"Hey, hey, hey! You don't need to do that!"
With every step Daniel was either shoved or pummeled by a different Jaffa. They ushered him rapidly from the brig, disorienting him with their constant harassment.
This can't be good.
After Sam's escape, he was held briefly in a wire-sided cell like the one on Apophis' flagship. But then, inexplicably, he had been extracted from the cell, and put onto this forced march. He wasn't sure exactly how large a Goa'uld mother ship was, but based on his past experience, he and his crew of barbarians must have circuited this ship at least three or four times.
Why are they doing this?
Other than his raucous escort, he saw suspiciously few Jaffa along his route. When he wasn't trying to regain his balance, he tried to calculate his escape.
I wonder where Sam is? Maybe they weren't lying when they said she was dead.
Then it struck him.
I'm bait!
They were trolling for Sam to come rescue him.
The group turned a corner, and stopped face-to-face with a rather burly Jaffa bearing the gold forehead tattoo of Klorel's personal guard.
Daniel was tossed to his knees, and was perfectly content to remain there, catching his breath while his fate was decided. There was still a price on his head, and he was pretty damn sure that price was keeping him alive at the moment.
"This has not been effective," said the Prime. He made a gesture, and Daniel was jerked to his feet, and bullied away in another direction.
So much for rest.
The group made an abrupt turn, one of the guards pushed Daniel onto another, who threw him backward against the wall.
But in the moment of expected impact, he heard a door open behind him, and he stumbled as he landed backward in a room. The Jaffa pressed toward him, unrelenting--but the doorway limited their approach to two at a time.
A single Jaffa could easily overcome a man twice Daniel's weight. Any attempt at defense would be futile.
As futile as knocking Klorel into your own blood, he thought, remembering Teal'c's final act.
He launched himself in attack; the two oncoming Jaffa merely dodged and then grabbed his arms as they continued into the room, half-lifting, half dragging him backward.
Well it's the thought that counts.
"Na neih."
Daniel's skin prickled at the Abydonian phrase. From so short an utterance he could not be certain if the Goa'uld behind him was the one residing in Margaret, or in his young brother-in-law, Skaara.
The Jaffa stopped instantly. Those following bowed low; those restraining him bowed only their heads. Then, all but two backed from the room, probably at some gestural command, leaving Daniel unrestrained as the door closed.
Without turning around, he noticed the walls were incised with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and there was furniture, with the trace asymmetry of work done by skilled hands. A cloisonné vase held a collection of large, exotic flowers.
"Well. Interesting prison," he said in the language of Abydos, turning his head slowly, hoping to look over his shoulder. He really, really hoped he wasn't going to be greeted by the sight of someone holding a mature Goa'uld larva.
Instead he was greeted by the sight of Margaret, lounging with a sultry expression on a divan, while a tall, brown slave combed her hair.
As Daniel turned to face her, he could see the rest of the room. The huge bulk of a sarcophagus lay slightly off center, like a giant's misplaced coffee-table. Scattered around it were other articles of furniture, upholstered in lavish textures rendered in golds and clarets. Vases and sculptures held a profusion of cut lilies and proteas. A game of Senet invited players to a glass-like table.
A gesture from Margaret, and the slave left her hair. He stood behind the divan, attentive.
"Come," the Goa'uld coaxed gently. It reminded Daniel of the deceptive gentleness Klorel had used when coaxing Jack up to the paltak of his warship. His intent had been to torment Jack with a final view of Earth, before Apophis's attack.
But this Goa'uld was much more like Ra than Apophis. Daniel once obtained an astonishing amount of information from Ra, simply by listening, obeying, and asking questions politely. The tactic might work here as well.
The Goa'uld curled her fingers to encourage his approach. "Do not make me repeat myself," she murmured.
Daniel obeyed.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed that a curved panel on the side of the Sarcophagus had been removed, and some of the glass-like crystals of its inner mysteries were set neatly on the floor.
"Experiencing technical difficulty?" he asked, in English.
The Goa'uld smirked.
"The Sarcophagus is an elegant and subtle device, Doctor Jackson. It is not a toaster, however much you may wish to treat it as one," she replied, also in English.
She rose slowly from the divan as she spoke. "It is a marvel you survived use of a device which had not been properly maintained in 700 years."
Apparently, Mayborne had read the report about Daniel's misadventures with the Sarcophagus on P3R632, Shyla's planet. Somehow Daniel was more disquieted by Mayborne's knowledge than the Goa'uld's.
"Ah....yes..." he searched for a reply as the Goa'uld stepped around him, inspecting him.
"Now, what was it you said?" she continued, switching to Abydonian. Her voice rumbled low and dark, coming closer as she repeated Daniel's prayer from the execution. Her resonance gave the words a weight and penetration that made Daniel think the Goa'uld had worked to achieve the effect.
"'May you grant power in the sky, might on the land, and vindication in the Gods' domain, to go in and out without hindrance at all the gates of the Duat. May there be given to him bread from the house of cool water and a table of offerings from Heliopolis, his toes being firm-planted in the Field of Reeds. May the barley and emmer which are in it belong to the Ka of--Teal'c.'"
Daniel heard a faint creak from the armor of one of the Jaffa, as the Goa'uld uttered the forbidden name. To name the deceased aloud was to give his soul power.
Margaret moved close behind Daniel's shoulder; he could feel the warmth of her breath on his ear. He was reminded of Ra, lifting the Eye of Horus which Daniel had worn around his neck on the first mission through the Stargate.
"Defiant of you, to invoke the judgment of the West while standing in a house of the Waylayer of Souls," she said.
"Klorel's decree usurps Osiris in this," she added.
In Egyptian myth, Osiris, Lord of the West, presided over the court of the dead, where Anubis weighed the heart of the deceased against the feather of Ma'at. Souls whose hearts were light would reside in the "Field of Reeds"; those heavy with evil would be fed to the demon Ammit and cease to exist.
Apophis's sport in the afterlife was to waylay and consume any soul he could catch--good or evil--before it reached the Osirian court. Daniel could guess Apophis-the-Goa'uld promised his worshippers their souls would pass by him safely on that journey.
By denying Teal'c the death-rites and destroying his body, Klorel sent Teal'c into the afterlife without the resources to find his way or to defend himself. His enemy Apophis would easily intercept and consume him. Teal'c's soul would cease to exist, regardless of what judgment the Osirian court would have made. His heart would never be weighed, and he would be denied all hope of Paradise.
At least, that was what you might believe, if you were a Jaffa.
The Goa'uld returned to the divan, "What do you know of the man who killed your wife?"
"He was my friend."
She waved vaguely at the wall, the languid motion conveying a sense of heaviness.
The slave stepped quickly and opened a hidden storage panel.
Daniel jolted; one of the lethal alien dragonflies from BP63Q1 stood motionless in the alcove, scant centimeters from the obedient slave.
"The creature is dead," murmured the Goa'uld calmly, without looking at the source of Daniel's distress.
"Why, what...?" Daniel sputtered, panting to blow off his adrenaline.
"Its corpse will be the undoing of its kind," she said. "Any species which is a threat to us must be exterminated."
"Does that include humans?"
"Your world has a joke for your situation. I believe it goes, 'the way to save the spotted owl is to put it on the menu'. Your species far too useful to us as hosts and slaves to be in any danger."
Great. I don't know whether to be comforted or horrified.
"As for your culture..." the Goa'uld trailed off as the slave approached.
The slave genuflected in front of the Goa'uld, presenting her with a roughly fist-sized object, swathed loosely in gold fabric. She deigned to take it from him, and he withdrew to stand near the wall.
The man's attentiveness reminded Daniel of a well-trained dog.
Margaret peeled open the parcel, but Daniel could not see what it contained. The Goa'uld looked at it silently, until Daniel could no longer bear his suspense.
"What is that?"
The Goa'uld smirked. "Teal'c's heart."
Daniel closed his eyes and took a breath. He remembered how Teal'c had so carefully hidden his emotions behind an impassive face, especially in the early days of his liberty from the Goa'uld, before he learned he was finally safe.
Don't let anything show.
When he opened his eyes, his tormentor was offering him the bundle.
"Sit..."
A pillow appeared almost by magic at Daniel's feet; the slave stepped back to his place by the wall.
Daniel obeyed.
"Take it."
He took the object without hesitation, and was relieved to find it was not a heart within the golden shroud, but the Goa'uld equivalent of a notebook. He unwrapped it, and held the two-part device in his hand. The gray tablet was activated by waving the crystal over its surface.
Daniel knew whatever was recorded there was intended to disturb him. But he also knew he would read the tablet, lest he forever wonder what it had contained.
He felt like he was politely having tea with the devil, while the devil exploited the weakness inherent in one of Daniel's strengths--his curiosity.
Daniel 'turned' the first page.
The entries began with a string of numbers. Daniel had seen similar notation when deciphering the research notes of Pelops, on Argos. They were dates. He had needed Teal'c, then, to help him translate the archaic Goa'uld dialect. But here, the entries were the common tongue which had become familiar to him.
He couldn't be sure of the units of time, but the dates appeared to be in reverse order.
'Executed on charges of heresy, treason, espionage. . . ' this must be today. The list continued for about a paragraph, '...by removal of the Prim'tah. Refer to criminal record for further detail of offenses.
'Defected to the Tau'Ri.
'Recognition for valor in the battle of....' The name meant nothing to Daniel.
'Recognition for valor...
'Recognition for valor...
'Special liaison to...
'Recognition for valor...
Daniel skimmed 17 more of these before he got down to
'Promoted to First Prime...'
"This is his service record."
The Goa'uld's chin dropped subtly, encouraging him to go on. It was something Teal'c might have done, which wasn't surprising since Teal'c had spent so much of his life tip-toeing around Goa'uld sensibilities; both his gestures and language had been influenced by his milieu. But it still made Daniel want to bury his fist in Margaret's face.
"Special liaison to the court of Ra?" Daniel backed up in the list.
"Yes, for a time."
Whoa boy. That's news. Now you know this is a little game to her. Don't let anything show. Daniel skimmed farther down the list.
"Another recognition for valor--in the battle against Jolinar," Daniel shrugged. Somehow he wasn't surprised about that one.
He heard another creak from the armor of one of the Jaffa guards standing beside the door.
Of course. They have no idea what Teal'c did when he was loyal, they only know the charges against him!
He began reading the entirety of the list aloud. "How many of these does he have, anyway--there's got to be at least twenty in the time he was First, plus the ones before that...," he said. He increased his volume a fraction, so it would be easier for the Jaffa to overhear.
The Goa'uld smiled wickedly.
"Purge of Vlek?" Daniel asked.
"A world which is now koroshnyen, thanks to his effectiveness." The Goa'uld word had no human equivalent. It meant that all life on the planet had been killed, and the world had been left uninhabitable. "I see you are now not so eager to count."
If the Goa'uld thought to shock him with that news, she was mistaken. Daniel had seen Teal'c in action under Apophis in the alternate reality, wherein Teal'c had lead the attack on the SGC in the destruction of that timeline's Earth. As Hammond might say, it wasn't Teal'c's first barbecue.
Yet even the alternate Teal'c had been a reasonable man. Daniel knew his 'own' Teal'c could easily have millions of deaths weighing on his conscience, from following the orders of Apophis. He also knew those deaths were probably fewer than they would have been under any other Jaffa.
Daniel shrugged. "He was smart. He was loyal. He was strong in character. Because of that he eventually realized how evil the Goa'uld are, and he rebelled. With a record like this it's no wonder Apophis was afraid of him."
Now it was Daniel's turn to smirk as the Goa'uld's eyes flared brightly.
"I mean, if Apophis wasn't afraid, why would he want him killed?"
She snatched the record from his hand.
"Jaffa. Remove him," she growled.
"Why? Are you afraid?"
The Goa'uld just flicked her hand, dismissing him to the Jaffa. They wrestled him away, and plunked him into a solid-walled cell. In the two minutes it took him to explore it, he realized these were slave quarters, not a detention area as he at first had thought. Either way, the door was as effectively locked.
On the surface, Daniel had won their little spar. But something kept telling him their interaction had gone exactly as she'd planned.
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