The Endless Solvent

Over the next few days, Bette held less training sessions with Ral and the younger Somas as she regularly met with the Leaders to determine what to do about the Wisdom. It was high level Somas stuff that emphatically did not concern Ral or Mikol, so they were relegated to other tasks around camp. While Mikol joined a tracking expedition to hunt, Ral was assigned to his default lifting assignments.

The anxiety over the Wisdom had left the Somas less prone to pranking Ral as they had to prepare for the worst. Many assumed the Wisdom had a catastrophic, life-changing announcement to make and had been too devastated to do it. Others believe he’s on the verge of appointing his successor and the new Wisdom may be too incompetent to lead the tribe to a safe location for the next season. Whatever the reason, the Somas were extra careful about their water cave and double checked every structural support around camp to make sure it could take a severe storm. Ral hauled materials back and forth for construction purposes.

Ral was relieved to do honest work - the safety of the camp applied to him too. Although it was plain manual labor, at the very least he was being useful. He didn’t mind the calluses and exhaustion that came with it.

Over the days, Ral also received word that Calkin had fully recovered from his injuries but Ral had yet to catch a glimpse of him. It seemed like the Somas were actively avoiding him. Ral couldn’t think of any reason why - defeating Calkin didn’t exactly bring him honor nor did the tribe think any less of Calkin. And it wasn’t like Ral had even properly executed the Somas style way of fighting at all, he just punched at his opponent like a mindless beast. Not that Ral cared in the slightest that the burly Somas was avoiding him. He tired himself with work and thought of nothing else.

At some point, a group decision was made to collect their stored food onto moving pallets, a wooden contraption used to haul heavy loads across great distances when they moved camp. Ral spent a good part of the day carrying huge sacks of root-flour the Somas used to make their bread from the storage cave to the pallet situated on the other side of camp. Younger children helped with the lighter things like bags of dried tea leaves, herbs and fruit.

Mikol was also there listening to a Somas chef arguing over which utensils to store away on the pallet and which to keep in the cooking area. Ral hauled another flour sack onto his back while a Somas boy flitted through and grabbed a bag of dried desert apples. The bag must have been worn thin with use because once the boy tugged at the fabric, it tore and dried fruit spilled out onto the floor. Ral quickly set down his sack of flour and helped the boy hold together the ripped bag before more spilled out.

A cry sounded out and everyone turned to see the Wisdom stumble out of his room. He approached Ral, pointed at the ripped bag he was holding closed with a hand, then started babbling rapidly in Yscian. Bette appeared behind the Wisdom, presumably she was in the room with him just moments ago, trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

“What did you do?” she asked sharply.

“I… this bag ripped,” Ral said blankly. “I just - ”

The Wisdom interjected with more Yscian that Ral failed to understand. Mikol appeared beside him, blue eyes in rapt attention. “He’s saying this is what he’s been waiting for,” Mikol said, brows furrowed in concentration. “He’s… saying a lot of nonsense. ‘An eye opens and the monsters come forth’, then… something about an ending. Something else about a ‘non-idea’. I’m sorry, Ralos I do not know the Gaian words for much of what he’s saying.”

“An antithesis to an ending,” Bette said quietly. “An opposite to an ending is the best translation.”

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Ral said.

“No, I worry he has an illness of the mind,” Bette said. “Nothing Melette does is helping either. Days of wanting him to speak but now he does and we don’t understand a word of it - ”

The Wisdom suddenly ran off.

It was surreal how quickly he moved. The Wisdom normally walked in a slow shuffle with joints that nearly creaked out loud as he sat down or stood up. But at that moment he moved with the ease of a young man, jumping and leaping over boulders with unnatural speed and ease. He disappeared around the corner of the canyon away from camp before anyone could react.

Without discussing it, Mikol and Ral immediately went after him. Bette called out orders to the other Somas, one of them to immediately find the other Leaders and gather them. With months of running laps around camp under his belt, Ral easily navigated around the canyon, scaling the walls and running the narrow paths up and around trying to catch up to the old man. He caught glimpses of white hair streaking at unnatural speeds among rocks. When he lost sight of the Wisdom, Mikol was there to point the way.

They ran full speed for quite some time. They ended up somewhere north of camp and at the surface level. Ral hauled himself up from the edge of a cliff to desert ground and saw the Wisdom stood just a few paces from him, head tilted up to look at something up on a jutting rock that stretched up above them and over the canyon.

When Ral followed the old man’s gaze, he saw nothing but the Wisdom gesturing at the empty rock as if someone or something was there. “Don’t go,” the Wisdom implored in Yscian. “Please don’t go!”

Mikol climbed up shortly after, just in time for the Wisdom to run towards the rock he was talking to. Ral cursed and went after him.

“What in the sun’s name is he doing?” Ral shouted over his shoulder. He felt like he shouldn’t manhandle the frail old man so he simply hovered awkwardly on the ground as he watched the Wisdom launch himself at the rock to climb it.

“Wisdom, please stop,” Mikol pleaded in Yscian, trying to gently pull the old man back down. The Wisdom ignored him and managed to climb up the rock that precariously stretched over the yawning canyon below.

Ral and Mikol had no choice but to join him, both posed to grab him if he strayed too close to the edge. The Wisdom was no longer ranting in Yscian and wandered back and forth on the rock while shielding his eyes from the desert sun. Moments later, Bette arrived with two other Leaders. She gave Ral a sharp look but he shook his head.

“He did this himself,” he said defensively. “We tried to stop him.”

“Wisdom, please come down,” Bette said firmly in Yscian.

“No,” the Wisdom responded. He then said a string of words that Ral didn’t quite catch. From the look on everyone else’s face, its seems that nobody understood what he was saying either

“He’s saying something about eyes and monsters again,” Mikol said when Ral looked to him for translation. “And about this ‘antithesis’.”

“What’s he looking for?” Ral asked. “Did he say?”

As if he had understood Gaian, the Wisdom babbled some more. Mikol shook his head in confusion. “It’s almost like he was answering you,” he said incredulously. “He said he’s looking for the entrance.”

The Wisdom made a triumphant noise and excitedly pointed even further north. “The tree, the tree!” he said loudly in Yscian. Mikol lurched forward to hold him back before he fell off the edge of the rock in excitement. “The tree, the tree, the tree!”

Ral squinted in the direction the Wisdom indicated, joined by the other Leaders on the rock. He could see very faintly a desert tree at a distance not unlike the one in the middle of Dalsk’s training ground.

“I think he’s trying to say that tree is an entrance to something,” Mikol said. “I’m not sure to what.”

Just as Mikol said that, Ral felt it. A ripple in the Great Solvent. A feeling of dread and unpleasantness that wasn’t caused by his own emotions or thoughts, but something external. He immediately recognized the feeling from the time he traveled with Rask before joining the Somas, from the handful of times they passed towns ravaged by Unseeing.

It was unmistakable. A Gate has opened somewhere close.

The Wisdom twisted out of Mikol’s grasp and stomped his feet onto the rock as if trying to get their attention. He then said something slowly and clearly and Ral thought he understood but couldn’t quite believe it until Mikol clarified to him in an awe-struck voice.

“He’s saying the time has come,” Mikol said. “He’s saying a Trial has started.”

The Wisdom then skewered Ral with a hard stare. He rarely made eye contact with anyone and it was only then Ral realized the Wisdom had pale violet eyes. A bony finger raised and pointed at him and the Wisdom said something else.

“And he’s saying you have to be a part of it,” Mikol said. “He’s demanding it.”