant
bond with the Jaffa, and Daniel seemed to have reached some sense
of comfort with him, but she sensed that it might take more time with
her. Then again, if she'd been serving Apophis for a hundred years,
enduring who-knew-what at the hands of the Goa'uld, she might have
been a little careful with her trust, too.
"I will watch through the night," he said.
"No need, Teal'c. I'll take a shift."
"I do not require sleep as humans do. You should rest."
She was thrown. "You don't sleep?" For some reason, that was
odder and more off-putting than the idea of the larval Goa'uld stirring
in that pouch in his stomach. "You must rest sometime."
He didn't elaborate, his focus entirely on the outside. It was looking a little less murky out there; she risked sticking her head out to see
that there was a large white moon rising, larger than Earth's satellite.
Nearly full. It put a silver hush over everything, a silken weight that felt somehow ominous.
"Sleep, Captain Carter," Teal'c said again. "I will wake you at first
light."
She wasn't sure she could sleep, but now that she thought about
it, her muscles were aching and craving oblivion even if her mind
wasn't ready. She went back to the stove, turned it to a lower setting,
and finally braced herself in a comer of the room, MP5 at the ready,
to close her eyes.
I won't be able to relax, she thought, and then exhaustion washed
over her in a black tide, carrying her away into moonlit silence.
Running, always running. Feet pounding, back aching, sweat dripping cold down his spine, and the moonlight, silver moonlight freezing everything in cold silence. The city looks like a pillaged corpse,
but it is a living thing, hungry and waiting. There are hiding places
but they are filled, with others desperate to conceal themselves, and
the hunters, behind, are running too, fanning out to flush their prey
out of shadows. Some fight when they are caught, but one thing is
sure: they all scream.
Before the end, they all scream.
He looks up, gasping, and sees the silver-white gleam of the temple, itsflowing columns, its motionlessfigures standing and watching.
So far... too far... he cannot run. Not now
The hunters are coursing fast behind him. They make no sound,
and that is worse, somehow, than if they bayed like hounds for his
blood. He risks a glimpse over his shoulder and sees that they are
drawing closer, black shadows flickering white as they pass into the
open, the moonstones black at their throats like death-clouded eyes.
He has retained a weapon, stolen from an old man who was too weak
to survive anyway, but he knows that if he turns to face them he will
die, and fear drives him on, always on.
He rounds a blind corner, and she is there.
His goddess. Silver white mistress, tall and ethereal, crowned with
night and stars. She is majesty and beauty and the stark face of his
ending, and he collapses to his knees, staring, spreading his hands in
worship. The knife falls free, lost.
Artemis walks toward him, her white clouds of robes drifting in the cold wind, and the alabaster of her skin is like that of the dead,
drained of life and blood, but still beautiful, so beautiful.
She puts her cold fingers under his chin and tilts his head up, and
he is ashamed to soil her perfection with his sweat, his trembling, his
mortality.
She smiles.
"I accept your sacrifice, " she says, and there is silver music in
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