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Chapter 12

When Chuck awoke the next morning, the curtained berths had receded, and sunshine was blazing in the wide windows of the first-class car. The muted colors of the room looked brighter in the light, and the polished brass of the sconces, lamps and door handles gleamed like gold. Once again, he was in his wall seat beside Hiramus, who was engrossed in the morning paper. Chuck stretched his arms out, discreetly so as not to disturb his companion, and was pleased to discover that he had no cricks or sore muscles. He plumped the seat cushion with his fingers. That had been one comfortable bed. He felt his chin. It was shaved smooth, and his skin felt and smelled clean. Since it was morning he thought he should be hungry, but he wasn't. That's convenient, Chuck thought.

Persemid Smith was staring at him in puzzled amusement. Chuck glanced down, wondering if his fly was open, or if he was wearing plaid with stripes. No, she must be staring at The Joy of Knitting. The oversize book was propped open against his chest. Hastily, he clapped it shut and tried to hide it in the narrow gap between the seats. Quick-eyed Kenner from across the aisle noticed it, too.

"You took that one, huh?" he asked, grinning hugely. His cheeks burning, Chuck nodded. He expected the man to tease him. Instead, Kenner gave him a companionable wink. "Wait until you get to chapter eight. Best part, in my view."

The man must have insomnia, Chuck thought, dumbfounded. He couldn't get past page eight.

"Are your brains all refreshed?" Keir-the-dolphin asked, coming to perch his chin on the edge of the empty aisle seat beside Hiramus. Chuck's fellow passenger folded away his newspaper to exchange polite smiles with the dolphin. Keir turned into the gray-haired man and nodded at Chuck, then offered a pink-tongued wolf grin to Persemid. The changeable guide briefly wore the aspect of the mentor of each person he was looking at. Chuck found the rapid alterations disconcerting. None of the others seemed to notice or worry about the forms other than the one they needed to see. Perhaps they couldn't see the changes, he thought. Maybe he was the only one who had that superior insight. A sharp-eyed glance from Keir told him quickly he hadn't better think too much of his powers of perception. "Good! We've got a lot to do today. I am going to set you up to do a little personal exploring. Maybe later we will discuss our experiences . . . but maybe not."

Chuck sensed a general sigh of relief that echoed his own. He didn't necessarily want to share the details of his personal quest, and he was glad that everyone would be busy on their own. He wondered just how Keir planned to occupy each one.

Hiramus was easy. Keir just floated over to him as a dolphin and offered him a newspaper he held in his beak. Cool conjuring trick, Chuck thought. He had not seen where the dolphin had been concealing the paper. Hiramus, looking very pleased, accepted it and opened it out with a snap. The headline was blazed across the full banner of the paper, MAN SEEKS ETERNAL TRUTHS! At once, Hiramus became deeply engrossed in the story on page one. Curious about what Hiramus was seeking to learn, Chuck leaned closer so he could read over Hiramus's shoulder. The print was too small for him to read at a distance. Hiramus noticed that was what he was doing, and shifted so Chuck got the thin edge of the pages and a disapproving look. At least save me the funnies, Chuck thought to himself as he flopped back in his chair.

He waited impatiently while the guide assumed his heavenly guise and floated on the air in full lotus position while Pipistrella, clad in flowing white with her dark blonde hair streaming down her back, folded her lovely limbs into the same posture, joined forefinger to thumb, and turned her face up to the sky with eyes closed. Keir murmured to her, and her face relaxed into a blissful expression as she chanted an upbeat mantra to herself. Chuck listened for a moment. There were only two syllables, broken by a sybillant. In a moment, he was able to distinguish what she was saying.

"New shoes. New shoes. New shoes . . ." Scornfully, Chuck tuned her out. She was just as shallow as he had thought. He sat up straight, expecting to be next. The angel scanned the three remaining faces, grew legs, and a long skirt to cover them. Chuck's face fell as Keir went to Sean.

Sean Draper was not so readily dealt with as the first two. The train seat widened out as Keir sat down beside him. He was insecure and impatient, behaving as though he would bolt at any moment. Once he started to get up and sidle away, but Keir took him by the hand and made him sit down. A huge album appeared in the guide's hand. Keir opened it across both their knees. Old, curling photos were fastened to the fading black pages with little scalloped corner pieces. It looked so homey. Chuck's grandmother had an album like that, full of ancient pictures and family memorabilia.

"Look here," Keir said, in a soft, lilting voice that would have charmed a rabbit out of its warren. Chuck watched with fascination as the gentle words literally began to break down Sean's reserves. Thin pieces, like a shell covering the Irishman's whole body, began to crumble off his surface and fall to the floor. "Ah, now, can you believe how young your father looked in this picture?" The word came out "feyther," soft and easy on the ears. "And here are all your Aunt Mary's children. Aren't they fine?"

Soon, the tall man sat relaxed, no longer enclosed by a solid barrier. He may not have believed in his heart that his mother was there beside him, but he was willing enough to accept a substitute. She must be or have been an important guiding influence in his life. They sat, heads close together as Keir pointed to photo after photo, talking in a low, soothing voice. Sean covered his eyes with a hand. The lone figure pictured, and Chuck would have had to lean right over in their faces to see who it was, must have been someone who meant a lot to Sean, and was probably dead, by the sorrow on the man's face. Sean shook his head. He had the look of someone who regretted something that was no longer possible to atone for.

Keir stood up, leaving him alone with his thoughts, and turned to Persemid, who was looking out of the window. When the gray wolf's nose nudged her hand up, she began to stroke the furry head before she even glanced at him. Chuck was envious of her comfortable familiarity. Either they knew one another outside of the trance state, or Persemid had been coming to this plane of existence for a long time. After a moment, Keir tilted his head up. Chuck noticed for the first time that there was a thong around his neck. Attached to it was a small, rust- and cream-colored charm that could have been made of stone or ceramic. Persemid undid the strand and took it off the furry neck. She held the little object in both hands, and gazed at it intently.

Chuck was so interested in watching her that he wasn't aware when the shaggy gray fur turned to rough, gray cloth. Keir appeared sitting beside him on his usual armchair perch.

"All right, son, your turn," the old guide said. "The others will be fine by themselves for a while. You need a little more active intervention." That was just what Chuck wanted to hear.

"Good," he said. "What do you want me to do?"

"Do nothing. This is an exercise for your brain. Now, sit back and get yourself comfortable. We're going to test your powers of concentration. You won't find yourself if you're looking everywhere else but inward."

"I can do it," Chuck said, happily. Keir was even using the terminology that he had come to expect from all the books. "Is this going to be my vision quest now? I want one like the kind I've been reading about."

"Not yet. You can't have yourself a vision quest unless you've got the discipline to hold still for it. Now, sit back."

The guide straightened up. He drew his legs up and folded them in a double-lotus position, his worn sandals tucked up on top of his linen-clad thighs. He curled his hands, touching his thumbs to his middle fingertips. Chuck eyed him, skeptical whether he'd ever be able to attain that pose. He never could at home. But his astral body was more flexible. He remembered being boneless for a time the day before, when he hadn't wanted to be. Could he now control his form enough to bend, just like that?

The next thing he knew, his feet were resting on the tops of his thighs as if he did it all the time, and it didn't hurt a bit. Chuck was pleased. He worked his shoulders securely into the cushion and closed his eyes, focusing inward.

Nothing happened. No eternal truths came to his waiting mind. He cracked open an eye and slid it toward Keir, who was scowling at him. Hastily, he closed the eye and hurried to settle himself further.

"Concentrate," Keir scolded him. "Be in the moment. Time moves differently here, but it's not infinite, you know. Let your mind move outward. Feel the finite edges of time."

The thing Chuck was most aware of was the gentle movement of the train. It ran smooth as silk on the rails, swaying gently back and forth in the way he had always loved since he was a boy. Chuck was truly happy to be there. Everything about this trance state fascinated him. His eyes drifted open involuntarily, as though he couldn't bear to miss a single sight. The landscape was as brightly colored as a cartoon. Amazing buildings lined the tracks, unlike anything he'd ever seen in, what was it they called home?—the Waking World. He hoped he could remember them when he snapped out of his trance. He made an effort to achieve that relaxed stage of oneness with his surroundings, wanting to belong here. There already existed some deep connection that made him feel wistful. Could he increase it so the pangs of loss and sorrow went away? He had always wanted to have altered consciousness experiences, ever since he'd started to read those books in his teens.

But how long ago could that be? He was a teen now, wasn't he? He had been when he'd gotten off that fake airplane back in Rem. Chuck looked at his reflection in the window glass. He had changed again since the last evening, when he had felt that wave go through. The face he saw now could have been twentyish. How confusing not to know how old he was, or where he lived, or whom he worked for. Facts escaped him, squirting out of his mental grasp like wet soap. Feelings he retained in plenty, but his optical memory was behind wax blocks. Keir rapped on his knee with his knuckles.

"Now, pay attention. This is what you wanted," Keir said.

"Sorry," Chuck said. He closed his eyes.

"Be aware. Be comfortable, but not too comfortable. I want your brain awake. Ready?" Keir asked. Chuck nodded. The guide's soft, droning voice wrapped around his thoughts, cradling his mind, giving him a secure feeling and demanding his whole attention. "Good. I want you . . . to picture . . . a tree falling in the forest and making no sound whatever."

Chuck wrinkled his forehead as he tried to fit his brain around the concept. He had to replay the vision in his head over and over because his imagination kept attaching rustling noises and the whomp! at the end when the tree hit the ground.

Frustrated, he wiggled in his seat. He was going about this all wrong! Instead of trying to get the sound out all at once, what if he gradually turned down the volume, until the whole scene was muted? It took watching that tree fall about a dozen more times until the thudding dulled to a basso sensation that was felt rather than heard, and finally ceased entirely. Yes! Something he did was a success. Chuck felt triumphant. The tension drained from his body. He was on his way to an inner nirvana. No goal was too far for him to reach! He'd be enlightened in no time, now! He rose lightly about an inch above his seat and hovered there like a cloud. A firm hand, probably Keir's, clamped onto his shoulder and pushed him down again. Chuck sighed.

"Now," the guide's voice said, "I want you to listen for the sound of what the other hand is doing while only one hand is clapping."

That was much more difficult. To begin with, Chuck could not picture half a clap. He got so interested in that side of the question it took him a while to realize he was not working on the assignment. The other hand, the other hand . . . well, if the one was working, maybe the other was playing. Snapping its fingers? No, that was too close to clapping—say, perhaps that was how one hand clapped! Back to the other one. Playing, playing . . . Chuck pictured a yo-yo. The sound the toy made as the wrist snapped it up and down was a distinct, rhythmic humming. He grinned. Keir's voice interrupted his reverie.

"Very good," Keir said, and Chuck opened his eyes to see the guide smiling at him. "Now, let's try something a little more concrete. Take a look out that window there. We are surrounded by images, as real as you believe them to be. Those are dreams, made up of the Collective Unconscious of anyone throughout history who has ever gone to sleep, even you. So, what you see out there is a part of you. I want you to understand that you are part of them, as well. Why don't you think about that for a moment? We'll talk about it later."

Chuck found the concept interesting and, though difficult, he thought it was manageable. So, if his thoughts were part of the Collective Unconscious, then he was looking out at something he'd had a hand in making. He wondered what parts were his, and what parts belonged to, say, his neighbors, or his first-grade teacher. He got distracted by the notion of creation. Could you call a dream intellectual property, and who owned what? Trees and fence posts outside the window suddenly sprouted multiple nameplates, made of everything from parchment to plastic, no doubt designating what had been dreamed by whom. Chuck squinted at the names, most in alphabets he couldn't begin to read, and sought vainly for any image to which he could lay claim. Look, that thicket—he'd dreamed that once, hadn't he? The sense of familiarity was palpable as he ran his eyes over it. He just had time to read the names as the train whisked him past. He wasn't listed on any of the trees or bushes. How could that be? Or had he just enjoyed the fruits of someone else's creativity? He felt awe of things he had never thought of making from scratch. How did someone decide that a field ought to be composed of so many shades of brown and green? All right, so some of it could have come from observation, but to retain that impression so vividly that it was printed on one's dreams was very impressive. It was not so easy to rubberneck at such scenery and think of himself.

"Cast everything out of your mind," Keir's voice pushed relentlessly at Chuck, who immediately straightened up and went back to his contemplation. "See nothing. Hear nothing. Feel. Think."

Perhaps Chuck was not as good at deep meditation as he had thought, because he was unable to ignore the vendor in the square hat walking up and down the aisle with his tray slung around his neck yowling, "Peanuts! Peanuts! Gitcha peanuts here, folks!" Or the accordion player trying to coax "Lady of Spain" from his whining instrument. Privately, Chuck thought if she didn't want to come out, the guy should leave her in there. Through dint of deep concentration and counting his breaths, Chuck began to feel he was nearing a state of oneness with the infinite. Then the cadre of male ballerinas with thick mustaches wearing pink and white tutus clomped into the car, and began to dance the grand finale from Swan Lake. A large, hairy dancer attempted a grand jete, and nearly landed in Chuck's lap. Hastily, Chuck closed his eyes, picturing a blank wall, an empty room, a cloudless sky, the tree falling, anything but three hundred pounds of football player in a leotard. The clunking stopped, but other sounds took its place. He held his ears, but the noises hammered at him, demanding attention. He felt air rush past his face.

"Open yourself to the possibilities," Keir's voice said.

There was no way Chuck could do that, not with all that was going on inside the car. A deafening chorus of baying and the blare of trumpets heralded the arrival of a pack of bloodhounds, followed shortly by a host of horsemen and horsewomen in red coats hammering through the car on bulgingly round steeds with shiny brown coats and disproportionately tiny hooves. They vanished through the rear door of the car, the trumpet call fading in the distance. Chuck looked down at the aisle seat. A moment ago it had been empty. Now there was a fox in it, offering a ticket to the conductor. Chuck gawked. The fox winked up at him. Chuck tried to go back to his peaceful, meditative state, but it was no use.

"I can't," Chuck said, apologetically. The guide opened his eyes. "It's impossible, with all that going on."

"With all what?" Keir asked, deliberately blank.

"All that!" Chuck exclaimed, pointing at the fox, who assumed an innocent expression. "The hunters. The dancers. The . . . the other people."

"I didn't see anyone."

Chuck gawked at the guide. Bergold chuckled.

"He's pulling your leg, sir," the plump Historian said. "Those were nuisances. They're a feature of the Dreamland subject to neither rhyme nor reason, that tends to get in the way just when one must concentrate. There's nothing to be done about nuisances but be patient."

"You're teasing me?" Chuck asked Keir, taken aback. "Look here, for all the trouble it's taken me to get here, I take this very seriously!"

Persemid had had enough. She rounded on Chuck with vigor.

"Will you quit whining?" she demanded, leaning forward to stare straight at him. "You want the personal attention, and now you gripe about how it's offered to you. You're on an altered plane of consciousness, for pity's sake, and you've got the guide all to yourself most of the time, even yanking him away when some of the rest of us have questions or needs. Do you even think of the fact there are other people around you?"

"I thought I'd be alone on this quest," Chuck shot back, defensively. Her eyes went huge with fury.

"Well, you're not, so learn to live with the fact! You must be one of those people who always gets everything he wants in life." She didn't know how wrong she was, Chuck thought, but his face went red with shame.

"That's not true," he protested, weakly. "I need help. You've all been here before. I haven't. I need more help than the rest of you."

"I haven't," Sean said, then looked embarrassed for having spoken up. "Well, I can't complain about my treatment, not at all."

Chuck felt a little ashamed of himself, but he couldn't back down. "I don't remember agreeing to a group experience before I left."

"And you can't handle a change in plans? Learn to show some grace, will you?" Persemid said, exasperatedly. "There are five of us, and one guide. If you didn't learn to share in kindergarten, now's your chance!"

Face glowing like a sunset, Chuck retreated. A sort of wall formed around him, like a glass case in a museum. It didn't conceal him from the others—far from it. It put him on display so anyone could stare, but he was separated from them for a moment so he could think. He knew he was in the wrong, but he hated to be lectured. Persemid sat back, blue eyes afire, her round arms crossed over her chest, daring him to say another thing. She's as spiny as a hedgehog, he thought, glaring at her resentfully.

And, suddenly, Persemid was a hedgehog, furry, brown and bristling, needles sticking out in every direction. She looked down at herself with an expression of astonishment. Chuck couldn't help but smother a snicker.

She didn't like to be laughed at. Gaping with fury, she flung her paws up toward him. The wall around him vanished. An invisible force struck him square in the chest. He tumbled backwards out of his seat and into the laps of the people behind him.

"There, there, little one," said a gigantic woman, looming in on him. No, she wasn't huge; Persemid had rendered Chuck tiny. The passenger picked him up around his waist and set him on the floor on all fours. His paws scrabbled on the parquet. He had curly white fluff around his ankles and a white pompon of hair on his short little tail. She had turned him into a poodle! The nerve of the woman!

He jumped up on his seat to look Persemid square in the eye. He had no hands to pick up influence, so he breathed in all he could get and sneezed it at her. By then she had started to turn back into a person. Her little hand-paws flew up to catch the wave of energy, but she couldn't contain it all. What she missed roiled around her like fog, turning her brown fur black and white. She was a skunk. Uh-oh, Chuck thought. I've just handed her a weapon.

Persemid lost no time in using it. She turned her back on him and started pounding her rear foot on the seat cushion. Her fluffy, striped tail raised high. Everyone for rows around them dove for cover. Chuck gawked. He couldn't let her spray everybody just because she was mad at him. He hurried to throw another alteration at her, willing her human again. She changed just in time, but now she had a dripping, gooey handful of mud. She flung it straight at his face. Chuck threw himself off his seat into the aisle. The glop missed him, striking the passenger riding back-to-back with Chuck. The woman, clad in an immaculately pressed Victorian shirtwaist and bustle now splattered with mud, rose up in high dudgeon. Persemid started to sputter apologies. When the fashion plate held out her dainty gloved hand, a pie appeared on it. Persemid goggled as the lady hefted it, and threw it straight into the red-haired woman's face. Chuck couldn't help but laugh at Persemid's astonished expression. She turned on him, grabbed a cream pie out of the air, and heaved it at him. His dog reactions quicker than a human's could be, Chuck scooted off the upholstery and scrambled underneath his seat, where he concentrated on returning to personhood as quickly as he could.

By the time he emerged, the carful of passengers was embroiled in a great pie fight. Chuck didn't have time to think about how it happened. A huge banana cream pie came sailing over the seat back, straight for him. He ducked it, and heard Bergold let out a surprised cry as it splattered the front of his robe. Chuck stayed down behind the seat as a Dutch apple pie, launched by Bergold, came flying the other way. It struck a man in an old-fashioned racing coat and goggles square in the face. He began to throw pie after pie in every direction like a lawn sprinkler set on chocolate cream.

People in the car were screaming. Some were laughing as they threw their own edible missiles at others. Sean Draper let out a wild yell of joy as he gathered up pies that had missed him and tossed them back with gusto. Even the delicate Pipistrella and the demure Blanda carried handfuls of tarts and pastries into the fray. A couple of the children climbed underneath the nearest seat with a cherry pie and stayed out of the way, happily eating while the fight raged on above them. With a supply of sturdy pumpkin and custard pies in his arsenal, Chuck defended himself from a concerted attack by a group of old ladies armed with lemon meringue. The absurdity of the whole situation struck him, and he laughed, just in time to get a mouthful of crust. There ought to be a way to grow a lot of arms, so he could fire pies off at his opponents all at once. Instead, he found his arms filled with pastries balanced unsteadily from wrist to shoulder. As he hesitated, wondering how to fire them off, the old ladies rushed in at him, driving him to the wall. He collapsed under a heap of pies, howling with mock outrage. They ran off to join another battle, and Chuck grabbed the seat arm to help himself back to his feet.

In the midst of the fray, Hiramus sat with his arms folded against his chest. The bearded man hardly ever cracked a smile, and he sat aloof from the others unless Keir dragged him into the group. He jerked his head to one side as a pie flew past him. Not a dot of filling, not a crumb of crust had touched him, as if it wouldn't dare. Chuck was beginning to think of Hiramus as a suspicious character. Throughout all the pie fight, he sat talking with Morit in grim tones of mutual aggrievement, each of them looking disapproving and superior. What a pair of curmudgeons, Chuck thought. Later they would probably show each other their championship medals from grudge matches. Chuck thought of tossing pies at both of them just to shake them up, when he felt something soft strike him in the back of the head. He spun. Another cream pie hit him in the face. He spat. Coconut! He hated coconut. Chuck clawed at it as Persemid's voice rang in his ears.

"Gotcha," she cried.

Oh, she was asking for it now! Blinking the paste out of his eyes, Chuck sought around him for more ammunition. He came up with a gooey blueberry pie, and heaved it at her with all his strength. It caught her in the midsection, and launched her backwards several feet. By the time she landed, she had pies in each hand aimed straight at him. Chuck, eyes wide, dodged sideways, straight into the path of a pie fired from the front of the car.

"Ow!" he cried. "That hurt!" The remainder dropped to the floor with a clang. Unlike all the others flying around the room, this one had been baked in a solid iron pan. Who had thrown that?

Keir was standing by them, leaning against the wall in his homespun tunic, watching the whole thing. He moved between them, twitching a fingertip to and fro like a disapproving uncle.

"Enough!" he said, taking Chuck by one arm, and gesturing to Persemid with the other hand. Her pies fell, disappearing before they hit the ground. Another pie in an iron tin banged against the wall and vanished. "Enough already!" He gestured to the others, shooing them back toward their seats. Still untouched by the mess coating nearly every other surface in the car, Hiramus rose from beside Morit to rejoin the group. The two men exchanged knowing nods.

Chuck sat down in the aisle seat, wiping the rest of the coconut out of his eyebrows with the edge of his shirt. He was covered from hair to shoes with sweet filling and whipped cream. Persemid's drapey clothes were caked with chunks of crust glued on with dabs of fruit filling. Still chuckling, she brushed at the mess with a casual hand. Pipistrella's lovely gown wore blueberry stains, and Sean Draper had eclair in his hair. Keir clapped his hands, and the mess dissolved into thin air. Even the last, sweet taste on Chuck's tongue faded from existence. Pipistrella exclaimed with delight at the restoration of her dress. She fumbled for her hand mirror to check her face and hair.

"Now that was a fine example of a manifestation of dreamstuff," Keir said, happily. He fixed Chuck with a black-eyed gaze. "Now you've had a little personal experience on the fly, so to speak, you see that you have a greater capacity for using influence than you thought. Now you can learn how to control consciously what you do instinctively."

"Good idea," Chuck said heartily, making himself comfortable. Now, that sounded like a lesson that would be of great use in this strange place, where pastry one could taste, smell, and above all, throw casually formed out of thin air, and disappeared back into it, too. Keir gave him a quick smile.

Persemid looked up from her clothes, restored to cleanliness by Keir's gesture. She scooted her seat closer to them.

"I want to be in on this, too," she said.

"You don't need instruction," Chuck said, glancing at her in surprise. The woman's face grew purple, a horrible contrast with her red-orange hair. She stood up over Chuck and planted her hands on her hips. He was afraid she would pelt him with another pie, this one filled with rocks.

"I'm part of this group!" she exclaimed. "I am entitled to participate in whatever goes on!"

"I mean it as a compliment," Chuck said humbly, realizing she had misunderstood him. "I . . . I didn't mean to turn you into a hedgehog. It was an accident. It was just something I was thinking, and . . . and then, it happened. But when you threw it back at me and made me a poodle—well, it was impressive."

Persemid goggled at him, then sat back to think about what he'd said. "Thanks," she said at last. "But I do need to learn how to control influence. I can gather it up all right, but I didn't know for certain what it would do to you when I threw it at you."

Chuck laughed. "I'm just lucky you didn't throw your needles. Truce?" he asked, putting out a hand. After a moment's hesitation, she clasped it. Her plump hands were dry and strong. She had a good handshake.

"Truce."

Keir looked pleased. He rubbed his hands together. "Good! This lesson is more fun with two. In fact, the greater the participation, the greater the pleasure. Pipistrella," he said, turning toward her with the angel's face shining, "this is your time."

The pretty woman beamed at him, and her seat drew nearer to the little group. Chuck guessed that she, too, had a natural knack for manipulating influence, but like him had no idea what she was doing.

Keir turned to the others. "It's even more enjoyable with four. Or five."

Hiramus grudgingly put away his newspaper.

"I would like to know more," he admitted, drawing his seat nearer.

"Not me," Sean said, pulling away so that he moved nearly into the far corner of the car. "I shouldn't do a thing like that." Keir, in the guise of Sean's guide, reached out an arm that stretched all the way to him and pulled him back.

"Come and watch, then," he said.

Chuck found he didn't have to move at all. Their chairs drew into a circle. A round table appeared in their midst, covered with a blue linen tablecloth on which was set a silver bowl of fruit, a stack of magazines, knickknacks, a selection of children's toys, a magnifying glass, a pair of tweezers, and a hammer.

"You don't really need this table, in a purely physical sense," Keir said, "but it will probably make you feel mentally more comfortable to have something to set your work down on. And these items are just to get you started. Use the bowl of fruit. Use the building blocks, or the crayons. Use the table. It's all dreamstuff. You have the ability to change it into anything you can think of."

Chuck looked at the array of items, wondering what to do first. Could he play with the same abandon with which he had made pies out of air? He was almost afraid to try. These things didn't need to be changed. They looked just fine the way they were. He could see that the others were reluctant, too.

"What the heck," Persemid said, at last. With great ceremony, she set a building block down in front of her, raised the hammer, and brought it down. Instead of cracking or bounding away from her, the alphabet block mashed flat. Persemid raised her eyebrows.

"You see?" Keir said. "It's already different than you expected. Now, stretch the envelope."

Persemid picked up the block and began to pull the substance of it out like taffy. She laughed for pure glee. It oozed out between her hands. She let it stretch out, and tossed one end toward Hiramus. The fussy man caught it, with an expression of distaste. The end he was holding became clear and suffused with an aura of orange-red. The alteration traveled up the length to Persemid, who dropped her end and shook her hand.

"Ow! That's hot!"

Chuck watched with interest. He'd seen workers in a foundry blowing glass that looked just like the mass Hiramus was now holding. Seemingly unaffected by what had to be intense heat, Hiramus twisted the molten glass around and around until it became a disk. As it cooled, it grew smooth and shiny. Hiramus picked up the disk and peered at his companions through it with one eye that looked a dozen times the size of the other.

"A magnifying glass!" Chuck said. "But how is that like an alphabet block?"

Keir wore his delphine grin, floating on the air as though it was water. "Both are aids to reading, are they not? Well thought out, Hiramus," he squeaked.

"Thank you," the bearded man said, with a twinkle in his eye. "I feared that my attempt wouldn't work, but I see the association of related ideas is as malleable as the—what did you call it?—dreamstuff."

"You only have to believe in it," Keir said, in his shrill voice. "Make the connection, and you can do anything!"

Pipistrella did not need any more encouragement. She peeled pictures of people off the covers of the fashion magazines and blew them up until they formed a circle around her. The figures primped and preened and turned about, even though they were all still two-dimensional. Very gradually, they shifted in color and configuration until all of them looked like her. Persemid started putting together more of the blocks into words, and crowing with delight when they turned into a crudely-painted wooden model of what the word represented: purses, blouses, shoes, objets d'art. Chuck toyed with the knickknacks, changing them effortlessly from one useless, gaudy thing into another. He had just succeeded in making a cluster of china flowers into a painted wooden nutcracker, when he noticed that Sean still hadn't touched anything.

"Your turn, my lad," Keir said, leaning over him and laying a maternal hand on Sean's arm.

"I think I'll pass," Sean said, pressing his lips together. His face was pale.

Chuck found himself feeling sorry for Sean, without knowing exactly why. The tall man seemed reluctant to have anything to do with the unseen. Uses of influence and all the changing seemed to frighten him, although Sean tightened up that strong jaw to prevent even the hint of a whimper from coming out. Chuck wondered why, if he was so scared, he was here?

"You looked like you were having a good time at the pie fight," he pointed out. Sean folded his arms.

"Maybe because that was physical. I can see and feel that."

"But you made some of those pies yourself," Keir pointed out, gentle blue-gray eyes intent on the tall man. "Those had no more eternal reality than anything else in this world, yet you handled them without qualm."

"No, I did not!" Sean protested at once.

"Oh, yes, you did."

"No! I . . . wouldn't have. I couldn't have!"

"Well," Keir asked, reasonably, "were any of the ones you threw whole?"

"Well, of course they were!"

"Pies smash to crumbs when they hit something, you know, my dear. Where did you find them?"

Sean began to look frustrated. "I just found them, that's all. I don't know." He looked at Chuck. "Maybe I took some of his. He was making them like there's no tomorrow." He stopped, as if the phrase bothered him, and licked his lips.

"I doubt they were mine," Chuck said. "I was under siege a lot of the time." He glanced behind him to make sure the lemon-meringue ladies didn't overhear him. To his surprise, they were no longer in the car. My, people come and go so quickly around here! he thought.

"You see?" Keir asked, brightly. "You must have done it yourself."

The concept bothered Sean greatly, but after a while, he admitted, "Well, I will allow that I enjoyed it."

"Then why not learn what it is you did?" Keir said. "There's no harm in it. It's meant to be fun." He pulled the silver bowl from the middle of the table toward Sean. The fruit in it quivered slightly, as if ready and willing to change at the first opportunity. Sean raised his hands, but hesitated.

"I shouldn't meddle with what it is already. I could mess it all up."

"You can't make a mistake," Keir said, gently. "You have a new ability, a new chance to use it. Reach out and try."

"Join us," Hiramus said, with his wintry smile. "This is part of the education to which I was looking forward."

Almost shyly, Sean picked up an orange. He rolled it between his long hands. Chuck found himself waiting eagerly to see what the other man would make.

"I shouldn't be doing this," Sean said, reluctantly. But the orange started to change as it sat on his palms. It grew yellower and larger. Chuck thought it was meant to be some kind of melon.

"You see?" Keir asked. "You can't help changing what is around you. The knack comes out of your very beings. This is the motive force that created not only the Dreamland, but our own world. It's like adding more paint to a painting. You might as well know how to create pretty pictures, because otherwise all you're going to do is spread blobs all over the rest of the landscape, and that will cause more mischief than the responsible use of your own imagination. See? You're creating already."

"I'm not much of an artist," the tall man said, blushing when the sphere between his hands elongated and flopped over to one side. "Well, do you see that? I've ruined it."

"Here," Chuck said, glad now to share his experience. He reached over for the blob of matter. "That's easy to fix."

"No, let me," Pipistrella said, floating over in her silver dress to sit very close beside Sean, like milkweed fluff settling on a leaf. "Now, here is what I do," she said. She gathered up the sagging mass in her delicate fingers and began to pat it together. The color changed to yellow, and the surface texture smoothed. She began to draw tendrils of matter from the main body. It seemed as though she wanted to make a bunch of bananas, but they were coming out as round as marbles. "Oh, my," she said, helplessly. "Oh, dear." Any attempt she made to have them curve outward seemed to backfire. She patted and shifted the mass, which tumbled about but didn't form into the expected long, tapered cylinders.

Sean, watching her, could bear it no longer. Impatiently, he reached over and took the mass out of her hands. A few deft movements, and the bananas hung together in a bunch, all of uniform shape. He offered it back to her. "Isn't this what you were trying to do?" he asked, a trifle exasperatedly.

"Oh, yes!" she said, with a heart-melting smile of delight for Sean. "That's perfect." In spite of himself, Sean smiled back.

Chuck had been thinking all along that Pipistrella hadn't an ounce of sense in her lovely head, until he caught the glance she threw him from under her long eyelashes. Chuck bit the inside of his lip to keep from bursting out laughing. She knew exactly what she was doing. Catching the byplay, Persemid let out a snort of amusement. Puzzled, Sean looked up at her.

"Nothing, nothing," she said, waving a hand. "That's good. I've never seen better bananas. Keep going." And to his own surprise, Sean did. He took a bunch of grapes out of the bowl and as he picked them off the vine, set them out in a square pattern. Each grape became a little house with white, stucco walls and a peaked roof. The blue tablecloth warmed to green among the houses, and little white fences divided the lawns into long, narrow strips. From the fond way Sean regarded the scene, Chuck guessed it must represent his hometown. Chuck was envious, since his memory was still befuddled. Sean had a very vivid visual recollection, with an exceptional knack for details. Chuck wondered if Sean was an artist. Chuck turned his attention back to his own experiments. He was trying to create a perpetual motion machine.

The wolf Keir sat beside Persemid, guiding her hands with the occasional nudge of his nose. She was really good, needing only a little direction to really make use of her boundless wealth of influence. She and Keir communicated without spoken words. She would glance at him now and again, nodding as though she was listening, and change something based upon what she saw in the depthless silver eyes.

Persemid caught Chuck's eye on her, and raised her brows with a little smile. They exchanged looks of shared enthusiasm. There was satisfaction in accomplishing something, seeing a mental vision made real. Chuck glanced down at what Persemid was doing, and let out a low whistle of respect. She had captured a ray of sunlight. It bounced between two opaque slices of dreamstuff like a nuclear sandwich.

"How did you do that?" he asked. "Will you show me?" Her brows went up again, this time in surprise. He was glad he had asked, just to see the gratified look on her face.

"I'd be happy to," she said, holding out her hands to him. Chuck watched closely. He wasn't sure if he could do what she did even though she was demonstrating it openly and at a learner's pace. She seemed to be able to gather the light that fell on the table from the lamp in her hand. The harder she squeezed it down, the brighter the smaller mass became until it was diamond-sized and hot. She took an orange out of the basket, snapped it apart with a twist of her hands, and put the dot of light into the center.

"You know the old saying about a day without oranges," she said, with a self-deprecating grin. Chuck nodded. His hands chased a beam of light around the table until he penned it up. It felt like mercury on his palms. When he squeezed it, some of the light squirted out between his fingers and dribbled down the back of his hand like mustard. What was left was only a little brighter than the original lamplight.

"Forget it," he said to Persemid. "You're much better at this than I am." Persemid seemed surprised by the compliment, but she gave him a brusque, shy nod before going back to her own work of art. The truce was holding. "Hey, Pipistrella, that's pretty," Chuck said, noticing that the other woman was sculpting a rainbow. It looked very real, and he loved rainbows. "May I see that?"

"Oh, of course," she said, looking up at him with wide green eyes. She held the tiny arch out to him in both hands. Chuck picked it up gingerly in the middle with careful thumb and forefinger. The rainbow sagged and it changed in his hands to interlinked rings of rainbow hues.

"Oh, did I mention influence can shift each other's visions?" Keir said innocently. "You affect everything around you to varying degrees. Whether or not you know it, you are always creating. The things you set in motion during your own dreams respond to you even while you are awake. Your own mindset, if you like, changes things to suit your view of them. Something, or someone, has to have a strong personal identity to avoid being changed. Sometimes it takes constant vigilance."

Sean's little village had people, now, walking to and fro across the miniature square, stopping to talk as they met one another. The tall man sculpted a white stucco church and put it down. All of the little people began to walk towards it, as a seed-sized bell tolled in the steeple. All the others let out a collective sigh of admiration. Sean looked up with a start. Chuck thought he just figured out he had been having fun, and that that enjoyment hadn't caused him to be whisked off straight to hell. Sean sent around a shamefaced grin.

"That was fun, and it was indeed effortless, thanks to you distracting me out of myself for a while. I'm grateful, Pip," he said, bowing over the hand of the lovely woman in silver gilt. He stopped, embarrassed. "I am sorry. May I call you that?"

Pipistrella looked delighted. "I've never had a nickname before. How sweet of you. Pip. I like it." She leaned over to kiss Sean on the cheek. He turned red to the roots of his dark hair and sat back in his seat mumbling. Persemid grinned at him.

"Attagirl," said Chuck.

He could feel a kind of collective energy gathering at the table, as though they were forming a cohesive group. Chuck felt empowered. He could do anything. He picked up the top hat that sat in the center of the table. Making pies out of nothing had been so easy that a complicated and indirect transformation ought to be a piece of cake. Why shouldn't a hat be a . . . a book? Chuck brought his palm down hard on the silk cylinder, flattening it. He let it start to rise again, to a little over an inch in thickness, then began to press it out into book shape.

Fitting a round peg into a square pattern wasn't easy, but he persisted. The hat liked being a headcover, and didn't like being a book. Every time Chuck pushed the image until it got pages, they turned into lining or ruffles. He yanked the black silk savagely, tugging the corners into place. The whole mass changed from black to white, and became covered with printing. Chuck found himself holding a cocked hat folded out of newspaper. Irritated, he slapped it down again. The entertaining exercise was turning into a battle of wills, and he was losing to a hat! He reshaped it again and again, but the best he could get was a thinking cap. He got a derisive chortle from Sean, who had lost his fear of using matter as modeling clay and was bending metal with his fingers. Chuck shot him a sour smile and fought the mass until it was shaped the way he wanted. Now, that was a handsome book. He looked at the crisp, black morocco cover. The title read The Story of the Hat. Pleased, Chuck opened it. On each page, in 96-point Garamond type, was the same number:

83/4

Hiramus glanced over. "Hat size."

"No," Chuck said, frustrated, yanking the book out of shape and patting it back again. "I want a real book."

"No, no," Keir said. "Remember what I told you yesterday. Form follows function, I said. Unless you're making something out of thin air, stay with the basic use of the object. Food is food. Clothing is clothing. Unless you see something otherwise. You might see liver as an instrument of torture, or a tie as a noose, so that is how it would change under your particular influence. Take Mrs. Flannel's pet here," Keir said, indicating the fat brown tabby that sat on the old woman's lap. "If you like cats, her pet is a pet to you. If you're afraid of cats, it will change into another object of terror when it alters. If you worship cats, it might become an icon or a living god."

"Would you like to try transforming Spot?" Mrs. Flannel asked.

Chuck grinned with embarrassment as the old lady offered the cat to him.

"Go on," she said. "Try it a bit. He's been a lot of things in his time. Haven't you, my darling?" The cat purred foolishly, almost drooling on her sleeve.

"I might hurt him by accident," Chuck said, eyeing the large striped bundle with alarm.

"A Visitor like you could never harm my little love, could he, darling?" she said, cooing to the cat. She tucked the cat into Chuck's arms, where it hung like a sack of flour. "You never know what you can do until you try. We have confidence in you."

Spot purred throatily, nestling trustingly against Chuck. That made Chuck all the more determined to be careful. Everyone's eyes were upon him now. He felt uneasy deliberately working on a living thing. His transformation of Persemid had been an accident.

How should he begin? He did like cats. Spot turned his head up with eyes slitted closed, inviting Chuck to tickle him under his chin. Chuck scratched the sensitive place, feeling the cat's purr resonate in his own chest. The vibration seemed to jump-start the influence that flowed through his hands. Now it would be easy.

When Mrs. Flannel looked at her pet, she saw a treasure. Spot didn't seem to mind shifting, sensitive to Chuck's impression, into a pirate's casket of gold. The deep purr echoed from the depths of the chest. Dreamlanders must be very secure individuals. What could he go on to from there? Purring still reminded him of catness. Spot resumed his cat shape. His coat grew shorter and coarser on a thinner, longer body with a narrow, wedge-shaped head. The dark stripes that had been tarnished brass banding on the chest melded together and moved out toward the extremities, leaving the tan body a blank canvas. The eyes brightened from pale yellow to sapphire blue. In just a few moments, Spot's species had shifted from tabby to treasure chest to Siamese cat. Chuck was amazed how well the transformation had gone. And Spot was now a prettier cat, too. He shot a glance at Mrs. Flannel, worried what she would think, but she gathered Spot in her arms, cooing at him and scratching between his ears. She really didn't care what he looked like; she still loved him overwhelmingly.

"Nice job," Keir said.

"I don't think I was really in control of that," Chuck said. He caught Morit looking at him, and thought the grim man was smirking at his stupidity. Anyone would have, Chuck thought, glumly. "I mean, I still don't know intellectually how I did that."

"But you know now more of what you don't know, don't you?" Keir asked.

"Yes, I think so," Chuck said, hope rising at the guide's words. "I think it's a tremendous breakthrough."

"Into what?" Persemid asked, looking up from the lamp she was sculpting. She tapped a finger on the tabletop, then pointed straight at Chuck's nose. "Revelation time: No matter how good you become at using influence right here it won't change a thing about your real life. It'll take more than making modeling clay to snap you out of whatever funk that's been making you such a joy to be around. What you're doing here isn't permanent. It doesn't even last. Look."

The now familiar upheaval of Sleeper-driven influence rolled through the car, changing the wood paneling to striped wallpaper, and giving all new faces to the people. Nestled in Mrs. Flannel's arms, Spot changed in a heartbeat from a Siamese cat to a tiny green parrot with red circles around its eyes. It gave Mrs. Flannel a kiss on the lips with its beak. Chuck was disappointed. Well, at least it's still affectionate. I didn't ruin that. 

"So this so-called skill is good only for party tricks," Chuck said, unhappily. He flipped a hand toward Spot. "I don't even make a permanent mark in this world. I have wasted all that time in just playing."

"Not at all," Keir said, sincerity in his dark eyes. "You have no idea of the profound reach of your talent. It will mean more than you know in learning to be content with yourself. And that is why you are here. That will make a difference in your world."

The train whistle tooted, splitting the air, and the train began perceptibly to slow. Keir brightened, his wiry eyebrows climbing toward his brow. He slapped Chuck heartily on the back.

"The Meditation Gardens! We're here. You'll enjoy this, my boy."

Chuck was feeling sorry for himself. "How will this help? I already know how to meditate. Will this make any difference in me?"

"You have too much trouble simply relaxing and letting things happen," Keir said. "I believe this is just the place to help you learn how to let go and just be." Keir drifted away from him, his limbs shortening into dolphin flippers as he went to tell Hiramus the news. The two curmudgeons and the woman looked up at him. Morit nodded grimly. Hiramus's expression didn't change. He just tucked his newspaper under his arm and prepared to rise. Keir went on to Sean to offer him an enthusiastic description of the Meditation Gardens.

Uh-huh, Chuck thought skeptically, sitting in his seat playing idly with a handful of seat cushion that he sculpted into a troll doll. The discontentment he had banished was back with reinforcements. Why did Persemid have to remind him of how powerless he was in the real world? He wished he could be a Sleeper, and order the dreams of millions—billions, even! But he couldn't even control his own dreams for very long.

* * *

Morit had been watching the Visitors. There they sat, in their closed circle, working away with bucketfuls of influence as if it was so much water, violating all the rules of dreamstuff to suit their selfish purposes. Did they think of sharing power with those less fortunate than themselves? Of course not! He smiled when they met his eyes, but they would have been shocked if they knew he was thinking of the easiest way to dispose of them.

One of his comrades had communicated with him at last. The next attempt on the Visitors' lives would come soon. This time, it had better be more effective than the abortive train wreck. He wanted to see the whole lot of them crushed the way they smashed the blocks and fruit with which they played so idly.

The train jerked suddenly to a stop, propelling Morit halfway out of his seat. He cursed. The harness he had made to shield himself from the wreck the day before had vanished without a trace. Just like the Sleepers, to withdraw a gift exactly when he needed it! Blanda glanced out the window, and leaned over toward him.

"We're in Murmur, dear. I am looking forward to seeing the Meditation Gardens. That will be nice. We've never been."

"Hmmph!" Morit snorted. "I know we've never been! I never wanted to come here! You know the Meditation Gardens are here! You've been reading guidebooks for weeks! And you've heard those people's guide yammering about it nonstop for miles!" He shook a forefinger at her.

"Don't be cross, Morit. It ties you all up in knots." She reached over to undo the tangle his fingers had worked themselves into.

He snatched his hands away from her grasp, and propped himself up against the wall of the train to sulk. He was disgusted with himself that his level of influence was so weak next to that of the interlopers. He had particularly taken against Chuck Meadows. The Visitor invasion could have been stemmed so quickly, if only that unspeakable nightmare of a man hadn't been able to stop the train. All the Visitors should have been too surprised to react. But someone hadn't—who had told him how? It must have been the man from the Ministry of History. Morit glared at Bergold, who was chattering away to the pretty woman. How annoying. He was a traitor to his kind. He would have to be destroyed with the Visitors. No one would suspect foul play if he didn't come back. Travel had its own perils. Bergold would just have been unlucky enough to discontinue.

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