Till Human Voices Wake Us Page 16

  (I have seen them riding seaward on the waves)

  He thought of that day in the beech wood, when he had chosen the opportunity to play one song over his whole future: become the Lord of  Ysthar for the price of a song.

  (Combing the white hair of the waves blown back)

  There would still be no music for him, none of that music that undid him, that broke him as no magic had, not even that black magic that had destroyed Astandalas. There would still be duties, and pain, and fear of himself and by himself and by others; there would still be all the unspoken words between him and Kasian, and Robin and Scheherezade and Will.

  (When the wind blows the water white and black.)

  There would still be all the half-lives whose gradual collapse over the last months of the Game he would now have to sort out. There would still be celebrity and notoriety and strangers staring.

  (We have lingered in the chambers of the sea)

  There would still be the problem of his father.

  (By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown)

  There would still be no music. The Eater of  Worlds knew his name, and was waiting another false step.

  (Till human voices wake us, and we drown.)

  This might be that false step, Raphael thought, unbreathing, unmoving, unblinking, the sword between them. He had been warned not to look back. He had been warned.

  Yet: he had not looked back to the fall of Astandalas or to the destruction of Phos, and where had that led him but nearly letting himself drown in the river the night before the Game ended?

  (Till human voices wake us, and we drown.)

  The shadow was waiting for him to fall again. But he had kept his eyes down too long looking for the Abyss. He had seen Circe down there below him, and thought she was looking for the powers that could be gained down there in the darkness. Yet here she was, with the light in her eyes, smiling.

  (Did it matter so much where you stood, if you were looking the right direction?)

  Did he dare did he dare did he dare to eat a peach? The winds were calling him to play. He could hear them, they promised the dissolution of all these problems, the power of the world dammed behind his will. The fraying of his humanity into simply the title, the anonymous Lord of  Ysthar.

  A power that might remember, occasionally, the small things it once had loved, tea and roses and Shakespeare’s poetry. Oranges and lemons and the feel of grass on his feet, exchanged for the long slow healing of a world his best efforts so far had left sorely ravaged. Ysthar of the Magic, unknown to itself. It was sovereignty of a sort.

  (Which way I turn is hell; myself am hell.)

  Waiting for death, she was smiling.

  Waiting for life, he was terrified.

  (And where is your soul in all these errands of yours? )

  Sovereignty of a sort, something other than the one he had claimed all these years. He was so disciplined, so supremely in control, so perfectly balanced in his behaviour no one saw the Lord of  Ysthar unless he chose, or James Inelu, or Dickon, or any of the others.

  —Except Kasian had recognized him.

  —And he had won not by discipline but by surrender.

  O God, he thought, he had surrendered.

  O please, he thought, please, let Scheherezade be right, let there be another end to the story.

  (Till human voices wake us, and we drown.)

  He leaned forward and kissed Circe full on the lips.

  In sublime intimacy she breathed in his breath and he hers.

  (Lord of thyself I mitre thee and crown.)

  He felt her shape the farther edges of his magic and falter in astonishment and something that was not fury, was not awe, was perhaps confusion mingled with wonder, then he thought was perhaps hope, and then realized was the simplest of things, far simpler than either of them usually let themselves feel, almost too simple a thing to name, and yet something that was so great that it was one of the names of God.

  In a dizzying interchange he saw himself through her eyes, a double vision of ordinary man and great mage, the crown of  Ysthar kindled with white fire-roses by the sun behind him, his eyes like windows of the night sky just as morning is coming, the sword still hovering between them opening the gateway to the Sea of Stars behind the night.

  Also he saw this: the ordinary man who knelt over her in deliberation as his heart weighed itself, his face closed and calm as he had seen it in the reflection on Scheherezade’s window in a moment between the tale of Orpheus and the nirgal slaurigh, when the sky stormed for him.

  (Till human voices wake us …)

  Perhaps he would yet drown. Yet—and yet, and yet, and yet.

  With a soft movement like loosening a knot he opened the dam. Through Circe’s eyes he saw the power come rising behind him, a windstorm with no clouds bringing the sun closer, in her eyes looking like a great firebird, his phoenix writ large as the sky.

  He felt her instinctive recoil followed suddenly by a heart’s outpouring of sheer acceptance, of heart’s desire, of that simple thing that glimmered along the sword he held between them, the sword that had been wrought by the one who cast the shadow into the Abyss.

  With one blink he was back in his own mind watching her accept him choosing her fate. Her face was radiant, beautiful, as Eahh had so surprisingly been beautiful.

  The flood of magic went straight through him, channelled along the narrows of his life, rushing through—and through—and out, into the broad brushstrokes of energies he’d arranged standing on Tower Bridge awaiting the sunrise.

  ***

  He did not look back as he walked away; he had been warned.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Third Song

  Chapter Eleven

  The Lost Bet

  He came fully into himself, into Raphael whom he did not know, in a moment so suddenly present he had no idea where he was or what he was doing or who he was expected to be. He held himself perfectly still, not even moving his head, just blinking. The qualities of light and dark seemed excessively brilliant, but that was all he could think.

  Will was standing before him expectantly. Raphael stared at him in total disarray, saw in Will’s eyes some dawning realization, saw Will had eyes that mixed a little green with their brown, hoped he wasn’t bringing too much magic to bear.

  The floodtide of magic was ebbing out of  Ysthar through the reopened borders. The whole world felt frosted with beauty like gold filigree.

  Raphael did not know what else to do, remembered the poet saying he should give his friends the opportunity to help him, and therefore waited patiently, hoping Will would say something to connect him again into the wider present.

  The silence was ringing expectantly, as if a great wind had just stopped. Raphael begged Will with his whole being except his face, body, words—in case he knew not what—to explain where he was and what he was doing there and why the silence was so gaping.

  Will’s expression transmuted into a kind of horrified amusement. “That is most certain,” he said carefully, hesitated when Raphael still stared blankly, added, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”

  Raphael was terrified at this message, the yawning windless air, the draining magic: then realized he was on stage.

  He had to deliberately recall the next lines from his mental image of the text, but as he said, “‘Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarfed about me, in the dark groped I to find out them,’” something made him turn with a gesture, and then, “‘had my desire …’”—and he managed the sharp turn out of the magic and back into Hamlet, and once more forgot himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Then Again, Temptations

  Raphael woke face-down on a soft surface. It was lightly sprung and smelled vaguely familiar. Everything felt vaguely familiar, in fact, down to the comprehensive ache that seemed located somewhere between his mind and his body. He held himself still, trying to remember what he’d been doing to be in such a stat
e, and what character he was playing that he should enter into when he moved.

  It was clearly not Hamlet, not if he were lying face-down. That unfortunately left a very wide range of possibilities, none of which he could recall just this moment. The pain made it clear it was a dangerous role needing careful handling, so it probably wasn’t James Inelu either. That left—he kept being distracted from that most-crucial determination by this pain, which slung him between body and mind and back again.

  Someone crossed the boundary of his safe personal space. Three quarter-seconds of thought: he was in pain, he couldn’t afford to be worse injured, none of his present roles required total self-effacement.

  Three seconds later he held the assailant by the throat three feet off the ground against the wall across the room.

  Six seconds later he realized it was Kasian.

  Very carefully he set his brother down on the ground.

  Kasian touched his throat wonderingly. “You didn’t use magic.”

  The question dropped him out of all the freewheeling choices of roles into confused honesty. “No, not unless someone uses it against me first.”

  “That was remarkable. I would have sworn your injuries would prevent you from doing that.”

  He blinked. “My injuries?”

  “Concussion, fractured shoulder, two cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, and magefire down your whole right side? Also, miscellaneous cuts and bruises from a mean swordsman, and some odd markings I presume are from other kinds of magic. Together with exhaustion, grief, confusion, and a serious case of magical burn-out, or I’m a pigherder. Not to mention blisters on your hands from a sword you’re not much used to using.”

  “That explains why I hurt so much,” he replied seriously, and fainted.

  ***

  When Raphael woke again, he found he was reclining on his back propped up on pillows. He was stiff, aching in his magic, and generally full of muttered complaints from outlying regions of his body and full too of a crashing sense of loneliness. For some reason he had music in his thoughts, a song from when he was young. He blinked at the ceiling. He should not be thinking of music.

  He blinked at the ceiling again. It was not his bedroom ceiling.

  Ishaa made a chirruping sound of disgust and he looked over. She was perched on the arm of the couch, where he was for some reason lying. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, in that half-language he had used when he could not speak clearly, and reached out hesitantly to stroke her cheek. She tossed her head away and leaped to the mantelpiece with a flick of her wings. She pecked once or twice at the sword, then began to preen.

  His mind was heavy and unwieldy and it took him several minutes to determine what had woken him. Eventually he realized it was simply that he hurt. He sighed, for he would have liked to sleep a little longer, then decided there was no point lying there stiffly until his body seized entirely, and forced himself upright.

  He frowned at his clothes for another full minute before realizing that he had not changed out of Hamlet’s. He had no idea why not; didn’t remember anything after the firework crackle of the end of the Game. Will was involved somehow—no, that must have been after.

  After, he thought. This was after. He stared at the bright specks whirling away in the room, realized they were in his vision, not magic. He felt drained. Actually the whole world felt drained. His magic felt blown-out, like a candle. He eyed the stairs doubtfully, then sighed again and began to climb.

  At the top his momentum carried him into the corridor, where he had to rest before tackling the door to his room. He had forgotten about Kasian, and was startled to see a dark form sprawled across his bed. But of course, he thought slowly, his brother must have brought him home.

  He tried to move quietly, but as he automatically bent in the wardrobe to retrieve a pair of socks from the basket on the floor his ribs hurt so much that he straightened with a gasp. He froze, waiting for the pain to subside, but Kasian only snorted and moved restively.

  When he could he reached to get a shirt from the hanger, unthinkingly stretching up, and discovered immediately why this was not a good thing to do with what felt like a fractured or at least severely bruised collarbone. This time he actually staggered back and sideways from the wardrobe, knocking against the side table. It fell over with a loud crash and he froze again, staring at it and clutching his shirt to himself.

  “Is it time to get up?” his brother asked sleepily.

  “I knocked over the table,” he replied. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”

  “No, no, I’m waking up.” Kasian pushed himself upright, blinking. He scrubbed at his face vigorously and grimaced horribly. Raphael watched, fascinated. Kasian finished this waking-up routine by yawning violently and pushing his hair back from his face with both hands. “Right. I’m awake. What are you doing?”

  “Getting some clothes,” he said, whispering though there was no need to.

  “For what?” Kasian whispered back.

  “To get dressed?”

  Kasian laughed abruptly. “You say that so doubtfully. Why do you need to get dressed?”

  Raphael sat down heavily on the bed and regarded his feet with dislike. The socks he was wearing were unpleasantly stiff; he had the feeling that they were not even Hamlet’s, but were in fact his own ones from yesterday—the day before yesterday?—and were crunchy from dried blood. It was hard to tell as they were black.

  “What day is it?” he asked, amazed at the luxury of having someone he trusted there to ask such a question of.

  “What day? Ah … I don’t really know the names of English days. We argued two days ago. Three nights. Since then you’ve been … erratic.”

  Raphael frowned in puzzlement, scratched his face, felt the scritchiness of new beard coming in. “We argued … you pushed me into the river, you mean.” And yet, he thought, he trusted him. He simply couldn’t believe that Kasian had intended to destroy him. He could have let him drown.

  Kasian moved his shoulders awkwardly. “I was trying to—I wanted you to pay heed to me. But afterwards you—disappeared. I went to the play with Gabriel, watched you perform very well, except that you seemed to me as if you were hurt. You were using your off hand … I went back to Gabriel’s with him, but I was worried and came here in the early hours. You were on the floor …”

  He had gone to the play. Will must have said something and that was why he remembered looking at him so clearly. He tried to remember it, couldn’t, but the attempt at focus did mean the haziness in his mind cleared briefly, with an unwelcome image of him holding Kasian up against the wall. “I attacked you. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Kasian frowned, yawned again. “No. Albeit I was glad you had no weapon to hand and chose not to use magic.” He stopped talking. Raphael reached down very slowly with his left hand, careful not to jar his right side, and began to work the sock off his left foot. That wasn’t so bad; that side’s muscles were stiff, but not actually injured. He wriggled his toes with relief, looking at the little bits of black sock fluff and thinking how silly feet look, white and corrugated, after a night in socks.

  An irregular drip of rainwater was coming through the open window. Something in him tried to take those notes and make them into something intelligible and fine, but they were off-key and whatever it was in him that had once let him write music was long broken and gone.

  “What happened?”

  “When?”

  “The other day. What were you doing to be injured like this?”

  “A foolish bet,” he replied in what was probably the understatement of the century. He was abruptly and utterly fed up with the Great Game Aurieleteer and how it had destroyed his life. Nothing outwardly had changed, he thought; Robin and Will and Kasian and Sherry and all the rest, none of them would have to know. Nothing had changed.

  Except my life, except my life, except my life, he thought, and was suddenly awash in sheer panic, as if a crevasse had opened before him.

  He cau
ght sight of the picture of Eurydice on his wall, the sheen of light in her hair, spring behind her, and the panic turned to—what?—hope? Was that the emotion? She was turned away from the viewer; he hadn’t dared paint her face in full. What you could see of her expression wasn’t so very different from that on Circe’s face, when she smiled at the sun. The expression on his own face, when he saw it through Circe’s eyes, hadn’t been such a smile. It should have been, he thought. It should have been.

  The next thought took him breathless: It could be. This was after. After.

  “Kas,” he said on the impulse of that sudden surging emotion, “Would you like to go out for breakfast? Lunch? Whatever meal it is? To see another part of London?”

  A swirl of emerald-green briefly crested into visibility. He blinked stupidly at it. His awareness of magic was almost non-existent. He sank his mind into the room a bit and found that the magic was piled into the corners and waist-deep downstairs, flowing around him in strange patterns that he did not recognize. When he reached out with his hand to touch one stream it curled around his fingers like the motion of a cat. He played with it a while. A thicker ribbon of heavy azure draped itself around his shoulders like an eiderdown comforter.

  “Are you sure you should be going out? Though if you’re actually hungry I feel I should encourage you.”

  Surprised to find it was true, he said, “I’m ravenous.”

  “Like the Jibbering Cock of Mdango?”

  Raphael half-grinned. “Which used to crow on the gable of the House of the Sun?”

  “That’s the one.” Kasian looked at him soberly. “You really aren’t in good shape, you know, Relly sha óm. Who were you fighting with sword and magic?”

  “A better swordsman and worse mage than I,” he replied, and pulled himself upright with such concentration he didn’t hear Kasian’s muttered response.

  ***

  By the time they had both bathed and shaved and dressed it was something like four o’clock by Big Ben. Raphael grabbed a handful of change from the bowl near his door, hailed a taxi coming down Millbank, and directed the driver to take them to a small unpretentious restaurant in Southwark that had the best traditional English mixed grill in London together with a quite marvellous view of both Southwark Cathedral and the Golden Hind.