DISCLAIMER: I own neither Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor the Wheel of Time; they are the property of their respective authors, publishers, and probably a half-dozen other entities woven together in a more complicated weave than the Age Lace. If I could figure that out, I'd be a good IP lawyer. If I were the author, I'd be making you pay to read this. Unfortunately, looking around my rather Spartan apartment, I think it's safe to say that I'm neither, or there would be a little bit more Pottery Barn in this joint. Don't sic the Trollocs on me.

SPOILERS/BACKGROUND: All Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel through Season 4 (no secondary sources, however); all main books of the Wheel of Time through Knife of Dreams. Of course, the WoT-verse is sufficiently complex that I'd be hard pressed to get everything right.

CHAPTER 3:

WHAT CAN BE LEARNED IN DREAMS

Buffy stood in the tent again, though she did not remember even standing up. There was something different about the night. The candle was still out, but there was light, somehow, light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, as if everything in the tent, even the ground, had become just a thin skin over a luminescent mist. She looked down again. There was no sign of Faith. Her eyes widened.

"Faith? Faith?!" she darted to the tent flap and dared to peek out.

The camp was deserted. There was still coal on the nearest campfire that she could see, arranged so that it might even have been burning, but there was neither fire nor any sign of anyone tending it. Coal, not wood, she noted. Then again, they were in the middle of a desert. Tents marched as far as she could see in either direction, but there was no sign of anyone. No guards at her own tent flap. There had been close to thirty within a spear's throw of the tent when she had gone to bed, and more within arrowshot. She was certain of it. She was still hesitant to go outside, thinking that this might be some kind of trick to lure her into setting foot outside, with all that would mean for Willow. She swallowed uneasily. But where was Faith? How had they snuck in and spirited her away in the middle of the night? She must have been sleeping more soundly than she imagined; Slayers never slept very deeply. That was a good way to wake up dead. But for that matter, was it the middle of the night? What time was it? How long had she been asleep? It would have taken hours for the camp to become this deserted. Except that, but for the absence of people, the camp didn't look deserted at all. Everywhere she looked, there were signs of human activity. Nothing had been abandoned in a hurry. There was simply no one there.

Dammit, I want Willow here! I want Faith here! Where the hell is everybody? The thought echoed in her mind.

"B?" a voice behind her said, wonderingly.

Buffy wheeled around bringing her sword up. Her sword?! The blade riposted off Faith's own blade, the familiar broad, sinuously curved dagger that she had borne in the service of Mayor Wilkins, with a clang that sounded deafening in the dead silence that gripped the camp. Faith looked as surprised as Buffy herself was, and backed up a step as well.

Buffy's eyes goggled. Not only did Faith have a dagger she had not carried in years, she was clothed! Her sister Slayer wore tan desert camouflage fatigues, short combat boots, and a sandy-colored tank top. Definitely nothing the Aiel were likely to have on hand, not unless they shopped at Sunnydale Army-Navy Surplus. Then Buffy remembered her own sword, and she looked at it in wonder. It was the same slender blade she had carried against Angel all those years ago. She looked down at herself, and her eyes bulged even wider. She was clothed, too, and in the same Earth garments that had been cut away from her not so long ago! This was impossible.

"This is a trick," Buffy said flatly.

"Hey, I'm still me."

"Prove it."

"I slept with your boyfriend when I possessed your body." Buffy's eyes widened, both in anger at being reminded of that, and in surprise. Faith's clothes shifted as she spoke! One instant, she was standing there in Army surplus; the next, she was clad in more familiar close-fitting black leather pants, with a halter top that revealed far too much of her cleavage. Strappy black stilettos half an inch too high for modesty completed the ensemble.

Faith realized what had happened a moment later, and looked down at herself. She looked up and grinned wickedly. "This may be a trick, B, but I don't think it's theirs. For one thing, if they were gonna try something like this, they'd make it a little less crazy. This doesn't feel like anything they're doing. Buffy—I think we're doing this."

"Doing what?!" Buffy demanded acidly.

"Here, watch." Faith took a deep breath, and suddenly was standing there in the desert camouflage outfit again, only this time, there was a thick belt around her waist with a sheath for her dagger. She slipped the blade into it.

"Faith, you have no idea what you're doing," Buffy rasped.

A wicked glint entered Faith's eyes. "Really?"

Buffy looked down and gave a sharp squawk. She was naked again! She turned a venomous look on Faith. "Stop it!"

"Stop it yourself. All it takes is a thought. I'm dead serious."

Buffy forced her breathing to slow. I'm calm. I'm calm, and I'm clothed! As soon as the last thought crossed her mind, she was in fact clothed again, though not in what she had been a moment ago. She was barefoot, but clad in a sleek black tracksuit with three familiar white lines running up the side, and black boxing gloves encased her hands. She started at that, and Faith backed away, her sides splitting with laughter. Buffy concentrated again, harder this time, and this time found herself back in the familiar clothes she had worn here from Sunnydale. The sword was in her hands again as well. She worked to fix that image in her mind, determined that this was how she was going to stay, whatever Faith tried next. Wherever this was, this was far more alien than the world they had arrived at through the Portal Stone. Simple thoughts, apparently even unconscious ones, could literally change the world here.

"All right, how did you get here?" Buffy answered. "I woke up here and you weren't in the tent."

"Beats me," Faith said. "I just sort of found myself here. Kind felt like something was pulling me here, actually."

Buffy thought back on that a moment. She had been thinking about Faith, wanting her here. Here where thoughts could change reality before the eyes. "I think that was me," she said, and explained quickly.

Faith gave a knowing grin. "So you do actually want me here? B, never knew you cared so much."

"Oh forget it," Buffy grated. "Let me try again." She tried to think back on how she might have called Faith here. Willow. I want Willow here. Willow! I want Willow here, dammit! Now, dammit, now! Nothing happened.

"You all right?" Faith asked. "Look like you're about to have a seizure."

Buffy shook her head. "Trying to call Willow."

Faith's eyes went distant. Buffy wasn't sure if she were just thinking hard or if she were trying to do just what Buffy had. In either case, the younger Slayer shook her head after another moment. "Not a clue," she admitted. "Would be weird if only Slayers could come here, though."

Buffy's eyes bulged. "Would be weird?" We're in the middle of the ocean, but it might be a little soggy off the starboard bow.

"You know what I mean. Assuming someplace like this exists, which since we're here, I'm going with it does, it would be stupid to think only Slayers come here. You been outside yet?"

Buffy shook her head. "Just had a look. Don't like it—if those Aiel are here, and we go walking around outside ..." she let the thought trail off.

"But how do we get out of here if we don't go out there? Look, Buffy, if those Aiel wake up tomorrow and we're not in the tent—the tent in their world, not this one ..."

"What makes you think this is a different world?" Buffy asked.

Faith fixed her with a level look, and Buffy suddenly felt some kind of change start to come over her. This time, she fixed an image of herself in her mind, an image that she knew was her, and refused to let Faith do—whatever it was she was doing. She had no idea what she was doing, just being purely stubborn, as best she could tell, but it worked, whatever it was. She remained clothed, at any rate. Faith grinned as if she had scored a point anyway, however. "You get the picture," she said.

Buffy looked out the tent flap again. There was no way they could stay here. She hated to admit it, but Faith was right. Wherever this tent was, it was not the tent they were supposed to be in, and if the Aiel came in the morning and found them not in the tent they were supposed to be in, Willow was dead. It was that simple. Whatever else that defied all nature and reason might be going on, that was something simple enough for her to latch onto. She was not going to let her friend die.

She steeled herself. "All right, I'm going to try something." She fixed an image in her mind. A tall, fair-skinned woman with orange-red hair and a soft face, dressed in form-fitting but modest clothing and a ridiculous hat. She opened her eyes and looked to Faith to see if it had worked, and by her sister Slayer's expression, it had. A grin quickly spread across Faith's face.

"Nice trick—Vi," she added. A moment later, however, she was staring at Rona's face where Faith's had been a moment earlier.

"Don't assume that these disguises will hold forever," Buffy cautioned. "But hopefully they'll be better than nothing. Let's have a look around."

They left the tent. Buffy took a deep breath. There was no going back, now. If they were somehow still in the same world with the Aiel, the same world they had gone to sleep in, and they were seen exiting the tent, they had likely just sentenced Willow to death, disguises or no disguises. It didn't look like anyone was watching, though it felt like she was being watched from all sides.

"Split up," she told Faith-Rona. "I'm heading back toward the mountain, you head toward the city. Meet back here in three hours, if not before." Faith-Rona nodded wordlessly and slipped away, darting from tent to tent as if trying to avoid being seen even by people she did not even believe were there.

The city of tents was even more massive than it had seemed from the slopes of the mountain above; it had been dwarfed by the great stone city, what Daeric had named Rhuidean, but now that she was in it, it seemed to stretch on for as far as she could see. The city of tents could easily have held ten thousand, perhaps twelve or thirteen if they were sharing closer quarters. She noticed something else, as well. The tents farther away from the tent where she and Faith were kept seemed somehow less solid, as though the skin over the white mist beneath them were thinner, as though they might fade away if she looked away and looked back. At first she thought that might have something to do with how far she was from where she had entered this strange alternate reality, but then she realized that the ground was as solid as ever; it still seemed bathed in that dreamlike light that came from everywhere and nowhere, but it didn't give off the sense of being about to vanish that the tents did. The ground was happy right where it was. Buffy was thankful for that, at least.

She noticed other things missing, not just people. There was nothing that people would leave lying about, either. No weapons. No tools. No ropes other than those supporting the tents. No stacks of coal for the fires. No food. It was as if the Aiel had left with quite literally everything that was not tied down.

At length, she reached the farthest of the tents, and stood looking across the short desert plain and the beginning of the long slopes back up the mountain of Chaendaer, where the Portal Stone lay. There was no way she would have time to get back up there before sunrise, but she fixed the memory of the location in her mind. She turned to look back out over the city of tents, with the great, scarred stone city of Rhuidean in the background. The entire landscape was bathed in light as bright as that of the full moon, and since the ground at this edge of the camp was a little higher than in the center, she was able to look out over a great deal of the tent city. Twelve thousand, she revised her guess. Maybe fourteen or fifteen if packed tightly.

She picked out the tent where she had been kept; it was taller than most of the others, she remembered, and wider, with a short, clear space around it, isolating it. Then her eyes swept across the tents again. There were at least three other tall tents like that, set apart from the others. There! She thought quickly, fastening her eyes on the one closest to the one where she had been held. Let's check that out. She took a step ...

The land blurred, and suddenly, Buffy found herself back in the heart of the city of tents, taking one step out into the clearing around a high, walled tent that could have been the twin of her own. It was not hers, but she could only tell that because the arrangement of the other tents surrounding it was slightly different, and there was just a hair less open space between the nearest smaller tents and this large tent as there was around her own. She was so startled that she lost her hold on her disguise for a moment, and the sword appeared in her hand again. She recovered quickly, however, and resumed the shape of Vi, letting the sword vanish. She stayed hidden behind one of the smaller tents for an instant, then stepped forward hesitantly. What had just happened? She had just taken just a single step. She shook her head in wonder. Nothing about this world made any sense. It was unreal. It was like ...

A dream.

She clapped a hand to her forehead, amazed that she hadn't seen it before now. She had woken up in the same tent where she had been the moment she had gone to sleep. Sleep. It explained too much not to be the answer. The mysterious unlight. The shifting landscape. The clothes from home, and vanishing objects. She was asleep, and this was somehow a dream, and yet not a dream. A not-quite-dream that she was somehow sharing with Faith, that she had somehow pulled Faith into. Slayers had powerful dreams, Giles had once said. Prophetic dreams had been one of the earliest powers she had developed, before she even fully knew what she was becoming as the Slayer.

She checked the tent, but as expected, found it as empty as the rest of the massive camp. There was no thought in her mind of wasting more time checking the others. She could remember where they were in relation to where her own tent was. That was the best she was probably going to be able to do in this place; she could have looked right at where Willow's body was sleeping and seen nothing. Now she had to find Faith. She tried once again calling for Faith, bringing Faith to her, the way she had before, but nothing happened this time. She was still alone amid the tents.

There was something else she could do, however, if she could make it work. She had sent Faith in the direction of the city. From where Buffy stood, if she backed up to give herself enough room to look to the east, she could see the top of one of the palaces. The view from up there would be as good as she could ask. She took another step, and the world blurred again.

----------------------

Faith darted from tent to tent, seeing not the slightest sign of life. There were coal campfires that could have been burning but somehow weren't, even though they looked like someone had been tending them, maybe even only minutes earlier. She reached the edge of the ruined city and looked back. The tent where she and Buffy had been kept must have been fairly close to the edge of the city. She didn't think she had been walking for any more than fifteen minutes. It was a good forty-five to the other side, if her guess meant anything.

It was either continue into the city or head back among the tents. Could these Aiel have taken Willow into the city? Well, of course they could have, they could have taken her anywhere, but would they have? There was no way to know. She could wander for days in that city and not find anything, especially with no people to see. Unsure, she decided to work her way south along the border of the tent city and the stone city, towards the riven lake against the southern valley wall.

It didn't take her long to come to the conclusion that if these Aiel had built the stone city, she would eat sand. Every building was a palace many stories high, no two alike, spires and columns and arches and towers of twisting, marbled, or polished stone, most seeming to have been carved of a single piece rather than built. At the crowns, the opened in curving blossoms, or arched inward to sweeping domes, or fanned out into smaller towers on the heights, or were simply carved in the likenesses of mythical creatures or heroes. Even showing the unmistakable scars of battle, very possibly recent, the city was beautiful. It would have taken human masons centuries to build, and even if these Aiel could lift blocks of stone the way they had lifted Willow off that mattress, it would have taken many years to build something like this. In addition, if they had, there would be no reason for them to be living in a temporary city of tents. Come to think of it, even if they hadn't, there was no reason for them to be living in that tent city. Maybe many had been forced to by the battle, whatever it had been. There were signs of reconstruction here and there, holes in palaces that had been patched with considerably less skill than that of the original builders.

She reached the lake. She wasn't sure what she expected to find here, but there was nothing exceptional about it, save that it was probably the biggest body of water in this damned desert. No docks, either. Apparently the desert folk weren't much for sailing. Then again, she would have expected to see some provision there for fishing, too. Did they not eat fish for some reason? Were there no fish in the lake? Was the water poisonous somehow? She doubted that. No one would have put a city on the edge of a toxic lake. Unless they knew some way to remove the poison, she thought after a moment, and it was either that or no water at all. Ugh. Too much thinking.

"Enjoying the view, Sharan?" a cold voice demanded next to her.

She spun to see Alsera standing not ten feet from her. How had the woman snuck up on her? The woman had to have crossed twenty paces of open ground unseen. She hoped her disguise held, that the woman couldn't see through it. That was all the time she had to wonder, however, before she felt some kind of force acting on her, and felt her clothes just begin to vanish. Just for an instant, then Faith's self-preservation instinct took over. No! she shouted into the silence of her mind. You are not going to change me! The form of Rona solidified again, and her clothes with it. Alsera's eyes widened imperceptibly.

"Interesting," Alsera continued icily. Suddenly, with no warning, Nandrys and Dainya and the other Wise One were alongside her, and another four besides; there was no flash or anything else to announce their arrival, one minute they were simply not there, and the next, they were. Faith felt something wrap around her wrists, and suddenly her arms were bound behind her again.

No! She thought desperately again, and her arms were suddenly free, but more bindings came. I have to get away! MOVE! The frenzied thought took her, and for an instant it felt like she were pulling away, into someplace else, though where that might be, she had no idea, but it was as though an unseen, iron force blocked the way; it gave slightly, but then tightened and pulled her back to the lakeshore.

Suddenly, she was no longer on the lakeshore. She was in the lake. She was so surprised that she nearly tried to breathe in a mouthful of the water before she had time to steel herself. No! The thought surged through her consciousness again, this time given power by more than fear of being imprisoned again. The water vanished, and she was back on the lakeshore. But now the ground beneath her was no longer solid; she was sinking into it. Quicksand. She grabbed up again, and a rope was there for her, and as she grabbed it, it lifted her from the sand. Then the rope was cut, but she forced herself to think of the rock surface, not quicksand, rock, and she fell back onto solid stone. She was growing desperate, however. There was no way she could win this, and the Wise Ones seemed to have some way to keep her from getting away, and she had no idea how she had even attempted to get away in the first place. She tried throwing herself backward in her mind again, but again ran into that unseen force. Then she felt something harder, more solid, than that, and realize that she had backed into a stone pillar that wasn't there before. Bands of pure shadow reached out from around it and folded around her, pulling her fast back against the pillar. The cords were like ice where they touched her skin, numbing her senses. One snaked around her head, dulling her thoughts. That was enough to make the difference. A heartbeat later, her clothing vanished again, and her scream was cut off as a wad of cloth suddenly filled her mouth. A single tear burst from the corners of her eye.

"Rona!" a voice suddenly called. The Wise Ones turned as one in the direction of the tents, as Buffy-Vi suddenly appeared at the edge of the closest row, but a moment later, they, too, were seized from behind. A great net of stout cord suddenly surrounded the entire group, the cord leading away from it fastened to something in the distance out over the water behind the Wise Ones, which they had turned away from to look at Buffy-Vi. There was a great heave on the cord, and the Wise Ones were seized away into the night.

Buffy-Vi bounded forward, the pillar and bindings dissolving around Faith as she did. "It's a dream, Rona, this is a dream! Wake up!" And with that, Buffy hauled back and delivered a stinging slap across Faith's cheek. Faith threw herself backward the way she had a moment earlier; the force that had barred her way was still there, but weaker, as if it were alive and suddenly hesitant or off-balance. For some reason, it felt like Buffy's slap sent her hurtling into it, and though she flinched against the impact, which stung as though she had belly-flopped into the surface of a dark, vertical lake, she was suddenly through, and darkness enveloped her.

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Buffy's breath caught as Faith vanished. It worked. It better have worked. She thought it must have, or Faith would likely still be here. Plus there was that sense of Faith falling backward, not entirely unlike the feeling she had gotten when Dawn had fallen backward into the real world, back to California. That was encouraging, she hoped. Now there was only the matter of getting out of here herself.

No sooner had the thought come to her than the eight Wise Ones were all back on the lakeshore as if they had never been gone; not a one was even wet. Buffy threw herself sideways before they could try doing to her what they had done to Faith. As quick as that, she was atop the roof of the nearest palace, but she did not stop there. Covering hundreds of yards at a stride, she dove into the city. It was the only place she could think of that might have enough cover to hide. Back and forth she wove, until her last leap carried her from a high balcony on one side of what looked to be the city's central square to the inside of a small second-floor window, barely large enough to fit through, lower on the same building. She hoped that she had lost them. If they could follow her through twenty jumps, however, they could follow her through a hundred.

She cast her eyes across the square. Her eyes were drawn immediately to the great tree in the center, ringed by a small forest of translucent, silvery crystal columns. It not merely the sheer size of the tree that drew her gaze, though that was commanding enough. Somehow, the tree seemed more solid here than even the land itself, and in fact, in this mysterious dreamworld, there was little sign of the battle damage the tree had suffered in the waking world; limbs that had been blackened or burned away entirely spread from the mighty trunk here, hale and untouched, distinctive trefoil leaves blossoming from a hundred smaller branches at the end.

She turned away from the tree, and something else caught her eye, something that should have been too small to be here from everything she had just seen. There were items small enough to be carried lying scattered around the square. There did not seem to be any organization to their placement, and they were as different from one another as sparrows from apples, but they were there. A wide, thin bracelet of jade set with silver stones lay not ten paces from the foot of the building where Buffy hid. Several paces beyond that lay what looked to be a rope necklace of soft, thin golden strands. Most of the items she could see were jewelry, but many were not. There were carved figurines, slender rods and wands, ornamental knives, and more. Nearly at the limit of her vision to her left, she saw a delicate wire globe somewhat smaller than a bowling ball. Perhaps the same distance to her right, a bronze crozier had been embedded in the ground at a slight angle.

She would have gazed longer, but a slight movement signaled the arrival of one of the Wise Ones near the middle of the square, just on the near side of the forest of glass columns in front of the great tree. Buffy tensed, watching, and a moment later, Dainya appeared beside the first Wise One. There was nothing in particular to suggest that the pair had seen her, but something put her instantly on her guard. She had to get out of here. The Wise Ones were here. They knew how to get here. That meant there was a way out. She had basically knocked Faith out of this dream. Could she do the same to herself? Maybe without clocking herself across the mouth?

Suddenly, something grabbed her by the shoulders, and she fought back a cry. Who had come up on ...

"Gyuuuh!" she gasped as she sat bolt upright on her mattress, then rolled and twisted to get away from whatever had gripped her. The desert air was cold against her bare skin. She realized she was naked once more, and the air was not all that cold, but for some reason, the dreamworld had seemed to lack all temperature, and this was somehow cool by comparison. Goosebumps prickled up and down her skin.

"Easy!" Faith's voice hissed, and Buffy suddenly understood; her sister Slayer had shaken her awake. Somehow she had felt that in the dreamworld. She looked up to see Faith hanging lightly by just her hands, high on the center pole of the tent. How she had managed to jump up there in the dark without bringing the whole tent crashing down, Buffy would never know. It had probably saved Faith a second whack on the jaw, however.

"Well that was weird," Buffy said.

"You're telling me," Faith answered. "And I've got one more bit of weirdness for you. I think your bruises follow you out of there."

"What?"

"That lick you gave me? I think I've got a handprint on my cheek right now. Not just a memory, B. It's there. If we end up back there somehow, don't get killed."

Buffy's blood froze. "Nightmares can kill you here? Faith, if that's the case, I'm in real trouble. Almost all my dreams are nightmares."

"Me too," Faith replied resignedly. "And the others ... well, I hope you can't get pregnant from dreams here, either." Buffy's face flushed, and a throaty laugh escaped Faith's lips before fading into an uncomfortable silence.

Buffy groaned. "We can't just not sleep. I feel like I didn't sleep a wink. I'm still feeling that fighting. And the march."

"Same," Faith sighed. "I'm going to chance it again, B. No way not to."

"And if you wake up in that dreamworld again?"

"Then this time, I stay in this tent and just go straight to sleep there, too. Maybe I'll wake up in a dream inside a dream and go to sleep in that one, too."

Buffy sighed. She was going to end up sleeping sometime tonight whether she wanted to or not. Even she had her limits. She could feel her heart still racing, but it was already slowing, and her eyelids were drooping. She shrugged in resignation. "See you there," she murmured, rolling back onto the mattress.

She sat up. That cursed dream-light was back. She was back. She looked around for Faith, and saw the raven-haired Slayer already there. She suppressed a smile. The tent was still there, and Faith was there, but in the place of the rough mattress where Faith had been sleeping, the ambient light revealed that Faith had done a little redecorating. She was stretched out on a small, sturdy wooden bed with a feather mattress and down pillows. Hanging from one post of the bed by Faith's head was the belt she had worn in the dream earlier, with her dagger in its sheath. A plush comforter was drawn up around her, but she had the distinct impression that her sister Slayer was still naked underneath. Buffy looked down at herself and smiled. She was wearing her favorite teddy-bear pajamas.

Buffy couldn't stomach a grimace. If Faith was right, and anything that hurt you here hurt you in the waking world, then it was all the more dangerous as going to sleep in the waking world—more, since someone could be upon you here from miles away in an eyeblink. Nevertheless, there was no help for it. She wasn't in the mood to be as imaginative as Faith; the one thing she could think of most clearly was her own little bed from her bedroom back in Sunnydale. A Sunnydale which didn't even exist anymore, she reflected. The bed appeared readily enough, however. She sprawled out on the mattress, asleep before she even had time to pull the covers about her.

-----------------------

Alsera peeled back the tent flap to peer at the two sleeping women, their figures clearly illuminated in the soft light that permeated Tel'aran'rhiod, despite the fact that the moon was a waning crescent and there were no candles lit within the tent. They were there. Sleeping soundly. Sleeping! In Tel'aran'rhiod! She had never heard of the like. It should not even be possible. Falling asleep in the World of Dreams sent one immediately back to one's own body, yet here the two strange warriors were, sound asleep, one on a bed that she doubted any wetlander crafter had ever built. Brass! Wood was the greater luxury, and yet it came in plenty in the wetlands, and was easier to work besides. And those nightclothes, whatever they were ... those creatures were hardly threatening, yet utterly foreign.

She stepped aside so that the other women with her could see, then brought herself to the Wise Ones' tent, half a mile away. The others were only half a step behind her. There were thirteen here, now, thirteen of the most senior Wise Ones to have remained in the Waste when the spears followed the Car'a'carn to the wetlands. She found herself wishing that Bruan was here, though he had his obligations, and she hers.

"Alsera, this is madness. The Car'a'carn himself did not change so much I thought I knew." That was Nandrys, and she seemed to speak for more than herself.

"Those two would have to be here in the flesh to be here any more strongly."

"How did they survive so long in Tel'aran'rhiod if they sleep here? They should be dead in their beds a hundred times over."

"I think," Alsera began softly, but the others quieted at her words. She was the only Wise One of a clan chief present, and had the better of all the others here by twenty years. "I think that was their first time in the World of Dreams."

A stunned silence greeted her, though by the expression on one or two of the older faces present, she saw that she had not been alone in thinking that, merely alone in voicing it. She continued, "they were strong, strong beyond anything save what Egwene al'Vere might become one day, but they were clumsy, too. They acted like wild horses. Everything they did was through sheer strength of will, not training. Not skill. That was the clumsiest attempt to breach a barrier I've ever seen; that she came close to succeeding terrifies me. And if they thought of it, I'm sure they would not have taken the forms of other women but remained in clothes that could only come from this California of theirs."

"So you believe that tale?"

"I see no reason not to. Amys and Melaine tell me that they know of nothing in the wetlands like these two. These three, I should say. None of the Aes Sedai sworn to the Car'a'carn have heard of the like, either. That leaves Shara, Seanchan, the Sea Folk, or the Shadow."

"I will not believe the first three," Kendera said pointedly, "but I remain unconvinced of the fourth. I know nothing of other worlds, but in this one, none but the Shadowsouled could know the workings of the Portal Stones."

"I do not believe Willow Rosenberg, at least, is of the Shadow," Alsera said flatly.

"It is not the way of any servant of the Shadow to sacrifice for another," Nandrys added, her voice iron. "Those two would have laid down their lives for Willow Rosenberg. They gave up their freedom rather than see her hurt. They act like Warders."

"Who can say all the tricks of the Shadow?"

"Even if they are from this California, they may be too dangerous to let live."

Alsera turned to the woman who had spoken. Caithryn of the Moshien Shaido, recently returned to Rhuidean with the news that the entire Shaido clan was returning to the Three-fold Land, those that had survived the disastrous leadership of Sevanna. She was a competent dreamwalker, but was one of the two Wise Ones gathered here who could not channel, as Sevanna had kept all of the Shaido Wise Ones who could close to her, and they had all been sent deep into the wetlands by some trick of the Power. Caithryn's party had somehow emerged from the scattering still reasonably close to the Jangai Pass, and she had held them together. Alsera suspected that Caithryn had quietly arranged to avoid any news from Sevanna reaching those she had been left with in the lands of the treekillers, so that she could avoid hearing any summons from Sevanna to gather in faraway Altara, where the main body of the Shaido had ultimately gone soft in the lavish comforts of the wetlands and been defeated. She had managed to glean news of Sevanna's overthrow and the order to return to the Three-fold Land quickly enough, however.

Caithryn met Alsera's gaze levelly. "If that was their first hour in Tel'aran'rhiod," she continued, "do we dare let them learn for even another week? We have to assume that they will be here every night, if they can enter it so easily, so strongly, not even knowing what they do."

There was an uneasy silence. Caithryn talked of killing in cold blood so casually; that was seldom done, even to wetlanders who crossed into the Three-fold Land knowing full well that they were not welcome. Alsera's mouth twisted. Shaido. There were no laws about those who came by Portal Stone. It had never happened, as far as Alsera could remember, and like all the others here, she remembered lifetimes that were not even her own, memories she had carried with her since walking through the glass columns surrounding Avendesora in her final test to become a Wise One.

"No," she said. The faces in the tent turned to her again. "Their strength is their weakness. Strong as they are in the dream, if they have to sleep here, then they are vulnerable here. I will not order them killed in cold blood for the mere sin of being who they are. Or what they are." She sighed. "I will not tell them, but I believe them." Sightblinder himself could not have come up with three women so foreign, and had he meant to lull them into complacency, he would not have made them so obviously dangerous, nor sent them straight to the heights of Chaendaer. In addition, while those two warriors might not dream as others did, young Willow Rosenberg's dreams seemed unfeigned, dreams of loss and confusion and other things one would expect in someone torn unexpectedly away from their home, and she had seen glimpses in the girl's dreams of a land unlike any she had ever seen or heard tell of, including her own memories of her deepest ancestors from the end of the Age of Legends.

The faces of the women gathered in the tent told her that not all believed, but most did. Perhaps three still doubted. Well, that could be healthy. Doubt had its place in the world. In any world. Then again, even those who believed clearly were divided about what to do; Caithryn, to all appearances, believed, but would send the newcomers to their deaths nevertheless.

"And if you are wrong?" Caithryn asked in a forceful whisper, as if reading her thoughts.

"Then we will deal with them as we must."

Author's Notes: Thanks again to everyone who reviewed! You guys are amazing, which is always good to see. (Heck, for a WoT crossover, I'm glad to see you even exist! Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Or would, if I did warm and fuzzy. Somewhat OOC for me.)

ellf: I don't generally spoil things, but I will say emphatically that Shai'tan will not turn out to be the First. The First was a pretty boring Big Bad (never mind a budget cut, since it let the writers write "bad guy" parts for actors they'd already hired ...). Shai'tan is the genuine article. In addition, Shai'tan is locked in Shayol Ghul, completely beyond this or any world—would make it hard to be in California.

Iceflame55: The First Slayer, you say? Hmm ... patience. ;-)

Tombadgerlock: Wackiness!

asgwerth: The two battles were the one with the Turok-han and the one with the Aiel. Willow told the Wise Ones about the battle with the Turok-han, and the Slayers were talking about it when they thought they were alone.

Joe: If you've read the first ten books, you only have one main story book and two prequel books to go to get caught up, which (proportionally) isn't that much. Plus there's only one main story book left to be released (though I hear it might be the longest yet in the series ...) I'll also say, just on personal opinion, that books 9 and 10 were two of the worst in the series, while 11 was one of the best.

Nonibait: Glad I was able to attract your attention!

Dragonsdaughter1: The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills ... but, erm, ahem ahem ...

Allen Pitt: I definitely agree that the prophetic dreams of the Slayers (and possibly other dream-oriented powers ... the First Slayer seemed to have plenty, at least) never got the kind of airtime they should have, especially considering how important they were in the very first episode of the series. I also agree with the rule of No Naked Giles.

BlueDove: Maybe we just need something to get you interested again!

ColPinky: I'll certainly try. Thanks for the reviews on both chapters so far!

JezaEiri: There are definitely lots of interesting possible encounters out there, and I'll never be able to write them all unless I make this thing as long as the Wheel of Time itself. (Not very likely.) Rand has made himself scarce at the end of Book 11, so finding him might be problematic. Some of the other characters, however, just can't seem to help being in the center of events whether they want to be or not ...

Coming Soon: Chapter 4, "The Harsh Light of Day." Buffy, Willow, and Faith were quite the surprise to the people of this world. However, this world has a few more surprises in store for the California crew, too ... of course, there's an off chance that they could be good surprises, right?

LOL.

Sneak Preview: "Up spears! Wake and up spears!" the shouts rang out from the Aiel gathered around the fire, and more from nearby. The sound of running boots filled the night, and Buffy realized that every face nearby other than hers and Faith's was suddenly veiled. A brazen horn sounded somewhere out among the tents. Their attackers commanded Buffy's attention more than anything else, however. Her eyes bulged.