AN: Well, I have started my moestuin, or kitchen garden, by covering my kitchen table with planted seeds and the grow light is all checked and ready to go when plants start peeking through. My crocuses, daffodils, tulips, and hydrangeas are convinced it's spring. (The hyacinths seem to know better.) No matter what the weather is by you, may you have at least metaphorical sunshine!
Please enjoy this chapter, which was like pulling teeth to write. Sorry it took so long!
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We will burn that bridge when we come to it.
It wasn't long before Sam's eyes were streaming and sweat was pouring down his neck. He knew better than to take off his long-sleeve shirt, though. It wouldn't make him significantly cooler and uncovered skin was much more likely to blister from the heat. The bandanna on his face didn't offer much protection from the smoke, either. Though he had excellent navigation skills, he soon only had a vague idea of what direction he'd come from thanks to the rotten visibility. He didn't have a snowball's chance in...well, a forest fire...of finding Noah on his own, but he had a feeling he wouldn't have to. Someone (and he was deliberately not thinking of the designation Lynn Peterson had said) wanted Sam. Buddy and the now-dead cop had made that clear. It seemed unlikely that whoever it was would simply let him wander until he died out from smoke inhalation.
He came upon a fallen tree that was still burning quite energetically and paused to consider which direction to go next.
"Come to me, pueri specialis."
Sam looked around rapidly, trying to search his shrouded surroundings, but then realized that the voice hadn't spoken aloud, just into his mind. The appellation first made him feel slightly sick, then confused.
"Special child?" he asked aloud. Buddy had mispronounced the second Latin word, making it sound like 'speech ally,' meaning Sam hadn't recognized what he was trying to say. "What do you know about the special children?" It felt like a lifetime ago that he'd learned about Azazel's plan. Satan's plan. Something about the aura around him felt a little like the oily, oppressive feeling that Lucifer had always evoked, but on the other hand, that just wasn't possible.
"You belong with me." All of the fire to Sam's immediate left moved to the sides, forming a kind of tunnel and clearly giving him direction. The voice had gone for enticing and missed it by a mile. It felt like the pretend sympathy Lucifer had offered when he'd very first appeared in Sam's dreams claiming he had no choice.
It was an open secret that Sam hated being backed in a corner and told what to do, and especially hated being reminded of his supposed destiny. He'd played that hand, suffered for it, but come out the other side mostly intact. "I don't know who you are," he called. "No, I don't know what you are, but I know for a fact that you aren't him. You aren't Lucifer. He's back in the Cage and the demon blood is gone. Your side lost." He squinted in the direction he was being herded but didn't start moving.
"And your side is burning, including the boy," the voice snapped, seemingly frustrated that Sam dared defy it. " I speak for Lord and Master Eous, who shall never be defeated. Come!"
A burning branch fell and struck Sam's arm, starting his shirt on fire. He yelled in surprise and pain and beat it out. It only took a few seconds, but the skin was already slightly blistered. Grateful it wasn't worse, he rolled up the ruined sleeve to at least keep it from touching the burns.
"Put out the fire, don't hurt Noah, and I'll come," he shouted, or at least did his best approximation with his throat full of smoke and ash. Instantly, a small pain, barely noticeable in comparison to his arm, stung his neck. He slapped a hand up and found blood.
"A deal has been –"
"NO!" This time he did shout, though it made him cough. "I don't accept your deal." The pain on his neck disappeared and he sensed anger around him, as real as the fire. Whatever it was, it seemed to be playing fast and loose with the rules of deal-making, assuming compliance unless the intended target specifically stated that they did not accept the deal. And Sam had probably been the first to know enough to say he didn't accept.
"The boy –"
"I'm coming, asshole. And Noah better be alive." His voice was wrecked, but he was pretty sure he got his point across. Sam wrapped his wounded arm around his aching ribs to hopefully protect both. "I don't accept any deals unless I say out loud that I agree, got it?" He stepped over a smoking tree trunk and barely bit back a groan of pain. "If you want me to come to you, why the hell do you keep injuring me? It just makes everything take longer." Sure, the question was partly born of pique and pain, but it was also a real query. As much as the moniker "special child" rankled, those who'd used it in the past had either showed Sam a certain (if often begrudging) respect or tried to forcibly remove him from "Boy King" contention. Of course, the fact that this thing's information was a decade out of date didn't speak well to its intelligence.
"Heal yourself. It is your own fault for interfering!" Imperious.
Sam snorted. Like he wouldn't intervene to protect Dean from its attempts on his life. "I can't." He dissolved into a coughing fit strong enough that he had to stop walking and bend forward. When he finally could catch his breath again, his ribs were screaming and he was a little worried that he was in danger of moving from cracked rib to broken. "So keep your shirt on. 'M coming as fast as I can."
Sam took a few more steps and stumbled a little, not getting enough oxygen. He didn't stop, because his problems didn't change the fact that Noah's life was still in danger. He stubbornly continued on, often having to push through brush and go up and down small gullies full of hidden roots. It wasn't getting any cooler, either. At one point, Sam tripped and fell all the way down a decline, rolling a few bumpy feet and landing with his hand in a trickle of water that was almost hot enough to be painful to touch. He hissed at the pain in his arm and ribs and palms and it made him cough again, hard enough to cause a brief dizzy spell.
Except it didn't turn out to be brief. The world swirled around Sam, and he thought he couldn't possibly go any further. He stood and immediately went down again, his knee flaring with burning pain. He went to stand again or at least get away from the embers he'd landed on and only managed to flop to the side, gray squeezing into his vision and narrowing his sight to almost nothing.
"Why are you so useless?" The voice was nearly screaming, but it sounded tinny and weak to Sam's ringing ears. Useless...useless...he'd heard that before.
When Sam was 11, he'd been part of a soccer team with a tremendous amount of talent. Soccer was the sport in that town, and everyone else on the team had played seemingly since they were old enough to stand up. Though a decent athlete, Sam sort of wondered why they'd even let him on the team. He had never played before. (In fact, he was better at baseball and basketball, but soccer was one of the few sports Dad had never played, and choosing it felt like a tiny rebellion.)
In one game, one of the stars, a kid named Scott lost his temper when Sam missed a pass. He yelled, "You're useless!" and refused to pass to him again.
To everyone's shock, Coach's reaction was to bench Scott. After the game, Coach asked Scott and Sam to both stay for a moment. He let them stare at their feet for a couple minutes, then said, "Scott, you are the kind of kid that every coach wants on his team." Sam could almost feel the other boy preening. As far as Sam could tell, soccer was the most important thing in Scott's life. "You are a talented kid, and you know as much about soccer as I do."
Coach paused. "Sam, you are also the kind of kid every coach wants on his team."
Sam's head came up in surprise. He'd expected that he was about to be told that he was no longer needed on the team. "What…?"
"All you want is to help out the team and to get better. You're a great teammate. And you are dogged." He said that last word like it had significance.
"What does that mean?" asked Scott, his forehead scrunching up. Sam was glad he'd asked, because he wasn't sure he knew either.
Coach smiled. "It means that Sam runs his sprints all out even if it's 90 degrees out or he didn't get a lot of sleep or everyone else is slacking off. It means he never quits." He looked at both of the boys in front of him. "You two could learn so much from each other, and if you did, there wouldn't be many teams out there that could beat us.
He'd been right. And Sam had told Dean about it and they'd looked up dogged together. It said: 'stubbornly determined, tenacious,' which made Dean laugh and say that Coach was spot on. But Sam decided that it was a compliment. In fact, it kind of sounded like the opposite of useless.
Sam would be dogged now, with Noah's life on the line. Remembering that there is often air trapped inside your clothes, he pulled his t-shirt over his mouth and instantly found some relief. After a moment, he wiped the sweat off his forehead with his good arm and blinked. It looked like the smoke was significantly lighter everywhere, not just directly ahead, and that the fire had died down considerably. His shoulders relaxed marginally. His opponent could be logical, given the right enticement. "Killing all of the fire would be better," he rasped.
"No. Come faster."
Well, it had been worth a try. Sam did his best to move faster, but he was still struggling against the smoke, and he half tripped repeatedly since he couldn't clearly see the uneven ground and he was down to one arm. Twice he burned the palm of his good hand catching himself against a tree that was still really hot. His lungs felt like they were full of sharp sand, and he was pretty much a mass of pains big and small. He wondered how much farther he had to go and how exactly he was going to fight his impatient adversary, much less find his way back out with a child in tow.
Then the quality of the air changed. Not the physical quality, but the sense of it. Sam stopped automatically, bile rising up in his throat. He wiped sweat out of his eyes yet again and wished for a shotgun full of salt rounds or maybe Dean's favorite weapon – the grenade launcher. Or really, he wished for Dean.
Sam blinked at what was twenty feet in front of him in a small, burned-out meadow. It was...a chair. But not a chair constructed the normal way. No, this looked as if great, woody thorns had grown up from the ground and twisted into a Game-of-Thrones-esque throne, though nobody would ever sit safely on this seat. No part of the oversized piece of furniture was smooth or even, and there were big gaps and weird twists throughout. The "vines" and the thorns on them were actually stone, but again, the shape seemed far too organic for it to have been sculpted. Something about the chaotic desperation of it brought to mind Rodin's Gates of Hell.
Channeling Dean, Sam decided that if Maleficent and Cersei Lannister had designed a megalithic seat with input from Torquemada, it probably would have looked like this.
Although he knew what he was looking at, Sam was more interested in the small figure huddled near the foot of the chair. "Noah! Are you hurt, kiddo?"
Sam really really didn't want to step anywhere close to the diaboli cathedra, or so-called devil's chair, but even the literal devil couldn't have stopped him from trying to get to the child. The boy lifted his head, and Sam was so relieved to see him alive and whole that he forgot to keep his breaths shallow. He hurried over across the blackened ground, ignoring the gouts of smoke that puffed out here and there trying to evaluate the child's condition as he went.
Noah's face was filthy and streaked with tears, but there were no visible burns or blood on him which felt nothing short of miraculous. "Here, Noah, this will help you breathe," Sam said, removing the bandanna from his face. The air was far clearer here than under the tree cover, but he didn't know how much Noah had already inhaled. "May I put it on your face?"
Noah sniffled and nodded. "I wanna go home," he admitted, his big eyes brimming with tears. He turned his gaze toward his one outstretched leg. Having fastened the bandanna in place, Sam followed Noah's eyes and saw that one vine (tentacle? arm?) lay over Noah's leg just above the ankle. Four-inch- long needle-like protrusions rested against the skin with just enough force to indent it but not quite break it. The threat was clear. "I miss my s-sister."
"I know," Sam said. "I'm working on that." He gave Noah the best smile he could. "My partner Dean told me that you're really brave, and I can see that he was right. Be patient a little longer and we'll get you home."
"I knew you would come." The voice gloated. "My glorious master Eous will –"
"Do nothing," Sam snapped. He knew what he was facing now, knew Lucifer himself was in the Cage and that this was merely something that had absorbed a little of his power long ago, maybe even by accident. "Your boss lost. He came for me, he tried to cause the Apocalypse, and he lost. We won. Save me the speech. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt." It sounded good, but it was at least half sheer bravado. (Sam allowed himself the brief thought that Dean would have been proud.) Whatever artifact was behind the diaboli cathedra had enough power to screw around with people miles away as long as it had a "deal" to back it up. He and Noah were in the middle of a forest fire (a dying one, but still) and nobody knew where they were. It wasn't looking great for them.
"Impossible." A pause, and Sam considered his next moves by reviewing what he knew about the phenomenon he was facing.
There was a huge amount of lore about so-called devil's chairs. Some were merely carvings of empty chairs that were placed in cemeteries. There were a thousand local legends about individual ones. A popular one was that if you left a full beer near or on the chair overnight, perhaps on a special night, in the morning it would be empty. Or a carton of cigarettes would be used. Some even believed that if you left such an offering and it was accepted that good fortune would come to you.
Some necromancers thought such chairs had power and would try to harness such.
But from what Sam had found (and later discovered that the Men of Letters had also believed) was that the true devil's chairs were not made by human hands at all. Instead, they occurred when demonic objects of power somehow grew over time. The power they held would manifest in the form of a literal, physical throne.
Some said sitting in one of these chairs would give you the chance to ally yourself with the source of power; some said the chair would suck the life out of anyone who dared sit on it. Sam hadn't heard that such chairs could make deals, but lore was seldom complete.
Coming back to the present, Sam snorted at the statement that Lucifer being defeated was impossible. "Impossible? Yeah, I've heard that before." His voice was so hoarse he could barely speak. He looked at Noah's trapped ankle and thought. This was something that had absorbed Lucifer's power long ago. He knew for a fact that the fallen angel had roamed the Earth for quite some time after the Garden of Eden and before he was thrown into the Cage. The archangel implied that he'd left plenty of mischievous traps for humans behind, and perhaps that was what the so-called vaults were. Whether or not this really was a "vault," there had to be a singular object, like a grain of sand to a pearl, from which this phenomenon had grown. If he found it, it could be destroyed…by something strong enough.
But first, he had to get Noah free.
The voice was saying something but Sam wasn't listening. He stared Noah straight in the eyes and mouthed, "Don't move," hoping the boy would understand. He couldn't read Noah's expression under the bandanna, but he nodded incrementally. Despite the tears still welling up occasionally, he didn't break eye contact. Sam slipped a hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around the vial of blessed dried juniper leaves he'd stuck there after cleansing the warded bag. It probably wouldn't hurt his adversary exactly, but it should prove an irritant to anything infernal.
Sam mouthed, "One, two, three…" then slapped the vial down on the limb wrapped around Noah's leg. It flinched back, as he'd hoped, and he grabbed up Noah. In the same motion, Sam pushed to his feet, turned his back to the chair and curled around the boy as far as he could. He made it all of three steps before spiked bands as cold and as hard as iron wrapped around his biceps and jerked him to a stop. The tips of the thorns just barely punctured the skin.
"You can never leave me," the voice promised, vitriol wrapped in sibilant velvet.
In defiance of the heat around him, the cold seemed to seep right into Sam's veins and bones. He could have sworn he was talking to Lucifer himself. For a moment, he froze all the way down to his marrow. It was like he was in... there again. All his recent visions came back to him – him back in the Cage. His whole body trembled, and he heard the same words again, but in a different voice. In the Higher Language, in Enochian, the language of Sam's worst nightmares.
Noah squirmed against Sam, reigniting the pain in his ribs, but the shock was a good thing. It shook him out of his near panic. He couldn't let his issues keep him from saving this kid and ending the reign of terror of some cast-off piece of Lucifer's trash.
"Let go," Sam ordered as sternly as he could, though he couldn't get much volume through his ravaged throat. He was almost out of ideas (and physical strength), but damned if he'd quit. "If you know who I am, you know how important I am." Pushing down the way the words made him want to vomit, he continued, "I am the perfect vessel of the Morningstar, destined since before time began to be the means through which he defeats Michael. I am not to be touched. Release me."
If he hadn't been trembling from weakness and pain, he thought it might have worked.
"You...taste like him," it said, and then Sam thought he really might ralph. " Make. A. Deal."
The vines tightened their hold and blood blossomed in small but growing spots all up and down his arms. One wormed its way around Sam's torso and tightened, making it feel like already sore ribs were creaking under the pressure. Clearly, it no longer cared about sharing Sam with its master.
"Tell me...your name," Sam gasped. He could barely stand, but he managed to hold onto Noah and just keep him away from the grasping tentacles. Tears streamed down the child's face, but he didn't say a word. "I won't make any deals unless you tell me who you truly are. And not just diaboli cathedra."
There was the barest pause, then it spoke again, sounding haughty, yet somehow uncertain, as if it were trying too hard. "I am Lucifer's scythe. Held in the hand of the King, I can summon Death himself."
"Scythe?" He hadn't seen anything on the chair that looked like a scythe, neither a handheld style or the cradle type.
"Well...my curved section is not here…" it hedged.
In the midst of everything, Sam very nearly laughed. All that was left of the so-called weapon was a stick – the cutting metal part was apparently broken off and gone. No wonder it had been abandoned or simply forgotten! It wasn't like Luci had lacked ways to get to Death, either. The devil couldn't be bothered with a plain old handle that was no more frightening in appearance than, say, a broken broom.
Okay, yes, it had absorbed enough power to grow into a devil's chair and wreak plenty of havoc once the hiking trail opened and it had regular visitors, but that power had to be limited.
"Very well, Snath of Lucifer, I want to make a deal," Sam said, and the smoke and vines weren't the only reasons he had trouble getting the words out. "Release me while we negotiate. I won't run."
"You will make a deal?" it insisted.
"I will not leave before a deal is struck," Sam promised. He didn't know if his lips were tingling from lack of air or the terrible dread that suffused him. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was no way to come out of this that would be to his benefit. Maybe his best hope was to stall and wait for backup since there was no doubt in his mind that Dean would somehow track him down. And if that wasn't possible, he'd have no choice but to actually strike the best possible deal to give Noah the chance to escape.
Slowly, reluctantly, the vines released him, each point popping out of his skin. The vines only retreated a few feet, but at least he was loose. Sam lowered Noah carefully to his feet and whispered a short message right in his ear. He hoped Noah would understand and remember and get the chance to deliver the message. Sam straightened painfully and turned to face the chair, moving so Noah was behind him. He kept one hand on the boy's shoulder so he always knew exactly where he was.
"What you want," Sam croaked, trying to disguise his weakness. "It's for me to stick around...to say 'yes' to you. To not try to fight or get away. Right?"
There was a brief pause. "I want you . Your blood, your mind. All of you. And in exchange…?"
Sam swallowed his relief. As disquieting as it was to hear the avariciousness, the desire to possess him (because there was no doubt it was no longer thinking about its master but wanted Sam all to itself), that very desire meant Sam had negotiation room. He hadn't planned to go into law for the money – he was good at this kind of thing. But he couldn't let down his guard. Getting talks started was only step one. "First, you have to release every other active deal you have going. Second, grant safe passageway out of the woods to everyone who's in them right now. Third, no new deals with anyone. Fourth, put the fire out."
The voice made a grating sound like dry branches rubbing in the wind but a thousand times louder. It took Sam a second to register it as laughter. "You overvalue yourself. You think I can't take what I want any time? Create another deal to have you brought back to me when you run? I am –"
"You are bound by demonic rules, at least partly." Sam locked his knees to stay upright and gave Noah's shoulder a reassuring squeeze when the boy squirmed behind him. He was making nothing more than educated guesses at this point, but speaking with confidence was half the battle. "You lose power when you break those rules, don't you? You can't just take whatever you want. I didn't make any deals yet, and I am willing to bet you don't actually have a hold on Noah here either, or he'd be a whole lot weaker by now." Sam's voice was a mere croak but still resolute. "You can make the deal or take your chances that your best bet for gaining more power – me – gets away."
The voice gave a low hiss Sam hardly heard over the pounding in his ears. "I will release all other deals. I will not stop anyone else from leaving the woods. I will allow the fire to die on its own. And you –"
Sam spoke quickly. He'd gotten the most important concessions. "I will not try to escape you." He let go of Noah's shoulder, the signal to run as fast and far as he could. Noah took off immediately, as Sam had told him to. Thankfully, there was no reaction from any of the vines that were quivering as if in excitement. In fact, the entire chair was twitching now. Sam felt like all of the attention was focused on him. "Do we have a deal?" His voice nearly broke.
"The deal is struck."
"Agreed."
Sam took one step forward as a vine as big around as his forearm stabbed forward toward his torso. The pain when it struck was so intense that he seriously wondered if it had gone completely through his body.
The ground was shaking but Sam was already falling, every synapse protesting at the agony from the terrible wound. Blind with pain, he thought he was moving, but then he was no longer Sam but was...something other...he was the scythe.
Energy surged within him as he came to life in power and pain. He was a bringer of death, a weapon for the mighty hand that had forged him. The first thing he saw was the terrible, beautiful visage of his master, burning like the sun as he formed other tools, imbuing them, too, with power.
Finally, he, Eous, the morningstar, turned back and picked him up. Suddenly, he thirsted for blood and as much as it hurt, he basked in the heat of the Eous' attention.
"Death thinks he's better than I," mused the master.
He thought he would be incinerated. And it was wonderful.
The master created a home for all his new tools. A crypt. He came only rarely, but oh, how the scythe waited for those times. For the chance to taste all the death promised in his very creation.
Eous took other tools away sometimes, but never the scythe. Then came the day he was furious and shining so brightly that the stones nearby turned to liquid. He grabbed the scythe and flew to a great gate. Eous swung the scythe at the doors faster than the eye could see, and the force of the blow caused the ground to shake.
But the gates were too hard, and the blade broke free. In fury, Eous threw it so far it landed in the salty water where the ice never melts. As he flew off, he carelessly dropped the handle.
What was left of the scythe landed alone among the trees.
Time passed so, so slowly. Its hatred grew incrementally, like an icicle. Its power had no outlet. Slowly, glacially, it began to evolve. It began to look outward. It began to want. A diaboli cathedra was birthed.
Noah ran, the fire burned, Sam bled, and the diaboli cathedra began to grow again.
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AN: *Wince*
The Latin, as always, comes from Google translate, and was actually corrected by Janice, who can apparently include "polyglot" among her many skills.
The Gates of Hell is a humungous sculpture by Auguste Rodin depicting all these figures trying to escape torment.
Maleficent was the evil witch in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. One of the things she did was cause huge, terrible thorns to grow over the castle to try to keep the prince from kissing Aurora awake. I pictured those thorns when imagining the chair.
Cersei Lannister is a queen from the book and series Game of Thrones. The Iron Throne from that series is famously large and imposing.
Tomás de Torquemada was a Grand Inquisitor in the Spanish Inquisition. He is widely associated with torture.
I got the definition of "dogged" from merriamwebster dot com.
The handle of a handheld scythe is called a snath. Isn't that a fun, Seussical word?
The myth of devil's chairs is just the first part of what Sam remembered, but I expanded it.
Timelady66: I'm glad you liked the memory! By the way, to hear from a master world-builder like you that I do lore well is so flattering and made my day. You were right to be worried about Sam. He's getting extra whumpage in this one, and it takes place right after an episode where both brothers got all beat up. Poor boys.
Colby's girl: I do love twists and trying to surprise people. Soul lojack cracked me up! Imagine advertisements: Not comfortable using GPS and having your location out there for anyone to find? Soul lo-jack sends information to your soul mate only! Offer not valid on non-Earth planes. LOL. Yes, I'm easily amused. When I was growing up, we had this huge tree next to the house and couldn't figure out why it was leaning so much...and discovered an underground tank for gas to power gas lights. On one hand, very cool because my great-uncle had scratched his name under the lid. On the other hand, very not cool. Safety regulations wouldn't allow us to fill it in, so Dad had to remove the tree and it, all without damaging the very old house foundation. Yikes! Not as cool as finding the walls are literally built around logs, but still kind of crazy.
Christine: So happy you like the idea! You're so right about poor Grant. Talk about a shock!
LilyFear: Thank you so much! I feel bad for making you wait so long. I did see your very kind comments on some other stories too, and I appreciate them so very much. I can't respond through PM's, but I do see and read all comments. Thank you again.
muffinroo: Unholy smokes! LOLOL! Sorry I missed my chance with Lassie references. This is a bit of a slower chapter in some ways, but it's full of Sam, so hopefully that helps. And yes, plenty of whumpage, complete with a memory and an out-of-body experience. Ah, sweet, self-sacrificial Sam!
Chiiva: Thank you! I had that twist in mind the entire story and I always worry that I give stuff away, you know? Sam is really going through it.
Spnlady: I think it shocked a lot of people! (And I'm pretty sure that's a good thing…) Poor Grant. Dean really threw him into the deep end, though he didn't have much choice. Sorry I truly tested your patience with the long wait for this chapter. And thank you for your super kind words. They mean a lot!
Kathy: Thanks! That flashback was a real @#$% to write because it essentially involved three different time periods, so it almost got taken out of the story. I'm glad it stayed though, since people seemed to like it. I like giving the guys a pet, even if it's temporary.
sfaulkenberry: Of course I do! I loved it! It is a very Dean thing to think, but it's also kind a Winchester thing. I'm still floored by the 'going to college is a betrayal of your family.' I'm so glad you like all the twists and turns.