Xander and the Black Dagger 3 Author: Tohonomike Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners...it will start off with the Joss/ME characters but also the Lawrence Watt-Evans characters from his Ethshar books aren't mine either and any real-life folks are clearly not mine. NO money is involved. None are mine.

A day later than the previous episode

Xander and Tabaea made excellent time; she had had very few belongings and his were already aboard the carpet. The young pseudo-wizard carefully moved a couple of things into the scene as depicted on the tapestry back in the Sunnydale Library; there was no reason for any of the others to end up in this world without his language or other skills

They were about a quarter-day into their trip when Tabaea began to open up to him a little, his friendliness and relative youth overcoming a normal antipathy to draw the ire of a wizard down on her head.

"So what other work might I find?" she asked, referring to a statement he'd made when hiring her as a guide.

"Well, if all goes well, why not owner of that tavern we met at? A little fixing up, and you already know the tricks the thieves would try…"

"Oh. That might be nice."

"You were thinking of something bigger?"

"Well…maybe wizardry?"

"How 'bout, at least tavern owner? We'll see about the other, but no promises, Tabby."

"Tabby?" the girl frowned, unsure of the nickname that referred to a cat.

"Yep, I'm hoping we can become friends, Tab, and as Xander is a familiar name for Alexander, I thought you deserved the consideration of a friendly familiar name as well."

"Oh…alright then."

"Great. Hey, know anything about a place called Ethshar of the Spices?"

"Another one of the three cities, deals, obviously, in Spices and such more than the others. We stopping?"

"Yeah, I'm going to try contacting people I know…of, there, a Witch named Teneria and a Sorceror? Warlock? Anyway, I think they're married. If they're still around, maybe we can join up with them. I'd like to go back to my own world someday, but if that doesn't work out…come up with the best life possible here. Don't worry, Tab, if you're honest with me, I'm honest with you. Also, that means that as friends I'll try to set you up as well as possible when all is done."

"But why would you want to help me? You don't even know me?"

"Part of that flash of knowledge? So long as someone helps you find a good life, you won't turn out bad, the life of a thief is too short."

"You saw my death!"

"I saw the likely path if you stayed in the city and got involved with magic without someone to train you. Now, it is all unwritten again."

The girl grew quiet in speculation, and after a couple of minutes Xander decided he needed to say something.

"Tab?" he said, "I offered you friendship, a job and a chance. That's a lot, but that's all. You've accepted the job, and I hope you'll accept the friendship and the chance."

The girl inhaled, then let it out, "Alright, I do and I will…Xander."

He nodded, and watched as she thought about things a bit. She shifted a little, move the heavy knapsack he hadn't even bothered to open since ending up in this world; if he remembered correctly it contained a bunch of his favorite D&D props from back when Jesse was still around, and a few oddities Willow thought would go well with his costume. Sentimental value, but at least she could use it as a pillow. They flew on throughout the day, and his memories as Tobas let him know that they really should consider finding a place to stay the night. He'd briefly considered Teneria in Ethshar of the Spices, but she wouldn't be there for another three years. Boy, this was confusing. On the other hand, it would probably push it, but he might even reach Tobas' area of the Small Kingdoms if he stayed the course all the way through the next daybreak. 'Well, let's see if we can make it all the way there…'

Tobas wasn't really expecting any visitors while at his father-in-law's castle, and especially not a wizard at as early as an hour after daybreak. Sighing, he readied himself, and was escorted down to the main courtyard.

"I am Tobas of Telven, may I help you?" he asked, barely stifling a yawn. A somewhat tired man perhaps his own age, and younger woman perhaps of fifteen summers, awaited next to what seemed to be a match for his flying carpet.

"I certainly hope so," the man said, "This is my friend and helper Tabaea, and I am Alexander of Terra. I come from another world, like a different page of a book, and am now in yours. For reasons I'll explain later, I have a fair knowledge of your next four years, and would like to offer that in trade for your hospitality, a free exchange of ideas, and a chance of making a friendship so far away from what I've known."

Tobas stared at the man for a moment, shook the cobwebs out of his thinking, smiled, scratched the back of his head, and nodded.

"I have to say that I never could have guessed that would be what you'd say to me. How about we have a large breakfast and THEN discuss this?"

Xander smiled, especially as Tabaea's stomach growled, "I think, Good Wizard, that the scary noise marks our acceptance. Let me just get my sack—"

"I'll get it, Xander…" the girl offered, comfortable enough with him, but with another wizard around in a strange castle…better to keep herself busy and out of trouble.

Tobas' wives joined them, the rest of the VIPs remaining comfortably asleep. The three were amazed at Xander's tale, and that he hoped to work with them to mutual advantage. Karanissa was the first to directly respond, turning to her husband and his other wife.

"Four years isn't much, but other than space and food, are we really talking much in the way of spending? After all, if Alexander can shorten the counterwizardry research by that much, and exchange spells and magic freely between us before officially being declared a journeyman, if not a master, by Tobas, I think it would be a fine plan."

The other wife, Alorria, nodded, giving her a sly smile, "I think I actually agree with you; let's try not let that happen too often in front of Tobas. But, Alexander DO you have any spells?"

"Well, I've been able to cast just a few without ingredients, but I'm not sure." He picked up his large knapsack, "Let me empty this out…"

He did so, and his pouch of dice, old box of gold-foiled chocolates from last Christmas, a big and heavy book labeled 'The Compleat Book of Spells,' a wand Willow had joked that every wizard, Harry Potter or not, should have, and a vial jokingly labeled 'Spriggan Blocker' all landed on the table. The pouch opened, and some rather impressive 4-100 sided 'jeweled' dice rolled around, as the box of chocolates thumped very heavily on the oak surface.

Alorria and Tabaea reached for the obvious wealth, a hopeful Tobas reached for the vial, and a thoughtful Karanissa simply read aloud he title of the book. Alorria spoke first.

"These are REAL…" she gasped, holding up a handful of the no-longer-glass dice. She turned and voiced only loud enough that those at the table, "Tobas! He could buy my father's kingdom a dozen times over with what's in this pouch! And that's at least three pounds of gold…mostly pure!"

Xander shrugged, "Hey, I didn't realize that leaving my world for this before the spell ran out. I'm wiling to share, but maybe we should keep this to ourselves."

Tobas looked at the vial, 'So if that's real, then I wonder…if we could somehow use this to prevent any more spriggans from appearing?"

"Um, can we do some knd of ingredient detection spell to figure it out?"

Karanissa cleared her throat as she turned the big book around towards the two wizards, "Maybe you should look in this?"

They stared at the title, then each other; Tobas asked, "Alexander, how many pages are in that?"

"Um, I don't know, I had five notebooks, one had two hundred and fifty pages, and the other four were smaller ones with fifty pages each, but only twenty or thirty pages had anything on them, mostly maps and stuff. So…four hundred and fifty pages…oh."

Xander reached nervously for the cover, and with a very slightly shaking hand opened it. The first twenty pages, both sides, were as he indicated, but as this was a magical book and not just a toy, they became small three-dimensional representations as needed to display the information. Which meant, as they quickly browsed, that as they were two-sided and magically preserved parchment (how else to maintain the effects?), that the other pages each contained two spells each, in small but excellent writing and detail with pictures, with eighteen hundred and forty spells, not limited to wizardry, but including those of the other specialties. The last spell was that of the Black Athame, and before that a spell to turn a person into their costume.

"Wow," Xander responded, "Another thing to keep to ourselves."

"Yeah…" agreed Karanissa and Tobas, the latter speaking up, "Though it would be interesting to try them if we could get the ingredients together without too much suspicion."

Karanissa nodded as the book was returned to its sack, "A spell a day would still take us five years to go through them all, and some we might find objectionable."

Xander caught Tabaea's eyes on him, "If that's the case, we might also consider bringing Alorria and Tabaea into the fold if they have the ability. Even without magical talent, the help with the ingredients, the preparations and dealing with the results would make them almost as important as the casters themselves. And it never hurts to have someone trustworthy double-check everything."

SHS Library, Same Time (Hmm…)

Buffy and Willow sat in the library looking glum as Angel and Giles looked over the still-real tapestry, but not able to get anything to pass within. With the help of the vampire, Giles began rolling it up.

"Giles?" Willow asked, bordering on panic, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to relocate this to my apartment, Willow," the librarian informed her, "We'll set it up in one of the spare rooms and periodically try sending something through. But we don't want anyone to accidentally end up in that world by leaving it here, do we?"

"No…"

"Then that is settled."

Buffy sighed and turned to her best female friend, perhaps her best friend period now, as the redhead watched the tapestry being rolled for transit.

"I'm sure he's fine wherever he is, Willow. Xander's lucky that way…he gets into trouble but somehow gets out of it. And you said yourself that the tapestry only works if the place on the other side looks exactly like the tapestry. That means he's wherever that is. Though how many dark rooms were those in those books you guys read?"

"There were about half a dozen, I think, maybe seven or eight, and most of them took place around the same time…" the girl thought, "And I can't think of too many dark rooms being mentioned. But I have the books at home. We could look."

Buffy smiled, "Research session tomorrow? Fun stuff in English instead of Watcher? I could go for that."

Giles at the mention of the word research, of course turned, then considered that of which they spoke. He was about to downplay the notion, but the fact that his hand was on a tapestry that by itself might be worth thousands, the potential magic aside, gave him pause. And between the harmlessness of any pursuit that resulted in Buffy reading, and his own now-developing curiosity, made him resolve participation.

"Willow, would it be possible to use that infernal machine there to look up those stories you mentioned and see if there is anything we can do that search thing to?"

"Oh, a search engine? Oh…we could look up dark rooms. Hmm, not too many people have stuff online like that, but maybe Ms. Calendar can help us scan the books and do—"

"Please stop, Willow," Giles winced, "I have every confidence you'll work it out … in the morning after a good night's sleep."

The next three days went by in a comfortable whirl of activity and acclimation, and Xander could see that Tabaea enjoyed being treated as a person and not as a thief. Xander had been introduced to Alorria's father as a journeyman wizard that would be studying and partnering up with Tobas. Tabaea was introduced as his assistant and distant kinswoman, as for her travel in any other capacity unmarried might cause an unnecessary wagging of tongues.

Xander's gold came in handy; the mounting list from a quick inventory of spell ingredients was tallying quite heavily, though mainly in quantity not necessarily in a particularly exotic mix. Still, a trip or two to Ethshar of the Spices would be necessary to fill it.

In the process of looking through the various spells, the three magic users of the group were rather amazed at the fact that spells from during and before the Great War were in the book, but only the main spells and not slight deviations were included. For instance, they'd found an old spell for making something red. The book did not seem to have the exact same spell for turning something blue instead. The one ingredient difference, known to different magicians, did not seem to warrant inclusion as a separate spell; Tobas theorized that this was because one of the first pages in the book was a succinct glossary and descriptor for ingredients, and that the Book itself was satisfied with that.

"A Book with a mind of its own?" Xander had voiced aloud, "How can you be certain?"

Karanissa shook her head in disagreement, "Um, perhaps, more like…the Book as created, isn't aware or animate, as much as it is…Definite."

The two male magicians nodded, causing Alorria to turn to Tabaea and whisper, "Any idea what that means?"

"I have no clue."

"Good. As long as I'm not the only one, its alright." The two young women smiled at each other, "Do you know how to sew? Because I could teach you…if we end up wintering in Tobas' castle, it would be good to know some skills that are actually useful." Tabaea knew the basics, but smiled in agreement; it wouldn't hurt to spend time with her new friend, who was a princess and a wizard's wife to boot.

Tobas' father-in-law sent for them; Xander vaguely remembered that Tobas and his wives would have left for his magical castle about this time, so he was curious when the young wizard asked him to accompany. Before the king, they both offered slight bows of respect.

"Wizards Tobas and Alexander, we seem to have raiders on our borders, and so close to harvest and winter, I'm hoping you'll be able to assist my guardsmen in repelling them."

Xander nodded, really trying to recall memories of this; instead, since Tobas had just left in the original timeline, the bandits had turned out to be a bigger force that had caused many deaths, and had attempted to takeover a couple independent duchies to the north before finally being suppressed by the coincidental but not coordinated actions of the other realms in the area. And something about suspicions of magic being used, but the more he integrated into this world it seemed the memories truly became his own and not just an available and immediate resource to use.

The two wizards were asked to be ready by the following morning, and given they both had flying carpets, it was hoped they could initially serve as scouts to better pin down the positions of the miscreants. When they got back to quarters, Xander told Tobas what little he remembered, and thought they might need a better plan than just flying over potential magic-using enemies.

Giles' Apartment, Afternoon of November 1st, 1997

"Nothing except maybe Tabaea's room really stands out," Willow sighed, "So either he's dead or something."

"Maybe there's something else that's not in the picture that's keeping the tapestry from working," Jenny Calendar suggested instead, "Even if he stopped being the wizard when he entered the other world, you'd think he'd at least have landed on her. Those attic rooms in old taverns were never very big."

"Indeed," Giles affirmed, "We must simply hope that young Mr. Harris is able to use his knowledge to his own advantage. Perhaps the magic of that world could return him."

And the group quieted in contemplation of that possibility.