"Worse? You're starting to ruin my day, Daniel."
"When I sniffed around the temple just now, I caught the Synod extending their invite for your Purification to Meleq. Turns out the guy who actually picked up the phone is Baal. Baal Meleq. It's a name, not a title. You were right in the first -"
The breath had exploded from Jack as though somebody had punched him in the gut, and Daniel would never have believed it possible for anyone to go so pale and still be alive. Eyes clouded with anguish, Jack seemed to stagger under a brutal weight. It lasted no more than a second, then he somehow got hold of himself.
"It had to be Baal, hadn't it?" Jack whispered. "Kill him, Daniel. Take the son of a bitch out before he can get to any of you, you hear -"
"No!"
The furious scream came from Tertius who flung himself at Jack, tore him off his feet. At the same moment Ayzebel touched Daniel's back, making him start.
"A Guard patrol is coming! We have to go. Quickly, Lord Daniel!"
"I can't -"
"Vow! Or do you wish to be caught?"
She pulled him up with surprising strength and set off into the forest at a run. Daniel followed, his mind reeling. What was happening? What had just happened to Jack? He didn't mean Tertius' suddenly going berserk. Jack could handle the man, no doubt about that. But the other thing, that desperate, gut-churning panic in his eyes, how could he handle that? And what in God's name had been done to him to put it there?
The last image from inside that cell pounded through Daniel's thoughts in time with his steps. Jack falling backwards. Jack falling. Falling, falling, falling to unseen death... like that dream. Fear and falling. Jack, ashen-faced with pain and trying so goddamn hard to hang on to a shred of dignity, and then that grid snapped open behind or below him, and he fell and fell and -
Blind to where he was going, Daniel tripped over a root and pitched forward. Ironically, it was the impact of the fall that somehow jostled the jigsaw into place.
He'd been there. He'd been there and watched while Baal stripped his best friend of pride, hope, humanity. Daggers and acid corroding Jack's very soul and that indomitable will to survive, until he fell and fell and fell to pieces, one painful bit at a time; only to wake up in a sarcophagus, alive for hell to start over. And Daniel had watched and listened, listened as screams mutated to animal snarls, and he'd done nothing. The one time when flouting the rules would have mattered, he'd obeyed. He'd offered Ascension. Offered disembodied, spiritual existence to Jack who, sensual as a child, lived by touching and feeling his world. Jack who, bound to his senses and his infinite capacity to care, saw further than Daniel's blinkered enlightenment would ever have allowed him. Jack who refused and paid the price for who he was over and over and over again, until he begged for that one final death.
You can put an end to it.
I won't do it.
I'd do it for you, and you know it.
And he would have. Jack would have.
Daniel pushed himself to his hands and knees and threw up violently. Still retching, his whole body aching with horror and grief, he came to his feet and stumbled after Ayzebel. What he really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and howl, but that would have to wait.
Not this time. Not again. This time Daniel would do something.
"What the hell's the matter with you?"
Tertius' tackle had knocked him backwards onto the floor. His butt had broken the fall, and it wasn't at all happy about the state of affairs.
"Traitor!"
This was getting so old. First the kid and now -
The backhanded blow caught him across the mouth, and he knew he'd just split a lip. Maybe he should do nothing. Compared to the alternative, death by Tertius seemed positively idyllic. But then he'd never get an answer.
We're a very curious race.
In every sense of the word.
Tertius was straddling him, shins pinning down Jack's arms, and he was getting ready for the next blow, way too angry to think things through. Jack jerked one knee up as hard as he could, slamming into the man's back. The forward slump was exactly what he'd hoped for, and he met it halfway with a brisk head-butt. The daily crunches weren't just vanity. He heard a broken-nosed snap, and Tertius yelped and lost track for a moment, long enough for Jack to yank his hands free and follow up with a spirited right hook. It did the job. Tertius went out like a light.
Grunting, he crawled out from under his opponent and settled in a comer of the cell. Trying to regroup was the first order of business. His gaze drifted up to the window of its own accord. Daniel was gone. But he'd be back. Just as before. That vital, intangible crutch that had safeguarded Jack's sanity. Or what passed for it.
He wasn't alone.
A groan confirmed that thought. Tertius was coming round, clutching his nose with bloody fingers. Definitely broken. Maybe it'd cool him down a little... Nope. As soon as he clapped eyes on Jack, he lurched towards him on all fours. Jack shot from his corner, knocked him over like a house of cards, and held him down.
"Will you can it? How about a deal? You tell me what exactly I've done to piss you off, and if I agree you get to beat the crap out of me. I'd just like to know. Okay?" He let go, scooted out of reach, and waited.
Tertius rolled on his back, looking like Snoopy after a week-long bender, and balefully glared at Jack. "Traitor!"
"Yeah, you said that. Care to expand?"
"You seek to destroy Baal, the enemy of all evil."
"I thought that was Mithras."
"Baal is Ahura-Mazda, the creator of all that lives. The creator of Mithras."
Excuse him for losing the plot. The Meleq/Moloch/Baal thing had just about made sense, in an everybody's dancing around the Golden Calf kind of way. But Jack couldn't for the life of him figure out how Acura-Mitsubishi fit into this story. Patron saint of fuel-efficient cars? His head was beginning to hurt nearly as much as his ass.
"Look, Tertius, I -"
"I trusted you with our secrets, and you seek to destroy what we believe in!"
"No! If I destroyed that, I'd have nothing left to believe in myself. All that stuff you talked about - truth and honoring a trust and trying to live your life in a way that lets you sleep at night - it's important to me too."
Eloquent, O'Neill. Silver-tongued. Why couldn't Daniel have stayed five minutes longer?
"Then why do you seek to destroy Baal? Ahura-Mazda is the universal good!"
Oh yeah! "The hell he is! Don't you get it, Tertius? Baal is a false god! As false as Meleq. He is Meleq!"
"You're lying!" But it sounded brittle, hairline cracks breaking along the fringes of conviction.
Jack edged closer, held Tertius' eyes. "No, I'm not. I've never lied to you, even when I could have. If we're to get out of this, you'll have to trust me."
"Why should I?"
This was going around in circles. Short of whacking the guy upside the head with a clue-by-four, there was only one way... Jack awkwardly came to his feet and turned to the window, as though Daniel might miraculously reappear and do it for him. No such luck. Besides, Daniel didn't remember.
"I knew this man," he said softly. Maybe, if he pretended it had happened to someone else...
"What man?"
"He got sick. Really sick. And so..."
And so it began. It ended with this man beating one of his jailers to a pulp, even while hating himself for how good it felt. This man had changed, become less human somehow, and noone, including himself, really knew if it could ever be undone.
Jack fell silent and realized that he was shaking. He hadn't looked at Tertius once, and Tertius hadn't made a sound. Perhaps he'd fallen asleep. That thought seemed uproariously funny all of a sudden. Imagine they gave a confession and nobody listened. Arms wrapped tightly around his waist, he doubled over, sobbing with laughter. Until two hands grabbed his shoulders, spun him around, and shook him roughly.
"Stop it! Stop it!"
He froze, hysteria receding as quickly as i
t had pounced. "I thought you were asleep."
"Of course I wasn't. Why didn't... Baal... believe you? You'd told him the truth."
"Who says it was me?"
"Do you think I'm a fool, Deodatus?" For the first time since this little fracas had started, Tertius grinned. It looked pretty dreadful.
"No. Sony `bout the nose, by the way."
"It was my own fault. Gnaeus' account of your skills should have warned me." He released Jack's shoulders and sat down. "So why didn't he believe you?"
"He..." Jack stared at the window again, thinking that, having talked about it, he should feel better. That's what the shrinks claimed, right? He didn't. "Baal was having a ball, pardon the pun. He was enjoying every minute of it."
Through the silence that followed, he could hear the busy scratch of cicadas and the rustle of dry grass and needles as little animals scampered past outside, hunting for food or a mate or simply running away. Running away seemed like a great idea.
"The legends say that Baal took our ancestors from the old world and brought them here so they would be safe from the Tyreans with whom they were at war many hundreds of years ago," Tertius blurted at last. "But we're not safe, are we? The Tyreans still pursue us."
"And they tell the tale exactly the other way round," replied Jack, recalling that weird briefing with Kandaulo in Hamilgart's patio.
"What do you mean?"
"They say they were here first and you pursued them."
"But that isn't..." Wry puzzlement spread around the broken nose. "Which version is true?"
"Both. Neither. Baal likes playing games. He set you up. You and the Tyreans."
Jack delivered a kick at the food bowl that still sat upside down over the cockroach carcass. Nicely greased by the slop, it zipped across the flagstones and crashed into a comer. That son of a bitch had taken those people and set them against each other in a religious war. For thrills. Like throwing two terriers in a pit and placing bets on who would bite whom to death first. It explained why the planet's coordinates weren't on the Abydos Cartouche. His Lordship had kept the personal sandbox very private. Somebody else butting in on the recreational slaughter might upset the balance and wreck the fun.
"Whom are we supposed to believe in now?" murmured Tertius.
Yeah. There was that, too, and Jack honestly couldn't tell which was worse.
"How about yourselves?" he asked gently. "What you made of the teachings of Mithras isn't wrong. It's right. You're good folks, and you're a good man, Tertius."
"So are you, my friend."
Feeling a hundredyears old, Jack slid onto a stone bench, stretched out, and turned to the wall. "Try and grab some sleep."
"Deodatus?"
"What?'
"Don't belittle yourself. What you went through hasn't made you less human. On the contrary. You may wish to contemplate that."
Intriguing concept, but right now he would have infinitely preferred contemplating a bottle of bourbon until it was dry.
he question foremost in Teal'c's mind was how O'Neill had taken the news. Daniel Jackson had glossed over that part, but then, he was unaware of its significance.
Darkness prevented the Jaffa from seeing his friend's face distinctly. Yet scrutiny might be deemed intrusive, and he doubted that the young man looked healthier now than he had upon his return two hours ago. Teal'c had thought he detected the faint acidic smell of vomit, but Daniel Jackson had not mentioned any episode of sickness. In fact, apart from delivering an abnormally succinct report on his discovery at the temple and the information he had received from O'Neill and Tertius, he had not uttered a word.
Casually the Jaffa slowed his pace until he walked abreast with Daniel Jackson. His approach seemed to provoke the desired effect, although not quite in the way he had expected.
"Teal'c, why was Jack so keen on me joining SG-1 again? Why didn't he just leave me on Vis Uban?"
The nature of this query put Teal'c on his guard. "O'Neill considers you a close friend and a valuable member of his team. Is it not likely that he would have wished for you to resume your duties?"
"No! I... Iremember, Teal'c."
"What precisely is it that you remember?"
"Stop tap-dancing around me, dammit! I was there! You hear what I'm saying? I know what Baal did to Jack. I suppose you could call me an immaterial witness."
This hapless attempt at humor failed to dupe even Teal'c, who inadvertently lost his stride. It was possible. While still ascended, Daniel Jackson had witnessed Rya'c and Master Bra'tac's capture on Erebus. And he had been unable to intervene. Now the Jaffa understood. This was most unfortunate.
"I am truly sorry, Daniel-"
"Do you realize that he asked me to kill him? Make it so the sarcophagus couldn't revive him? Of course I didn't. I didn't... do anything."
"Have you not told us that to interfere would have meant to play god, much like the Goa'uld do?"
"I was wrong! Not to interfere is to play god in exactly the same way. I'm still making a choice. I'm still influencing." Daniel Jackson exhaled harshly and lowered his voice. "A man called Edmond Burke once said, The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
After this he fell quiet, as though unwilling to continue their conversation. The path took a sharp turn, and Teal'c concentrated on his footing.
Eventually he said, "Neither Major Carter nor myself were aware that you had been... present at the time, Daniel Jackson."
It was the young man's turn to falter in his step. "You mean Jack never told you?"
"He did not."
"But why?"
"That is a question you shall have to discuss with O'Neill."
"If he lets me."
"Indeed." Teal'c walked on in silence for several moments, then he added, "In the meantime, however, there is one point you may wish to consider."
"Which is?"
"If O'Neill truly felt you had failed him, you would still be inhabiting a nomad tent."
"Oh.."
Ahead, Major Carter and Professor Kelly had reached a moonlit glade and waited for them to catch up. From somewhere below came the rhythmic swishing of surf, and through the trees Teal'c could make out the pale glimmer of the sea. They could not be far from the location Tertius had indicated to Daniel Jackson. It was an inlet two kilometers west of the cove that had been the landing point for the original raid on the temple.
"We're getting close," Major Carter confirmed softly. "I suggest we lose the camouflage. Might give the wrong impression. You can stay as you are, Professor."
Quite possibly she was implying that Professor Kelly would create the wrong impression in any attire. They all had worn Tyrean garments to pass through the city unnoticed and to conceal their uniforms and weapons. Now the three members of SG-1 divested themselves of the robes, as they were unlikely to facilitate relations with the Phrygians - or the Romans, as the Professor insisted.
Daniel Jackson gathered the cloaks, balled them to a tight bundle, and stowed them beneath a bush. As he straightened up, Major Carter fixed him with a pointed stare.
"Daniel, are you sure you're alright? You look like hell."
"Gee, thanks." His endeavor to smile did not succeed. "I'm fine. I just wish I knew what set off Tertius back there. Whatever it was, his countrymen might have the same allergic -"
"Baal," said Professor Kelly.
"What?'
"Always provided you managed to relay the conversation accurately, Jackson, your gung-ho friend told you to kill their supreme deity." The Professor straightened her stance somewhat and proceeded to lecture. "Mithraism is derived from early Zoroastrianism, and when that was imported into Mesopotamia, the Babylonians refined the belief system, which included -"
"Professor!" snapped Major Carter, strangely reminiscent of O'Neill. "Are you saying that they believe Baal is a god?"
"Well, dearie, that depends on
"Yes or no?"
"Yes."
"Thank you,
Professor. Nobody mention Baal. Let's go!"
Approximately ten minutes later they reached the bounds of a sheltered pebble beach. Dim figures were moving purposefully in the shadows of the trees inland. They had not lit a fire, and that was as it should be. Teal'c could discern the noises of men getting ready for battle. Murmured conversation, the muted clink of metal, the rasp of leather straps on armor. He also heard something else, much nearer to their position. It was good to know that these people were wary.
"Major Carter," he whispered. "I recommend we proceed into the open. Our approach has been detected."
Moonlight briefly gleamed on her hair as she nodded and stepped out onto the beach. "Daniel?"
"Pax vobiscum," he called, following her. "Amici Tertii sum us."
Peace be with you. We are friends of Tertius, Teal'c translated silently, pleased that he had not lost his grasp of the language.
Mere yards away, four men emerged from the seam of the forest. They were dressed in Roman apparel, carried their swords drawn, and mustered the intruders. Predictably, they noted both staff weapon and tattoo.
One of them spat. "Jaffa est!"
"Apud Goa'uld non iam servit. Videte!" Daniel Jackson raised his hand so that the harsh white glow of the moons caught on the ring. "Flavium quaerimus."
If his assurances that this Jaffa no longer served the Goa'uld failed to merit the men's belief, the ring and the announcement that they wished to find Flavius sufficed. Slowly the swords were lowered, though not yet sheathed. Three of the warriors inspected Major Carter with considerable curiosity and some amusement; a fourth hung back in the shadows. A craggy-faced soldier elected himself spokesman for his compatriots.
"You're not Tyrean, but you don't belong to us either. How do you know of Flavius?"
"Oh for goodness' sakes! Stop playing cat and mouse!" The Professor stabbed a plump finger at the man who had remained half-hidden. "That's him! We've met before!"
"So we have, Domina."
Flavius stepped into a pool of moonlight and bowed graciously. He was a young man, slight of build; not a warrior but rather reminiscent of a species of professional the Tauri referred to as accountant. Professor Kelly stared at him with undisguised annoyance.
Stargate SG-1: Trial by Fire: SG1-1 Page 21
