Descending Road - METAL ADORNMENTS GLINTING by Dana W. Paxson

METAL ADORNMENTS GLINTING

1560 4D

“Where should I sleep?” I asked Drasstar. He closed the door behind us. We stood in the large domed front chamber of Thringe‘s home, large soft cushions littering the floor and walls with somber red, purple and blue patterns. Faint high tones, long and slowly shifting, played through the room, like the voices of birds singing lyrics to some ancient sweet song. Sconces on the walls were turned low, giving a soft glow to the room.

Rasha, Naudi and Grioskin had headed off to a barhole on the other side of Sobi, and Drasstar had brought me here.

“Sleep?” Drasstar repeated, his bulky shoulders sagging a little. He was exhausted. “How can you sleep?” He strode into the rear hallway, looked back and forth as if he expected someone to be there, and turned back to face me. “She’s out there, and I want her to be back here with me. I’ll take Grioskin and we’ll go up to, where is it, Brownhollow Score? and we’ll bring her back…"

His voice drifted. He stared past me, and then something seemed to press him down into a big heap of cushions at his feet, and he was asleep.

It might have been the usuli, or the unending stress, or the constant exertion and music-making, but Drasstar lay utterly still, breathing slowly, lying on one side where he had knelt and toppled over, his dark cape half covering him, his striped skin pattern showing brown and cream. In one corner of the room, under a wall sconce, lay a pile of thermal blankets. I flapped one out. On it a spangled pattern of circuitry glistened silvery against a cobalt-blue weave. I carefully laid it over Drasstar. He didn’t stir. His cod, released, rolled out from under the blanket and rattled on the floor, its metal adornments glinting.

My heart pounded and my knees wobbled. My life had suddenly blinked, and I was here with this awesome man, and I spoke a different way and treated people as I never had, and they acted as if they knew me, but not me, some other me. I stood, shivering, and tears burned hot streaks down my made-up face and body, and I was lost.

I wrapped myself in another thermal blanket, kicked the codpiece aside, and curled up next to Drasstar, so that he lay behind me and I could just feel his radiated warmth. My eyes refused to close. I wanted to see my father, to comfort him and feel his comfort return to me. The songs of the night echoed through my head.

I remembered Jaeg. We had loved, some. It wasn’t good. He was too afraid, too suspicious, to hold anyone for long. But the warmth stayed with me, heated me, and I missed him, so I went to him again, and one of the corpo cops followed me, dressed as a Darko Hejj streetboy. That’s why Jaeg had died. Not that day, but two days later. It took me a long time to realize that I had led the corpos to him.

I’d wanted to die. But instead I’d just locked away all the passion and fire. Until tonight, singing to the wide eyes and the raised hands and the smell of smoking cinnaroot. And now the blues and the agents and the corpos hunted me. No, they hunted Thringe.

I gripped the blanket and curled tighter, almost into a ball, and stared out at Thringe‘s main room. On the wall was a knotted tapestry, a colorful macrame cartoon of a creation scene, coated in shining transparent plast and speckled with wire. A pale man and woman, andros, twined standing in love in a vast forest, while the trees and the stars smiled at them. That’s what I was looking at when I fell asleep.

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	METAL ADORNMENTS GLINTING 1560 4D “Where should I sleep?” I asked Drasstar. He closed the door behind us. We stood in the large domed front chamber of Thringe‘s home, large soft cushions littering the floor and walls with somber red, purple and blue patterns. Faint high tones, long and slowly shifting, played through the room, like the voices of birds singing lyrics to some ancient sweet song. Sconces on the walls were turned low, giving a soft glow to the room. Rasha, Naudi and Grioskin had headed off to a barhole on the other side of Sobi, and Drasstar had brought me here. “Sleep?” Drasstar repeated, his bulky shoulders sagging a little. He was exhausted. “How can you sleep?” He strode into the rear hallway, looked back and forth as if he expected someone to be there, and turned back to face me. “She’s out there, and I want her to be back here with me. I’ll take Grioskin and we’ll go up to, where is it, Brownhollow Score? and we’ll bring her back…" His voice drifted. He stared past me, and then something seemed to press him down into a big heap of cushions at his feet, and he was asleep. It might have been the usuli, or the unending stress, or the constant exertion and music-making, but Drasstar lay utterly still, breathing slowly, lying on one side where he had knelt and toppled over, his dark cape half covering him, his striped skin pattern showing brown and cream. In one corner of the room, under a wall sconce, lay a pile of thermal blankets. I flapped one out. On it a spangled pattern of circuitry glistened silvery against a cobalt-blue weave. I carefully laid it over Drasstar. He didn’t stir. His cod, released, rolled out from under the blanket and rattled on the floor, its metal adornments glinting. My heart pounded and my knees wobbled. My life had suddenly blinked, and I was here with this awesome man, and I spoke a different way and treated people as I never had, and they acted as if they knew me, but not me, some other me. I stood, shivering, and tears burned hot streaks down my made-up face and body, and I was lost. I wrapped myself in another thermal blanket, kicked the codpiece aside, and curled up next to Drasstar, so that he lay behind me and I could just feel his radiated warmth. My eyes refused to close. I wanted to see my father, to comfort him and feel his comfort return to me. The songs of the night echoed through my head. I remembered Jaeg. We had loved, some. It wasn’t good. He was too afraid, too suspicious, to hold anyone for long. But the warmth stayed with me, heated me, and I missed him, so I went to him again, and one of the corpo cops followed me, dressed as a Darko Hejj streetboy. That’s why Jaeg had died. Not that day, but two days later. It took me a long time to realize that I had led the corpos to him. I’d wanted to die. But instead I’d just locked away all the passion and fire. Until tonight, singing to the wide eyes and the raised hands and the smell of smoking cinnaroot. And now the blues and the agents and the corpos hunted me. No, they hunted Thringe. I gripped the blanket and curled tighter, almost into a ball, and stared out at Thringe‘s main room. On the wall was a knotted tapestry, a colorful macrame cartoon of a creation scene, coated in shining transparent plast and speckled with wire. A pale man and woman, andros, twined standing in love in a vast forest, while the trees and the stars smiled at them. That’s what I was looking at when I fell asleep.