What would happen on the day she didn’t reach the other side? What if the events they were tied up in were bigger than two people could hope to solve, even if one of those people was Vin? As he considered it, even the possibility of discovering helpful information in the cache at Fadrex had been a slim hope.
We need help, Elend thought with frustration. He stopped in the ash, the darkness closing around him as night proper finally fell. The mists swirled.
Help. So, what did that mean? Help from some mysterious god like the ones that Sazed had once preached about? Elend had never known a god other than the Lord Ruler. And he’d never really had faith in that creature—though, meeting Yomen had changed his perspective on how some people worshipped the Lord Ruler.
Elend stood, looking up at the sky, watching the flakes of ash fall. Continuing their silent, yet ceaseless, barrage against the land. Like the raven feathers of a soft pillow used to suffocate a sleeping victim.
We are doomed, he thought. Behind him, the koloss stopped their march, waiting upon his silent order. That’s it. It’s all going to end.
The realization wasn’t crushing. It was gentle, like a final tendril of smoke from a dying candle. He suddenly knew that they couldn’t fight—that everything they’d done over the last year had been pointless.
Elend slumped to his knees. The ash came up to his chest. Perhaps this was one final reason why he’d wanted to walk home alone. When others were around, he felt as if he had to be optimistic. But, alone, he could face the truth.
And there, in the ash, he finally just gave up.
Someone knelt down beside him.
Elend jumped backward, scrambling to his feet and scattering ash. He flared pewter belatedly, giving himself the tense strength of a Mistborn about to attack. But, there was nobody beside him. He froze, wondering if he’d been imagining things. And then, burning tin and squinting in the darkness of the ashen night, he finally saw it. A creature of mist.
It wasn’t really composed of mist. Rather, it was outlined in mist. The random shiftings suggested its figure, which was roughly that of a man. Elend had seen this creature twice before. The first time, it had appeared to him in the wilderness of the Northern Dominance.
The second time, it had stabbed him in the gut, leaving him to bleed to death.
Yet, that had been an attempt to get Vin to take the power at the Well of Ascension and use it to heal Elend. The thing’s intentions had been good, even if it had nearly killed Elend. Plus, Vin said that this creature had led her to the bit of metal that had somehow turned Elend into an Allomancer.
The mist spirit watched him, its figure barely distinguishable in the patterns of flowing mists.
“What?” Elend asked. “What do you want of me?”
The mist spirit raised its arm and pointed to the northeast.
That’s what it did the first time it met me. It just pointed, as if trying to get me to go somewhere. I didn’t understand what it meant then either.
“Look,” Elend said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “If you want to say something, why not just say it?”
The mist spirit stood quietly in the mists.
“At least write it,” Elend said. “The pointing just isn’t working.” He knew that the creature—whatever it was—had some corporeality. After all, it had managed to stab Elend handily enough.
He expected the creature to just continue standing there. However, to Elend’s surprise, it followed the command, kneeling down in the ash. It reached out with a misty hand, and began to scratch in the ash. Elend took a step forward, cocking his head to see what the thing was writing.
I will kill you, the words said. Death, death, death.
“Well … that’s pleasant,” Elend said, feeling an eerie chill.
The mist spirit seemed to slump. It knelt in the ash, making no impression in the ground.
Such odd words to write, Elend thought, when it seemed to be trying to get me to trust it … “It can change your words, can’t it?” Elend asked. “The other force. It can rewrite pieces of text on paper, so why not things scratched in ash?”
The mist spirit looked up.
“That’s why you ripped the corners off of Sazed’s papers,” Elend said. “You couldn’t write him a note, because the words would just get changed. So, you had to do other things. More blunt things—like pointing.”
The creature stood.
“So, write more slowly,” Elend said. “Use exaggerated motions. I’ll watch the movements of your arm, and form the letters in my mind.”
The mist spirit began immediately, waving its arms about. Elend cocked his head, watching its motions. He couldn’t make any sense of them, let alone form letters out of them.
“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “That isn’t working. Either it’s changing things, or you just don’t know your letters.”
Silence.
Wait, Elend thought, glancing at the text on the ground. If the text changed …
“It’s here, isn’t it,” he said, feeling a sudden and icy chill. “It’s here with us now.”
The mist spirit remained still.
“Bounce around for a yes,” Elend said.
The mist spirit began to wave its arms as it had before.
“Close enough,” Elend said, shivering. He glanced around, but could see nothing else in the mists. If the thing Vin had released was there, then it made no impression. Yet, Elend thought he could feel something different. A slight increase in wind, a touch of ice in the air, the mists moving about more agitatedly. Perhaps he was just imagining things.
He focused his attention back on the mist spirit. “You’re … not as solid as you were before.”
The creature remained still.
“Is that a no?” Elend said, frustrated. The creature remained still.
Elend closed his eyes. Forcing himself to focus, thinking back to the logic puzzles of his youth. I need to approach this more directly. Use questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Why would the mist spirit be harder to see now than before? Elend opened his eyes.
“Are you weaker than you were before?” he asked.
The thing waved its arms.
Yes, Elend thought.
“Is it because the world is ending?” Elend asked.
More waving.
“Are you weaker than the other thing? The thing Vin set free?”
Waving.
“A lot weaker?” Elend asked.
It waved, though it seemed a bit disconsolate this time.
Great, Elend thought. Of course, he could have guessed that. Whatever the mist spirit was, it wasn’t a magical answer to their problems. If it were, it would have saved them by now.
What we lack most is information, Elend thought. I need to learn what I can from this thing.
“Are you related to the ash?” he asked.
No motion.
“Are you causing the ashfalls?” he asked.
No motion.
“Is the other thing causing the ashfalls?”
This time, it waved.
Okay. “Is it causing the mists to come in the day too?”
No motion.
“Are you causing the mists to come in the day?”
It seemed to pause in thought at this one, then it waved about less vigorously than before.
Is that a “maybe”? Elend wondered. Or a “partially”?