Page 51 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
I tuned him out and everyone and everything. Soon enough, a wisp arose from the powerful whirrings of my minds.
Unions were represented in the main stitches of me—my shoulders and hips.Myrelationship with See was represented in the thick stitch connecting my head to my body. A natural leap in logic would suggest that my other stitches represented some or other part of the world that must be healed.
I tuned back in. “I see a way.”
King See remained quiet.
I touched a hand to the stitch that connected my littlefinger to my hand. I tasted the power of the stitch, then pushedintothe stitch. The world was sick, and I was the antidote. I was the healing tonic of deep ruin and disease.
I dove into the stitch, and my head was wrenched to face west.
In my mind’s eye, I could see a fractured and flopping line of lightning, a broken part of the world’s circulatory system. The vein was far away. The vein was represented by the stitch of my little finger.
I had its location.
I let myself return to the noises of my queendom. Kings were in a heated argument, but they ceased their loud ramblings at the sudden entrance of Princesses Take, Raise, and Change.
My champions.
“We must go,” I said in a distant voice. Such rumblings in me that I had not felt since obsessions.
“Yes,” said Princess Take from under her veiling cloak. “We are needed.”
Her king groaned at the sound of her sultry voice.
A growl of madness entered my voice. “Can you keep up?”
My three champions laughed in response, and I could imagine—I could get the idea—that ancient power might fill them as ancient power had once filled princes when needed.
My champions could keep up with a queen in her reckoning.
I shoved my power downward and shot into the night sky. I pulsed my power to the ground to stay aloft in the stars. The gleeful cackles of my champions swooped and whooped close behind.
We flew through the world.
I had only been outside Vitale a few times in my life. The landscape rapidly passing far below was much the same. Piles of filthy sand. Great expanses of acrid and acidic water.Lifeless dirt.
Sickness.
Ruin.
All caused, incredibly, by humans. The same humans who I had likened sometimes to clucking chickens with how they meandered here and there doing trivial things. The humans’ effect on the world was monstrous but nevertheless impressive. Their monstrous power demanded respect in the form of our lives, for humans could eliminate an entire globe and all existing life just bybeing.
I descended, and my champions swooped after me.
Goodness.
Black sludge bubbled from a cavern. How deep the cavern extended into the world, I could not say.
“Is it oil?” called Princess Raise.
Oil. A mythical idea from before The End. Oil was gone.
“No,” said Princess Take. “’Tis not oil. This goop is hard in places, and too viscous overall.”
Neither humans nor monsters had seen this substance, but I had an inkling that ancients knew it well. I had an inkling that they traveled the universe to chase and eradicate this sickness. I had the conviction that this black sludge was their nemesis andtheirruin.
“’Tis the sickness of the world,” I told champions. “I had not expected a physical sign.”
