The Dragon Reborn twot-3

by Robert Jordan

  "A wager, Derne." Yawning, Mat picked up his quarterstaff, ready to go. "A wager."

  "A wager!" Derne stared at the heavy purse. The other just like it was locked in his money chest. "There must be a flaming kingdom riding on it!"

  "More than that," Mat said.

  Rain bucketed down on the deck so hard that he could not see the gangplank except when lightning crackled above the city; the roar of the downpour barely let him hear himself think. He could see lights in windows up a street, though. There would be inns, up there. The captain had not come on deck to see them ashore, and none of the crew had stayed out in the rain, either. Mat and Thom made their way to the stone dock alone.

  Mat cursed when his boots sank into the mud of the street, but there was nothing for it, so he kept on, striding along as fast as he could with his boots and the butt of his staff sticking at every step. The air smelled of fish, rank even with the rain. "We'll find an inn," he said, loudly, so he could be heard, "and then I will go out looking."

  "In this weather?" Thom shouted back. Rain was rolling down his face, but he was more interested in keeping his instruments covered than his face.

  "Comar could have left Caemlyn before us. If he had a good horse instead of the crowbaits we were riding, he could have set out downriver from Aringill maybe a full day ahead of us, and I don't know how much of that we caught up with that idiot Derne."

  "It was a quick passage," Thom allowed. "Swift deserves its name."

  "Be that as it may, Thom, rain or no rain, I have to find him before he finds Egwene and Nynaeve, and Elayne."

  "A few more hours won't make much difference, boy. There are hundreds of inns in a city the size of Tear. There may be hundreds more outside the walls, some of them little places with no more than a dozen rooms to let, so tiny you could walk right by them and never know they were there." The gleeman hitched the hood of his cloak up more, muttering to himself. "It will take weeks to search them all. But it will take Comar the same weeks. We can spend the night in out of the rain. You can wager whatever coin you have left that Comar won't be out in it."

  Mat shook his head. A tiny inn with a dozen rooms. Before he left Emond's Field, the biggest building he had ever seen was the Winespring Inn. He doubted if Bran al'Vere had any more than a dozen rooms to let. Egwene had lived with her parents and her sisters in the rooms at the front of the second floor. Burn me, sometimes I think we should never any of us have left Emond's Field. But Rand surely had had to, and Egwene would probably have died if she had not gone to Tar Valon. Now she might die because she did go. He did not think he could settle for the farm again; the cows and the sheep certainly would not play dice. But Perrin still had a chance to go home. Go home, Perrin, he found himself thinking. Go home while you still can. He gave himself a shake. Fool! Why would he want to? He thought of bed, but pushed it away. Not yet.

  Lightning streaked across the sky, three jagged bolts together, casting a stark light over a narrow house that seemed to have bunches of herbs hanging in the windows, and a shop, shut up tight, but a potter's from the sign with its bowls and plates. Yawning, he hunched his shoulders against the driving rain and tried to pull his boots out of the clinging mud more quickly.

  "I think I can forget about this part of the city, Thom," he shouted. "All this mud, and that stink of fish. Can you see Nynaeve or Egwene — or Elayne! — choosing to stay here? Women like things neat and tidy, Thom, and smelling good."

  "May be, boy," Thom muttered, then coughed. "You would be surprised what women will put up with. But it may be."

  Holding his cloak to keep the roll of fireworks covered, Mat lengthened his stride. "Come on, Thom. I want to find Comar or the girls tonight, one or the other."

  Thom limped after him, coughing now and again.

  They strode through the wide gates in the city — unguarded, in the rain — and Mat was relieved to feel paving stones under his feet again. And not more than fifty paces up the street was an inn, the windows of the common room spilling light onto the street, music drifting out into the night. Even Thom covered that last fifty paces through the rain quickly, limp or no limp.

  The White Crescent had a landlord whose girth made his long blue coat fit snugly below the waist as well as above, unlike those of most of the men in the low-backed chairs at the tables. Mat thought the landlord's baggy breeches, tied at the ankle above low shoes, had to be big enough for two ordinary men to fit inside, one in each leg. The serving women wore dark, high-necked dresses and short white aprons. There was a fellow playing a hammered dulcimer between the two stone fireplaces. Thom eyed the fellow critically and shook his head.

  The rotund innkeeper, Cavan Lopar by name, was more than glad to give them rooms. He frowned at their muddy boots, but silver from Mat's pocket — the gold was running low — and Thom's patch-covered cloak smoothed his fat forehead. When Thom said he would perform for a small fee some nights, Lopar's chins waggled with pleasure. Of a big man with a white streak in his beard, he knew nothing, nor of three women meeting the descriptions Mat gave. Mat left everything but his cloak and his quarterstaff in his room, barely looking to see that it had a bed — sleep was enticing, but he refused to let himself think of it — then wolfed down a spicy fish stew and rushed back out into the rain. He was surprised that Thom came with him.

  "I thought you wanted to be in where it's dry, Thom."

  The gleeman patted the flute case he still had under his cloak. The rest of his things were up in his room. "People talk to a gleeman, boy. I may learn something you would not. I'd not like to see those girls harmed any more than you."

  There was another inn a hundred paces down the rain-filled street on the other side, and another two hundred beyond that, and then more. Mat took them as he came to them, ducking in long enough for Thom to flourish his cloak and tell a story, then let someone buy him a cup of wine afterwards while Mat asked around after a tall man with a white streak in his close-cut black beard and three women. He won a few coins at dice, but he learned nothing, and neither did Thom. He was just glad the gleeman seemed to be taking only a few sips of wine at each inn; Thom had been close to abstemious on the boat, but Mat had not been certain he would not dive back into the wine once they reached Tear. By the time they had visited two dozen common rooms, Mat felt as if his eyelids had weights. The rain had lessened a bit, but it still fell steadily in big drops, and as the rain fell off the wind had freshened. The sky had the dark gray look of coming dawn.

  "Boy," Thom muttered, "if we don't go back to The White Crescent, I am going to go to sleep here in the rain." He stopped to cough. "Do you realize you've marched right past three inns? Light, I am so tired I can't think. Do you have a scheme of where to go that you have not told me?"

  Mat stared blearily up the street at a tall man in a cloak hurrying around a corner. Light, I am tired. Rand is five hundred leagues from here, playing at being the bloody Dragon. "What? Three inns?" They were standing almost in front of another, The Golden Cup according to the sign creaking in the wind. It looked nothing like a dice cup, but he decided to give it a try anyway. "One more, Thom. If we don't find them here, we'll go back and go to bed." Bed sounded better than a dice game with a hundred gold marks riding on the toss, but he made himself go in.

  Two steps into the common room Mat saw him. The big man wore a green coat with blue stripes down puffy sleeves, but it was Comar, close-cut black beard with a white streak over his chin and all. He sat in one of the strangely low-backed chairs, at a table on the far side of the room, rattling a leather dice cup and smiling at the man across from him. That fellow wore a long coat and baggy breeches, and he was not smiling. He stared at the coins on the table as if wishing he had them back in his purse. Another dice cup sat at Comar's elbow.

  Comar upended the leather cup in his hand, and began laughing almost before the dice stopped spinning. "Who is next?" he called loudly, pulling the wager to his side of the table. There was already a considerable pile of silver in front of him. He
scooped the dice into the cup and rattled them. "Surely someone else wants to try his luck?" It seemed that no one did, but he kept rattling the cup and laughing.

  The innkeeper was easy to pick out, though they did not seem to wear aprons in Tear. His coat was the same shade of deep blue as that of every other innkeeper Mat had spoken to. A plump man, though little more than half the size of Lopar and with half that fellow's number of chins, he was sitting at a table by himself, polishing a pewter mug furiously and glaring across the room toward Comar, though not when Comar was looking. Some of the other men gave the bearded man sidelong frowns, too. But not when he was looking.

  Mat suppressed his first urge, which was to rush over to Comar, drub him over the head with his quarterstaff, and demand to know where Egwene and the others were. Something was wrong here. Comar was the first man he had seen wearing a sword, but the way the men looked at him was more than fear of a swordsman. Even the serving woman who brought Comar a fresh cup of wine — and was pinched for her trouble — had a nervous laugh for him.

  Look at it from every side, Mat thought wearily. Half the trouble I get into is from not doing that. I have to think. Tiredness seemed to have stuffed his head with wool. He motioned to Thom, and they strolled over to the innkeeper's table, who eyed them suspiciously when they sat down. "Who is the man with the stripe in his beard?" Mat asked.

  "Not from the city, are you?" the innkeeper said. "He is a foreigner, too. I've never seen him before tonight, but I know what he is. Some outlander who has come here and made his fortune in trade. A merchant rich enough to wear a sword. That is no reason for him to treat us like this."

  "If you have never seen him before," Mat said, "how do you know he is a merchant?"

  The innkeeper looked at him as if he were stupid. "His coat, man, and his sword. He cannot be a lord or a soldier if he's from off, so he has to be a rich merchant." He shook his head for the stupidity of foreigners. "They come to our places, to look down their noses at us, and fondle the girls under our very eyes, but he has no call to do this. If I go to the Maule, I don't gamble for some fisherman's coins. If I go to the Tavar, I do not dice with the farmers come to sell their crops." His polishing gained in ferocity. "Such luck, the man has. It must be how he made his fortune."

  "He wins, does he?" Yawning, Mat wondered how he would do dicing with another man who had luck.

  "Sometimes he loses," the innkeeper muttered, "when the stake is a few silver pennies. Sometimes. But let it reach a silver mark… No less than a dozen times tonight, I have seen him win at Crowns with three crowns and two roses. And half again as often, at Top, it has been three sixes and two fives. He tosses nothing but sixes at Threes, and three sixes and a five every throw at Compass. If he has such luck, I say the Light shine on him, and well to him, but let him use it with other merchants, as is proper. How can a man have such luck?"

  "Weighted dice," Thom said, then coughed. "When he wants to be sure of winning, he uses dice that always show the same face. He is smart enough not to have made it the highest toss — folk become suspicious if you always throw the king" — he raised an eyebrow at Mat — "just one that's all but impossible to beat, but he cannot change that they always show the same face."

  "I have heard of such," the innkeeper said slowly. "Illianers use them, I hear." Then he shook his head. "But both men use the same cup and dice. It cannot be."

  "Bring me two dice cups," Thom said, "and two sets of dice. Crowns or spots, it makes no difference, so long as they are the same."

  The innkeeper frowned at him, but left — prudently taking the pewter cup with him — and came back with two leather cups. Thom rolled the five bone cubes from one onto the table in front of Mat. Whether with spots or symbols, every set of dice Mat had ever seen had been either bone or wood. These had spots. He picked them up, frowning at Thom. "Am I supposed to see something?"

  Thom dumped the dice from the other cup into his hand, then, almost too quickly to follow, dropped them back in and twisted the cup over to rest upside down on the table before the dice could fall out. He kept his hand on top of the cup. "Put a mark on each of them, boy. Something small, but something you'll know for your mark."

  Mat found himself exchanging puzzled glances with the innkeeper. Then they both looked at the cup upside down under Thom's hand. He knew Thom was up to something tricky — gleemen were always doing things that were impossible, like eating fire and pulling silk out of the air — but he did not see how Thom could do anything with him watching close. He unsheathed his belt knife and made a small scratch on each die, right across the circle of six spots.

  "All right," he said, setting them back on the table. "Show me your trick."

  Thom reached over and picked up the dice, then set them down again a foot away. "Look for your marks, boy."

  Mat frowned. Thom's hand was still on the upended leather cup; the gleeman had not moved it or taken Mat's dice anywhere near it. He picked up the dice… and blinked. There was not a scratch on them. The innkeeper gasped.

  Thom turned his free hand over, revealing five dice. "Your marks are on these. That is what Comar is doing. It is a child's trick, simple, though I'd never have thought he had the fingers for it."

  "I do not think I want to play dice with you after all," Mat said slowly. The innkeeper was staring at the dice, but not as if he saw any solution. "Call the Watch, or whatever you call it here," Mat told him. "Have him arrested." He'll kill nobody in a prison cell. Yet what if they are already dead? He tried not to listen, but the thought persisted. Then I'll see him dead, and Gaebril, whatever it takes! But they aren't, burn me! They can't be!

  The innkeeper was shaking his head. "Me? Me, denounce a merchant to the Defenders? They would not even look at his dice. He could say one word, and I would be in chains working the channeldredges in the Fingers of the Dragon. He could cut me down where I stood, and the Defenders would say I had earned it. Perhaps he will go away after a while."

  Mat gave him a wry grimace. "If I expose him, will that be good enough? Will you call the Watch, or the Defenders or whoever, then?"

  "You do not understand. You are a foreigner. Even if he is from off, he is a wealthy man, important."

  "Wait here," Mat told Thom. "I do not mean to let him reach Egwene and the others, whatever it takes." He yawned as he scraped back his chair.

  "Wait, boy," Thom called after him, soft yet urgent. The gleeman pushed himself up out of his chair. "Burn you, you don't know what you're putting your foot into!"

  Mat waved for him to stay there and walked over to Comar. No one else had taken up the bearded man's challenge, and he eyed Mat with interest as Mat leaned his quarterstaff against the table and sat down.

  Comar studied Mat's coat and grinned nastily. "You want to wager coppers, farmer? I do not waste my time with —" He cut off as Mat set an Andoran gold crown on the table and yawned at him, making no effort to cover his mouth. "You say little, farmer, though your manners could use improving, but gold has a voice of its own and no need of manners." He shook the leather cup in his hand and spilled the dice out. He was chuckling before they came to rest, showing three crowns and two roses. "You'll not beat that, farmer. Perhaps you have more gold hidden in those rags that you want to lose? What did you do? Rob your master?"

  He reached for the dice, but Mat scooped them up ahead of him. Comar glared, but let him have the cup. If both tosses were the same, they would throw again until one man won. Mat smiled as he rattled the dice. He did not mean to give Comar a chance to change them. If they threw the same toss three or four times in a row — exactly the same, every time — even these Defenders would listen. The whole common room would see; they would have to back his word.

  He spilled the dice onto the tabletop. They bounced oddly. He felt something — shifting. It was as if his luck had gone wild. The room seemed to be writhing around him, tugging at the dice with threads. For some reason he wanted to look at the door, but he kept his eyes on the dice. They came to rest. Fiv
e crowns. Comar's eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.

  "You lose," Mat said softly. If his luck was in to this extent, perhaps it was time to push it. A voice in the back of his head told him to think, but he was too tired to listen. "I think your luck is about used up, Comar. If you've harmed those girls, it's all gone."

  "I have not even found…" Comar began, still staring at the dice, then jerked his head up. His face had gone white. "How do you know my name?"

  He had not found them, yet. Luck, sweet luck, stay with me. "Go back to Caemlyn, Comar. Tell Gaebril you could not find them. Tell him they are dead. Tell him anything, but leave Tear tonight. If I see you again, I'll kill you."

  "Who are you?" the big man said unsteadily. "Who —?" The next instant his sword was out and he was on his feet.

  Mat shoved the table at him, overturning it, and grabbed for his quarterstaff. He had forgotten how big Comar was. The bearded man pushed the table right back at him. Mat fell over with his chair, holding a bare grasp on his staff, as Comar heaved the table out of the way and stabbed at him. Mat threw his feet against the man's middle to stop his rush, swung the staff awkwardly, just enough to deflect the sword. But the blow knocked the staff from his fingers, and he found himself gripping Comar's wrist, instead, with the man's blade a hand from his face. With a grunt he rolled backwards, heaving as hard as he could with his legs. Comar's eyes widened as he sailed over Mat to crash onto a table, face up. Mat scrambled for his staff, but when he had it, Comar had not moved.

  The big man lay with his hips and legs sprawled across the top of the table, the rest of him hanging down with his head on the floor. The men who had been sitting at the table were on their feet a safe distance away, wringing their hands and eyeing each other nervously. A low, worried buzz filled the common room, not the noise Mat expected.