She blinked into the candlelight, smoke bringing tears to her eyes. She wiped them away and laughed. "Eat," she said.
A single, clean river ran through the city before the soldiers and the Brothers' War. My time then had always been spent working. Pushing vending carts had often taken me to the riverside. There were opportunities to steal moments, wash my face, rinse my aching feet.
Sunlight would make the river silver, sometimes too bright to look at. Stars created a ribbon of sparkling jewels-like Annise-too precious to touch. In the city there were few fish, if any, and nobody tried to catch them except the boys. They threw them back to be caught again.
One day back then the horizon-the mountains- were hidden in a red haze, sunlight angry till it rose overhead, again turning yellow. Birds lifted and flew away. Small animals hid themselves. The boys still caught fish, at least the dead ones that floated on top. That night, the moon burned the same angry red, even overhead. The river was no longer the plane of silver, the band of jewels. It became blood, became a black gash through the city. That was when the first dust fell.
I remember when all the birds left, streets vacant of their calls and songs. Everyone felt the danger, even with weak magic-everyone in the city had some. The sun stayed red till it set. The sky had no stars. The dust fell more thickly.
The great wave of heat and wind from the mountains happened when I was out with a cart. The morning was warm, nobody was buying, staying indoors, protected, they thought. I had wanted to wash my face. The water from a public fountain had stopped, clogged with dust. There were dead animals, squirrels in trees, mice, young birds who hadn't the strength to fly or sing. My gaze went to the mountains, wind rustling my hair. I could feel a power drawing near, outside my body, inside the Flow. At the time I knew little about it. There may have been a scream.
Then I was knocked over by wind, heat, and dust. Clouds coughed up the flesh of mountains, ashes choked the sky. Roaring power shot through the city, scattering everything. This was the power, we learned, of the Brothers' War. This was the aftermath of destruction.
Days and days passed when the only sound was the howl of outrage, of wind and dust and rocks pelting buildings, devouring the essence of the city, drinking its life. What remained collapsed from its own weight. Buildings fell, some overnight, and nobody could walk the streets. I huddled beneath dusty stairs for three days without food or water, staring into thick, rushing air. Things crawled over me. I didn't move.
The city was wrecked. The storm, as if alive, moved to find fresh prey. Memories of the end are cloudy now, but this memory is clear. Something changed, tore away the mantle of my previous life. I was determined to live. I reached down and by a shear force of will I survived. At the end of those three days I had found power-new, confused power relegated by luck. Nothing after that was ever the same.
Before it could recover, the city was set upon by soldiers leaving the Brothers' War. They took everything of worth. Like the wind, the soldiers cut a line from the city's past to the city's bent future. It took a long time to rebuild from the initial plunder.
I noticed a change in myself, as well as the city and the people. The end of the Brothers' War started smaller wars all over the world-fortunate against unfortunate, rich against poor, those with magic against those without.
Crawling, I had returned to collect the remains of the cart. I still wanted to wash my face. Most of the animals were dead, more bodies in the streets. Reaching into the river, I felt new, ugly sensations of death, failure, and hatred. The river was gone. My hand was covered in riverbed muck, gray ooze-a cold, sucking, solid mass that slid down my fingers toward my arm as if it were hungry. I shivered then, though the air was uncomfortably warm. The mass fell away from my hand with a hard shake. It left behind not a smell but a strange memory of weakness, fear, and failure.
I buried my rat now in the river muck. I'd had it with me for five days. The riverbed was still moist, though nobody knew why. There was little rain. All these memories of the city returned with the failure of my magic, my control. I had matched the rat against another player's snake at one of the bigger houses. The snake was fast, but my control over the rat was faster. The duel went on for some time, and I never let up. Then, when the rat was finally ready to strike, I lost control, just for a moment. The Flow stopped, the luck changed. One moment was long enough for the snake to strike. I had lost for the first time in a long time.
The other player had figured me out, had figured out my magic. I had seen this man several times, watching me. He was dressed in rich blue, gold lace at the cuffs and collar, the color of a pit boss's clothes. Gold lace meant he was from the casino of Dumoss. If he had been sent against me, Dumoss was a greater enemy than I suspected.
The little cage and animal sank from sight. With it went a measure of my blood, my life. Annise was doing much better, luck from the pendant served her well- better than I feared. My failure was like the death of the city, the death of my hope, my life.
I spent five days alone brooding over the death of my rat. When she came home, I was already gone. When she could find me, I told her I had somewhere important to go. I could not meet her eyes. She knew about my loss because she could see a cage was missing. She said nothing, we never questioned one another. She did not want to be touched, I did not want to be questioned. I longed to touch her, the pendant. I was sure I could have won if it had been with me.
There was something in my magic, a weakness, something the player in blue found by watching. I sat at the edge of the dead river, staring at the mountains. What did he see? Dust fell on me at night. I ferreted into old buildings, avoided the gaze of the shuffling poor. They angered me, with their eyes filled with pity.
They would not pity me if I had control, if I had won. Control was everything. My control was imperfect, and the man in blue knew it. It didn't matter to him if the Flow changed. It only affected me. I couldn't find an answer to my question. How would I live without her if I couldn't win?
Days and nights passed. I ate nothing, only drank from the few working public fountains. Dust hung on me in layers, night after night after night. I stood in the alley, every stone where it should be, watching her through the window. She smiled and laughed, touched the shoulders of patrons and pit bosses. And Dumoss. She worked and laughed, pretending she was not thinking of me, of my losing. All around her were winners, real gamblers. Her attraction for them was obvious, her betrayal to me could not be far. I had to work faster, harder.
All week, I took the spirits of little creatures at random and tried my magic on them. Insects and small animals were returning from wherever they hid when the great storm came. If they didn't perform as I commanded, my precious mantis killed them. I grew weak but was too determined to give in to fatigue. I didn't recognize time, only light and darkness. Dawns and twilights were gone to me. There was rain, and dust, and darkness, and light.
At the end of the week, two creatures were left, a bee and a spider. The others died. I made the bee do tricks, the spider the same-different creatures, same control.
The bee's spirit waited patiently for my command. The spider moved about restlessly as I pondered. My clothes lost all color. I felt a sudden need to wash. The bee twitched in my hand.
Waiting on my upturned palm, the bee twitched again, and again at distant intervals. The magic felt weak but even, and a bit muddy. It had felt stronger the day before, and the bee had twitched then as well. Picking at the Flow did nothing to the bee. I waited for the twitch, then poked the bee with magic. Nothing. I crushed the spirit in my hand.