Death Game

Chapter Twenty-Three

The steps led down into darkness. John went down carefully, Teyla and Jitrine behind. Presumably there were another three people to make up their group following. The ones eager to be in the labyrinth had already descended in the first groups.

There was the glow of firelight ahead, and the corridor broadened. John looked about and nodded with satisfaction as the others came down behind. “You enter a ten by ten corridor,” John said. “It’s lit by four brackets with torches in them. Ahead of you, a ten by ten corridor runs straight ahead. There are also ten by ten corridors going off to the left and the right.” He grinned. “It’s perfect.”

Teyla looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a roleplaying game. I used to play it as a teenager. The dungeons always start exactly like this.” Jitrine was also looking at him with bewilderment. The other three people pushed on ahead, glancing back nervously at his smile and heading straight down the center corridor. They might think his amusement was a little odd, under the circumstances.

Teyla shook her head. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“It’s a puzzle. A game. I used to play a game like this,” he said.

Now she looked alarmed. “With people?”

“No, not with people!” John shoved his hair back out of his eyes. “Well, with pretend people. My friends and I had these characters…” This would take a week. “Look, it’s a really complicated game. But it’s just like this.” He looked around the smoothed stone walls, the iron brackets with torches. Yep. Just like the game. Except for that.

John took a step around, getting his back to it so no one could read his lips. “Teyla, look over my left shoulder. Up where the wall meets the ceiling.”

She breathed out. “A camera.”

“Yeah.”

Jitrine shook her head. “I do not understand.”

“They’ve got to track their bets,” John said. “Otherwise the Wraith can’t follow the game. I’ll bet there are cameras all over this maze.”

Teyla nodded. “And of course most of the contestants have no idea what they are.”

“Before we do anything too weird we’re going to have to take out the cameras,” John said. “And make it look like an accident for as long as we can.”

“You know those men in the first groups are going to ambush us,” Jitrine said. “I heard them talking. They will wait in some appropriate place and then ambush the other groups coming through.”

“That will not be as easy as they think,” Teyla said, reaching up for one of the torches. She brought it down and ground the flame out on the stone, leaving only the smoking bundle of wood. Despite the smoke, she got a second one and did the same. “Sticks,” she said, holding up the wood.

John nodded. He’d seen how lethal Teyla could be with sticks. But now she only had one good arm. “I’ll take one.”

Instead of saying ‘Get your own’ as he’d half expected her to, she handed one over with a smile. “Let us see what you have learned,” she said.

Jitrine looked at the three identical corridors, all of them leading off into darkness. “Which way?”

John thought for a second. “Teyla, which hand is a Wraith’s feeding hand? Usually, I mean.”

Her brow furrowed. “Right, I think. Why is that important?”

“Then we go left,” John said. “Look, the game master always wants you to turn right, so that’s where they’ve fleshed out the dungeon the most and that’s where the most dangerous traps are. Straight is second, and then left is the fastest way through.”

Her frown deepened. “I still have no idea what you are talking about, but left looks as good as any other way.”

“Then we go left,” John said. “And poke the ground ahead of you for traps.” He thought better of it. “Here, let me go first. You take six. I’ll do the poking.”

Teyla stepped back and let him pass her, and he jauntily started poking the floor ahead of them with the butt of the torch. Pit traps would be about par for the course.

“What about ambushes?” Jitrine said behind him.

“Where another corridor crosses or there’s a turn,” John said. “Right here there’s nowhere to hide.” About every thirty feet there was another torch in a bracket, but even the dimness between them wasn’t enough to conceal a man. Poking ahead, he casually looked up at the walls. And where there was a torch, on the opposite side there was a camera. In fact, he wasn’t certain that there weren’t small recessed lights in the ceiling itself, turned off now.

Glancing back, he saw Teyla looking as well. “It’s like a set,” John said. “It’s pretty scary looking, but it’s nothing but a set for their games. A maze for lab rats.”

“Or rabbits?” Teyla asked, and he was glad to see her smile. She didn’t seem unnerved by the deliberate spookiness.

“Or rabbits,” he said.

Jitrine looked at him keenly. “You are not afraid because you have seen something like this before?”

John shrugged.

Jitrine squared her shoulders. “Then we may yet live.”

“I told you we would live, doctor,” Teyla said gently. “I have been in far worse places with Colonel Sheppard and come out alive.”

Ahead, the corridor opened out into another chamber. It was dark, suggesting that someone had had reason to remove the torches. I pretty unsubtle ambush,âhe murmured to Teyla. These guys ahead of us aren't great brains.

Stay back in the corridor, Teyla said to Jitrine quietly. We will handle this.

John eased up toward the entrance. He could see how to play this, but it would involve Teyla doing the heavy lifting. He counted off on his fingers, one, two, three. On three he plunged through the entrance at a run, far out into the dark chamber beyond and then spun around.

Taken by surprise, the two men who had been waiting on either side of the door ran after him, one of them catching him around the knees in a flying tackle. The other one, a step behind, got Teyla's stick across the back of the head, sending him staggering to his knees.

John rolled, laying about with the stick in his own hand. It contacted quite satisfactorily with the guy's arm, a stinging blow that probably didn't break bones but sure hurt. That was good enough to get his feet free, and a swift kick got the guy to let go.

Meanwhile, the third man circled Teyla warily, all too aware of his friend unconscious on the floor. She played him, the stick rising and falling in whirling patterns, silhouetted against the light of the corridor beyond. John saw her movement coming an instant before it happened, the result of practicing with her a lot. A feint, a spin, and the stick hit twice, hard on the top of his right shoulder, just on the muscle, and then the return to the groin. Her opponent collapsed to the floor moaning as the guy John had kicked gathered himself up. Wisely, he turned and ran away, skittering away into the darkness, in loud retreat.

John picked himself up, stick still held at the ready. Teyla's opponent was rolling around on the floor groaning.

The other one, the one she hit over the head, was unconscious. Jitrine bent over him.

Come on, Teyla said. We cannot stay here. Another group will be coming along behind.

John gestured to the guy groaning on the floor. What about him? Armed as they were, with only sticks, they couldn't take prisoners. But leaving this guy in their rear didn't seem much of a plan.

Teyla looked down at him. We must leave him. What else is there?

John shrugged. You mess with us again, we not so nice, ok? He glanced at Teyla. You're lucky she likes you.

He glanced up. There were two doors out, one opposite the entrance they've come in, and the other in the same wall but off to the left of the door.

Empty room, twenty by twenty. Two doors. Just what the game master ordered. Look around and see if you see anything useful, John said. There were no furnishings or even the trunks he half expected.

Up there, Teyla said. At ceiling level on opposite sides were two cameras.

Right, John said. I wonder how our betting odds just changed.

I have no idea what you're talking about, Jitrine said.

Those things in the wall are cameras, doctor, Teyla said. They allow the Wraith High King and his soldiers see what happens here.

Losing optical lenses and electricity, John said, trying to think of the things her society might at least have words for. Trust me, it's complicated. I couldn't even tell you exactly how a video camera works. But it's so they can watch the games.

Jitrine frowned. It's a machine?â

Yes, Teyla said.

And these games are not a sacred rite, but merely entertainment for them? For these you call Wraith?

Yes, Teyla said grimly. And when we have entertained them, they will kill us. We do not intend to allow that to happen.

Jitrine stood up. What do you intend to do?

Teyla looked at John.

We are going to shut this place down, he said. I don't know how yet, but we will. No more death games.

You are one man, Jitrine observed. How do you think you can do such a thing?

Frankly, he had no idea. But Jitrine and Teyla were both waiting for an answer. John shrugged. Theseus was only one guy too, but he killed the Minotaur.

Teyla's mouth twitched, and he wondered if he were really putting anything over on her. That is a story of your people I do not know,she said.

Yeah, I'll have to tell you sometime, John said. I've got another book you could borrow, called The King Must Die. But first, let's get out of here.

Teyla looked around. Which way?

Door in the same wall, John said, looking at the less obvious one. When the game master thinks they are being clever.

This passage was dark, and he poked ahead of them carefully with the butt of the torch. Jitrine was right behind him, and in the dark she almost ran up on him several times. It was a good thing he was feeling ahead, because a flight of stairs down began abruptly. How far he have fallen down if he missed the first step was a really good question.

Stairs, John said. Behind him he heard Teyla halt. He felt around. There is a rail on the left hand wall.

Cautiously, they descended. Twenty two steps. Not quite two stories, maybe a story and a half. There was a faint glow ahead, as of another room torchlit.

Something moaned.

There was something lying at the foot of the stairs. No, someone. As John came closer he saw that it was the boy from the ship, the one who had been in the first group to enter the labyrinth. He was curled at the bottom of the stairs.

Before he could say anything, Jitrine pushed past him and knelt beside the boy. He was cradling his wrist, and there was an open cut down the side of his forehead back into his hair. That happened? Jitrine asked gently.

He looked up at them, his eyes wide and frightened. The man in our group, the big one… He said he was going to win and he hit me with something. I don't know! I turned around and ran, just trying to get somewhere he wasn't.His eyes flicked up to John and back down to Jitrine. I didn't see the stairs in the dark. I guess I fell all the way down.

We must get him into the light, Jitrine said.

John hesitated.

I am a doctor, Jitrine said. This boy has not harmed us, and I am bound to render aid. Now will you help me or not?”

“Yeah.” John bent down and helped her get the boy up, while Teyla checked ahead.

“It is another empty room,” she said. “Two cameras. But this time there is a table and two chairs.”

“Don’t touch anything,” John said. He got the kid and hauled him along, Jitrine hurrying after. There was blood all over her hands where she’d touched the kid’s head.

There were four torches, one on each wall. In the ceiling, hidden among the rough stones, were three or four recessed light fixtures, though they weren’t turned on.

“Set two,” John said. He put the boy down under one of the torches.

“Let me see,” Jitrine said, kneeling down.

“Am I going to die?” the kid asked. There was blood all over his hands too.

“No,” Jitrine said firmly. “Head wounds bleed a lot, but may not be very serious. Why, Sheppard there bled all over me when I stitched his head a few days ago, but he’s perfectly fine now!” She looked at John. “Show him your wound.”

John obligingly pushed his hair back. “See?” he said. “Not so bad.”

“It will give you a very manly scar,” Teyla said with a smile.

The boy stopped shaking quite so much, enough to let Jitrine examine it. To John it looked pretty dramatic, but Jitrine didn’t seem concerned.

“Long and shallow,” she said. “I should stitch it to make sure it doesn’t pull, but it is not as bad as it looks. When we get through this, I will want to tend to it, but it is already stopping bleeding. Let me see your wrist.” As she took his hand he groaned.

“What is your name?” Teyla asked by way of distraction as Jitrine felt it carefully.

“Nevin,” he said. “We’re not getting through it, are we?”

“Yes, we are,” Teyla said.

Jitrine met his eyes matter of factly. “Your wrist is broken. I will need to set it and splint it when we are done. I am sure it is painful, but I do not have anything to give you. They have taken my medical bag.”

Teyla fished in the pockets of her BDUs. “I have another bandage. Perhaps that would bind it for the time being?” She pulled out one of the long field dressings.

“That will do very well,” Jitrine said.

John paced back and forth. “We need to get a move on, people.”

“This will only take a moment,” Teyla said, and gave him what he was beginning to think of as her quelling look. He could say they were going on without the kid, but then Jitrine would insist on staying with him, and Teyla would insist on staying to guard Jitrine, and at that point…

It was easier just to shut up and not play that out.

John walked over and glanced up at one of the wall cameras. “Yeah,” he said.