"Nice place they got here," John observed, resettling his sunglasses.

"Oh, come on," Rodney complained. "Did you really have to say that? Now something is bound to go wrong. There's going to be volcanoes or earthquakes or cannibals. We haven't run into any cannibals yet, it's bound to happen sooner or later." He shot a dirty look at the pleasant forest scenery, as though waiting for it to reveal its hostile intentions.

"Relax. I'm sure it will be fine. I think the Wraith have the monopoly on people-eating in this galaxy."

Teyla nearly joined John in his reassurances, but she didn't think it would do much good. Rodney always worried, and by his standards, he was fairly relaxed.

He was also, in this instance, absolutely correct.

Well, not the bit about the cannibals.

The problem was that a MALP was not omniscient. There was only so much information it could record and send back through the wormhole – the temperature, the atmospheric composition, any anomalous energy readings in the general vicinity, etc.

It had no way of knowing that until yesterday, this particular Stargate had been buried. That the night before, someone else had traveled to this planet for the first time in centuries.

That there were soldiers hiding in the trees at this very moment, waiting in ambush.

Teyla hung back near the gate for a minute to take a sip from her canteen, and that is what saved her.

The warriors that fell upon them were skilled and numerous, but they were not well-armed – swords, spears, arrows; weapons that looked shabby indeed, next to their P90s. But none of them wanted to risk killing strangers, especially when this might turn out to be some misunderstanding, and there seemed no way out without taking that chance.

They held their ground temporarily, but it could not last; they could not fight their way out without casualties. The thought chilled Teyla, left her distracted for one critical second – and then she was moving again, but the damage was done, her opponent's sword cutting a long angry line down her upper arm.

John surrendered shortly after that. In the confusion, Teyla, still standing apart from the others, managed to slip away.

-

Teyla patched up her arm awkwardly with the medical supplies she had in her vest before gathering her rifle and all the other most conspicuous alien items. She kept only the small sidearm, easily hidden, and her clothes – they would likely stand out, but there was little she could do about them at the moment.

The discarded items she bundled and stashed in the forest, safe from all but the sharpest eyes, and promised herself she would come back for them when there was a chance.

The soldiers who had captured John, Rodney, and Ronon had left an obvious trail and she had followed them as best she could, falling further behind throughout the night. When she reached the city, almost a day later, she did not feel ready for the challenge of locating her teammates and getting them free.

She had to, though, so she breathed deeply and walked down the main thoroughfare and into the city. She kept her ears open and looked about her on all sides, trying to gather as much information about this planet as she could, but the snatches of conversations and the routines of daily life that she observed were normal, universal things: fetching water, bargaining with food vendors, worrying about the children's health. There was nothing to tell her who may have captured her friends, nor why.

It was hotter here, under the sun, without the shade of the trees, and for a moment it left her feeling dizzy, and her faltering steps forced her to collide with another pedestrian.

"Forgive me," Teyla said, hoping to avoid giving offense or drawing much attention to herself.

"No, it's all right, really," the other woman said, readjusting her grip on the package she was carrying. "Must have not been looking where I was – oh no, you're hurt!"

"It's nothing, I assure you," Teyla said. While she was feeling weakened from the injury she had sustained, she did not want to upset the stranger, who seemed to care deeply about her well-being.

"No, it looks painful, you should really take care of it. I can – oh, but I have to get this to Lady Morgana." She bit her lip. "I know. Come with me, I have a friend who can help you."

-

Gaius was a skilled physician, so he treated Teyla quickly, though she was still tired from her journey.

He was also not a fool, and so he asked Teyla how she had obtained her injury.

"I ran into some trouble on the road here," Teyla explained cautiously. "I'm afraid I lost most of my possessions as well, I cannot repay you – unless perhaps you need some assistance?" It sounded like a good idea for more than one reason. If there were soldiers on the move in the area, either soldiers of this state or another, someone in the castle should know about it, and she would do well to stay in the area until she'd heard of some such news.

"Never you worry about that," Gaius told her. "I have got Merlin for those sorts of things, though heaven knows he could be better about his chores. You just rest a while and get your strength back."

"Very well." Teyla almost, but not quite, managed to suppress a sigh at that. Gaius raised an eyebrow in inquiry. "It is only that doctors sound the same wherever one travels."

"I'd have to say that patients don't change much, either," he huffed, but Teyla thought he was amused.

The door flew open with a bang as it hit the wall. "Merlin," Gaius chided, before even looking around.

"Right, sorry," apologized the young man who had just entered so violently. "Only you've got to hurry, there's been a death."

"If the patient is already dead, I fail to see why you are in such a rush." The newcomer opened his mouth, to further impress upon them the seriousness of the situation, Teyla assumed, but Gaius raised a hand and cut him off before he could speak another word. "I shall be along momentarily. And you," he addressed Teyla, "shall stay put for the present?"

She nodded, and waited several moments after they had departed to get out of bed and leave.

-

This time, she had a better idea of what she was looking for, and it seemed that word of this death had spread. It had made people nervous, and that in turn made it fairly easy to follow the rumors back to their source – a courtyard within the castle. Teyla had to step carefully and duck into a few empty doorways to stay undetected, but with the people as agitated as they were, it was not too difficult a task.

She thought she saw Gwen, the woman from earlier, racing down a corridor, and almost stopped her before thinking better of it. She'd been kind enough to see that Teyla got some medical care, but that didn't mean she would help her sneak into a place she was probably not meant to be for reasons she could not fully explain – she only knew that when strange things happened, her team was not usually far behind.

In the end, she got there without assistance, and was briefly pleased to see her benefactor, standing in discussion with someone Teyla did not recognize.

Whatever Gaius was saying, it must not have been good; the other man's face was downright stormy, and while Teyla couldn't make out the words, she could tell that his voice was poisonous when he spoke in reply. The conversation did not last much longer before he strode off.

When she was sure that only Gaius and Merlin remained, she slid closer. She had less cover, increasing her chances of being spotted, but it was the only way she could determine what they were saying.

In a moment, she was very glad that she had.

"And we're sure that it's the same person."

"Unless you are calling into question the king's own word..."

"No, I just mean – look at him, Gaius, he looks a hundred years older than he was yesterday! What disease could do that to him?"

"It's entirely possible that this was not caused by a disease. The king certainly seems to think so, at least."

"Well, magic then," and the boy's voice dropped lower, barely above a whisper, and Teyla had to move even closer. "What sort of spell could really do this? And why?"

"There is no magic at work here."

Gaius and Merlin spun around, and Teyla stepped past the threshold with only the slightest reluctance.

"I thought I told you to stay put."

"You did. I am afraid that I have more pressing matters to attend to, though, and that is particularly true if what I think has happened here really has happened."

"Gaius, who is this?"

"Teyla Emmagan. Apparently she's a friend of Gwen's."

"Oh!" The boy's face lit up a bit at that. "I'm Merlin, nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Teyla smiled for a scant second before nodding to the body in the opposite corner of the courtyard. "May I see the deceased?"

"For what purpose?" Gaius challenged.

"I believe I know what has caused this, but I would like to be sure."

"All right," he conceded, and Teyla walked closer and knelt to examine the body. She needed only a moment; she had seen many bodies that looked much like this one. "It is as I feared."

"And what is that?"

"This man was slain by a Wraith."

-

There were a few false-starts before they realized they were talking at cross-purposes; when they managed to establish a real discussion, it emerged that the Wraith had not visited this world in a long time, so long that they had passed from human record almost entirely. There only sign that they may have ever visited at all was that the people here still told stories of monsters called wraiths, though they bore little resemblance to the ones Teyla had faced.

When she asked about the Stargate, Merlin had no clue; Gaius, on the other hand, tensed up and told her that mentioning such objects was forbidden.

"Why is that?"

"Uther had the Ring buried many years ago, when he outlawed magic."

"Why, what is it?" Merlin asked.

"It was said to be a gateway which opened a portal into hell, though to the best of my knowledge it never actually did. It simply stood there, an odd sort of thing. The druids took quite a liking to it, which only strengthened Uther's resolve to have it destroyed. When he couldn't find a way of doing that, he had it buried instead."

"It is no longer buried," Teyla told them. "And while it does not open a portal into hell, it is how the Wraith have traveled here."

"You mean, someone dug up a big metal circle that lets monsters come here?" Merlin gaped. "Why would they do that?"

"Can you think of no one who would do such a thing?" Gaius prompted grimly, though it was beyond Teyla's power to guess who he might be referring to.

"It is more than that," she told them. "If the Wraith truly have not visited here in such a long time, they probably have forgotten this address entirely. They would not know to come here, so soon after the Gate was unearthed, unless someone told them where to go."

"Okay," Merlin nodded. "That's not good."

-

They relocated back to Gaius', so he could further examine the body and so Teyla did not have to worry about being discovered. She hadn't told them that she had come through the Stargate, not exactly, but she knew that her knowledge of it must seem suspicious.

Fortunately, they were more interested in getting to the bottom of this than in interrogating her.

"So if these Wraith are here, how do we get rid of them?" Merlin asked.

Teyla sighed. Here had been a planet unscarred by Wraith attack, and now it was falling into the same battle that had been fought for so long. "They are not easy to kill," she warned them. "They can heal themselves rapidly. But with enough force, it is possible."

She didn't quite expect Merlin's cheeky, "Well that's a relief."

"There is also a chance that more will follow this one. You must remain vigilant."

"Can't we just bury the Ring again?" Merlin asked. "Worked well enough the first time."

Teyla was reluctant to suggest that option, but she wasn't sure what their other choices would be. She settled for the noncommittal, "Perhaps."

For the second time that day, Gaius' door flew open and someone stepped through without introduction.

"Don't any of you knock any more?" Gaius groused.

"I'm in a bit of a rush today," the intruder explained, completely unapologetic.

"And I have matters of great importance to attend to," the physician reminded him.

"Your dead patient isn't going to get any worse. You can spare a few minutes."

"He has got a point," Merlin muttered.

"Very well then. What is it?"

The intruder shot a look at Teyla, but Gaius was annoyed enough that he simply pretended not to notice. "You were insisting this was quite urgent just a moment ago."

"And it is." Either he'd decided Teyla wasn't a threat, or he really was in that much of a rush, because he made no comment on her presence. "I need to know everything you know about the Ancient Ring."

Which placed Teyla in an interesting position.

"There are several legends," Gaius stalled.

"Which I have heard. I have also heard, only quite recently, that my father had the Ring buried years ago and that someone has dug it up again and and that someone came through it. I need to know where they really come from, Gaius, and I need to know if that thing really is magic."

"I am afraid I cannot give you those answers. No one has come through the Ring in a long time. There's no way to know what it is."

The stranger's face became cloudy, and suddenly he looked familiar. "Damn it." He looked back at her and apologized, half-heartedly. "Sorry."

"I have heard worse," Teyla shrugged.

Merlin coughed and scrambled about getting another chair. "Prince Arthur, this is Teyla Emmagan. She's a friend of Gwen's."

It still seemed simpler to let that stand uncorrected, and she let it pass once again without comment, instead saying, "It is an honor to meet you."

"Sure," Arthur replied, distracted, and took the chair that Merlin provided. "So if you don't know about the Ring," he addressed Gaius once more, "you do at least know about science. Is it possible for people to appear from nowhere without the use of magic?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge, sire, but science is a process of endless discovery."

"Right now, that does me little good." Arthur glared at the wall. "Strangers come through the Ring, and the next day, a member of the court is dead of a mysterious affliction. I have to know if there is a connection or if we have the wrong people imprisoned."

"Wait, you have them? You know who they are?" Merlin asked.

"They're in the dungeons for practicing sorcery," Arthur replied darkly.

"Are they are human?"

Arthur cast a cautious look at Merlin; he was a little too eager in asking, and Arthur wasn't the only one worried by that. "As near as I can tell."

"Then they didn't kill the courtier."

"Oh? What did?"

"A Wraith."

Arthur frowned. "What, another one?"

"Different kind of Wraith," Merlin assured him.

"The first one was bad enough."

"Well then, the good news is, this kind can be killed. Eventually."

"Aren't you just full of good news today," Arthur remarked sourly. "In that case, we shall stop it, eventually."

"And what of the prisoners?" Gaius asked, and something about the way he didn't look at Teyla told her that he knew.

"You know the penalty. They're to be executed at dawn."

"But they didn't do anything," Merlin protested.

"They used the Ring," Gaius reminded him.

"Which they keep insisting isn't magic," Arthur continued. "They're rather nasty about that point, actually. One of them called my father 'ignorant' and 'backward' to his face. That went over well."

Teyla resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands, but just barely. John and Ronon were supposed to stop Rodney from doing things like that.

"Maybe it really isn't magic," Merlin insisted. "I mean, if you didn't know what they were, you might think some of these medicines were magic."

"It is unexplained," Teyla remarked. "It is natural to fear things one does not understand."

"I'm not afraid of the Ring," Arthur objected.

"Perhaps you are not," Teyla granted. "But a ruler who would bury it without attempting to understand it, who would kill people simply for using it, refusing to learn from them, is a man who is afraid."

Arthur's expression got darker with every word, and when he opened his mouth to speak she cut him off. "Evil may come through that gate, Prince Arthur, but it is not the only thing to come through the gate. The gate has brought danger to your people, but it has also brought you aid in fighting this danger, if you are not afraid of accepting it."

Arthur was more in control of himself now, so she let him speak. "What did you have in mind?"

"I will help you, as will my friends, if you allow it."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because we prefer to make friends and assist the people we meet, not add to their sorrows. And because the Wraith are our enemy as well."

Arthur consider this for a long moment before asking another question. "They're really your friends? Even the loud one?"

"I apologize for Dr. McKay. That is his way. He is a good man, though."

"He's a dead man."

The death threats against Rodney were now only half-sincere; Teyla smiled, because it meant things were turning out right once more.

-

As they approached the cell, Teyla heard a scurrying, scuffling sort of sound, as though the occupants were hiding some attempt at escape. Having shared a cell with them many times, she had no doubt that's exactly what they were doing.

They all looked up innocently enough when Arthur stepped into view, though Rodney's mouth dropped open a second later. "Teyla!"

"You okay?" Ronon asked, as John demanded, "You're not locking her up in here."

"I am fine," Teyla answered with a smile.

"I haven't brought her here to be imprisoned," Arthur assured them.

"Then...what, you're letting us go?" Rodney sounded thrown by the idea; he so often assumed things would go badly that it left him unsure how to react when they went in his favor.

Arthur did not answer that right away, but stared them down one by one. When he spoke again, it was to comment, "Your friend tells me you have fought the Wraith before."

"Yeah," Ronon growled. "And?"

"So you can find them and kill the ones who have invaded this kingdom?"

John raised an eyebrow at Teyla, and she nodded. Now that she was feeling stronger, her mind clearer, she could sense the Wraith presence. It would not be too hard to track.

"Yeah, we could do that," John replied casually. "If you can make it worth our while."

Arthur squared his shoulders as though he really did not want to say what he was about to say. "You shall be released and given your weapons so that you may fight these invaders. If you succeed, you will be given free passage to leave and return to your homeland. If you fail, or if you try to run, my knights shall bring you back in, and there will be no mercy. You will be executed at dawn."

"Well," John clapped his hands together. "If we're working on a deadline, maybe you should let us out now?"

-

"All right, we kept our end of the bargain." John spoke through gritted teeth; he had taken a blow to the side during the fight. He did not look well, but he would not let Teyla examine him, saying that it could wait until they got back to Atlantis and Dr. Beckett.

"Now it is my turn," Arthur said. "I do not intend to dishonor myself by breaking this promise. But you must leave Camelot quickly, before my father learns of your disappearance."

"Sounds good to me," Ronon agreed.

"Oh my God," Rodney exclaimed. "I don't believe it – that's why that asshole king's name sounded familiar – "

"What is it?" Teyla's question came out more harshly than she had intended, but she was conscious of the pressure of time upon them, of the approach of dawn.

Rodney was not to be deterred from whatever had struck him, though. "Arthur Pendragon? Arthur 'King of Camelot' Arthur?"

Arthur seemed nearly as bothered by this as Teyla herself. "Well, I'm not king yet."

"It can't be." Whatever this was, it had gotten John as well.

"No, it's impossible," Rodney echoed, sounding as though he did not believe his own words.

"It's not like there's a guy named Merlin running around here..."

"What, you mean my servant?" Arthur was thoroughly confused at this point.

John and Rodney shared an incomprehensible look.

"It's probably a coincidence," Rodney said.

"It's definitely a coincidence," John repeated fervently.

"Right, exactly."

"We should..." John waved his hands around a bit. "Go. Before things get weirder."

"You know," Ronon muttered. "They complain, but every time something weird happens – "

"They are at the heart of it," Teyla sighed. "And that is why we must look after them."

They shook their heads and headed out for the forest, and the Gate, and Atlantis.

-

The team was not too badly damaged, but Elizabeth still sent them to the infirmary prior to the debriefing. Teyla had hoped that in telling Elizabeth of their mission, John and Rodney would share what they had found so "weird," but instead she found herself asking the question of Dr. Beckett.

"Merlin? He was a powerful wizard, back on Earth. Or so they say."

"And Arthur Pendragon?"

"Famous king from oh, back in the Dark Ages. Legend says he's going to come back some day." He finished with his treatment of Teyla's arm and looked back up at her face. "Why do you ask, if you don't mind my asking?"

"On the planet, we encountered two people with those names."

"You know," John grinned, "if it wasn't a coincidence..."

"What the hell else could it be?" Rodney snapped.

Carson glanced at each of them, looking a bit frazzled. "You're not seriously suggesting you went to the Camelot of Arthurian legend now, are you? Because I'll have to check your head next."

"Look," Rodney reasoned, "it was probably some glitch in translation or, or, Ancient cultural influence, like our Arthur and that Arthur are both named after someone from an Ancient myth that was spread to both galaxies."

"Besides," Carson added, "didn't SG-1 already find Camelot? And it was in the Milky Way."

John sighed. "Guess it's not such a great story if they already beat us to it. Now, if we could find El Dorado, that would be pretty cool..."

"I think you really do need your head examined, come over here."

John tried again. "Shangri-la? No...there's got to be something we could find out here that would top Camelot."

Teyla laughed and decided to leave them to it. "Good day, John."

She heard John's last suggestion, just one word, but enough to raise her curiosity again.

Perhaps Doctor Weir would explain what "Elvis" was.