DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
It was while Teal'c had been considering the problem of Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson and consequently surreptitiously observing them both during his reconnaissance of the room that he noticed the strange, faint golden nimbus that appeared to surround them both.
The concern for their two teammates evidenced by Captain Carter was also shared by the looming man from another world who had forsaken everything he loved and knew because of his faith in a man who now seemed to be on the verge of betraying all the trust that had been placed in him.
In the brief time that SG-1 had been a reality and he had carried out the duties that his new loyalties required of him, Teal'c had observed much that was highly commendable in all of his new companions in arms. Simply because the ways of these passionate and brave Tau'ri were different than his own it did not mean there was any less merit or purpose in their activities.
The Colonel was not unworthy of the place he had claimed as their leader, of the responsibility he had assumed, of the promise he had made to serve his world and protect it. However, for some reason he was choosing to believe that he was. He was further allowing that mistaken belief to lead him into behaving in ways that agreed more with the lie the man believed than the truth the man was.
No doubt that was one reason why the Colonel could not bear to look into the eyes of Daniel Jackson. Teal'c had passed his entire life in service to Apophis largely in the company of other warriors, and what he had come to know, believe and be as a result of this conditioning definitely had not prepared him to encounter a soul as extraordinary as the one possessed by Daniel Jackson.
Daniel Jackson was one of those rare ones the higher powers put in the midst of the far less enlightened, as a proof to all who needed such instruction and such examples that there was a better way. A living embodiment of the universal principles all should seek to live by and most seldom do. Somehow, these souls were special. They were fashioned knowing, without a doubt, that there were higher laws that had to be obeyed, nobler purposes to be aspired to, and a right way that was always there if you took the time to look for it and sincerely desired to find it. Their path was hard; they paid a high price to walk it and an even higher price for their integrity, and they were seldom appreciated and even less seldom loved.
For when you look into the eyes of truth you will see something
What you make of what you learn will depend on what you are willing to accept.
And give up.
Colonel O'Neill had not yet reached the place where he was willing to give up what he needed to surrender in order to be able to accept what Daniel Jackson offered him.
The more he considered the problem, the less certain Teal'c became that there was anything either he or Captain Carter could do to intervene. As much as they might wish to help it was becoming very clear to the Jaffa warrior that the situation between Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson was a fated one, and their further progress along this lifepath depended upon what happened between them in the next little while, for good or bad. The life debt between them dictated that the resolution of their conflict was in their hands alone.
Teal'c had given the matter much thought. He had great respect for the Colonel, even yet, but he had reached a decision concerning his own course of action in all of this.
He would not allow Daniel Jackson to be harmed.
That particular soul was too much needed by this world and countless others to be taken from any of them yet.
He would not allow Daniel Jackson to be harmed, no matter what protecting him required him to do in the man's defense.
No matter who he had to be protected against.
He barely had time to notice the anomalous auras when any further speculation as to their nature or origin was terminated by Daniel Jackson's shout of alarm. Only a heartbeat later the two men vanished, clutching each other tightly as they plummeted from view, the light that surrounded them seeming to blaze that much brighter now that they were one.
"Colonel! Daniel!" Sam shrieked as she bolted across the small expanse of the room to the place where her teammates had formerly been standing. She threw herself to her knees on the sullen silver surface, balled her fist and pounded desperately but completely ineffectually upon the barrier.
As her fists hammered on the seamless substance that mocked her efforts to penetrate it she called out "Colonel! Sir? Can you hear me? Daniel? Are you all right?"
Teal'c reached her side, bent down and put a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder.
"Captain Carter," he said lowly. "You should stop now. Your efforts will not meet with success and there is a possibility you could injure yourself for no good cause."
Sam whirled and flashed stricken eyes upon him. They were wide with concern with the slightest hint that there were tears waiting close by if only she would give them leave to report for duty. However it was clear from the force of her breathing and the determined set of her jaw that she would not allow that to happen.
Soldiers don't cry. How many times had her father told her that.
"Teal'c, we have to do SOMETHING! We have to find them - have to help them."
"I agree," the Jaffa intoned grimly as he extended a hand to her, inviting her to rise to her feet with his assistance. "However, I am not sure if there is any way that we can do this. Perhaps the radio -"
Radio! Sam cursed herself for being an emotional fool. Why hadn't she thought of that? That's what she got for reacting instead of thinking.
She reached into the top pocket of her vest and keyed the transmitter as she withdrew the instrument, breathing a supplication to whomever, just in case.
Please let me reach them.
Please let them be able to answer.
"Colonel? Colonel, can you hear me? Daniel, are you there? Are you all right? Does anyone read me? Over"
Long, agonizing seconds and they were rewarded with only silence. Her eyes never leaving the strong ones of the large man beside her, Sam held the radio in a slightly trembling hand, her grip tightening on it convulsively as she willed it to make a sound. Just when she was about to raise it to her mouth once again to make yet another urgent entreaty for some sort of answer the device in her hand squawked and yielded up a slightly scratchy version of a shaky, but very blessedly familiar voice.
"Wha...oh, ah. Sam? SAM?? Was that you? I can hear you! Can you hear me? Guess we must be close enough to each other for these things to still work OH! Aaah, sorry about that, my hand slipped
"Daniel? Why are you - where are you? Is the Colonel with you? Is he all right?"
"Ah . yeah. Jack's here," the answer came back. " I don't know if he's all right. He's not moving right now, but he could just be knocked out. He hit pretty hard."
Sam shook her head, not quite believing what she was hearing. "Not moving? What do you mean you don't know - why don't you find out if he is all right?"
Daniel was speaking very quickly, in the lilting, semi-musical cadence that his voice tended to assume when he became extremely excited, extremely nervous.
Or extremely afraid.
"I can't - I can't reach him right now. I'll have to find a way to get down first. Listen, Sam, Teal'c, you have to listen to me. I have a feeling I don't have a lot of time to try and explain this to you."
Sam looked up at Teal'c for reassurance as their young friend continued to tell them what he had learned from reading the inscriptions on the wall behind them.
"Okay, apparently this place is a kind of initiation hall. It belongs to a very ancient race that call themselves the Anpu actually it is quite fascinating how purely this tradition has come into Egyptian mythology with Anpu/Anubis still the guardian and guide to the hall of Ma'at - "
Carter cut him off. "Daniel, you're not making any sense! What has Ma'at got to do with this?"
"Sorrysorrysorry. I don't mean to babble but the air down here is so strange and I don't know how much longer I can hold on. Just listen, okay, Sam?
The Hall of Ma'at. That's what this place is. Apparently the Egyptian myth of the afterlife judgement when the soul is conducted by Anubis/Anpu to the Hall of Ma'at where the deceased's heart is placed on the scales and weighted against the feather of Ma'at is derived from some vague remembrance of the initiation rites conducted in this place."
"Bottom line, Daniel," Carter tried to keep her voice sounding calm. She did not want to let Daniel know how frightened the more than slightly unfocussed and rambling sound of his voice was making her.
What is going on down there? What is happening to the Colonel? Ah Daniel, hold it together! You might be the Colonel's only hope.
"Wha? Huh?" She heard him harshly suck in a breath and release it in a tired laugh. "Sorry! You sounded like Jack there, for a moment. Threw me. What was I saying. Oh yeahyeahyeah according to what I was able to read in the chamber the Anpu are a very ancient race, even older than the Goa'uld ask Teal'c, he can probably tell you more I haven't got time.
The Anpu created the Hall of Ma'at as a way to test - worthiness. For what - I don't know, but apparently it isn't mandatory. Somehow they have tuned their gate to draw possible candidates to the Hall in order to offer them the opportunity to take the test. To be judged. You can refuse, leave the Hall without being tested. All you have to do is reopen the gate and leave, without touching anything else."
Sam frowned at the radio. "I don't understand what you mean, Daniel. That's just what we did. Dialed the DHD."
"Yeahyeah, I know that's what it looked like, but that was what I was trying to tell you stuff in this place is not what it seems. That wasn't the DHD. Just looked like it. What that really was was the console that started the test. The DHD is UNDER IT. Somebody go over to the device and feel around the sides. You should find a switch that will flip the false top.
Wordlessly Teal'c strode over to the aforementioned device and after a moment's inspection found what he was seeking.
"Daniel Jackson is correct" he called back to Sam. There is another panel beneath the one we thought would active the Stargate."
"Good, Sam, that's really, really good." Daniel was starting to stumble over his words; his speech was becoming slurred. Sam hoped he wasn't going into shock.
"All right, you and Teal'c have to get out of here now."
"What? Daniel, what are you saying? We can't leave you!"
"You can't help us, Sam," Daniel's voice sounded apologetic. "The rules are pretty specific. If you agree to be judged you can't back out. It's supposed to be a solitary trial and once the trial is set in motion, it can't be exited. The only way to get out is to finish. Kinda like a cosmic video game, I guess. Get to the end and it resets. Anyway, as it is with the two of us here, I don't know how that is going to effect what happens in here. The trial is supposed to be specially calibrated to the person being examined so it is different for everyone. I don't know what we have set in motion here, if it meant to test me, or if it meant to test Jack, and couldn't get the one it wanted without taking the other as well because we were both standing together the moment you touched the device.
You guys have to go now. You can't get to us and I don't want to take any chances of you guys getting trapped in here as well just in case things..don't go well ahhh!"
There was a sudden fumbling sound; a sharp clatter and then the radio went silent.
Sam yelled at the taciturn instrument for several minutes until it became dreadfully apparent that it was not going to make any more sounds.
"Oh god, Teal'c" she said softly. I hope they are going to be all right.
His head was killing him and the couple upstairs were going at it again.
Always fighting, always yelling making so much noise, can't a man die in peace.Open eyes, can't focus what the hell had he been drinking must have been one hell of a party back felt broken whoever the hell Sam was he wished they would answer so they would stop yelling upstairs don't make me come up there wait a minute last thing he remembered - losing his grip on Daniel.
"Sam! Can you hear me? Dropped the radio! Sorry."
That was Daniel's voice. Overhead. What was he doing upstairs.
Plunging into darkness feeling Daniel's arms tightening around him have to hold on have to protect don't fail this time like all the other times a jolt wrenching something tearing him away and then still falling alone alone.
Jack's eyes flew open. Ah, crap.It hadn't been a bad dream after all. He had been so hoping.
It looked as if he was lying at the bottom of a well. A really dank and smelly well. Something felt cold and slimy under his hand, and the funny smell in the thick air made him feel nauseous and dizzy.
Like he didn't already feel that way.
His eyes were open again but all he was seeing was some kind of a fuzzy blur. Moving his head slightly to try and clear his vision turned out to be a really big mistake. A searing, lancing pain sheared through his head, turning his thoughts to fire..
"Ahhh..God!"
The room was animated by the sound of his voice as it tore from him and caromed crazily about his head, bounding from wall to wall. The echoes had not even begun to die before the sound of another voice tried to replace it.
"Jack! Omigod - you're alive! Thank goodness! You were so still for so long. I was starting to.."
Daniel! His voice above him, around him, like some beacon of hope shining through the dark places..
Suddenly the pain was gone. His mind was clear. He opened his eyes and looked up.
Directly overhead, many, many feet above him, stretched a network of interlocking cables that formed a wide grid that completely spanned the distance from wall to wall to wall. The analogy of a spider web sprang to mind, made even more apt by the further discovery that this particular 'web' seemed to have netted itself a live one.
Daniel was dangling up there on high, clinging awkwardly to one of the cables. He had his arms and legs wrapped around it and was hanging upside down, craning his head back to try and see the man beneath and behind him.
That pale, inverted, moon-shaped, bespectacled, slack-jawed, wide-eyed hair-standing-on-end dope-on-a-rope was probably the most absurd looking sight he had ever seen.
In spite of himself, Jack started to giggle. It sounded wrong in his ears, somehow, distant and slightly hysterical, but it kept coming out of him and unfortunately it seemed to have company.
"Hey Monkey-Boy! Howya doin'?"
That hadn't sounded too good. Not too good at all. Had he really said that aloud? God, he hoped not!
"Well, Colonel, welcome back," the man above him commented warmly, without a touch of rancor or irony in his voice. "Glad to hear you sounding like yourself again."
"Yeah, that's me all over," Jack growled. "Mr. Personality. From the way I feel if I had landed any harder I'd be Mr. Smeared-All-Over. He favored the man dangling above him with an incredulous, assessing stare. "Tell me, Jackson, how the HELL did you manage to stick up there?"
Daniel tightened his arms and legs on the rope, pulling himself up from the inverted posture he had formerly been assuming. The sheepish grin that he beamed back down at Jack made him look about twelve.
"Gee Colonel, really couldn't tell you. Just - got lucky, I guess."
Good thing for us one of us did. Oh god, my life is in the hands of a dangling dweeb
Daniel laughed suddenly, and in so doing almost lost his grip on the cable he had been clinging to. As it was, his feet slipped and he was left holding on by his hands.
"Hah! Monkey-boy. Dweeb, you're positively smokin', sir. Pretty sure the first one is new, but have I ever heard you call me 'dweeb' before?"
Ya know something, O'Neill, if that kid just up and walked away from you right now, left you flat, there wouldn't be a soul in the universe who would blame him. You can be such a horse's ASS."
He was damned sure he hadn't said THAT aloud!
"Not to your face, Daniel, not to your face." Seeing how the kid was taking the high road he felt free to brazen it out as best he could. Hell, if you're going to damn yourself, you might as well do a good job.
One of Daniel's hands slipped off the cable. Now his entire weight was supported solely by the strength of one hand."
"Daniel! For cryin' out loud - be CAREFUL"
His pale face was suddenly suffused by a flush of genuine pleasure. "Thanks, Jack. Didn't know you cared."
That hadn't been a taunt, or an ironic comment. That had been a quiet, level statement of fact. Its honesty cut into him, wounding him for some unaccountable reason, leaving him feeling strangely bereft.
He pushed it away and looked up at the man who was precariously suspended above him. Daniel still swung from the support of that single hand, but his eyes were suddenly distant, and there was a strange, pensive look on his face. He looked as if he had just reached a decision.
"Daniel!" Jack bellowed. "Don't you dare let go!"
"Have to, Colonel," Daniel answered him, still from that distant place. "I don't see any other way to get to you, and you need help. You can't see what I can see from up here. You're a bit of a mess. I might be safe up here for the moment, but that doesn't do you any good."
"Daniel, don't be crazy!" Jack could hear the fear in his voice, and knew that Daniel could hear it as well, but he didn't care. "You're up too high. You can't possibly land without breaking something. Stay up there where it's safe."
Daniel's next words rang in Jack's mind. He knew he would never forget them as long as he drew breath.
"What good would 'safety' be to me if the price was for it was your life? You don't know me very well yet Jack, or you would know that I have no choice."
Without another thought, breath, word or second, Daniel locked his eyes with Jack's and uncurled his fingers from the cable.