Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons (5 page)

“Might be for the best, lass” Ferrick rumbled. “Besides, Sul Dughan needs to be told.”

“Who?”

“Our Elder,” said Ceana. She chewed her lip for a moment. Then: “All right. But just to the gates, Ferrick.”

“Aye.” The big man nodded to her, then stalked away down the path. Ceana turned to follow him.

Sheppard drew close to Keller. “Everything okay, doc?”

“I think so. Probably nothing more than a graze, but I want to be sure. Besides, if there’s a village here, maybe we can see if they’re affected by the sky.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

A darkness crossed her face, then.

“That flute,” she breathed. “I thought it was wood, but then I got a closer look at it. John, it was made of bone.”

“Don’t tell me it was human.”

“I wish. It’s Wraith.”

Sheppard dawdled slightly on the way down, staying just far enough back to contact McKay without drawing attention. It was quickly decided that McKay should remain close to the Stargate and continue his tests. Sheppard’s instincts told him that he and Keller were not walking into immediate danger, but if things went south it made sense to have half the team able to head back to Atlantis at a moment’s notice, and if necessary return with a puddle jumper full of reinforcements.

Ceana’s village hugged the coast as if sheltering there, a ragged cluster of stone houses nestling around a rocky cove, ringed by a high wall. The far edge of the cove rose into a sheer face of jagged gray granite a hundred feet high, the churning sea at its base studded with broken boulders. The cliff was terrifying, splintered and saw-edged, but it gave the cove some respite from the wind. Sheppard could see boats down there, drawn up onto the narrow beach.

Looking at them made him shiver: they looked too small, too frail to brave the angry black ocean beyond.

The gates Ceana had mentioned were tall, solidly built and firmly shut. Ferrick lifted his staff and rapped them hard, three times, then turned back to Sheppard. “You’ll wait here.”

Ceana glared at him. “Ferrick…”

“It’s for the Elder to decide, lass.”

Heavy thudding sounds were issuing from the gate, bars being withdrawn. “I guess you don’t get many visitors,” said Sheppard.

“No,” Ferrick replied, almost proudly. “We don’t.”

The gates swung open. Past them Sheppard saw a knot of figures, dark-clad and hunched against the weather. A few turned to stare at him, eyes and mouths wide, and then the gates were hinging closed again.

Just before they shut, he saw Ceana walking away through the crowd. The figures around her were stepping aside, dipping their heads in something close to reverence.

“Atlantis.” Sul Dughan shook his head slowly. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of such a place.”

Sheppard edged a little closer to the hearth. “Yeah, well. It’s not on this planet, so I guess if you’ve never met anyone from off-world before…”

“Walking from world to world…” The Elder rubbed his chin, fingers rasping audibly. “And here I was, all these years, thinking that was just an old stone ring on a hill.”

Plainly, Dughan’s curiosity had won out over Ceana’s concerns. The gates had been opened again after only a few minutes. Ferrick had led Sheppard and Keller to the Elder’s lodge, a long, low structure close to the point where the cove sprawled upwards into cliffside. There they had been welcomed with wooden cups of what appeared to be fish soup, and given seats next to the hearth while Dughan, a slender, stubbled man in his fifties, tried to make sense of them.

“You must have had some off-world contact in the past.” Sheppard’s soup appeared to contain every part of a fish he could imagine, and a few he didn’t want to think about, but if he closed his eyes while he drank it the taste was far from unpleasant. “Ceana called us portal people.”

Dughan shook his head. “Children’s tales. Portal people use shadows like doors, step through to steal noisy babies away. There’s a song, but I’ll do you a kindness and not sing it.”

“A lot of old stories have elements of truth to them,” said Keller quietly. “And Ferrick, what did he call us? Mainlanders?”

“There are no Mainlanders, lass. Not any more.”

“Any more?” Keller glanced across at Sheppard, then back to the old man. In the strange smoky light her skin looked colorless, like marble. “What do you mean?”

“They left us, left the village, a long time ago. Ten families, maybe more. Headed for the largest island to make a new start.” The Elder frowned. “Never came back.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Starvation, maybe. Disease, madness… Life here is hard, lass. This is midsummer.” Dughan picked a clod of what looked like dried peat from a pile, dropped it into the hearth. “It’s not unknown for men to just… Go. Walk into the sea. So we forget the painful truths and keep our stories. Like Sea Folk and the portal people. And we mark our days by the festival.”

“Ceana said that was today,” said Sheppard.

“We hold it whenever the moons align.” The Elder smiled. “It’s just a tradition, there’s nothing to it. We give thanks to the Sea King, ask him to keep the storms away and drive the fish to our boats. Probably sounds foolish to such as you, but it brings a little cheer to the village. Lets us think of something other than mending nets and keeping warm.” He shrugged. “And if someone out there really is listening, and sends a good catch or two our way, where’s the harm?”

“Mister Dughan?” Keller set her soup down. “Would it be okay if we stayed around for a while? For the festival, I mean.”

The Elder looked momentarily unsure. “And why would you want to do that?”

“Well, the reason we’re on this planet is to study how your sky affects living things. Being here for a while would give us the chance to see how you deal with it.” She held up her medical kit. “And if any of your people have minor injuries that I can treat while I’m here, I’ll be happy to do what I can.”

“Unless,” said Sheppard carefully, “there’s a reason you wouldn’t want us around?”

“No, lad, not at all.” Dughan blinked. “Your offer’s a fair trade, and I don’t see the harm in it.”

“Thank you.”

“Until nightfall, of course. I hope you’ll not be offended if we ask you to take your leave by then.”

“No problem,” said Sheppard. “What happens after it gets dark?”

“There’s a fog coming in,” Dughan told him, his voice perfectly level. “A bad one.”

The villagers were already gathered for the festival when Sheppard and Keller left the lodge. Maybe two hundred huddled figures clustering on the hard stony beach; quiet, watchful groups among the boats and the ropes, and lined up along either side of what looked like a narrow wooden jetty.

Sheppard had checked in with Wright and McKay after leaving the lodge, letting them know that he and Keller wouldn’t back until nightfall. When he mentioned the festival he had been forced to cut McKay off before the tinny echo of his protests could be heard leaking from the headset. The villagers had their secrets, he was already certain of it. Only fair that he should keep a few of his own.

They found a place to stand. Dughan had loaned them coats, thick constructions of pressed wool which made the shore’s chill more bearable. Sheppard hoped that the clothing would lessen the villagers’ shock at seeing off-worlders in their midst for the first time. Besides, the P90 was still hanging snug against his chest, and the coat hid that too.

Abruptly, any conversation among the villagers ceased, replaced by a hushed expectancy. Sheppard looked about, trying to see what was going on, and saw a familiar figure. He tapped Keller’s shoulder, nodded wordlessly at the new arrival.

Ceana was walking towards the jetty.

The villagers parted for her, smiling and nodding encouragement as she passed. Sul Dughan walked with her, and there was another man on her far side, bare-headed, his rough, blocky face topped by a tangle of reddish curls. Ceana’s hat was off too, exposing identical hair.

Runs in the family
, thought Sheppard.

The two men stopped at the end of the jetty. Ceana hesitated for a moment, then appeared to steel herself. She walked out onto the creaking wood, towards the sea, only stopping when she was within a yard of the jetty’s end.

Then she lifted her bone pipe, and began to play for the Sea King.

The music was high and clear. It carried easily over the sea’s muted roar, came back over the beach and the crowds, breathy and lilting and slow. It wasn’t a festival tune, not to Sheppard. There was no joy there, no celebration. It was a dirge, a plea, a mourning song. A lullaby for dead children.

He looked over at Keller. She was clearly getting the same unholy shivers down her spine as he was.

A more recognizable feeling returned to the festival after Ceana had finished playing. Sheppard and Keller left the beach surrounded by villagers, many of whom seemed fascinated by their strange accents and tidy hair.

Before long, iron braziers were burning between the stone houses, and strings of bunting, tattered and colorless in the wet air, were raised to flutter madly above the streets. Wooden bowls of rough spirit were passed around. Sheppard declined, but Keller took a sip, purely, she told him, in the interests of science. With a heroic effort she just about managed to stop herself coughing the stuff straight back up again, professing it more akin to turpentine than moonshine.

By then, word of Keller’s medical prowess had gotten around, and after one man had plucked up enough courage to present her with a broken and infected toe she quickly gained a small crowd of potential patients. Sheppard helped her and a couple of the local healers set up a temporary clinic in what looked like an old storehouse, then excused himself. “Are you gonna be okay without me for a while?”

“Sure.” Her borrowed coat was off, and she had rolled her sleeves up to wash her hands in a tarred basin of water. “Where are you going to be?”

“Just taking a look around.”

Keller nodded. “Good idea. Just be back here before dark.”

“Okay, mom.”

“And John?” She leaned close, dropped her voice to a whisper. “Be careful. We’re being lied to.”

Outside, a very different kind of music had started up; drums and a jaunty whirring. Sheppard tugged his hood up, and set off towards its source.

He couldn’t immediately tell where the music was coming from, but the players were at least a street away. He slipped through the narrow space between two houses, taking care not to catch himself on the jagged stone walls. Whatever secrets Sul Dughan might be keeping from him — and Sheppard was certain there were many — the loan of the coat had been a kindness, and he didn’t want to return it damaged.

Screams greeted him as he emerged from between the houses.

His hand darted under the coat on reflex, fingers brushing the P90, but he had already seen the source of the noise; a group of children, younger than Ceana, were flinging themselves up the street, yelping and shrieking in what sounded like a mix of excitement and genuine fear.

Sheppard stepped out behind them, watching villagers shake their heads in the youngsters’ wake, and then heard a wet scrape of metal on stone, a rasp of labored breath. He turned.

Something vast and ragged was clattering towards him, its face a blank, terrifying mask. Sheppard stumbled back until he hit wall, saw the thing lurch to a halt and bring its awful head slowly around to study him.

It laughed. “You’re jumpy, two-wrist.”

“
Ferrick?
” Sheppard stared. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”

The mask was wood, rough-carved and crudely whitewashed. Ferrick’s eyes glittered down at Sheppard from behind it: the man was on stilts, supporting himself on long canes and covered in shreds of what was probably an old sail.

The costumed man’s only answer was a derisive chuckle, and then he was away, stalking with surprising speed up the street and growling theatrically at those he passed.

His headset blipped. “
John, where are you?
”

“Next street along. Everything okay?”

“
I think so… Something weird just happened
.”

“You too, huh?”

“
I just had Ceana’s father in here, kinda drunk. Got the feeling he wanted to talk to me, but there were too many people around.
” Keller’s voice was muted. She must have stepped away in order to use her radio, and was keeping as quiet as she could. “
I tried to call him on it but he got spooked. Asked where you were and then bolted when I said I didn’t know.
”

“Okay, I’ll head back. Any idea which way he went?”

“
Didn’t see, sorry.
”

Sheppard ducked back between the houses, poked his head out and peered left and right along the street. A couple of villagers were there, but no-one he recognized, so he crossed the cobbles, up a tiny side-path and into the winding road beyond.

For a moment or two he was convinced this street was entirely deserted, but then a bulky figure emerged from the shadows, pulled a hood up over gingery hair, and paced away. “I’ve got him. Stand by; I’ll let you know what happens.”

Sheppard cut the connection, began to follow as quickly as he could without drawing attention. He was within ten yards when another figure appeared, quickly crossing the street to intercept the red-headed man. “Marchal!”

It was Sul Dughan, the Elder. Sheppard slowed his pace, found a hiding place close to the wall.

Dughan moved up close to the other man, put a hand to his shoulder. “Where’s Ceana?”

“Home.” Marchal’s voice was slurred. “Elder, she’s terrified. She keeps talking about Ornal…”

“Oh, Marchal…” Dughan dipped his grey head. “Ornal was careless, the poor girl. Ceana won’t be, not with you at her side. But you have to be strong for her.”

“She shouldn’t have to do this.”

“None of us should.” The Elder sighed. “But the King takes his due. We’ve no say in it.”

Marchal shrugged out from under his hand. “Have we not? What about the strangers — if what they say is true, if that stone ring really is a portal to another world, can we not go there? Away from the Folk?”

“I hope so. I’d not have welcomed them otherwise. Maybe, next time, we can gather our people and return with them.” Dughan’s tone had changed. There was steel in it now. “But not today. We’ve been too long without a catch, without giving tribute. We lost Yenna last night, two of Rostlig’s boys the night before. The King won’t be denied. If the bargain falls, your strangers will return to an empty village.” The Elder stepped away from him. “Now go to Ceana. Prepare her. I’ll ready the draught.”