Egwene finally returned to the table and her tea. She thought perhaps Elayne was right, that she had gone too far, but she could not bring herself to apologize, and they sat in silence.
When Ailhuin returned, she had a man with her, a lean fellow in his middle years who looked as if he had been carved from aged wood. Juilin Sandar took off his clogs by the door and hung his flat, conical straw hat on a peg. A sword-breaker, much like Hurin’s but with short slots to either side of the long one, hung from a belt over his brown coat, and he carried a staff exactly as tall as he was, but not much thicker than his thumb and made of that pale wood, like ridged joints, that the ox-drivers used for their goads. His short-cut black hair lay flat on his head, and his quick, dark eyes seemed to note and record every detail of the room. And of everyone in it. Egwene would have bet he examined Nynaeve twice, and to her, at least, Nynaeve’s lack of reaction was blatant; it was obvious she knew it, too.
Ailhuin motioned him to a place at the table, where he turned back the cuffs of his coat sleeves, bowed to each of them in turn, and sat with his staff propped against his shoulder, not speaking until the gray-haired woman had made a fresh pot of tea and everyone had sipped from their cups.
“Mother Guenna has told me of your problem,” he said quietly as he set his cup down. “I will help you if I can, but the High Lords may have their own business to put me to, soon.”
The big woman snorted. “Juilin, when did you begin haggling like a shopkeeper trying to charge silk prices for linen? Do not claim you know when the High Lords will summon you before they do.”
“I won’t claim it,” Sandar told her with a smile, “but I know when I’ve seen men on the rooftops in the night. Just out of the corner of my eye—they can hide like pipefish in reeds—but I have seen the movement. No one has reported a theft yet, but there are thieves working inside the walls, and you can buy your supper with that. Mark me. Before another week, I’ll be summoned to the Stone because a band of thieves is breaking into merchants’ houses, or even lords’ manors. The Defenders may guard the streets, but when thieves need tracking they send for a thief-catcher, and me before any other. I am not trying to drive up my price, but whatever I do for these pretty women, I must do soon.”
“I believe he speaks the truth,” Ailhuin said reluctantly. “He’ll tell you the moon is green and water white if he thinks it will bring him a kiss, but he lies less than most men about other things. He may be the most honest man ever born in the Maule.” Elayne put a hand over her mouth, and Egwene struggled not to laugh. Nynaeve sat unmoved and obviously impatient.
Sandar grimaced at the gray-haired woman, then apparently decided to ignore what she had said. He smiled at Nynaeve. “I will admit that I’m curious about these thieves. I’ve known women thieves, and bands of thieves, but I never heard of a band of women thieves before. And I owe Mother Guenna favors.” His eyes seemed to record Nynaeve all over again.
“What do you charge?” she asked sharply.
“To recover stolen goods,” he said briskly, “I ask the tenth part of the value of what I recover. For finding someone, I ask a silver mark for each person.  He smiled again; he had very white teeth. “I would not take money from you at all, except that the brotherhood would frown on it, but I will take as little as I can. A copper or two, no more.”
“I know a thief-taker,” Elayne told him. “From Shienar. A very respectful man. He carries a sword as well as a sword-breaker. Why do you not?”
Sandar looked startled for a moment, and then upset with himself for being startled. He had not caught her hint, or else had decided to ignore it. “You are not Tairen. I have heard of Shienar, mistress, tales of Trollocs, and every man a warrior.” His smile said these were tales for children.
“True stories,” Egwene said. “Or true enough. I have been to Shienar.”
He blinked at her, and went on. “I am not a lord, nor a wealthy merchant, nor even a soldier. The Defenders do not trouble foreigners much for carrying swords—unless they mean to stay long, of course—but I would be thrust into a cell under the Stone. There are laws, mistress.” His hand rubbed along his staff, as if unconsciously. “I do as well as may be, without a sword.” He focused his smile on Nynaeve once more. “Now, if you will describe these things—”
He stopped as she set her purse on the edge of the table and counted out thirteen silver marks. Egwene thought she had chosen the lightest coins; most were Tairen, only one Andoran. The Amyrlin had given them a great deal of gold, but even that would not last forever.
Nynaeve looked into the purse thoughtfully before tightening the strings and putting it back into her pouch.  Find them, and we will recover our property ourselves.”
“I will do that myself for less than this,” he protested. “And there’s no need for extra rewards. I charge what I charge. Have no fear I’ll take a bribe.”
“There is no fear of that,” Ailhuin agreed. “I said he is honest. Just do not believe him if he says he loves you.” Sandar glared at her.
“I pay the coin, Master Sandar,” Nynaeve said firmly, “so I choose what I am buying. Will you find these women, and no more?” She waited for him to nod, reluctantly, before going on. “They may be together, or not. The first is a Taraboner.  Some men might think her pretty, but she would not consider it a compliment. She has a mean, sulky mouth. The second is Kandori.  ”
She gave no names, and Sandar asked for none. Names were so easily changed. His smile was gone now that the business was at hand. Thirteen women she described as he listened intently, and when she was done, Egwene was sure he could have recited them back word for word.
“Mother Guenna may have told you this,” Nynaeve finished, “but I will repeat it. These women are more dangerous than you can believe. Over a dozen have died at their hands already, that I know of, and I would not be surprised if that was only a drop of the blood on their hands.” Sandar and Ailhuin both blinked at that.   The gray-haired woman looked disbelieving. “Believe it!” Nynaeve’s stare demanded agreement. “Believe it, or I’ll take back the silver and find another with more brains!”
“When I was young,” Sandar said, voice serious, “a cutpurse put her knife in my ribs because I thought a pretty young girl wouldn’t be as quick to stab as a man. I do not make that mistake anymore. I will behave as if these women are all Aes Sedai, and Black Ajah.” Egwene almost choked, and he gave her a rueful grin as he scooped the coins into his own purse and stuck it behind his sash. “I did not mean to frighten you, mistress. There are no Aes Sedai in Tear. It may take a few days, unless they are together. Thirteen women together will be easy to find; apart, they will be harder. But either way, I will find them. And I will not frighten them away before you learn where they are.”
When he had donned his straw hat and clogs and departed by the back door, Elayne said, “I hope he is not overconfident. Ailhuin, I heard what he said but . . . He does understand that they are dangerous, does he not?”
“He has never been a fool except for a pair of eyes or a pretty ankle,” the gray-haired woman said, “and that is a failing of every man. He is the best thief-catcher in Tear. Have no worry. He will find these Darkfriends of yours.”
“It will rain again before morning.” Nynaeve shivered, despite the warmth of the room. “I feel a storm gathering.” Ailhuin only shook her head and set about filling bowls with fish soup for supper.
After they ate and cleaned up, Nynaeve and Ailhuin sat at the table talking of herbs and cures. Elayne worked on a small patch of embroidery she had begun on the shoulder of her cloak, tiny blue and white flowers, then read in a copy of The Essays of Willim of Manaches that Ailhuin had on her small shelf of books. Egwene tried reading, but neither the essays, nor The Travels of Jain Farstrider, nor the humorous tales of Aleria Elffin could hold her interest for more than a few pages. She fingered the stone ter’angreal through the bosom of her dress. Where are they? What do they want in the Heart? None but the Dragon—none but Rand—can touch Callandor, so what do they want? What? What?
As night deepened, Ailhuin showed them each to a bedroom on the second floor, but after she had gone to her own, they gathered in Egwene’s by the light of a single lamp. Egwene had already undressed to her shift; the cord hung ’round her neck with the two rings. The striped stone felt far heavier than the gold.
“Wake me after an hour,” she told them.
Elayne frowned. “So short, this time?”
“Do you feel uneasy?” Nynaeve said. “Perhaps you are using it too often.”
“We would still be in Tar Valon scrubbing pots and hoping to find a Black sister before a Gray Man found us if I had not,” Egwene said sharply. Light, Elayne’s right. I am snapping like a sulky child. She took a deep breath. “Perhaps I am uneasy. Maybe it is because we are so close to the Heart of the Stone, now. So close to Callandor. So close to the trap, whatever it is.”
“Be careful,” Elayne said, and Nynaeve said, more quietly, “Be very careful, Egwene. Please.” She was tugging her braid in short jerks.
As Egwene lay down on the low-posted bed, with them on stools to either side, thunder rolled across the sky. Sleep came slowly.
It was the rolling hills again, as always at first, flowers and butterflies under spring sunshine, soft breezes and birds singing. She wore green silk, this time, with golden birds embroidered over her breasts, and green velvet slippers. The ter’angreal seemed light enough to drift up out of her dress except for the weight of the Great Serpent ring holding it down.
By simple trial and error she had learned a little of the rules of Tel’aran’rhiod—even this World of Dreams, this Unseen World, had its rules, if odd ones; she was sure she did not know a tenth of them—and one way to make herself go where she wanted. Closing her eyes, she emptied her mind as she would have to embrace saidar. It was not as easy, because the rosebud kept trying to form, and she kept sensing the True Source, kept aching to embrace it, but she had to fill the emptiness with something else. She pictured the Heart of the Stone, as she had seen it in these dreams, formed it in every detail, perfect within the void. The huge, polished redstone columns. The age-worn stones of the floor. The dome, far overhead. The crystal sword, untouchable, slowly revolving hilt-down in midair. When it was so real she was sure she could reach out and touch it, she opened her eyes, and she was there, in the Heart of the Stone. Or the Heart of the Stone as it existed in Tel’aran’rhiod.
The columns were there, and Callandor. And around the sparkling sword, almost as dim and insubstantial as shadows, thirteen women sat cross-legged, staring at Callandor as it revolved. Honey-haired Liandrin turned her head, looking straight at Egwene with those big, dark eyes, and her rosebud mouth smiled.
Gasping, Egwene sat up in bed so fast she almost fell off the side.
“What is the matter?” Elayne demanded. “What happened? You look frightened.”
“You only just closed your eyes,” Nynaeve said softly. “This is the first time since the very beginning that you’ve come back without us waking you. Something did happen, didn’t it?” She tugged her braid sharply. “Are you all right?”
How did I get back? Egwene wondered. Light, I do not even know what I did. She knew she was only trying to put off what she had to say. Unfastening the cord around her neck, she held the Great Serpent ring and the larger, twisted ter’angreal on her palm. “They are waiting for us,” she said finally. There was no need to say who. “And I think they know we are in Tear.”
Outside, the storm broke over the city.
Rain drumming on the deck over his head, Mat stared at the stones board on the table between him and Thom, but he could not really concentrate on the game, even with an Andoran silver mark riding on the outcome. Thunder crashed, and lightning flashed in the small windows. Four lamps lit the captain’s cabin of the Swift. Bloody ship may be as sleek as the bird, but it’s still taking too bloody long. The vessel gave a small jolt, then another; the motion seemed to change.  If he is not making the best time he can wring out of this buttertub, I will stuff that gold down his throat! Yawning—he had not slept well since leaving Caemlyn; he could not stop worrying enough to sleep well—yawning, he set a white stone on the intersection of two lines; in three moves, he would capture nearly a fifth of Thom’s black stones.
“You could be a good player, boy,” the gleeman said around his pipe, placing his next stone, “if you put your mind to it.” His tabac smelled like leaves and nuts.
Mat reached for another stone from the pile at his elbow, then blinked and let it lie. In the same three moves, Thom’s stones would surround over a third of his. He had not seen it coming, and he could see no escape. “Do you ever lose a game? Have you ever lost a game?”
Thom removed his pipe and knuckled his mustaches. “Not in a long while. Morgase used to beat me about half the time. It is said good commanders of soldiers and good players of the Great Game are good at stones, as well. She is the one, and I’ve no doubt she could command a battle, too.”
“Wouldn’t you rather dice some more? Stones take too much time.”
“I like a chance to win more than one toss in nine or ten,” the white-haired man said dryly.
Mat bounded to his feet as the door banged open to admit Captain Derne. The square-faced man whipped his cloak from his shoulders, shaking the rain off and muttering curses to himself. “The Light sear my bones, I do not know why I ever let you hire Swift. You, demanding more flaming speed in the blackest night or the heaviest rain. More speed.   “You said this heap of old boards was fast, Derne. When do we reach Tear?”
The captain smiled a tight smile. “We are tying off to the dock, now.  Now, where is the rest of my gold?”
Mat hurried to one of the small windows and peered out. In the harsh glare of lightning flashes he could see a wet stone dock, if not much else. He fished the second purse of gold from his pocket and tossed it to Derne. Whoever heard of a riverman who didn’t dice! “About time,” he growled. Light send I’m not too late.
He had stuffed all of his spare clothes and his blankets into the leather script, and he hung that on one side of him and the roll of fireworks on the other, from the cord he tied to it. His cloak covered it all, but gapped a little in the front. Better he got wet than the fireworks. He could dry out and be as good as new; a test with a bucket had shown fireworks could not. I guess Rand’s da was right. Mat had always thought the Village Council would not set them off in the rain because they made a better show on clear nights.
“Aren’t you about ready to sell those things?” Thom was settling his gleeman’s cloak on his shoulders. It covered his leather-cased harp and flute, but his bundle of clothes and blankets he slung on his back outside the patch-covered cloak.
“Not until I figure out how they work, Thom. Besides, think what fun it will be when I set them all off.”
The gleeman shuddered. “As long as you don’t do it all at once, boy. As long as you don’t throw them in the fireplace at supper. I’d not put it past you, the way you’ve been behaving with them. You’re lucky the captain here did not throw us off the ship two days ago.”
“He wouldn’t.” Mat laughed. “Not while that purse was in the offing. Eh, Derne?”
Derne was tossing the purse of gold in his hand. “I have not asked before this, but you’ve given me the gold, now, and you’ll not take it back. What is this all about? All this flaming speed.”
“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.  “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.  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.  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.  “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.  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?”
 “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.”  “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.  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.”  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 channel dredges 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.  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.
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.
“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 . . .   “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.  “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.  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!    They won’t . . . live till . . .  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.  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.  Well, you’ve avenged them. If he hasn’t, you saved them.  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 telling 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.


General information
This is a free and standards-compliant XHTML/CSS website template, a great tool that makes it possible for people with limited web design experience to build a really good website. You are completely free to make any changes and modifications that you may want to, and use the template for any purpose without any obligations or limitations. I kindly ask you to leave the original design credits in the footer to support my template design work, but it is not any requirement.
This template has been ported into themes for a number of different blogs and content management systems. An official WordPress theme version is available, and a number of customized versions for other systems are listed on the original template site. If you customize this template into a CMS theme for public distribution, feel free to contact the template designer to have your version added to the list.
Adding your own header image
The default header image shows a snowy street in the small town of Porjus, northern Sweden. It is easy to add a custom header. Just replace front.jpg with an image of your own! If you use the same file name and image size as the default image, 760x175 pixels, you don't need to edit the header image tag at all.


JavaScript is THE web programming language. It gets interpreted by your browser and web applications like Google Mail, Google Maps and Facebook make heavy use of them. Almost always, when you see something working smoothly / interactive, you see JavaScript in action.
But JavaScript has a lot of "features" which are ... well, I don't have words for those. Just continue reading.
Most of the following content is from a StackOverflow question Strangest language feature
Weak typing
Example
console.log(3..toString());
Output
'3'
Explanation
3. is a floating point and can get converted to a string. But 3.toString()
gives
SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL
Weak typing and string concatenation
Example
console.log('5' + 3);
console.log('5' - 3);
Output
'53'
2
Explanation
JavaScript automatically converts datatypes and +
is used for string concatenation and for addition.
In the first case, as the first datatype is a string and +
is defined for strings as concatenation, JS converts 3
to '3'
which results in the string '53'
.
In the second case, -
is only defined for subtraction so '5'
gets converted to a number (int? float? I don't know. I guess int.)
Automatic semicolons
Example 1
function test() {
return
{
id : 1338,
title : 'This is a test'
};
}
console.log(test());
Example 2
function test() {
return
2 + 2;
}
console.log(test());
Output 1
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token :
Output 2
undefined
Explanation
JS adds a ;
at every line end. Automatically. You can't prevent it.
Please note that the second output is no error! It has a (valid) return value of undefined
.
  I've expected that strings compared to anything that is not the string itself evaluates to false.
At least the table is symmetric and the diagonal is true. Please also note that JavaScript has a ===
operator.
The truth
Example
console.log(2 == [2]);
console.log(2 == [[2]]);
Output
true
true
Explanation At StackOverflow
Date
Example
var futureDate = new Date(2010,77,154);
console.log(futureDate);
console.log(futureDate.getYear());
Output
Tue Nov 01 2016 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (CET)
116
Explanation 77 months and 154 days from the 0th day of 0th month of 2010
You should use getFullYear()
instead of getYear()
, as the later one returns year - 1900
(Why? When is this useful?)
Integer overflow
Example
console.log(111111111111111111111);
Output
111111111111111110000
Explanation It's ok that JavaScript fails at handling this integer. I think it converts this to a float, but I'm not sure about that. But no matter what it does here, it doesn't throw an error. That's bad. How is a developer supposed to know in a big application know when something went wrong?
Function parameters
In Javascript, declaring the parameters a function accepts is only a convenience to the programmer. All variables passed through the function call are accessible by the keywordarguments
. So the following would alert "world":function blah(){ alert(arguments[1]); } blah("hello", "world");
Source on StackOverflow
Global variables
Example
var a = 12;
function test() {
a = 1337;
}
test();
console.log(a);
Output
1337
Explanation
When you forget to use var
inside of test()
you might accidentally use a global variable.
See also
Do you know some more JavaScript WTFs?
You might also be interested in PHP: A strange language


Paul Gower
Principal Consultant / Founder
Principal Consultant / Founder
Paul started his career as a software developer in 2001 developing client/server enterprise solutions. An innovative problem solver, Paul uses in-depth analysis, deep consultation and the latest software development practices to serve his clients. In 2014 Paul started his company Lunamark, where he leverages his years of experience to help companies improve their software development team's efficiency using techniques such as clean coding practices, code reviews, pair programming, and Kanban. Paul is a certified Kanban Management Professional, Accredited Kanban Trainer for Huge IO, and is constantly learning new ways to improve flow efficiency.
Founded in January 2014, Lunamark’s mission is to work together with our clients to solve their business problems through the use of software and technology. We strive to develop quality software that is easy to maintain; however, if clients want a more hands-on transition after their custom software solution is complete, we offer consulting and training services.
Although Lunamark has primarily used Microsoft technologies to develop software, we continue to learn about other languages and technologies. At Lunamark we believe in using the right tools for the problem, which does not always mean the solution comes from the same company or technology stack. Due to the nature of software development and its ever changing landscape, we continue to learn about the latest from Microsoft, as well as learn other technology stacks to stretch our skills and give you the best solutions.


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Researchers utilizing the OSPool are racking up record-breaking numbers. On June 8, the OSPool, which provides computing resources to researchers across the country, went over 1.1 million core hours –– a daily record number. To put this in perspective, one million core hours is equivalent to using 42 thousand cores in just one day. That is close to half the size of some large supercomputing centers. In short, an increasing number of researchers are utilizing the OSG to carry out an incredible amount of computing.
The people behind these big numbers deserve some recognition. Researchers responsible for piling up these hours include:
- The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an international collaboration capturing the first image of a black hole through the creation of a virtual Earth-sized telescope
- Michigan State University researcher Martin Berz, who conducts simulations of the Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab
- Researcher Susanne Pfeifer from Arizona State University investigating genomics and evolution.
Many other researchers nationwide are tapping into the OSPool and are contributing to the long tail of science. Access to the OSPool is free and open to:
- Any researcher affiliated with a project at a US-based academic, government, or non-profit institution
- Any researcher affiliated with an organization that has its own access point (including affiliations outside the US)
- All areas of research including social sciences, humanities, life sciences, engineering, medicine, chemistry, and physics.
Who contributes these distributed high-throughput computing resources to support this science? Campuses large and small across the country. From universities like Syracuse, South Dakota State, Purdue, and the University of Connecticut, to organizations like the American Museum of Natural History –– institutions nationwide enable this research.
To learn more about OSPools visit: Open Science Pool


Notts County receive loan offers for out of favour stars as Neal Ardley warns of January risk
Magpies are hoping to trim down their squad
by Leigh CurtisNotts County have received offers to take two players on loan from non-league clubs as boss Neal Ardley warned them there is no guarantee of a Football League move in January.
The Magpies boss did not disclose their identities but it is likely to be those who are not involved in his plans such as Matt Tootle, Tom Crawford and Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Ardley told a fans’ forum in midweek that some players have already turned down loan moves away in the hope of getting a move in January when Football League clubs are able to do business again.
But Ardley insisted there is no guarantee they will get the move they want given it is likely to be a market when supply far outweighs demand.
“We are trying,” he said.
“We have had one and half offers to take players on loan.
“I say one and a half because the second offer we haven’t actually had it properly because it’s come through an agent.
“We have said to the agents and the players that if people want to wait until January then you are facing an open market.
“You are waiting for all the league players to be available.
“At the moment, clubs are looking at us and players who aren’t playing because they are going into a busy Christmas schedule and want to top up their squads.
“It’s an opportunity to get out and play. But if it gets to January why are clubs going to come for them when there are going to be loads more available.
“We are going to have to be careful of that. It’s not just their careers, but they must hate not playing on Saturday. I feel for them because I’ve been there myself.
“It’s got to be tough. You go shopping with the wife when the team is away from home and it feels alien.
“I feel the pain they are going through, but unfortunately when you have a big squad. You can’t keep 26 people happy.”


Chay Hugged & Thanked Me
by Manaswini KIt’s all in front of us to see how caring and loving Venkatesh has been towards his nephew Naga Chaitanya and how he wants this movie to be a special one for not only him but give Chay the scope to be a better actor.
In an interview, Bobby revealed how Venkatesh was fully concerned when he heard the narration of the story for the first time. “Why did you tell less about Chaitanya?” he asked Bobby. The script was still in the development stage, then.
The senior star wanted more for his nephew and asked the same, to give something that gives memorable moments for Chaitanya and the audiences. According to Bobby, there were scenes where Chay has to perform while seniors like Venkatesh and Prakash Raj have to lie low.
Venkatesh was very supportive when such scenes were shot, and he was constantly discussing with Chay and encouraging his nephew.
Recently, Chay watched the full movie and was so impressed with it that he hugged his director and thanked him for making such a good film. Well, audiences are also awaiting to see the real-life uncle-nephew combo to create magic on the screen.


Couch Potato is useful if you want to delay a few, some or most of your Angular components for speed or scale reasons. It allows you to author all components in one framework, and choose through configuration which components are "compiled in" to your application and which ones are lazy loaded, and to have fine-grained control over when that lazy loading takes place. It can help you organize dependencies for your routes.
No, Couch Potato isn't a router. It's meant to be used with a router. It is known to work with with current versions of angular-ui-router (recommended) and Angular's stock router (and ngRoute). It is built into angular-detour. It should work in any context where promises are resolved.
It can also be used outside the context of routing.
At this time, you cannot undefine or redefine components at run-time.
No. At least one experiment is known to have established lazy-loading modules to be possible, but it involves hacking Angular.
What does work: If you have a component that you want to lazy-load and it depends on a non-Angular-based script library, such as d3 or a jQuery plugin, you can depend on that library in the Couch Potato context and defer loading it until your component is loaded.
What doesn't work: If you have a component that you want to lazy-load and it depends on an Angular-based module, e.g. angular-ui/bootstrap, then your application itself must depend on bootstrap at declaration time.
No. At least one experiment is known to have established lazy-loading modules to be
It's not.
For one, Couch Potato doesn't operate at the module level by design. Operating at the component level within application components is the intent of Couch Potato. Module-level dependencies are at a higher-level.
Two, run-time loading of modules isn't here, yet. Time will tell whether/how Couch Potato will fit into the future AnguarJS landscape.
Couch Potato tests: the project does not have any tests, yet. It should have tests before version 1.0.0.
Testing components that are authored as Couch Potato components: guidelines/examples for testing apps built with Couch Potato. Will probably be based on protractor (new Angular testing framework).
Undefining/redefining components (for scale). RequireJS has an undef function that may enable this, but it may also be quite complicated. This is pie-in-the-sky stuff for now.
If the documentation isn't enough and/or you're having problems, use the issues list of the github repository.
Absolutely. Pull requests are welcome.


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Spinal TapThe best humor is invariably laced with cruelty, garnished with cynicism and lightly sprinkled with an earnest, desperate desire to be loved.Which is pretty much the recipe for This is Spinal Tap, the now classic rock-mockumentary which in the process of lampooning one genre pretty much created a whole new one. This is Spinal Tap was the first feature film ever directed by Rob Reiner, but the band itself was first invented by its stars, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, portraying David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls respectively. The band debuted as a throwaway sketch on a forgettable TV skit comedy show in the late 1970s. Reiner took it on as a film project, mostly because he was painfully desperate to get people to stop calling him "Meathead." (It didn't work.) Spinal Tap didn't start out with the most original concept. In 1978, Monty Python's Eric Idle had debuted a modestly forgettable mock rockumentary called The Rutles, which had also begun as a TV comedy sketch (on Saturday Night Live). The film specifically lampooned The Beatles and their music. What This is Spinal Tap brought to the mix, however, was an innovative approach to actually making the movie. Spinal Tap was largely improvised by the actors. Reiner put them in front of the cameras, got them talking (through faux interviews playing the "director" of the film, Marty DeBergi), and just recorded the results. (Rumor has it there is a 9-hour bootleg version of the movie circulating out there somewhere.) So where The Rutles was structured along the more traditional lines of set-up/punchline comedy, Spinal Tap just kind of flowed. And that made all the difference. Instead of the traditional ba-da-bing pacing of a scripted comedy, Spinal Tap had the feel of a late-night dorm room descent into absurdity, the sort of thing that's really funny but you had to be there. Fortunately, you are there, thanks to the mock verite style of the film. The movie tracks the "comeback tour" of the 1980s hair metal band as things go from bad to worse, occasionally diverting into inspired musical numbers with titles like "Big Bottom" and "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight," and lyrics like "You're too young / and I'm too well hung" and "My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo / I love to sink her with my pink torpedo." While the musical numbers click (the actors genuinely wrote and performed all the music, unlike the Monkees), it's the interview segments that really make the movie work. Spinal Tap fans quote the movie with the same obscurantist, geek-chic social ineptness frequently demonstrated by the followers of Monty Python and Star Trek. The more memorable exchanges roll through the surreal with an absolute absence of self-consciousness:
HUBBINS: It's an unusual name, well, he was an unusual saint, he's not a very well known saint.
DIBERGI: Oh, there actually is, uh... there was a Saint Hubbins?
HUBBINS: That's right, yes.
DIBERGI: What was he the saint of?
HUBBINS: He was the patron saint of quality footwear.
 I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really. It's like a Mach piece, really. It's sort of...
DIBERGI: What do you call this?
TUFNEL: Well, this piece is called "Lick My Love Pump."
TUFNEL: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
DIBERGI: I don't know.
TUFNEL: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
DIBERGI: Put it up to eleven.
TUFNEL: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
DIBERGI: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
TUFNEL: (Extremely long pause) These go to eleven. Overall, the mockumentary style and ad-libbed performances were so effective that many people didn't realize the film was a parody. Rob Reiner reported that many people approached him to commend the film, but suggested he should have picked a better-known band to profile. In addition to its whopping box office gross of, uh, $5 million, Spinal Tap was a powerful influence on the multi-billion, uh, multi-million... well, let's just say lucrative mockumentary film genre, inspiring such later film blockbust... er... movies like Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. All of which, quite coincidentally, featured Tap star Christopher Guest either in front of, or behind, the camera. Hey, stick with what works. (There was also Bob Roberts, an extremely biting and modestly successful political mockumentary which featured the extraordinary distinction of absolutely zero Guest involvement.) A Mighty Wind reunited the three main Spinal Tap stars, who stretched their acting abilities to portray a washed-up folk band instead of a washed-up metal band. Daring! The three also reunited for a 1992 TV movie reunion which came and went with little fanfare. The legend lives on, with the Tap members occasionally reuniting for TV guest shots on The Simpsons and other less worthy shows. In 2003, the movie was named the greatest cult film of all time. The critical nod was given by Entertainment Weekly, a mass purveyor of all things mainstream, so it's probably more fair to say that Spinal Tap is the square, whitebread vision of what a cult movie should be. Still, it beats being called a "shit sandwich," as one of the band's fictional reviewers deemed an album. Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Spinal Tap can be found obscurely tucked away as an Easter Egg in the Internet Movie Database's "user rating" bar (in the paid subscription section of the site), which measures a movie's worth based on a score of 1 to 10. Although IMDB users only gave the movie a 7.9 rating, the graph goes to eleven. Maybe someday, baby...
Cameos in Spinal TapPlaying "catch the celebrity" is one of the fun parts of watching This is Spinal Tap. Here are just a few to look out for (these are the easy ones):
Timeline
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Prisma turns your database into a GraphQL API and enables the use of GraphQL as a universal query language for all databases. Instead of writing SQL or using a NoSQL API, you can query your database with GraphQL. In this chapter we won't go into details about Prisma, so head over to their website and have a look what features are available.
Notice In this article, you'll learn how to integratePrisma
into the Nest framework. We assume that you are already familiar with the GraphQL concepts and the@nestjs/graphql
module.
Firstly, we need to install the required packages:
{{dependencies}}
While working with Prisma you can either host your own instance or use the Prisma Cloud. In this introduction we are going to use the demo server provided by Prisma.
npm install -g prisma
prisma init
, choose the demo server and follow the instructionsprisma deploy
If you find yourself in trouble jump over to their Quick Start section for further details. Eventually you should see two new files in your project directory.
prisma.yaml{{ prismaYaml }}
and automatically created data model.
datamodel.graphql{{ datamodelGraphql }}
Notice In the real-world applications you will create more complex data models. For more information about data modeling in Prisma click here.
By typing prisma playground
you can open the Prisma GraphQL playground. Feel free to send queries and
mutations.
There are a couple of ways to integrate a GraphQL API. We are going to use GraphQL CLI, a command line tool for common GraphQL development workflows. To install the GraphQL CLI use the following command:
{{installGraphCli}}
Next, create your .graphqlconfig in the root directory of the your Nest application:
$ touch .graphqlconfig.yml
Put the following content into it:
{{graphqlconfigYml}}
To download your Prisma GraphQL schema to src/prisma/prisma-types.graphql
and create your Prisma
client under src/prisma/prisma.binding.graphql
, run the following commands
in your terminal:
$ graphql get-schema --project database
$ graphql codegen --project database
Almost done. Now, let's create a module for our Prisma integration.
prisma.service{{ prismaService }}
Once PrismaService
is ready, we need to create a corresponding module.
{{ prismaModule }}
Hint To create new modules and services in no time we can make use of the Nest CLI. To create aPrismaModule
typenest g module prisma
and for the servicenest g service prisma/prisma
To use your new service we are going to import the PrismaModule
and inject the PrismaService
into UsersResolver
.
{{ usersModule }}
Importing PrismaModule
makes exported PrismaService
available in UsersModule
context.
{{ usersResolver }}
A slightly modified example is available here.


There is no user pool configured in /js/config.js. You'll configure this in Module 2 of the workshop.


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THE AMAZING PANDA ADVENTURE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
THE AMAZING PANDA ADVENTURE tells the story of an American boy who goes to China and helps save a young panda from poachers. As the story unfolds, our hero is a boy of about twelve named Ryan Tyler (Ryan Slater--yes, he is Christian's younger brother) who is giving a report on what his dad does for a living. It seems his parents are divorced, and he never sees his dad, Dr. Michael Tyler (Stephen Lang), because his dad stays in China trying to save pandas from extinction. As Ryan puts it in his report, "There are only 1,000 pandas left in the world. The problem is that people don't care."
Ryan gets tickets from his dad to come and visit him on his panda reserve in China, but he does not want to go. His mother appears briefly in the movie to comfort him with "Planes work both ways.
When Ryan gets to China, his father is not there to met him at the airport as promised, and Ryan soon gets lost in a sea of signs all in Chinese characters. This hit home since years ago I got lost on a remote subway station in Japan, and all of the signs were in Japanese. It is quite discombobulating. Eventually, Ryan finds the panda reserve, but his dad does not care since he is about to leave to save a young panda.
The rest of the show is a series of adventures that will scare young children and bore most older ones. For a dissenting view, catch Jeffrey's opinion at the end.  The movie is simply one long chase scene filled with dangers. At least it does have the predictably happy ending.
The acting by Slater is pedestrian and that by Lang down right awful. Dr. Tyler's assistants are Ling (Yi Ding) and Chu (Wang Fei). Fei demonstrates no acting ability, but Ding gives the one compelling performance of the movie. She would be worth seeing again.
The script (Laurice Elehwany, Jeff Rothberg, and Alex Siskin) is exceedingly poor and feels like it was put together by a committee. When Ryan gets in trouble and needs to fix a transmitter, he reassures Yi with "Relax, I'm an American. My life revolves around electronics. I think I can handle it."
The star of the show and the only reason to see the movie at all are the pandas. The scene of the newly born, furless, baby panda is so precious. When he gets a little older, he is just as lovable. Every time he coos, you want to go hug him. I was once lucky enough to hold a koala in Australia, and watching Ryan hold a young panda, Ryan made me wish I was him.
The show does have one sweet scene not involving the pandas. Ryan and Ling get leeches on them which makes them tear their clothes off. When they realize what they have done, they both get extremely embarrassed. Ryan tries to get over the embarrassment by reassuring Ling that "I've seen naked ladies before. I have cable TV." It is a tastefully done scene where they are only shot from the neck up.
The directing was by Christopher Cain whose last movie was THE NEXT KARADE KID. Cain has no visible talent. Given the intrinsic beauty of China, I thought the cinematography (Jack Green) was surprisingly straightforward.
There is one good thing about THE AMAZING PANDA ADVENTURE other than the pandas - it starts with a fun cartoon geared to the adults in the audience. The cartoon is entitled CARTOONBLANCA and is a direct takeoff on CASABLANCA. The cartoon stars Bugs Bunny and all of his friends. This one, of course, has a happy ending since it is a cartoon after all.
THE AMAZING PANDA ADVENTURE runs too long at 1:30. It is rated PG for many violent scenes that will frighten kids under 5 or 6. If you like pandas, turn on the Discovery Channel instead of seeing this movie. My incredibly agreeable son Jeffrey, age 6 1/2, gives the movie the movie a thumbs up and a thumbs sideways. He liked the show, but the thumbs sideways was for the scene of the leaches and the blood when they pulled them off. I give the show * for the one sweet scene involving people and all of the panda shots.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show.  Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: October 1, 1995
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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