The Endless Solvent

By the time they returned to the Somas camp, the sky had deepened in color. Ral had to painfully squeeze through the narrow hidden entrance to the canyons that ran diagonally across Ivassk. They had found a particularly livable section on the canyons a few weeks back with good access to the deep, bottomless ravine for the tribe to dump waste down into and a source of fresh water in a nearby cave three stories below the surface.

The Somas wandered the Ivassk tundra, constantly seeking out living spaces with better access to food and water. During the months with sand storms and unrelenting heat, they sought shelter within the canyons. Colder months moved the tribe north-east towards areas of seasonal plant life where they foraged and dried food. Even if they lived on the surface, the Somas were never far from the stretch of canyons. It provided good, immediate shelter for sudden storms and was difficult to navigate for anyone not Somas - Ral could understand why they stuck to them despite the constant threat of falling to their death.

In their current accommodations, the camp centered around a large plateau situated on the side of a huge, yawning ravine. One had to carefully walk along an extremely narrow pathway chipped from the ravine wall to reach it. Three small caves branched out from this common area, each covered by drapes made of a rough material. The largest were for the Leaders, the second largest for their Wisdom and Healer, the smallest cave for their sick or injured.

The designated chefs were already handing out bowls of food to people from the central cooking pot when they arrived; despite his gnawing hunger Ral had to ignore the delicious scents of dinner to visit the medicine woman, pulling back the rough drapes and ducking to fit into the cave.

“Melette,” he said politely. Two torches fixed to the wall lit the cave up but also generated heat in the airless room.

Mikol entered the cave with him and spoke rapidly to the aged Healer in Yscian. Ral picked up the words “broken” and “fall” while Melette tutted and prodded his now swollen and bruised shoulder with a wrinkled hand. Unlike the other members of the tribe, Melette treated him the same as any other Somas and healed his wounds without the prompting of Bette. She took out a small ceramic bowl and took it to her little folding table filled with curious bags of powders and vials of liquid and started mixing up a concoction.

“Thank you, you should go eat,” he said to Mikol, who was hovering near him even after explaining the situation to Melette. Mikol studied him for a moment in his unnervingly still way, but then nodded and left the cave.

The resulting liquid from mixing countless substances together ended up looking thick and red. “Down,” Malette commanded, pointing a bony finger at a mat on the floor. Ral took a seat. The wizened old woman then took out what looked like a dip pen fashioned from a stick and used it to draw runes on his body with the liquid.

She drew a ring of figures around the swelling of his injury while muttering under her breath. The sharp tip of the pen scraped at his skin, especially the tender parts blasted by sand, but Ral didn’t make a sound to avoid distracting her. Mikol had once recounted a horror story of someone distracting Malette during a bone-setting session and the patient ended up losing the bone altogether.

When she was finished, the little markings glowed slightly before animating themselves to skitter across his skin like insects before burrowing into his shoulder. Ral almost doubled over in pain as something forced his broken bones apart and snapped them together again. Even if he was expecting that to happen, even if he’d done this dozens of times before, it still fucking hurt.

Malette grumbled something that sounded like disgruntled words of comfort while surprisingly strong hands forced him to stay still for his bones to mend properly. It was bone-scraping pain, one that seemed to touch his very solute. And then all of a sudden, it disappeared, leaving him covered in sweat and a dull throb of where the injury used to be.

“Out, out, out,” Malette said after a brief inspection of his shoulder again. The runes must have done their job. “Food. Eat.”

“Thank you, Malette,” Ral said in his rough Yscian. The Healer waved him away.

Ral breathed a sigh of relief exiting the stuffy cave, the cool open ravine drying the sweat from his body. It was significantly cooler even with the throngs of people crowding around the cooking fires to grab their share of dinner. More collapsible tables held bowls, slabs of Somas bread and bowls of spices. After waiting at the back of a line, Ral managed to get a bowl of meat stew and a piece of bread jammed onto the side.

He ignored the stares of the rest of the tribe. The attention was somewhat normal to him now - it was natural they would stare at the only Gaian in the crowd, his ruddy skin and red-brown hair sticking out like a bloody thumb. As he was Bette’s responsibility, he would still be fed and watered like the rest of them. It was one of many things the tribe reluctantly provided for him because Bette ordered them to.

On the large plateau, the elderly, the very young and the important sat in the most comfortable spots. Able bodied men and women were forced to climb on smaller surrounding plateaus, some so far out that they couldn’t see the cooking fire. As he looked around with his bowl, he spotted Mikol craning his neck to look for him. The young Somas gestured and they made their way to a small empty ledge several paces from the main path to the common area. Mikol had to take his food so he had free hands to climb up the wall to sit properly on their ledge. It was a relatively good spot, they could both see and hear everyone. Ral was usually forced to sit far away from the rest of the tribe.

His shoulder still ached but he was able to easily climb up and sat next to Mikol who frequently ate next to him.

“Is everyone feeling sorry for me?” Ral jokes, digging into his meal with his hands. The Somas bread was soft and malleable like clay, and he formed a spoon shape to shovel some grain soup into his mouth. “We never get such a good spot.”

“I think you want to hear dinner story so I save this spot,” Mikol said. “It is about Ressol of the twenty-third Burning.”

“Ressol is a hero of the past, right?”

“Yes, from fifty cycles ago.” Mikol handed him a water skin and he drank from it, washing down the savory soup and bread. A cycle is approximately a year and there are four alternating names for the cycles: the Burning, the Rushing, the Growing, and the Stalling. Apparently which cycle one’s born in affects one’s personality. “He did many great feats even in his youth.”

Ral enjoyed the storytelling the most but unfortunately it wasn’t always stories being told over dinner. Occasionally it was one of the elders droning on about crops or geography. It was oddly like what Ral understood to be a lecture, like the ones his mother would sit through during her time in college. Other times it was someone trying to rally others to a cause, like finding a new place to camp or hunting a particularly elusive prey. Mikol would translate the more interesting bits to him, if they were close enough to listen.

“How did we get such great seats for an interesting story?” Ral asked. “Many would want to hear about Ressol.”

Mikol gave a small smile. When they first met years ago, the young Somas never smiled. It heartened Ral to see it once in a while now. “My spirit melds into form by a force unseen,” he said in Yscian. He taught it to Ral a few months back - it was just a fancy way of saying ‘I have my ways’.

A hush fell over the ledges and plateau filled with dining people. A woman stood by the fires and began to speak, voice strong and clear such that many could hear her. Mikol whispered translations by his side so effortlessly that Ral felt as if he could understand her.

The story almost always starts the same: their heroes are always people with extraordinary strength, courage and wisdom. They were born paragon of these virtues. As Mikol explains, Ressol was no different. It was amusing hearing of the stories of how this man wrestled great beasts or climbed impossibly tall mountains to retrieve mystical herbs for potions. But then the storyteller started talking about the Trial.

“I think that’s the right word,” Mikol said in standard. “Trial.”

It almost sounded like a milyssk jor but at a grandiose scale, the session lasted up to a week and spanned great distances. Mikol started describing a kind of strange doorway at the end of a trial where monsters came forth and Ressol -

“Wait, a doorway?” Ral hissed.

Mikol nodded, his pale blue eyes glittering. “This the information I wanted to hear,” he said, turning focus back on the story teller. “A doorway let in ghost white monsters of unnatural form. He killed the monsters and… shut the door by himself.” He paused, listening more before translating but unfortunately there was no more description of the ‘doorway’ or of the monsters.

The rest of the story detailed Ressol returning to the tribe in triumph and they celebrate his victory. He leads them to safety many times under his leadership, speaking of avoiding droughts, Gaian invasions and dangerous cat-beasts that descend from the eastern mountains. Ral leaned back against the uneven walls, frowning.

He had told Mikol the troubles that plagued his home - before living with the Somas, he had heard that increasing amounts of Gates and monsters were recorded on Caelisian lands. He didn’t expect the young Somas to believe his story, but Mikol had mentioned the description sounded familiar. Now they are hearing of this story from the very lips of an esteemed story teller, it was close to proof that they were speaking of the same thing.

Before he had time to fully process the implication of the story, Ral spotted Bette rise from her seat among the Leaders to gracefully make her way towards them. Like the rest of the Leaders, she was one of the older members of the tribe with graying bluish hair and tell tale lines on her face. However age was not always a factor in martial prowess among the Somas - this was evident by the way Bette moved. It was decades of experience in body control, muscle control and a kind of precision that Ral failed to grasp beyond perceiving it. When she was close enough, she pinned Ral with her dark blue gaze and jerked her head in the direction of the narrow path leading away from the plateau.

Ral remembered: the punishment.

He stifled a groan - just when he was getting comfortable. Mikol rose after him but Bette gave him a shriveling look and the young Somas slowly sat back down. No, Ral was going to have to take his punishment alone.