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.