Descending Road - A WALL OF TANGLEWIRE SPEECH by Dana W. Paxson

A WALL OF TANGLEWIRE SPEECH

1563 4D

“Puri, from tubers and longnuts,” Madhvi told them, bringing a steaming bowl. Its spices jabbed the tissues in Marra‘s nose and left a sweet green tingle.

They sat along a curved wall of the main cubby Engel and Madhvi used, on clean-polished gray stone with old shallow grooves that wove a tangle across the floor and disappeared under newly-shaped walls. The stone wall at their backs ran wavy and pocked, the look typical of material flung quickly from the shaper‘s nozzles and left to harden without any finishing. The ceiling arched in a way consistent with a much larger space, revealing the subdivision of that space into different dwellings; the walls, decorated with color-swashed collages of print and images and small stuck-on objects, reached high.

At Marra‘s left, a flat-gray steel door opened into a long corridor leading out to an antechamber and the street. A door facing her showed narrow kitchen counters and ceiling hooks; a door to her right stood closed. The airvents sighed.

Across a field of mixed greens, blues and grays on the wall facing her, Marra read FREE TARBRUK EXILES and TAKE THE NORTH and THE TREES ARE OURS, written in a stylized black letterscript of a Sinantro dialect; many other strings and loops and knots of markings framed faces and figures in brambles of brown and gray and deep blue: a girl, dead, with half a face; a pair of andros, also dead, their bodies fused into one mass, apparently by intense heat; the forbidding, emotion-laden face of a stern middle-aged woman staring accusingly out at the room.

Around the room, along the margin between wall and ceiling, ran a vinelike inscription in Hejji ideoscript; among its twists and angles Marra made out only the word LADY. As if hanging from the inscription, clumps of egg-shaped gray-blue callisharn husks dangled, spread open, held in place by the paint and glues that gave the walls their turbulent surface; a few long black seeds still fanned from the upper end of each husk. All of it a wall of tanglewire speech impaling bodies and faces against the underground stone.

“Marra, aren’t you going to eat anything?” Deen‘s words came indistinctly from her full mouth.

“Why the husks and the seeds up there?” Marra pointed. Engel offered her the bowl. She dipped fingers in, picked up a mass of nuts and thready, slick sauce, and stuffed it in her mouth. Sweet, and hot.

“For change,” Engel said, finishing a long drink of water. “The Lady is Change.”

“The Lady?”

“We call her Allashani.” Madhvi sucked sauce from her fingers. “She’s our healer. And she comes back from the dead.”

Deen‘s widened eyes mirrored Marra‘s shock at the young woman’s words. Marra fumbled through her memories of starting life again under Aoriver‘s control. Another alien, maybe? A vague resonance shadowed her memory; she opened her mouth, but Frei‘s words came faster. “Back from the dead? Like a biopuppet?”

“No,” Engel said, reaching for another handful of puri, “She comes back to life. I’ve seen it.”

“By herself?” Deen.

“Yes.”

“When I came here, she nursed me,” Madhvi said. “It tasted like sweet syrup, and spices. Soldiers burned me in the throat so I couldn’t talk, and she healed me.”

Allashani is one of us, our sister, Aoriver murmured to Marra. But she took a step none of us had tried: complete joining with her host. The host’s memory vanished, and Allashani became bound to the host’s mind and this plane. A loss and a gain and a lesson for us.

“Could we meet her?” Marra wanted to ask a hundred questions of this— woman. Did she remember? What was in her? Did the thing in her talk like Aoriver did, deep under the brain? What was her real name, it couldn’t be Allashani, no, or could it? Frei roused himself, sitting upright, and leaned forward.

“No.” Engel shook his head, chewing slowly. “Nobody gets to meet her. She asks for people. That’s the only way. She shows up when she wants to. And she’s no vegetarian.” He stared at Marra, then Deen. “So here we are, thanks to you, and I’m wondering whether you’re like her.”

Marra swallowed. “We’ve got a— talent. I don’t know what it’ll do or where it comes from, but we can heal people.”

Liar.

Marra blinked, and went on. “Maybe we can get it explained some time after everything settles down a little.”

Deen added, “In the meantime, don’t kill us just to find out whether we’ll come back.”

Now that’s more to the point.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	A WALL OF TANGLEWIRE SPEECH 1563 4D “Puri, from tubers and longnuts,” Madhvi told them, bringing a steaming bowl. Its spices jabbed the tissues in Marra‘s nose and left a sweet green tingle. They sat along a curved wall of the main cubby Engel and Madhvi used, on clean-polished gray stone with old shallow grooves that wove a tangle across the floor and disappeared under newly-shaped walls. The stone wall at their backs ran wavy and pocked, the look typical of material flung quickly from the shaper‘s nozzles and left to harden without any finishing. The ceiling arched in a way consistent with a much larger space, revealing the subdivision of that space into different dwellings; the walls, decorated with color-swashed collages of print and images and small stuck-on objects, reached high. At Marra‘s left, a flat-gray steel door opened into a long corridor leading out to an antechamber and the street. A door facing her showed narrow kitchen counters and ceiling hooks; a door to her right stood closed. The airvents sighed. Across a field of mixed greens, blues and grays on the wall facing her, Marra read FREE TARBRUK EXILES and TAKE THE NORTH and THE TREES ARE OURS, written in a stylized black letterscript of a Sinantro dialect; many other strings and loops and knots of markings framed faces and figures in brambles of brown and gray and deep blue: a girl, dead, with half a face; a pair of andros, also dead, their bodies fused into one mass, apparently by intense heat; the forbidding, emotion-laden face of a stern middle-aged woman staring accusingly out at the room. Around the room, along the margin between wall and ceiling, ran a vinelike inscription in Hejji ideoscript; among its twists and angles Marra made out only the word LADY. As if hanging from the inscription, clumps of egg-shaped gray-blue callisharn husks dangled, spread open, held in place by the paint and glues that gave the walls their turbulent surface; a few long black seeds still fanned from the upper end of each husk. All of it a wall of tanglewire speech impaling bodies and faces against the underground stone. “Marra, aren’t you going to eat anything?” Deen‘s words came indistinctly from her full mouth. “Why the husks and the seeds up there?” Marra pointed. Engel offered her the bowl. She dipped fingers in, picked up a mass of nuts and thready, slick sauce, and stuffed it in her mouth. Sweet, and hot. “For change,” Engel said, finishing a long drink of water. “The Lady is Change.” “The Lady?” “We call her Allashani.” Madhvi sucked sauce from her fingers. “She’s our healer. And she comes back from the dead.” Deen‘s widened eyes mirrored Marra‘s shock at the young woman’s words. Marra fumbled through her memories of starting life again under Aoriver‘s control. Another alien, maybe? A vague resonance shadowed her memory; she opened her mouth, but Frei‘s words came faster. “Back from the dead? Like a biopuppet?” “No,” Engel said, reaching for another handful of puri, “She comes back to life. I’ve seen it.” “By herself?” Deen. “Yes.” “When I came here, she nursed me,” Madhvi said. “It tasted like sweet syrup, and spices. Soldiers burned me in the throat so I couldn’t talk, and she healed me.” Allashani is one of us, our sister, Aoriver murmured to Marra. But she took a step none of us had tried: complete joining with her host. The host’s memory vanished, and Allashani became bound to the host’s mind and this plane. A loss and a gain and a lesson for us. “Could we meet her?” Marra wanted to ask a hundred questions of this— woman. Did she remember? What was in her? Did the thing in her talk like Aoriver did, deep under the brain? What was her real name, it couldn’t be Allashani, no, or could it? Frei roused himself, sitting upright, and leaned forward. “No.” Engel shook his head, chewing slowly. “Nobody gets to meet her. She asks for people. That’s the only way. She shows up when she wants to. And she’s no vegetarian.” He stared at Marra, then Deen. “So here we are, thanks to you, and I’m wondering whether you’re like her.” Marra swallowed. “We’ve got a— talent. I don’t know what it’ll do or where it comes from, but we can heal people.” Liar. Marra blinked, and went on. “Maybe we can get it explained some time after everything settles down a little.” Deen added, “In the meantime, don’t kill us just to find out whether we’ll come back.” Now that’s more to the point.