STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths (18 page)

He stepped back a few feet, trying to regain his footing in the rising water.

“Again!” he called, pulling on the branch once more. He could feel her still making steady progress. At the very least, her head wasn’t in any immediate danger of going under now. And she seemed to have managed to work her way so that part of her torso was on solid ground. “Monkey crawl,” he instructed. She looked up at him, uncertain. Right. Snake, not Carter. “Use your elbows,” he explained, dragging on the branch again. “Crawl with your elbows.”

She seemed finally to catch on. Even though he could see them sinking into the mud, the elbows were helping as he tugged her forward, inch by inch. This was good, especially since his arms were really starting to protest.

Finally, the only parts still stuck were her legs.

“Try climbing!” She was closer to him now, so he didn’t have to shout quite as loudly. “See if your legs can find something solid.”

He saw her twisting, trying to do as he said. If she could find the edge of the mud pit it would help him get her out the rest of the way.

But instead of moving forward, he saw her starting to sink back again. All that thrashing around had only caused the ground beneath her to become saturated again creating an entirely new mud hole.

“Stop! Stop!” They’d be screwed if she sank all the way in again. “Forget the legs — hold on!”

He took another two steps back and reset his feet. The only way to free her now was for him to physically haul her out himself. His knees were going to hate him in the morning.

Repositioning his hands on the branch, Jack pulled.

Nothing happened. She could have been a lead statue stuck in concrete for all the progress he made, not to mention that his hands felt like they were on fire. In retrospect, a branch without the jagged bark might have been a better choice. He’d happily swap out the Hare Krishna footwear for his gloves about now, even if it meant going barefoot the whole rest of the trip.

Jack tried again. Throwing his full bodyweight into it, he leaned back, using his feet as leverage.

Nothing. And she was still sinking.

“I need you to give me one big push.” If she wasn’t quite as stuck as before, this could work. “On three.” She nodded. He took a deep breath. “One… two…
three
!”

Carter lunged forward as Jack wrenched back the branch with every bit of his remaining strength. For a moment she looked like a graceful dolphin arching above an umber sea, but then she hit the water, splashing down with such force that it spewed mud everywhere, including over his eyes. The tension on the branch gave way and he stumbled backwards.

Wiping the dirt off his face, Jack saw that she was crawling now on her hands and knees, making her way toward him through the rushing water. She was coated in mud from her neck down, except for the areas where the water was swiftly rinsing it away. He automatically reached down to help her to her feet, trying to ignore the sudden weakness in his knees at having her safely back on relatively dry land.

Then he saw her face and remembered.

He may have saved Carter’s body, but he hadn’t saved
her
.

Dropping her arm, Jack swung his P90 around, training it on her. The expression of relief on her face vanished at the sight of the weapon. Good. She looked less like Carter when she was sullen. It would be easier to remind himself that the snake was in control when she was like this.

“Come on.” He waved the gun in the direction of the trailhead. “Let’s get out of here. Then you can answer my questions.”

“SOMETHING lies ahead.”

They had been walking across the plain for several hours with nothing but rippling grass before them. Now, on the horizon, Teal’c could detect an object of indistinct shape, directly in their path. As they neared it, the shape took form and finally they could see it was a gathering of tents. There were, perhaps, twenty of them. Even from afar, Teal’c recognized their design as being Jaffa in origin. Most were intact, but some seemed to have fallen victim to the wind, their loosened sides flapping in the steady breeze.

Bra’tac called out as they approached, but the place was abandoned. No life had graced its fires for a great many sunsets.

Teal’c stumbled across the first body — or what was left of it. Although it had no head, its garments identified it as male… and Jaffa.

“Over here!”

Teal’c found Bra’tac standing over not one skeleton but a dozen, scattered across the center of the camp, men and women both, going by their clothes.

There was not a skull among them.

“How is this possible?” Teal’c turned to Bra’tac in confusion. “How can there be death when one is already dead?”

“There is death and there is punishment.” Bra’tac looked grim. “Those who have displeased their gods may endure the disgrace of the Second Death — the death from which there is no return.” He nudged the headless set of bones nearest to him. “It would seem these wretched beings have suffered this fate.”

“There are no gods, only false gods.” To hear Bra’tac speak of the gods as if they were real alarmed him. Surely he meant it in another context. But instead of answering, Bra’tac merely smiled, his eyes over-bright with unspoken knowledge.

“There are more here,” called Rya’c, who had wandered off among the vacant tents. “And there.” He pointed toward the perimeter of the encampment. “All of them are the same way.”

In all they carried twenty-seven bodies to the center of the camp and laid them side by side. Teal’c wished he could have spared Rya’c from such a task; what little flesh remained on the bones had hardened into withered leather. But Bra’tac had argued that the boy should help. “To look upon death is to better know life,” he insisted.

Bra’tac also argued against a funeral bier. The grasses, he rightly pointed out, would make excellent tinder and the wind would easily spread the fire to the surrounding plains. Instead, they found a few shovels among the belongings of the dead and together the three of them dug a shallow mass grave and interred the bodies there.

The effort took several hours. Teal’c worked mostly in silence. To talk of other matters in the presence of such carnage did not feel right. Bra’tac and Rya’c must have felt similarly, as they too spoke very little.

When at last the task was completed, they surveyed the vast mound of fresh soil. Not knowing who these Jaffa had been, it was impossible to leave a monument to mark their death. In time the grasses would grow over their grave and even it would vanish from sight.

“No one will ever know their names,” Bra’tac pointed out. “It is the ultimate punishment for those who have been thus condemned.”

Teal’c could say nothing in response. If what Bra’tac said was indeed true, if for these people there was simply oblivion, then there really was nothing to say. Perhaps, however, even in nothingness there would be peace. If so, then he wished it for them.

The sun was setting behind the distant hills by the time they finished. It seemed foolish to move on with darkness so quickly approaching.

“We have shelter. We have food. There is no better reason to stay here for the night,” Bra’tac observed. This was true, and yet Teal’c felt uneasy stepping into the place of the people they had just buried. That Bra’tac should demonstrate no similar misgivings was troubling.

At least they selected the tent farthest from the burial site. It was still intact, except for one corner which the wind had pulled free. Teal’c repaired it with no difficulty, a muted silence descending on the inner space once the wind could no longer penetrate it. They shared the food from Teal’c’s knapsack, still saying little to one another, and when they were finished, first Rya’c and then Bra’tac entered into
kel’no’reem.

Teal’c did not. Too many thoughts assailed his mind to find the state of peace necessary to meditate. Taking in a deep breath he tried again, exhaling slowly, willing the tightness in his muscles to relax, refocusing on the sound of his own breathing.

It was no use. He continued to turn over Bra’tac’s comments about the gods in his mind. Something in the old man’s voice had made Teal’c’s skin crawl. But perhaps he was overreacting. Had Bra’tac not recently taken him through the Rite of M’al Sharran to rid him of his own belief that Apophis was a god? Surely Teal’c must have misunderstood.

There was also the matter of returning Rya’c to the land of the living. Bra’tac had been unusually cryptic about how this was to be accomplished, and Teal’c suspected he knew more than he had yet shared. That he held back knowledge of such importance was troubling as well. In the morning, he would speak to Bra’tac and insist upon answers.

With his thoughts settled on a plan, Teal’c felt some of the tension within seep away. Glancing once more at his son and his mentor, already deep in their own meditations, he took another deep, calming breath and closed his eyes.

When next he opened them, it was morning.

The relief he felt when the tents finally faded from view was less than Teal’c had expected. He was used to death. He had killed many men in his life and had been surrounded countless times by comrades and friends left dead and dying in the wake of battle. He had seen atrocities inflicted by the Goa’uld that would sicken most people, and he himself had inflicted torment and torture upon those who had been deemed his enemies more times than he cared to remember.

Yet there was something about the headless victims which would not leave his thoughts. Perhaps it was, as Bra’tac had pointed out, that they would be forever unknown. Without their faces or their names, they had been completely stripped of their identity, denied the dignity of their individuality. Nothing of who or what they were would ever be spoken of again. They had truly passed into oblivion. It was the final and most brutal of all insults.

His companions were as reserved as himself this morning. Bra’tac had discovered a staff weapon among the discarded belongings and now used it as a hiking stick. Rya’c seemed even more introspective today and would meet no one’s eyes. Perhaps the boy was also troubled by what they had left behind.

Teal’c did not easily find an opportunity to approach Bra’tac in private. Rya’c was always within earshot, and Teal’c preferred he not yet be privy to what he wished to discuss with his old friend. An hour passed. And another. The sun was high overhead, casting small pools of shadows at their feet when Bra’tac finally halted. The old man stretched out the staff weapon and pointed ahead of them.

“There! At last we see it. The end of our journey is in sight.”

Teal’c could just make out a stone wall, far in the distance. Considering the height and length he could discern from their current position, it had to be massive. “It is most impressive,” he noted, looking to see if there was an end to the wall to the left or the right. He could see none. “What is it we will find when we arrive there?”

“The means by which each of us will continue his own journey.” There was that tone in Bra’tac’s voice again. It held an edge of danger in it. And excitement. Whatever lay ahead, his old friend was eager to meet it.

No longer could he afford to wait for the most opportune time. Although it would be another hour at the very least before they reached the wall, Teal’c was unwilling to take even one more step toward it until he had spoken to Bra’tac.

“Perhaps, Rya’c, you would like to take the lead for a while,” he suggested. “Master Bra’tac and I shall be right behind you.”

Obediently, but without much enthusiasm, the boy started down the path and was quickly far ahead of them.

“I sense you wish to speak with me, Teal’c. Without the boy around.”

He was not surprised that Bra’tac had read his intent. They knew each other too well.

“Indeed. On many topics.”

“So I thought. Very well then. ‘Fire away,’ as I believe O’Neill says.”

Now that he had Bra’tac to himself, Teal’c was uncertain where to begin. Perhaps it was best to address the matter of Rya’c first.

“Do you know how it is we will send Rya’c back to his life?”

“If memory serves, when we reach the wall there will be three gateways. Through one of them lies the passage back to the land of the living. Through another lies the continuation of this path.”

“And the third?”

“Ah. The third is the key to the other two.” There was that knowing smile again. Somehow it did not give Teal’c comfort.

“I take it there is more to attaining this key than simply opening the third gate.”

The smile broadened. “Indeed there is. But we shall discover that when we arrive.”

Teal’c had the odd sensation of being once more the pupil and Bra’tac the teacher. There was deeper meaning here that he could not yet comprehend, just as in his youth when the old man’s cryptic words would leave him pondering for days. He did not have time for such games now; there were more important matters at hand.

“When we have opened the passage that leads back to life, I wish for you to return with Rya’c,” he told Bra’tac firmly, setting aside the matter of what waited for them at the gate. “He will need your guidance, as I once did, as he journeys into manhood. I can think of no one better for my son than you.”