Till Human Voices Wake Us (8 page)

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 heard 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.

Max spoke with uneasy briskness. “I’ll get you drinks.”

Into the small pause that followed his departure, Kasian said, “Find the Lord of
 
Ysthar? Do you not?”

Sherry whuffed a sigh. “Do we not what? Meet him? Some people do. I met him once, years and years ago. Before I ever met James.” Sherry cast a quick glance at him, as if to check the name was acceptable. He smoothed his expression back to its usual calmness; she smiled. “I don’t believe either Robin or Will ever has?”

“No,” Robin said with disgruntlement. “He’s very shy.”

“
Shy
?” Kasian asked. “I do not know that word. What does it mean?”

Robin and Sherry looked at each other. Robin amplified. “Bashful. Reclusive. Disliking attention. Preferring to sit quietly in the corner rather than talk to strangers.”

“Aha!
Ondrelan
, we would say. Like my brother.”

Raphael ostentatiously ignored this; they all laughed. Sherry said, “I would call James
aloof
. Private certainly. But we do see him from time to time, you see, whereas the Lord of
 
Ysthar keeps himself entirely to himself.”

“Dickon is quietly competent with a very occasional flare for the dramatic,” Robin said judiciously, “whereas the reclusive Lord of
 
Ysthar, from all I hear tell, rejoices in his reclusiveness.”

“Who do you hear tell that?” Sherry demanded. “You’ve never met him.”

“You needn’t remind me! My father thinks he’s a better magus than even Lord Artorin. My mother hates him because he’s better at being mysteriously powerful than she is. Also because he won’t sleep with her. And I’ve heard things from other Ystharians, same as you, Sherry.”

“Do you not fear, that you do not know him?”

Robin and Sherry exchanged thoughtful glances again. Will dropped his gaze to his notebook, spoke to his beer: “I am somewhat concerned about it. Robin tells me not to fret.”

“There’s no reason to fret,” said Robin, tossing back half his ale. “It’s not that he’s completely inaccessible, you know. He replies to letters. People do speak with him occasionally. He … he obviously believes his responsibilities begin and end with magic, and accordingly ignores everything but magic. If you don’t do anything that disturbs it, he leaves you alone.”

“I’m always amazed that he leaves
you
alone,” Sherry said. “You must disturb his magic exceedingly.”

Robin made an elaborate shrug, then doodled in the spilled beer on the table. “I think he avoids me on purpose. When I first came to Ysthar he wrote me a letter in response to one that my father had written to
him
. My father apparently asked him to keep an eye on me. The Lord of
 
Ysthar declined to be my babysitter and informed me that he didn’t care what I did so long as I didn’t make a serious nuisance of myself. I decided as I was a guest I should be reasonably obedient, and that’s been that.”

“That seems a little tame for the Prince of the Fairies,” Sherry said, half looking at Kasian. Now it was Kasian’s turn to frown assessingly, gauging whether the title was serious or a joke, Raphael supposed.