Will-O-The-Wisps

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. At first there was no one there to see it, but it burned on faithfully nonetheless. It wasn’t a very old flame as these things are counted and yet it had seen generations of the fleeting lives of humans come and go. It sat unwavering now, staring out into the gloam of the deep woods, and waited, knowing that soon or late it would catch a set of wandering eyes in its snare and would be able to fulfill its ancient purpose and return to its place of slumber.

Decades passed as people count time and the cabin should have crumbled into the ground and been overrun by the wild its builders had temporarily pushed aside but that was not the will of the flame and so the wild and entropy stood aside and waited respectfully until it was given permission to resume its workings. The order of the things of nature does not reflect the order of the things of man. There are not masters and servants in the natural realm there are makers of order and bringers of chaos and when makers will a thing bringers retreat to the borders of their will. Wisdom, the original maker from which all others came, in her seasons pulls the makers back into herself to allow the bringers to do their work. In this way, order turns to disorder and is allowed to be reordered and the cycles that bring life are preserved.

And yet these cycles have flaws, minute when observed from the scale of eons, but if left unattended they eventually add up to irreparable breakings in which much is lost. The repair of one of these flaws is the business the patient flame is attending to now. The last time this flame had been called upon to attend to his duties it had been in the dusty Texas town of Marfa in the late 1800s. The cycle had been threatened by the discovery of some things better left unknown by humans who hold neither the mental capacity nor the appropriate appreciation of the scale of infinite time to be trusted with knowledge that can alter a cycle.

It is always the case that the talking apes rail against the bringers in all their forms, viewing them as forces of evil simply because they tip order into chaos. They are allowed to rail, fight, and occasionally succeed in holding off the bringers because they are, in their way, part of the pattern. Yet, occasionally one of their kind discovers the route to deeper truths and begins to wield the powers of a maker. On his last encounter with one of these ascended humans on that dusty plane, the flame had needed to call on all of his power of will and wit to remove that woman from the pattern. He was unsure what he would encounter here in this cabin but he had a small sense of uncertainty about the outcome, what if the apes had advanced in their ability to wield the power? What if his 20,000 years of life experience was not enough to get the job done? But who could doubt wisdom, if she had sent him here then she believed that he was capable of managing the job.

There was movement at the edge of the forest... his prey approached. He knew this in a way that cannot be explained to a mortal mind. There had been no shortage of wildlife and men moving into and out of the net of awareness of the flame but none of them was the quarry he sought. This figure approaching was different, it was the source of the disturbance and as it approached the flame felt its will pressing up against his own.

As the being emerged from the forest and into the clearing in front of the cabin the flame flickered and danced. A product of shock and fear and the equivalent of a human gasp and leaping back. This was not a man with the powers of a maker it was something very different. It walked on two feet but it was covered in dense fur and had something of the shape of a bear about it. And yet those arms did not bend the right way and in place of paws, it had humanoid hands with opposable thumbs. Its head and shoulders stood tall and proud above its bear-like torso and were only loosely furred. Its mouth was too wide and the eyes were coal-black and unwavering. This was not right, even the most powerful of mortal beings should be hypnotized by the flame's aura for a few moments. This being looked through the shimmering haze of the will-o-the-wisp and straight to his true heart. This creature knew him in the way only other makers or bringers were supposed to be able to.

The being took an unhurried step forward, emerging fully into the aura of the flames will. A sharp snap echoed through the clearing as of the snapping of a large branch but no timber had been disturbed. The flame flickered again and this time its brightness diminished as it found itself unexpectedly in a fight it was not prepared for. It had never had to contend with a bringer, there was an order and all within it simply occupied their place within it. Chaos did not contend with order, it moved aside until it was invited in. And yet this being was somehow rallying the base nature of chaos to his will… under the command of his desired order. Nothing of this encounter was right and the flame had no underpinnings to be able to process what was happening to him. In all of his fights and defenses over the years he had contended with humans who stumbled blindly, if occasionally powerfully, in realms they did not belong. But this creature knew the ancient magics and directed them with authority.

There was another snap, a louder one, and then another and another until the woods were filled with the echoes of thunder absent lightning for miles around. The flame strained with all its maker's might, pushing out in all directions as chaos pressed in and demanded to have its way. The flame knew it had only moments left before his will gave out and he would be extinguished but he had to get some message back to Wisdom and the court. They could not be left unaware of this force moving freely through the world. In a panic, he reached out for the connection that dwelt at his core and reeled in shock once again as he found it severed. For the first time in his existence, he was cut off from wisdom and his kin as if a knife had fallen and severed the chord even as he reached for it. All the court would know now was that he had suddenly been filled with fear and panic and then gone silent and this monster would continue, unopposed, with its unknown purpose.

With a final sound of a thousand thousand elder trees snapping at their thickest point in unison the creatures will overcame the flames. All of the deferred entropy of the last many years as the flame had sat waiting patiently for the arrival of its prey crashed in on the little cabin and its surrounding and sturdy beam walls, hardwood floor and metal fixtures flashed to splinters and powder and collapsed to the ground. The undergrowth of the forest sprung to life and wrapped its tendrils around the newly made pile of debris. And buried beneath the detritus the flame, the maker, one of the elders of this world diminished to a spark and then was doused by all consuming darkness.

The creature barely spared a glance for the ruined cabin as it strolled through what used to be the clearing moving like a wave of inevitability toward its dark purpose. Chaos had lived at the beck and call of Wisdom and her ilk for longer than anyone could recall and it was time to tip the order of things and make room for something more, something forbidden, something greater than the sum of all of its parts.