Nynaeve’s snoring sounded like cloth ripping, but in the distance. Another yawn cracked Elayne’s jaws; she turned on her side and snuggled into the thin pillow. Reasons for dispatch. Sammael sat in Illian, and it was only a few hundred miles to the Illianer border, far too close with one of the Forsaken. The Light alone knew where the other Forsaken were, or what they were scheming. And Rand; they had to be concerned about Rand. He was not a danger, of course. He could never be that. But he was the key to everything; the world truly did bend itself around him now. She would bond him, somehow. Min. She and the embassy had to be more than halfway to Caemlyn by now. No snows to slow them. Another month yet for them to arrive. Not that she was concerned about Min going to Rand. What was the girl thinking of? Min. Sleep slid over her, and she slid into Tel’aran’rhiod . . .

. . . and found herself standing in the main street of silent night-shrouded Salidar, with the moon gibbous overhead. She could see quite clearly, more so than moonlight alone would have allowed. There was always a sense of light in the World of Dreams, from everywhere and nowhere, as if the darkness itself had some dark glow. But then, dreams were like that, and this was a dream, if not any ordinary dream.

The village here reflected the real Salidar, but in strange facsimile, more still than even night would make it. Every window was dark, and an air of emptiness hung heavily, as if no one occupied any of the buildings. Of course, no one did, here. A nightbird’s reedy cry was answered by another, then a third, and something made a faint rustling noise as it skittered away in the odd half-light, but the stables would be empty, and the picket lines outside the village, and the clearings where sheep and cattle had been gathered. Wild creatures there would be in plenty, but none domesticated. Details changed between one glance and the next; the thatch-roofed buildings remained the same, yet a water barrel would be in a slightly different place, or gone, a door that had stood open was closed. The more ephemeral a thing was in the real world, the more its position or condition might change, the less firm its reflection.

Occasionally motion flickered in the dark street, someone appearing and vanishing after a few steps, or even floating across the ground as if flying. Many people’s dreams could touch Tel’aran’rhiod, but only briefly. Which was lucky for them. Another property of the World of Dreams was that what happened to you here was still real when you woke. If you died here, you did not wake. A strange reflection. Only the heat was the same.