The Endless Solvent

Plumes of dust kicked up as carts of goods rattled down the busy streets. Noblemen and peasants alike clogged the markets, the people buying and selling having to shout over one another to be heard. It wasn’t hard to fade into the background and move around undetected, but for the fifth time that day Ral wished he was more like Aris.

When they were kids, he prided himself in being the faster and stronger sibling - often he would lord it over his sister’s head. He was jealous of how she could always hide in plain sight but back then being able to climb a tree faster seemed more useful, more brag-worthy. He was so stupid.

He wore a stifling hot hood and cloak that was great for shielding him from the sun but was oppressively hot otherwise. Lots of other Gaians wore hoods like that in the desert - a practice unheard of among the Somas. If the sun was too unforgiving, the Yscians would seek shelter in the canyons. Ral angrily shook himself; he shouldn’t be thinking of the Somas again. He was finished with them.

Instead he tried to focus on looking inconspicuous while tailing the stable master. Ivron had spent most of the morning bargaining with leather workers in the market. It sounded like he wanted the cheapest yet highest grade leather reins and refused to back down from a scandalously low price.

“Who else is going to buy reins from you?” he scoffed at one of them. The stable master was confident he had no competitors in the horse market as he acted like he owned the monopoly on horse accessories.

Of course, Ral knew better than to take Ivron at his word - lying and bargaining in Alkkes went hand in hand. He’s heard many fanciful stories come out of Kentor, down to the merchant claiming to have two wives and eight children to feed, and that was somehow related to needing a discount on rolls of undyed linen. The ridiculous thing was that people believed him.

How is it that Ivron is so confident there isn’t a competitor ready to topple his grasp on the horse market in Alkkes? Almost everyone here was in need of the animal - surely many people who first situated in the mining city-state had a mind to trade and breed horses as a business. And it wasn’t like the man was particularly likable or popular: many seemed to tolerate him at best because of his trade. How was he so successful?

Ivron moved on from harassing the leather workers, taking a long and winding path around the city that had Ral confused. He spent a lot of time wondering what Aris would do: if he had the ability to fade into shadow and tail someone up close, he could probably discern what the stable master was up to. Right now, all he could do was watch stupidly from a distance.

He doubted anything he was seeing was going to be useful to Kentor. The man visited several stalls and spent a long time picking out some bread. He then headed close to the entrance of the mines and stared at the workers trudging in and out of them, some with carts full of rock or ore. He greeted a few people on the way but none of them said more than a few words to him. A woman at a fine metalworks stall seemed to be flirting with him but Ivron seemed disinterested.

When the stable master returned to the stables, Ral noted that two people walked out with horses later that day, meaning he made two sales - did they pay full price? Or did they strike some sort of deal? Ral didn’t know. Other than making the sales, he shouted at his employees to clean the dung out of stalls faster and berated one of them for not doing a good job. Later in the evening, Ivron went to a pub nearby and drank well into the night, then he stumbled back to the stables where he had a room on the top floor.

It was a very familiar way of living for most people in Alkkes - selling products, then spending it on drinks at night. Perhaps it was a way of living Ral could follow. The Somas didn’t have alcoholic drinks - they changed locations too often to safely ferment drinks. Kentor enthusiastically introduced him to beer at the tavern they frequented on the ground floor of the inn they were staying at, but Ral found the bubbly drink too bitter to be enjoyable; it begged the question that if an Alkkian didn’t drink or make merry with their money, what would they spend it on?

Besides the strangely meaningless walk around the city in the morning, there wasn’t anything to go on. His mission to stalk the stable master was obviously a failure. Ral returned that night to tell Kentor just that, but received a finger waggle and instructions to just keep going - Ral had no choice but to keep trusting the merchant.

Ral didn’t want to admit that sneaking and following was really his sister’s talent, mostly because he didn’t want Kentor to know about Aris at all. For some reason he felt the need to keep the information close to his chest even if the man had saved him from death. Even if he freely talked about it to Mikol during his time with the Somas. He shoved the memories aside again when they bubbled up. He was to forget about the Somas, especially Mikol. One day it will be a distant memory.

The next day was nearly as fruitless as the first, although he noticed that Ivron was standing at an odd place when he went to watch the mines. It wasn’t unusual to see what was coming in and out of the mines since there are several high demand items that came out of it, like any precious stones or Liquid Crystal. Because of this, there are several spots that the Alkkian officials allowed people to to watch, all of them were along the west side of the mine entrances where people could see everything but were out of the way of work. The number of people crowded there eying the outflux of materials varied depending on whether or not someone hit a vein or if there are rumors that more Liquid Crystal was coming.

In recent days there has been a dry spell so not many people are watching the mines. There were plenty of available spots on the west side of the mine openings but Ivron always stood close to the markets on the south-west side: while one could still see what was coming in and out of the mines, it was arguably a poor spot to actually see anything properly. It was as if Ivron was looking at something else entirely.

Ral sighed and kept at it even if he thought he was ill suited to that kind of work. Once he and Aris found a cave near the castle at Caelis: both of them knew that they wouldn’t be allowed to play in the caves if the adult knew of it. Aris had snuck around and figured out the time of day they could go visit their hiding spot without the guards ratting them out. It lasted all about a week until Nilda and Rask found out and Nilda had it sealed up. Even when they were children, Aris had the talent for subterfuge, the patience to wait. Ral wasn’t ever really good at anything. He really was a sun-baked fool. What would Aris be saying to him now?

She would probably just roll her eyes and tell him to get on with it.

At night, it was easier to hide in the shadows of side alleys. Ral had to avoid the drunks and pick pockets that also lurked out of sight; that was easily solved by simply climbing up to a ledge and silently perching at a spot above the ground. Although he wasn’t able to achieve stillness like the practiced Somas, he was still practiced enough to avoid detection. In the cloak of night he could pretend to be Aris, silent and invisible.

He watched Ivron stagger drunk out of the pub. Without thinking too much about it, he waited a few moments after before slipping into the pub the stablemaster exited and looked around.

There sitting alone in the corner was a man with a surly expression on his face. There was a mass of long, thin strips of leather on the table beside him - Ral couldn’t help but approach and when he got close enough, he could see they were reins for a horse.

The surly looking man froze halfway from lifting a tankard of beer to his lips and gave Ral a sneering look.

“You looking to kill that horse fucker too?” he said harshly.