then sat on her bed. Tears flowed from her eyes.
She would be happy under my control. Once the fight with Dumoss was finished, Annise would see that was true. I dropped to my knees in front of her and stroked her hair. Bending slowly, I place my hand on the pendant. She tried to scream. I took our first kiss. She bit me, drawing blood.
I whispered, 'Everything I do, I do for you.'
Dumoss stood on his side of the arena. The sand on the floor was smoothed for our contest. He was dressed in fine yellow silks adorned with rich brocade. The brazier above made him seem old. His face was set in stone, like mine. The pendant was hidden beneath my robes, but I had no doubt he could feel its power. I imagined he could feel his loss already. Around us stood the real gamblers, men and women who were lucky enough to be missed by the storm, men and women whose luck had not changed.
We sat on our short chairs and raised our hands above our heads, elbows bent. The pit bosses gathered the bets. The odds were not in my favor, but I didn't care. I could hear bets being placed on me, but I couldn't see faces because of the brazier's light. The betting was closed.
Then the pit bosses called out, 'Fight!'
We both clapped our hands, summoning our beasts- praying mantises large as birds-near the center of the ring. I felt Dumoss's control prodding the limbs of his mantis toward mine. My new magic let nothing leak out. There was no way for him to read my moves.
The two translucent monsters clashed, locking their razor limbs across each other's heads. Magic struggled against magic for the strength to push the insects harder. However magic in the arena shifted, however we struggled with the changing forces, our fighters never released their grips. Our faces were set and solid.
The shouts of the players on the sidelines continued as the fight dragged on. Money had been bet on how long the fight would last. Money had been placed on whose face would show strain first.
The monsters remained locked. I couldn't find a chink in the magic to extract my mantis from his. He couldn't find it. I felt him struggling. Dumoss's magic was truly impressive. It didn't matter that I could feel his control. He could even use that against me, if I became distracted by trying to read his mox'es rather than concentrating on my own.
More money was placed, money for first limb, money for first move, money for anything. I grew more relaxed, more assured of victory for Annise. Everything was for her. Luck flowed to me to beat Dumoss. I knew it, I felt it. His mantis ripped a limb from mine, repositioned itself, and grabbed my monster's head from another angle. The shouts made my ears ring as if I'd been struck in the head. Our faces showed nothing. My mantis cracked a leg of his, and the magic shifted again, farther away.
Then the real fight began. The phantasms fought openly, ripping and tearing to the shouts of bettors on all sides. Our monsters were chipped through like walls of old stone. My control was better, my anger brighter, my magic stronger. I did not let up, I forced my mantis to attack.
Magic moved from the ring, and the other mantis seemed reenergized. It hacked another limb from mine, and I stared hard into the eyes of Dumoss, letting him know with a glance what would come next. I prepared to use the pendant.
But something in my blood stirred, drawn toward Dumoss… no, it was not toward Dumoss, but behind him. Someone stood in the shadow. Light from the flaring brazier glared in my eyes. I couldn't be stopped now, not when Annise would have everything she deserved, everything I could give her. My mantis bit into the neck of the other.
I fell to my knees, my hands shaking. The luck, on that I could depend. All this magic, all this luck would save me, prevent me from losing my concentration. I would have revenge on Dumoss for stealing Annise. I, alone, challenged fate, dared to care for another. The city killed and left the corpses on the dust-covered streets.
I forced my eyes to remain locked on Dumoss's. Clenched, my teeth ached. Blood boiled and pounded at my temples. My chest constricted.
Annise stood behind Dumoss. I couldn't see her face, but her hair glowed red in the firelight. I felt her control on me, strong, seeking the root of my magic, my spirit. She was choking my life, crushing me with a great weight.
She couldn't kill me here. There were protections against such things in an arena. My magic was stronger.
From the pendant I took the power, the pure magic. I rode the crest of her feeble strength back to her source, where her spirit waited. She ran from my attack, ran and didn't turn back. I reached for her, for the final response, stretching all my strength to finally strike her down.
Dumoss's creature snatched its claws forward. The head of my mantis fell to the floor. I forced magic into the spirit, but it was already gone. I knew the body at home was dead. Everything was gone. The pendant was empty. There was nothing left.
Weak and sweating, I couldn't stand. Dumoss was already gone-the spirit of his mantis returned. The arena cleared, bodies shuffling, shadows moving. Annise was the last of them to leave the building. I never saw her face, but I heard the sound of a door closing, leaving me inside, alone. Empty and alone. Everything I had done, I had done for her.
The Gold Border
Loran's Smile
Loran died ten years after the devastation-after Urza and Mishra destroyed most of the world with their war, after the tumultuous explosion that eliminated Argoth and altered the rest of the world forever.
Loran died in part because of that devastation. She did not die in battle, for she was not a warrior. Nor did she die in a duel of magical forces, for though her lover Feldon had mastered the study of magic, she found she could not. She did not die of intrigue, or of passion, or of some fatal flaw.
She died in bed, weakened by wounds suffered over a decade previous-wounds inflicted by Ashnod the Uncaring, Mishra's assistant. She was weakened by the lengthening winters and the cold mountain air, weakened by her own great age, weakened, and eventually defeated, by the world that the brothers, Urza and Mishra, had created.
At first she just winded easily when in the garden or cooking, and Feldon would put aside his own work to help. Then she had trouble working in the garden at all, and Feldon did the best he could, under her direction, to substitute for her.
Later she could not work around the house, and Feldon brought in servants from the nearby town to aid. When she could not get out of bed, Feldon sat beside her and read to her, told her stories of his own youth and listened to hers. After a time he had to feed her as well.
At length she died in bed in her sleep, Feldon sitting beside her, asleep as well from his long guardianship. When he awoke her flesh was cold and pale, and the breath had long-since left her body.
He commanded the servants to dig a grave behind the house, among the now weed-choked garden that Loran had begun with Feldon's grudging, grumbling aid shortly after they first arrived. She had kept it going through several seasons by sheer force of will, but when she took ill that last, final time, she had to surrender the garden to the weeds and the cold rains.
It was raining when they laid her to rest, wrapped in her bed sheets and sealed within a coffin of thick oak planks. Feldon and the servants uttered a few prayers, then the old mage watched as the servants methodically piled the dirt atop the lid. Feldon's tears were lost in the rain.
For days afterward Feldon stayed by the fire, and the servants brought him his meals, much as they had brought Loran hers. Feldon's library and workshop stood empty for the nonce, the books closed, the forges cold, the various reagents and solutions settling quietly in their glass jars. He stared into the fire and sighed.
Feldon remembered: the touch of Loran's hand, the Argivian lilt to her voice, and her thick, dark hair. Most of
