History of the Ages.
The light at the entrance to the atrium flickered as Jack rejoined his team with a chirpy "Good morning, Campers!". But the words died on his lips as he glanced from face to shocked face. He glanced down at his zipper to make sure that he wasn't making a fool of himself, then looked to the perplexed Jeanie. "Wha'd I miss?"
Jeanie shook her head and shrugged, not sure why the translation had silenced the rest of the team. "Don't ask me, ask them. They presented me with..."
"Uhhh...Jack" Daniel tried to tentatively interrupt.
Jeanie took the stones from Daniel and passed them to Jack, who looked at them and frowned. "What's this say?"
Jeanie glanced at the others. "That's one of the names of Horus."
"Jack...We need to talk." Daniel roused himself enough to retrieve the stones from him, while the other two muttered softly to themselves out of earshot. "Jack, this is something that we must talk about. Privately!"
Jeanie scowled. "You're not keeping me out of this, Daniel! This is my dig and you promised that I'd get full credit for it."
"Jeanie, please listen..." Daniel moved closer to his old friend. "We're not trying to take this away from you, but part of my recent research has involved a lot of information about Horus." He paused, trying to think about how best to phrase the next comment. "Jack, Sam, Teal'c and I just need to talk about this find. It changes a lot of things."
Jack sighed, still confused and unhappy. "Listen, Daniel, let's just get back to the tent and you can tell me what's going on?"
-----
The tent flap twitched as Jack peered over at the party in the main camp. No one was anywhere near their tent, which was a good thing. They were all having an end-of-week celebration. Jack turned back to the other three.
"So you're tellin' me that Horus was called Harsiesis?" Jack frowned as he tried to take in this information.
Daniel sipped from his coffee and then nodded. "Yes, that's one of the names the Greeks gave him. The name on this tablet is 'Har-sa-iset', or 'Harsiesis'. Y'see, the Horus of myth was a strange one. There were two versions of his story." He sipped more coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste. He stood, added another spoon of sugar to the mug, sipped from it and sighed in satisfaction.
"Alright," he continued, looking at the other three. "Horus had two forms. Solar Horus, the Son of Ra and Hathor, AKA Heru-ur." Teal'c nodded at that, but a small frown started to creep over his face as Daniel continued. "The other form was Osirian Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris."
"DanielJackson," Teal'c interrupted. "I have never seen a reference to Horus being the son of Isis and Osiris."
Daniel shook his head. "Not as far as the knowledge of the Jaffa are concerned, Teal'c. We are all told that there are stories where Osiris was killed by his brother, Seth and Horus avenged him. That's how he became known as Horus the Avenger." Teal'c tilted his head to one side, his eyes gleaming with curiosity and a little confusion.
Daniel sat down and started to relate the mythology of the Osirian Horus as the music from the revelry outside continued softly.
-----
Jeanie was concerned. She had not heard from any of her four visitors since they had rushed off to their tent for some seclusion. She was begining to suspect that they were more than they seemed. The way that they worked together showed trust, certainly. But Jack... he was obviously not an archaeologist. Jeanie just didn't know what he was.
She heard raised voices from inside the tent. Not an argument, but obviously not a quiet discussion. She didn't have to stand very close before she could make out the words.
"We all know that Heru'ur is dead, Daniel." That was Jack, always outspoken.
"Yes, Jack, but don't you see? If Heru'ur was a normal Goa'uld it wouldn't fit with the Osirian Horus myth. What if..."
"Colonel, don't you see?" That must be Sam, the only woman of the group. But who was she calling Colonel? "If this Harsiesis name is a reference to the Osirian Horus then what if the Osirian Horus was Harsiesis... Or even the first Harsiesis?"
"Indeed. The Goa'uld must have already encountered a Harsiesis to know what one of them would be capable of." The deep, rumbling voice could only be that of the Egyptian, Teal'c. She continued to listen as things started to fall into place for them, but this only made Jeanie more confused. They were talking as if these gods of myth were real!
"Alright, alright." Jack calmed them down a bit, his voice commanding. He must be the one they referred to as Colonel. That made a little more sense. "Listen, we know what a Harsiesis child is capable of. And you're right, it might explain why there's two myths for him on Earth. Let's get down to business."
There was general movement in the tent as Jeanie slipped away. There was something strange about the whole conversation and she intended to find out what. But that would have to wait. She'd just tell the guys at the main camp that those four didn't want to join their party. What worried her most was that they were military! Now she knew why Daniel hadn't published anything for the last few years.
-----
Jack looked up as he heard a faint noise outside. A swift gesture soon shut up all of the team and he stood. Peering out of the tent flap, he saw the shadowed figure of Jeanie moving on the outskirts of the main camp. He frowned, then turned back to the others. "It was Jeanie. I don't know what she heard. We need to be more careful about what we say, guys." They all nodded sagely.
"Daniel, what can we expect to find in the main chamber?" enquired Sam.
"Well, if it's anything like the one I found on Abydos, the walls will be carved with StarGate symbols."
"And if it's not?" Jack questioned.
"If not, then I can only guess what a room of such importance could hold. To be honest, I don't know."
-----
"Fire in the hole!" Jack's voice rang out with warning. Jeanie and the members of SG-1 ducked outside the small chamber, and Daniel covered his ears. The contained explosion sent small shock-waves through the soles of their feet, even though it made little noise. Jack stood up a few seconds later. Moving inside, he called the others when he was satisfied that it was safe.
For the most part, Jack's controlled explosion had removed the majority of the melted slag-pile. What was left no longer presented itself as an obstacle. Daniel and Jeanie, eyes eagerly alight, forged into the next room, then fell into silence, jaws agape.
What greeted them were walls coated in quartz, gems and precious metals, highlighting an amount of intact heiroglyphics the like of which had never been seen before in such a small space. They gazed around them in stunned awe, while the other three filed in. Their reactions were similar as they brushed fingers against raised pictographs, or just turned on the spot, eyes wide with amazement.
Teal'c spoke, his deep bass voice over-filling the room, despite how quietly he talked. "DanielJackson, never have I seen the like of this room before. It holds riches more than any throne room." He moved to the nearest corner of the room, reading some of it to himself. Daniel and Jeanie turned to each other, each pointing to some of the larger murals, until Sam spoke.
"Daniel, look at this one." Sam was standing near a medium sized mural, depicting a pharaoh, as Daniel later explained, wearing the double-crown of both upper and lower Egypt. The crown was inlaid with a thin layer of rich, red ruby and creamy white ivory. The skirt of the Pharaoh was formed of carved amber, a gleaming counterpoint to the gold of the background. Lines had been carved in the hard substance to give the impression of pleats. Standing behind the Pharaoh were a handful of what appeared to be bodyguards, their attire sculpted using similar methods to the skirt the Pharaoh wore.
Adorned in lapis and ebony, another figure stood opposite the Pharaoh with what looked like a cobra wrapped around his wrist. Arranged behind him were several figures carved with jackal heads, inlaid with silver and ebony. Each of them bore a staff with a hooded headpiece resembling a cobra.
A gasp of recognition came from the stunned Dr Jackson, as he finally thought to raise the camera and take a few shots. Sam leaned in close, so that Jeanie wouldn't over hear. "Daniel, that's GOT to be Ra and doesn't that look like a Zat gun in his hand?"
"Hmm?" Daniel blinked, then leaned forward to peer more closely at the hand. "Well, it's hard to tell, but considering that it looks like a snake about to strike, yes..." His whispered reply was cut short as Jeanie called him over.
"Daniel! Come here. There's a whole load more of those strange pictographs that were on the stone outside!"
Daniel hurried over, looking at ten Stargate addresses with a surprised look. "Sam! Look at this!"
Sam moved from the mural. Walking past a bored Jack O'Neill with an apologetic shrug, she joined Daniel and Jeanie on the other side of the room. "They... look familiar, Daniel." Sam recovered very well. "Have you photographed them? Perhaps we'll be able to use them to decipher the meaning?"
Jeanie shook her head. "There's only two different ones from the ones out front. I think we'll need more than these few to figure out what they mean."
Daniel glanced up and then muttered "Well, if it's a language, perhaps we can use these examples to identify some of the more common images." Jeanie nodded as Daniel took more photographs.
"DanielJackson." Teal'c rumbled, from his corner of the room. "This appears to be the story of Har-sa-iset." The Jaffa was lost in thought as he continued to read. Daniel's eyes lit up again.
"Of course! What better to protect than forbidden knowledge! Jeanie, do you trust me?" The young dig-leader nodded slightly, very confused. "Good!" gushed Daniel. "Don't tell anyone about this yet. Let's get this translated first, before we go announcing about finding all of this. We have to find out what it all means first."
Jeanie sighed. "Daniel, why won't you tell me exactly what you're up to?"
Daniel just looked innocent, blinking at his old friend. "We're uncovering what could possibly be the biggest find in the history of our world, Jeanie! Look at it this way. One, you have Egyptian carvings and heiroglyphics in a long-buried chamber in Greece! Two, this chamber is from a time when it was believed that Egypt was only a regional power and not an empire! Three, the Egyptian language was not as developed as this at the time Acrotiri was buried... or so we thought! Four, we've discovered elements of a previously unknown language..."
Jeanie crossed her arms, listening to Daniel rattle on. "Daniel." She stopped him with the single, hard-edged word. "You never did tell a good lie. What, PRECISELY, are you up to, Daniel Jackson?"
Daniel glanced at Sam, Jack and Teal'c for assistance before turning back to Jeanie. "You've already said you trust me, Jeanie... I can't tell you everything, but we've been searching for a place like this for the last four years!" Jeanie cocked her head to one side, then sighed in exasperation.
"Daniel, you'll tell me sooner or later, but for now I won't tell a soul. You're right, we need to know exactly what this says, before we continue."
"DanielJackson, it would appear that this is a diary, of sorts. It appears to detail the life of a man named Har-sa-iset." With the opportunity to escape Jeanie's questioning, Daniel scurried over to the corner where Teal'c was reading. Jeanie sighed, moving to study one of the larger murals.
Jack gestured to Sam for her to join him in the passageway, speaking in an undertone. "Sam, you realise that if she begins to step out of line, we WILL have to find a way of shutting her up, don't you?"
Sam nodded, glancing at Teal'c and the two archaeologists. "Yes sir, but I think we can trust her at the moment. Don't worry, sir, I'll keep my eye on her."
Jack just nodded, crossing his arms and watching the room. He dismissed Sam with a brief nod.
-----
"By the command and will of the Lord Horus, I set down these words so that future generations may know the truth and tremble at the terrible consequenses of surrendering to the Gods as we know them."
Daniel glanced up from his notepad and pointed to a series of heiroglyphics. Conferring with Teal'c, he continued his transcription of the main text.
"In the years when the God Osiris was maimed by his brother, Seth, Isis and Osiris endevoured to create a new 'Ba' to house the 'Ka' of Osiris. Although forbidden to the Gods, Isis and Osiris comforted each other as if they were mortal. Their forbidden love created our Lord. However, the babe was too small to house the Ka of the great God Osiris. When the other Gods discovered their deed, Isis and Osiris were judged. Ra, the father of all Gods, sat in decree and sentenced the parents of our Lord to slavery in the pits of Black Quartz."
Daniel frowned, then glanced at Teal'c. "Naquadah?" The Jaffa nodded. "They were sentenced to mine the Naquadah pits?" Again, Teal'c nodded. Daniel shook his head in disgust as he continued.
"The young child, Horus was witness to the terrible day when brother betrayed brother. Seth, brother of Osiris, had known about Horus. He had decided that the fate of his brother and his sister should be worse than the fate the Gods had meted out to him for his betrayal. Horus watched the events unfold and witnessed his parents brought low.
"Only a child, bewildered and alone, he stumbled from the ruinous palace and emerged on the edge of the Nile. But he knew something that none other did. He could hear the words of the alligators. He could understand the whisper of the ibis. He could talk with the tongue of the asp.
"He travelled as he grew to maturity. Far from his home, borne on a boat of reeds, he found a small island which the locals had named Thera. Here our Lord and his followers settled at the top of the mount.
"He studied the ways of the world, the histories, the knowledge. He created..."
Daniel frowned, shaking his head. "I have never seen this word before, Teal'c."
The Jaffa shook his head. "I am unfamiliar with this one, also. I believe the concept is what you call Utopia, but that is not what the word means."
Daniel sighed, drawing the odd combination of Heiroglyps and writing '(Utopia?)' in the margin. He scowled again. "That's odd... It says that Horus developed magics to protect this Utopia from the elements." Teal'c nodded, confirming the translation, and Daniel continued to write.
"Our Lord created the passages that led to the halls of Utopia, and the great archways of our home. Our hopes lay in the accumulated knowledge of Lord Horus, which we stored in our new home, that one day a way could be found to drive away the false Gods that had imprisoned our families with their myth.
"Our Lord warned us that his parents were but two of those Gods, and not necessarily on our side. His words of warning were true, for ten years after the Gods declared war on Our Lord, the Sun God Ra, sent Our Lord's father and mother to capture their wayward son. Lord Horus knew their ways and knew their weaknesses. With his skill of magic, Lord Horus removed the Ka from his parents, imprisoning them for all eternity."
Sam interrupted Daniel at this point, "Could that be a reference to the two stasis jars that we found? We know that one of those contained Osiris."
Daniel, chewing thoughtfully on the end of his pen, replied "That makes perfect sense! This is actually filling in a lot of blanks relating to our recent..." he paused, glancing at Jeanie, "discoveries."
Jack sighed, pulling his cap over his face as he leaned back, "Just get on with it, Daniel!".
"Ra was displeased, but there was fear in his heart. What God had the power to free the Ba from the Ka? Lord Horus was no God, yet he had the knowledge of all of their magics. The battles were fierce, but He won each one. Eventually, Ra withdrew from these lands and left Our Lord in peace."
Daniel rubbed at his tired eyes. It had taken them five days to photograph each panel of the chamber and to transcribe the story written there. Daniel could quite easily see the parallels with the history that they knew of Goa'uld, but the story in the chamber seemed incomplete. There was nothing about the death of Horus. Nothing about the way Ra left Earth. Despite filling in lots of gaps in his knowledge, the end of the story was missing. He sighed. Well at least they could continue with the excavation of the smaller chamber that had been found on the second day. But Daniel needed rest... or coffee. It depended on which he could get first.
He stood, wincing as his back and neck muscles popped from stiffness. Stretching to work out a few kinks from sitting and staring at these walls for days, he glanced at his watch. Three hours before the others would get here. That's three hours of sleep. He moved groggily out of the chamber and back to the tent.
-----
"Jeanie?" Daniel queried.
"Mmm?" Jeanie looked up from the drawing she was making of some of the larger carvings.
"Can you get us some more water? We're out of coffee." Daniel looked at her with eyes that just melted any opposition to the idea.
Jeanie laughed softly and replied "Sure, Daniel. No problem."
Satisfied that she was gone, Sam looked at the wall carving in the smaller chamber. A tall warrior, holding a long pike of ivory, stood at attention. His skirt was carved from the purest silver. He wore a helm of silver and rose quartz. His hand was covered by an elegantly carved gauntlet with a blood red garnet embedded. Sam was carefully brushing away dust to reveal a small groove running around the edge of the gem. "Colonel, this looks like a button..."
Curious, the team gathered around Sam to watch as the garnet was fully revealed. "Do you think this might open some kinda door or panel?" Jack asked. As all eyes turned to him, he held up his hands in defence, "Hey, don't look at me. You guys understand all this... scientific stuff."
Jeanie's whistling started to grow louder again as they continued to talk in whispers.
Sam smirked and said "Well, there's only one way to find out", then pressed the garnet firmly. As a circle of light appeared on the floor, SG-1 knew what this was. They pulled their arms in close, wondering where this would lead.
As Jeanie approached the room, she heard a strange, deep thrumming noise followed by five rhythmic thuds. As she entered the whole chamber was filled with light. Dropping the jug of water she had in her hand she saw five, solid, heavy rings surrounding Daniel and his friends. Then Daniel, his friends were gone and the rings vanished into the floor.
TBC
