The Endless Solvent

Ral blinked.

It felt as if a thick woolen blanket was thrown over him. He hadn’t used such a blanket in a long time - the nights in Issvak could be cold but nothing a shirt couldn’t fix. For a few wild moments he believed he had died. Would death be so merciful? So swift that he blinks and he misses it?

Then he noticed that while the sounds and movements had ceased; he was still in the cavern with Somas and bodies of Unseeing. Limbs still surrounded him but he found that he could move through them like some kind of ghost.

Ral pulled himself out of the crowd that had coalesced around him and moved back far enough to see about ten Somas crowded around where he was. They were frozen, completely still. Many Somas were able to achieve incredible stillness, but this kind of stillness was unnatural. It almost seemed impossible that inanimate objects could even be so still. Calkin stood about three paces away, watching with a look of hatred on his face. Standing right beside him was a child.

The child had brown skin and lighter brown toned hair that almost looked dark blond in the torchlight. Ral also noticed the torch fire was frozen, the flames no longer flickering. Besides their very Gaian coloring, they were dressed in what Ysican children would typically wear in the desert - a loose sleeveless tunic and practical leather sandals. Ral could not tell if the child was a boy or a girl, the neutrality common for Somas children under ten cycles old.

Stranger still were the child’s eyes. They had no eye whites or pupils, instead the eyes seemed to be a shifting green liquid. It unnerved Ral seeing the eyes look at him but he had nothing to look back to. The child smiled, as if pleased by his unease.

Ral opened his mouth but before he could ask any questions the child moved forward and captured one of his bleeding hands into theirs. The touch jolted him, as if the child became more real than real, as if he had been dreaming before and now he had woken. Before he realized it he was moving towards the bloodied Gaian corpse at the front of the cavern, away from the frozen commotion.

The child pointed at the Gate which had frozen like everything else besides himself and the child. They didn’t make a sound, didn’t even mouth the words in an attempt to speak. It seemed they could only communicate non-verbally. A small hand kept pointing at the bloodied corpse, the frozen circle of black fire. Another hand pointed at the talisman still tied to his waist. Frowning, Ral untied the talisman and held it and approached the Gate.

The child nodded vigorously. They then held out their hands such that the palms facing towards each other then vigorously slapped their hands together in a closing motion. Did they want him to close it?

“I don’t know how,” Ral finally said stupidly. “I don’t know what you want me to do, I’m sorry.”

The child looked annoyed and kept pointing at the Gate and the talisman. Feeling foolish, Ral held up the talisman to the black circle of fire with his good arm and hand. Several moments passed in complete awkward silence. Ral fought between feeling ridiculous about obeying this strange creature and wondering about just what this creature was. It looked like a normal child enough, except for the eyes.

“Er, is this what I’m supposed to do?”

The child seemingly rolled their liquid green eyes, the effect of the motion most unsettling. They then grasped his forearm attached to the hand holding the talisman. Nothing changed. Ral raised his brows at the child who looked exasperated again. They clenched their free hand into a fist and held it to their chest and closed their eyes, becoming very still.

The difference between stillness and lightning-movement is divided by a thin line. Perhaps the difference between something happening and nothing happening was the same. Ral kept the talisman in place again and stayed still. The all encompassing silence helped him achieve possibly the stillest he’s ever been.

“It’s there,” he thought he heard a voice say. He fought the urge to open his eyes and look at the voice. “Go on and look for it.”

Stillness. Paradoxes. Inaction is action. No motion is instant motion. Everything matters so nothing matters. He could picture a hand form in his mind that reached out towards the Gate. That hand brushed against something solid.

“Take it,” the voice whispered. He understood then that it was the child speaking although he wasn’t hearing it like a normal voice. “Take the Solute in your hand and silence it.”

Ral obeyed. His imaginary hand closed around something that felt like a burning stone and he closed it into his fist. It burned hot and bright as if in complaint but he kept holding it, gripping it in an non-existent grip until the fire burned out. He opened his eyes and saw that the dark fire on the cavern wall was gone and replaced with scorched markings on the wall. The talisman in his hand was no longer glowing but the sticks in it had turned completely black and smooth with no traces of the runes left behind.

“I… that was a Solute?” Ral asked incredulously, studying his hand. He knew he didn’t physically touch it but it felt real, like a solid thing that pressed against his skin.

The child nodded.

“So then… I was reaching into the Great Solvent?”

The child nodded again. It was all very strange and unbelievable. Aris had always been the one more talented at maneuvering the Solvent, she was the one with the affinity towards Inner Eye abilities. How in the sun’s name was he able to do this?

“How do you know these things? Who are you?”

The child looked amused. It was strange seeing a smiling child standing beside a mangled corpse. They shrugged, then lifted a leg and pointed at the raised foot. Ral frowned in confusion.

“What about your leg?”

They pouted and shook their head, pointing at their foot again, this time jabbing a finger into it.

“Your foot? Are you injured?”

Angrily, the child pulled the bottom hem of the loose trousers up to reveal the top part of their feet to the bottom of their shin, then very deliberately put a finger on the bony swell of their ankle.

“Ankle?” Ral continued to be puzzled.

The child finally smiled and nodded.

“O…kay what about your ankle? Did you twist it?”

They rolled their eyes and then pointed at themselves.

“You’re saying you’re an ankle?” Ral half meant for the comment to be a joke, but to his utter surprise and confusion, the child nodded vigorously. “Like your name? You’re called Ankle?”

Looking immensely pleased, the child nodded. Ral’s immediate reaction was to scoff at the incredibly stupid idea of calling a child a body part, but then he caught himself. A body part.

“Sun’s mercy, are you telling me that you’re a Part?” He stared at the child with wide eyes, specifically at the liquid green eyes. He remembered Nilda once telling them that her life was forever changed by someone with strange green gemstone eyes. These eyes were not made of gemstones, but they were unnaturally liquid and green.

Nilda had also described them being able to do unnatural things and through their machinations it was how she was able to manipulate the Solute and bend rocks to her will. At least this was what he and Aris understood through bits and pieces of information from Nilda, their parents, and Rask. This one was able to stop all movement, as if the world was holding its breath.

Ankle smiled at his question and did a little mocking bow. It was strange seeing it - back in Caelis, the serving staff commonly bowed. Of course the Yscians didn’t have those customs, even to the most important members of the tribe. Ral understood what the bow meant: Ankle was acknowledging they were a Part.

“Then are you a god?” Ral said. He crouched down so he was eye level with the child. Somehow it felt rude to stand above this being, like he wasn’t supposed to be towering over them.

The child shrugged, not seeming bothered by the question.

“Why did you help me? I mean, thank you,” Ral added quickly. “Many more monsters would come out if I didn’t.”

Ankle looked almost to scoff at what he said - he had no idea what he said was so offensive. Perhaps he didn’t thank them fast enough.

“Why don’t you speak?” Ral asked. The conversation was beginning to be frustratingly one sided. Thankfully the Part was impressively emotive and Ral was able to tell what they were trying to convey.

Ankle looked thoughtful for a few beats then gestured again with a fist to their chest and stayed still. Then they pointed to their ears. Ral immediately did his best to achieve stillness again, quieting the thoughts in his head in the same way he did when he reached out to close the Gate. It took him a long while to achieve it.

“I speak here,” a thin, faint voice whispered. In his excitement he nearly lost the fight to regain stillness. “… my words reach you…difficulty…”

Ankle seemed only to be able to speak through the Great Solvent. However it seemed that Ral had trouble keeping contact with it to hear them speak.

“Congratulations…. Brother achieved where the sister failed… The Gate closed… antithesis…”

The harder Ral tried to concentrate, the further the voice seemed to slip away. Ankle was saying things the Wisdom had said. What about Aris? What does this Part know about his sister? What did she fail?

His eyes fell open and he realized he had been holding on to a breath. He desperately drew in a breath and squinted at the Part with watering eyes while falling back to sit on the ground.

“Please, tell me more about Aris,” he begged the child. Ankle looked disgruntled and shrugged while shaking their head. “You are here to help me, no? Why won’t you tell me more?”

Looking annoyed, Ankle took the blackened talisman from his fingers. They then pointed at the scorched marks on the wall and looked at Ral with raised brows. When Ral asked what about the Gate he was supposed to do, Ankle rolled their eyes again and tapped their temples with a finger.

“Are you asking me if I remember… how to close the Gate?” Ral asked. Ankle nodded. “I think so. But it was my first time. I… I don’t know anyone who’s done something like that - ”

The Part’s mouth turned down in annoyance, Ankle glared at him with their strange liquid eyes and firmly tapped their temples again. They were encouraging him to remember it. Of course he remembered it. It was like holding onto a burning stone. He had to silence a Solute in order to close the Gate. Now, to whom that Solute belonged to was a different question, one that perhaps Aris could answer. Ral’s words faltered - that’s right, he had knowledge to do the one thing that would be useful. If he could return to Caelis and actually close Gates, then maybe…

The practice of stillness, the Trial, and now Ankle being here must not be a coincidence. The Solvent pushed him to the here and now. Just as Mikol always says, there are forces unseeing melding his spirit. It all added up; he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Suddenly Ral was terrified, despite always wanting to find a place he belonged.

Almost like they could hear his thoughts, Ankle smiled and waved a little farewell. The Part handed back the blackened talisman to him then returned to Calkin’s side from where they first appeared. They took a little side step right behind the frozen Somas and disappeared.