Substitute Sip: Take clay from the bed of a dried-up stream, roll it and form it and mark it with bones from a fish who died on land.  These charms can be made tiny, like slivers of fingernail, or large as a spoon.  The size does not matter so much as the use — drop it in a cup just before or after a drink is poured, and speak a quiet word.  The clay, so thirsty for its own water, will slowly drink what it is put in, and so you may avoid drinking it yourself, just miming the actions from time to time so no one else will know.  Use it to stay sober when you must, to avoid poison if that’s a problem.  These do not wear off — they become thirstier as time goes by, and it is best to keep them sealed up in glass and wax, well away from the potential for drinking all the liquid out of the air, or your skin.

The tiny ones are unobtrusive, but dangerous.  Do not swallow it — for your stomach is just another cup, one that never empties, and there is no guarantee the charm will ever be destroyed.  Its thirst will become yours, and no matter how much you drink it will absorb it before you can, becoming more and more powerful, until nothing you do will keep you alive, and it will drink every drop in your body until finally the husk that was you falls apart and leaves it exposed to drink from the very land and sky that surround it.

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