Till Human Voices Wake Us Read online

  Perhaps if Kasian had come a year ago they would have had time to suture together the wound of this distance. A year of the phoenix ago Kasian would have fit right into his life, that gaudy happy time in the London theatres where Will was writing the plays that would fire the world’s imagination, when Raphael was still the sort of person who could make friends. Even an ordinary year of the sun ago Kasian would have found him in the brilliant role of the charismatic film star James Inelu, whose career was skyrocketing and superb, with the end of the Game feeling as far away as it ever had.

  But instead Kasian came two and a half days before it ended, when Raphael had closed off everything that wasn’t necessary to survival. And what was necessary to survival? Not his brother; certainly not what was inside the chest. The rules of the Game were very clear on such points, and they were written into the universe at a level deeper than the laws of physics.

  Five rules, simple ones. Easy to memorize, he had thought more than once; rather harder to comprehend; and increasingly difficult to live by.

  The first had been the hardest to stomach in the beginning: The challenge itself is binding: to refuse to play is to lose the forfeit.

  He’d not wanted to give up on his responsibilities quite that soon, not when nine years of the phoenix was so far away. Not when he, like everyone, had only ever heard of the glories won by those who played the Game. He’d never imagined the sordid acts that undergirded those brilliant moments. Never dreamed of the endless complicated subsidiary moves, trying to break Circe’s will, being so broken. Thus he was James Inelu, a successful film star, cynosure of a civilization, wealthy, admired, celebrated: the remnants of his real self lacerated by the attention, frayed a little further by every deliberate act to succeed, by every deliberate act that was not him. Not that anyone saw aught but what he showed them, not any more.

  Over time he had come to realize the second rule was the worst, truly what had ruined his and Circe’s honour both: With the exception of those things necessary to the continuance of the universe, all else is subordinate to the Game. If the first was the anvil, that was the hammer of his adult life. All else is subordinate: all codes of honour or morality, all duties, all friendships, all other possible lives, all other possible dreams. Everything.

  The remaining three were terrible but simpler; they had beat him into the shape he was now, this simulacrum of what he might otherwise have been, staring down Wednesday with something dreadfully close to pure ruthlessness.

  For neither the first nor the last week of the Game shall any moves be made, including attempted finesses; between those dates there shall be at least one move made by each Aurielete during each year of the phoenix of Ysthar. Finesse: a fine way of suggesting murder. But not in the last week, when the thugs didn’t attack him, but only his friend.

  Subordinate challenges may not require the opponent to die or to kill, nor be worth more than one-fifth the value of the Great Forfeit. No, not death; or at least not death of the body. Though his five years in Hollywood might be among the worst, there had been other terrible periods, years as a beggar, in the Roman catacombs, in Bedlam; and, to be fair, in retaliation he had made Circe spend soul-shaping years as an anchorite and a hedgewitch and in bitter service.

  Whether by finesse or accident or final victory, the Game is won with the death of one of the players. And thus, Wednesday.

  Whatever happened on Wednesday Raphael was dead. Oath-breaking, murder, deliberate failure, the pulling down of the world or his soul for his own power: that was what he had chosen when he had agreed to the Game, when he had not given in his crown as the forfeit at the beginning. Nine years of the phoenix had not changed the terms, just made them all so much clearer.

  He would have to kill Circe to save the world, and with that action the small remnants of Raphael locked away in that wooden chest would finally be at rest, for he could not imagine opening it afterwards. If there were an afterwards that meant anything to him. Perhaps he would add that to the legends around the Lord of Ysthar, that he had hidden his heart away in a wooden box like some Easian wizard and thereby won the Great Game Aurieleteer against the Enchantress Circe.

  He’d already been given the warning of the One Above: Don’t look back. It behoved him to listen.

  And there: the decision was made. He was obscurely grateful for Kasian’s statement, that Kasian had come here expressly to find him. It made the choice so much clearer, and the necessity of it so much clearer too. Of course his own preferences weren’t worth the world. He’d just needed Kasian there as symbol of what he was fighting for to see it.

  (Agamemnon would always choose, always had to choose, Menelaus over Iphigeneia …)

  What did it matter what happened to him, if Kasian and those like him—Robin and Will and Scheherezade, and (his thoughts suddenly reached out to encompass other friends and acquaintances and mild enemies he’d made in his various roles of late) Marjorie Brown the palaeontologist who had once given him the gift of unexpected beauty and Isaac Zeigenhanck who was a real person as well as a rock star and the absurdly jealous Roderick Maxwell who played Claudius and Hazel Isling who played Ophelia, and the wider circles of magic folk and ordinary folk and all the other people of his world he didn’t know by name—

  —if all those people could go about their lives without even noticing the end of the Game, without even Robin realizing how close they’d come to the total upheaval and great destruction that accompanied the transferal by violence of magic from one lord magus to another—if no one had to know there was a magical war going on in the background at all—

  —If no one ever had to speak of the seventh Lord of Ysthar as Fulgor Goldhladen the Thunder Dragon had spoken of Urm and Swallow, or the death of the Garden of Kaph—

  If that was what was gained, there was no choice whatsoever. Kasian was a king; he would understand the choice of duty over preference.

  Of course, Kasian didn’t know he was the Lord of Ysthar.

  Raphael hesitated over that concern, the best way to combine a semblance of brotherliness with the distance required to accomplish those remaining tasks in peace. He looked around the room, saw the sword on the mantelpiece, thought again of the complicated moves of the Game that ramified out from those five simple rules. Perhaps the best thing to do was to finesse it.

  Not in the way the Game meant, by assassination, but Castiglione’s sprezzatura again, that affection of nonchalance Raphael had spent so long perfecting. He could not always hide in his house like his phoenix in the trees of the garden; he had duties.

  Kasian knew he was shy, and Raphael’s friends knew he was private. Introducing them to each other would make them all believe he was opening up, and while they exchanged pleasantries Raphael could let their stories of him replace his actual presence.

  Come Wednesday he would be ready, choice finally made, to face down Circe, not looking back at all, with the winds at his back as befit the lord magus of the world.

  Character built, Raphael entered it by looking up, smiled at Kasian with radiant pleasure shading to shy request, said, “Would you like to meet some of my friends?”

  Kasian replied, “I should be most honoured,” with a small bow and what Raphael might normally have considered slightly suspicious gravity, but as it stood he was simply grateful his brother asked no further questions.

  Chapter Four

  The Seven Magpies

  Passing through Trafalgar Square they were prevented from crossing the road by a bus stopped in traffic before them. It bore an advertisement for Raphael’s next film on its side. Of course it did. He stared grimly at his own very-much-larger-than-life face and wondered if there were any possible way Kasian wouldn’t ask him about it. At least it was a reasonably good picture, and since the film was a nineteenth-century period drama the clothes were surely not too outlandish to his twin’s eyes.

  Kasian remained silent until they had crossed the road and were going up the steps past the National Gallery. “I’m not
sure where even to begin asking questions, sha óm.”

  “It’s a—” There was no word for advertisement in Tanteyr. “A notification for a—a play coming soon. Which I’m performing in.”

  “Evidently.”

  Kasian had spent their journey so far gesticulating enthusiastically about cars and buses and storefronts and mobile phones and drains, and either not noticing or not caring about the people who whispered in their wake. He seemed to be noticing now, but only grinned.

  Raphael focused hard on burying all hint of glamour under the dull comportment of his ordinary self. It was difficult with Kasian humming beside him. For some reason it reminded him of how he had spent the first week of the Game tromping angrily along the Euphrates. He’d been unfortunately prone to a kind of high dudgeon as a young man—not that much had ever come of such displays.

  He congratulated himself on his calm demeanour now, just as Kasian said: “Do you know, when I thought to myself about what you could possibly be doing, after I had come to hope you were alive I mean, I could imagine you had won the musician’s crown—but an actor! Never! What did you think I was doing?”

  “I didn’t think about it.”

  “Gabriel must have told you we were alive—he didn’t?” Kasian’s voice changed when Raphael merely glanced sidelong once and then away again. “Nor did he tell me you were. But you must see each other at times.”

  Sunday night’s awkward conversation crossed his mind. “Only when our duties meet.”

  “You didn’t ask after us? You never tried to find me?”

  Ysthar was where the lost boys went, he thought glumly, remembering Circe’s sardonic words. Their parents had been renowned—were still renowned amongst the magic folk—for finding the lost. He could mention the names of Damian Raskae and Pharia Cloudbringer, captains of the Red Company, to any of his friends and waken a reaction more surpassing wonder than if (say) he were to tell them he was the Lord of  Ysthar. Damian and Pharia had found the lost of all shapes and descriptions, from an erring husband to a sense of the miraculous, from a garden to the Moon Lady’s heart … but they had not come to find their middle son, whom Damian had never liked.

  Kasian was still waiting for an answer. Raphael reminded himself of the need to shade disingenuity into shyness, cursed his inability with the spoken word as composed by himself (he was far better with other people’s words), and at last said simply, “At first there was no way.  And later … I stopped thinking about it.”

  “That’s a sad thing to say.”

  Which was perfectly true. And with that they arrived at the pub, and Kasian rejected whatever he had been going to say in favour of admiring the painted magpies on the side of the building. There were seven of them flying or perched around a fairly loose rendition of the crown of  Ysthar, in the shape of a chaplet of white roses, which told those who were of the magic folk that this was a house under the protection of the Lord of Ysthar. Those who weren’t of the magic folk tended not to notice it.

  Raphael had painted the fresco years before and touched it up every once in a while for a free round and the chance to strengthen the sanctuary protections he’d wrought around the pub. He needed a place to go, even he, where those assassins would not come. Few places in the world were half so safe.

  He assessed the feel of magic in the pub. No strangers, but for the still-obtrusive feel of Kasian beside him. His closest friends, Robin, Will, Scheherezade. Max the proprietor in the back with Gwynn the cook. His more distant acquaintance Angharad who was on her way out. Perfect for his purposes.

  He opened the door in time for Angharad’s exit. Though the ability to see magic was rare and it was probably coincidence, she was wearing her aura in a dress of jade silk and narwhal-ivory lace under her black coat. She greeted him cheerily: “Good afternoon, James. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” he replied automatically, safely back in character. “And you?”

  “Oh, fine, fine.” She unfurled her umbrella and added with mock surprise, “It’s raining!”

  He smiled slightly as she tromped off in her high black boots. He looked at the sky, etching a line of gold in the cloudy west. No one seemed to notice, as Kasian was looking after Angharad and her head was bent. Raphael let the clouds slide back together.

  Kasian caught his glance. “And what did that mean?”

  Raphael had switched into Welsh without thinking after her greeting. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t particularly interesting. Comments on the weather.” Noswaith dda. Sut ’dach chi? Dw i’w iawn, diolch. A chi? Iawn, iawn. Mae hi’n bwrw glaw!

  Kasian smiled slowly at him. “I’ll take your word for it, Relly.”

  Raphael suppressed a shiver at the nickname and gestured for his brother to proceed into the building, which Kasian did, but stopped so abruptly that Raphael nearly walked into his back. Peering over his brother’s shoulder he saw no reason for him to have been so arrested: his friends were sitting calmly, dressed ordinarily—green waistcoat, white shirt, teal dress—and Max and the cook were in the back singing an old song of ancient Greece.

  Raphael shook his head gently to compose himself. Sherry was looking at them, with some interest at Kasian, Robin was talking, and Will was bent over his writing. From across the room Raphael couldn’t see if it were the Agamemnon play or something else; it looked like blank verse from a distance, or alexandrines, in Will’s looping Elizabethan hand.

  Scheherezade brushed back her hair as they approached, thin gold bracelets clinking on her wrist. She smiled. “Good afternoon, James. We didn’t expect you to come after all!”

  He’d completely forgotten he’d been invited. He smiled mildly to cover the lapse. Kasian stirred as if to comment. Sherry elbowed Robin to make him stop talking. Raphael took a deep breath, dismissing the unexpected urge to introduce them formally, titles and accolades and all. That would just embroil them all in complications.

  “Kasian, let me introduce Robin, Scheherezade, and Will.” He paused uncomfortably when it came to following through on his decision, then managed to transform his pause into a smile, or thought he did, but Sherry caught the hesitation; he saw the direction of her curiosity change to follow the oddity. He resolutely barrelled through. “My friends: this is my brother Kasian.”

  There was an astounded silence, then Scheherezade moved. “Do call me Sherry.  You might sit here, if you’d like.”

  She patted the chair next to her. Kasian grinned happily at everyone and sat down. It was only then that Raphael realized he hadn’t asked him whether he spoke English, and now of course was supremely confused as to why he did. If it were a magical gift it was akin to the enchantments Raphael had on himself to prevent anyone from being able to gauge his own degree of power. Even Robin didn’t know that he had more than a whisper of magic.

  Raphael drew up a fifth chair between Robin and Will. He moved an empty glass from before him, presumably Angharad’s. Even Will had stopped writing and was staring at Kasian; they all were. When Raphael looked at Kasian he could see why they were amazed: it was no doubt perfectly obvious that this actually was his relative. He had never spoken the truth of his family relations before.

  As he thought that, Robin spoke. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  Raphael rallied himself, made his voice off-hand and pleasant. “We’ve been out of touch.”

  “Oh, I see! Where have you just come from, then?”

  “Daun,” Kasian replied easily. “North of Kisare.” His English was strongly accented but clear.

  “In the Mountains of the Sun?” Scheherezade asked. “There are some fascinating stories about those mountains.”

  Raphael wondered what they were like. Well-inhabited and well-stocked with lore, like the Alps, or wild, like the Rockies? He couldn’t remember any tales about them.

  “Verily? I did go to university in Ixsaa, but I live to the north of Theldsford now, at the head of the Ishyerin, that is the Whitefeather.”

  Raphael had h
eard of the River Whitefeather, which entered the sea at Ixsaa. It drained half the northern continent of Daun, engorged by the Amazonian Tysse, but the river was called the Whitefeather from the smaller stream that came straight out of the Mountains of the Sun. There was a waterfall there, a single stupendous cascade that dropped a full mile. Half the stories he had heard of the Realm mentioned the Whitefeather; its source was in the lake on whose many islets was built Kasian’s City of Bridges.

  Max brought out a glass of white wine for Sherry and nearly spilled it when he saw them. “Ston Kasian! Well I never!”

  Kasian turned to him with a sudden heartwarming smile that made Will frown assessingly. “Maximilien mir Daniroth! I had no imagination you lived here in London.”

  “I never thought to see you outside of Ixsaa. I thought you’d run off to join the Fairies—begging your highness’ pardon,” he added to Robin, who waved at him carelessly. “Whatever are you doing here on Ysthar? Are you off adventuring like your parents? What are you a-questing for?”

  Kasian laughed heartily. “Nothing so fantastic, I fear. I come to find the Lord of  Ysthar that I might present to him a question. I am looking for my long-lost twin brother Raphael here.” He patted Raphael on the arm, who didn’t know whether to stare icily at this outrage, protest the name, or smile as if he didn’t care tuppence.

  He opted for the last, though it did mean an awkward few moments as his friends wrapped their minds around this sudden revelation.

  “You’re long-lost twin brothers?” murmured Will. “Were you separated at birth?”

  Ignoring this, Robin said, “Your real name is Raphael ?”

  Sherry said, “Did you find the Lord of Ysthar?”

  Max was still goggling at him. “You’re Kasian’s brother. That means your father is—”

  “I do not wish to speak about my father,” Raphael said, and due no doubt to his divided intention his voice came out cold and hard as a morningstar. Max met his eyes for a quarter-second before Raphael remembered to drop his, cursing himself for that out-of-character sharpness. He did not want to draw attention to his presence, let alone let slip what power he held within.