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Chapter 19

The two of them browsed the bazaar together. Chuck found plenty in common with open-air sales he'd been to before. This was a weird hybrid of all flea markets, shopping malls, garage sales and probably the Casbah. The goods seemed to come from all over the world. They were distributed in unlikely ways, like sensible underwear for sale at the same booth as self-help books.

"Snake oil!" shouted a man in silk pants, holding up an ornamental bottle half full of murky liquid. "Getcha free-range organic snake oil right here!"

"Is it really free-range?" Chuck asked, raising his voice above the crowd.

"Absolutely, son, absolutely!" the man called back. "You can believe everything I say. Honest John, that's me."

Not everyone selling goods in the bazaar was human. At one stall that boasted a long line of customers waiting for service, a long-haired black cat offered an arched back for petting. The value of what she was offering seemed to change depending upon the customer. One woman with brown hair kept dumping gold out of her purse until the cat sauntered over. The woman buried her fingers in the long fur. Both of them wore a blissful expression, though in Chuck's opinion the session didn't last long enough to be worth what the woman had paid. A roughly dressed man with a scruffy beard flipped a fish head down on the counter. The cat gave just as good value as he had for the woman, rubbing against his shirt front and scrubbing her head against the back of his hand. Things were worth what you would pay for them, Chuck thought.

To his surprise, now that he had plenty of money, he didn't see anything he really wanted to buy. In fact, the more he walked around, he saw nothing he really considered to be of value.

"I'm not getting what I thought I would out of this trip," he said to Keir. He looked around. Still too many people nearby to raise his shirt. "I am not coming any closer to solving my problems. How far are we now from Enlightenment?" Keir raised a bushy eyebrow.

"My young friend, the idea of this journey is not to travel as far as you can, but draw your destination as close to you as you can."

Chuck kicked a stone that skipped along the ground just as it would on a pond. When it stopped, it sank into the pavement, leaving only ripples to show where it had been. "I don't understand this place. It's too confusing. I don't fit into the scheme of things here. I need a change." Keir stopped and slapped him on the arm.

"Ah, my boy, but that is where you are wrong! The Dreamland is exactly what you need. The people here pride themselves on bending to the will of sleepers from the Waking World, to aid you in solving your problems."

"Then why aren't they solving them for me?" Chuck asked.

"Because they don't know what it is you want. State it clearly."

"I don't know what to call it," Chuck said, helplessly. "If I could say what's bothering me, I'd be able to fix it myself."

"It's hard to solve vague, nameless unhappiness," Keir said, sympathetically. "Try. You need to put a name to your need so you can face it deliberately, and do away with it."

It was good advice. Chuck tried to follow it. Beyond the tents and booths, the open square beckoned him. In the center a stone fountain with a statue of three dolphins threw crystal-bright drops into the air. Chuck wandered toward the benches surrounding it, and found one that was unoccupied. He sat down, set his chin on his fist, and thought.

How could he phrase his problem, when he had so few memories of home? All he knew was that he would rather be dead than go back. He felt all right while he was occupied, but the moment there was nothing on his mind, the blinding misery came rolling back like a wave. There ought to be a clue in that. What could possibly explain the emptiness that took a chunk out of the middle of his body?

While he sat, people walking by glanced at him. It didn't bother him at first. Soon, though, they began to stare more openly. Immersed in his pensive mood, he ignored them. What did they want? If they needed directions, he couldn't give them. He was a stranger there, too. It was when the cluster of small men with black hair and glasses stopped to photograph him that he became uncomfortable. He wasn't a tourist attraction! Then, he noticed the group of art students in smocks over tight black clothing sitting a short distance away doodling in sketch pads, glancing up at him all the while. They were drawing him! Chuck leaped up and waved his arms at them.

"Stop it! This isn't helping!"

The art students turned into a flock of pigeons and flew away. The Japanese tourists vanished in a single flash of light. He was alone in the square, not a soul in view. That was better. If Dreamlanders were supposed to serve him, those were the worst examples of therapy he had ever seen. He settled down again to think. How could he pin down the source of his troubles and put it into words?

As softly as a whisper, footsteps brushed near, and as quickly scurried away from him. Chuck glanced over. A bunch of flowers sat on the bench beside him. Chuck looked up to see a child vanishing around the corner of a stall. He smiled, touched by the kindness. He must really look sad. A book fell onto his lap. Chuck read the title: What To Name Your Anxiety? The donor, an older woman who reminded him of Mrs. Flannel, gave him a shy smile. Chuck returned it, already thumbing through the pages. Names jumped up at him like "performance anxiety" and "Cinderella syndrome." He read down the long lists of multisyllabic diagnoses, but none of them seemed to feel exactly right. The book shed no light on his problem at all.

Suddenly, a brilliant spotlight hit him, dousing the scene around him into darkness. Applause from a thousand pairs of hands broke out.

"Chuck Meadows!" a deep voice announced from somewhere beyond the spotlight. "Are you ready to solve the puzzle?"

Chuck stood up, discovering he was behind a waist-high desk, and a sequin-clad woman was clapping her hands together beside a game board full of giant letters. He peered at the parts of words that had already been revealed.

_ _ D _ _ _ _ _ R _ _ _ _

It didn't ring any bells. "Not yet," he said. "Um, can I . . . uh, can I buy a vowel?"

"I'm so sorry!" the enthusiastic voice said, heartily. "We have none! Only you can complete the phrase!" Chuck found he had a sheaf of the huge letters in his hands. He spread them out on the little desk. There were at least two of every letter.

"I could spell almost anything with these," he said.

"Yes! But only one phrase will win the game! Go ahead, Chuck! Give it a try!"

Chuck started to put together words. "Worry" didn't fit on the board. Neither did "unhappiness," "inadequacy," or "discontentment." To his bewilderment, the game board started to move around, leaving different word-length gaps. He was afraid to make a choice. "What if I'm wrong?"

"Then you get a copy of our home game," the voice exclaimed. "And the chance to come back next week and try again."

Well, he didn't want to do that. But none of the words he could make put a name to his sorrow. How could he express in a simple phrase the deep unhappiness of his life? How could he designate the hollowness in his heart that was so much larger than the hole already there? The unseen crowd whispered. Chuck was embarrassed that everyone was looking at him.

"Do you see?" Keir's voice echoed over the public address system. "They want to help, but they can't make the determination for you. They can't solve problems you can't frame. Tell them."

Chuck felt the hole. Was it getting larger, or was that just his panic-stricken imagination playing tricks on him? He opened his mouth. The crowd hushed, expectant, waiting. Hastily, Chuck clapped his lips shut again. He couldn't stand to show that much vulnerability in public. What if he showed the gap in his heart right there and then, and they laughed at him? He didn't want to be ridiculed by strangers. The broad darkness beyond the bright light overwhelmed him. "I . . . I can't."

He broke away from the desk amid murmuring from the audience. There had to be a way out of here. He started feeling around for a way off the stage.

A thin, bony hand grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him toward stairs that led into the darkness offstage. Within a few steps he was back in daylight in the bazaar. Keir let go of his arm.

"No luck?" the guide asked.

Chuck hung his head. "No."

"Never mind," Keir said, with a friendly slap on the back. "Let it be. Let's get the others. I have some other interesting places to show you."

As they walked back among the stalls toward the bridge, Keir shot off into the crowd now and again, to return with one or another of his clients in tow. Persemid was the first to be found. She had replaced several of her suitcases with a large, handsome, brown leather bag painted in an Indian motif. A wave of change must have come through during the game show, because she looked like an Asian, wrapped in a beautiful brown sari edged in silver and gold embroidery. Chuck realized he was similarly clad, his jeans and sweatshirt replaced by loose-fitting trousers and tunic of blue silk. He liked the new clothes. They felt elegant and cool on his skin. Hiramus, unearthed from yet another bookstall, was also dressed in silks, a long tunic over flowing trousers tucked into black boots and a black, cone-shaped felt cap. His mustache was long and black, and there was a fierce curved sword stuck into his sash. He had a small package under his arm that he tucked into his carpetbag while he walked. Sean, similarly dressed, strutted alongside them with a tipsy gait. He grinned easily at them, the most relaxed he'd been since their journey together had begun. Chuck guessed he'd found the local equivalent of a pub. Other travelers joined the queue heading back over the bridge.

Instead of a train or a jet, what was waiting for them on the plateau was a string of elephants, lined up trunk to tail. The engineer, dressed in silks with a tall green plume sticking up from his cap, sat on the neck of the lead elephant, and the fireman, in white loincloth and regulation hat, stood alongside with a shovel that Chuck doubted was for coal. Other passengers had arrived back, and were lining up beside the appropriate beast.

Keir stood by the third elephant, gesturing his party to board. Chuck assisted Mrs. Flannel up the ladder to the howdah, where the married couple from Elysia was already sitting. There was barely room for them all with their luggage. Chuck was pleased to see that he'd managed to shed one of his small bags. They got settled hip to hip when Keir started to do a head count. Chuck looked around and groaned.

"Pip isn't back yet."

"What is it about her?" Persemid said, peevishly. "It's as if she doesn't know time exists."

"There's one in every group," Chuck agreed. Sean stayed resolutely silent, his blue eyes startling in a teak-skinned face. Chuck guessed he was reluctant to be disrespectful about the woman who had been so kind to him, but he must have been annoyed. Hiramus certainly looked that way. No sense in dwelling on it. She'd come when she came.

"How did you like that, back there?" Chuck asked the others, gesturing at the cloud-shrouded mountain.

Persemid glanced up at the Rock of Ages, a trifle uneasily. "It was interesting, to a point, but I felt all the time as though I was being watched. Do you think the people in those visions can see you, too?"

Chuck raised his eyebrows. He hoped he hadn't been doing anything embarrassing, like scratching, while he had been sitting on the mountainside. "I never thought of that. I don't know. Did you feel that, too?" he asked Morit and Blanda.

"Not at all," Blanda said, with the shyness that seemed to come out when she talked to one of the Visitors. "But we weren't sitting very often. We were hiking about on the mountainside. Very healthy, this mountain air. It does us good, doesn't it, my love?" Morit grumbled something.

"I got a kick in the pants today," Sean blurted out.

"You did?" Persemid asked. "Literally?"

"Yes, indeed. Nearly knocked me straight down the mountain, as if it was saying to me, `Sean, you shouldn't be sitting there watching pictures in the air. You should be up and doing.' So I did."

"That's good advice," Persemid said, glancing toward Keir, who had taken on the shape of Sean's mother to listen. "But I've never heard of a mountain kicking anybody before."

"There she is," Sean said, sitting up straighter. Chuck glanced toward the bridge. The slender woman coming toward them had dark skin and hair and was wound into a bright red sari, but by the way she moved it was unmistakably Pipistrella. She didn't so much walk as float. Behind her stretched a string of native bearers in white loincloths with parcels balanced on their heads. When the train reached their elephant, one bearer knelt down and gave a leg to another, who popped up onto the elephant's back. The other porters formed a bucket brigade, tossing packages from hand to hand to the one now treading on the passengers' feet, who packed the bags and boxes into every spare square inch in the howdah, shoving them underneath people's feet and balancing them all the way around the rail of the open framework. By the time they had also handed Pipistrella aboard, the passengers felt crowded and angry.

"Hello, everyone," she carolled, gliding to an empty spot on the frame that no one had noticed. She sank gracefully onto it, paying no attention to the glares focused on her. "Wait until you see all the lovely things I found." She opened bag after bag, showing off strings of glowing beads, yards of colored silks, a little animal with huge eyes and long gray fur, a jewel-encrusted gold goblet, and offered them to her fellow passengers to examine.

Persemid handled the silks with envious fingers. "These are beautiful," she said.

"Do you like it?" Pip asked. "Take those. I have lots more."

"I can't do that," Persemid said.

"Why not?" Pip asked, unanswerably. "You like it. I'm giving it to you." Persemid vacillated, hesitant to put them down but even more hesitant to accept a gift from someone she was mad at. She gave Chuck a helpless look. Pipistrella was exasperating. One couldn't even hate her.

"What did you do for money?" Chuck asked, curiously, as Pip poured gems and perfume bottles out onto the floor. She must have spent a fortune.

"Money?" she asked blankly. "People gave all these things to me. Aren't people nice?"

Chuck couldn't have been more annoyed. When he'd asked for the windup rainbow, the toy seller not only wouldn't give it to him, she'd made a spectacle of him in front of the crowd. Chuck glanced at Keir, sitting astride the elephant's neck with the air that he did it every day, and got a sharp glance in return. On the other hand, he admitted that if it had been easy to get, Chuck wouldn't have had to examine his motivation and had the revelation that restored part of his memory. Three kids, he thought, fondly. I have three kids. Chuck figured that learning the value of an object wasn't a lesson that Pipistrella needed to learn, but it had been one for him. She could buy or receive things freely without it troubling her. He was the one who had to know that what he really enjoyed was the receiving of something so that he could give it away. It was good of Keir to provide him with money for more of those impulse purchases, but those chickens in his pocket would stay there until he decided he really needed something. All that would tempt him at that moment would be if he could buy a magical cure that would close up the hole in his heart.

* * *

The elephants lumbered along the edge of the canyon, stoically stumping up and down the rough paths in a clockwise direction around the Rock of Ages. Intent on hanging onto his lurching seat to avoid being thrown right off the train, Chuck paid little attention to his surroundings until the lead elephant vanished from in front of them.

"Hey," he said, distracting everyone from their conversations. Abruptly, the second elephant made a sharp left turn, into the seemingly solid wall of rock, and disappeared. "But that's im—"

"—possible?" Keir asked, as the elephant carrying them turned toward the mountainside as well. Chuck threw up his hands to shield his face, but the collision he feared never arrived. The stone had no substance. "Not at all," the guide's voice echoed hollowly in the sudden darkness. "Just another tunnel. We'll be through it in a moment."

"I didn't see a tunnel," Persemid's voice said accusingly. Chuck would have seconded her, but he was wondering if his heart would ever start beating again.

"That's the way the tracks run," Bergold's voice said pleasantly. "If the tracks go this way, it must be passable. There, do you see?"

The string of elephants broke through into daylight. Bergold pointed to the ground. Large, round footprints dotted the dusty path leading straight back. More beasts emerged behind them one at a time from the solid rock face until a baby elephant with a red light attached to its tail marked the end of the train.

"Weird," Persemid said. The Rock and its spooky visions were now completely hidden.

"How cosy," Pipistrella said, looking ahead.

Chuck turned to see. If he hadn't just come through the ridge of mountains dividing them, Chuck would never have believed the two places were even remotely close together. This land was much sunnier than the Rock of Ages. Except for a few picturesque cumulus clouds the sky was clear, and the sun glinted off the silver ribbon of a river that wound off to the east, away from their route.

In the curve of the river lay a small town. A few cars and horses were parked along its streets, but it was fairly quiet. Men and women wearing conservative day clothes smiled as they passed one another on the sidewalks. Children rode bicycles and ponies in the wide yards of modest brick or frame houses. Dogs raced around with the children, and cats sunned themselves on windowsills or porch rails. Chuck glimpsed a tree-filled park.

A female police officer in a cap and Day-Glo tabard blew a whistle at the cross-traffic as the train of elephants walked up the middle of the street.

"Say, I know where I am," Chuck said, seeing a yellow building with an awning and white trim. "There's a store just around the corner that I used to visit all the time." The dawning delight of recognition was quickly replaced by puzzlement. "But this doesn't look exactly like what I remember. That building used to be a different color." Persemid raised her eyebrows at him. The building was brick. It must always have been yellow. Chuck gave a sheepish shrug. "Everything is just in the right place, I guess. I suppose all small towns look the same."

Bergold chuckled. "This place may contain elements you contributed to it, my dear sir. It may resemble something with which you are familiar all the more because your influence is nearby. The Seven Sleepers provide the underlying geography, based upon their personal experience, but what form it takes changes according to mass whim."

"So . . . it's like the Sleeper decides it's a tree, then everyone kind of takes a poll on what kind of tree?" Chuck asked.

"Essentially," Bergold said. "There is no consensus, which is why things change so frequently, even seesawing back and forth between two equally strong visions, especially if it is important to a dream being dreamed by a sleeper in the Waking World who is focusing on it at that moment. But focus is fleeting, as we discover all too often. This one is familiar because people who have shared common experiences with you have made it look that way. That's why Yore is popular with tourists. It reminds everyone of somewhere they've been that they loved."

"I was about to say that it's like the place where I grew up," Sean said, speaking up unexpectedly. "I thought for a moment that it was."

Chuck surveyed the street they were riding down. Unlike anything he had seen before in the Dreamland, this had an essence of home. It was similar enough that he felt if he ran up around the corner into the next street, he would find everything that he knew had been there when he was a boy. He felt a pang in his middle. If it was like Sean's hometown, it couldn't be his, too.

"So there's no soda shop over there?" he said forlornly, pointing down one of the side streets they were passing. "No manufacturing plant on the riverfront?" He threw a gesture out toward the far edge of town.

"Oh, yes," Keir said. "Yore has a factory. That's what we've come here to see."

"Really?" Chuck asked, brightening. "A shoe factory?"

"A fish cannery?" Sean asked, looking hopeful.

"No, not this one, my dear," Keir said, turning a soft, feminine face to Sean. "I said similar but not necessarily identical to the place you knew."

"Oh. What do they make, then?"

"Fruit."

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