"Thoth? Who's Thoth?"  Jack said, leaning back in his chair and flipping a pencil in the air.

"I'm getting to that, Jack," Daniel said, a little annoyed. He moved to his next slide in the presentation. "As I was saying..."

"Give us the cliff notes version, Daniel," Jack said, trying to seem at least a little interested in Daniel's latest obsession - but his backside was taking on the shape of the briefing room chair. Forty-five minutes of slides and discussions about moldy Egyptian gods was forty minutes too long, in his opinion.  He ignored Teal'c's sideways look at him as he tossed the pencil up again.

"Thoth was one of the greatest of the Egyptian gods - he brought the knowledge of writing to the ancient Egyptians, as well as medicine, astronomy - a host of other sciences," Daniel continued, looking directly at Jack.

"Personal hero of yours, I take it?" Jack quipped, but a warning look from General Hammond forced him to be serious again.

"Well, of all the pantheon, Thoth did seem to be one of the few that truly cared about the human race. He crops up later in Greek mythology as Hermes, and throughout the mythology linked to him are references to the Book of Thoth," Daniel said. "Ancient mythology surrounding the Book describes it as containing the secrets of the gods themselves."  He flipped through some of the pages he held.  "To be precise, 'by reading it, you will learn the language of the beasts, how to see the wind and how to hear the sun, the secrets of the gods and the songs of the stars'."

"Cool," Jack said, flipping his pencil in the air again.  With a swift movement, Teal'c caught it and returned it to the table  - out of Jack's reach.

"You think it might actually exist?" Sam said.  

"Well - so much of what has survived in Egyptian folklore has seemed to be linked in some way to the Goa'uld. It's said that the Book of Thoth was first found by Nefrekeptah inside a nest of boxes at the bottom of the Nile - and that it was protected by a "serpent that could not die" - which could be a reference to a Goa'uld."

Sam looked over at Jack. "It's compelling, sir. If something like that did exist it would be real find for us."

"If it contains everything that there is to know about their race - it has to hold some secrets to defeating them," Daniel said.

"So - what you're saying is that we should go on a quest for this Book of Thoth?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow.

"Quest....I like the sound of that," Daniel said, with a smile.

"If you think there's a real possibility it could help us in our fight against the Goa'uld - then I'll support the mission to find it," General Hammond said.

"Thank you, General. I actually have an idea where we could begin looking," Daniel said.

"Let's hear it," General Hammond said.

"All the ancient texts say that the tomb of Nefrekeptah is in Memphis," Daniel said. "No Elvis cracks, Jack - Memphis as in Egypt."

"Hey, I know there's a Memphis in Egypt," Jack said, feigning hurt.

"But last night when I was looking at this map, I thought of something." He spread a map of the Nile delta on the table. "Here's Memphis on the map, right below Giza.  What if they didn't mean a city, here on Earth? What if they meant a planet?"

"Okay," Sam said, thinking it over. "Sounds reasonable. But there are a whole lot of planets out there, Daniel. How would we find the one that corresponded to Memphis?"

"Well - Abydos was a planet and a city in ancient Egypt." He pointed it out on the map. "So was Heliopolis - Ernest's planet."

"So where is this going?" Jack said.

"I went to the computer and calculated the relative distance between those two planets, and it's in direct proportion to the distance here on Earth between our Heliopolis and Abydos by this factor," he said, laying out a computer printout. "So - if we apply that reasoning to the distance between Abydos and where Memphis should be, you'll get a straight line this far out into space. Rotate it within three dimensions and it should hit a planet, once we take into account the spacial drift."

"It's scary - he's starting to talk just like you," Jack said to Sam.

"Colonel, he may be right. His calculations between Memphis and Heliopolis are right on target." Sam said, going to a computer and working for a few moments. Jack and Daniel came to her side, looking over her shoulder as she created a three dimensional model of the equation.

"There it is," she finally said, pointing at the screen. "There's only one known planet that would fit this model."

"Can you get gate coordinates for this, Major?" Jack asked.

"Well - it's not a planet we had on our list to explore, but I can have the computer work on the coordinates - we should have something in a matter of days," Sam said.

"General, permission to start questing," Jack said, smiling a little at the excitement in Daniel's eyes.

"So what did the MALP show?" Jack said, looking over Sam's shoulder in the control room along with the rest of SG-1.

Sam frowned. "Not much, sir. It's pretty dark and dismal there. It looks like there was some sort of battle there in the past, or some other kind of disaster. The landscape is burned all the way around the Stargate."

"Great - real resort area. Any signs of who might have caused all this destruction?" Jack asked, shooting Daniel a look. He could already see the disappointment in Daniel's eyes, but he knew the archaeologist wouldn't put his team in danger, even for his latest pet project.

"No signs of life, sir. For that matter, no signs of dead life either - it's like there's no one alive down there on the surface."

"Is the air breathable?" Teal'c asked.

"The MALP says so - just a lot of carbon-based pollution in the air, from the burning of the trees and plant life." Sam looked over at him. "Does this follow the Goa'uld MO?"

"The Goa'uld usually poison the air of planets they destroy, to ensure that all life is destroyed," Teal'c said. "This would not be typical."

"So it's bad - but not Goa'uld," Jack said.

"I do not believe so," Teal'c replied.

"Think it's safe, Major?" Jack said.

"I'd like to monitor the planet some more - make sure nothing's moving down there on the surface before we go through," Sam said. "After that - I'd say the risk is acceptable, sir."

SG-1 came through the gate, looking around warily at the burned landscape. "It's even better being here," Jack said, kicking a burned branch out of his way as he strode forward. As far as he could see, the landscape was desolate and gray, twisted trees being the only remaining objects on the blackened horizon.  Ashes swirled slightly in the wind, blocking out the sun's rays and giving a grayish cast to everything around them.

"Have any idea where to start looking for this tomb of Never Never?" Jack said to Daniel.

"Nefrekeptah. And no, I don't," Daniel said, scanning the horizon briefly with his binoculars. "There wasn't any reference to its location in the mythology. Just that it was a secret tomb, and that it was well hidden."

"That's all," Jack said. "And we thought it would be hard to find."

Teal'c looked warily around, an uneasy look on his face. "O'Neill," he said to Jack, as they walked away from the gate. "I do not like the feel of this place."

"Can't say as I do either, Teal'c. All the more reason for us to find this tomb and get the hell out of here," Jack said. He walked up to where Sam and Daniel were watching the UAV's readouts on a handheld monitor. "That thing finding anything?" he asked, looking at the tiny screen.

"Not yet, sir," Sam said, her eyes on the monitor.

"You sure it's working okay?" he asked. This hand-held monitor for the UAV was a new toy they'd just gotten.

"I'm sure, Colonel," she said, giving him a small smile. Then she looked closer at the screen. "That looks like a body of water - about a mile to our right."

"A tomb wouldn't have been located anywhere near a fresh water supply," Daniel offered.

"But it sounds like a good place to make camp," Jack said. "We'll use it as our base and explore from there."

"We just got here and we're already making camp," Daniel mumbled under his breath as he scanned the horizon again with his binoculars.

"Carter, you and Teal'c set up base camp and keep scanning with the UAV. Tomb Raider and I will do a quick sweep of the area around the Stargate," Jack said, motioning to Daniel.

"Yes, sir," Sam said, as she and Teal'c set off.

Jack turned to Daniel. "You want to explore," he said, taking off at a quick walk, "We'll explore."

Daniel picked up his pace until he matched Jack's speed. "At this pace, we'll walk right over it, Jack," he said.

"Good - then we'll have found it," Jack replied.  They walked in silence several minutes, passing over several small rises.  The landscape, if anything, grew more bleak and burned with every step they took.   

"See anything yet?" Jack remarked to Daniel, who gave him an annoyed glance.

"I think a more thorough search is probably going to...." His sentence ended with a yelp of surprise as the soil underneath his feet slid away.  He managed to grab hold of Jack's arm as he fell, ensuring that Jack went with him as they fell to the bottom of the pit in a tangle of arms and legs.

"Ow - damn it," Jack said, rolling over and sitting up, holding his shoulder.  A shower of pebbles and dirt landed on his head from above and pattered to the floor noisily.  "Ow. Daniel?" he said, coughing a little as the dust went up his nose.  He kicked aside the mesh that had camouflaged the pit and was now wrapped around his foot.

Daniel was sitting up already, and miraculously still had his glasses, although they, like the rest of him, were covered in a fine haze of ash and dirt. "I'm okay," he said, wincing a little as he stood up. "You?" he managed, before sneezing loudly.

"I landed on my bad shoulder - should be okay in a minute," Jack said, rubbing it. "What the hell did we fall into?"

"I have no idea - but it's not natural," Daniel said, kicking the dirt and burnt twigs out of the way to reveal the smooth stone floor. He looked up at the sky at the top of the pit. "Looks like we might be able to climb out of here. The walls are rough enough to provide some handholds."  He looked around, trying to find the best spot to start climbing.

Great, Jack thought. Just the thing I need after wrenching my shoulder halfway out of the socket - a nice rock climb.

"Sure you're okay?" Daniel asked, still looking at the walls.

"I'm fine," he lied, then clutched the side of the pit as the floor began to buckle. "Shit - what was that?" he said, scrambling to his feet. "It felt like the floor...."

The dirt they'd brought in with them began sliding through the seam opening in floor's center as it folded down toward the walls with a shuddering grate.

"It's moving, I know," Daniel said, looking around. "Grab hold of the walls - maybe we can still climb out of here," he said, grabbing a handhold as the floor became too steep to stand on.

Jack did the same, but barely got his fingers around the rocks he'd grasped before his feet were dangling over an expanse of darkness where the floor used to be. He glanced up to where Daniel had climbed halfway up the walls of the pit. It's amazing how a good dose of adrenaline improves Daniel's agility, Jack thought.

Daniel looked down to where Jack hung over the darkness of the pit, unmoving. "Jack - just stay where you are. If I can get out of here, I'll lower a rope down for you."

"I don't think I'll be able to hold on that long, Danny," he said, trying to readjust his handhold, with no luck. When he noticed Daniel had stopped climbing, he yelled up at him. "Why are you stopping? Get the hell out of here!"

Daniel only paused a moment before carefully making his way back to where Jack clung to the wall. "Use my knee to push off - there are better handholds right above your head," Daniel said. "Do it, Jack!" he said, his own arms starting to shake with the strain.

"This is a bad idea," Jack said, bracing one foot on Daniel's knee as he hoisted himself up, reaching for another handhold.

"Just get the hell up, will you?" Daniel said, as Jack reached for another handhold. He had just placed his hand on the rock when the walls of the pit began to shudder. Unable to hold on, he fell backwards, and slammed into Daniel, whose own hold on the wall was shaky at best.

The two of them tumbled into the darkness, falling for what seemed like an eternity before hitting the bottom again, this one only slightly more yielding than the stone floor of the pit above.  Jack sucked in his breath a second before his brain registered the fact that he was underwater.  Frantically, he pushed himself up, breaking through the surface with a strangled cough. In the pitch black darkness around him, he felt around for Daniel, rewarded only with scraped knuckles as he banged against the stone walls.

"Daniel!" he croaked, still choking on the water he'd swallowed. He took a few deep breaths and prepared to dive down into the murky waters again, when he suddenly heard Daniel surface near him, gasping for air.

"Daniel - I'm here," Jack said, reaching for him. "I think we got thrown into the deep end," he managed.

Daniel would have laughed if he wasn't coughing up water. Once he could breathe normally again, he felt out around him, running his hand over one of the walls.

Jack looked up; he couldn't see the top of the pit now. He couldn't even see Daniel in the inky darkness.  His guess was that the floor that had fallen through on them earlier had returned to its position, sealing them in. He treaded water wearily, hoping that there wasn't anything lurking down there that was looking for lunch.

"I guess climbing out now is out of the question," Daniel stated.

"I'd say so - any more ideas?" Jack said. Suddenly, he felt something brush by him in the water. Instinctively, he lashed out with his foot, impacting solidly with whatever was down there. At his side, he felt Daniel go under the water with a whoosh.

"Daniel - Daniel!" he yelled, waiting for him to surface, which he did, just a second later. "Are you okay?" he said, pulling him closer. "I felt something down there - I thought it got you."

Daniel caught his breath, then gave Jack a shove back into the water. "That was my leg, damn it!" he said. "I think you dislocated my knee," he groaned.

"Sorry," Jack said sheepishly. "I really did think something was - you don't think it's really dislocated, do you?" he finished. He felt a tugging on his legs, pulling him downward a little into the water. "Now don't tell me you didn't feel that," Jack said.

"I felt that," Daniel confirmed, moving a little closer to him. "It's like something's trying to pull me under the water."

"And over toward the wall - there," Jack said, trying to move away from the source of the suction. The pressure increased. "Don't look now, Daniel, but I think the water's draining out of this place. And it's trying to take us with it," he said, looking around vainly for a handhold. Without any light, he couldn't see anything in the pool, least of all where the water was going - and where it appeared they were going as well.

The pressure of the suction pulled them both to the far wall, where they vainly tried to swim against its pull.

"Daniel," Jack said, trying to remain calm, "We're going to get pulled under. With any luck, we'll be able to surface once the water gets to where it's going. But you're going to have to hold your breath for a while. Take deep breaths, and when you feel yourself pulled under, take in as much air as you can."

"Oh, God," Daniel said, an edge of panic creeping into his voice.

"Breathe! That's an order, for what it's worth," Jack said. Then the two of them were pulled under.

Jack felt himself being sucked into a narrow passage with tremendous force, and was banged against the walls of the passage as the water rushed through, taking him with it. Just as his lungs were getting ready to explode, he shot out, and landed into water again, but this time it was shallow. Shaking, he got to his feet, only to be knocked backwards by Daniel as he landed in the water.

Jack clambered to his feet again in the waist high water, moving away from the steady stream still coming in from above him. He grabbed the back of Daniel's jacket and hauled him up to his feet.

"I'm not even going to ask if you're okay," he said tiredly, and Daniel nodded, trying to catch his breath. Jack noticed with relief that even though the water continued to rush in, it wasn't getting any deeper.  This chamber was lit from above, and the walls were covered in pictographs in long slender columns. As soon as Daniel had caught his breath, he also began looking at the markings.

"The water's getting lower," Jack said, and pointed to where there were holes along the wall. "Look - drains." The water from above them had stopped, and the water in the chamber was going down steadily.

Daniel ignored him, intent on the writings.

"So what now?" Jack said to anyone listening.  "The walls going to come together and crush us?  Ceiling going to fall on our heads?  What?" he yelled out.  He noticed Daniel was still running his hand along the walls, reading.

"Daniel, what are you doing?" Jack said, trying to sound calmer than he felt.

"Trying to figure out what this says," he said, distractedly looking at the panels.

"Do you really think that's going to help right now?" Jack shouted.

"It might - and it's keeping me from panicking, okay?" he shouted back. "God, Jack - just give me a second, all right?" he said, turning away from him, his hands against the wall to steady himself.

Jack took a deep breath, willing down the panic he felt in his own chest. The water had subsided until just a foot remained swirling around their ankles. No way out of the chamber was apparent.  But - nothing was moving - yet.  "So we're trapped. Any idea where?"

"Nefrekeptah's tomb?" Daniel ventured, looking up again at the writings on the wall.

"Now that is what I don't want to hear," Jack said. "Sealed up alive in a tomb, great," he mumbled. "What does that say?" he said, looking over Daniel's shoulder at the writing.

"Standard tomb kinds of things," Daniel replied, then elaborated when he saw Jack's expression. "It's from the Book of the Dead."

"Sweet," Jack said sarcastically. "So we really are sealed up in a tomb."

"It looks that way, yes," Daniel said.

"And you said my way of finding tombs wouldn't work," Jack said, leaning up against the wall. 

Daniel stopped reading, and limped over to where Jack was. Jack noticed the limp with a stab of guilt. He makes it through all that, and I bust his knee, Jack thought.

"You've lost your glasses," he said to Daniel a second later.

Daniel looked over at him like he'd lost his mind. "No shit," he said.

"But you still have your sidearm," Jack said, motioning to where Daniel's sidearm was still snapped onto his belt. "That's good."

"If only I could see well enough to hit something," Daniel said, rubbing a weary hand over his throbbing knee.

"How's the knee?" Jack asked.

"It's fine," Daniel replied, not looking at him.

"Oh?" Jack said. He'd learned long ago that 'I'm fine' in Daniel's vocabulary meant anything but fine. It could usually be translated as 'get me to the infirmary, now'.

"This quest isn't going exactly how we'd planned," Daniel said.

In front of them, a panel in the wall shuddered, and slid open, revealing six Jaffa, who immediately leveled staff weapons at them. Behind them, a man stepped forward.

"Take their weapons and bring them to me," he said, in the hollow echo of the Goa'uld.

"It's about to get worse," Jack said.

Daniel and Jack were forced to their knees. "I hate it when they do that," Jack said to Daniel. 

He risked a glance around the room they'd been taken to, which had been heavily ornamented in what he referred to as "early Goa'uld" - thick gold panels on the walls, and gaudily rich draperies pooling around the entrances to several antechambers, where he could see this Goa'uld's retainers peering at them curiously.

He turned his attention back to their captor, who had walked up to them, circling them once.  He appeared young (but then again, they all did, didn't they?), his long black hair braided and held back with a circlet.  His clothing gleamed with gold, sewn onto intricately folded white linen.  An unwelcome image of Ra flashed through Jack's mind.

"The great warriors," he said, with a short laugh.

"I take it you don't really mean that," Jack said.

"Silence!" He walked away a few steps, his back to them.  "What has brought you here?"  he said, in a silky voice.

Daniel looked at Jack briefly, then spoke. "We came in search of what the Taur'i refer to as the Book of Thoth," he said.

The Goa'uld turned around in surprise. "The Book of Thoth? Do you believe you can find this book, which Setna and Nefrekeptah sought?" He reached out a hand to grab Daniel's chin, digging in his sharp, manicured nails "Do you think you can succeed where sons of Pharaohs have failed?"

"I had to try," Daniel said. Their eyes locked as the Goa'uld leaned in closer. "If I had succeeded, we might have defeated your race once and for all."

The Goa'uld laughed, releasing his chin with a jerk. "The Book of Thoth is out of your grasp," he said.

"How do you know?" Daniel asked.

The Goa'uld's eyes glowed. "I am Nefrekeptah," he said.

For once, Jack's mouth hung open just as much as Daniel's. "Uh oh," they both said.

"I did not slay the serpent who could not be slain when I raised the Book of Thoth from the Nile. He lives within me now."

"Looks like Setna took some creative license with his chronicle, Daniel," Jack said.

"Ah, Setna," Nefrekeptah said, walking away from them. "He was a greatly skilled scribe of his people. He has told my story."

"He also told his own story," Daniel insisted. "How he found the book in Nefrekeptah's tomb, and learned its secrets.  How he returned it here when its power overwhelmed him."

"Then Setna embellished his story - he did not want to say he had been captured by his enemy and returned unsuccessful. And what he did not add, generations after him have added. There is no tomb here," he said emphatically. "Only this stronghold, which Setna found. Which you have found."

He motioned to his Jaffa, who surrounded them. "So you came in search of the Book of Thoth? And what do you have to show for your quest?" He walked around Daniel menacingly. "You will not find the Book of Thoth here."

"I don't believe you," Daniel said.

"I destroyed it long ago - after Setna's quest. It was too dangerous to us to exist. Now the next chapter in this story must be written - how you sought the book and failed. How you paid with your death for your insolence."

"Now, wait a minute..." Jack started to protest as Nefrekeptah turned to him. "Remember and chronicle this," he said to Jack as two Jaffa pulled him away. The remainder of the Jaffa surrounded Daniel.

For one gut-wrenching second, Daniel's eyes locked with Jack's.  Then he turned away as Nefrekeptah raised a zat gun and pointed it at him. Rings came down around Jack and the two Jaffa.

"No!" Jack cried out as Nefrekeptah fired, and Daniel collapsed at his feet.  He kicked Daniel away from him as he raised the gun again.

"Daniel!" Jack cried out as Nefrekeptah fired another shot at Daniel as he lay unmoving. With a mocking smile at Jack, he aimed the gun at Daniel a third time as the rings activated.

When Jack looked up again, he was on the surface. The Jaffa pulled him to his feet and threw him forward.  He spun around, and with a low growl launched himself at them.  Startled, both Jaffa fired their staff weapons wildly, one blast singing by Jack's ear with an audible whine.  The other blast seared through his jacket, scorching a rut in his side.  He stumbled, his knees giving way as the rings came down around the Jaffa again, sucking them down into Nefrekeptah's stronghold.

Jack watched them go helplessly, and just stared at the spot where they'd disappeared with a stunned glance for an interminable time.  He finally ran a hand across his eyes roughly as tears of pain and rage blinded him.

It finally happened, his mind screamed at him.  You finally did it, Jack.  You took Daniel into a situation that got out of hand and you couldn't talk or fight your way out of it.  And he paid for it.  All those times that you breathed a sigh of relief when you stepped back through the Stargate with Daniel in one piece.  All those times when your luck sustained you when SG-1 stepped knee deep into shit on one of these worlds.  Hell, went  looking for trouble, who were you fooling.  Your luck had to run out, O'Neill, he thought.  And just like you always thought, Daniel ended up being the one to pay for it.