Chapter 8 - finale

      His greatest fear kept him from going anywhere near the ancient, wrecked starship – this terrible anomaly that he could learn nothing of, not in his hidden, locked book, nor in any other in which he’d searched.

      Within the house, Leni called his valet to him, a tall man, quick of hand and wit, whom he called Ebon.

      “Decant the 1842,” Leni commanded.

      “You mean the 1482, surely,” Ebon corrected.

      Leni caught himself and smiled. “Yes, for sure,” he answered, remembering the 1842 grapes that had made such exquisite vintage – but not for another three hundred plus years. “Bring it up to the atrium.”

      The 1482 was a fine year nevertheless, and it would do.

      Leni undressed afterwards, eating some of the fruit that had been laid out in his room. He washed his hands, his face and his feet; then he smoked a little from his pipe, humming all the while a half-remembered tune.

      An hour later, dressed in a maroon evening jacket and a scarlet scarf, Leni met Amos once more in the gardens she liked to grow atop their home. Here, many exotic birds were kept – more of her tests, her whims, her desires fulfilled by the magician.

      Amos had freshened up and changed as well. She now came to him along the flagstones padding softly in grey satin slippers, and a gown that matched, with silver bangles about her arms, and silver rings in her ears that flashed and dangled.

      “Such a creature!” Leni said, quoting from a not-yet-famous poem (in fact not-yet-written) which he'd used to woo her at the outset of their courtship. Sometimes, he would recite the whole thing in her presence, sometimes just a verse as he caressed her naked thigh as she fell into blissful post-coital sleep.

      Tonight, he withheld the rest, and Amos knew why. She knew all of his old tricks; but that did not make him any less charming when he wished to be.

      Now however he was being something else: devious.

      Amos took the glass of wine he poured her, but she chose not to sit with him. He in turn interpreted her move to remain on her feet. This was the dance of a married couple. Leni and Amos were still only engaged, but they knew one another's moves as well as any gray-haired duo that celebrates their fortieth anniversary in step.

      But as any man and woman that spend even a few moments paired up may do, they could also push each other's buttons, and Leni – although deft in hand – could sometimes be rushed out of rhythm by his desires; and so, early in the dance, he stepped squarely on his partner's poor, little toes.

      “Sometimes I do wonder if you really like yourself,” he said to Amos, and she winced, for the remark was heavy-handed, as well as crass. She had learned this of him: in private, Leni could be cruel, and he did not always hide his thoughts. His intellect, quite keen, cut sharp. He continued: “You seem to enjoy denying yourself pleasures, or the things you deserve. Why is that?”

      Amos, who had already had quite a bit to drink today, and not much food, for she had eaten only dainties in Colm's office, was still at the tail-end of her afternoon buzz; she found an easy reply for him waiting within her mouth. She uttered the words happily, for her defenses – after a year of verbal sparring with Leni – now proved formidable, and she the apt pupil.

      “Like myself?” she repeated. “I'll have you know, my love, that I find myself to be absolutely adorable. If ever you see me abstaining, it is only because I know my limits; or perhaps because I get more joy in letting you bring me finally what it is my heart desires.”

      As if to support this statement, a looloft bird – rarest of all her treasures, brought down from the highlands by fierce trappers – took to the wing, climbing aloft with heavy wing-beats. Pink and purple feathers glinted in the final embers of the setting sun.

      Leni was not convinced, and looking at him now she could see the primal hunter in him aroused. If she was the game, he would try to shoot her down; but Amos knew by now how to win this contest, too, and escape his grasp – although, admittedly, most of her efforts were thwarted, and she ended up his, with her ankles locked in the grip of her own hands. The possibility that she might get away from him only excited him more, and made him a greater menace. The key, Amos found, was to use this against him: to make him get over-excited and miss his shot by taking it too soon.

      Premeditated ejaculation, she liked to call this – her wiles growing as well as her wit.

      Leni argued: “But what you desire is for me to possess your heart. I know its desires as well as I know my own. That is why I can tell that you are now resisting, when it would be better for both of us if you yield.”

      “You insinuate that I should follow your lead – when in truth I am not even on the dance-floor,” Amos dictated.

      “That's exactly the problem! You think you have withdrawn, but you are here with me still, here with all of us – the entire Community of life dances with you in this garden, with your every breath!” Leni was inspired. He had this sort of zeal only in two states, as far as Amos had witnessed: when he was onto a brilliant idea that needed expression to take form, or when he had his face buried in her ass, lapping at her dripping pussy.

      The correlation, and the idea, made Amos a little wet, despite herself.

      Regardless, she answered as she must: “I can opt out. We all can. I know it.”

      “Ah! But what is this impulse within you that makes you wish to opt out? It is a dark thing, a scar, an old wound – am I right?”

      Leni liked to pick her apart. What he didn't always notice as he did so was that she could simultaneously pull at his loose thread: there was only ever one, and it was never hard to find, although it certainly got hard once she did.

      “I am scarred all over,” Amos said, displaying her tattooed arms, and making a gesture at her marked face. “And there are some which are dark, others which shine bright. These scars I carry have saved me from death, just as you have – and perhaps more often.”

      “According to you,” Leni said, looking at the inky whorls upon her throat, “I am responsible for giving you these marks.”

      “And what does that say about you, Leni, and your darkness?” Amos said, playing unconsciously a winning stroke. “You have secrets blacker and greater than any of ours,” she retorted. She liked to equate herself with the masses during these altercations, as she knew it infuriated him. He wished her to be elevated, and she, daughter of the ruling class, liked it better in the muddy gutters with the rats and proles.

      “I tell you all I can,” Leni lied. “I give you what you need.”

      “Maybe that's your problem, Leni – you always think you know better than anyone what everyone around you needs. But ever since I was a young girl and I lost my home and my family, I have been seeking inwards, looking within myself to discover what are my needs, and where I must go to find them. Do not try to teach me lessons I learned long ago, thinking it a boon and benediction!”

      Leni was hurt by her words. She hadn't excited him at all, but had injured him. How had that happened? She had never experienced this before. Usually with him, it was all smoke and mirrors. She had learned the maze-like way out of the smoke; but this time she had somehow managed to redirect one of the mirrors; and seeing himself, Leni had faltered for the first time she had known him.

      Pain welled up within him, a hurt he could not control, and it seized him suddenly so that he let his goblet drop, shattering on the flagstones laid upon the roof. This startled some of the birds in roost nearby so that they took off, squawking, overhead.

      Amos went to him as he put his hand over his eyes to cover them and shield himself. She took his hand.

      “What is it?” she asked. “What harm have I done?”

      “None,” Leni managed to gasp as his passions moved him and he sobbed before her, though trying all the while to contain it, to keep it imprisoned within himself. His secrets now were swimming near the surface, like little minnows. Amos fancied that if she wanted to, she could with ease scoop any one of them out, cup them in her hand with a little water, and lift them up for her observation; but she knew doing this would hurt him even more, and that she would still never understand what it was she beheld in her hand.

      A few moments passed, and Leni – after a barrage of horrible, dreadful fears that he might lose his beloved – managed to compose himself. Amos felt awful as well, for she felt she had brought this about. After some time, Leni revealed himself again to her and smiled. It was a strange smile, and one she had seen on his face only once before; there was a great sadness revealed in it, and a happy resignation, as if he had admitted, at long last, that misery was as sweet as harmony.

      She pulled away from him then, for he resembled exactly the version of himself she had seen many years ago, as a girl that had fallen into the accursed caves.

      “What is it?” Leni asked.

      “I-I see you now as I saw you then!” she whispered. “In the cave!”

      Leni shook his head. “That was not me,” he said. “It was the trick of another. I never caught you in that cave.”

      Amos stood up, angry now. “I know that it was you and no other; and I know that you deny it now only out of spite. Don’t you think I'd know you, my love? If you cannot trust me in that, then your esteem of me is even lower than your perception of my own!”

      “Spite?” Leni said, his own ire irked. “I spit at all the ignorant fools until I have run out of words, and I am dry as a cockle-spar – but I spite no one, least of all you!”

      “You spite yourself, Leni,” Amos said now, seeing him clearly for the first time. She may have seen his sadness as a girl, but only now – as a woman – did she spot the mar upon his spirit. It showed itself – but what was it, and what did it mean?

      She would never know – not unless he one day opted to tell her.

      Before she turned away from him she said one final thing. Her parting words, like those that had come before, seemingly bidden, but unforeseen, went to his very core:

      “It is you, my love, who does not like yourself very much. It is time now that you admit that to yourself, and to allow me to forget this false projection which you have pushed upon me. I am proud, and I am fully in love with who I am. I don't need you; although I see now how you need me.”

      Leni sat motionless in the garden as Amos strode away from him toward the lift. He sat crumpled, totally without will, drained and depleted.

      He was back in Tonphe Square and Mara was running with him hand in hand moments before she was struck by a plasma blast which incinerated most of her body. Leni dove for cover, and it was only once he was safely out of sight did he realize he was now holding a dismembered arm.

      Travesty pressed upon him, sent him from his seat onto the garden floor. As Amos descended in the lift to the bedroom, wishing she could somehow, with words or with her body, find a way to alleviate his pain, Leni went into howls and spasms.

      He had kept the tragedy at bay; he had leapt so far away from it, and reinvented himself so many times that the man who had lost his first love was another world away, someone in a story, a forgotten soldier of fortune.

      Now, somehow, a crack had formed.

      Leni cried and cried, with his forehead pressed into the flagstones, until he had gotten most of it out; then he began hitting himself, and went on like this until he was utter spent and through his tears all the stars above had seemingly slurred into one.

      The truth was that he really did not like himself at all; in fact, he hated himself.

 

Chapter 8 - part the first

Leni returned home with his bride. As he rode in the coach, seated across from her, he marveled at her as he so often did. How she could constantly surprise him was a true delight, and a complete mystery. He adored her for it.

They lived together in the apartments they had let from a very wise and extremely wizened old woman named Gert. These were on Susio Boulevard, a posh neighbourhood where only the most extravagantly wealthy could afford to live. It was a far cry from the little room he'd had above the Odeum, but that was Leni's skill: to surprise everyone by defying convention. Somehow – presumably by magic – he had acquired riches in a very short time. Whenever asked, he gave always a variation of the same explanation:

“I always had the money; I simply didn't have any reason to call it to me – that is until I met this radiant beauty! Look at my wife-to-be! Isn't she perfect? Such a face, as like a goddess, or a spirit of the sea that sings men to death upon sharp rocks, but never ages herself, for she is not truly flesh! But lucky for me, she has flesh, and it is hot to the touch!”

So Amos would become the distraction, and if they were men inquiring – as they most often were – all thoughts of discovering the source of Leni's unimaginable treasure were driven clear out of their minds by the much more sensual ideas of discovering Amos'. And while Amos might burn the toast and drop the kettle and tear the linens and stub her toes, she was never clumsy in her manipulating of a man.

Women were much more shrewd at times, but far more discrete. They would infer from answers much more than they would pose direct questions; but Leni knew how to charm them all, for he was a quick study when it came to judging what a woman wanted from a man. His trick in handling them was to become that, or at least allow them to project their desires onto him.

Amos said to him one night, “Between the two of us, we could fuck our way through the Flood Gate.”What she meant of course was to take over Caza. To be Lord and Lady, King and Queen, to live in the Spar and oversee all.

Leni, laying naked next to her, considered her comment and conceded that she was right. “But all that responsibility...” he murmured in her ear. “I wouldn't have the time to fuck your soft little salt gate.”He patted her ass, played a finger between her hitched legs in her vulva that still seemed to be vibrating.

Thinking about these things, Leni knew what he wanted when they got indoors. He would get her drunk. He would take her up to the rooftop garden. He would kiss her, and treat her just the way she liked, as a servant. She loved it when he dominated her, when he clapped the chains on her. These were strong chains with trick locks that he used in his show; but he never showed her how to open them with the hidden latch, and she never asked.

They arrived at home close to eight o'clock, for the traffic was heavy that evening: a fire in [district] had caused the many competing brigades to fill the streets with men and muck, where onlookers cried out and looters went to work. Leni helped his bride out of the carriage and together they ascended the steps to the luxurious home, sold in an estate sale when old Count Levy died with no heirs.

Leni paused on the stairs and let Amos go ahead of him. He pretended to look up at the sky which held the last of the day's light like a wine lover holding up a sample of a golden vintage to examine its legs and consistency. Really, he just wanted to watch her wiggle in her dress, and admire the shape of her bottom as he resumed climbing at just the right time to bring it level with his face.

Within, it was a strange menagerie of whimsy and ridiculous manifestations. Amos had started a game with her chosen mate some time ago, and he had bested her at it to date, much to her frustration. One night, when he'd spent a good deal of time with his face buried in the ass he loved so much, he emerged to announce that he would do anything for her, be anything for her, and give her anything her heart desired.

So she decided to test him on this: the following day, she demanded a rare bird: an ossoplot, that is found only in the high peaks of the faraway Mali Mountains. Three days later, one arrived in a cage.

After this, Amos knew that he was challenging her: Leni was daring her to dare him once more.

She took one look at the bird with its great plumes and prideful hunter's eyes, and said, “Release it. I desire now a circus of mice.”

Three days hence, a man came knocking with seven trained rodents that could juggle, sing, cavort, tumble. Amos shook her head and clapped her hands in delight seeing the show they put on – and Leni was glad that night for pulling it off, for she used her mouth in a blissfully magnificent way to pull him off. 

In the morning, Amos smiled at her love and said, “I want you to win me a Faoro.”

This was an impossible feat, something which only the truly blessed could achieve. Over two hundred years hence, a contest had been created in Caza, in which the best athletes could compete to see who was the strongest, the lightest of foot, the most aquatically adept. From there grew a contest for the elite among them, and the most prestigious of prizes was won by completing a brilliantly designed and perfectly confounding obstacle course.

The last, and one of three alone that ever managed to make it through the gauntlet, to win one of the Faoro – an exquisite trophy made of finely wrought silver and polished jewels of green – was the gladiator of legend, Naxa. He had trained for years to increase his stamina, endurance, acuity, and reflexes; and they say that he made it through to the end only by sheer luck, for his movements at certain moments through the course were timed to the second, and had they been off by just a hair – a hundred times over, with each new hazard, he would have fallen; he would have failed.

Amos in demanding this was calling Leni's bluff, or so she thought.

He took her out of bed that very night and led her to the entrance to the course. It was locked, of course, but he could be kept out by a simple padlock. They stole through the dark toward the gate. No one had tried this in decades, for it was quite an investment of time and energy to train for it, and the only thing that really came of it was empty celebrity. There was no prize besides the trophy, and those who tried and failed – and those three who by some miracle had won – made their attempts only for the prestige, and the coveted title that only the winners were honoured with: Honn.

At the gate, Leni looked at her and gave her a wink. “I'll be back before you know it,” he said.

Amos held him back a moment; she nodded her head at the gate. “You're really going in there?”

“Of course,” Leni smiled. “I'm a man of my word.”

Amos gazed into the dark passage.“Is it dangerous?”

“Do you think I would bother if it weren't?” he answered. Then he grabbed her, pulled her close, and kissed her with passion and utter devotion – the kind that all women dream of finding in a man, but rarely do, for mostly they are surrounded by overgrown boys who have no concept of how to please the more sophisticated sex.

Leaving her a little breathless, somewhat dizzy, and decidedly moist in her panties, Leni bounded away into the gateway where he grasped the lever that would let him into the labyrinth where some had died, most had failed, and all who entered despaired and lost hope at least once.

An hour later he reappeared with the trophy in his hand. There was not a scratch on him, but his grin was enormous.

“I think I deserve another moment in your mouth,” Leni said with happy smugness. “That thing you do with your tongue is to die for!”

Amos was speechless; but luckily she didn't have to say anything to tickle his balls with her tongue.

The Faoro was noticed missing, but Leni never came forward to reveal himself as the one who had bested the labyrinth. He went without any title. He put it away in a high room behind lock and and key, and gave the key to his flustered fiance.

“How did you do that?” she asked him then, and for weeks afterward. Somehow, she was unable to accept this one. All the other tricks, stunts, and exploits he did she felt must have some explanation. She didn't need to know his secrets, so long as she felt she could understand them if ever he revealed them; but this was inexplicable, incredible, impossible.

Leni refused to tell her how he'd gotten through the maze unscathed and all the way to the end to claim the prize; and this drove her mad, to the point where she broke into his study when he was out one day and discovered the locked tome, the big book that he would pore over for hours on his own, a huge album that wouldn't be unhinged, pried open, or picked.

Ever since then, Leni had been forced to hide the book from her; but no matter where he put it, sooner or later, she would ferret it out. She tried again and again to penetrate his secrets, and failed. Tonight, however, before he penetrated her, he had to deal with some troublesome secrets of hers.

Who was this Wizard she says she spoke to in the caves? Was he even real? Or was he just a diversion for him, something to distract his focus while she pulled some trick on him? How could he have the same face?

He knew the possibility existed that it was exactly as she'd described it: that it had been Leni and no other that had caught her in that cave. It was not, however, part of his past, and existed as nothing he could remember; so it was only possible that these events would come to pass in his future.

This idea made him feel sick in his stomach; it was not the first time he had considered it, and he did not like to dwell on the notion long. It was for this reason as well that he had never, despite having heard the story numerous times already, ever ventured to the Azot to investigate the caves to see if Amos' story was true.

Chapter 7 - finale

In the stairwell Veon saw a dead rat being eaten by one that looked only marginally more alive. There was a smell of sulfur, acrid and metallic. Veon wished to hasten up to the loft; however, with his bulk, he dared not move but prudently on the narrow steps – several of which were already visibly cracked or disintegrating from rain-rot.

Ascending to Osuf's loft always reminded Veon of the climb he'd made with Amos when he was a boy of twelve nursing a sprained ankle, leaving the caves into which he'd tumbled, according to his sister. They had crawled through deep, dark, narrow ways which Veon was barely able to squeeze through, and had found their egress in a split fissure along the side of the Prow where a cleft in the facade let in some light. At that time, they had crawled out of the foul place towards the light of day, and now Veon was climbing once more, toward the crack of lamp light which emanated from beneath his cousin's door – only this time, he was climbing towards a place more foul.

As he reached the top of the stairs, and reached for the knob on the door, he heard a great explosive noise come from within, followed by a cry and a great clatter, as if an entire banquet table had gone over, collapsing under the weight of all with which it had been laden.

Veon waited a moment, reconsidering, listening to what was happening within the loft, as well as within the chambers of his own heart.

Do I really want to see what's on the other side? Veon asked himself. He feared few men, and dreaded no fight – but coming to see Osuf working was a thing of a different sort entire.

He had too much momentum now to turn back, however – and also he knew he could not brave these stairs again until he was right drunk. His hand closed around the doorknob, turning it with determination – which proved too much for the door, which was also in an advanced state of disintegration. The knob twisted and came loose from the rotten meat of the door. Veon extracted it like pulling a spoon of out thick porridge.

“Third for the best,” Veon muttered, thinking once more of Amos – for this was something that she liked to utter. He didn't believe in it much, himself; there was little place for superstition in Veon's life, which was dominated already enough by mystery and suspicion; but he finished the saying off anyway: “And worth more than the fourth.”

He let the knob drop from his hand, and heard it rattling down the decrepit steps, followed by a loud squeak at the bottom from an angry rat. Veon ignored all this and pushed the door open; it nearly fell from its hinges, and as he entered, he feared for a real moment that the whole thing would fall right on top of him.

“Hora?” Osuf called out with a raspy voice. “Did you bring me my dollop?”

“I doubt very much you've got a taste for my dollop!” Veon replied with a booming voice. He felt he could perhaps with forced pluck and some bravado rally his cousin out of the loft for some drinking – especially since he planned to pay for all the rounds. Getting out of this stinking hole was definitely his first priority at this point.

Osuf – pale, gaunt, all angular lines and wobbling bones – appeared from behind a free-standing chalk board. He squinted, and saw the dark-skinned gladiator who stood grinning gladly before him; then he grunted, nodded, and receded back to his work.

“They once called me Virtuoso!” Osuf cawed like a crow, his voice shot as if he'd been smoking and shouting curses all day – which was highly likely. “Do you know what they call me now?”

Veon had heard this rant before; he knew the answer; but he said nothing.

“The Vincible!”

“They call me either Victim or Victor,” Veon reminded. “We all get two names each, cousin – but which we choose to believe we are is up to us.”

“Save me your platitudes!”

“Of course. So sorry.”

“Ha! I need apologies even less!”

“Then I am at a loss for words.”

“Good. That is how I like you!”

Veon snorted. Coming around the blackboard, he scanned the area quickly to see what state his cousin was in. He saw three opened bottles of wine and an empty glass. Upon the blackboard was a great diagram with many labels in a scrawl which Veon doubted even his cousin could read – drunk or sober! The picture in the center looked like a saddle of sorts, but there were springs and cogs that were clearly meant to drive some kind of engine.

“What's this, then?” Veon pointed with only a cursory show of curiosity. This was a test, to see how well Osuf had worked. If he'd been at it many hours already, and had found a good deal of creativity, it would mean that he would not budge from the loft until the project was complete and he had formulated a prototype; but this would never happen, as he always abandoned the children of his imagination.

The only issue now was, how deeply invested was he? How hard would it prove to tear him away from this one? How much would it hurt him when he finally set it all aflame, effaced the board, and resigned himself once more to ineptitude, and sweet inebriation?

Osuf gazed upon his design and a crooked smile cracked upon his haggard face.

“It's a machine for traveling back in time,” he said with some pride.

Veon's eyebrow arched and he looked at his cousin. “Does it work?” he asked. He didn't need to ask why: a man with nothing but regrets in his heart thinks only of the past.

Osuf shrugged. “How should I know?” he said. “It would require a power source three times greater than the sun to initiate it.”

Veon turned back to the blackboard. It looked as if he was studying the diagram, but he was really thinking about his unfortunate cousin. Then he said, “If you went back and saved her – if you managed to keep Ella from being stricken down – would that not put you on a track upon which you would never invent such a machine? Isn't that a paradigm?”

“Paradox, Veon. You're right. I couldn't save myself these years of grief – but I could save her! Don't you see? If I went back right after she was shot – right after I saw her fall – then I could save her, spirit her away to a place where she could live, live without me.”

“Until you went back, that is,” Veon interjected. “The younger you would miss her, but from the time you went back, you could continue to enjoy her company.”

“No, Veon. She loved that other me, that naïve version of myself that could never imagine tragedy would touch me; as I am now, I am not very good company. Nobody could love this!”

Veon wanted to disagree with Osuf, but he did not wish to lie to him, so he said nothing, but gave him a meaningful look as if to say that love was out there, life was out there, if only he could climb out of this pit, climb down out of this tower, disconnect from his misery.

“You're lucky,” Osuf said with bitter vehemence. “They killed your family, but at least you weren't alone. You have Amos.”

Not anymore, Veon thought. Aloud, he said, “It is because of Amos that I have come, cousin. I am entreated by Count Opho, son of General Obho, to join the assault on Mozo in order to find definite proof against Leni, her betrothed.”

“A spy,” Osuf spat.

“Yes, that is what Opho was inferring – that Leni is a spy.”

“No, my good fool! Opho is the spy! Who is he working for, I wonder?”

“We have many enemies,” Veon muttered, “but few I can think of that would benefit from placing me in the army.”

“What if the goal is to divide you and your sister? Or to match you against her mountebank?”

“I am already those things,” Veon murmured.

“Then there is only one alternative: the spy is telling the truth. Whomever is his employer must have reason to hate the magician more than you.”

“The truth?” Veon said, dubious.

“Of course,” Osuf said, certain of himself. He seemed these days only to achieve genius in the state of drunkenness that only just preceded total stupor. “That is the spy's true weapon, after all, not the lies they use. They are trained very well to conceal the truth, but only to the point where it most effective to reveal it.”

“So I am to be used as a tool,” Veon surmised.

“I am sure it would not be the first time for you,” Osuf said with some derision.

“You are the master of tools,” Veon countered. “Do you see how I can be so useful?”

“No, I have no use for you at all!” Osuf waved his hand dismissively. “But clearly there are others who feel quite differently.”

“So there are documents you think that can reveal Leni to be a traitor, an infiltrator, and a scoundrel?”

“I'd bet my life on it,” Osuf slurred. “But then, that's not saying very much,” he added morosely.

“And you think there's a chance I could locate these sensitive data?”

“I believe they will be put in your path. One does not set the rat in the maze without first placing in it a piece of cheese.”

Veon frowned. He did not like this analogy. “I am no rat,” he said, scornfully.

“Then you are even worse off,” Osuf said dryly. “For that can only mean that you are the cheese!”

Chapter 7 - part the second

As had every man of Caza, Veon, once he'd turned eighteen, served his three years of mandatory military service. At that time, he already had some local status as a brawler, in the country, where he'd been raised on the Cape by his uncle; but it was only when he joined the armed forces that he became a skilled combatant. He never killed anyone, however, until he had served his term, and found himself in the vicious circles of the Cazortium where, due to his ferocity in fighting, he quickly became a celebrity.

Being surrounded by young men during those three hard years of training had also afforded Veon a chance to develop his taste for them. He joined the ranks of a group that managed through boyish bullying and brash coercion to cultivate a gang of submissive types which they endlessly dominated and inseminated. Some of the unabashed debauchery that occurred in those years remained with Veon as his most prized memories, and reminiscing about these liberating experiences – following years of unrequited lusting after a pair of provincial twins that sailed in the bays of the Cape – always put a crooked smile on his face and a stiff rod in his pants.

Now however his thoughts were troubled, and he desired no longer the solace of penetrating a sweet boy's ass; nor did he wish to sit idly at a bar counter, drinking and thinking about all of the day's ugliness, trying to suss it all out. Veon could perceive when he was in danger, and he thought not for the first time about the old joke he'd heard in the country so many times:

When I was six, I convinced my parents to change my middle name to Danger, but when they later changed my sister's name to Trouble, I knew that I had made a mistake.

Old farmers and barons alike enjoyed telling him this one when they heard he had a sister he was orphaned with, but none of them knew the reality of his situation was exactly as the joke described. It was appropriate, and it even led Veon to use the moniker the Deacon of Danger when he first began wrestling, although this was soon changed to his current, and much more iconic name: Fire-Spark. With his gold and black tattoos, dark skin, and a costume decorated with flames and scales, he looked like a character perfectly draconic. He had even spat fire on a few special events, using a foul-tasting fuel distilled from apsa berries. Since he nearly sprayed one unfortunate lady's hair off once, however, his sponsors and promoters had suggested he stick to showing off his muscles and swinging about his baton, which he had secretly named Dangerous.

Veon traveled down into New Quarry by hired coach – although his destination now was entirely different than what had first drawn him there by impulse: the bordellos, and a bottle of Burgundy Falls. He was now moving with a burning desire, a sort of brute inspiration, and his every thought revolved around finding his cousin, the sot.

Of course, there was a very good chance that this new course would no doubt include heavy drinking as well; in all likelihood, he would imbibe far more in Osuf's company than he would have done on his own, in the company of a smooth-bottomed call-boy.

Veon knew that we would pass by these establishments – his favourite being the Quorum on Ferio street – but these places did not appeal to Osuf, who had no desire to be with members of his own sex – nor with one of the opposite, in fact. There was no desire in him for anything but drink, and the oblivion it would bring him.

Therefore, Osuf would be located in one of several dive bars that sold cheap polohj, like the Pick, or the even more ominously named Crack. These crude names appealed to the local quarry workers of miners and masons – a brash lot, always drinking themselves into brazen displays or raging fights filled with typical shows of male bravado.

There was another sort who drank alongside them that did not fight or flaunt. These were the truly broken, men who worked in the dredgers down in the Drift – and this had earned them the nicknames Drifters or, collectively, the Adrift. These sorry fellows had no ambition, and were resigned to being bottom-feeders, because through a series of misfortunes they had allowed themselves to become convinced that they deserved no better than eating the shit that others let drop to the dingy depths.

Osuf was one of the worst of these, famous in his own pathetic way, if only because he was still alive, despite everything that had happened to him since the accident that killed his wife, as well as everything that he had since put himself through.

Veon and Osuf had a special connection, like foreigners, prisoners, or outsiders will always share – a powerful bond made for the sake of survival and which cannot be severed even if there is a falling out between parties. As boys, they had played together, taking hand-gliders off the cliffs of the Cape and sailing over the sea, or else hunting in the Olyesso hills where the woods were thick with deer and shaggy-maned oddurio – but this activity only took place whenever the Mad Composer – Osuf's father, and Veon's uncle – decided to take them on such a venture.

As soldiers, they had trained and drank together. Now that they both lived in the capital – one a misunderstood gladiator, the other a drunken misanthrope – their bond had grown twisted, like a misshapen tree felled by wind, burned by lightning, but never killed entirely. They both saw themselves as victims of fate, but while Veon fought on for some ultimate and nebulous victory, Osuf had surrendered long ago.

As such, neither of them had to hide what they were in the presence of the other, and in admitting they were both pitiable, they were somehow elevated.

Veon checked in at the first of many possible bars in his attempt to find today's locus of misery – those were Osuf's words in describing his regular haunts. Off of Vantner avenue, this little hole had greasy windows tainted by years of smoke and sweat, where no joyous drinking songs were ever sung, for those who came here wished to drown their sorrows in perfect solitude. The sign above the door was cast brick in which the worn the letters spelled out the name: The Stick.

As Veon entered, he spotted a few denizens of the down-trodden hunched over the polished bar made of stone. These were serious drinkers who didn't even turn to spy who had entered, completely indifferent. The tender of the bar alone looked at Veon with his one good eye, which the gladiator noted also gleamed with recognition underneath the grizzly eyebrow. The other eye was covered with a red patch, a glaring effect that made him look inhuman, almost a machine. Red however was apparent everywhere in the décor: the jambs of doors were painting this way, and there were big stacks of wood carved to look like dynamite painted a garish red on top of the barrel heads of beer behind the one-eyed man.

The bartender said nothing, even though he knew the gladiator by sight, for he knew equally well that he didn't belong here. He didn't look away, and his eye was like a lit fuse burning in a dark shaft underground where depressed cave-in survivors had finally opted for suicide.

Veon said not a word, and made no move to find a seat. He scanned the figures at the bar and determined quickly that Osuf was not among them. With a nod to the barman, Veon backed out the door and found himself grateful to be back in the narrow, piss-reeking alley where the Stick was situated.

There are some depressing sights to see under the sun! Veon mused to himself, as his skin crawled and his spine quavered from some inner disgust. And the Quarry is the worst spot of all if you've no wish to espy them!

He tried to shake off the feeling that he'd been touched by the bad energies of this place, and as he hurried on he reflected how fitting a name the bar had, for everyone in there was stuck – and only a stick of dynamite could upset any of those men sitting within, who had lost all cares save those that separated them from their sorrows.

Hoofing it now, Veon ventured further into the district, hoping that he would have enough luck and sufficient pluck to find his cousin before he was entirely inebriated. It was only seven in the evening, but this was late in the day for a serious drunk to find any semblance of cohesion.

Veon went on to check three more of Osuf's usual haunts, only to then be struck by a truly disconcerting prospect:

What if he is in his workshop?

The possibility that Osuf – true son of the mad composer – was putting himself to work was a wonder and a worrisome affair. It presented a lot of puzzling and potentially dangerous options for progress – but whatever glimmer of hope existed in this move that the poor, broken, destitute man sometimes acted on, Veon knew that the progress he would make was all too likely to be deeper into his downward spiral. From years of experience, he had observed that such episodes invariably and inevitably led to his cousin's destroying whatever work he'd begun, and returning to the depths of despair and habits of wanton self-destruction.

So it was with a sense of growing dread that Veon saw, as he turned down the lane at Apner's Mission, the light streaming out of the high loft's windows where his cousin had some quarters above a stinking fish-dryer's.

He hesitated only a moment before proceeding toward the dilapidated door which led to the rotting stairs.

After all, he told himself, my middle name surely isn't Daunted!

Chapter 7 - part the first

Veon awoke in the armchair where he'd been snoring for the past half hour in the anteroom where, it appeared, he'd been abandoned.

A cry of fury had brought him to his senses, although he woke with a start from a troubling dream to a troublesome reality. He forgot quite where he was for a moment, and was seized for just a moment by a terrible panic that he'd been captured by the Harzia; then he seemed to half-recall where he really was: inside the Red Scarp.

Was he in trouble? He knew someone was...

And if it wasn't he, then it must be Amos.

Veon leapt to his feet, slapped his face a couple of times, hard, to drive the sleep out, and then bolted for the door. As he made the corridor, he heard once again the agonizing cry of ire that had woken him. He knew who it was making those noises of fury, and he knew also that it did not bode well.

Down to the left, he crept, and peeking through the busted hole in the door where the doorknobs had been torn off, Veon could see the Commander in Chief pacing about his room, holding his head as if it ached terribly. His assistant was speaking in soft, cowed terms – but apparently the more he said, the more his superior officer became enraged.

It didn't take but a second or two for Veon to guess what had happened here: Leni was up to his old tricks. Somehow, he had played the Commander as a fool, and slipped right through his fingers.

Veon knew Leni better than that, however, and he knew better than to let him get away with it! He pulled away from the damaged doors, feeling now a bit guilty for ravaging them; then he remembered that he still had one of the knobs in his pocket; so he reached in to retrieve it.

The knob was no longer there.

His fingers, probing to the very bottom, thrust into a soft squelching mess, the nature of which he could not discern – but it was surely something vile. Veon withdrew his sullied fingers, sniffed at the grey gloop, and grimaced.

“Bird shit,” he said, mystified.

Veon found the magician and his sister as they reached the bottom of the great stair that led down from the Red Scarp to the streets of Sala district. They came down on the eastern side, and Veon was huffing and sweating once more, pulling up behind them.

“You came down...the collar...to avoid me,” the big man said, trying now that he caught them up, to also catch his breath.

“Nonsense,” Leni replied, putting on his most winsome of smiles. “We felt like stretching our legs some after being cooped up in the Scarp all afternoon.”

It was late now, the sun nearly set, and the heat of the summer's day was only now beginning to wane. An early moon was in the sky, pale and shabby, like the first whore out on the streets of the Drift.

“I saw how you left the Commander,” Veon said, sticking an accusing finger up in Leni's face. “What poisons did you give him?”

“Sometimes the cure may be more severe than the ailment, my brother. I think that you mistook what you saw, for you like to invent motives for me which, quite frankly, just don't suit me. I'm a philanthropist; and you are just a buffoon. It would be best if we both accepted that, and perhaps you would no longer feel the need to misjudge me.”

“Buffoon, is it? I'm just some clown?”

“You're just like me, Veon – a showman. We just put on different acts, you and I, but our goals are the same: we want to share what we can do with the world, because we believe it can bring us back some of the love we lost so long ago. In my case, it has worked. That is really why you hate me so.”

Veon's temper flared up at the mention of his dead family, and he also found Leni's brazen comparisons to be quite irksome. He almost dared to put a hand on the magician, but he remembered what had happened last time, so he held back from fear.

This was no small feat, for Veon's great fault was that he had no ability to hold his passions – especially his anger – in check. He had no moves when wrestling down his emotions; which was the main reason why he was so good at wrestling other men to the ground.

“I'm going to keep my eye on you!” Veon scolded the magician, waving his finger menacingly, but also impotently.

“In that case, there is quite a likelihood that you'll overlook a critical moment when someone else's hand sneaks into your pocket – a hand far more eager to steal than mine, although certainly much less adept. It's natural to envy me, Veon. Everyone does. Just as it's natural for everyone to admire you. But don't fall in love with the glamour about me, and don't be fooled by it. All I want is what any man wants: to find a beautiful, loving wife, and barring that a little meaning in life. I found the latter so that the former could find me.”

Amos continued gazing at her brother with a hard sort of pity, like a clay fired in a vehement oven. That look was like a knife, and she meant it to be: a slashing blade that would cut with deliberate cruelty the tie that bound her to him. She was a kite, a sparkling thing of beauty and colours, and she would fly free, tail rattling in the high breezes, leaving him standing on the grass holding a lifeless string.

As Veon turned to go down Aesochio avenue, heading toward his own flat in Dazio Gardens, he was hailed by a man he knew, but greatly disliked: Opho, the boorish Count, who had lately fallen somewhat from grace.

The Count, once one of Amos' suitors, was dressed in fine, expensive garments, but did not look well. There was a sickly look to him, as if he had been abused, or was eaten up by anxiety. As he approached Veon, however, he affected a smile, and held out his hand.

“Well met, my old friend,” Opho said, as he and Veon shook. Opho's grip was painfully tight, and Veon, who was no stranger to pain, winced and withdrew his hand. He knew he was meant to think of this as a chance occurance, but there was something about the Count that said he'd been waiting for this encounter, or had arranged to make it come about. “Allow me to offer congratulations on your fair sister's imminent marriage.”

Veon knew very well how disingenuous this sentiment was, coming from one of Amos' spurned suitors of the past; and the reminder that she was soon to be wed to that infuriating magician was not very welcome either. He grumbled the appropriate reply, while at the same time eyeing Opho to see what it was the Count really wanted. The wrestler, while born of high blood – albeit blue blood – was always off his footing when it came to dealing with these society types; he far preferred the blood and shouts of the Wrings.

“I cannot say that I approve of her choice,” Opho said with obvious distaste, “but it is at least apparent that she has chosen a man of means.”

“What do you mean by that?” Veon demanded. “What means do you speak of?”

“Magic, of course,” Opho said with a sneer he could not conceal. “He is a dangerous man, for certain, although he hides his true nature with a veneer of comical theatricality. He pretends at being what he truly is: a Wizard!”

Veon was never slow on the uptake, even if he couldn't always fathom the corruption of intent, and the conniving plots woven by greedy minds of those he had to deal with in Caza. It dawned on him, as he untied the little knots of spite and hate within the Count's rhetoric, that he knew about the attack this afternoon.

“You know he saved her once more,” Veon stated flatly. He figured things out better when everything was on the table, and he functioned always to bring everything to light, if only to put off-balance those sneaks who fancied so much keeping things in the dark.

Opho didn't miss a beat. He knew, or had been given instructions, on how to handle the championship fighter. “Yes, yes,” he said. “It is quite remarkable how quickly news travels in Caza!”

When you are the spider, Veon thought, you receive all sorts of vibrations on the webs you spend your time squatting upon.

But he said only, “I thank the Tides that she is safe. My sister is the light of my life. For that, I am grateful, even if it is the Wizard I must thank.”

“I see he is no friend of yours, either,” Opho commented, off-script, with an apparent relish.

“I do not think he has any friends,” Veon muttered. He wanted now to leave this man, this petty little politicker, and rush down into Old Quarry where he could drink and find some true clarity; speaking with Opho was like wading through a reeking mire, with boots filled with heavy muck.

With a word, however, Opho caught the Espalite in his net.

“Pray,” he said, “and we will see your sister safe at last.”

Veon recognized the syntax, and the threat that went along with it. Opho knew! Somehow, this little weasel had been let into the hen-house!

“Do you imply, Sirrah, that she is not safe in Leni's care?” he asked.

“He is a man of means, said I,” Opho drawled with some satisfaction, “but what end do his means lead to? Do you know? Do any of us? Where does he come from? Who is his family? We know nothing about him, and he cultivates this aura of mystery, remains aloof, and we are all meant to accept this about him.”

At this point, Veon erred. He knew that trusting Opho was a mistake – as trusting anyone always proved to be – but his burning desire to set Amos free of Leni's grip was too intense. He came closer to the Count.

“Is he involved with the Harzia?” he asked. “Is he some spy they've sent to unmask her?”

Opho smiled, and made a little shrug. “How can I know these things?” he said, confessing to ignorance. “But there is always one way to find out.”

Veon, his mind racing, found himself careening towards a dead end. “What way is that?” he asked, with a tingle of dread. The moment he spoke the words, it was as if a part of his mind perceived the trap; but knowing that he was already trapped, it propelled him onward; the only way out now was to push on through.

“Is there not a campaign to retake Mozo?” Opho said, matter-of-factly. “We all know the Harzia are behind the fall of that city to the Ferrolo, who have driven it into the mud. Surely, any high-ranking guard who manages to breach the City of Droves would be able to lay his hands upon all kinds of sensitive data; or perhaps those who composed and transmitted it.”

Veon's jaw clenched. “I am no soldier,” he said. “I am a fighter.”

“Indeed,” Opho said, shaking his head as if he'd forgotten. “Forgive me, but I forgot you had station here. Entertaining the Oligarchs must be tremendously taxing. I would hate to deprive them of their moon-glorious events if my words sent you from the Tournaments into a tour of duty abroad.”

“I would never manage to do these things you speak of,” Veon replied tersely. “I could go, and fight, but I would have no idea who to track down, or how to find any of these 'sentive data', as you say. That is up to the officers, not the lowly fighters.”

Opho looked into Veon's eyes at this time, driving home his final, victorious point. “You are a beloved celebrity, Veon,” he said. “Although you have merely done the minimum and mandatory military service, as have we all, men of our generation, do not you think that you would be installed as a high-ranking officer? You think incorrectly if you think they would send you out with the vanguard, to die in the first wave of attack. You would be well-placed; and I could help you attain such a position.”

Veon swallowed, and said nothing; Opho went on, and it seemed as if a cloud passed over the sun as he spoke, or some object obscured the warmth and left the poor man, now more sure than ever of his victimhood in this exchange, chilled and shivering.

“You know quite well you would have been drafted already, if it weren't for your celebrity status,” the Count murmured, conspiratorially. “The one thing that you use as a shield can also be used as your sword, Veon. You could go, and save your sister once and for all from all threats that may come down the road.”

“Down the road...” Veon repeated, staring off down the length of Aesochio avenue, as if he could see the road winding away, and his path drawing him along it.

Opho, thinking the fighter might be dim of wits, said, “You know, in the future. Who among us knows what the future may bring?”

“The Wizard knows,” Veon muttered darkly.

“Does he know, truly?” Opho said. “Or does he make it appear so, by orchestrating events and using his wiles to fool men into thinking he is the opposite of what he really is?”

Veon looked at Opho, knowing in that instant that the man was playing him to his own ends – but who was to say that the Count's ends were not parallel to his own? They both hated Leni, and they both coveted what he had: Amos.

“Your father is a Colonel in the Caza army, no?” the fighter asked.

“He was promoted this year to General,” Opho replied, with a quiet pride. “There is no question about it, my friend: I can raise you from the pits of the gladiators, to the ranks of a true hero. Your sister has thwarted the Harzia with her prayers and potions, but you could come home as a true victor, conquering them once and for all. Does that not sound appealing, Veon?”

Veon made no reply. The only thing that really appealed to him at that moment was driving his fist into the Count's guts, seeing him bend over breathless, face flushing red a beet. The etiquette of the Wrings was far more civilized in so many ways than the cloak-and-dagger stratagems composed by the quarreling factions of Caza society.

Aesochio avenue was long, and filled with activity, colours, and coaches; but Veon knew that it now led no longer to the Old Quarry, nor even to the New. It would take him much farther, out beyond the Walls of Caza and the High Gate, into the steppes where his destiny awaited him.