Beyond the Iris: A Stargate Story

Chapter 19

Daniel

We stepped through the stone arches into the caves and an uneasy feeling washed over me. I turned to Sam and she shared the same eerie look m. We continued walking though ignoring the gnawing in our guts, our headlamps lighting up the gravely pathway. Our boots echoed and crunched with each step, none of us saying a word. As we kept walking I noticed the walls of the cave were marked with what appeared to be primitive drawings, but the further we ventured the more detailed they became, including words. I stopped to read them and my pulse quickened.

"Daniel," Sam called for me and I still stood there, looking around the walls, down at the floor. These were not just words but last words, calls for help, finally goodbyes.

"Stop walking." My voice was low as I bent down and inspected the gravel we had been walking amongst. Fragments of bone shards, teeth, all scattered around us. Jack walked over and I showed him the shards of bone beneath us.

"Don't like that," he shook his head.

"Why didn't they just leave?" Sam asked after I showed them the words painted in a burnt red against the cold gray stones.

"I don't know, but we need to get the device before we end up like them." Jack motioned and we continued deeper into the caverns. The farther we walked the larger the bone pieces became, seeing entire femurs and skulls scattered along the path.

We had reached what appeared to be the end of the caves. A rough circular wall with grooves carved into it, each groove was etched into a maze of patterns from the top of the circle and flowing down to the bottom into the ground. There was a simple wooden table with vials of sand, water, air, and I looked back at the wall and saw the instructions carved there in Ancient.

"Alright Daniel, crack on with your puzzle." Jack sighed and leaned against the wall.

"It's alchemy." I grimaced looking over the jars. "We'll have to pour these into the right channels carved into the wall to create the element to solve the puzzle."

"And if we don't?" Jack crossed his arms and looked back at the table.

"I imagine, we end up like the less fortunate ones scattered in the gravel path we walked on." I stared back at the puzzle. "It's never an easy task is it?" I muttered more to myself and began pouring.

Eleanor

The hike to the caverns was an overgrown uphill trek from the museum, but I took the time to speak with the two guards that accompanied us. Sjorn and Plath had worked for the Eldress Amothe for seven years each. She was the elected high council member for the region, and they filled me in on their history. Anything that I could soak in to keep my nerves steady, to keep my mind from wandering to the worse, that Daniel and the others had died years ago. I appreciated the experience to hear the backgrounds of their people. It was the exact reason I had joined the SGC and now after over a year I was in the field, something I had never anticipated.

Around the time that we suspected SG-1 had landed, the region had just rebuilt after a second major recorded war. They were comparable to America's gilded age, full of promise for the future. Then, somehow time had passed and another war had broken out, this time it was more destructive with advancements in technology both helping the progress of the three countries that made this planet, and hindering them with their acts of aggression towards one another. In this time of peace now, Sjorn and Plath were worried that their home would fall prey again now that information of the gate opening would spread. The other two nations would assume they had kept this information locked from them, and the religious zealots in the area who still believed the gate and MALPs were artifacts from the gods would be outraged.