Till Human Voices Wake Us Read online

  But Raphael had awoken at last to himself in the desolation of the new Ysthar; and Ishaa had found him. He had woken to find he had magic, magic as powerful and untamed and painful as this magic filling him from the powers he had summoned last night.

  He forced his attention to the board, caught intelligence of the pattern, moved his remaining bishop.

  Kasian looked down, hesitated, looked back up. “I don’t know what to say, Raphael.”

  Raphael glanced at him with painfully real amusement breaking through the spume thrown up by the powers crashing around him. “‘You win’?”

  “I—what?—I mean, I beg your pardon?”

  Raphael tapped the board. “Checkmate. Come, let us go to the store.”

  ***

  Outside the air was hazy, brisk without being cold, clouds scudding overhead on flattened bellies. The front being pushed by the North Wind hadn’t yet arrived in England. They walked through the park and stopped by the Houses of Parliament, looking over the railings at bright-jacketed policemen.

  “I thought when I first saw you yesterday that that was your palace,” Kasian said, obviously moving the conversation to safer territory.

  “What made you think I lived in a palace?”

  Kasian chuckled. “I live in one. There didn’t seem any particular reason you couldn’t. Sherry told me last night it was the seat of the local government.” There was a slight pause, Kasian looking at some tourists taking pictures of the Burghers of Calais. Then: “She told me that you—”

  He stopped. After a while Raphael said, “Yes?”

  “She said that you never speak of your family.  Which I suppose is why you didn’t introduce me last night by my title? I wasn’t sure if it were just things are much more casual here than I’m used to. Sherry thought you were an orphan.”

  “The magic folk of Ysthar are used to having secrets,” Raphael said, starting to walk to Fortnum and Mason’s.

  Kasian laughed sardonically. “No, really? In Ixsaa there’s a phrase, Jir Ystharn jaillon. Literally it’s ‘He’s entered service with Ysthar,’ but it means, ‘He’s abandoned his name and become a new person.’—You might use it of a rogue who’s gone straight, or a good man turned thief.  As if, when you go to Ysthar, all your past disappears into quicksand.”

  Raphael contemplated that for a moment, waiting for a break in traffic so they could cross the next street. “There are sometimes good reasons to want to abandon your past.”

  Kasian glanced across at him, then at the crowds of people bustling past them. Perhaps he thought of what Raphael had just told him, for he shivered slightly and went on in a lighter tone. “They also say, Uvai Ysthard—‘Send it to Ysthar.’ Used of things that need to be disposed of discreetly, bodies for instance. Or my favourite, Oll Stond’ Ystharo. ‘Tell the Lord of  Ysthar.’”

  After a few minutes Raphael’s curiosity got the better of him. “And what does that idiom mean?”

  Kasian grinned. “‘All your secrets are safe with me.’”

  “Hmph.”

  “That actually sounded like an emotion. I shall have to remember that you have them.”

  “Everyone has emotions,” Raphael said, and swished wind and light around him restlessly, until the breezes quivered with colour and a scent like sharp herbs, and thronged on his cheeks and in his hair.

  “But you try so hard not to.”

  This was unfortunately true. Raphael walked briskly, turning a corner. Kasian skipped to catch up with him and laughed aloud.

  “Now, now, I’m just teasing you. And one of these days you are going to reply wittily, and I shall fall over with surprise. To think that my twin brother, shy, stuttering Raphael—though you don’t stutter so much now—and how is it that you don’t? Did you magic it away?”

  “No.” Raphael bit off his vehemence with a jerk of wind.

  Kasian sounded taken aback. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “I learned by practice. I would never use my magic for so—so—so personal and self-indulgent a thing.”

  Kasian paused. “I don’t think anyone would consider it self-indulgent, Raphael. I asked because it is a great change.”

  Raphael nodded curtly. (He’s entered service with Ysthar, indeed.) “This is the store.” He turned in immediately and saw, through the glass door, Kasian hesitating a moment to roll his eyes and shrug expressively to no one in particular before following him in. Once he did enter, however, his expression changed from forbearance to eagerness. “Ah,” he said, looking from the produce to the aisles, “this is more like it.”

  He promptly loaded Raphael with more food than he usually bought in a month. Raphael was more or less content to be the porter, finding it difficult to keep his ordinary not-a-film-star not-a-great-mage manner of behaving going while at the same time continuing to weave the winds into the patterns that would cradle the world safe tomorrow. There were two ready-made quiches and a bottle of pickled onions and a box of water crackers, several bawdy puns about bananas, a fruit Raphael gathered Kasian knew from books, some disapproval of the meat (Kasian did not think it could possibly have been hung properly and was rather disturbed by the plastic-wrap), and a moment of ecstatic delight at the shelves of condiments and mustards. After that his mind wandered.

  They spent so long in the store it was nearly time to go to Sherry’s when they got home. Raphael finished his morning’s work with the winds while Kasian spent some time primping and agonizing over the state of his clothing.

  Then, waiting for Kasian in his study, Raphael realized it was precisely twenty-four hours until the end of the Game. He had finished all his preparations; he had only to hold the rising flood of power steady, persist through one luncheon with his friend, one afternoon with his brother, one evening of the play, one night of meditation and vigil.

  His study felt comfortingly ordinary, full of his magic, familiar. His crown, the crown of  Ysthar, sat in its sandalwood box, perfuming the room when he moved it. He opened the box and stood looking at the uncomfortable, beautiful thing he’d chosen to uphold come what may. It represented duty to him, as the sword downstairs was justice.

  He’d chosen rightly, he thought, looking on it; what was power without the constraints of duty holding it in check? Tyrants followed their inclinations. He closed the lid and joined Kasian in the living room without looking at the sword on the mantel again.

  The winds were orderly, the North Wind sweeping smoothly into the last place, all the magic of the world humming as it waited for the turn to the equinox and the end of the Game. The dams were doing their work, the magic swelling in the places inside him that touched them. He felt far too full to want to eat, but that was all right. He could manage another day’s humanity, surely. Surely.

  Raphael slipped into the familiar character of the artist, the small mage of little corners and hidden things his friends knew.  An easy character, close to his heart, the nearest of his masks to himself. Today he didn’t have to be the Lord of  Ysthar; or James Inelu, film star; or James Inelu not-a-film-star; or any of the other roles he held in London.

  And if perhaps his friends had just learned his name, that that aloof small mage and artist was called Raphael, had a brother from another world called Kasian, well, he had to admit he was rather relieved, in that distant marionette way, that he would not end the Game with no one to know his real name.

  Chapter Seven

  Orpheus

  They arrived at Scheherezade’s five minutes past the time at which Raphael would normally have arrived; he was inclined to blame his brother. He felt unsettled by the small misstep, a discrepancy in character like misplacing the accent of a word. Having paid off the taxi, he rang the doorbell promptly. Kasian turned to examine the dusty lace curtains in the window beside the door.

  “Does she live in the whole house?”

  “Just on the first floor.” He hesitated, trying to remember if in Tanteyr that meant the ground floor as in North America or one above grou
nd level, as in England. “One flight up.”

  “Well yes,” Kasian said, eyeing him a bit doubtfully. “Where else would it be?”

  There were thumps down the stairs and then the noise of unlatching locks. “Angelica just beat you here,” Sherry said breathlessly. “Come in, come in, James, I’m so glad you could come! Hullo Kasian.”

  “Hullo, Amiar Scheherezade.”

  Raphael trailed after them up the stairs, contemplating the presence of Angelica. She was not someone he would call a close friend. They had tremendously tedious conversations even by his standards, as the most prominent social grace she possessed was prattling. Then he smiled to himself; at least she would cover up any silences of his.

  Angelica was arranging glasses of mint tea on the sideboard but turned to them immediately upon their entry. “James!” she carolled, handing them each a glass. “And your darling brother! How nice to see you so soon again, it was such a pleasure to meet you at dinner last night.”

  Kasian bowed courteously and Raphael nodded. Sherry told them to seat themselves on the cushions piled in the centre of the room, then disappeared into the kitchen. Kasian sat down with the air of a king condescending to his audience; Angelica seated herself next to him. He smiled at her.

  Raphael felt adrift from himself. He crossed the room to the long table by the wall, polished walnut with carved legs, and examined the runner on it. It was creamy cotton with a corrugated texture, broidered with red and gold. He ran the tips of his fingers slowly across the ridges. This sensuousness surprised him; he stopped to look at his hand. There was no change, of course, in his skin. The burn on his other hand started to throb as soon as he thought of it. He shook his head, sneezing at a sudden whiff of incense, and cast a glance back at Kasian and Angelica.

  They were sitting close together and speaking softly enough that he could not hear them clearly. Angelica was wearing a peculiar shade of chartreuse that he would not have matched with either her colouring or the tangerine-coloured cushion she sat on; but then his taste in colours had made the leap to the Impressionists only with some difficulty.

  Kasian looked up, smiling, at him; Raphael’s glance slid away to the room. More cushions, crimson and sable and emerald, ivory and cerulean and rose, piled on top of brilliant knotted carpets from the desert countries. A cabinet of ebony holding finely-wrought jugs and lamps and other trinkets, the dark wood catching a smudge of light from the three fat beeswax candles on a stand beside it. A small bookshelf with some paperback novels, four leather-bound manuscripts, and a brass astrolabe, and a glass bowl he had made and given to Scheherezade. It was full of oranges. Wandering over to it he noticed one had started to soften. He picked it out and went into the kitchen.

  “Have you a compost somewhere?”

  Scheherezade was taking a covered dish out of the oven. “Under the sink.”

  He deposited the fruit, managing not to wince as his thumb went into its side. He said, “Thank you,” before rinsing his hands. “May I help you at all?”

  “No, I think I’m good. Everything’s ready, so it’s just a matter of bringing it out.” She picked up a tray filled with small bowls, of pittas and hummus and tabouleh and olives, dried apricots, and figs. Raphael held the door open for her. He followed her out and was startled when she thrust the tray into his hands.

  “I forgot about the table,” she explained, darting into one of the other rooms to return with a coffee table. “I don’t like it, and I meant to get another one last weekend, but I went to see the opera instead and forgot entirely about it. This one will have to do for now, I suppose—you can see how flimsy it is, it always irritates me.”

  “How was the opera?” Angelica asked. “Everyone’s saying it’s great.”

  “Oh, it was. Please, do help yourselves—James, give me the tray and sit down. You’re looming over us.”

  He had been admiring the circle of light in her hair, which was longer than Angelica’s when she let it down, and her loose sand-coloured trousers and Tyrian-purple tunic that suited both her and her surroundings. He smiled and did as he was asked.

  Kasian looked doubtfully at the food, then smiled winsomely at Sherry. Raphael thought perhaps his brother wasn’t sure what the protocol was for eating, and reached forward with his right hand to give him an example. Kasian said, “I am not clear what an opera is. A kind of play, perhaps?”

  “You could say so,” Angelica said. “It’s sort of a story set to music, but there’s not usually a lot of acting, and the singing is very formalized.”

  Sherry laughed merrily. “All a-a-ah-a-a!”

  “It’s very highly regarded,” Angelica said primly.

  “What story was it?” Kasian asked, smiling at Scheherezade, who smiled back wryly.

  “Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Have you heard tell of Orpheus the musician?”

  Kasian nodded. “Who has not? He was a man of  Ysthar, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Sherry replied. “Although it’s like pulling teeth to find anyone who remembers anything but his music. He doesn’t appear to have been very memorable in person.”

  “But you have met him, Raphael? You will—you would have been here, surely.”

  “I don’t think about him very much,” he said, which was quite true. “I—He was a very good musician, but I … he did not care much for socializing.”

  Sherry glanced half at him, but did not try to meet his gaze. She continued, “Everyone who did hear him play remembers it. Even the pickiest thought highly of him.”

  “Who was he?” his brother asked. “Never have I heard anything of his life, only some of his music.”

  “Well, there’s a mystery and a half. Probably for the same reason—” Sherry began, but Angelica interrupted, to Sherry’s apparent slight disgruntlement.

  “It probably wasn’t very interesting. His songs are nice enough, but they’re not very exciting, you know?”

  “Angelica, you have a tin ear.”

  “I just meant that they’re not rousing music. Not like—like Wagner. They’re more lyrical.”

  “He did play the lyre. They’re songs. Who knows what else he might have written if he’d lived? Operas hadn’t even been invented then.”

  “I have heard that he wrote many other things,” said Kasian. “My sister has a sailor who knew him, who sings some songs I have never heard else. He said that his singing is nothing, a candle to the sun, to Orpheus before he died.”

  Angelica sighed. “I think it’s the most romantic story I’ve ever heard. Down to the underworld—”

  “But what story is it?” Kasian asked, a bit impatiently. “I have heard the ballad of the ship Argo, but he was not—adalli, he was not the main person in that.” He sang two lines in what was probably Calandran of Ixsaa. It sounded like the idioms he’d told Raphael before. Raphael picked up a handful of figs. His brother had a fine baritone, somewhat husky, attractive.

  Scheherezade laughed. “I suspect Jason would probably be irritated to find he’d been superseded in that story. And by Orpheus the musician, of all people. Heracles he could understand, but an artist, not even a warrior? Bah!”

  “I have met Jason. He is most skilled—is that the word?—as a warrior, but not the most bright.”

  “Here, do you mean? I didn’t think he’d been back to Ysthar in a donkey’s age.”

  “No, on Daun. My sister—” He stopped and grinned at Raphael. Raphael continued to chew the fig he had just bitten into and wondered if there was anything else he could possibly do with his magic that would be helpful. “Our sister has a ship, and Jason is one of her crew.”

  “A bit of a come-down for him, eh? He was captain of the Argo.”

  “He knew not much of piracy,” Kasian said, with a sideways glance of improper humour at Raphael, who did not understand but remembered the look with a stab of nostalgia for their childhood. “The first mate is Zauberi.”

  “Ah.”

  Angelica pouted prettily. “This is all very interesting,
but what about the story? It’s about Orpheus and his lady.”

  “His lady? I had not known he had one. Though I have heard one most beautiful song—”

  “‘Like Sunlight and Shadow on a High Valley,’” Angelica said, sighing in a way that almost made Raphael dislike the song. Almost.

  “Yes, that one. Who was she?”

  “No one particular, people say,” said Angelica.

  Raphael continued to eat his figs methodically. He couldn’t think of anything to do that would be more help than hindrance. There was a twinge in Canada, but it was useless to try to do anything at such a distance now, not with all the magic finally settled into position. It would have to keep. He had the faint idea that there was an archipelago called Zayberii on Daun, but he did not know whether its habitants were renowned for piracy.

  He rose, went unobtrusively to the lavatory. He could hear the indistinct murmur of their voices, and waited after washing his hands until he thought it had been long enough for them to change the subject. Returning, however, he discovered that Kasian was telling a story he had heard from Jason, with much laughing and gesturing, about the perils of travelling past the Sirens by sea.

  Raphael draped himself on the doorpost, watching how Angelica hung on every word and Sherry, amused, deftly drew out inconsistencies and infelicities from what Kasian said. He almost returned to seat himself, but then his brother concluded with: “Tell me the story of Orpheus and his lady.”

  Angelica giggled. Sherry frowned. Kasian looked at her in innocent puzzlement, then grinned with a full complement of charm. “If it please you?”

  “Very well then,” she replied, putting down her glass and arranging herself.

  Raphael slipped over to the window. It faced the back of the building, overlooking a small courtyard garden hemmed by the backs of other buildings. The garden was still noticeably wintry, grass and weeds twining through shrubs and a crab-apple leaning to one side. A woman was standing directly below him, the hood of her black coat up, beads of water catching glimmers of indirect light. He could feel the quality of the air through the glass: it was sodden and felt as if at any moment it would achieve some ambition to become a cloud.