The Red Queen and Her White Knight
by Freya-Kendra
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- 7 -
Jack O'Neill was in no mood for the Cor's evasiveness. His team had arrived back at the village only moments after Doc Frasiers Marine escort. There was one problem: the escort returned without its charges. Both Daniel and Dr. Frasier were MIA.
Naedjel was beside himself trying to explain how he and his villagers had tried to prevent the good doctor's little expedition, but Jack had already heard more than enough.
"Just can the excuses here, okay?" He demanded, waving his hand emphatically. "These Messengers you didn't bother to tell us about before, who are they, exactly?"
Naedjel glared back indignantly. "They are a misguided band of miscreants who seek to destroy what we seek to build."
"How?"
"By slipping their poisoned words into our cherished books," The Cor spat. "By saying their vile words in our presence. By...."
"Okay, we get it. You don't like their language. Well neither do I. There, believe it or not we've got something in common. But that still doesn't tell me who they are."
"They are believers in the past."
"Excuse me?"
"They look to the past to guide them, while we look to the future."
"That's it? That's why you don't like them?"
"Colonel O'Neill, you have seen what our past brought upon us. There is no hope in yesterday. Nothing matters now but tomorrow."
Jack inhaled another wave of frustration while Teal'c took up his side of the discussion. "Do you not believe you can learn from your past, in order to build a more stable future?"
"You would have us build on a foundation of suffering? On a foundation of weakness and destruction?"
"Indeed. To learn from your misfortunes may prevent them from recurring."
"You sound very like your Daniel Jackson."
Jack saw Teal'c incline his head as though honored by the comparison, and gave his Jaffa friend a sideways look. "Yeah," He said to the Cor, "about Daniel. Where is he?"
"He is with the Messengers."
"We got that already. So where is he?"
"I do not know and I do not care to know where my brother resides."
"Woah. Back up. Your brother?"
Sighing heavily, Naedjel seemed irritated about having to respond. "He is their leader, the one they follow." The Cor turned his head to meet Jack's determined gaze, revealing a determination all his own. "He is also quite insane."
* * *
After inviting his two honored guests to join him at a low, wooden table beyond the platform, Pa'lok clapped his hands twice, evidently cueing a woman to slip out of the shadows and present them with a bowl of fruit. Another followed with a jug of wine, and so on, until the table was nearly over-loaded with food and drink.
Daniel's eyes swept the offerings. All he really wanted was a good dose of caffeine to drive away his persistent headache. Coffee was preferable, but chocolate would do. Unfortunately, neither was a possibility at the moment. He turned his attention to Pa'lok.
"Tell me more about these prophecies."
"We have devoted our lives to serve the gods, and speak their...."
"They are not gods." Daniel was really missing that caffeine. He took a deep breath before continuing. "The Goa'ulds are the ones who destroyed your planet. They murdered your people."
Pa'lok focused his attention on Janet, though he refused to look at her face, his eyes remaining oddly downcast. "We are shamed by the actions of our ancestors. We seek forgiveness for their betrayal."
"From us?" Janet was as confused as Daniel, but for obviously different reasons.
"What?" His question immediately followed hers. "Betrayal? They tried to fight the Goa'ulds. They tried to save themselves."
Still Pa'lok did not turn away from Janet. "The gods came to save my people from their own foolish ways. Our ancestors should not have fought. They should have recognized the gift, and accepted it willingly."
"Gift? Gift?" Daniel looked around the table, studying these would-be slaves of the Goa'uld. They truly had no idea what the Goa'uld were. They couldn't possibly know.
"Pa'lok," Janet intervened. "Where are our friends? The men who traveled with us?"
"They are unharmed," The tall man answered.
"But where are they?"
"By now they are surely on their way back to Unity."
"You left them in the forest?"
"Yes."
"You only brought the two of us here?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Pa'lok lowered his head further, in the gesture of a quick, deep bow, and finally turned away. He clapped his hands high in the air, his eyes trained once again on the shadows. A moment later, a brown-robed man appeared, his arms cradling one of the hand-made, cloth-bound books such as Naedjel had treasured in Unity. Pa'lok took it reverently and presented it to Daniel.
"Sha'vak ro."
Daniel shook his head. "I don't understand."
Pa'lok raised the book, forcing Daniel to acknowledge it. "Sha'vak ro."
Belatedly accepting the offering, Daniel opened it to the first page. He saw immediately that the alphabet was common, yet the words were strange, meaningless. He shook his head again and was ready to pass the tome back to Pa'lok when he spotted something familiar. Sounding a few of the words out loud, he realized the book was written to represent the language of the Goa'uld despite its lack of Goa'uld symbols.
"How?" He asked.
"Sha'vak ro," Pa'lok repeated.
"Sha'vak ro?" Daniel whispered back. "Sha'vak ro."
He studied the first page, his fingers skimming over the words as he soundlessly mouthed what he believed was the intended pronunciations. It was difficult. There was no uniformity of spelling, and the breakdown of sentences and paragraphs was inconsistent. No grammatical rules appeared to have been applied at all. But then he found it.
"Sha'vak ro ...." He looked up at Pa'lok. "Sha'vak wrote this? A man named Sha'vak?"
Pa'lok nodded animatedly.
Daniel held back a frustrated response. Now they were butchering two languages. No, he told himself. That wasn't fair. They are a society that has developed its own unique dialect. He should be intrigued rather than disturbed by that fact. He took a deep breath. "What did Sha'vak use to write this?" He asked Pa'lok. "How did he learn the words?"
The tall man shrugged, apparently confused the question had been asked. "From the angels."
"Of course," Daniel sighed. "What was I thinking."
He turned a few more pages, sharing his thoughts softly with Janet as they came to him. "Well, I'm more convinced than ever that he didn't learn the language directly from the Goa'uld. It's possible he learned it somehow through a form of storytelling, where everything was verbal, based on sound rather than writing. When something like that is passed down from generation to generation it tends to mutate along the way. That would explain why this is so poorly written, so misunderstood."
He raised his eyes from the book to Pa'lok. "Who is Sha'vak?"
The tall man shared glances with his companions before bringing his hands together as though in prayer. He bowed his head, muttering a quiet chant. "Sha'vak," He repeated finally, giving his attention back to Daniel. "The Wise One. The one to whom the angels speak. The Prophet."
"The angels speak to him? You know this to be true."
A timid nod was the only reply.
"How? Where? Can you take us to him?" Daniel could feel Janet tensing beside him.
Pa'lok lowered his head. "It is forbidden," He answered in a frightened whisper.
"Forbidden? Why?"
"Sha'vak sees no one," Came a new voice from the front of the room.
Looking over his shoulder, Daniel saw the newcomer was Mal'chok, Pa'lok's son - the boy who'd stolen the book in Unity and thus set the bait that had so effectively brought them here.
"But he will see the holy ones," Mal'chok continued, waving a parchment excitedly over his head.
Confused, Daniel turned back to the boy's father. "The holy ones?"
Pa'lok met Daniel's gaze now with an expression of awe. "The Holy Womb," He whispered emphatically, "From which the gods return. And the Holy Scribe, the vessel of truth. Sharra, kree!" That last was said in an urgent shout. In an instant, Pa'lok's head was down again, this time all the way to the table until he lay prone, his hands stretched out before him despite the plates and bowls that lay in their path.
Daniel was shocked to realize Pa'lok had barely taken that posture when everyone else in the room followed suit, all hands now reaching in the direction of Daniel and Janet. He knew he shared her look of bewilderment. "Wait," he said then, "You don't mean...?"
"Us?" Janet finished when he found himself unable to.
tbc