Cataclysm

Chapter 1

The strange marks laced Pan’s arms, legs, and torso. They wrapped around her body, up to her neck, like serpentine scars writhing across her skin. They’d always been there, they’d stretched as she grew from infancy. As far as anyone could tell, they weren’t from burns or cuts or scrapes or anything else that would typically leave a scar.

They marred her flesh the same, though. She did what she could, though, to hide them. Edgar told her she worried about them too much, but Edgar never worried about anything, so it was hard to trust his judgement.

Pan was out gathering trillium for Edgar for a poultice. Nellie had been stung by sting wraiths at the edge of Forest. Nellie was four and precocious. It didn’t matter that no one was supposed to go into Forest. Not for centuries. Too dangerous.

The younger children liked to dare each other to get as close to Forest as possible. Every generation went through it. Then one of the children would go too far, get too close, and there would be one less child in the village that day. After that, all of the children would keep their distance, stay close to the village and their parents.

All the adults tried to stop it, of course. They told the horror stories of generations past. They told about the boy who wandered into a clearing just near the edge of the forest. He was devoured in seconds by a spitling tree. It spat acid that melted flesh around its roots and would slowly absorb its prey over several days. They told about the small group of girls who camped near a cave and were ripped apart, piece by piece, by cave crabs in the night. They told about the boy who brought an ax and sword with him and was still swallowed up in the ferocious darkness of Forest, never to be seen again. It never mattered. There was always one child lost, sometimes more than one. The cost of living so close to Forest. Theirs was one of the outermost villages.

Only Edgar could go into Forest and come back out again. Edgar, and Pan. Maybe. They couldn’t be sure about Pan.

Edgar was a magus. The last. And he’d banished himself to one of these outlying villages, close to Forest. No one really knew why. But he could go in. He knew the words and thoughts to quell the violence of Forest. He was the one who went in when a child was lost. He’d gather up the remains, if he could, discern what happened, bring grief and closure back to the parents.

It was on one of those trips into the Forest, to find a dead child, that he’d come out with a living one no one had ever seen before. A girl, two, maybe three, with strange marks stretched across her body, marks that looked like scars and set her apart, in an eerie way, from everyone else. Pan.

Edgar had been looking for the boy swallowed by darkness: Rue. Rue had been six at the time, brave, strong for his age. He had been a small swell of hope for the village. He might be one of the Circle of Heroes someday. He had it in him, that fearlessness. And his uncle had been one. But he’d also chafed when others called him names or questioned that same fearlessness. Edgar had tried with him; he’d told him many times that sometimes fear is just good sense. The boy was headstrong. Brave, but headstrong.

Edgar tracked Rue’s movements in Forest, and used some of his power to reveal a Wisp of Happening. Wisps were like leftover shadows of the past. They allowed a small glimpse into the past. That’s how Edgar knew the boy had been taken by a Vanishing Mist. The black clouds had swirled around the boy as he swung first the sword, then the ax, around the ominous mists. The boy yelled and called out at them, bravely, ordering them back, but in the end they had swallowed him with the smallest of whimpers.

Edgar had turned to head home, hands empty, yet boy dead nonetheless. That’s when he’d heard a small rustling in the ferns nearby. He pulled his wooden staff in to himself, preparing to strike, if needed. He moved closer to the ferns and brushed the leaves to the side to find a small sleeping child. Pan.

Edgar had tried to find what he considered a more suitable home for her. One with parents who could nurture her, not a grumpy old man who had been alive for much too long already. But an unknown child with strange markings, found in Forest. They barely looked at her, convinced she was some evil Forest was inserting into their lives. Many in the village cautioned him against keeping her, they said to put her back, let Forest have her. Edgar had seen too much of death to add to it, if he could help it.

Pan finished gathering the trillium and brought it back to Edgar. He showed her how to make the poultice and asked if she would take it down to Nellie’s family. Pan shook her head, smiled, and disappeared into the back field where the grass grew taller than her. She was good at disappearing like that. He couldn’t blame her. None of the villagers liked her and they probably wouldn’t take the poultice from her anyway.