Mistwalker

EIGHT Grey

I melt into mist so it will heed my call. I gather it, from the sky, from the sea. I wind it tight and pull it close.

This is my purpose, after all. I am the lord of nothing but the mist. It’s mine to bend as I will—to bring salvation or destruction. All these years, I’ve held it at a distance. Felt its liquid ache instead of my own blood.

Now I need it. It spills across the water, then rises. It undulates, a living thing. Shadows swirl within it, it makes new shadows. Strange lights reflect in it, exploded to a silvery glow. One by one, the streetlights in town blink out.

The houses huddle before they’re swallowed. The cliffs fade—though they’re greater than mist and refuse to disappear completely. There’s always something greater, something larger—I wonder if there’s some earthcaller out there, wondering what’s happened to herself. If she’s cursed to raise the dust—but somehow, I can’t picture it.

Though my wishes never revealed every detail of the curse, it grants me folklore. Myths. I have books upon books upon books. There’s a Grey Man on Pawleys Island in South Carolina, but he’s only a harbinger. He warns of hurricanes, nothing more. The Irish have far liath, but they abound and care nothing for souls. They seek no release.

I’m alone. Again, more than I was before. I’m taunted; that makes me lonely. I run mad.

So I retreat to the only power I have. I call it all, I bid it come. I beg it stretch the whole length of my light. The air is nearly solid now, a shroud that falls over my island and her village at the same time.

She’s blotted out now, and I can rest.