Chapter 16 – Drink Me

Mas dreamed someone had a foot on his chest. He didn’t have the chill of fear that had gone with his other dreams of late, just a small but firm pressure on his sternum, holding him down. And the smell of lemons and tobacco.

He woke and was about to sit up, but there was the pressure again. Smaller than in his dream, but there nonetheless. A small round weight, pressing down. He moved his arms, slowly, to his center. He felt the sides of a large glass bottle sitting on him. He lifted it, felt its weight: not heavy, something sloshing inside it, water maybe. There was a small piece of string attaching a rough bark label. Mas sat up and felt for the label.

It read Don’t you want to know?

Know what? He ran his fingers over the label, reading it again. Something familiar about it. What? There was still a faint waft of tobacco in the air. The writing was his father’s spiky hand. How the hells?

What in the name of all the hells was in the bottle, then? Its top had a glass bung and a wax seal. The wax was warm. Not warm like it had just set, warm like someone had been fiddling with it. Warm from someone’s pocket. He felt the glass stopper. What was all of this? He pulled the top. The sharp sting of lemon followed the bung. And it dragged him right back to his past. The fragrance was more complicated than lemons, and there was nothing else like it in the world. A tiny tang of mold there, but that wasn’t where it was at, his fear of a smell. It was a faint, sweet, nutty, passing thing. A minuscule amount, a few particles in a million, billion maybe. It stayed briefly. Then disappeared. And it was the most potent poison in the Dark. It was harvested from the venom of the River-spider—a bite from one of those was always deadly. Combined with the right juice from lemon weed as a carrier, and it became something that could be inhaled. And it killed half of the people who did. But those who survived. They would retain immunity to the bite of the river spider forever.

In the River-folk tribe, it was only allowed to be inhaled by pups who were choosing to take up the mantle of their family’s boat. Or forced to. War between the River-folk families was frequent, fierce and deadly. Mostly, mothers had large litters among the River-folk. Economic reasons were the main driver, but having spare pups to survive the initiation didn’t hurt either.

And Mas had never had to go through it. His mother had saved him from that. Their boat had been run by his father and his uncles. Teller Mas was an only child. He’d had a twin, but the pup had died of a fever in the first span of its brief life. And he’d remained.

“Shreds,” Mas said.

The scent curled out of the bottle like a snake. Mas had to put the vial down on the lid of his mother’s blanket chest. His hand was shaking so much, he was afraid he’d drop the lot and kill them all. Almost as if his thoughts had stirred her, his mother turned and groaned in her sleep. If he was to do this, it would have to be before she woke. Why was he even contemplating the idea? The whole thing was insane. Even the rhetorical invitation on the label was aimed to taunt him. All the time he’d been a pup, his father had taunted him in one way or another. Always some head-game or punishment for getting it wrong. His mother had gone through the same. But if he was alive? The whole thing was awful and insane, this stuff, ‘Hyluron’ stood a straight up fifty percent chance of killing him. But didn’t he want to know? Hadn’t he always admired, hero worshiped even, the pups who’d been through the ritual and out the other side? Though, thinking back, was that because the funerals for the ones who didn’t make it were always low-key, in the middle of sleep-span, hidden away affairs? As if the whole tribe was ashamed of the fallen and ashamed of the ritual itself.

He swilled the liquid idly wondering how many inhalations it would take to put him under. Did he care anymore? He’d smelled so much death, so much of the worst the Folk had to offer, he was so tired. What did he really have to go back to? A bar tab and a drinking habit? He should have a mate, something to do with his scant downtime. Woulda. Shoulda. Coulda. But was this, here, in the way of all that? Had this always been eating away at him inside? Not knowing. There was some part of the scroll of his life with the writing scratched out. He shifted on the floor. Mas became aware of something sticking into his hip. A fabric ball? He reached down. It unfolded. He explored it with his hands, stretching it this way and that. A hat. A fabric cap of the kind that boat-captains wore. It smelled of tobacco. His mother had kept it all this time.

The breeze exhaled politely but firmly into the cavern again, lifting the boats and letting them fall. Mas sat cap in one hand, poison in the other. His mother rolled over and groaned in her sleep. Time was running out. He swirled the vial one more time and poured a tiny stream into the hat. When he felt his fingers wet underneath, he stopped. Tobacco and lemons. He inhaled deeply and lay down.