Penult (The Liminality, Part Four)

Chapter 61: Flotsam

My body jerked the way it does when you're half-asleep and get that falling sensation. The only thing was, I really was falling. I dropped like a load of bricks and slammed belly-first into the sea.

This water was so salty. It burned my eyes and lips. A million screaming neurons instantly revealed every minor cut and abrasion I never knew I had.

And I barely sank. The buoyancy out here was incredible. I bobbed right up to the surface where I gasped and gulped for air, and struggled to gain my bearings.

The ocean was mirror calm in the dim twilight of a dying afternoon. A quick spin about helped me located the long boat which remained inert and at anchor. It must have drifted slightly since I had faded, explaining why I had missed the deck.

Someone clambered atop the oarsman's cage and peered out in my direction. I kicked to raise myself out of the water and waved both arms.

"Yo!"

"He's over here," said Ubaldo, and my fellow raiders came swarming to the rail. There was a loud pop and an object came flying out at me. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like a giant tethered cannonball. I flinched and ducked beneath the surface, bobbing back up to find myself within arm's reach of a glassy green globe encased in a mesh of heavy twine in a hexagonal weave.

"Grab on! We will pull you."

So I latched onto the glass float and found myself yanked vigorously back to the boat, like a limp swordfish that had given up the fight. As they reeled me in, I bumped up against some big. I was shocked to see a Cherub floating face down. Not only that, there was a whole train of them strung out behind the boat, carried adrift by the feeble current. Someone had been busy clearing the holds and tossing them overboard.

When I reached the hull, a jungle of hands reached down to grab me.

"We were worried this would happen," said Olivier. "We kept a watch. Didn't want you to drown."

"I don't think that's possible," I said. "A brick would probably float in this stuff."

I caught Karla smirking at me. She tossed me a bundle that I barely reached out in time to catch and keep it from flying overboard. They were my clothes, somehow quite a bit cleaner and fresher than I remembered.

"I told you he would come back soon," she said. "His life is miserable without me."

"Um. No. That's not why—"

"Oh? You are too happy to have me out of your life?"

"Karla. I'm ... I'm dying. I've been poisoned."

All of the mischief went out of her face.

"What? How?"

"That's bullshit," Olivier.

"The Friends of Penult. They caught me. Injected me. With something. Wendell thinks it's ricin. No antidote."

Karla's eyes widened. "We need to get him to the glaciers. To the mountains"

"Hang on," said Olivier. "Nobody can poison him. He's a Weaver. And not just any Weaver. A master. He has power over matter even in the living world."

"So how does that help me against ricin?"

"Easy. Just turn the poison into something harmless. Say ... cotton candy."

"But how?"

"Same way you turn basketball courts and bleachers into angry monsters."

"But ... I can't see the poison. I need to visualize stuff to change it. Otherwise, there's no traction. Nothing for my will to work on. I have no idea what it looks like or where it is in my body. It's probably all dissolved."