“Three,” he said and threw them. They tumbled, stopped—and Shan shrieked with laughter.
“Do it again!” he cried.
Obligingly, the older boy picked up the dice and shook them in his fist.
“What number would you like?” he asked.
“Nine!” Shan said decisively.
Pat Rin bit his lip, and threw.
Aelliana drew close. The dice came to rest, showing seven on one face, and two on the other.
“Nine, it is,” she said approvingly. “How clever.”
“Aunt Aelli!” Shan crowed, leaping from his seat and throwing himself against her legs.
Pat Rin rose more seemly and made a bow.
“Good afternoon, Aunt Aelliana,” he said, his voice and face far too formal for so young a child. “May I fetch you some—some wine, or some juice?”
“Thank you, no; I've only just finished a glass of juice. I came out to take the air.” She considered him—grave face and wary brown eyes. “May I see your dice?”
“Of course.” He caught them up off the bench and offered them to her.
She weighed them in her palm, but they seemed to be honorable—no clever weights or shaved corners. Bending, she shook them and released with a practiced snap of the wrist. The dice behaved precisely as they ought, revealing no concealed magnets or tiny gyros.
“Roll three, Aunt Aelli!” Shan cried, climbing back on the bench.
“I'll do my best,” she said, “but there's no guarantee.”
There were, in fact, some tricks one might play with spin and friction. She gave it her best but—
“Five,” Shan said, disappointed.
Aelliana picked up the dice and held them out to Pat Rin, standing by so quietly.
“Will you roll five for your cousin?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, and took the dice from her hand.
He shook them briefly, and rolled. Shan shouted with laughter.
“Five!”
Aelliana sat down on the bench and picked up the dice again.
“This is my specialty, you know,” she said, shaking the dice gently in her palm. “Pseudorandom mathematics, it's called. It means I study things like how cards fall within ordered systems. I've concentrated on card games—my dissertation was about card play—but I've done some study of dice, as well.” She looked into Pat Rin's wary brown eyes. He looked—interested.
“My study has led me to understand that—even given the random nature of events—dice do not always display the number that we wish they would. In fact, very seldom. One might be able to predict, if one had very quick eyes and could count the sides as they tumble, but to call the number before the dice hit the cloth, and be correct, every time—that,” she said carefully, “is not how dice operate.”
Pat Rin said nothing.
Aelliana held the dice out. “I'd like to perform a test, if you will help me?”
“Yes,” Pat Rin said. “I'll be pleased to help.”
“That's very kind of you. I wonder if you would be so good as to roll for me. I'll call the number, as Shan was doing. I would like to do this—a dozen times.”
“All right,” Pat Rin said. He took the dice from her hand and looked up at her expectantly.
“Two,” Aelliana said, and he released the dice.
They did it a dozen times; two dozen, and only once did the dice fall other than the call—and that was because Shan, overcome by excitement, tried to catch them when they struck the riser of the bench and bounced back.
Aelliana took the dice back.
“Now you call,” she said.
The dice behaved normally on her run of twelve, so whatever he was doing depended upon his controlling the dice. She suspected a supple wrist and an unusual but not unheard of run of felicity, but—
“Perhaps Luken will let me come and dice with you again,” she said. “That is, if it will not distress you.”
“No,” Pat Rin said slowly. “I find it interesting. When I think of my number and throw, I feel that the dice have—” He shot her a conscious glance. “I feel that the dice have listened. When I think the number and you roll, I don't feel that they've heard me at all.” He frowned in thought. “I wonder why that is.”
“Sparkles,” Shan said, who had long since gotten bored with the dice and had retired with his spaceships to the middle of the balcony.
Aelliana looked at him. Was it possible, she thought, that there was a . . . Healer talent that encompasses manipulating chance? She would have to ask Jen.
“Aelliana.”
