SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne by Steven Savile

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    “Did you hear that?” Daniel asked.
    Jack did and he knew the sound well enough; the slow wet rasp of despair.
    They weren’t alone.

Chapter Eleven
     
Karma Chameleon
     
    Jack found the Mujina huddled in a corner, hiding in the shadows. Naked, the creature lay on its side. It was badly burned and barely conscious, the cavities where meat ought to have been picked out by darker hollows of shade, as though in the grip of some vile wasting sickness. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Someone had shackled it, and bound its mouth with primitive iron branks. The metal plate cut deep into its tongue so that blood trickled down the Mujina’s chin as it whimpered. And then they had abandoned it here to die in its own filth.
    “Doesn’t look like Goa’uld tech,” Jack observed, crouching down to examine the bolt mechanism of the medieval torture device. The bolt was oxidized with rust, as though it had been locked in place a long time ago.
    “A scold’s bridle,” Daniel told him. “Used in medieval times to silence wagging tongues.”
    “So about as primitive as it gets then.” O’Neill looked at the bolts that secured the headdress to the unfortunate creature’s skull. It was barbaric.
    “There’s no end to a torturer’s inventiveness,” Daniel agreed.
    “I advise proceeding with caution,” Teal’c said, coming up to stand behind them.
    A burlap rag had been bound across most of the creature’s face, covering its features.
    “We can’t leave it like this,” Daniel tugged at the bolt but couldn’t wrangle it loose. “It’s barbaric.” The Mujina stirred fitfully and whimpered as he struggled with the mechanism. “Have we got something that can cut through this? We’ve got to get this thing off.”
    He tugged at the bolt but only succeeded in drawing a desperate mewl from the Mujina’s stuffed mouth.
    “I’m not sure about this, Daniel,” Jack said.
    “What’s not to be sure about, Jack? This isn’t 1599.”
    “Fine, just hope I don’t get the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’, eh?”
    Sam came forward with the zat. She hunkered down beside Daniel, shuffling forward on her knees so she could get to the bolt mechanism, and fired a single pulse at the rusted iron.
    The Mujina whimpered and twisted at the sound of the weapon so close to its face — it was an instinctive reaction to the auditory reminder of the torments already burned into its skin, Jack realized. He couldn’t imagine the extent of the creature’s suffering. Seeing the aftermath was more than enough. Sam fired again, drawing another mewling protest.
    It was hard to imagine that this thing curled up on ground at his feet was the monstrous weapon the Tok’ra had warned them about. Surely it deserved their pity, not their fear? The thought lasted for as long as it took Carter to fire a third time, disintegrating the bolt, and pull the harness off. She cast it aside. Suppurating sores wept along the side of the Mujina’s face. As tenderly as he could manage in the fat-fingered gloves, Daniel eased back the hessian blindfold.
    For a moment the face that looked back up at him was utterly devoid of feature or expression, as though sheathed in a mask of flesh-toned plastic, and then as his hand came into contact with the blistered skin it began to change. It was an ugly metamorphosis. Images — faces — seemed to flicker across the mask, all of them familiar to Jack, some intimately so, some half-forgotten, others barely remembered. He saw the ghosts of his mother and father, the disapproving frown of his high school gym teacher, old sweethearts whose names he suddenly remembered even though he hadn’t thought of them since junior high: Sasha. Vicky. All these faces, all of these memories, stirred by the single brief contact. He closed his eyes when he saw Sarah looking up at him, and when he opened them Charlie was there. O’Neill swallowed. He knew it wasn’t really his son. The likeness wasn’t true; it was an