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Mistborn · The Cold · Week 2 — The White Silence
Mara & Chibi · Southern Scadrial · The Legacy of the Ice Death
The road had disappeared.
Voices had called from beneath the snow.
And now, beyond the frozen mountains, a light was shining where no light should exist.
CHIBI:
“Mara?”
MARA:
“Yes?”
CHIBI:
“Can a light get lost?”
Mara looked up from her notebook.
She was nine years old. Chibi was eight.
This meant that she was generally supposed to be the sensible one.
An exhausting responsibility.
MARA:
“People get lost. Lights don’t.”
CHIBI:
“Why not?”
MARA:
“Because they don’t walk.”
Chibi considered that.
CHIBI:
“Airships don’t walk either.”
MARA:
“They fly.”
CHIBI:
“And sometimes they get lost.”
Mara sighed.
MARA:
“What are you talking about?”
He pointed through the observation window.
CHIBI:
“That.”
Beyond Kallin’s Reach, the frozen wilderness of Southern Scadrial stretched towards a pale horizon.
And above the distant ice, a tiny amber light was shining.
No tower stood beneath it.
No settlement.
No visible road.
The light seemed to float in empty air.
CHIBI:
“Someone’s out there.”
MARA:
“You don’t know that.”
CHIBI:
“Then who lit it?”
Mara leaned closer.
The light disappeared.
Chibi gasped.
CHIBI:
“It’s gone!”
She stepped back.
The light returned.
CHIBI:
“I think it’s playing hide-and-seek.”
MARA:
“Lights don’t play hide-and-seek.”
The light vanished again.
Chibi folded his arms.
CHIBI:
“This one does.”
Generations had passed since the Ice Death devastated Southern Scadria.
The southern peoples had survived the catastrophe.
They had learned to store warmth through Feruchemy.
Unsealed brass medallions allowed even people without innate Feruchemical abilities to draw upon stored heat.
Firemothers and Firefathers helped sustain the settlements.
Great Malwish airships crossed the frozen continent.
But technology had not made the wilderness harmless.
A failed heating medallion could leave a traveller exposed.
A sudden whiteout could erase the horizon.
And sometimes the atmosphere itself could make the world appear to contain things that weren’t where they seemed to be.
Firemother Sella joined the children in the Western Observation Gallery.
SELLA:
“What have you found?”
MARA:
“A light above the Mirror Flats.”
CHIBI:
“A suspicious light.”
Sella studied the landscape.
Then she examined the charts.
SELLA:
“There are no active beacons on those flats.”
CHIBI:
“So someone is lost.”
MARA:
“Or the light isn’t really there.”
CHIBI:
“I can see it.”
MARA:
“That doesn’t mean it’s where you think it is.”
Sella smiled.
SELLA:
“An important distinction.”
Chibi looked offended.
CHIBI:
“It’s still a very rude light.”
Sella fetched a lantern, a polished brass plate and a piece of curved glass.
She reflected the lantern’s light against the wall.
Then she used the glass to bend and distort it.
SELLA:
“Did another lantern suddenly appear on the wall?”
MARA:
“No. It’s reflected light.”
CHIBI:
“Very convincing reflected light.”
SELLA:
“And the glass?”
MARA:
“It changes the direction of the light.”
SELLA:
“Refraction.”
Chibi nodded.
CHIBI:
“Like a spoon looking broken in water.”
Mara stared at him.
MARA:
“You remembered something from lessons?”
CHIBI:
“I remember lots of things.”
MARA:
“Such as?”
CHIBI:
“Where Sella keeps the biscuits.”
In very cold environments, air near the ground can become significantly colder than the air above it.
This arrangement is called a temperature inversion.
Because light changes direction when passing through air with different refractive properties, distant objects may appear displaced from their true positions.
A superior mirage can make a real object appear higher than it is.
Sometimes an object normally hidden beyond the horizon becomes visible.
A distant ship may appear to float.
A coastline may rise into the sky.
A lantern behind a ridge may seem to hang above an empty ice field.
The apparent image can shift or vanish as the observer changes position or atmospheric conditions change.
A mirage does not necessarily show something imaginary.
It can show something real in the wrong place.
Sella led the children to a higher observation window.
The amber light vanished.
They returned to the lower window.
It reappeared.
MARA:
“A superior mirage!”
CHIBI:
“An extremely superior what?”
MARA:
“The cold air is bending the light.”
CHIBI:
“Then where is the actual lantern?”
Mara hesitated.
MARA:
“We don’t know.”
CHIBI:
“Then we still have a problem.”
Sella nodded.
SELLA:
“Yes. We do.”
Just then a messenger entered.
Two surveyors had failed to return from a western observation station.
Their last reported position was somewhere beyond the ridge.
Chibi turned towards the light.
CHIBI:
“I told you somebody needed help!”
MARA:
“We still don’t know whether it’s them.”
CHIBI:
“Then we should go and find out.”
SELLA:
“No.”
Chibi stared at her.
CHIBI:
“But they might be freezing!”
Sella knelt beside him.
SELLA:
“And if you chase an unreliable image across unsafe ice, we may have three people to rescue instead of two.”
Mara remembered their accident in the airship hangar.
The icy water.
The nearly exhausted heat medallion.
The fear of waiting for rescuers.
Chibi remembered it too.
CHIBI:
“Then what can we do?”
Sella handed Mara a notebook.
SELLA:
“Observe. Record. Test.”
She looked at Chibi.
SELLA:
“You noticed the light first. Tell us exactly what it does.”
He straightened proudly.
CHIBI:
“Finally. An official job.”
For the next hour, Mara recorded the light’s apparent position.
Chibi watched its changes.
Sella compared their observations with the weather readings.
The amber point appeared.
Vanished.
Returned.
Then Chibi grabbed Mara’s sleeve.
CHIBI:
“Look!”
Three brief flashes.
A pause.
One longer flash.
Then three more.
MARA:
“It’s flashing in a pattern.”
Sella examined the signal chart.
SELLA:
“That resembles an emergency signal.”
CHIBI:
“So someone really is there!”
MARA:
“Someone might be controlling a real lamp.”
She pointed at the horizon.
MARA:
“But not necessarily from there.”
Chibi frowned.
CHIBI:
“You have a gift for making good news complicated.”
The navigators prepared the gallery’s signalling lantern.
They transmitted an unusual sequence.
Two short flashes.
One long.
Two short.
Then they waited.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Finally, the amber point returned.
Two short flashes.
One long.
Two short.
CHIBI:
“THEY ANSWERED!”
Mara stared.
MARA:
“They repeated our signal.”
CHIBI:
“Which is answering!”
Sella smiled.
SELLA:
“We now have much stronger evidence of deliberate communication.”
CHIBI:
“And much stronger evidence that somebody needs rescuing!”
SELLA:
“Quite possibly.”
CHIBI:
“You grown-ups make everything sound less exciting.”
Captain Serin arrived with the rescue maps.
The shortest route crossed the Mirror Flats.
But the ice concealed old drainage channels and unstable sections.
Another route followed maintained markers around the northern ridge.
It was longer.
Safer.
And required more time.
SERIN:
“If we take the longer route, the missing surveyors may freeze before we reach them.”
MARA:
“If we cross the wrong part of the flats, the rescuers might disappear too.”
Serin looked at her.
SERIN:
“Exactly.”
Chibi studied the map.
CHIBI:
“Then how do we decide?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Finally, Sella spoke.
SELLA:
“We have enough evidence to begin a search. But not enough to trust the apparent position of that light.”
She pointed to the northern road.
SELLA:
“We use the verified route. And we continue observing from here.”
The captain nodded.
The rescue team departed with tested heat medallions, shelter equipment and supplies.
Mara and Chibi remained in the gallery.
It was not the adventure Chibi had imagined.
But Sella had already taught them something important.
Helping someone is not the same as rushing towards danger.
As the afternoon passed, the weather began to change.
The distant light appeared one final time.
Then vanished.
It did not return.
Chibi stood motionless beside the window.
CHIBI:
“What if their lantern went out?”
MARA:
“The atmosphere might have changed.”
CHIBI:
“What if they’re freezing?”
Mara looked at him.
CHIBI:
“I don’t like waiting.”
She opened her notebook.
Inside were their observations.
The flashing patterns.
The times.
The weather conditions.
The possible position of a shelter beyond the ridge.
MARA:
“We aren’t doing nothing.”
CHIBI:
“But we’re not rescuing them.”
MARA:
“We’re helping the people who can.”
Sella approached.
SELLA:
“If we had sent the rescuers straight towards the apparent light, they could be crossing dangerous ice in the wrong place right now.”
Chibi thought about that.
CHIBI:
“I suppose I’d rather have someone bring me a rescuer than another person who needs rescuing.”
MARA:
“Exactly.”
CHIBI:
“But I still hate waiting.”
Sella smiled sadly.
SELLA:
“So do I.”
The first message arrived shortly before evening.
The rescue team had reached the ridge.
Then came another.
They had found an old survey shelter.
Outside stood a damaged lantern fitted with a signalling shutter.
The light source had been behind the ridge all along.
Under ordinary conditions, it would have been hidden from Kallin’s Reach.
But the temperature inversion had refracted its light, creating an image that appeared above the Mirror Flats.
Inside the shelter, the rescuers found the two missing surveyors.
Anika and Torren.
Torren had injured his ankle.
Their heat medallion was nearly exhausted.
And Anika had spent hours operating the old signal lantern, hoping somebody would see it.
CHIBI:
“The light was real!”
MARA:
“The source was real.”
CHIBI:
“You’re doing it again.”
MARA:
“Doing what?”
CHIBI:
“Being right in a way that makes everything complicated.”
The rescue team brought the surveyors home after carefully navigating the return route.
Both needed medical attention.
But both were alive.
When Anika met the children, she smiled tiredly.
ANIKA:
“Were you the ones who saw my signal?”
CHIBI:
“I saw it first.”
MARA:
“And I realised it might be a mirage.”
CHIBI:
“She thought I was wrong.”
MARA:
“I thought the light wasn’t where you said it was.”
Anika laughed softly.
ANIKA:
“You were both right.”
She looked towards the mountains.
ANIKA:
“I didn’t know whether anyone could see the lantern. I thought perhaps nobody would ever find us.”
Chibi reached into his pocket.
CHIBI:
“Would you like a biscuit?”
Mara stared at him.
MARA:
“Where did you get that?”
CHIBI:
“I brought several.”
MARA:
“Of course you did.”
Anika accepted the biscuit.
Then she gently touched Chibi’s shoulder.
ANIKA:
“Thank you for noticing.”
He smiled.
CHIBI:
“That’s what friends do.”
The next morning, Mara returned to her notebook.
She crossed out her first conclusion:
Probably an optical illusion. Nothing there.
Then wrote a new one.
Possible displaced image of a real light source. Investigate before assigning a location.
Sella nodded approvingly.
Chibi read the sentence.
CHIBI:
“That’s a lot of words for ‘someone might need help.’”
MARA:
“It’s more precise.”
CHIBI:
“It’s longer.”
MARA:
“Because it’s more precise.”
He thought about it.
CHIBI:
“Maybe we need both.”
MARA:
“Both what?”
He pointed to her notebook.
CHIBI:
“Your explanation of the light.”
Then towards the infirmary.
CHIBI:
“And my explanation of why it mattered.”
Mara considered that.
Then nodded.
MARA:
“Yes.”
Chibi stared.
CHIBI:
“Did you just agree with me?”
MARA:
“Don’t get used to it.”
Science can explain why light bends through layers of air.
It can help us distinguish an object’s apparent position from its real one.
But understanding the physics does not automatically tell us whether someone needs help.
That is a different question.
One that requires attention, responsibility and compassion.
Mara understood the danger of trusting the light too literally.
Chibi understood the danger of dismissing it too quickly.
Neither was enough alone.
Without knowledge, compassion can rush towards the wrong danger.
Without compassion, knowledge may never ask who needs rescuing.
That evening, Mara and Chibi watched the sun set over Southern Scadria.
No strange lantern appeared above the ice.
The horizon was clear.
For once, the world seemed to be exactly where it belonged.
CHIBI:
“Mara?”
MARA:
“Yes?”
CHIBI:
“Do you think the light knew we were watching?”
MARA:
“Light doesn’t know anything.”
CHIBI:
“Neither does a letter.”
She turned towards him.
CHIBI:
“But someone can write a letter because they want another person to read it.”
Mara looked towards the mountains.
MARA:
“A message.”
CHIBI:
“Exactly.”
They stood quietly for a while.
Then Chibi spoke again.
CHIBI:
“Do you think we’ll ever find summer?”
Mara smiled.
MARA:
“We’ve discussed this.”
CHIBI:
“Yes.”
MARA:
“Several times.”
CHIBI:
“Yes.”
MARA:
“And you still want an airship?”
CHIBI:
“Of course.”
She laughed.
MARA:
“What if the warmth you see is only a mirage?”
He considered that.
CHIBI:
“Then I’ll find out what made it.”
MARA:
“And what if it’s somewhere else?”
CHIBI:
“Then I’ll look somewhere else.”
MARA:
“And what if you can’t reach it?”
He took her hand.
CHIBI:
“Then I’ll come home.”
Mara squeezed his hand.
MARA:
“Good.”
The road was not where the travellers expected.
The voices beneath the snow had not meant what the listeners believed.
And the light above the ice was not where anyone could see it.
Yet each held something important.
A route worth correcting.
A warning worth hearing.
A life worth saving.
Not every light is where it appears to be.
Not every mystery is supernatural.
And not every scientific explanation tells us why something matters.
Sometimes finding the truth begins with admitting that what we see is only the beginning of the story.
And sometimes the greatest discovery isn’t the answer to a question.
It’s recognising that somebody, somewhere, is still waiting for us to ask it.
CTA — THE LIGHT THAT WASN’T THERE
If you saw a mysterious light above a frozen wasteland, would you follow it, dismiss it as an illusion or investigate what might be behind it?
Explore The White Silence, our second week of the November Mistborn series, where perception, atmospheric science and compassion meet in a world that cannot always be trusted to look the way it truly is.
PLAY EPIC. FEEL THE STORY.
Explore the mysteries and moral choices of Scadrial in Mistborn: Rebels of the Final Empire. Our campaign begins in the earlier Final Empire, before the later Southern Scadrian Ice Death stories.
Explore Mistborn: Rebels of the Final Empire · Join the campaign on StartPlaying