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.