Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd

For the first time in more than twenty years, Calla walked out into the courtyard without Naganti Kanan at her side. The bright light of the sun hurt her eyes and she raised her hand against its glare. Nervously her eyes darted around from one person to the next, the hair on the back of her neck stood up as she listened and waited for the sharp sound of a guard telling her to go back. Step after step she took and no one warned her not to go any further. The men of the village turned their backs upon her as she walked past them but the women raised their eyes to meet hers. Some of them nodded at her, some of them smiled wane smiles. No one came forward to say good-bye to her. Most of them would count themselves lucky to rid themselves of her. Others would worry how they would defend themselves when the Gesh’Tah returned. None of them wondered where she was going or if she would be all right once she got there.

Calla stopped at a flowerbed and stooped to gaze upon the many colored petals. With a strange longing in her heart, she remembered that she had planted this bed when she was a child, during her first spring here. How many years had it been since she had been allowed out here to tend it or to pick its blooms? She did not know. For a time after her arrival here, when Kanan’s father was still alive, she had been allowed to wander the courtyard and to plant flowers. After Kanan’s father passed her boundaries became smaller and smaller. At first, Naganti Kanan demanded she not leave the walls of the Keep. Then he demanded she keep to the first and second floors. Six years ago, she was locked away in his chamber and he forbid her to cross the threshold of his door without his permission, not even to walk upon the balcony and feel the sunlight on her face. Naganti Kanan would bring her out for important events, rituals and dinners; he would hang her off his arm like some great jewel and show her off. When the dinner or ritual was over, he would lock her away once more.

Daniel’s hand slipped under her elbow and summoned her to follow him.

Rising with a stolen rose in her hand, she turned to look back at the keep and Kanan's’ balcony. Her Lord and Master was not there, his silhouette did not grace the sunlight before her eyes.

The heavy gates loomed ahead and Callas’ legs felt weak as she approached them. Never once, in all of her time here, had she crossed through those gates except upon her coming to this place. For a very long moment they seemed larger than life to her eyes, as if they had grown huge fangs and were just waiting to tear off chunks of her flesh should she dare to try and exit through them. Again, she looked back over her shoulder to Kanan’s balcony and again he was not there. She looked to her new Lord and Master, Daniel, who was leading her steadily toward the iron jaws. Taking a hold of the hand at her side and closing her eyes, Calla walked through the gate and out of Kanan’s life. Calla breathed deep of the air outside of the gates and opened her eyes. The jaws had not fallen. The world had not crumbled. The walls of the city were falling further and further behind her.

At the request of Col. O’Neill, three of Kanan’s guards met them halfway up the hillside to aid in carrying the dead back to their home. Four Shankuk women stood near the liters they had made for the dead Cok’Mon, their bodies lay covered in black silk on waiting to be taken back to their families for whatever burial ritual was customary to them. Sadness washed over her as she looked at them, she had tried to protect them. She had failed. Now three families would grieve and it was her fault. The four women, one of which was Able, the old woman who had come to Daniel twice, made their way to where Calla stood their eyes and ears mindful of the guards behind them. No words were expressed by any of them; they only walked up to Calla, looked at her sadly and then walked away from her one by one back down the steep hillside.

As the hill grew steeper, Daniel lead the way in front of her, holding out his to hand and helping her up the rocks in places too precipitous for her to climb on her own. Especially considering the gown she was wearing and the fact that it had been so long since Kanan had let her out of his keep that she no longer had shoes. Several times during the ascent, she had stepped upon something sharp and it had bitten into the soles of feet, which were now sticky with blood. The hillside was steeper than she had remembered as a child, each step upwards put pressure on her lower back that made her want to cry out in pain. The muscles in her legs, so long idle from sitting in Kanan’s chambers, roared their discontentment with her as she hiked her way to something that smelled like freedom. The tenderness in neither her back or her legs or even the blood oozing from her feet stopped her from pushing forward. Not once did she complain about the pain she felt.

Daniel did not speak to her or to anyone else on their journey toward the N’kte, the Stargate. Knowing that she should not, she attempted to read his thoughts as they walked. Calla wanted nothing more than to know them so that she would be of assistance to her new Master, he seemed to be having trouble with his new role. Again, that was her fault. She had invaded the life of a man she had never met, had herself bound to him, and expected that he would take her away from this place. It was a foolish and impetuous act on her part, ‘childish’ Kanan would have said to her. Moreover, perhaps, he would say it was ‘unwise’ as well.

The hand of her Master extended itself once again to pull her up a rocky crag. “I feel you,” he said faintly as she neared him, “don’t do that. Not right now, Calla. Don’t.” Daniel laid his hand on her back to usher her in front of him and end the conversation there.

As the party emerged from a stand of trees, Calla caught sight of the Stargate for the first time since her arrival. It stood just as strong and large as she had remembered it so many nights in her dreams. “Stay here.” Daniel left her side to work the control panel while the other members of the military team surrounded him. No sense in letting them have a good look at the number they were dialing. Didn’t need any unwanted visitors hanging around back at the homestead. At Daniel’s command, the gate opened with a grand flourish, from his place at the panel he held out a hand to her.

“Cha'Dech!”

Calla jumped at the sound of that voice, her heart raced as she turned around to face Naganti Kanan.

“Wait.” Jack said as he put out a hand to hold Daniel back a moment.

Kanan extended a rolled up bit of material and the rag doll Daniel had seen in the tower room the night before. As he watched from his place at the control panel, Daniel knew the rolled up object was the tapestry that had hung in the small room on the third floor of Kanan’s keep. “These are all that you brought with you. Take them away with you.” Two small hands reached out tentatively to take the objects from him. As he looked down upon her, his gaze filled with regret, as he looked over at Daniel it filled with distrust and aversion. Wanting to say more to her, to tell her everything that was on his mind and that had been in his heart, Kanan reached out a large hand to trace the outline of her face and burned the tender flesh beneath. No longer was she bound to him. Although he knew it hurt her, she did not recoil from his touch. Soft tendrils of smoke began to rise from the place where their skin met. Still, she did not turn away from him. Good conditioning, he told himself.

Too good.

“Get away from her.” Jack warned. “Now, Kanan.” There was no mistaking the authority in his voice.

Unlike Daniel, the one called O‘Neill spoke only when necessary. To his mind, O‘Neill would have been a far more suitable choice for her than Daniel had been. Why didn‘t she see that? Even the Jaffa would have been better! If she was going to do this, why take the weak one? Kanan thought of that conditioning again, maybe that was it. She had spent too many years spent with the Sword of Damocles hanging precariously above her head and now she yearned for a gentler hand than his.

Fearing that at the last possible moment, Kanan had finally changed his mind about letting her go, Daniel stepped away from the control panel. “Calla, come away from him.” Daniel ordered. Still she did not move and the smell of burning flesh became stronger. “Come to me! Maen!”

“Go to your Master, Cha'Dech.” Kanan ordered and walked away from her.

End Chapter Ten
Daughter of the Gods: Every New Beginning
By Lisa Beth Darling
Continue to
Chapter Eleven

This story and all stories in the Daughter of the Gods series are copyrighted to Lisa Beth Darling these stories may not be transferred outside of this URL in any fashion.