STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths (8 page)

Teal’c tried standing. The room swayed for a moment but then righted itself. He did not recognize this place, although there was very little to distinguish one Goa’uld prison from another. But was it a prison? The archway marked the only way out, but he could see no door or bars to keep him from leaving. Perhaps there was a force shield.

He approached the opening cautiously. He could discern no ripple in the air, hear no thrumming of any energy. A temperate breeze brushed by him, unimpeded, and he caught the faint scent of fresh air and greenery.

Through the opening Teal’c saw only forest and brush and a single path that led from the doorway into a thicket. There was nothing to prevent him from leaving and no one else was in sight.

Neither was there any sign of O’Neill and the others.

The vaguely unsettling memory of dying returned. Perhaps the rest of SG-1 had met a similar fate. Yet he did not appear to be dead. All aspects of his physiology seemed as it had been before, including the presence of his symbiote, content within its pouch. This was not death as he understood it.

At least, he did not think so.

Teal’c’s eyes rested on a long, thin object leaning against the wall in the shadows. He recognized it at once. It was his staff weapon. Teal’c eyed it suspiciously. Why would his captors return his weapon to him? It was most strange, unless —

Careful of a booby-trap, Teal’c hefted the staff. In weight and balance it felt as it should, and when he activated it he heard the thrum of its power at the precise frequency he knew was his. Examining it, he could discern no tampering. All was as it should be.

Nevertheless, it was peculiar to find it here.

On the ground, beside the weapon, was also a knapsack containing food and a skin filled with water. The food was nothing Teal’c recognized, but evidently was meant to be nutritious and an adequate substitution for more traditional meals. After sniffing the water, he drank a small amount. It had a pleasant, fresh taste.

The stone bier. His clothing. The tokens of food and water. The staff weapon — his most treasured possession. He understood, now, why there was no guard. He knew what this place was.

It was a burial chamber, similar to those used on Chulak by the ancestral Jaffa before the Rite of Burning had taken the place of entombment. But if this was Chulak, how had he come to be here? Had the others brought him here, presuming him dead?

Perhaps he was indeed dead, after all.

That would explain much. Would not his spirit long to return home, if given a choice? Was this his
calak’s
journey through darkness to everlasting life?

There were no answers to be found in this tomb. If he wished to discover the truth, he had no choice but to follow the path into the forest. Either he would learn what had become of O’Neill and the others or he would endure the trials of the dead on his path to eternity.

Accepting the gifts of food and water, Teal’c grasped his staff weapon firmly in his hand and stepped through the doorway.

Whichever fate awaited him, he was prepared.

Daniel stood in the doorway, blinking into the blinding sunlight. He was relieved to leave the chamber and its claustrophobic air behind him. Even the sand-colored walls had been incapable of banishing the shadows which had reached out for him from its unfathomable corners. He had been reminded immediately of Abydos and the pyramid which housed the Stargate, except this was on a smaller scale — and without a Stargate.

Although the view might have fooled him. How many times had he stood atop the steps of the Abydonian pyramid and gazed across the endless stretch of sand and dunes, feeling the same dry wind and relentless sun? If he hadn’t known better, he might have believed he stood there now.

Except, he did know better.

It just didn’t
feel
like Abydos. He’d lived there long enough to recognize the subtle differences of air and gravity which separated it not only from Earth but from every other planet he’d visited. This was not Abydos. Although it was close. Very close.

If only he could sort out exactly what had happened. He was clearly alone. There was no sign of Jack or Sam or Teal’c anywhere. The small pyramid behind him could not have housed any other chambers besides his own. He had been the sole occupant of the tomb.

Tomb. That was exactly what it was like. Especially when he considered how he was presently dressed. The plain woven linen pants and tunic reminded him of ancient burial shrouds, and considering that he’d been laying on nothing less than a stone bier —

Perhaps someone had thought he was dead.

Or maybe he was.

NebtHet. Goddess of the Dead.

The full memory returned with searing clarity. Had he been shot twice? He had no memory of the second zat. But considering what they’d done to Teal’c, he could only assume he had.

Which meant that he ought to be dead. But if he was, this wasn’t like any death he’d ever imagined.

Although if there was any place in the universe he would have considered close to a concept of heaven, it had been Abydos. At least, while Sha’re had been alive.

Daniel corralled those thoughts before they could go any further. The last thing he needed was to open the door to those memories. It had taken him long enough to get to the point where thoughts of her didn’t ambush him daily. He’d finally made an odd sort of peace with it. Knowing Shifu had helped. But he couldn’t afford to go back there. He had to think clearly — rationally — and figure out what was going on here. What all of this meant.

Daniel scanned the horizon, looking for a sign of anything but the blowing sand. There was, he realized now, something of a pathway that began at the base of the steps and traveled up over a distant ridge. He hadn’t noticed it before. Its visibility seemed to come and go with the shifting winds.

The way did not look particularly inviting, but it wasn’t as if he had any other options. He had already scoured the walls of the chamber behind him and found nothing there to enlighten him. If it was a tomb, it was a fairly austere one. The custom in Ancient Egypt had been to bury the dead with their worldly possessions, or at the very least, symbolic representations of them, to assure their comfortable journey to the Afterlife. However, the only contents of this tomb, aside from himself, had been a small knapsack, filled with some sort of food, a full canteen of water and — this was the odd thing — his own small, leather-bound notebook.

“Not exactly a pharaoh’s treasure,” he muttered aloud, retrieving the paltry assortment of belongings.

He absently rifled through the pages of his journal before stowing it in the knapsack. Wishing that whomever had thought to pack for him had also included his hat, Daniel took one last, quick glance over his shoulder into the darkness behind him and a cold shiver ran down his spine.

Maybe he really was dead. Maybe this was some whole other level of existence.

And maybe he just didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“A journey of a thousand miles,” he mused. Okay. So maybe he was mixing cultures, but some truths were universal.

With a dubious glance at the distant ridge and only the briefest hesitation, Daniel took the first step.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Sam’s voice blew back at her on the harsh wind that swirled snow like brittle needles against her face.

It was a blizzard.

No wonder she’d been half-frozen when she woke up. Especially considering that she was dressed in only the thinnest of linen pants and top. Exactly how she’d come to be wearing them, Sam really didn’t want to think about. Better to focus on more immediate problems. Like getting out of the doorway and back into the comparative warmth of the inner chamber, even if it was as gloomy as a mausoleum. Not even its polished white, marble walls could dispel the intrinsic desolation of the place.

Shivering, Sam retreated to the low, stone platform in the center of the room. As much as she disliked the idea, staying put for the time being was her only viable option. She’d be dead in a matter of minutes if she went outside. Not that her prospects in here were necessarily much better. She might not be as exposed to the elements, but it was only a matter of time before hypothermia set in. She was just postponing the inevitable.

Which made no sense to her whatsoever. Because if whoever, or whatever, had put her here wanted to kill her, then why not just leave her dead in the first place?

At least, she was fairly sure she’d been dead. The Goa’uld had killed Teal’c and Daniel so swiftly, she’d barely grasped what was happening before the zats had turned toward her. She had a vague recollection of a distant, anguished shout, and then nothing. Until she woke up here, alone.

But if she had been revived, maybe the rest of the team had too. All it would have taken was a sarcophagus. Not that she much liked the thought of having been inside one of those things, but still, it was better than the alternative. Of course there was the grim possibility that they had only revived
her
, but she refused to consider that for more than a heartbeat. It was better to stay positive.

Granted, that would be a lot easier to do if she weren’t freezing, or if whoever had brought her here had given her some decent clothes. They had left a knapsack, but the only useful thing inside it, besides some food and water, was her scanner, which worked, except for a curious malfunction in the date and time mode. No amount of fiddling with it would give her anything but the same error message. She had no way of telling how long it had been since they’d left the SGC. It could have been hours or days — maybe even weeks, if they’d been keeping her drugged. But why? All she had were questions, with no hint of an answer in sight.

A gust of wind swirled an eddy of snow through the open doorway and into the corner of the chamber. The mystery of why she was here would have to wait. Basic survival came first and what she needed most right now was a fire. Outside the tomb were any number of trees, half-buried in the snow. With no little effort she could probably find some fallen branches that were relatively dry for fuel. Igniting them, however, was another matter.

Sam turned the scanner over in her hand. If she could manage to pry open the back she could access its inner circuitry. A few crossed wires and, if she were very lucky, she’d get a spark or two. As long as there was some dry tinder around —

Linen. It was dry. And a natural fiber. It would burn easily.

Sam plucked at a few stray strands of the fabric on her pants until one unraveled. Before long she had a small pile of threads which she carefully tucked into the knapsack to keep them from blowing away.

Unfortunately, that was the easy part.

The only means of getting inside the scanner was to break it open against the marble slab. She hated doing it. It meant giving up the only piece of technology she had and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d come to regret it later. Still. Technology wasn’t going to do her any good if she froze to death. It was a necessary sacrifice.

Her arm was in mid-swing when she stopped. She just couldn’t. Not yet. The catalyst, after all, was the very last thing she needed. There was no point in destroying the device until she was sure she had wood dry enough to burn.

Which meant going out to search for fuel. In the snow. In her thin clothes.

Her body recoiled at the thought. She’d had enough bad experiences with snow and ice. Just once it would be nice to get stranded on a tropical island.

Sam sighed. That was the colonel’s line. She could almost hear him in her head, grumbling good-humoredly. That is, when he used to be good-humored. But for some reason he had changed in the past few months, especially toward her. Now she felt like she was treading on egg-shells every time she was around him.

She missed how it used to be between them. The colonel never hung out in her lab between missions anymore, or joined her for meals or, for that matter, talked to her about anything other than work. If even that. And certainly whatever feelings they had agreed to keep in the room during the za’tarc testing no longer seemed to exist. At least, not on the colonel’s part.

Sam took a deep breath. Going down that road wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She needed to focus, to make a plan. The simple fact was, she needed to go out into the cold if she were to have any hope of surviving. And she needed to survive if she was to find out what had happened to the rest of her team. Staying on task was crucial. She could not let her feelings get the better of her.

With determination, Sam returned to the doorway. The wind had changed direction and seemed to have lessened in intensity. If there ever was a time to act, this was probably it.

“Right,” she said aloud, taking a deep breath. She could already feel the sharp wind slicing through her thin garments. Her sandaled feet were nearly numb. Would it have killed them to at least given her a real pair of pants and some shoes?

Fueled by the warmth of her irritation, Sam stepped out the door and into the full force of the wind. She figured she had ten minutes, tops, before frostbite set in.

Time to start the clock — if only she had one.

“One-one-thousand,” she muttered to herself and lunged forward into the snow.