STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths

by Susannah Parker Sinard

  Daniel tossed another glance at the Guardian. He hadn’t twitched so much as a muscle.

  “Right. Well, then, I guess I’ll give those questions a try.” He was still trying to be pleasant. Maybe if he could keep things cordial it would work in his favor.

  Iqen inclined his head. “Very well. Follow me.” He motioned them toward the gateway. Only then did the Guardian move, reaching into the fire and taking from it a burning stick. He walked ahead of them to the great wall where he lit two torches ensconced on either side of the gate.

  Only now could Daniel truly appreciate the height of the wall in front of him. It was at least a half dozen meters of sand colored stone, all carefully cut and placed together, similar in construction to the tomb he’d awakened in. The structure that framed the gate was reminiscent of the great arches in the Valley of the Kings, the opening itself tall and narrow. Two large doors of solid wood barred the way.

  Having accomplished his task, the Guardian extinguished the flaming stick beneath his sandaled foot and took up a position firmly in front of the gate, his arms crossed in front of him. The message was obvious. There would be no leeway granted, no matter how nicely Daniel might ask. It all fell to the questions.

  Iqen stood a few meters in front of the Guardian and faced Daniel, who stepped forward as the old woman moved slightly off to one side. He felt strangely alone, standing there without her, which he found exceedingly odd, all things considered.

  “Daniel Jackson,” Iqen intoned. “You have come before the Eastern Gate to beg entry. Three questions I will ask. If you fail even one, you will meet your fate.”

  Fate stood motionless behind Iqen, his arms still crossed. Daniel took a deep breath.

  “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Shoot.”

  A puzzled look crossed Iqen’s face. Right. Earth idiom.

  “I’m sorry. I mean, go ahead, please.”

  The Gatekeeper nodded and closed his eyes, as if deep in thought. When he opened them, he looked up to the stars, reciting. “Two sisters. One gives birth to the other who, in turn, gives birth to the first.”

  Daniel really hadn’t known what to expect. A spell from the Book of the Dead, the half-life of naquadah, a philosophical treatise on Goa’uld expansionism in the Second Dynasty. It could have been anything. But this made sense in a strangely logical kind of way. He smiled.

  “That’s easy. It’s one of the Sphinx’s riddles. The sisters who give birth to each other are Night and Day.”

  Daniel couldn’t tell if Iqen was surprised that he knew the answer or not. But it was correct, because the Gatekeeper nodded. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so difficult after all.

  “A house.” Iqen looked straight at Daniel this time. “One enters it blind, one leaves it seeing.”

  A small twinge of excitement gripped Daniel’s stomach. He knew this one too. It was Babylonian. One of the earliest riddles ever discovered.

  “That would be a school,” he said excitedly. “A place of learning.”

  Iqen nodded again, still giving no indication of encouragement or congratulations. Still. Two down, one to go.

  The twinge of excitement now turned into a knot of nervous anticipation. Daniel hadn’t felt like this since the day he’d defended his dissertation and Professor Jordan had told him it was the very last question. He’d nailed it then. Hopefully he’d be just as successful this time.

  Iqen studied him a moment. “Those who would walk the Great Path need know but three things.”

  Daniel waited for more, but that was it. Okay. So obviously he needed to name those three things.

  The Great Path. Iqen was talking about enlightenment — and ascension. He knew he knew this. The monk at Kheb had said something very similar, Daniel was sure. If only he could remember.

  Except, maybe he didn’t need to. He’d recorded in his notebook as much of the monk’s wisdom as he could recall as soon as they’d returned to the SGC. He just hoped this was one of the things he’d remembered to write down at the time.

  “Hold on.” Daniel slipped off the knapsack and rummaged through it. Finding his notebook, he flipped open the leather cover and began rifling through the pages. It had been well over a year and a half since Kheb. In some ways it seemed longer, yet also, oddly, as if it were only yesterday. Neither of which was particularly helpful in locating the pages he needed. The poor visibility provided by the flickering torchlight was not helping much either.

  There. He recognized his sketch of the glowing ascended being that he’d made in the margin during the debriefing back at the SGC. Sure enough, he had almost two full pages of notes from his time in the temple. The monk had spoken in koans. Daniel hadn’t begun to grasp even half of what he’d been talking about, but he’d decided they would be worth mulling over some time in the future. Not that he’d ever actually gotten around to it.

  Daniel scanned them until his fingers hit a familiar phrase and stopped. Nailed it. Just like the dissertation.

  He looked up at Iqen and smiled.

  “Those who would walk the Great Path need know but three things.” Daniel raised a finger as he counted each one off. “You cannot know what you do not ask. You cannot find what you do not seek. And you cannot enter where you do not knock.” He snapped the book shut with satisfaction.

  Iqen’s face remained impassive. The answer was right, Daniel was absolutely certain, but maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe no one had ever actually answered all three questions before. Maybe they’d still refuse him passage.

  To his relief, though, the faintest, acknowledging smile finally appeared on Iqen’s lips and he nodded his head in assent.

  “You have indeed proven yourself worthy, Daniel Jackson. For you, the gate opens.”

  A great groaning sound issued from behind the Guardian and the ground beneath them trembled. The two massive doors parted inward, slowly opening to reveal only darkness beyond. Daniel wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the moonlight or perhaps the torches on the wall, but he thought he saw the air between the two now fully open doors ripple ever so slightly.

  “Thank you.” Daniel bowed slightly to Iqen before turning to take the old woman’s arm. The Guardian, however, still stood in their way. By his stance, Daniel knew it would not be a matter of simply walking around him.

  “I thought I’d passed the test?” He turned back to Iqen and put just a slight edge to his tone. The terms of passage had been pretty clear and he’d more than met them.

  Iqen inclined his head. “That you did. But only you may enter. The one who is with you may not.”

  Not again.

  “Look. She’s with me, okay? And she needs to get to the Hall just like I do. So why don’t you just let us be on our way.”

  Daniel could tell by the expression on Iqen’s face that his plea wasn’t going to do any good.

  “Only one may pass, Daniel Jackson.”

  Right.

  “Well maybe you can ask her three questions, then. Let her demonstrate her worthiness to be allowed to pass through the gate as well.” He was going out on a limb here. Daniel really had no idea if she was up to the task or not. But perhaps if he could help her —

  “She has only made it this far because you chose to help her. Otherwise she would have perished as others of her kind do. We do not offer admittance to those such as her.” There was clearly disdain in Iqen’s voice now, just as there had been with the Ferryman at the river. And with Sha’re. Daniel was getting tired of it, frankly.

  The old woman edged up to him. “Thus is the fruit of your labors, Daniel Jackson.” There was a triumphant bitterness in her tone. “For all that you may show compassion, the rest of the universe simply does not care.”

  “I refuse to leave you here.” Daniel spun around to face Iqen. “What if I send her in my place? Would that be acceptable?”

  Iqen considered this. “Yes. It is your right to choose who enters the gate. If you wish to send another in your place, you may do so. Even one such as she.”<
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  Daniel took the old woman’s hands. “Look — just take what I’m offering and go, okay?” Many of her bandages had come loose and she looked like some kind of ludicrous cross between a mummy and a scarecrow. But where Daniel had found her repugnant before, he only felt an odd sort of pity now, even for the Goa’uld within. Maybe both of them would find peace this way. He hoped so.

  “And if you see Sha’re, tell her I’m sorry. Tell her, maybe one day —” He shrugged because he wasn’t even sure how to finish that sentence. Maybe he didn’t have to.

  The old woman didn’t appear to be registering what he was saying anyway. She still looked shocked as he gently guided her forward. The Guardian hesitated a moment but finally stepped out of the way as she stumbled toward the gate.

  At the archway she paused and looked back, studying Daniel one last time. He tried to smile encouragingly and nodded, willing her to take those final few steps before the reality of what he was doing slammed into him full force. Or Iqen changed his mind.

  “I will say it again, Daniel Jackson.” Her voice drifted back to him, sounding neither as old nor decrepit as it had before. “You are a fool.” And with one last step she crossed the threshold and vanished.

  Daniel hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out now with a huge sigh as he watched the double doors swing back shut with a sickening clang.

  That was that.

  “So, now what?” Daniel looked back and forth between the Guardian and Iqen. Maybe they’d let him answer another three questions.

  Or not. He recognized the sound immediately. He’d certainly heard it enough times.

  It was of a zat being activated.

  In a way, he wasn’t surprised. He’d had a nagging feeling that something like this was going to happen sooner or later.

  What he didn’t expect, however, was the voice that accompanied the sound.

  Never in a thousand years.

  “You never have chosen the easy way, have you Dan’yel?”

  He tried to say her name but before he could even get it out she fired the weapon. Spasaming waves of electricity ricocheted through him and he barely felt the ground as he hit it, still twitching.

  As his vision narrowed and the weirdly flickering lights of the torches cast a strange orange light over the swiftly dimming scene, Sha’re’s face, looking more curious than compassionate, was the last thing to lose focus and fade away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “YOU’RE sure there are only two of them,” Sam asked in a low voice. She and Martouf had taken position on the ridge overlooking the vast wall. In the dark there was no way to see it in its entirety, but Martouf assured her that, even in daylight, there was no end of it visible in either direction. What they could see were twin gateways with flickering torches on either side and the two figures who guarded them.

  “I am,” he replied, equally as quiet. “One Gatekeeper, one Guardian.”

  “I’m getting an energy signature.” She studied the scanner. Lucky thing she hadn’t sacrificed the device to start a fire back at the mausoleum. She’d practically forgotten about it, having tucked it in the bottom of the knapsack. When they’d finished off the food, she’d found it there, the batteries still strong. “I think it’s coming from the wall itself.” She pointed. “Over to the left, it looks like. Although, from this distance, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly.”

  “Do you think those are the controls?”

  Sam shrugged. “I’m willing to bet. Most Goa’uld ships have doors that operate on a similar principle. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that technology here as well.” That was the first thing she’d thought of when she saw the gates, that they looked just like the access doors found in every Goa’uld ship and structure she’d ever been in.

  “You can open them.”

  She sighed. “That’s the plan. Unless you think they’ll just let us go through if we go out there and ask nicely.”

  “Regrettably, no. The Gatekeeper will not permit you to pass unless you can pass the test.”

  Right. The questions. Martouf had explained about those.

  “What about the other guy, the Guardian?”

  “A hand device. I fear you would not stand much of a chance.”

  Sam sighed again. “Right. Well, I never much cared for game shows anyway. I guess I’ll hotwire it, after all.”

  Getting to the control panel wasn’t the problem. If it was where she thought, it would be easy enough to slip behind the two Goa’uld in the dark and access it.

  Hotwiring it was a different story. She hadn’t had much luck with technology lately. Just ask the people of K’tau. Or Colonel O’Neill.

  And even if she wasn’t completely incompetent and somehow managed to get the gates raised, there was still the problem of getting to them. There was no way the guards wouldn’t notice as soon as the doors began to open. A hand device couldn’t be the only weapon they had at their disposal.

  “Once I get them open, we’re going to need a diversion,” she told Martouf. “Or we’ll never make it through.”

  “I will provide the diversion.”

  He said it so calmly, she almost mistook his intention.

  “No. Absolutely not,” she said when she realized what he meant. “We’re both going through that gate.”

  Martouf was shaking his head. “There is no point. At most, I could see you as far as the Stargate, but I would be able to go no further. Anat cannot leave this place and without him, I will most certainly die.”

  “You’ll die if you stay here.” She refused to accept his decision. “They won’t like it that you’ve helped me escape.”

  “True. But if I am to die, then I’d much prefer it to be for ensuring your safety than for any other reason. It is true what I told you before, Samantha. This is not a life I would have chosen. For a while, I had forgotten that. But you have reminded me of who I truly am.” His sad smile returned. “I am the reason you are here. Allow me to bring some meaning to this unintended existence by helping you to escape.”

  “What about Anat? How can you make this choice for him?” It was a feeble straw she was grasping at, and she wasn’t even sure why. An inexplicable sorrow was descending at the thought of him sacrificing himself for her.

  “Anat chooses this too. The others would never allow him to live after we betray them. They have been ferreting out the dissidents one by one and would be happy to have an excuse for his execution. He too wishes to die in a meaningful way. We both do.”

  Sam wanted to argue more, but there was no point. Taking him with her or leaving him behind, his outcome would be the same. This way her chances improved dramatically.

  She hated it. Almost as much as she hated the possibility of leaving the rest of her team behind. Sam stared at the two gates. A few simple steps through one of them and she would find Colonel O’Neill and the others. Those same few steps through the other, and she would assure the safety of the rest of the galaxy.

  On a cosmic scale, the choice was easy.

  She just wished she didn’t have to make it.

  “Which gate?” Her voice came out choked, in spite of herself. She was doubly glad it was dark now. It was better that Martouf could not see her face.

  Sam could tell he took her question as acceptance of his offer. “You will want to go through the gate on the left. It will take you to the Stargate. The gate to the right is the one that leads to the Hall of the Two Truths.”

  She tried to ignore the sickening knot in her stomach as she marked his words. The control panel was closest to the Stargate doorway. It would improve her odds of reaching it.

  “Once I get to the panel, it may take me a few minutes to sort out the crystals.” It was better if she focused on the logistics.

  His silhouette nodded. “I will be ready.”

  “Martouf, I —” But she couldn’t get anything more out. She wanted to thank him. To stop him. To forgive him.

  He touched her arm lightly, his voice
quiet and composed. “Goodbye, Samantha.”

  She waited until he had melted back into the darkness before wiping her eyes. Then, checking her scanner one more time, she slipped away in the opposite direction.

  Focus, damn it.

  Sam had found the control panel about ten meters to the left of the first gate and with no small effort managed to finally pry off the cover. The glow of the inner crystals had been like a beacon light in the darkness and she’d quickly covered it with the empty knapsack, hoping the two guards hadn’t noticed the sudden flash of light.

  Now it was simply a matter of figuring out which crystals to switch to bypass the locking mechanism. She’d done it enough times on Goa’uld motherships. It was something she ought to be able to do in her sleep.

  Sam stared at the array, but none of it made sense. There wasn’t anything extraordinary about it. Compared to other crystal trays, it was relatively simple. But her brain refused to process what she was seeing. She might as well have never seen one before in her life.

  Maybe the colonel was right to question her competence these days. If she couldn’t even figure out a simple crystal array —

  No. She could do this. She had to do this. Everything depended on it. The rest of the galaxy, yes, but also her team. She didn’t care what Martouf said, there had to be a way to save all of them.

  Sam knew what the colonel would say. Keeping even more Goa’uld from entering the galactic fray would be priority one. She could almost hear him telling her to get her ass off of Duat ASAP, no matter what it took.

  She also knew he’d be the first one to dive through the other doorway to rescue his team, even if the odds were stacked firmly against him.

  There was no way she could live with herself if she left them behind. No amount of logic or reasoning could lessen the heaviness in her chest when she thought of choosing that first gate. But risking capture and allowing another enemy loose on an unsuspecting Earth — that wasn’t an option either.

  There had to be a way to do both.

  Or at least attempt both. After all, what mattered in the end was that these Goa’uld remain stranded here with no way off. She just needed to be out of the picture, it was as simple as that. There were ways to make sure that happened.