STARGATE SG-1 29 Hall of the Two Truths (34 page)

As the ground began to shudder violently, everything behind the conjoined fissures began crumbling. It was like watching the sinking of a ship. Bit by bit, getting nearer and nearer, the land disappeared from sight, plummeting down into an ever expanding canyon.

It would reach them in minutes.

The colonel was already waving Daniel off but Daniel continued to stumble toward them. The roar of splintering rock and crumbling soil made it nearly impossible to hear, but the colonel yelled at him anyway.

“Get the hell out of here, Daniel!” He gestured vehemently again toward the structure. “Just go in the damn building!” The colonel took a step forward just as the ground beneath him buckled. Sam saw him go careening back, off-balance.

The wave hit her a second later and with it another nauseating sensation of vertigo. There was nothing solid beneath her feet. The ground just vanished, leaving her and the colonel suspended, for one impossibly long second, in midair.

Everything moved in slow motion.

A low, mangled shout came from the colonel as he windmilled his arms, trying to regain his balance. Sam could feel the updraft of the collapsing soil spraying against her back as the gaping maw opened beneath them. Together they began to fall back into the bottomless chasm.

Until two strong arms seized them.

Teal’c stood there, legs spread wide for balance, grasping each of them by the arm. For a terrifying moment Sam was afraid that their backward momentum would pull Teal’c in as well, but he was strong enough to withstand the force. With evidence of only a little effort, he pulled them both back to solid ground.

There was no time to thank him. Sam could still feel the instability of the soil under their feet. In a moment this section would give way too. They had to get to the building. It was their only chance.

Daniel, for once, had listened to the colonel and already made it to the door. With the full force of his weight he was trying to push it open.

The ground was quite literally falling away from their heels as they ran. The stabbing in Sam’s side returned with a vengeance as her lungs demanded more air, but she pushed past the haze of pain and focused on Daniel. They were almost there.

A single stone step was all they needed to reach to make it to safety.

Or, at least, what they assumed would be safety. If the building also began to collapse —

Daniel had managed to open the doors so that one person at a time could squeeze through. It was good enough.

One more earth shaking rumble rattled Sam’s teeth. All around them — all around the entire building — the ground fell away. All that remained was the building in front of them, perched on what she could only guess was an island of rock in the midst of a vast canyon.

They’d run out of time. They’d run out of space. The last bit of soil was disintegrating under their feet.

They dove for the step.

For one horrifying moment she thought they hadn’t made it. But then Daniel’s hands were pulling her forward followed by grunts and exclamations from Teal’c and the colonel as they piled onto the steps after her.

Blowback from the falling ground made it nearly impossible to see, and even more difficult to breathe. Between spasms of coughing, the colonel was shouting for them to get inside. Half feeling her way, Sam followed the shape that looked like Daniel and squeezed through the partially open door. There was a familiar, lurching sensation and she tumbled forward onto a floor that was hard and cold and solid. More importantly, it was absolutely motionless, with no indication that it was going anywhere at all.

And laying there with her fractured ribs piercing her side so excruciatingly that she couldn’t even speak, not going anywhere was all Sam really cared about.

IT TOOK Jack a few minutes to adjust to the dim light. And the silence. After the roaring and rumbling destruction they’d just escaped, the absolute stillness in this place was downright creepy.

The other thing that was creepy was that he was pretty sure that they’d ended up someplace besides the other side of the doors they’d just stumbled through. It was like Carter had said, kind of like using the rings — only not. That would explain the sense of vertigo he had when he finally hit the floor after what seemed like just a second too long in the air. And why there wasn’t a single tremble from the homicidal earthquake that had chased them here.

Beside him, Carter moaned. If the pallor of her skin was any indication, those ribs had to hurt like hell. But Daniel was already seeing to her, so Jack accepted Teal’c’s outstretched hand and pulled himself to his feet.

“You okay, Carter?” She’d pushed herself up to all fours, although that looked like it had taken some effort. Nevertheless she nodded.

“Yes, sir. Just give me a minute.”

“Uh, Jack —?” Daniel was looking past him, frowning. Teal’c too, was staring. Jack had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what he saw when he turned around.

He was right.

It wasn’t the high ceiling with its sunlit windows reflecting light off the blindingly white pillars. It wasn’t the marble floor which gleamed as if no foot had ever before stepped on it, or the matching marble walls which made the place feel like a cross between a tomb and an art museum. It wasn’t even the long center aisle lined on either side by a row of life-like statues, or the elevated dais at the far end.

It was who was waiting for them
on
that dais.

Goa’ulds — what else could they be, in those get-ups? — about a dozen of them, give or take. And something else that made Jack’s blood chill. The Ammit was there, sitting patiently like some perverse dog next to what appeared to be a giant set of scales.

“Oh this does so not look good,” he muttered under his breath.

He raised his P90 just as Teal’c brought up his staff. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Carter reflexively reach for a zat she didn’t have.

Teal’c unexpectedly shifted his aim toward the left row of statues. Daniel gasped quietly.

“I believe it is actually worse than it appears, O’Neill.” Teal’c spoke without taking his eyes off his targets. “The statues are alive.”

Shit.

Teal’c was right. Jack could now see that they weren’t statues at all. As far as he knew, statues didn’t move. But these did. More Goa’ulds, like the rest of them, and each and every one of them was staring at SG-1.

No wonder he’d felt uneasy. Jack counted twenty-one pedestals on either side, plus the dozen on the dais. And the Ammit. Yeah. Quite the welcome wagon.

It was hard to know where to aim, so Jack kept his site on the group on the other side of the hall. They appeared to be the ones in control.

“Carter,” he said quietly. “What’s your condition?”

“I’m good, sir.”

Good enough, Jack translated, which was the best he could hope for at the moment.

“Wait — Jack!” Of course it was Daniel. “I know what this is. This is where we’re supposed to be, it’s the Hall of the Two Truths.”

“And?”

“And I don’t think we really want to come in here, weapons blazing.”

“Do you see me firing, Daniel?”

“No, but — uh-oh.”

Now what?

“Daniel?” Carter was on her feet now. She sounded marginally better.

“If that’s what I think it is —”

“Daniel?” Jack repeated Carter’s question, adding an extra edge of irritability. He didn’t like it when Daniel sounded worried. It usually meant things were a hell of a lot worse than he already thought.

“It really is right out of the Book of the Dead — everything. This place, what we’ve been through, it makes perfect sense, now.”

“I take it that’s a bad thing?” Carter said.

Daniel grimaced. “Not if you’re actually dead. The final step in the journey to a blissful afterlife is the weighing of the heart.”

“You’re talking about a metaphorical weighing, though, right?”

But Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so, Sam.” He glanced up at the dais where those scales were. “To the Egyptians, the heart was the center of everything — thought, will, love, hate. It was the only organ left inside the body when it was mummified. It was believed that, at the end of the journey through Duat, the heart was quite literally weighed against a feather. If it was free from sin then it was light and balanced with the feather. If not — well, see that rather hideous thing waiting there?” Daniel pointed at the Ammit. “Let’s just say, they didn’t call it The Devourer for nothing.”

Jack shuddered. He’d seen what that thing could do. He had no desire for an encore. “Any chance we could just walk out of here?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” Carter answered for Daniel. “Even if we wanted to, I’m pretty sure we came through one of those transporters. I don’t think they go both ways.”

Without warning, and before Jack could stop him, Daniel stepped forward, his arms raised in front of him.

“I am Daniel Jackson,” he spoke in a loud voice. It filled the entire hall. “This is Jack O’Neill, Samantha Carter, and Teal’c. We have endured the trials of Duat and humbly ask for admittance into the Hall of the Two Truths. We stand before you, clean of heart and unfettered by any sin.”

Jack grabbed Daniel’s arm and jerked him back. “Daniel, just what the hell are you doing?” The last thing they needed was to end up at the other end of the room with their hearts on that scale.

“When a person enters the Hall of the Two Truths, one is expected to make a sort of ‘negative confession’,” Daniel explained in a half-whisper. “To show that one is worthy of entering the afterlife.”

“But we don’t want to enter the afterlife, Daniel. At least, not today.”

“Just trust me, Jack. It’s a ritual. I think we should go through with it and see what happens.”

“What happens is that we end up down there with someone’s hand in our chests!” What part of this picture was Daniel not getting?

“I admit, it looks bad —”

“
Looks
?”

“I don’t pretend to understand exactly what this has all been for, Jack. But my gut tells me that we need to finish the journey. The whole journey.”

Jack glared at him for a long minute before screwing up his face in distaste.

“Fine. But if they make one move toward any of us, all bets are off, do I make myself clear?”

He wasn’t sure it was exactly a nod, but Jack knew Daniel got the message. He’d go down fighting before he’d ever let any of his people set foot on that dais.

Daniel stepped forward again and spoke to the people seated on the pedestals.

“I am Daniel Jackson. Hear me, oh judges of Duat. I stand before you and make my confession. I come to you with a clean heart. I have not lied. I have not stolen. I have not killed without cause. I have not taken food from orphans. I am not evil —”

Oh for crying out loud. This was ridiculous. Jack had heard enough. And frankly, he’d had enough. There was a time to play along and a time to put an end to the game. He wasn’t going to play anymore. He didn’t care what Daniel said.

Dropping his weapon so it banged against his side Jack passed Daniel in three long strides and didn’t stop until he was halfway down the aisle. He could feel the gaze of every Goa’uld on him. Their faces were completely devoid of expression, but their eyes revealed their curiosity. When he reached the midpoint, Jack stopped and turned in a circle.

“Look.” He spoke to the rows of faces staring at him, and to the cluster of people who were also watching from the dais. “I could walk down here and feed you a bunch of crap about how perfect I am, how perfect all four of us are. But it would be a lie. Not that what Daniel here just told you wasn’t true — I can personally vouch for the fact that he has never taken food from orphans in all the years I’ve known him.” Jack paused, but there was no reaction from any of them. Tough crowd.

“And hey, if it’s lies you want, then fine. I can tell you exactly what you want to hear. But if you’re here to judge us — really judge us — then judge us for who we truly are.

“Sure, I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life that I’m not proud of. I’ve lied. I’ve stolen. And yeah, I’ve killed. Many times.” Jack waited, but there was still no response. “So maybe that makes me a bad person,” he pushed on anyway. “I don’t know. One day, I probably will, but I don’t think it’s up to you folks to decide. Because I don’t think you’re in any position to judge anything.”

“Jack, what are you doing?” Daniel had joined him in the middle of the room.

“Just telling it like it is, Daniel.” Jack turned directly to the people on the dais. Now that he was close enough, he recognized one of them. It was the Goa’uld from the cavern. The one who’d shot them all at the outset. NebtHet.

“You.” He pointed at her. “You kidnapped us, and then killed us, and then brought us back to life just so you could send us on adventures in your twisted little wonderland here. Let me tell you — if you want to judge someone for doing right and wrong, then maybe you ought to start by looking at yourself.” His anger was getting the better of him again. “If there’s anyone around here who needs to make a confession and get their own heart weighed in that scale there, it’s you.”