A/N #1: Like Interlude VII with Rosha, this Interlude is darker than most of my chapters. Content/Trigger Warnings for Goa'uld being awful and doing awful, terrible things.

A/N #2: This chapter was inspired by one paragraph on the Stargate Wikia and a piece of music on YT called "Oshrjad Bonebreaker."


Year Unknown (Third Goa'uld Dynasty)
Geronthrae (Homeworld of Ares, Milky-Way Galaxy)

Time seemed to have little meaning down in the dark, dank, putrid depths of the palace dungeons of Ares, the not-so-great, not-so-mighty System Lord, the beastly Andreiphontês,[1] may he rot in Hades forever, if there were actually such a place. There was no sunlight on this level of the dungeons, and the only light in his cell came from the flickering lamps in the corridor outside the high-security cellblock. When it rained, water leaked into his cell and those surrounding, adding a bone-chilling dampness to the already unpleasant conditions. (Sometimes other things also leaked, which made the nauseating smells even worse.)

The moans and screams and curses of the prisoners damned to the depths of Ares' dungeons were a constant refrain in his ears, resounding both night and day, though night and day could scarcely be distinguished in this place. And then there were the clanking footsteps of their Jaffa wardens or the softly pattering, hesitant, wary footsteps of Ares' human servants who were tasked with bringing water and slop to the prisoners—enough to sustain life, though only barely—or tending the wounds of those Ares wanted to live for now at least, but would not grant the 'mercy' of death and resurrection in the bowels of his sarcophagus.

Death was not the end, not for them.

There was no mercy to be found, not for them.

Only a temporary cessation.

Here, as in the dungeons of any System Lord or minor underling grasping at power over even the most minor of companies of human slaves, death was just the end of one period of torture and the gateway to the next. Death became just another part of an unending cycle of hours or days or weeks of months or years of torture and even longer periods of rotting in Ares' dungeon again until 'their god' deigned to trot out his favorite prisoner as an example for any others who would dare to defy the 'great' Ares.

He, one of the many prisoners condemned to Ares' dungeons, had his own dungeon quite like this on his own homeworld once … long ago, when he had served his own master, Hephaestus. Once consigned to its depths had been any Jaffa or humans—those puny creatures he had once considered so inferior to his own Unas host—who had lost favor or angered him or his master, for even what he now understood were the pettiest of offenses. Once, he had been the chiefest and the most powerful of Hephaestus' underlords in terms of Jaffa under his command and ships in his possession and worlds under his scaled fists … with his own eye always lingering on his master's golden throne.

And yet … fate was a cruel and fickle thing,

Once he had been the master, the one by whose command men and Jaffa lived or died, the one who threw people in the dungeons, and now? Once he had prided himself on subduing the strong and hardy mind of his Unas host who had fought so tenaciously against him, and now?

Now … one lost battle had cost him it all, and now he was the one rotting in the dungeons, a prisoner of his master's most loathed enemy, a favorite plaything to be tortured and trotted out at Ares' bidding.

How many years had it been?

Was it ten or even hundreds of years by now? Thousands?

Time seemed to have little meaning down in the depths here, even for him. There was no sunlight to judge the passing of days by. Meals came irregularly, and perhaps not always the same number per day. Ares did not exactly deign to tell him the year-date when he was being tortured, either.

Time seemed to slip away like sand through his fingers.

Fate was a strange thing.

Ironically, it was from one of those humans, a species he had always decried as puny compared to the tough and hardy Unas he had taken as a host, that he had learned the lifelong error of his ways from a fellow prisoner who had shared his cell. Phoenix had been an older man. What he had done to earn Ares' wrath had never been spoken of. Knowing Ares, it could have been a petty, inconsequential thing, but it had earned Phoenix a one-way trip to rot out the rest of his short years in the dungeons. Though he had not been willing to hear the words at first, from Phoenix he had learned much, of tolerance and acceptance, of compassion and pity, of justice and freedom … from his master Hephaestus and for his own enslaved host, of that fact that neither he nor his master nor the other Goa'uld were gods. The elder had been his first friend, and the time they had together for him to learn during was too short before the cold and damp had seeped into Phoenix's bones, before the lung-rot had turned his breaths into gasps and hacks and coughs, and his first friend had died.

He did not even know what had happened to Phoenix's body. That had horrified his host, and in one of their first conversations, his host had told him of customs foreign to the Goa'uld, of the mourning and burial customs of the Unas. He and his hosts had sung the death songs for Phoenix to the fury of Ares and the Jaffa guards. Thad had been the first time he had lost his tongue. (He could still scream without a tongue. All Ares cared about were the screams.)

Many more prisoners had shared his cell in the years since Phoenix had died, some human, some Jaffa who had brought Ares' wrath down upon their heads for various reasons. Phoenix had had faith in him that he could change, that he could do better, be better even with the curse of his genetic memories luring him farther down the dark path he had been on, and he had sought to learn more, learn more stories, learn more about what the Goa'uld truly were, learn more about compassion and tolerance and acceptance, concepts so foreign to a Goa'uld's way of thinking, from those who shared his cell for however long or short.

They all had names and stories of their own, and in this, he was thankful for his unforgetting memory—he could never forget the evils that he had committed—so he could remember these prisoners who would lie forgotten, rotting in unmarked graves, when Ares was finished with them. As long as he remembered, they would not be forgotten.

They taught him much, but they also kept him from madness. There was a chilling weightiness to the darkness, to the solitude he otherwise would have rotted in. As Ares' 'favorite,' the guards deemed it fit to single him out for special treatment, and food was often delivered less often to him. Sometimes it seemed like an eternity between the times his cell-door creaked open. If there were cellmates, he had more fragile company, and the Jaffa had to keep the less hardy human prisoners alive … for some definition of alive.

(Without them, without his host to finally talk to, he thought that madness might have taken him. Madness had already been taking his host, but as the time passed after Phoenix, the wounds seemed to be healing slowly.)

If there was one thing that an Unas host was useful for, it was being loud … and fighting. Sometimes he could keep the Jaffa's attention off his cellmates … occasionally off the others nearby … by not … cooperating. Whether it did them any good in the long run, he did not know, but like sharing his water ration, it was one of those little things that he could do to begin to atone for the sins of the past. His 'food' was often more slop than food, not worth sharing.

(If he had a human host, not Unas, he doubted that he would still be alive … which would be a mercy. Ares liked for him to suffer, did not always leave him in the sarcophagus long enough for him to heal completely. As infrequently as the Jaffa guards checked on him sometimes, without his host's regenerative capabilities, there was only so much that he could do to heal them, weak as they both were, and they might have perished, unattended. The sarcophagus only worked when one was recently deceased.)

Death would be a mercy.

Ares was not merciful.

Dungeons bred dark thoughts, and so did the heat of Seleukos' brow, burning against his hand. He was not sure what the young man had done to earn enough of Ares' wrath to earn him a one-way trip to the dungeons … where it appeared he would die of lung-rot … just like Phoenix. He dabbed at Seleukos' brow with a rag torn from the remnants of his shirt and moistened it with the last of his last water ration. The boy's brow burned like a summer fire, and his breathing sounded so very wrong.

Ir'tac still sat where he had propped the Jaffa up earlier against the wall after he had been thrown unconscious and tortured half to death into their cell. Ir'tac had been Second Prime to Ares himself until he had turned his back on his master and joined the rebel movement about which Ir'tac had told him a little sometime before. There would be no quick deaths for Ir'tac, no reprieve, no ending … not for a very long time.

Ares was furious over the betrayal, and Ir'tac would pay with every drop of blood, every fragment of bone, every shred of flesh.

He could hear the Jaffa's stuttering breaths. Somehow, they still continued, even if faltering at times. Ir'tac's primta was strong, that was certain. He had felt the ruined mess of the man's chest, of his ribs when he had moved Ir'tac earlier. A long death was more of a punishment than a quick reprieve. He would only earn a worse punishment for them both if he hastened Ir'tac's end.

Seleukos moved restlessly, a few words in his own strange tongue slipping from his throat. He patted the boy's brow again and gave a low rumble deep in his chest, as his host might have done to soothe his own cub if things had been different. Ares had taken his tongue again.

(There was a flash of memory from his host of a young cub from his clan dying of an illness … long ago … before he was captured to be a host.)

Time seemed to slip away.

(Or maybe he was finally going mad?)

It almost seemed like he had blinked, and his cell had changed. Slop and a fresh water ration were by the door, and he did not even remember the guards coming. And they never bothered to be quiet. If they woke up prisoners grasping a few precious moments of sleep and quiet, all the better. They delighted in such cruelties.

Seleukos was gone. Ir'tac was still there, but he was no longer in the same place and no longer sounded or looked like he was half-dead. His rags were still a mess, but as best as he could judge in the low light, he could only guess that the Jaffa had died and been carted off to the sarcophagus.

He wished that he had been able to bid farewell to Seleukos, wished he knew if the young man was actually dead, whether it was time to sing the death songs for him. Could his ruined throat and tongueless maw even make those noises anymore? He would try, but he was so tired.

He just needed to gather his strength.

Time slipped away again.

And again.

And again.

Ir'tac came and went … to torment and back.

He came and went … to torment and back, though less often. Ares had found a new favorite for now. He would regain that dubious position sooner or later.

Time slipped and slipped.

He could feel himself growing weaker and weaker.

Perhaps the end was finally coming. There were some things that a sarcophagus could not fix.

Time slipped.

And then one day … morning … afternoon … night … how was he to know? … he had almost slipped into an exhausted slumber when a deep, booming, rumbling vibration shook the dungeons. It was a very familiar noise … a welcome noise … heavy weapons fire.

Death had come for Ares at the hands of his enemies.

If there were any mercy left for a Goa'uld who had forsworn his masters, forsworn the path of his kin, an end would come to his torment, to their torment—when had Ir'tac returned? He did not remember—as well.

The sounds got louder and stronger as time passed. Wisps of dust fell from the ceiling and settled on their bodies, layering grime upon filth. Their guards were gone—the shouted orders and rushing feet disappearing in the distance testified to that. The cells were tightly bolted and strongly made. Even if he had been at full strength, he doubted that he could have forced his way out. There was an indistinct murmur of voices from the nearby cells, interspersed with the occasional scream or muffled sob from the more fearful. The stench of acrid fear was strong.

At some points, it seemed like his whole body shook with the force of the blasts on the surface.

Death would be a relief. He could only hope that this would be the day Ares met his end, as well. That would make his own ending all the sweeter to know his torturer was dead, his host freed and hopefully at peace.

Finally, an indeterminate amount of time after the first sounds of fighting on the surface began, the invaders arrived at the cell-block. His cell was near the corridor—Ares wanted his presence so frequently that it saved the guards time. The clomp of footsteps, the murmur of unfamiliar voices, the cries of the prisoners nearer the entrance all told the same story. It was time. The end had come. (All he could feel was relief.) Ir'tac struggled to his feet, bracing his ribs with one arm, and then slowly he climbed to his feet, as well, head spinning, and braced himself. He would stare death in the face.

When their cell-door was broken open, for a moment he thought it was one of his host's own kind staring back at him, though some part of his mind that was still functioning less sluggishly cataloged the difference. A long-separated offshoot? The creature in the doorway carried a staff-weapon like a Jaffa and looked almost as shocked to see him as he was to see … it. He snarled and bared his teeth in a savage expression. Death in battle would be even more preferable.

"Tal shakka mel." Ir'tac spoke those fateful words. I die free. He truly did expect to die if he would say those to Ares' enemies … Jaffa or not. Revealing himself as a Rebel Jaffa would seal his fate. If they fought, perhaps they could spare themselves from becoming some other Goa'uld's prisoner. He would die before he let himself be consigned to the depths of some other Goa'uld's dungeons.

And then the creature did something entirely unexpected. It hastily passed its weapon back to someone hidden by the wall, standing in the corridor between the rows of cells, and held up its hand in a universal placating gesture. "Ka keka!" It seemed to be addressing him since it spoke his host's language. "Keka Onac."

They are enemies of the Goa'uld? A Rebel Jaffa might be spared, but he was probably doomed if they recognized him as a Goa'uld … assuming what this … creature said was even the truth.

He slipped aside, and let his host take control. "Tak!" He snarled. Trick.

"Ka!" The creature shook its head rapidly, and the dim light from the corridor glinted off its scales. "Ka tak." No trick. It spoke slowly but clearly, as if it had been taught the Unas tongue but did not know it as a mother-tongue. "Te tok Onac." We fight the Goa'uld. "Keka Onac." Death to the Goa'uld. "Ka tak." No trick.

He looked at Ir'tac and got a minute shrug in return. Nothing could be worse than Ares' torture chamber. If there was a chance at life … take it.

He relaxed from his semblance of battle-ready posture, which was absolutely pathetic since he was wavering on his feet, fighting back a wave of dizziness all the while. His host backed up a step and lowered his chin, a play at a submissive posture. The creature nodded, turned his head just a fraction and said a few strange words to his fellow soldiers, and then looked at Ir'tac. "Your master Ares has fallen. Your identity and your true allegiance will need to be confirmed, but if you are what you say, you are welcome among us," he said in almost perfect Goa'uld, save for a strange accent.

"Who is your master if you do not serve the Goa'uld?" He growled back, still suspicious.

The creature looked surprised but answered immediately, "We have no master. We are the Lapith. We serve Brakarde and through him the Forgotten. All who oppose the Goa'uld and turn aside from their ways are welcome among us."

All those names were unknown to him. Lapith. Brakarde. The 'Forgotten.' Were they names? Races? He had been a prisoner so long that he had no conception of what was going on at a galactic scale, but if they were enemies of the Goa'uld … would they accept a Tok'ra?

One in spirit, if not name.

Better to know sooner rather than later. An unfortunately timed revelation would probably get him killed. His host agreed; they had no fear of death after all these years. He raised his chin and said in Goa'uld. "Lo tak Tok'ra." I am Tok'ra.

That got an even more surprised reaction, though not a hostile one (Behind it … and its companions, other prisoners were being moved out of their cells, hopefully to safety.)

"We were not told that one of your people had been captured by Ares," the Lapith said.

"I am Tok'ra," he replied, "but not of their ranks."

Now the other creature tensed. "Explain."

Ir'tac answered for him. "He is well known among us, who have long been prisoners of Ares. Once he once Hephaestus but was captured an age ago and has been tortured by Ares for sport ever since. From those who are prisoners here, he has learned the error of his ways and forsaken the Goa'uld."

"And what is your name, then?"

"We are Ulysses."


[1] Greek. "Destroyer of Men."