Don Juan and I sat in silence. I had run out of questions, and he seemedto have said to me all that was pertinent. It could not have been more thanseven o'clock, but the plaza was unusually deserted. It was a warm night. Inthe evenings in that town, people usually meandered around the plaza until tenor eleven.

I took a moment to reconsider what was happening to me. My time with donJuan was coming to an end. He and his party were going to fulfill thesorcerers' dream of leaving this world and entering into inconceivabledimensions. On the basis of my limited success in dreaming, I believed thattheir claims were not illusory but extremely sober, although contrary toreason. They were seeking to perceive the unknown, and they had made it.

Don Juan was right in saying that, by inducing a systematic displacementof the assemblage point, dreaming liberates perception, enlarging the scope ofwhat can be perceived. For the sorcerers of his party, dreaming had not onlyopened the doors of other perceivable worlds but prepared them for enteringinto those realms in full awareness. Dreaming, for them, had become ineffable,unprecedented, something whose nature and scope could only be alluded to, aswhen don Juan said that it is the gateway to the light and to the darkness ofthe universe.

There was only one thing pending for them my encounter with the deathdefier. I regretted that don Juan had not given me notice so that I couldprepare myself better. But he was a nagual who did everything of importance onthe spur of the moment, without any warning.

For a moment, I seemed to be doing fine, sitting with don Juan in thatpark, waiting for things to develop. But then my emotional stability suffered adownward swing and, in the twinkling of an eye, I was in the midst of a darkdespair. I was assailed by petty considerations about my safety, my goals, myhopes in the world, my worries. Upon examination, however, I had to admit thatperhaps the only true worry I had was about my three cohorts in don Juan'sworld. Yet, if I thought it out, even that was no real worry to me. Don Juanhad taught them to be the kind of sorceresses who always knew what to do, and,most important, he had prepared them always to know what to do with what theyknew.

Having had all the possible worldly reasons for feeling anguish strippedoff me a long time ago, all I had been left with was concern for myself. And Igave myself to it shamelessly. One last indulging for the road the fear ofdying at the hands of the death defier. I became so afraid that I got sick tomy stomach. I tried to apologize, but don Juan laughed.

"You're not in any way unique at barfing out of fear," he said."When I met the death defier, I wet my pants. Believe me."

I waited in silence for a long, unbearable moment. "Are youready?" he asked. I said yes. And he added, standing up, "Let's gothen and find out how you are going to stand up in the firing line."

He led the way back to the church. To the best of my ability, all Iremember of that walk, to this day, is that he had to drag me bodily the wholeway. I do not remember arriving at the church or entering it. The next thing Iknew, I was kneeling on a long, worn-out wooden pew next to the woman I hadseen earlier. She was smiling at me. Desperately, I looked around, trying tospot don Juan, but he was nowhere in sight. I would have flown like a bat out ofhell had the woman not restrained me by grabbing my arm.

"Why should you be so afraid of poor little me?" the woman askedme in English.

I stayed glued to the spot where I was kneeling. What had taken meentirely and instantaneously was her voice. I cannot describe what it was aboutits raspy sound that called out the most recondite memories in me. It was as ifI had always known that voice.

I remained there immobile, mesmerized by that sound. She asked mesomething else in English, but I could not make out what she was saying. Shesmiled at me, knowingly. "It's all right," she whispered in Spanish.She was kneeling to my right. "I understand real fear. I live withit."

I was about to talk to her when I heard the emissary's voice in my ear."It's the voice of Hermelinda, your wet nurse," it said. The onlything I had ever known about Hermelinda was the story I was told of her beingaccidentally killed by a runaway truck. That the woman's voice would stir suchdeep, old memories was shocking to me. I experienced a momentary agonizinganxiety.

"I am your wet nurse!" the woman exclaimed softly. "Howextraordinary! Do you want my breast?" Laughter convulsed her body.

I made a supreme effort to remain calm, yet I knew that I was quicklylosing ground and in no time at all was going to take leave of my senses.

"Don't mind my joking," the woman said in a low voice. "Thetruth is that I like you very much. You are bustling with energy. And we aregoing to get along fine."

Two older men knelt down right in front of us. One of them turnedcuriously to look at us. She paid no attention to him and kept on whispering inmy ear.

"Let me hold your hand," she pleaded. But her plea was like acommand. I surrendered my hand to her, unable to say no. "Thank you. Thankyou for your confidence and your trust in me," she whispered.

The sound of her voice was driving me mad. Its raspiness was so exotic, soutterly feminine. Not under any circumstances would I have taken it for a man'svoice laboring to sound womanly. It was a raspy voice, but not a throaty orharsh-sounding one. It was more like the sound of bare feet softly walking ongravel.

I made a tremendous effort to break an invisible sheet of energy thatseemed to have enveloped me. I thought I succeeded. I stood up, ready to leave,and I would have had not the woman also stood up and whispered in my ear,"Don't run away. There is so much I have to tell you."

I automatically sat down, stopped by curiosity. Strangely, my anxiety wassuddenly gone, and so was my fear. I even had enough presence to ask the woman,"Are you really a woman?"

She chuckled softly, like a young girl. Then she voiced a convolutedsentence. "If you dare to think that I would transform myself into afearsome man and cause you harm, you are gravely mistaken," she said,accentuating even more that strange, mesmeric voice. "You are mybenefactor. I am your servant, as I have been the servant of all the nagualswho preceded you."

Gathering all the energy I could, I spoke my mind to her. "You arewelcome to my energy," I said. "It's a gift from me to you, but Idon't want any gifts of power from you. And I really mean this."

"I can't take your energy for free," she whispered. "I payfor what I get, that's the deal. It's foolish to give your energy forfree."

"I've been a fool all my life. Believe me," I said. "I cansurely afford to make you a gift. I have no problem with it. You need theenergy, take it. But I don't need to be saddled with unnecessaries. I havenothing and I love it."

"Perhaps," she said pensively.

Aggressively, I asked her whether she meant that perhaps she would take myenergy or that she did not believe I had nothing and loved it.

She giggled with delight and said that she might take my energy since Iwas so generously offering it but that she had to make a payment. She had togive me a thing of similar value.

As I heard her speak, I became aware that she spoke Spanish with a mostextravagant foreign accent. She added an extra phoneme to the middle syllableof every word. Never in my life had I heard anyone speak like that.

"Your accent is quite extraordinary," I said. "Where is itfrom?"

"From nearly eternity," she said and sighed.

We had begun to connect. I understood why she sighed. She was the closestthing to permanent, while I was temporary. That was my advantage. The deathdefier had worked herself into a corner, and I was free.

I examined her closely. She seemed to be between thirty-five and fortyyears old. She was a dark, thoroughly Indian woman, almost husky, but not fator even hefty. I could see that the skin of her forearms and hands was smooth,the muscles, firm and youthful. I judged that she was five feet, six or seveninches tall. She wore a long dress, a black shawl, and guaraches. In herkneeling position, I could also see her smooth heels and part of her powerfulcalves. Her midsection was lean. She had big breasts that she could not orperhaps did not want to hide under her shawl. Her hair was jet black and tiedin a long braid. She was not beautiful, but she was not homely either. Herfeatures were in no way outstanding. I felt that she could not possibly haveattracted anybody's attention, except for her eyes, which she kept low, hiddenbeneath downcast eyelids. Her eyes were magnificent, clear, peaceful. Apartfrom don Juan's, I had never seen eyes more brilliant, more alive.

Her eyes put me completely at ease. Eyes like that could not bemalevolent. I had a surge of trust and optimism and the feeling that I hadknown her all my life. But I was also very conscious of something else myemotional instability. It had always plagued me in don Juan's world, forcing meto be like a yo-yo. I had moments of total trust and insight only to befollowed by abject doubts and distrust. This event was not going to bedifferent. My suspicious mind suddenly came up with the warning thought that Iwas falling under the woman's spell.

"You learned Spanish late in life, didn't you?" I said, just toget out from under my thoughts and to avoid her reading them.

"Only yesterday," she retorted and broke into a crystallinelaughter, her small, strangely white teeth, shining like a row of pearls.

People turned to look at us. I lowered my forehead as if in deep prayer.The woman moved closer to me.

"Is there a place where we could talk?" I asked.

"We are talking here," she said. "I have talked here withall the naguals of your line. If you whisper, no one will know we aretalking."

I was dying to ask her about her age. But a sobering memory came to myrescue. I remembered a friend of mine who for years had been setting up allkinds of traps to make me confess my age to him. I detested his petty concern,and now I was about to engage in the same behavior. I dropped it instantly. Iwanted to tell her about it, just to keep the conversation going. She seemed toknow what was going through my mind. She squeezed my arm in a friendly gesture,as if to say that we had shared a thought.

"Instead of giving me a gift, can you tell me something that wouldhelp me in my way?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "No," she whispered. "We are extremelydifferent. More different than I believed possible."

She got up and slid sideways out of the pew. She deftly genuflected as shefaced the main altar. She crossed herself and signaled me to follow her to alarge side altar to our left.

We knelt in front of a life-size crucifix. Before I had time to sayanything, she spoke. "I've been alive for a very, very long time,"she said. "The reason I have had this long life is that I control theshifts and movements of my assemblage point. Also, I don't stay here in yourworld too long. I have to save the energy I get from the naguals of yourline."

"What is it like to exist in other worlds?" I asked.

"It's like in your dreaming, except that I have more mobility. And Ican stay longer anywhere I want. Just like if you would stay as long as youwanted in any of your dreams."

"When you are in this world, are you pinned down to this areaalone?"

"No. I go everywhere I want."

"Do you always go as a woman?"

"I've been a woman longer than a man. Definitely, I like it muchbetter. I think I've nearly forgotten how to be a man. I am all female!"

She took my hand and made me touch her crotch. My heart was pounding in mythroat. She was indeed a female.

"I can't just take your energy," she said, changing the subject."We have to strike another kind of agreement."

Another wave of mundane reasoning hit me then. I wanted to ask her whereshe lived when she was in this world. I did not need to voice my question toget an answer.

"You're much, much younger than I," she said, "and youalready have difficulty telling people where you live. And even if you takethem to the house you own or pay rent on, that's not where you live."

"There are so many things I want to ask you, but all I do is thinkstupid thoughts," I said.

"You don't need to ask me anything," she went on. "Youalready know what I know. All you needed was a jolt in order to claim what youalready know. I am giving you that jolt."

Not only did I think stupid thoughts but I was in a state of such suggestibilitythat no sooner had she finished saying that I knew what she knew than I felt Iknew everything, and I no longer needed to ask any more questions. Laughingly,I told her about my gullibility.

"You're not gullible," she assured me with authority. "Youknow everything, because you're now totally in the second attention. Lookaround!"

For a moment, I could not focus my sight. It was exactly as if water hadgotten into my eyes. When I arranged my view, I knew that something portentoushad happened. The church was different, darker, more ominous, and somehowharder. I stood up and took a couple of steps toward the nave. What caught myeye were the pews; they were made not out of lumber but out of thin, twistedpoles. These were homemade pews, set inside a magnificent stone building. Also,the light in the church was different. It was yellowish, and its dim glow castthe blackest shadows I had ever seen. It came from the candles of the manyaltars. I had an insight about how well candlelight mixed with the massivestone walls and ornaments of a colonial church.

The woman was staring at me; the brightness of her eyes was mostremarkable. I knew then that I was dreaming and she was directing the dream.But I was not afraid of her or of the dream.

I moved away from the side altar and looked again at the nave of thechurch. There were people kneeling in prayer there.

Lots of them, strangely small, dark, hard people. I could see their bowedheads all the way to the foot of the main altar. The ones who were close to mestared at me, obviously, in disapproval. I was gaping at them and at everythingelse. I could not hear any noise, though. People moved, but there was no sound.

"I can't hear anything," I said to the woman, and my voiceboomed, echoing as if the church were a hollow shell.

Nearly all the heads turned to look at me. The woman pulled me back intothe darkness of the side altar.

"You will hear if you don't listen with your ears," she said."Listen with your dreaming attention."

It appeared that all I needed was her insinuation. I was suddenly floodedby the droning sound of a multitude in prayer. I was instantly swept up by it.I found it the most exquisite sound I had ever heard. I wanted to rave about itto the woman, but she was not by my side. I looked for her. She had nearlyreached the door. She turned there to signal me to follow her. I caught up withher at the portico. The streetlights were gone. The only illumination wasmoonlight. The facade of the church was also different; it was unfinished. Squareblocks of limestone lay everywhere. There were no houses or buildings aroundthe church. In the moonlight the scene was eerie.

"Where are we going?" I asked her.

"Nowhere," she replied. "We simply came out here to havemore space, more privacy. Here we can talk our little heads off."

She urged me to sit down on a quarried, half-chiseled piece of limestone."The second attention has endless treasures to be discovered," shebegan. "The initial position in which the dreamer places his body is ofkey importance. And right there is the secret of the ancient sorcerers, whowere already ancient in my time. Think about it."

She sat so close to me that I felt the heat of her body. She put an armaround my shoulder and pressed me against her bosom. Her body had a mostpeculiar fragrance; it reminded me of trees or sage. It was not that she waswearing perfume; her whole being seemed to exude that characteristic odor ofpine forests. Also the heat of her body was not like mine or like that ofanyone else I knew. Hers was a cool, mentholated heat, even, balanced. Thethought that came to my mind was that her heat would press on relentlessly butknew no hurry.

She began then to whisper in my left ear. She said that the gifts she hadgiven to the naguals of my line had to do with what the old sorcerers used tocall the twin positions. That is to say, the initial position in which adreamer holds his physical body to begin dreaming is mirrored by the positionin which he holds his energy body, in dreams, to fixate his assemblage point onany spot of his choosing. The two positions make a unit, she said, and it tookthe old sorcerers thousands of years to find out the perfect relationshipbetween any two positions. She commented, with a giggle, that the sorcerers oftoday will never have the time or the disposition to do all that work, and thatthe men and women of my line were indeed lucky to have her to give them suchgifts. Her laughter had a most remarkable, crystalline sound.

I had not quite understood her explanation of the twin positions. Boldly,I told her that I did not want to practice those things but only know aboutthem as intellectual possibilities.

"What exactly do you want to know?" she asked softly.

"Explain to me what you mean by the twin positions, or the initialposition in which a dreamer holds his body to start dreaming." I said.

"How do you lie down to start your dreaming?" she asked.

"Any which way. I don't have a pattern. Don Juan never stressed thispoint."

"Well, I do stress it," she said and stood up.

She changed positions. She sat down to my right and whispered in my otherear that, in accordance with what she knew, the position in which one placesthe body is of utmost importance. She proposed a way of testing this byperforming an extremely delicate but simple exercise.

"Start your dreaming by lying on your right side, with your knees abit bent," she said. "The discipline is to maintain that position andfall asleep in it. In dreaming, then, the exercise is to dream that you liedown in exactly the same position and fall asleep again."

"What does that do?" I asked.

"It makes the assemblage point stay put, and I mean really stay put,in whatever position it is at the instant of that second falling asleep."

"What are the results of this exercise?"

"Total perception. I am sure your teachers have already told you thatmy gifts are gifts of total perception."

"Yes. But I think I am not clear about what total perceptionmeans," I lied.

She ignored me and went on to tell me that the four variations of the exercisewere to fall asleep lying on the right side, the left, the back, and thestomach. Then in dreaming the exercise was to dream of falling asleep a secondtime in the same position as the dreaming had been started. She promised meextraordinary results, which she said were not possible to foretell.

She abruptly changed the subject and asked me, "What's the gift youwant for yourself?"

"No gift for me. I've told you that already."

"I insist. I must offer you a gift, and you must accept it. That isour agreement."

"Our agreement is that we give you energy. So take it from me. Thisone is on me. My gift to you."

The woman seemed dumbfounded. And I persisted in telling her it was allright with me that she took my energy. I even told her that I liked her immensely.Naturally, I meant it. There was something supremely sad and, at the same time,supremely appealing about her.

"Let's go back inside the church," she muttered.

"If you really want to make me a gift," I said, "take mefor a stroll in this town, in the moonlight."

She shook her head affirmatively. "Provided that you don't say aword," she said.

"Why not?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.

"Because we are dreaming," she said. "I'll be taking youdeeper into my dream."

She explained that as long as we stayed in the church, I had enough energyto think and converse, but that beyond the boundaries of that church it was adifferent situation.

"Why is that?" I asked daringly.

In a most serious tone, which not only increased her eeriness butterrified me, the woman said, "Because there is no out there. This is adream. You are at the fourth gate of dreaming, dreaming my dream."

She told me that her art was to be capable of projecting her intent, andthat everything I saw around me was her intent. She said in a whisper that thechurch and the town were the results of her intent; they did not exist, yetthey did. She added, looking into my eyes, that this is one of the mysteries ofintending in the second attention the twin positions of dreaming. It can bedone, but it cannot be explained or comprehended.

She told me then that she came from a line of sorcerers who knew how tomove about in the second attention by projecting their intent. Her story wasthat the sorcerers of her line practiced the art of projecting their thoughtsin dreaming in order to accomplish the truthful reproduction of any object orstructure or landmark or scenery of their choice.

She said that the sorcerers of her line used to start by gazing at asimple object and memorizing every detail of it. They would then close theireyes and visualize the object and correct their visualization against the trueobject until they could see it, in its completeness, with their eyes shut.

The next thing in their developing scheme was to dream with the object andcreate in the dream, from the point of view of their own perception, a totalmaterialization of the object. This act, the woman said, was called the firststep to total perception.

From a simple object, those sorcerers went on to take more and morecomplex items. Their final aim was for all of them together to visualize atotal world, then dream that world and thus re-create a totally veritable realmwhere they could exist.

"When any of the sorcerers of my line were able to do that," thewoman went on, "they could easily pull anyone into their intent, intotheir dream. This is what I am doing to you now, and what I did to all thenaguals of your line."

The woman giggled. "You better believe it," she said, as if Idid not. "Whole populations disappeared dreaming like that. This is thereason I said to you that this church and this town are one of the mysteries ofintending in the second attention."

"You say that whole populations disappeared that way. How was itpossible?" I asked.

"They visualized and then re-created in dreaming the samescenery," she replied. "You've never visualized anything, so it'svery dangerous for you to go into my dream."

She warned me, then, that to cross the fourth gate and travel to placesthat exist only in someone else's intent was perilous, since every item in sucha dream had to be an ultimately personal item.

"Do you still want to go?" she asked.

I said yes. Then she told me more about the twin positions. The essence ofher explanation was that if I were, for instance, dreaming of my hometown andmy dream had started when I lay down on my right side, I could very easily stayin the town of my dream if I would lie on my right side, in the dream, anddream that I had fallen asleep. The second dream not only would necessarily bea dream of my hometown, but would be the most concrete dream one can imagine.

She was confident that in my dreaming training I had gotten countlessdreams of great concreteness, but she assured me that every one of them had tobe a fluke. For the only way to have absolute control of dreams was to use thetechnique of the twin positions.

"And don't ask me why," she added. "It just happens. Likeeverything else."

She made me stand up and admonished me again not to talk or stray fromher. She took my hand gently, as if I were a child, and headed toward a clumpof dark silhouettes of houses. We were on a cobbled street. Hard river rockshad been pounded edgewise into the dirt. Uneven pressure had created unevensurfaces. It seemed that the cobblers had followed the contours of the groundwithout bothering to level it.

The houses were big, whitewashed, one-story, dusty buildings with tiledroofs. There were people meandering quietly. Dark shadows inside the housesgave me the feeling of curious but frightened neighbors gossiping behind doors.I could also see the flat mountains around the town.

Contrary to what had happened to me all along in my dreaming, my mentalprocesses were unimpaired. My thoughts were not pushed away by the force of theevents in the dream. And my mental calculations told me I was in the dreamversion of the town where don Juan lived, but at a different time. My curiositywas at its peak. I was actually with the death defier in her dream. But was ita dream? She herself had said it was a dream. I wanted to watch everything, tobe superalert. I wanted to test everything by seeing energy. I feltembarrassed, but the woman tightened her grip on my hand as if to signal methat she agreed with me.

Still feeling absurdly bashful, I automatically stated out loud my intentto see. In my dreaming practices, I had been using all along the phrase "Iwant to see energy." Sometimes, I had to say it over and over until I gotresults. This time, in the woman's dream town, as I began to repeat it in myusual manner, the woman began to laugh. Her laughter was like don Juan's adeep, abandoned belly laugh.

"What's so funny?" I asked, somehow contaminated by her mirth.

"Juan Matus doesn't like the old sorcerers in general and me inparticular," the woman said between fits of laughter. "All we have todo, in order to see in our dreams, is to point with our little finger at theitem we want to see. To make you yell in my dream is his way to send me hismessage. You have to admit that he's really clever." She paused for amoment, then said in the tone of a revelation, "Of course, to yell like anasshole works too."

The sorcerers' sense of humor bewildered me beyond measure. She laughed sohard she seemed to be unable to proceed with our walk. I felt stupid. When shecalmed down and was perfectly poised again, she politely told me that I couldpoint at anything I wanted in her dream, including herself.

I pointed at a house with the little finger of my left hand. There was noenergy in that house. The house was like any other item of a regular dream. Ipointed at everything around me with the same result.

"Point at me," she urged me. "You must corroborate thatthis is the method dreamers follow in order to see."

She was thoroughly right. That was the method. The instant I pointed myfinger at her, she was a blob of energy. A very peculiar blob of energy, I mayadd. Her energetic shape was exactly as don Juan had described it; it lookedlike an enormous seashell, curled inwardly along a cleavage that ran its length.

"I am the only energy-generating being in this dream," she said."So the proper thing for you to do is just watch everything."

At that moment I was struck, for the first time, by the immensity of donJuan's joke. He had actually contrived to have me learn to yell in my dreamingso that I could yell in the privacy of the death defier's dream. I found thattouch so funny that laughter spilled out of me in suffocating waves.

"Let's continue our walk," the woman said softly when I had nomore laughter in me.

There were only two streets that intersected; each had three blocks ofhouses. We walked the length of both streets, not once but four times. I lookedat everything and listened with my dreaming attention for any noises. Therewere very few, only dogs barking in the distance, or people speaking inwhispers as we went by.

The dogs barking brought me an unknown and profound longing. I had to stopwalking. I sought relief by leaning my shoulder against a wall. The contactwith the wall was shocking to me, not because the wall was unusual but becausewhat I had leaned on was a solid wall, like any other wall I had ever touched.I felt it with my free hand. I ran my fingers on its rough surface. It wasindeed a wall!

Its stunning realness put an immediate end to my longing and renewed myinterest in watching everything. I was looking, specifically, for features thatcould be correlated with the town of my day. However, no matter how intently Iobserved, I had no success. There was a plaza in that town, but it was in frontof the church, facing the portico.

In the moonlight the mountains around the town were clearly visible andalmost recognizable. I tried to orient myself, observing the moon and thestars, as if I were in the consensual reality of everyday life. It was a waningmoon, perhaps a day after full. It was high over the horizon. It must have beenbetween eight and nine in the evening. I could see Orion to the right of themoon; its two main stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, were on a horizontal straightline with the moon. I estimated it to be early December. My time was May. InMay, Orion is nowhere in sight at that time. I gazed at the moon as long as Icould. Nothing shifted. It was the moon as far as I could tell. The disparityin time got me very excited.

As I reexamined the southern horizon, I thought I could distinguish thebell-like peak visible from don Juan's patio. I tried next to figure out wherehis house might have been. For one instant I thought I found it. I became soenthralled that I pulled my hand out of the woman's grip. Instantly, atremendous anxiety possessed me. I knew that I had to go back to the church,because if I did not I would simply drop dead on the spot. I turned around andbolted for the church. The woman quickly grabbed my hand and followed me.

As we approached the church at a running pace, I became aware that thetown in that dreaming was behind the church. Had I taken this intoconsideration, orientation might have been possible. As it was, I had no moredreaming attention. I focused all of it on the architectural and ornamentaldetails on the back of the church. I had never seen that part of the buildingin the world of everyday life, and I thought that if I could record itsfeatures in my memory, I could check them later against the details of the realchurch.

That was the plan I concocted on the spur of the moment. Something insideme, however, scorned my efforts at validation. During all my apprenticeship, Ihad been plagued by the need for objectivity, which had forced me to check andrecheck everything about don Juan's world. Yet it was not validation per sethat was always at stake but the need to use this drive for objectivity as acrutch to give me protection at the moments of most intense cognitivedisruption; when it was time to check what I had validated, I never wentthrough with it.

Inside the church, the woman and I knelt in front of the small altar onthe left side, where we had been, and the next instant, I woke up in thewell-illuminated church of my day.

The woman crossed herself and stood up. I did the same automatically. Shetook my arm and began to walk toward the door,

"Wait, wait," I said and was surprised that I could talk. Icould not think clearly, yet I wanted to ask her a convoluted question. What Iwanted to know was how anyone could have the energy to visualize every detailof a whole town.

Smiling, the woman answered my unvoiced question; she said that she wasvery good at visualizing because after a lifetime of doing it, she had many,many lifetimes to perfect it. She added that the town I had visited and thechurch where we had talked were examples of her recent visualizations. Thechurch was the same church where Sebastian had been a sexton. She had givenherself the task of memorizing every detail of every corner of that church andthat town, for that matter, out of a need to survive.

She ended her talk with a most disturbing afterthought. "Since youknow quite a bit about this town, even though you've never tried to visualizeit," she said, "you are now helping me to intend it. I bet you won'tbelieve me if I tell you that this town you are looking at now doesn't reallyexist, outside your intent and mine."

She peered at me and laughed at my sense of horror, for I had just fullyrealized what she was saying. "Are we still dreaming?" I asked,astonished.

"We are," she said. "But this dreaming is more real thanthe other, because you're helping me. It is not possible to explain it beyondsaying that it is happening. Like everything else." She pointed all aroundher. "There is no way to tell how it happens, but it does. Remember alwayswhat I've told you this is the mystery of intending in the secondattention."

She gently pulled me closer to her. "Let's stroll to the plaza ofthis dream," she said. "But perhaps I should fix myself a little bitso you'll be more at ease."

I looked at her uncomprehendingly as she expertly changed her appearance.She did this with very simple, mundane maneuvers. She undid her long skirt,revealing the very average midcalf skirt she was wearing underneath. She thentwisted her long braid into a chignon and changed from her guaraches intoinch-heel shoes she had in a small cloth sack.

She turned over her reversible black shawl to reveal a beige stole. Shelooked like a typical middle-class Mexican woman from the city, perhaps on avisit to that town.

She took my arm with a woman's aplomb and led the way to the plaza.

"What happened to your tongue?" she said in English. "Didthe cat eat it?"

I was totally engrossed in the unthinkable possibility that I was still ina dream; what is more, I was beginning to believe that if it were true, I ranthe risk of never waking up.

In a nonchalant tone that I could not recognize as mine, I said, "Ididn't realize until now that you spoke in English to me before. Where did youlearn it?"

"In the world out there. I speak many languages." She paused andscrutinized me. "I've had plenty of time to learn them. Since we're goingto spend a lot of time together, I'll teach you my own language sometime."She giggled, no doubt at my look of despair.

I stopped walking. "Are we going to spend a lot of timetogether?" I asked, betraying my feelings.

"Of course," she replied in a joyful tone. "You are, and Ishould say very generously, going to give me your energy, for free. You saidthat yourself, didn't you?" I was aghast.

"What's the problem?" the woman asked, shifting back intoSpanish. "Don't tell me that you regret your decision. We are sorcerers.It's too late to change your mind. You are not afraid, are you?"

I was again more than terrified, but, if I had been put on the spot todescribe what terrified me, I would not have known. I was certainly not afraidof being with the death defier in another dream or of losing my mind or even mylife. Was I afraid of evil? I asked myself. But the thought of evil could notwithstand examination. As a result of all those years on the sorcerers' path, Iknew without the shadow of a doubt that in the universe only energy exists;evil is merely a concatenation of the human mind, overwhelmed by the fixationof the assemblage point on its habitual position. Logically, there was reallynothing for me to be afraid of. I knew that, but I also knew that my realweakness was to lack the fluidity to fix my assemblage point instantly on anynew position to which it was displaced. The contact with the death defier wasdisplacing my assemblage point at a tremendous rate, and I did not have theprowess to keep up with the push. The end result was a vague pseudo-sensationof fearing that I might not be able to wake up.

"There is no problem," I said. "Let's continue our dreamwalk."

She linked her arm with mine, and we reached the park in silence. It wasnot at all a forced silence. But my mind was running in circles. How strange, Ithought; only a while ago I had walked with don Juan from the park to thechurch, in the midst of the most terrifying normal fear. Now I was walking backfrom the church to the park with the object of my fear, and I was moreterrified than ever, but in a different, more mature, more deadly manner.

To fend off my worries, I began to look around. If this was a dream, as Ibelieved it was, there was a way to prove or disprove it. I pointed my fingerat the houses, at the church, at the pavement in the street. I pointed atpeople. I pointed at everything. Daringly, I even grabbed a couple of people,whom I seemed to scare considerably. I felt their mass. They were as real asanything I consider real, except that they did not generate energy. Nothing inthat town generated energy. Everything seemed real and normal, yet it was adream.

I turned to the woman, who was holding on to my arm, and questioned herabout it.

"We are dreaming," she said in her raspy voice and giggled.

"But how can people and things around us to be so real, sothree-dimensional? "

"The mystery of intending in the second attention!" sheexclaimed reverently. "Those people out there are so real that they evenhave thoughts."

That was the last stroke. I did not want to question anything else. I wantedto abandon myself to that dream. A considerable jolt on my arm brought me backto the moment. We had reached the plaza. The woman had stopped walking and waspulling me to sit down on a bench. I knew I was in trouble when I did not feelthe bench underneath me as I sat down. I began to spin. I thought I wasascending. I caught a most fleeting glimpse of the park, as if I were lookingat it from above.

"This is it!" I yelled. I thought I was dying. The spinningascension turned into a twirling descent into blackness.

Make an effort, nagual," a woman's voice urged me. "Don't sink.Surface, surface. Use your dreaming techniques!"

My mind began to work. I thought it was the voice of an English speaker,and I also thought that if I were to use dreaming techniques, I had to find apoint of departure to energize myself.

"Open your eyes," the voice said. "Open them now. Use thefirst thing you see as a point of departure."

I made a supreme effort and opened my eyes. I saw trees and blue sky. Itwas daytime! A blurry face was peering at me. But I could not focus my eyes. Ithought mat it was the woman in the church looking at me.

"Use my face," the voice said. It was a familiar voice, but Icould not identify it. "Make my face your home base; then look ateverything," the voice went on.

My ears were clearing up, and so were my eyes. I gazed at the woman'sface, then at the trees in the park, at the wrought-iron bench, at peoplewalking by, and back again at her face.

In spite of the fact that her face changed every time I gazed at her, Ibegan to experience a minimum of control. When I was more in possession of myfaculties, I realized that a woman was sitting on the bench, holding my head onher lap. And she was not the woman in the church; she was Carol Tiggs.

"What are you doing here?" I gasped.

My fright and surprise were so intense that I wanted to jump up and run,but my body was not ruled at all by my mental awareness. Anguishing momentsfollowed, in which I tried desperately but uselessly to get up. The world aroundme was too clear for me to believe I was still dreaming, yet my impaired motorcontrol made me suspect that this was really a dream. Besides, Carol's presencewas too abrupt; there were no antecedents to justify it.

Cautiously, I attempted to will myself to get up, as I had done hundredsof times in dreaming, but nothing happened. If I ever needed to be objective,this was the time. As carefully as I could, I began to look at everythingwithin my field of vision with one eye first. I repeated the process with theother eye. I took the consistency between the images of my two eyes as anindication that I was in the consensual reality of everyday life.

Next, I examined Carol. I noticed at that moment that I could move myarms. It was only my lower body that was veritably paralyzed. I touched Carol'sface and hands; I embraced her. She was solid and, I believed, the real CarolTiggs. My relief was enormous, because for a moment I'd had the dark suspicionthat she was the death defier masquerading as Carol.

With utmost care, Carol helped me to sit up on the bench. I had beensprawled on my back, half on the bench and half on the ground. I noticed thensomething totally out of the norm. I was wearing faded blue Levi's and wornbrown leather boots. I also had on a Levi's jacket and a denim shirt.

"Wait a minute," I said to Carol. "Look at me! Are these myclothes? Am I myself?"

Carol laughed and shook me by the shoulders, the way she always did todenote camaraderie, manliness, that she was one of the boys.

"I'm looking at your beautiful self," she said in her funnyforced falsetto. "Oh massa, who else could it possibly be?"

"How in the hell can I be wearing Levi's and boots?" I insisted."I don't own any."

"Those are my clothes you are wearing. I found you naked!"

"Where? When?"

"Around the church, about an hour ago. I came to the plaza here tolook for you. The nagual sent me to see if I could find you. I brought theclothes, just in case."

I told her that I felt terribly vulnerable and embarrassed to have wanderedaround without my clothes.

"Strangely enough, there was no one around," she assured me, butI felt she was saying it just to ease my discomfort. Her playful smile told meso.

"I must have been with the death defier all last night, maybe evenlonger," I said. "What day is it today?"

"Don't worry about dates," she said, laughing. "When youare more centered, you'll count the days yourself."

"Don't humor me, Carol Tiggs. What day is it today?" My voicewas a gruff, no-nonsense voice that did not seem to belong to me.

"It's the day after the big fiesta," she said and slapped megently on my shoulder. "We all have been looking for you since lastnight."

"But what am I doing here?"

"I took you to the hotel across the plaza. I couldn't carry you allthe way to the nagual's house; you ran out of the room a few minutes ago, andwe ended up here."

"Why didn't you ask the nagual for help?"

"Because this is an affair that concerns only you and me. We mustsolve it together."

That shut me up. She made perfect sense to me. I asked her one morenagging question. "What did I say when you found me?"

"You said that you had been so deeply into the second attention andfor such a long time that you were not quite rational yet. All you wanted to dowas to fall asleep."

"When did I lose my motor control?"

"Only a moment ago. You'll get it back. You yourself know that it isquite normal, when you enter into the second attention and receive aconsiderable energy jolt, to lose control of your speech or of yourlimbs."

"And when did you lose your lisping, Carol?"

I caught her totally by surprise. She peered at me and broke into a heartylaugh. "I've been working on it for a long time," she confessed."I think that it's terribly annoying to hear a grown woman lisping.Besides, you hate it."

Admitting that I detested her lisping was not difficult. Don Juan and Ihad tried to cure her, but we had concluded she was not interested in gettingcured. Her lisping made her extremely cute to everyone, and don Juan's feelingswere that she loved it and was not going to give it up. Hearing her speakwithout lisping was tremendously rewarding and exciting to me. It proved to methat she was capable of radical changes on her own, a thing neither don Juannor I was ever sure about.

"What else did the nagual say to you when he sent you to look forme?" I asked.

"He said you were having a bout with the death defier."

In a confidential tone, I revealed to Carol that the death defier was awoman. Nonchalantly, she said that she knew it.

"How can you know it?" I shouted. "No one has ever knownthis, apart from don Juan. Did he tell you that himself?"

"Of course he did," she replied, unperturbed by my shouting."What you have overlooked is that I also met the woman in the church. Imet her before you did. We amiably chatted in the church for quite awhile."

I believed Carol was telling me the truth. What she was describing wasvery much what don Juan would do. He would in all likelihood send Carol as ascout in order to draw conclusions.

"When did you see the death defier?" I asked.

"A couple of weeks ago," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone."It was no great event for me. I had no energy to give her, or at leastnot the energy that woman wants."

"Why did you see her then? Is dealing with the nagual woman also partof the death defier's and sorcerers' agreement?"

"I saw her because the nagual said that you and I areinterchangeable, and for no other reason. Our energy bodies have merged manytimes. Don't you remember? The woman and I talked about the ease with which wemerge. I stayed with her maybe three or four hours, until the nagual came inand got me out."

"Did you stay in the church all that time?" I asked, because Icould hardly believe that they had knelt in there for three or four hours onlytalking about the merging of our energy bodies.

"She took me into another facet of her intent," Carol concededafter a moment's thought. "She made me see how she actually escaped hercaptors."

Carol related then a most intriguing story. She said that according towhat the woman in the church had made her see, every sorcerer of antiquityfell, inescapably, prey to the inorganic beings. The inorganic beings, aftercapturing them, gave them power to be the intermediaries between our world andtheir realm, which people called the netherworld.

The death defier was unavoidably caught in the nets of the inorganicbeings. Carol estimated that he spent perhaps thousands of years as a captive,until the moment he was capable of transforming himself into a woman. He hadclearly seen this as his way out of that world the day he found out that theinorganic beings regard the female principle as imperishable. They believe thatthe female principle has such a pliability and its scope is so vast that itsmembers are impervious to traps and setups and can hardly be held captive. Thedeath defier's transformation was so complete and so detailed that she wasinstantly spewed out of the inorganic beings' realm.

"Did she tell you that the inorganic beings are still afterher?" I asked.

"Naturally they are after her," Carol assured me. "Thewoman told me she has to fend off her pursuers every moment of her life."

"What can they do to her?"

"Realize she was a man and pull her back to captivity, I suppose. Ithink she fears them more than you can think it's possible to fearanything."

Nonchalantly, Carol told me that the woman in the church was thoroughlyaware of my run-in with the inorganic beings and that she also knew about theblue scout.

"She knows everything about you and me," Carol continued."And not because I told her anything, but because she is part of our livesand our lineage. She mentioned that she had always followed all of us, you andme in particular."

Carol related to me the instances that the woman knew in which Carol and Ihad acted together. As she spoke, I began to experience a unique nostalgia forthe very person who was in front of me Carol Tiggs. I wished desperately toembrace her. I reached out to her, but I lost my balance and fell off thebench.

Carol helped me up from the pavement and anxiously examined my legs andthe pupils of my eyes, my neck and my lower back. She said that I was stillsuffering from an energetic jolt.

She propped my head on her bosom and caressed me as if I were amalingering child she was humoring.

After a while I did feel better; I even began to regain my motor control.

"How do you like the clothes I am wearing?" Carol asked me allof a sudden. "Am I overdressed for the occasion? Do I look all right toyou?"

Carol was always exquisitely dressed. If there was anything certain abouther, it was her impeccable taste in clothes. In fact, as long as I had knownher, it had been a running joke between don Juan and the rest of us that heronly virtue was her expertise at buying beautiful clothes and wearing them withgrace and style.

I found her question very odd and made a comment. "Why would you beinsecure about your appearance? It has never bothered you before. Are youtrying to impress someone?"

"I'm trying to impress you, of course," she said.

"But this is not the time," I protested. "What's going onwith the death defier is the important matter, not your appearance."

"You'd be surprised how important my appearance is." Shelaughed. "My appearance is a matter of life or death for both of us."

"What are you talking about? You remind me of the nagual setting upmy meeting with the death defier. He nearly drove me nuts with his mysterioustalk."

"Was his mysterious talk justified?" Carol asked with a deadlyserious expression.

"It most certainly was," I admitted.

"So is my appearance. Humor me. How do you find me? Appealing,unappealing, attractive, average, disgusting, overpowering, bossy?"

I thought for a moment and made my assessment. I found Carol veryappealing. This was quite strange to me. I had never consciously thought abouther appeal. "I find you divinely beautiful," I said. "In fact,you're downright stunning."

"Then this must be the right appearance." She sighed.

I was trying to figure out her meanings, when she spoke again. She asked,"What was your time with the death defier like?"

I succinctly told her about my experience, mainly about the first dream. Isaid that I believed the death defier had made me see that town, but at anothertime in the past.

"But that's not possible," she blurted out. "There is nopast or future in the universe. There is only the moment."

"I know that it was the past," I said. "It was the samechurch, but a different town."

"Think for a moment," she insisted. "In the universe thereis only energy, and energy has only a here and now, an endless and ever-presenthere and now."

"So what do you think happened to me, Carol?"

"With the death defier's help, you crossed the fourth gate ofdreaming," she said. "The woman in the church took you into herdream, into her intent. She took you into her visualization of this town.Obviously, she visualized it in the past, and that visualization is stillintact in her. As her present visualization of this town must be theretoo."

After a long silence she asked me another question. "What else didthe woman do with you?"

I told Carol about the second dream. The dream of the town as it standstoday.

"There you are," she said. "Not only did the woman take youinto her past intent but she further helped you cross the fourth gate by makingyour energy body journey to another place that exists today, only in herintent."

Carol paused and asked me whether the woman in the church had explained tome what intending in the second attention meant.

I did remember her mentioning but not really explaining what it meant tointend in the second attention. Carol was dealing with concepts don Juan hadnever spoken about.

"Where did you get all these novel ideas?" I asked, trulymarveling at how lucid she was.

In a noncommittal tone, Carol assured me that the woman in the church hadexplained to her a great deal about those intricacies.

"We are intending in the second attention now," she continued."The woman in the church made us fall asleep; you here, and I in Tucson.And then we fell asleep again in our dream. But you don't remember that part,while I do. The secret of the twin positions. Remember what the woman told you;the second dream is intending in the second attention the only way to cross thefourth gate of dreaming."

After a long pause, during which I could not articulate one word, shesaid, "I think the woman in the church really made you a gift, althoughyou didn't want to receive one. Her gift was to add her energy to ours in orderto move backward and forward on the here-and-now energy of the universe."

I got extremely excited. Carol's words were precise, apropos. She haddefined for me something I considered undefinable, although I did not know whatit was that she had defined. If I could have moved, I would have leapt to hugher. She smiled beatifically as I kept on ranting nervously about the sense herwords made to me. I commented rhetorically that don Juan had never told meanything similar.

"Maybe he doesn't know," Carol said, not offensively butconciliatorily.

I did not argue with her. I remained quiet for a while, strangely void ofthoughts. Then my thoughts and words erupted out of me like a volcano. Peoplewent around the plaza, staring at us every so often or stopping in front of usto watch us. And we must have been a sight Carol Tiggs kissing and caressing myface while I ranted on and on about her lucidity and my encounter with thedeath defier.

When I was able to walk, she guided me across the plaza to the only hotelin town. She assured me that I did not yet have the energy to go to don Juan'shouse but that everybody there knew our whereabouts.

"How would they know our whereabouts?" I asked. "The nagualis a very crafty old sorcerer," she replied, laughing. "He's the onewho told me that if I found you energetically mangled, I should put you in thehotel rather than risk crossing the town with you in tow."

Her words and especially her smile made me feel so relieved that I kept onwalking in a state of bliss. We went around the corner to the hotel's entrance,half a block down the street, right in front of the church. We went through thebleak lobby, up the cement stairway to the second floor, directly to anunfriendly room I had never seen before. Carol said that I had been there;however, I had no recollection of the hotel or the room. I was so tired,though, that I could not think about it. I just sank into the bed, face down.All I wanted to do was sleep, yet I was too keyed up. There were too many looseends, although everything seemed so orderly. I had a sudden surge of nervousexcitation and sat up.

"I never told you that I hadn't accepted the death defier'sgift," I said, facing Carol. "How did you know I didn't?"

"Oh, but you told me that yourself," she protested as she satdown next to me. "You were so proud of it. That was the first thing youblurted out when I found you."

This was the only answer, so far, that did not quite satisfy me. What shewas reporting did not sound like my statement.

"I think you read me wrong," I said. "I just didn't want toget anything that would deviate me from my goal." "Do you mean youdidn't feel proud of refusing?" "No. I didn't feel anything. I am nolonger capable of feeling anything, except fear."

I stretched my legs and put my head on the pillow. I felt that if I closedmy eyes or did not keep on talking I would be asleep in an instant. I toldCarol how I had argued with don Juan, at the beginning of my association withhim, about his confessed motive for staying on the warrior's path. He had saidthat fear kept him going in a straight line, and that what he feared the mostwas to lose the nagual, the abstract, the spirit.

"Compared with losing the nagual, death is nothing," he had saidwith a note of true passion in his voice. "My fear of losing the nagual isthe only real thing I have, because without it I would be worse thandead."

I said to Carol that I had immediately contradicted don Juan and braggedthat since I was impervious to fear, if I had to stay within the confines ofone path, the moving force for me had to be love.

Don Juan had retorted that when the real pull comes, fear is the onlyworthwhile condition for a warrior. I secretly resented him for what I thoughtwas his covert narrow-mindedness.

"The wheel has done a full turn," I said to Carol, "andlook at me now. I can swear to you that the only thing that keeps me going isthe fear of losing the nagual."

Carol stared at me with a strange look I had never seen in her. "Idare to disagree," she said softly. "Fear is nothing compared withaffection. Fear makes you run wildly; love makes you move intelligently."

"What are you saying, Carol Tiggs? Are sorcerers people in lovenow?"

She did not answer. She lay next to me and put her head on my shoulder. Westayed there, in that strange, unfriendly room, for a long time, in total silence.

"I feel what you feel," Carol said abruptly. "Now, try tofeel what I feel. You can do it. But let's do it in the dark."

Carol stretched her arm up and turned off the light above the bed. I satup straight in one single motion. A jolt of fright had gone through me likeelectricity. As soon as Carol turned off the light, it was nighttime insidethat room. In the middle of great agitation, I asked Carol about it.

"You're not all together yet," she said reassuringly. "Youhad a bout of monumental proportions. Going so deeply into the second attentionhas left you a little mangled, so to speak. Of course, it's daytime, but youreyes can't yet adjust properly to the dim light inside this room."

More or less convinced, I lay down again. Carol kept on talking, but I wasnot listening. I felt the sheets. They were real sheets. I ran my hands on thebed. It was a bed! I leaned over and ran the palms of my hands on the coldtiles of the floor. I got out of bed and checked every item in the room and inthe bathroom. Everything was perfectly normal, perfectly real. I told Carolthat when she turned off the light, I had the clear sensation I was dreaming.

"Give yourself a break," she said. "Cut this investigatorynonsense and come to bed and rest."

I opened the curtains of the window to the street. It was daytime outside,but the moment I closed them it was nighttime inside. Carol begged me to comeback to bed. She feared that I might run away and end up in the street, as Ihad done before. She made sense. I went back to bed without noticing that noteven for a second had it entered my mind to point at things. It was as if thatknowledge had been erased from my memory.

The darkness in that hotel room was most extraordinary. It brought me adelicious sense of peace and harmony. It brought me also a profound sadness, alonging for human warmth, for companionship. I felt more than bewildered. Neverhad anything like this happened to me. I lay in bed, trying to remember if thatlonging was something I knew. It was not. The longings I knew were not forhuman companionship; they were abstract; they were rather a sort of sadness fornot reaching something undefined.

"I am coming apart," I said to Carol. "I am about to weepfor people."

I thought she would understand my statement as being funny. I intended itas a joke. But she did not say anything; she seemed to agree with me. Shesighed. Being in an unstable state of mind, I became instantly swayed towardemotionality. I faced her in the darkness and muttered something that in a morelucid moment would have been quite irrational to me. "I absolutely adoreyou," I said.

Talk like that among the sorcerers of don Juan's line was unthinkable.Carol Tiggs was the nagual woman. Between the two of us, there was no need fordemonstrations of affection. In fact, we did not even know what we felt foreach other. We had been taught by don Juan that among sorcerers there was noneed or time for such feelings.

Carol smiled at me and embraced me. And I was filled with such a consumingaffection for her that I began to weep involuntarily.

"Your energy body is moving forward on the universe's luminousfilaments of energy," she whispered in my ear. "We are being carriedby the death defier's gift of intent."

I had enough energy to understand what she was saying. I even questionedher about whether she, herself, understood what it all meant. She hushed me andwhispered in my ear. "I do understand; the death defier's gift to you wasthe wings of intent. And with them, you and I are dreaming ourselves in anothertime. In a time yet to come."

I pushed her away and sat up. The way Carol was voicing those complexsorcerers' thoughts was unsettling to me. She was not given to take conceptualthinking seriously. We had always joked among ourselves that she did not have aphilosopher's mind.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked. "Yours is a newdevelopment for me Carol the sorceress-philosopher. You are talking like donJuan."

"Not yet." She laughed. "But it's coming. It's rolling, andwhen it finally hits me, it'll be the easiest thing in the world for me to be asorceress-philosopher. You'll see. And no one will be able to explain itbecause it will just happen."

An alarm bell rang in my mind. "You're not Carol!" I shouted."You're the death defier masquerading as Carol. I knew it."

Carol laughed, undisturbed by my accusation. "Don't be absurd,"she said. "You're going to miss the lesson. I knew that, sooner or later,you were going to give in to your indulging. Believe me, I am Carol. But we'redoing something we've never done we are intending in the second attention, asthe sorcerers of antiquity used to do."

I was not convinced, but I had no more energy to pursue my argument, forsomething like the great vortexes of my dreaming was beginning to pull me in. Iheard Carol's voice faintly, saying in my ear, "We are dreaming ourselves.Dream your intent of me. Intend me forward! Intend me forward!"

With great effort, I voiced my innermost thought. "Stay here with meforever," I said with the slowness of a tape recorder on the blink. Sheresponded with something incomprehensible. I wanted to laugh at my voice, butthen the vortex swallowed me.

When I woke up, I was alone in the hotel room. I had no idea how long Ihad slept. I felt extremely disappointed at not finding Carol by my side. Ihurriedly dressed and went down to the lobby to look for her. Besides, I wantedto shake off some strange sleepiness that had clung to me.

At the desk, the manager told me that the American woman who had rentedthe room had just left a moment ago. I ran out to the street, hoping to catchher, but there was no sign of her. It was midday; the sun was shining in acloudless sky. It was a bit warm.

I walked to the church. My surprise was genuine but dull at finding outthat I had indeed seen the detail of its architectural structure in that dream.Uninterestedly, I played my own devil's advocate and gave myself the benefit ofthe doubt. Perhaps don Juan and I had examined the back of the church and I didnot remember it. I thought about it. It did not matter. My validation schemehad no meaning for me anyway. I was too sleepy to care.

From there I slowly walked to don Juan's house, still looking for Carol. Iwas sure I was going to find her there, waiting for me. Don Juan received me asif I had come back from the dead.

He and his companions were in the throes of agitation as they examined mewith undisguised curiosity.

"Where have you been?" don Juan demanded.

I could not comprehend the reason for all the fuss. I told him that I hadspent the night with Carol in the hotel by the plaza, because I had no energyto walk back from the church to their house, but that they already knew this.

"We knew nothing of the sort," he snapped.

"Didn't Carol tell you she was with me?" I asked in the midst ofa dull suspicion, which, if I had not been so exhausted, would have beenalarming.

No one answered. They looked at one another, searchingly. I faced don Juanand told him I was under the impression he had sent Carol to find me. Don Juanpaced the room up and down without saying a word.

"Carol Tiggs hasn't been with us at all," he said. "Andyou've been gone for nine days."

My fatigue prevented me from being blasted by those statements. His toneof voice and the concern the others showed were ample proof that they wereserious. But I was so numb that there was nothing for me to say.

Don Juan asked me to tell them, in all possible detail, what hadtranspired between the death defier and me. I was shocked at being able toremember so much, and at being able to convey all of it in spite of my fatigue.A moment of levity broke the tension when I told them how hard the woman hadlaughed at my inane yelling in her dream, my intent to see.

"Pointing the little finger works better," I said to don Juan,but without any feeling of recrimination.

Don Juan asked if the woman had any other reaction to my yelling besideslaughing. I had no memory of one, except her mirth and the fact that she hadcommented how intensely he disliked her.

"I don't dislike her," don Juan protested. "I just don'tlike the old sorcerers' coerciveness."

Addressing everybody, I said that I personally had liked that womanimmensely and unbiasedly. And that I had loved Carol Tiggs as I never thought Icould love anyone. They did not seem to appreciate what I was saying. Theylooked at one another as if I had suddenly gone crazy. I wanted to say more, toexplain myself. But don Juan, I believed just to stop me from babblingidiocies, practically dragged me out of the house and back to the hotel.

The same manager I had spoken to earlier obligingly listened to ourdescription of Carol Tiggs, but he flatly denied ever having seen her or mebefore. He even called the hotel maids; they corroborated his statements.

"What can the meaning of all this be?" don Juan asked out loud.It seemed to be a question addressed to himself. He gently ushered me out ofthe hotel. "Let's get out of this confounded place," he said.

When we were outside, he ordered me not to turn around to look at thehotel or at the church across the street, but to keep my head down. I looked atmy shoes and instantly realized I was no longer wearing Carol's clothes but myown. I could not remember, however, no matter how hard I tried, when I hadchanged clothes. I figured that it must have been when I woke up in the hotelroom. I must have put on my own clothes then, although my memory was blank.

By then we had reached the plaza. Before we crossed it to head off to donJuan's house, I explained to him about my clothes. He shook his head rhythmically,listening to every word. Then he sat down on a bench, and, in a voice thatconveyed genuine concern, he warned me that, at the moment, I had no way ofknowing what had transpired in the second attention between the woman in thechurch and my energy body. My interaction with the Carol Tiggs of the hotel hadbeen just the tip of the iceberg.

"It's horrendous to think that you were in the second attention fornine days," don Juan went on. "Nine days is just a second for thedeath defier, but an eternity for us." Before I could protest or explainor say anything, he stopped me with a comment. "Consider this," hesaid. "If you still can't remember all the things I taught you and didwith you in the second attention, imagine how much more difficult it must be toremember what the death defier taught you and did with you. I only made youchange levels of awareness; the death defier made you change universes."

I felt meek and defeated. Don Juan and his two companions urged me to makea titanic effort and try to remember when I changed my clothes. I could not.There was nothing in my mind no feelings, no memories. Somehow, I was nottotally there with them.

The nervous agitation of don Juan and his two companions reached a peak.Never had I seen him so discombobulated. There had always been a touch of fun,of not quite taking himself seriously in everything he did or said to me. Notthis time, though.

Again, I tried to think, bring forth some memory that would shed light onall this; and again I failed, but I did not feel defeated; an improbable surgeof optimism overtook me. I felt that everything was coming along as it should.

Don Juan's expressed concern was that he knew nothing about the dreaming Ihad done with the woman in the church. To create a dream hotel, a dream town, adream Carol Tiggs was to him only a sample of the old sorcerers' dreamingprowess, the total scope of which defied human imagination.

Don Juan opened his arms expansively and finally smiled with his usualdelight. "We can only deduce that the woman in the church showed you howto do it," he said in a slow, deliberate tone. "It's going to be agiant task for you to make comprehensible an incomprehensible maneuver. It hasbeen a masterful movement on the chessboard, performed by the death defier asthe woman in the church. She has used Carol's energy body and yours to liftoff, to break away from her moorings. She took you up on your offer of freeenergy."

What he was saying had no meaning to me; apparently, it meant a great dealto his two companions. They became immensely agitated. Addressing them, donJuan explained that the death defier and the woman in the church were differentexpressions of the same energy; the woman in the church was the more powerfuland complex of the two. Upon taking control, she made use of Carol Tiggs'senergy body, in some obscure, ominous fashion congruous with the old sorcerers'machinations, and created the Carol Tiggs of the hotel, a Carol Tiggs of sheerintent. Don Juan added that Carol and the woman may have arrived at some sortof energetic agreement during their meeting.

At that instant, a thought seemed to find its way to don Juan. He staredat his two companions, unbelievingly. Their eyes darted around, going from oneto the other. I was sure they were not merely looking for agreement, for theyseemed to have realized something in unison.

"All our speculations are useless," don Juan said in a quiet,even tone. "I believe there is no longer any Carol Tiggs. There isn't anywoman in the church either; both have merged and flown away on the wings ofintent, I believe, forward.

"The reason the Carol Tiggs of the hotel was so worried about herappearance was because she was the woman in the church, making you dream aCarol Tiggs of another kind; an infinitely more powerful Carol Tiggs. Don't youremember what she said? 'Dream your intent of me. Intend me forward.'""What does this mean, don Juan?" I asked stunned. "It means thatthe death defier has seen her total way out. She has caught a ride with you.Your fate is her fate." "Meaning what, don Juan?" "Meaningthat if you reach freedom so will she." "How is she going to dothat?"

"Through Carol Tiggs. But don't worry about Carol." He said thisbefore I voiced my apprehension. "She's capable of that maneuver and muchmore."

Immensities were piling up on me. I already felt their crushing weight. Ihad a moment of lucidity and asked don Juan, "What is going to be theoutcome of all this?"

He did not answer. He gazed at me, scanning me from head to toe. Then he slowlyand deliberately said, "The death defier's gift consists of endlessdreaming possibilities. One of them was your dream of Carol Tiggs in anothertime, in another world; a more vast world, open-ended; a world where theimpossible might even be feasible. The implication was not only that you willlive those possibilities but that one day you will comprehend them."

He stood up, and we started to walk in silence toward his house. Mythoughts began to race wildly. They were not thoughts, actually, but images, amixture of memories of the woman in the church and of Carol Tiggs, talking tome in the darkness in the dream hotel room. A couple of times I was near tocondensing those images into a feeling of my usual self, but I had to give itup; I had no energy for such a task.

Before we arrived at the house, don Juan stopped walking and faced me. Heagain scrutinized me carefully, as if he were looking for signs in my body. Ithen felt obliged to set him straight on a subject I believed he was deadlywrong about.

"I was with the real Carol Tiggs at the hotel," I said."For a moment, I myself believed she was the death defier, but aftercareful evaluation, I can't hold on to that belief. She was Carol. In someobscure, awesome way she was at the hotel, as I was there at the hotelmyself."

"Of course she was Carol," don Juan agreed. "But not theCarol you and I know. This one was a dream Carol, I've told you, a Carol madeout of pure intent. You helped the woman in the church spin that dream. Her artwas to make that dream an all-inclusive reality the art of the old sorcerers,the most frightening thing there is. I told you that you were going to get thecrowning lesson in dreaming, didn't I?"

"What do you think happened to Carol Tiggs?" I asked.

"Carol Tiggs is gone," he replied. "But someday you willfind the new Carol Tiggs, the one in the dream hotel room."

"What do you mean she's gone?"

"She's gone from the world," he said.

I felt a surge of nervousness cut through my solar plexus. I wasawakening. The awareness of myself had started to become familiar to me, but Iwas not yet fully in control of it. It had begun, though, to break through thefog of the dream; it had begun as a mixture of not knowing what was going onand the foreboding sensation that the incommensurable was just around thecorner.

I must have had an expression of disbelief, because don Juan added in aforceful tone, "This is dreaming. You should know by now that itstransactions are final. Carol Tiggs is gone."

"But where do you think she went, don Juan?"

"Wherever the sorcerers of antiquity went. I told you that the deathdefier's gift was endless dreaming possibilities. You didn't want anythingconcrete, so the woman in the church gave you an abstract gift the possibilityof flying on the wings of intent."