Tamil returned Tor's holy symbol to him and in return, the priest of Ilmaeter handed over four simple looking silver headbands. She took the opportunity to sell several semi-precious gemstones and other pieces of treasure recovered from the bandit hideout. When all the transactions were completed, the bard fixed Neeshka with a hard stare. Neeshka tried to feign innocence but in the face of Tamil's continued stare, she reluctantly returned Tor's holy symbol to him again. Tamil had obviously noticed her pickpocket it.
"What?" Neeshka asked defensively. "Well, if he lost it again and we recovered it again we could probably get another reward out of him!"
SG-1 put the silver headbands on, the magical devices completely encircling their heads and showing visibly on their foreheads. The circlet looked somewhat natural on Dr. Carter. Jack and Daniel were not very pleased by their very un-macho appearance, although Daniel was surprised when the horned girl commented that it looked nice on him. On Teal'c, however, the silver band clashed with the golden mark etched into his forehead.
The priest of Ilmaeter commented on it. "Tell me, traveler, what does the symbol on your forehead represent? It must be of great importance to you for you to desire to wear such a mark."
Teal'c responded to the enquiry somewhat coldly, but without hostility. "It is the symbol of my former master, Apophis. All Jaffa are branded with the mark of their god." Tor examined the raised golden etching with interest. Teal'c, seeing this, continued his explanation. "My marking was carved into my skull with a ceremonial knife and filled in with molten gold, a symbol of my high status in the service of Apophis." Teal'c took this moment to look directly into the eyes of Tor.
"But I take no pride in this symbol. It is a symbol of a false god and an oppressor. I rose against him and with the help of SG-1 gained my freedom. Now I fight against this tyranny, against all who would enslave people into the false belief that they are gods." Teal'c regarded the priest before him carefully to watch for any violent reaction.
Though not violent, Tor was clearly appalled. "You turned against your god? Against your faith? How can you speak so openly against the gods?"
"I speak against them because they are not gods. They are false." Teal'c saw the incredulity in the man's eyes. "I know this because in seeking to free my people I helped kill Apophis. Now my people are free of him, though they still struggle against other false gods who would again attempt to enslave their minds to their worship and their wills to a dark cause." Teal'c's voice was strong and resolute. "Those who rule through fear, force, and superstition are not gods at all."
For a moment Tor measured Teal'c's words. Then he responded carefully. "Perhaps your gods were false gods. I cannot judge you for turning against them, especially if they enslaved people through force and violence." Having said that, Tor looked directly back into Teal'c's eyes, not in challenge, but in earnestness and sincerity. "But I can tell you this. Ilmaeter, the god I serve, is truly worthy of worship. He does not oppress nor does he inflict pain, except in rare cases where he, in his divine wisdom, does so to end unjust torment. Just as I will not judge you for turning against this god or false god you call Apophis, which is unknown to me, I ask that you do not judge me for my faith until you understand Ilmaeter."
After a moment, Teal'c nodded his head slightly. Before he turned away, however, the priest chanted something briefly and a golden light spread out from Tor, bathing everyone nearby in a divine warmth. Despite the pleasantness of the sensation, each member of SG-1 was slightly startled.
Samantha Carter was the first to voice her concern. "What was that?" Tor told them that he had simply blessed them with the grace of Ilmaeter to help them on their journey.
"Thank you, Tor," Tamil Farlong showed her appreciation. Khelgar and Neeshka offered their thanks as well. "Good to have someone watching out for us."
Leaving Fort Locke behind, the trio started heading out on the road once again. The conversation about deities, however, was not finished. SG-1 explained about the Gou'ald and how they used technology to claim godhood. To their surprise, both Khelgar and Tamil expressed very positive views about the gods of this world.
Daniel, noticing that Neeshka hadn't said anything, asked her opinion. She was excited by his interest in her thoughts and spoke in some detail about how she had been an orphan raised by priests of Helm. She went on about how they were strict and ran out of 'I forgivest thou's after some point in her very mischievous childhood. From there she explained how she had left the monastery early and ever since had to deal with discrimination because of her horns and tail.
"Well, Neeshka, we're not going to judge you because you have some physical differences," Daniel assured her. "Traveling from world to world I've seen people who look all different ways. Just because you have horns and a tail doesn't mean you're the child of the Devil or something like that."
"Well, actually," Neeshka corrected, "it really does. Not that I'm a direct child of a devil, but I've definitely got devil blood in me. Hence the horns and tail. Not very common here, but there are some. We're called 'tieflings'.
Before Daniel had a chance to respond, or open his mouth with nothing coming out due total shock, the group rounded a bend and came face to face with a large group of diminutive figures standing in the middle of the road carrying swords. A group of gray-skinned dwarves, similar to Khelgar but somewhat shorter and much drabber looking, surrounded a central figure who had tiny spikes growing out from various points on his arms, legs, and neck.
"No place to run this time Kalach-Cha. That which you have stolen, hand it over, and we will let you live," the creature said. Then it added, "Hand the shard over, or we will take it from your corpse!"
In answer, Tamil pulled out the long sword she had taken from the bandit chief. The blade hummed with energy. "Come and take it then."
"FOOL! I shall enjoy killing you!" The group of gray dwarves, duergar as Tamil later explained to SG-1 with some uncomplimentary embellishing from Khelgar, attempted to move. Before they could, though, tendrils of green plants suddenly sprouted from the ground and began wrapping around the feet of the creatures.
"For Meredelain, and all within it!" came an odd battle cry as a woman dressed in a rather plain brown robe charged down from over an overlooking boulder accompanied by what appeared to be an exceptionally large badger. She carried a simple sickle in her hands, but with the dwarves and bladeling caught both by surprise and by the tangle of vegetative growth, she quickly slashed one of the creatures to death before it could respond.
Some of the creatures broke free of the clinging vines and charged at the group. One of these was impaled on Tamil's humming sword, which she had set to take the charge. The gray dwarf died instantly. Another of them was bitten in the leg from behind by the odd badger and turned to face it. Khelgar faced off with a third, his axe cutting a gash in his opponent while the tower shield he had taken from the bandits deflected the duergar's return strike. Neeshka took advantage of the confusion to get behind one of them and drove her daggers into it.
SG-1 was initially taken aback by the abrupt encounter, and particularly the oddity of the entangling plants. But once a couple of arrows flew into the group's midst, fortunately hitting no one, they quickly had their zats out and walked into range to take out the archers. By the time they had disabled them the rest of the fight was over.
Once the fighting had stopped, the woman called her badger friend over to her to make sure it was unharmed. Then she took a look at a long wound on her arm which she had taken during the fight.
"You're hurt." Samantha Carter said and started to pull out medical supplies from her pack. Before she could do so, however, the woman chanted something and placed her hand on her wound. The area around the wound, including the surrounding air, glowed white for a few seconds. Sam looked at the wound again and noted with shock that in just that instant the wound had mostly healed. There was still a line of tender skin where the gash had been, but it was as if it had been healing naturally for weeks.
With post-battle cleanup out of the way, the group gathered around to find out who the newcomer was. Now that they could see her up close, it became apparent that the newcomer wasn't actually human, either. He features were far more delicate, her face too exotic with almond shaped eyes, and her ears were pointed up through her hair. She was a wood elf.
She introduced herself as Elanee and explained that she had been tracking the group's attackers through the swamp around West Harbor and then to Fort Locke. Khelgar apparently had no use for her, calling her a "tree hugger", to which she took some offense.
"Tree hugger?" Jack O'Neill asked. "Like, as in an environmentalist. Chain yourself to trees to prevent them from being cut down?"
"Sounds similar, but I think it's different from… where you are from. Elanee is a druid. She is able to call on the magic of the land. Rather than tie herself to a tree, she'd probably get the tree to tie up the people trying to cut it down." Tamil explained. Her step-father being an elf gave her a much different perspective, a much more positive one, than Khelgar's.
"I see. So, that's how she is able to talk to animals and make grass grow out of the ground to tangle up her enemies." Daniel said. Samantha gave Daniel an incredulous look.
Elanee had some questions of her own. She wanted to know why these creatures were attacking. SG-1 was interested to know the answer to that as well.
Tamil explained. "These creatures are attacking because of me. Something I carry. It's a chunk of silver, apparently a shard of something else that was broken long ago. Several weeks ago now, a large group of these creatures attacked the village where I live, West Harbor. There were hundreds of these creatures and many people in my village died in the raid.
"After the town militia fought off the attackers, my father sent me and one of my friends to retrieve this shard from an old ruin. When we came back, my father took me aside and told me I had to take this silver shard to the city of Neverwinter and have it examined. We need to know why these creatures attacked. Since then, I've been attacked by these same creatures a few times, so it seems that my father was right that this is what they are after."
Jack O'Neill interjected something. "Why not just give it to them? If they're attacking you for something and you don't even know what it is, why not just hand it over?"
Tamil gave Jack a cool look. "Well, that might be an option if we knew this wasn't part of some sort of artifact of immense power that they wanted to use against us." She shook her head. "Heroes in epic poems don't hand over the magic item the great evil dark lord needs to complete his evil plan just because it's easy. Nor do bards who sing about such heroes."
Sam looked at Jack. "They have a point. Imagine if that were plutonium, or perhaps even naquadah. Would you turn this shard over to a group of Jaffa if you knew one of the System Lords were hunting for this? Or would you take it back to a lab to be examined first?"
"Ok, point taken." Jack conceded.
Elanee then offered the group her help. "There is a druid sanctuary not far from here, the Maiden's Glade, where members of my Circle would go for refuge when traveling the land.
I can lead you there, and with no further attacks from these hunters of yours. Not that you can't handle yourself, but I am sure you're growing as tired of these attacks as I am."
After some harrumphing from Khelgar and some further questions into how long Elanee had been watching Tamil, the group agreed to follow Elanee to this sanctuary and allow her to travel with them to Neverwinter. She took them off the High Road and through deep brush that would normally be impassable, but for her and the rest of the group the thorns and thickets pulled aside. For hours they traveled, never in a straight line, and always scraping against brush and plants.
When the group finally arrived they were tired and complaining. At least, there was no way an enemy could have followed them. Elanee told them the animals of the forest would protect them.
That was when the wolves decided to attack.
It was an easy thing for the adventuring group defend themselves, but in doing so most of the wolves were killed. Elanee didn't understand why they would attack her and those she invited to the glade. She didn't understand until she saw a clearing filled with animals which had been ripped apart by some monstrous thing.
"No wonder they attacked us. Something is here that is slaughtering these animals." The elven druidess asked the group to try not to kill any of the animals and to seek out the cause of the harm. The group agreed, some reluctantly, but with SG-1's zat'nik'tel that would not pose a real difficulty. After stunning several animals who charged at them, they soon came to a clearing where there was a huge bear standing around the carcasses of a few dead wolves.
"Holy Smokey the Bear!" Colonel O'Neill remarked on seeing the thing. It was much, much larger than any bear that could be found on Earth. "Anyone have a pic-i-nic basket handy?" He looked around at the rest of the group. "No? Then I guess we're going to have to stop it."
Elanee attempted to enspell the creature with magic designed to hold it in place, but as soon as she cast her magic the beast felt it and charged at them in a rage. Colonel O'Neill shot the beast with his zat, but that failed to even slow the creature. Khelgar, Neeshka, and Tamil all charged the huge bear with weapons drawn. Then, to everyone's surprise, Elanee jumped forward and transformed in midair, landing on all-fours as a large wolf and bit into one of the bear's great hindlegs.
"Tranq darts!" Jack called out. As fast as they could, O'Neill, Carter, and Teal'c dropped their packs to the ground and pulled out specially designed tranquilizer weapons. By the time they got their weapons out, the large beast had already taken some powerful hits, particularly from the dwarf's axe and Tamil's sonically powered longsword.
Jack called out, "Move so we can get a clear shot!" Tamil obliged and the three fired their darts into the massive creature. After struggling for a few tense seconds, the bear slumped to the ground.
Elanee shifted from her wolf form back to human form and went to examine the unconscious bear. "You've knocked it out without killing it. Thank you." Then she gasped.
"What is it?" Jack asked.
"This bear, he's a druid. A member of my Circle. I know him." Elanee looked at the large creature in shock. "But why would he attack the animals of this glade? I don't understand!"
At Tealc's suggestion, the group bound the bear's legs together and then waited for the transformed druid to awaken. O'Neill took the opportunity to ask Elanee about her transformation into a wolf. She explained that experienced druids could learn to shift into various woodland animal shapes, and even more powerful creatures. It was called wildshaping.
The bear/druid stirred. As soon as it came fully awake, its large head looked up to see Elanee. The bear spoke to her. Elanee revealed that the druid was named Kaleil. Then, after learning the druid had become trapped in the animal form and had been driven mad for a time, she helped him transform back into his normal shape.
Kaleil was a relatively short man. He wore a brown robe much like Elanee's. He seemed tired and weary, not just drowsy from the after-effects of the tranquilizer darts.
"Thank you for saving me from my madness. Elanee, it is good that you are safe and that you have left the Mere." The druidess looked at him in concern. "The deeper you go into the swamplands the greater the danger. I tried to connect with the land, but I found it dark and… tainted. It's as if the land itself speaks with another voice. I had lost contact with all the others of the Circle and so I tried to leave, to find you and Elder Naevan for help."
"Then we must go back to help the others!" Elanee began.
"No. Elanee, listen. Whatever it is that is in the Mere, caused a great darkness to enter into me. It was all I could do to fight it, but even then I found that I was trapped in my bear form and slowly lost all sense of anything. All I could feel was darkness and despair. So… I… lashed out at everything. Even the animals of the glade…" Kaleil began to weep. "Promise me, Elanee. Promise me you won't go back there."
Elanee put her arms around her friend's shoulders. "You're safe now, Kaleil. You are free of your madness. And you cannot be blamed for what happened. You should go and find Naevan and warn him." Elanee looked back at Tamil. "But I must go another way. This Harborman is seeking knowledge I believe may be connected to the darkness in the Mere. I must go with him into the city and find the truth of this so that we can know what we face."
Kaleil nodded. After resting a bit in the glade, the two druids cautiously and carefully reached out to the animals and soothed their anger. With the land at peace again, the two bade their farewells. Kaleil walked out of the grove headed towards Neverwinter Wood to find Naevan with renewed spirit.
Elanee turned to Tamil and the rest of the companions. "Thank you for your help here. I hope you will welcome me on your journey. I believe our goals, while not exactly the same, are linked together. And I would share with you all the blessings of the land."
"Well, I guess it can't hurt to have a woman who can turn into a wolf on our side. Let's go." Colonel remarked.
The group set off again.