Ad Noctum: Chapter 11

The God of Flame and War flicked open his burgundy-lined coat with showy melodrama.

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Violence. Injuries. Torture. Abduction. Anxiety. Panic. Purposefully insensitive discussion of mental health issues. Loss of agency. Thought control. Boundary problems. Manipulation. Gaslighting. References to suicide. Drug use. Death wishes. Indirect references to sexual assault. Blood. 

Text iteration: It feels late, but I suppose it’s early.

Additional notes: Finally, another long-imagined scene condenses into the world. Fling a handful of sparkly confetti into a bright afternoon!

Chapter 11

The Northern Continent of Rolan spanned thousands of miles north to south. A mountainous ridge split the landmass like an exposed spine. Its windward side was a lush green, partially obscured by cloud; the leeward side was the tawny bed of an evaporated sea. Thirty degrees above the planetary equator, nestled in the foothills, sat Jewel Box Market, named for the tops of the colored tents jumbled inside the high walls of a long-gone palace of Tiamat. From low-planetary orbit, the market lived up to its name, a farrago of color inside a boxlike perimeter of ruins.

Volker, sore from his sparring match with Telford, stood in the workroom, watching the bright jumble of tents grow as they descended. The cloud cover, high and lacy, wisped to static at the edges of the tel’tak’s cloak.

Every muscle ached when he moved.

He didn’t hate it.

At this moment, descending through the atmosphere of a named exoplanet that felt like it could become a real acquaintance, he didn’t hate any of it.

Yeah, he’d been kidnapped. Yeah, his home and his lab and his science had all gone to the fire. Yeah, an alien worm with delusions of godhood had chewed into his shoulder. Yeah, he didn’t know who he could trust, or who David Telford really worked for, or what was going on with Nick Rush.

But he wanted to see more.

He wanted to live as long as he could in this particular life.

He’d never spent much time dreaming about the exploration of alien worlds. He liked classic sci-fi for the same reason he liked classical music—it was full of timeless themes and a worthwhile way to spend an evening. But now? His old life had cracked down a central seam and flown away on rigging, like operatic scenery.

So much more felt possible.

They ringed from the ship to a raised platform a quarter mile from the market’s walls. It was early morning, and the sun wasn’t yet above the ridge of the mountains. The plate of the dry seabed stretched to the horizon. Sand, gray-gold in the shadow of the mountains, shifted in serpentine patterns.

“Arrakis,” Volker said with satisfaction.

“Dune?” Telford asked.

“Desert planet,” Rush said. “Let’s fuckin’ go, shall we?” He started toward the crumbling walls that held Jewel Box Market.

“It’s not really a desert planet,” Telford said. “Ra torched the hell out of it thousands of years ago. He opened up with a fleet from high orbit. Killed Tiamat. Vaporized her sea. Lit the atmosphere on fire. No one survived.”

This caught Rush’s interest. Probably it was the “atmosphere on fire” of it all. “Why?” he threw back over his shoulder.

“There are a few theories,” Telford said. “Tiamat was an early consort of Ra. She plotted against him. Some stories say she had an Ancient artifact she wouldn’t turn over. Some say she mated with Osiris before his madness. Together, the two of them conspired to seed the galaxy with Tok’ra spawn.”

Volker remembered Tapes Guy talking about the Tok’ra. “I thought their queen was Egeria.”

Telford looked at him, surprised. “She was. Tiamat died before her plan came to pass. I don’t know. That story sounds more like Tok’ra propaganda to me—a well-known cataclysm as mythic precedent.”

“What’s the LA position on the death of Tiamat?” Volker asked.

Thin crusts of sand, left behind by night frost, crunched underfoot. Rush, a little ahead, picked his way elegantly between spiny plants that edged the road to Jewel Box Market.

Telford smiled faintly. “I like where your head’s at, but the LA doesn’t take positions on the political maneuvering of its oppressors.”

“Got it,” Volker said.

Rush looked back over his shoulder, his stitched-together Time Lord coat flaring as he turned. “But they do tell a Fire Story.”

“A Fire Story,” Telford repeated, curious. “Not one I’ve heard.”

“What’s a Fire Story?” Volker asked.

“A ghost story,” Telford replied, “told around a fire. Usually it has a moral. ‘Don’t trust strangers.’ Or maybe ‘Don’t seek forbidden knowledge.’ It’s an LA version of a galactic oral tradition. You find it on most worlds conquered by the Goa’uld, including Earth.”

The wind picked up, carrying the dry smell of sand and stone.

“So?” Volker said as they followed Rush toward the gates of Jewel Box Market. “You gonna tell us the Fire Story, man?”

Rush glanced over his shoulder, as if weighing Volker’s sincerity. “Osiris and Tiamat were unique among the Goa’uld. The last to fall to the madness of immortality. For a time, between the Empire of Anubis and the Empire of Ra, they created a free society on Rolan. It lasted for centuries. But, eventually, the Sun God Ascendant took notice.”

Telford’s gaze bored into Rush’s back, hungry and speculative.

“Sounds pretty similar to the Tok’ra theory,” Volker said, aiming to lighten the mood.

“As the fleet approached,” Rush continued, “Osiris and Tiamat were visited by a stranger. He came in the form of an old man. Shining hair. Eyes like the sea. He offered them the means to defend Rolan, but only Rolan, from the armies of Ra. They accepted the offer,” Rush said. “And when Ra’s forces arrived, they found Rolan had vanished.”

“Vanished like Brigadoon or vanished like a Romulan Warbird?” Volker asked.

Telford glowered in his direction. “You trying to die today?”

Volker gave him a who-me shrug straight out of musical theater.

Rush ignored them. “Its gravitational field remained. It was possible to orbit Rolan’s galactic coordinates, but fire from Ra’s ships passed through empty space and hit nothing.”

“They were out of phase,” Telford said.

“For years Ra hunted them,” Rush continued. “For years, they eluded him. But Osiris turned restless. He abstracted the principles behind the technology they’d been gifted. Wrote them down. Smuggled them off Rolan. The instant he ringed into the temple of Isis, intent on sharing his tactical advantage, Rolan’s protection failed. The world was blasted by a wave of supernatural heat that even Ra couldn’t explain. Everyone on the planet’s surface died, including Tiamat. Osiris’s ability to vanish was gone. He was caught by Set and torn into pieces. Parts of his body sent to the farthest-flung corners of the galaxy, so that no sarcophagus might ever stitch him back together.”

Telford watched Rush, eyebrows up. “He was, though. His parts were found. He was put back together.”

“He wasn’t the same,” Rush said without looking back.

The decayed walls of Tiamat’s ancient palace rose ever higher.

“Hey,” Telford said. “Stop for a minute.”

Rush stopped. He didn’t turn. Volker caught a subtle twitch in his stance.

“Not bad for a trick pull with an injured shoulder,” Telford said.

Rush turned, his expression pleasant, small knives in his hands. He spun the blades into reverse-grips but didn’t raise his guard. “Will we be beating one another to death today?”

Telford didn’t answer.

Volker, torn between dismissing the threat as melodrama and worrying about how seriously Telford seemed to be taking it, raised his hand. “I vote no, if anyone cares?”

“I also vote no,” Telford said.

“In that case,” Rush purred, like rocket fuel poured over ice, “I’d consider your next words carefully. Because if they’re anything other than, ‘Have a nice time shopping; see you in twenty-four hours,’ y’won’t enjoy what follows.”

Telford’s jaw clenched. His shoulders rose. “I—” he cut himself off.

Rush flicked a knife out of its reverse grip and spun it over the back of his hand. He caught it again. “‘I hope you have a nice day,’ is the phrase I believe you’re looking for?”

Telford, defeated, relaxed his stance, gestured at the ruins with theatrical irony, and said, “I hope you have a nice day. We’ll see you in twenty-four hours. Right here.”

Rush sheathed his knives. “Very civilized; I agree to your terms.”

Volker felt a twinge of unease. Telford was a Reasonable Guy, and, in Volker’s experience, Reasonable Guys weren’t usually fazed by homicidal theater-kid energy, which meant Telford was either humoring a crazy person or taking the threat seriously.

In the rain shadow of alien mountains, it felt more like the latter than the former.

Rush looked at Volker. “Are y’coming?”

Blown sand susurrated over the dry limestone seabed.

“Me?” Volker pointed at his own chest.

“No.” Telford shook his head. “You can’t take Dale to The Little God.”

“I’m not likely to ‘take Dale’ anywhere.” Rush turned and started for the gates. “He’s coming. Or not.”

Hoping for direction, Volker looked at Telford.

“Seventy-five percent chance he gets you killed. I wouldn’t.” The words landed as casual, but there were frown-lines in Telford’s forehead.

Volker hesitated, not liking those odds, but not sure he trusted them either. “You don’t have a radio or something? So we can stay in contact?”

“No way can you walk into The Little God with a USAF radio,” Telford said.

“What’s The Little God?”

“A snakehead hotel and bar that caters to Goa’uld expats,” Telford said. 

“Ugh.” Volker felt a wave of cold nausea. Involuntarily, he reached for his shoulder. It had healed supernaturally fast. Too bad the memory of gnashing teeth and bloody, membranous hackles wasn’t as quick to go. “Why would he go there?”

There was a hint of regret in Telford’s expression. “He’s crazy. C’mon. Let’s go see a guy about some backup drive elements. Yeah?”

Volker hesitated.

Staying with Telford would be safer. Easier. He’d learn tons, especially if he asked the right questions about ships and weapons, customs and currency. But—

“He kinda ‘invited’ me,” Volker said. “He doesn’t usually do stuff like that.”

Telford’s expression closed. Cooled. “Your funeral.”

“Yeah,” Volker breathed. “I’m not excited about it, but you were the one who said we should track what he says. Shouldn’t that translate to—”

“On the ship,” Telford broke in, “sure. But following him into a Goa’uld bar? Bad idea.”

Volker took a step back. A little further from Telford, a little closer to Jewel Box Market.

Telford shifted, deliberately releasing the tension in his shoulders. The tension in his jaw. “Dale,” he began, charming and friendly.

But Volker turned. “Gotta go,” he said, and jogged after Rush.

Even with his aching muscles, a short run on level ground in the crisp air of a desert morning felt like luxury. Especially after days of doing short sprints in a cramped cargo bay.

Volker caught the mathematician at the base of Tiamat’s walls, high and cracked with broken remnants of sea snakes carved in bas-relief. Inside the gates, the market was loud and boisterous. Small gold drones zipped through the crowd and hovered next to the brightly colored stalls. Merchants hawked their wares in a mishmash of languages, but Volker heard a surprising amount of English. Goats brayed, chickens clucked, and children chased one another through the crowd.

“Hey.” Volker fell into step at Rush’s shoulder. “I hear we’re going to a snakehead bar.”

Rush gave Volker a once-over, supercilious and cool. “Watch your language.”

“What?”

Rush wove through the crowd, his glasses drawing occasional double takes from the passers-by. “This particular class of disenfranchised former deities prefers the designation ‘Netjeru’?”

“Okay, sure. Do the Netjeru sell awesome jackets?”

Rush’s sly side-eye poured itself down Volker’s cheek. “It’s not at all clear to me that Dale of the Sixth House has the resources to afford a coat such as this.” He gave his own lapels a subtle tug.

“I think ‘Dale’ is owed a favor?” Volker said.

“Perhaps something can be arranged,” Rush replied.

The Little God rose above the colored tents, built into the cracked-off base of a razed tower. Its stone walls were pale limestone, embedded with nautiloid whorls of all sizes and the scalloped edges of buried shells. The upper reaches of the ruined tower were cracked and open to the sky. A harlequin mix of materials made up the front of the establishment: wood, gem-studded gold panels that might have come from the deck plates of a tel’tak, and childish, broken-glass mosaics. In places, colored chips had fused into hard pools of charred glass, as though they’d been struck by miniature bolts of lightning.

“Incredible,” Volker breathed.

“Look less impressed,” Rush advised.

Two guards stood at The Little God’s front entrance. They held cool technomage-y staffs and wore armor that would have been intimidating except for how it was split between them. The first guard wore greaves, the second guard bracers. The first wore a closed helmet in the shape of an eagle, the second a chest plate with feathers etched into the metal.

When Rush’s booted foot hit the first step of the entry, the two closed ranks, wizard staffs out. They said something in Goa’uld that Volker didn’t catch, though he did pick up a “kree” in there, so, hey! Progress.

Rush gave the guards an elaborate bow. More of a curtsey, really, with one foot drawn behind him. “We’re here for The Shell Weaver. For the Mistress of the Unwearying Stars. For the Most Vaunted. The Beloved of Ptah. Does she hold court today?”

The guards asked another question in Goa’uld.

“A supplicant.” Rush, still in his bow, arced his foot behind him and dug his toe into the back of Volker’s knee. Hard. “I’ve brought her a gift.”

Volker’s knee buckled, and he found himself kneeling in chalky white sand.

“Seriously?” Volker whisper-hissed.

The guards looked Volker over skeptically.

Volker didn’t blame them.

Reluctantly, the guards parted. The door behind them yawned wide and dark. Deep within the entryway, paired lanterns hung, burning like fiery fangs.

Rush rose and ascended the steps.

No way was Rush gonna sell Volker to a Goa’uld.

Right?

Ugh.

Volker wished he could be sure, but, even by Rush’s nonsensical standards, that seemed a bridge too far.

He scrambled to his feet and followed the mathematician into The Little God.

They passed along a cool limestone hall, lit with fiery sconces. Rush exchanged a few words in Goa’uld with a maitre’d wearing a gold bikini. Tattered gauze wafted from her breasts and hips. Her skin was dry and scarred where her metal clothes dug into her.

Volker wished he could say something. Help her out. Trying would probably get him killed. 

Maybe someday, though. 

Rush led them along a short, curved hallway, which opened onto a limestone stair, grand and wide.

Volker followed him up.

At the top of the stairs was a set of doors, adorned with shell and the cracked skeletons of coral. 

Rush shook his hair back. Adjusted his glasses. Glanced at Volker.

Volker gave him a this-is-your-party shrug.

Rush shoved the doors wide.

They stepped into a palatial room of pale limestone, canopied by open sky. Carven fish sprayed gouts of arced water into waiting grates on either side of a path of pale peach tile that led from the door to a low dais. Across the room, on a throne of cream-colored coral skeleton, sat an enchantress of the ancient world. 

Her dark hair swept into a coif of piled curls topped by a glittering tiara that shone like an oasis under desert sun. A streak of soft white ran through her hair, as though the limestone seabed had marked her brow. Her hands rested delicately on her throne of coral, like she was merely paying base physical reality a temporary visit.

She rose, and her dusty crowd of supplicants parted.

Her outfit was identical to Rush’s but for color. Her coat and pants were dyed a mottled, pastel cream, like the exterior of a shell. The lining of her coat was a wash of pale pink. Her Drow armor vest was white and gray, peach and lavender. A wide, triangular gem the color of moonstone rested at her throat.

She and Rush, bookending a row of desert fountains, looked at one another.

“Behold,” she said, and her voice was multi-tonal, descending from contralto to a deep bass impossible for any human to achieve. She extended an elegant hand toward them.

The crowd of supplicants turned to stare at Rush.

And Volker.

Volker felt none of the terror that had come with confronting a Goa’uld in the subterranean depths of a naquadria refinery. When she spoke, her eyes didn’t glow.

“Resheph,” she intoned in her incredible vocal blend. “Ra’s Doorkeeper.” Her eyes, electric, swept over Rush. “God of Flame. God of War.” She smiled, sparkling and generous, and turned to her supplicants. “Ever have beauty and destruction been betrothed. As are Aphrodite and Ares, Parvati and Shiva, thus are we. Q’tesh,” she brought a delicate hand to her own breast, “and Resheph.” She extended her hand and swept out a welcoming arc.

Volker felt a strange pang of sympathy and envy. She was good. If he hadn’t seen a Goa’uld, if he hadn’t had one try to bite its way into his spine, he probably wouldn’t know the difference.

This wasn’t a Goa’uld. This was Rush’s girl. The con artist with a great smile.

Resheph, God of Flame and War, flicked open his burgundy-lined coat with showy melodrama and went to one knee.

Volker followed, quicker off the mark this time, the old musical theater thrill singing through his blood.

The crowd of supplicants murmured with confusion and awe.

“As you see, destruction itself kneels to beauty.” Q’tesh tipped her chin up, telegraphing satisfaction. “Rejoice,” she intoned. “Your Queen’s beloved has returned.”

The crowd broke into applause and anxious cheers. A trio of robed figures sang a hymn, and scattered voices joined in.

As though this were a signal Rush had been waiting for, he rose and strode down the tile path, approaching the dais. Volker scrambled to his feet and followed. Q’tesh stepped to the edge of the dais and extended a creamy boot, her toes hovering just beyond the low platform.

Rush knelt with another swish-flick of his matching coat.

Volker followed his lead without the cool coat flick.

Delicately, Rush grasped the divine ankle and pressed his lips to the top of Q’tesh’s foot.

Volker wouldn’t have minded the opportunity to do likewise, but Q’tesh said, “Come, beloved. Partake of your Goddess’s favor.”

Rush slid a hand up her calf, confident and slow. Between his Earth glasses and his Time Lord coat he should have looked ridiculous. The way Volker himself felt. But passion burned in his gaze, and the hand he ran up her thigh was simultaneously daring and reverent. As though she truly were a goddess of love. 

Q’tesh captured his hand and drew him up. She hiked a shapely leg around her consort’s hip, plastering their bodies together, running her hands beneath Rush’s coat. Looking up at them from the floor in front of the dais, Volker caught a quick tap of the jewel at the base of her throat, and a breathy, “You gorgeous thing,” without a trace of alien bass.

Rush threaded a hand into the tangle of Q’tesh’s upswept hair and kissed her with the kind of leading-man confidence that Volker had been sure only worked in movies.

Q’tesh broke the kiss, tapped the jewel at her throat, and cried, “Rejoice, supplicants!” with a wild joy that an alien multi-octave delivery couldn’t obscure. “Today,” she continued, a sultry note entering her multi-tonal voice, “you witness the Sacred Union of Love and Death.”

Rush kissed her again, and the crowd burst into cheers and applause.

Volker, still on his knees, contributed a halfhearted, “Yeah!”

With the same height, the same build, and the same mirror-image outfits—they truly did seem like minor deities, pulling a divine con on older, greater gods. They ran hungry hands over one another, as though desperate to re-learn every inch and curve. That, or find stolen keys.

Again, Q’tesh tapped her jewel. With a devious smile, she plunged her hand into Rush’s leather pants. “You brought a friend,” she breathed. “Is he for me?”

“No.” Rush kissed Q’tesh’s exposed neck and slipped a hand between the soft leather of her vest and her skin. “He’s for me.”

“I could be for her,” Volker muttered from the floor at their feet, quiet enough not to be heard by the crowd. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“She’d eat you alive,” Rush said, methodically feeling up a seashell and flower-petal goddess of love.

“I would.” With an angelic smile, Q’tesh pulled her hand out of the front of Rush’s pants and threaded it up under his vest.

The crowd ooohed and scattered applause broke up the ongoing hymn to the Goddess of Love.

“You guys want a room, maybe?” Volker suggested.

Rush huffed a laugh, brought a hand to the small of Q’tesh’s back, and slid a thigh between her knees. He pulled her close.

“Forward.” Delighted, Q’tesh ground against Rush’s upper thigh. “You can have a buckle. Just one. Choose wisely.”

Rush arched an elegant brow. One-handed, he reached into her coat.

Q’tesh arched her back, flicked her coat away from her body, and bared a shining, rose-gold buckle at the top of the bodice of her vest. Volker’s gaze lingered on the strip of bare skin below her collarbone.

Q’tesh caught him looking and winked.

Reverently, Rush undid the buckle and parted the leather, revealing a hint of Q’tesh’s small, perfect breast. He pressed his lips to her exposed skin.

Q’tesh slid her hand from inside Rush’s vest with a theatrical flick of the wrist. She lifted a hand, combing her fingers through Rush’s hair as he kissed his way inside her vest. She arched her head back like a dancer and ran two fingertips beneath the collar of Rush’s jacket in an idle, thorough sweep. “I adore you,” she said languidly, her eyes on the pale blue of the sky.

Rush lifted his head and looked at her.

She smiled, a goddess conferring favor. “Come, consort. Your manservant has a point. This is best finished in private.”

“Manservant?” Volker echoed.

Q’tesh dismounted Rush’s thigh, tapped the gem at her throat, and addressed the assembled crowd. “Go,” she thundered, “The grace of your queen shall follow you this day and bless all your endeavors.”

Rush stepped back and dipped into an ostentatious bow, flicking his coat so the burgundy liner caught the bright day.

Volker, still on one knee, bent and angled his head to watch the crowd respectfully file down the fountain-lined path. When the last person had vanished beyond the coral and shell doors, he looked up at the Goddess of Love and said, “Manservant?”

Q’tesh flashed him a charming grin. She tapped her gem. “Forgive me, sweet thing. Are you a squire?”

Volker couldn’t help grinning back. “I mean, at least.”

Q’tesh offered Rush an unceremonious hand and pulled him to his feet. “Are we bringing him?”

Rush inclined his head, an amused arch to his brow.

“Come on then.” Q’tesh led them behind her seashell throne. With a wave of her hand, a hidden door opened in the wall, revealing a dark passage. They followed her petal-colored coat into a narrow tunnel.

“This is your girl, right?” Volker whispered. “You’re not even gonna introduce me?”

Rush opened a you-get-what-you-get hand and shrugged his good shoulder.

“Thanks, man. Thanks a lot.”

Q’tesh led them into the light of a ramshackle room that belonged in a low-end bed-and-breakfast.

A narrow cot with a dingy cream coverlet had been shoved into one corner. At its foot was an iron-banded chest with an ornate lock. A simple wooden wardrobe stood against the far wall, next to a grimy window. In the center of the room was a small, round table with four chairs.

Q’tesh moved a chair aside and positioned herself at the table.

Rush, still mute, stood opposite her. Q’tesh gave an excited shoulder-shimmy.

“Hi,” Volker said. “What are we doing?”

The Mistress of the Unwearying Stars and Ra’s Doorkeeper ignored him.

Q’tesh bounced on the balls of her feet. “You first,” she said.

Rush arched a God of Flame eyebrow and spat a chunk of topaz the size of a walnut into his palm. He wiped it on his shirt with a courtly flourish and said, “Y’good as gave me that one.”

Volker stared at the smoky yellow stone, still wet with Rush’s saliva. “Did you bite that out of her corset?”

Q’tesh swept Volker with a head-to-toe gaze. “Forward for a squire, isn’t he?”

“Vala,” Rush said, “meet Dale of the Sixth House. Dale, meet Vala Mal Doran, former host to Q’tesh, still a goddess of love.”

Former host? Volker almost asked. Fortunately, he caught himself in time. Nice to know that getting spine-parasitized wasn’t a one-way street.

Vala gave Volker a sharp look. “Sixth House? I doubt it.” She reached into the bodice of her Drow vest and withdrew—

“Hey.” Volker looked at Rush. “Isn’t that your dagger?”

“He’s usually better behaved.” Rush tipped his head back, reached into his own mouth and reverse-spaghetti’d a silver necklace from under his tongue. He dropped it in a glistening pile next to the topaz.

“I should hope so.” Vala flourished a flash drive from the creamy leather sleeve of her jacket and set it beside the dagger.

“Did you guys pick-pocket each other?” Volker asked.

“Alas.” Rush flicked a copper ring studded with emeralds from the sleeve of his coat into his palm. He held it up for inspection, then set it beside the necklace. “One can’t call him quick-witted.”

Volker huffed. “Hey. I think I do okay.”

Vala flicked her wrist, and a slim blade with no handle covering its tang slid into her palm. She laid it beside the flash drive.

Rush threaded a gossamer-thin, shell-handled garrote from beneath his own collar and coiled it on the table beside the ring.

Vala dipped a hand down the front of her pants and eased Rush’s matte-silver flask of rocket fuel past the tight leather.

Rush produced a mother-of-pearl switchblade from the top of his knee-high boot.

Vala dropped a handful of dry cat food on the table.

“That’s mine, actually.” Volker swept it into his hand, then dumped it into his pocket.

Rush plunged two fingers down the front of his Drow corset and eased a matte black hairpin from the tight space between skin and leather.

Vala slid two fingers into her mouth and pulled a wafer-thin chip of pale pink crystal from the pocket of her cheek. She gave it a gentle kiss and placed it on the table.

Rush reached into the lining of his coat and pulled out an ornamental comb made of silver filigree, decorated with small chips of crystal in smoky white, peach, and lavender, arranged to resemble a cluster of shells. Instead of setting it on the table, he offered it to Vala.

She inspected it, but didn’t take it, her eyes shining. “Is this a gift?” She smiled. “You can’t count a gift, y’know.”

“Not even one I’ve defended?” Rush asked. “It wasn’t easy.”

Vala touched her fingertips to the stylized shells. “Where was it?”

“A lady never tells,” Rush said.

“You can’t count stolen lines, either.” Vala unclipped her tiara, slid the comb into her hair, then pulled a thin soldering pick from her tangle of curls and laid it triumphantly on the table. “I win.”

Rush inclined his head and slid her pile of jewels and weapons across the table.

Vala did the same, and they systematically re-armed and re-adorned.

Volker jostled his jacket until the cat food settled at the bottom of his pocket.

“What happened to your coat, gorgeous?” Vala asked. “It looks like someone sliced it off you with a dull knife.”

“You’re not wrong,” Rush replied. “I’m in need of a repair job.”

“You’ve come to the right place,” she said. “How long do we have?”

“Twenty-four hours,” Rush said.

There was a flash of disappointment in Vala’s expression, but, “That’s a lifetime,” she said with a glittering smile. 

The morning passed in a quiet sartorial flurry.

Not exactly what Volker had pictured when he’d imagined spending the day with his craziest shipmate.

Rush and Vala, stripped to their Drow corsets and leather pants, worked on each other’s coats at the room’s central table. 

Vala had Telford’s Frankensteinian repair job unpicked in about five minutes. She measured and sewed custom strips of reinforcing leather up one sliced cuff, over the separated shoulders, and down the other sleeve. It was more than a mechanical repair—Volker saw her add trick pockets and hidden compartments as she worked.

Despite Vala’s protestations about his injured shoulder, Rush had insisted on access to her coat. He made tiny cuts in the leather at its hem, at its collar, at its sleeves. In each spot, he slipped a wafer of crystal into the lining, then stitched it in place with cream-colored thread.

Volker sat on Vala’s bed, with nothing to do but consider his options.

It would be a bad idea to blow his cover story to a con artist posing as a goddess on the edge of LA territory. He tried to think what Dale of the Sixth House might say. Nice, reliable Dale. 

“He can track you with those, y’know,” Volker said, blunt and nervous.

Rush looked up at Volker with enough withering academic disapproval to ruin the collective self-esteem of a mid-sized American university.

Vala gave Volker a dazzler of a smile. “I know, you sweet thing. Where are you from? Minnesota?”

Shoot.

Volker cleared his throat. “Never heard of that planet.”

“Oh? My mistake. I just assumed, because it sounded for a minute there like an LA operative was offering a deposed oppressor a kindness.”

“It wasn’t a kindness,” Volker protested. “It was—er, I could use a better coat.”

Vala made an amused sound. “You could.”

“Especially since I’m, uh, your consort’s squire?”

“He makes a point,” Rush said, like the bored narrator of a Pettiness Documentary.

Vala waved Volker to his feet. “Stand up. Let’s have a better look.” She put her hands on her hips, and Volker did his best not to stare at her sculpted shoulders. She gave him a little twirl of her finger.

Dutifully, he turned in a circle.

“Take it off,” she decided.

“Take what off?”

“Everything.” Vala rummaged through the trunk at the foot of her bed. She came up with a small metal tin and tossed it to Volker without warning.

Volker fumbled the tin and bent to pick it up. Vala threw a rag at his head. 

“Start with cleaning,” she said. “Then we’ll see what can be done.”

Rag and tin in hand, Volker stood uncertainly beside the bed.

Vala looked at Rush. “Oh, he is so new,” she breathed.

“I know,” Rush said softly.

Vala pulled out a chair for Volker.

“I’m not new.” Volker put the tin and rag on the table like he knew what he was doing. He peeled off his jacket and sat.

“That’s a Tau’ri T-shirt,” Vala said.

“Borrowed it from Telford,” Volker countered.

Vala’s expression turned mischievous. “Did you borrow his underwear too?”

“No,” Volker replied. “I mean—”

“Give it the fuck up,” Rush suggested.

“And strip, Earth boy,” Vala added.

They worked through lunch and into the late afternoon. Vala finished the structural repair on Rush’s coat, cut new seams into Volker’s T-shirt to disguise its Tau’ri origins, and altered his jacket and pants to fit. Rush finished secreting crystal in Vala’s coat and moved to Volker’s.

As the afternoon headed toward evening, the frantic pace of the tailoring slowed.

The sun shone through the grimy window as Vala lifted a tray of metallic threads out of the trunk at the foot of her bed. They caught the soft light—rose gold and silver, copper and gunmetal, champagne and brass. She held each in turn to Rush’s jacket.

Care was etched into her shoulders, her jaw, the tilt of her head as she considered the merits of each thread.

Volker stepped to her shoulder, looking down at Rush’s incredible coat, the ash and wine mirror of her own shell and shine palette. She’d made this for him. Maybe from scratch.

“You’re a true artist,” he told her.

She breathed a laugh, all performance.

“I’m serious,” Volker said. “This is incredible. Were you trained? Or does it come with—with—”

“Hosting?” Vala asked lightly. “No, sweet thing. My mother was a weaver.”

“How will you choose?” Volker gestured at her tray of metallic threads.

“Well.” She ran a fingertip along the line of the days-old, jagged cut Volker had made when he’d sliced the coat off Rush. “This leather isn’t a jet black. It softens, just the slightest bit, into charcoal. Have you noticed?”

Volker smiled. “Uh, no.”

“It’s very difficult to retain a true black in leather exposed to the elements. Plus, jet would wash out my consort, and we can’t have that.”

“Perish the thought,” Rush said, bent over Volker’s jacket.

“A true black with a burgundy liner demands gold,” Vala continued. “But this isn’t true black.”

Rush lifted a brow. “Embroider my jacket in gold and I’ll have some explaining to do at my next meeting with Kiva.”

Vala pulled four spools of thread from the tray: rose gold, copper, champagne, and silver, then carried them over to Rush. Rather than asking his opinion, she held them up to his hair, ordering and reordering them in her hands. “Show me your eyes, gorgeous?”

Rush tipped his head back and looked up at her.

They stared at one another. There was no threat in Rush’s eyes, no theater in hers.

Volker felt a throb of envy, deep and old.

No one had ever looked at Dale Volker like that. Probably, no one ever would.

“How’d you guys meet?” Volker asked, hoping the intimacy of the moment would translate into a real answer.

“He was a job.” Vala put a light pressure on the back of Rush’s head and he straightened, then went back to his work.

“A job,” Volker repeated, astonished.

“A difficult one.” Vala set her four spools in a line on the table next to Rush’s coat. “But it’s not the kind of story you tell without wine.”

Rush sighed. “Must we?”

“We must,” Vala said. “Come, consort, I bought you a voice modulator.” She crossed to the wardrobe, flung the doors wide to reveal an array of sparkling outfits. She dug through a drawer and came up with an oxblood choker with an onyx stone at its center. She tossed it at Rush.

The mathematician caught it, then studied it with a frown. “Dale’s likely to get murdered, y’realize.”

“No one will lay a finger on the First Prime of Q’tesh,” Vala replied. “Let’s go out, boys. I need to feast if I’m to work through the night. Consider it my fee.”

“I don’t have any money,” Volker admitted sheepishly.

“What about wearable gemstones?” Vala asked.

“Fresh out,” Volker replied.

Vala huffed a sigh. “My treat, then. You can owe me.”

“He doesn’t owe you,” Rush said, dry as silicate powder. “I just sewed a fortune into your coat. You’re not allowed t’sell it, by the way.”

Vala shot Rush an unimpressed look. “Then it’s not a functional fortune, is it?”

Rush buckled on the leather choker, centered the onyx at the base of his throat, and pressed it. “One can’t have everything,” he said in doubled vocal register.

Volker jumped.

“Ah,” Vala said appreciatively. “Speaking with the authority of Heaven will do a lot to offset those ridiculous glasses. Most Earth men wear contacts, you know.”

Rush pressed the stone again. “I’ve heard that,” he said in his normal voice, “but Ra’s Doorkeeper needs t’see.”

“So you’ve said.” Vala beckoned to Volker. “Come, little squire. I need to draw something on your forehead.”

They went no further than the restaurant theater of The Little God.

Vala, resplendent in a gown of shimmering pearl that bared her back, led the way through halls of peeling gold paint and crumbling limestone. Rush escorted her in a borrowed outfit—a black leather corset with crossed harness straps studded with silver and hooked to his onyx voice-modulator. The getup would have left his still healing shoulder exposed but for the elegant black jacket with silver buckles Vala had conjured from the back of her wardrobe.

Volker brought up the rear in his newly tailored leather. An oval-enclosed lotus was painted on his forehead, and a zat was strapped to his thigh.

Heads turned as they passed. Maybe it was Vala’s dark hair, cascading down her back and adorned with small shells. Maybe it was Rush’s overgrown college-professor shag, incorporated into a dutch braid laced with strings of onyx and garnet. Their chins were up, their eyes were proud, their strides were matched.

They looked more like siblings than lovers.

From what Volker knew of the Goa’uld, siblings and lovers weren’t mutually exclusive.

Vala ascended a creaking stair carpeted with threadbare velvet the color of lapis lazuli. She headed toward an open door that spilled yellow light and laughter; snatches of Goa’uld, and English; snippets of music, bars of song.

A deep ache of homesickness rode the crests of breaking melody. More than his bed, his couch, the smell of coffee, the shine of the glass in Caltech’s Planetary Sciences Building—Volker missed his music library.

Vala passed through the doors and let them onto a balcony overlooking a raucous floor of drinking, laughing, talking people dressed in dusty leather and poor cloth. On a stage at the far end of the room, a bejeweled woman with dark hair, straight and short, sang her part in a love song. The painted scenery around her glowed a gaudy ultramarine. 

Opera. Goa’uld opera.

Volker’s throat closed.

Straining to hear over the sound of the chattering, unappreciative crowd, Volker caught the word for sea. The word for beg. Ra’s name. This was Tiamat. She lifted her arms, begging Ra for mercy in song, importunate and lovely, standing at the base of her doomed sea. Ruby serpents, rendered in gems, coiled from her shoulders up her wrists.

Ra, his expression pitiless, stood above her on a platform lined with real flame. The gold of his robes flickered red around its hem. A war crown styled with paired hackles-open symbiotes rested on his dark braids.

Volker’s attention on the opera broke as Rush, without looking, crushed the elegant heel of his elegant boot into Volker’s instep.

A handsome man with a Tony-Stark beard at a nearby table rose to his feet. He wore blue and gold robes embroidered with tiny crystal beads sewn into the shape of lightning bolts. “Q’tesh.” He offered her a shallow bow, just a dip at the waist.

Didn’t feel like quite enough, in Volker’s opinion.

“Lord of Storms.” Vala greeted him in gracious double-register. “It’s been too long.”

Knockoff Tony Stark stepped back, smoothed the blue and gold brocade of his coat and said, “I’d heard you’d taken a lover.” He eyed Rush up and down, his gaze lingering on the designer frames of Rush’s glasses. “Won’t you introduce us?”

“We’ve met.” Rush’s silky charm dropped a register and hit as otherworldly menace. “Ba’al.”

Ba’al went still. His brow furrowed, as if trying to place an invisible face.

Vala smiled a predatory smile. “Surely you recall Resheph. The Doorkeeper?”

“Resheph.” Ba’al’s double register was soft and speculative. “An old name. I was not aware Ra’s Doorkeeper survived the rebellion of the Underlords and the redistribution of the Eyes.”

Rush angled his head as if listening to something none of them could hear. The flames of Ra’s operatic platform flickered in the frames of his glasses. “You dare question me? No naquadah shores up the crystal of your life, lesser copy.”

Ba’al flinched and looked to Vala, astonished.

“See that the finest wines are brought to our table,” she said, shimmering and severe. “The freshest fruit. The choicest cuts of the choicest meat.”

With a speculative look at Rush, Ba’al bowed. “I’ll see to it personally.”

Vala led Rush and Volker to a private table overlooking the stage, separated from the rest of the upper-crust balcony crowd. “Beautifully done, you gorgeous thing,” she murmured as they slid into their seats, but her eyes were unsettled.

“What kind of insult was that?” Volker asked in an undertone.

“Ba’al is a clone,” Vala stage-whispered, throwing a derogatory glance at Ba’al, who was speaking gravely to a waiter. Her eyes scanned the crowd. “In fact, no one here has a proper symbiote tonight. It’s an open secret this place is mostly for down on their luck hosts.” She gave Rush a sharp look, “You don’t want to do too well, you know. Ba’al talks to himself. Copies of himself. Word of the Doorkeeper’s reemergence might get back to Stargate Command, and then where would we be?”

Rush matched her glittering smile but didn’t speak.

A waiter scurried over with a carafe and set hand-blown glass goblets in front of each of them. He poured the blood-dark wine, bowed, and backed away.

Over the dull roar of an inattentive crowd below, Ra sang from his flaming platform. He was a baritone, fiery and bold. The melodic line of his aria dipped into the minor, suggested betrayal, grief, regret. Volker picked out the word for madness. The word for love. Volker’s heart contracted. Sung Goa’uld had all the bold aggression of its spoken consonants, but the common vowel prefixes that preceded those plosive punches were beautiful when drawn out.

Vala sipped her wine, her back to the ultramarine and gold stage. She looked at Rush. “You scare me sometimes.”

“Can’t have that,” Rush said gently.

Vala reached across the table to take his hand. She turned it over and pressed two fingers to the point of his pulse. She shut her eyes, as though trying to pick up signals from beneath his skin.

Rush let it happen.

“You recognized Ba’al,” she said, her fingers still at his wrist. “It shouldn’t come so easily. Not this far out.”

Volker took a sip of his wine, leaned in, and said, “Hi. What are we talking about?”

Rush, as usual, ignored him. “I don’t dispute that.”

Vala, however, turned to Volker, her expression warm and intimate, as though they’d decided to share their deepest secrets minutes back. “Does he scream in his sleep?”

“Um,” Volker said. “No? Not to my knowledge.”

Rush huffed and yanked his wrist from Vala’s grip.

“Does he lose control of himself, turn violent, and reflexively declaim his lineage to anyone who will listen?” Vala asked.

Volker had to stop a beat to think about that one, but the lineage thing was pretty specific. “No,” he decided.

Vala and Rush looked at one another.

Ra and Tiamat began a desperate duet.

A bone-deep scientific instinct for the right question in the right moment balled itself up, ready to be pitched. Volker looked at Vala, caught her eye, held it. “You said he was a job. What job?”

“Colonel Telford hired me to ‘kidnap’ this gorgeous thing right after his symbiote extraction. Or that was his story, at least.”

Volker’s mouth dropped open. “Rush was a host?”

“Keep the fuck up,” Rush said dryly.

“You never thought to mention this?” Volker hissed. “Telford—”

“Telford,” Rush broke in, sweeping his gaze from Volker to Vala and back again, “lies.”

Vala huffed. “Everyone lies to a Goddess of Love; I’m used to it.”

Rush lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles.

“But you were a host?” Volker pressed.

Rush ignored this.

“According to Colonel Telford, he was,” Vala said lightly. “The symbiote didn’t give up its name. It died during the extraction. Resheph is my best guess. After the extraction, Telford put us up in a magnificent former pleasure-palace run by Acolytes of Hathor. Resheph spent every night stripping the crystals from every control panel in the place. Q’tesh spent every morning putting them back.”

“Until the last morning,” Rush said with real fondness.

“Until the last morning,” Vala agreed.

Volker took a breath. If Rush had been a host to a god of death and flame, no wonder he knew so much about the Goa’uld. No wonder he was obsessed with fire. No wonder he had a weird relationship with his own death.

He started working on the math. A month as a host, a month with Vala, four months with Telford, presumably—

The arrival of the food interrupted his mental reckoning. Five servants, weighed down with gold platters, arrived at their table and deposited plates of meat, of melon and berries, bread and cheese.

After weeks of vy’ta, it was a welcome sight.

Volker went for the bread, crusty and warm. He tore a hunk free, cut a slice of cheese, shoved it into his mouth and chewed, eyes closed. The textured bread, the creamy cheese, the sound of opera—for a handful of heartbeats, Earth felt nearby.

But the moment passed, and Volker got his head back in the game. “How’d you meet Telford?” he asked Vala. 

Rush shot him a sharp look. A hint of a smile.

A good question, maybe.

“I spent time on your planet,” Vala said, all charm and polish. “Even joined Stargate Command. But they felt I’d been compromised and kicked me out.” She shrugged, backed by Tiamat’s painted sea. “Daniel Jackson vouched for me, but it wasn’t enough.”

“Tapes Guy.” Volker bit into a grape, sweet and tart. 

Vala sipped her wine. “You’ve seen his videos? He has more reach than he knows.”

“I don’t understand the appeal.” Rush speared a thin cut of meat.

“I do.” Volker swiped an alien berry through alien cream.

Vala’s smile was radiant. “Do you?”

“Oh yeah.” Volker reached for a skewer of meat that would hopefully taste like chicken. “So smart. Great body. Seems like a really good person.”

“He is.” Vala bit poetically into a peach.

The ultramarine stage split down its center, baring a dark pit beneath the sea floor. A man dressed in white and crowned with blue looked up from the darkness. He held a crook and flail, ornamented with blue stone. In a beautiful tenor, he called for Tiamat. Volker caught the word for morning, the word for sea, the words for light and journey.

Vala turned and looked over the balcony rail. “Before they tore him to pieces,” she said, sad and fond, “he saved his host.” She looked at Rush. “Do you remember?”

Rush sucked the meat from a skewer. “I waited at the gates, but he never showed.”

“You guys have Goa’uld memories?” Volker picked up a skewer of something that looked like steak. “Both of you? They get left behind when the symbiote goes?”

Vala nodded. “I was a host for over two decades. My memories are mine, but some of Q’tesh’s stronger impressions remain. Memories within memories. They surface as dreams, sometimes. Dreams of violence. Battles. Old atrocities. It’s what got me kicked off your planet.” She looked back down at Osiris. “Dreams of weapons.”

“Seems harsh,” Volker said.

“I thought so.” She swiped a finger through a dollop of cream and licked it clean, trying to distract from the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes. “You must dream too, gorgeous.”

Rush leaned forward and lifted a hand to tuck an errant strand of hair behind Vala’s ear. With a flick of the wrist, he pulled a wafer-thin piece of crystal from nothingness and handed it to her with a flourish. “Shall I find you the Eye of Tiamat?” he asked. “Y’could take it Stargate Command. Get back in the good graces of the Tau’ri.”

Vala tucked the crystal into her dress. “Oh, would you? As peace offerings go, I’d be hard pressed to do better.”

Rush grinned. “I’ll draw you a map in the morning. Be sure to mention where you got it when Daniel Bloody Jackson asks.”

Veiled shock and animal hope chased one another across Vala’s face. Flustered, she picked up her wine. 

As Osiris sang, strong and sorrowful, Volker felt a wave of pity borne on an underworld melody.

He made himself a little canapé with bread, soft cheese, and a thin cut of meat.

“How did you become a host?” he asked Rush. “Are there Goa’uld on Earth, or—”

Rush looked away from Volker, away from the opera, away from Vala. He shifted, as though trying to keep a lid on frustration, or anger, or—

“Colonel Telford was quite cagey on that point,” Vala said, all her poise and polish back in place. “And I asked him several times. There is a Goa’uld contingent on the Tau’ri homeworld; they call themselves the Trust and pose as tech magnates—” 

“Really?” Volker looked to Rush for confirmation, but the mathematician only shrugged. 

“—but I don’t think it was the Trust.” Vala finished.

“Why not?” Volker asked.

“Because the Goa’uld memories he carries are fragmented,” Vala said softly, “and old. Very old. Something strange happened. It wasn’t a normal hosting. Nor was it a normal extraction. Naquadah doesn’t circulate in his blood, but I still sense it somewhere in him. It’s deep. Fixed. It hasn’t faded with time.”

“And we’re sure he’s not currently…symbioted?” Volker asked Vala.

She nodded. “I’d be able to tell. Former hosts can sense such things.”

Volker bit meat and roasted vegetable off a skewer. He looked at Rush. “You’ve got two people doing their best to help you.” He motioned between himself and Vala. “I don’t suppose you want to contribute?”

Rush shot him a cool look and said nothing.

“Not ‘Resheph’.” Volker decided to lay down the only hand of cards he had. “Anubis.”

Rush and Vala stared at him, twin expressions of shock on their faces.

“You quoted something in Goa’uld I didn’t understand,” Volker told Rush. “I asked Telford about it. He recognized it.”

Vala was pale, but she cloaked herself in poise and said, “Not possible, sweet thing. Anubis is long gone. And he’s never, not once, left a former host alive. They don’t survive him. Not for a month. Not for a week, even.” She looked at Rush.

Rush seemed to be deliberately looking away from the opera. “That’s—” He hesitated, considering. “Helpful,” he decided. “That’s helpful.”

Dismay flickered over Vala’s features.

Helpful?

Was it possible that Rush didn’t understand the break between his old life and this new one?

The flutes and strings swelled as Tiamat joined Osiris’s lament from the pit.

Vala slid from her chair to Rush’s lap, one arm draped around his shoulders. “You’ll like this part, gorgeous.” She looked down at the painted stage. “They’re about to call for the fire.”

Rush, unmoved, sipped his wine.

Volker leaned over the rail. Tiamat, on her knees, closed her eyes and spread her arms. Her ruby serpent cuffs sparkled under stage lights. High and clear she sang a beautiful aria. Volker caught the word for “attend.” The word for “death.” Osiris reached for her from below, his fingertips inches from her knees.

Like he couldn’t help it, Rush peered over the edge as Ra cast the fire down.