The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  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, 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. Five 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.

  Comar’s sword lay within easy reach of his hand. But he did not move. He stared at Mat, though, as Mat kicked the sword away and went to one knee beside him. Light! I think his back is broken! “I told you you should have gone, Comar. Your luck is all used up.”

  “Fool,” the big man breathed. “Do you . . . think I . . . was the only . . . one hunting them? They won’t . . . live till. . . .” His eyes stared at Mat, and his mouth was open, but he said no more. Nor ever would again.

  Mat met the glazing stare, trying to will more words out of the dead man. Who else, burn you? Who? Where are they? My luck. Burn me, what happened to my luck? He became aware of the innkeeper pulling frantically at his arm.

  “You must go. You must. Before the Defenders come. I will show them the dice. I will tell them it was an outlander, but a tall man. With red-colored hair, and gray eyes. No one will suffer. A man I dreamed of last night. No one real. No one will contradict me. He took coin from everyone with his dice. But you must go. You must!” Everyone else in the room was studiously looking another way.

  Mat let himself be hauled away from the dead man and pushed outside. Thom was already waiting in the rain. He seized Mat’s arm and limped down the street hurriedly, pulling Mat stumbling behind him. Mat’s hood hung down his back; the rain soaked his hair and poured down his face, down his neck, but he did not notice. The gleeman kept looking over his shoulder, searching the street beyond Mat.

  “Are you asleep, boy? You did not look asleep back there. Come on, boy. The Defenders will arrest any outlander within two streets, no matter what description that innkeeper gives.”

  “It’s the luck,” Mat mumbled. “I’ve figured it out. The dice. My luck works best when things are . . . random. Like dice. Not much good for cards. No good at stones. Too much pattern. It has to be random. Even finding Comar. I’d stopped visiting every inn. I walked into that one by chance. Thom, if I am going to find Egwene and the others in time, I have to look without any pattern.”

  “What are you talking about? The man is dead. If he already killed them. . . . Well, you’ve avenged them. If he hasn’t, you saved them. Now will you bloody walk faster? The Defenders won’t be long coming, and they are not so gentle as the Queen’s Guards.”

  Mat shook his arm free and picked up his pace unsteadily, dragging the quarterstaff. “He let it slip that he hadn’t located them, yet. But he said he was not the only one. Thom, I believe him. I was looking him in the eye, and he was telling the truth. I still have to find them, Thom. And now I don’t even know who is after them. I have to find them.”

  Stifling a huge yawn with his fist, Thom pulled Mat’s hood up against the rain. “Not tonight, boy. I need sleep, and so do you.”

  Wet. My hair’s dripping in my face. His head seemed fuzzy. With a need for sleep, he realized after a moment. And he realized how tired he was, if he had to think just to know it. “All right, Thom. But I am going to look again as soon as it’s light.” Thom nodded and coughed, and they made their way back to The White Crescent through the rain.

  Dawn was not long in coming, but Mat rousted himself out of bed, and he and Thom set off trying to search every inn inside the walls of Tear. Mat let himself wander wherever the mood and the next turning took him, not looking for inns at all, and tossing a coin to decide whether to go in. For three days and nights he did this, and for three days and nights it rained without stopping, sometimes thundering, sometimes quiet, but always pouring down.

  Thom’s cough grew worse, so he had to stop playing the flute and tell
ing stories, and he would not carry his harp out in that weather; he insisted on going along, however, and men still talked to a gleeman. Mat’s luck with the dice seemed even better since he had begun this random wander, though he never stayed in one inn or tavern long enough to win more than a few coins. Neither of them heard anything useful. Rumors of war with Illian. Rumors of invading Mayene. Rumors of invasion from Andor, of the Sea Folk shutting off trade, of Artur Hawkwing’s armies returning from the dead. Rumors the Dragon was coming. The men Mat gambled with were as gloomy about one rumor as the next; they seemed to him to hunt for the darkest rumors they could find and half believe them all. But he heard not a whisper that might lead him to Egwene and the others. Not one innkeeper had seen women matching their descriptions.

  He began to have bad dreams, no doubt from all his worrying. Egwene and Nynaeve and Elayne, and some fellow with close-cropped white hair, wearing a coat with puffy, striped sleeves like Comar’s, laughing and weaving a net around them. Only sometimes it was Moiraine he was weaving the net for, and sometimes he held a crystal sword instead, a sword that blazed like the sun as soon as he touched it. Sometimes it was Rand who held the sword. For some reason, he dreamed of Rand a good deal.

  Mat was sure it was all because he was not getting enough sleep, not eating except when he happened to remember, but he would not stop. He had a wager to win, he told himself, and he meant to win this one if it killed him.

  CHAPTER

  50

  The Hammer

  The afternoon sun was hot as the ferry docked in Tear; puddles stood on the steaming stones of the dock, and the air seemed almost as damp to Perrin as Illian’s had. The air smelled of pitch and wood and rope—he could see shipyards further south along the river—of spices and iron and barley, of perfumes and wines and a hundred different aromas he could not single out from the melange, most coming from the warehouses behind the docks. When the wind swirled momentarily out of the north, he caught the scents of fish, too, but those faded as the wind swung back. No smells of anything to hunt. His mind reached out to feel for wolves before he realized what he was doing and snapped his guards shut. He had done that too often of late. There had been no wolves, of course. Not in a city like this. He wished it did not feel so—alone.