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.”
Chapter Fifteen
“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 hi
s 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.”
“Assuming either of us has a choice, tell me why he would not be better off with his father, instead?”
Teal’c had expected this. “Because his father has pledged himself to the cause of the Tau’ri.” Bra’tac had never fully understood his devotion to the SGC. “Even if Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter and Daniel Jackson are dead as well, were I to return I would be compelled to carry on in their memory, fighting side by side with other members of the SGC. If you go, however, I know Rya’c will be cared for and well trained, as I was, so that someday he might carry on the fight in my name.”
“Carry on the fight,” repeated Bra’tac. “Against the Goa’uld.”
“Indeed.”
“Against our gods — the very gods to whom we owe our health and vitality, our very existence.”
It took barely a heartbeat before the comprehension of Bra’tac’s words brought Teal’c’s staff weapon up and turned against his old friend. Even then he was not quick enough. With tremendous force the old man swung his own staff downward, striking Teal’c’s hands where they gripped the shaft. With a cry of pain, Teal’c dropped the weapon. Bra’tac snatched it up and gave Teal’c a broad, feral smile, pointing both staffs at him.
“Is this the punishment of the gods?” snarled Teal’c, his chest heaving. “Am I now to be sent to oblivion as well? Never to be known or remembered?”
Bra’tac’s eyes narrowed. “Shol’va!” He spat the epithet. “Would that the name ‘Teal’c’ could be purged from all of history. Believe me. We shall do our best.”
Loathing rose like bile in Teal’c’s throat. He was beginning to understand. “It was your intention to return with Rya’c all along, was it not? To take back your own life on the pretense of returning with my son. I do not know who you are, but I know Bra’tac would never do such a thing. It is the type of deception only a Goa’uld would attempt.”
The old man’s smile broadened. “Oh I am Bra’tac, Teal’c. Of that you may be certain. But my eyes have at last been opened. Do you not see? Do you not comprehend, even in death, what is truth?”
“Enlighten me,” Teal’c growled. In his heart he still could not believe that Bra’tac, the man who had taught him from his youth that the Goa’uld were false gods, could stand here now and spout such lies.
The old man laughed. “This is Duat, Teal’c. Duat. We are dead, but what have we found here? Have you seen great Jaffa warriors feasting at the everlasting banquet? Have you found the spirits of those who have gone before you? Is your father here? Your mother? The many warriors who have fought and died at your side? If the afterlife was as we imagined — as we believed — would these things, these people not be here awaiting us?”
Teal’c could find nothing to sa
y. There was truth in some of Bra’tac’s words. Uncomfortable truth, but truth nonetheless.
“This is not the Jaffa afterlife, Teal’c. This is the underworld of the Goa’uld. We were wrong when we said they were false gods. They are not. They reign in the galaxy and they reign here. And we are at their mercy.”
There was a terrible logic to his words. And yet, if what Bra’tac said was true, then it meant everything he had done, everything he had worked for, sacrificed for, all these years, was meaningless. In his heart Teal’c was not willing to accept that. Not yet.
“You know I speak the truth, Teal’c. You were wrong. I was wrong. I have seen the light, but only just in time. And I fear that it is already too late for you.” He pointed with one of the staffs at Rya’c, who was now quite far ahead. “Your son outpaces us with his eagerness for life, Teal’c. If you wish to save him, you must open that passageway; and if you wish to prevent him from suffering your fate, you must allow me to go with him. I will indeed teach him — teach him to honor his god and to serve him. Then, perhaps, one day when he returns to this place, he will be spared your fate and take his place among those whom the gods favor.”
“With you by his side, I have no doubt,” Teal’c observed, coldly.
Bra’tac nodded, his calculating smile returning. “If I am fortunate, yes. Now let us hurry. The gates await, and your son is counting on you.”
Chapter Sixteen
“YOU lied to me.”
She’d vowed she wasn’t going to even acknowledge his presence after what had happened at the pit. Her fist had said everything that needed saying. Sam hadn’t glanced back once, although she could hear his footsteps steadily following her like some stray dog that didn’t know enough to go home. That in itself irritated her. And the more she mulled over the entire situation, the harder it was to keep from laying into him. Again.
“I never said he was your teammate,” Martouf replied, as though it hadn’t been nearly an hour since they’d spoken. “You assumed he was, and I did not dissuade you. But I never told you the man in the Pit of Mutu was your friend.”
STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths Page 13
