The station vanished behind them, falling away like a toy town. Chuck should have been able to see the airport they had walked from, but it was gone, no doubt packed into boxes by the efficient workmen in white. The scenery whizzed by the windows at a steady rate, and the wheels rattled companionably in a syncopated double-time beat. Chuck had always enjoyed train trips. No doubt Keir knew this fact, and was gearing his journey so that he would be able to accept the new experiences he was bound to have.
He moved to the seat next to the window, circling around Hiramus a little resentfully. The bearded man had long legs with squared-off knees that seemed to stick straight out farther into the shared space than normal legs. If the train jerked, Chuck would end up in Persemid's lap, an event, he judged from the expression on her face, that would hold no pleasure for either of them. Hiramus paid no attention to Chuck. He unfolded a huge newspaper and became enveloped in it to the exclusion of all other stimuli. Chuck turned his back on his seatmate and pressed his nose up against the glass.
The Dreamland looked just as lush and gorgeous as he would have fancied a dreamscape ought to be. Meadows full of nodding flowers spread out from the tracks to the feet of a dense, green forest in the middle distance. Beyond the wood, looming over all, was an endless line of mountains that stretched high into the sky but did not seem to cut off any sunlight. Chuck wondered what was on the other side. He hoped sincerely he didn't have to climb that escarpment. It looked sheer as a wall.
The green of the landscape changed to blue-green so abruptly that Chuck glanced back to make sure they hadn't gone over a river. Even the flowers were different. So was the sky, now spotted with fluffy white clouds. On a hill ahead, he could see a couple having a picnic. The man, wearing an old-fashioned boater and a blazer jacket, threw crumbs to birds circling him while his female companion clapped and tossed back her head in silent laughter. As quickly, the train passed over another invisible line of delineation. The dominant color of the landscape changed to red-brown. A man with tattered clothes clinging to his body dashed into view, looking back over his shoulder in desperation. He scrambled away, sometimes clambering over the rocks on all fours, in obvious terror of his pursuers. Even over the noise of the train Chuck could hear the sound of yelping hounds. They appeared, and Chuck was taken aback by the horror of them. They had blood-red pelts and black lips pulled back to show gleaming white teeth. They loped along easily, as though they knew the man's strength would fail soon, and they could leap on him.
Chuck started looking for an emergency cord he could pull. They had to stop the train to save the man's life! Then, just as he was about to bound up and call for the conductor, the man passed over the border from the rust-colored rocks onto the blue-grass lawn. Chuck stared. The man's clothes seemed to have fewer tears in them as he ran. Behind him, the hellhounds put on a burst of speed. They flew over the divide and changed into a flock of pigeons. The birds caught up with the man in a moment, passing harmlessly overhead, except for one that left a white spatter on his shoulder. The pigeons joined the birds circling the picnickers, and the man came to an exhausted halt beside the blanket. The woman beckoned to the man to sit down with them. Chuck craned his head to watch until the train curved around to the right, leaving them behind. He started to turn to ask his seatmates if they'd seen the same thing he saw, when the train plunged forward into the midst of a city.
What a place! The outskirts were lined with neighborhood after neighborhood of particolored houses, bisected into bright hues. Very festive, Chuck thought. Green parks were surrounded by black and white Tudor cottages sitting side by side with stone and glass Arts and Crafts edifices. Gleaming office buildings came next, each successive row taller than the first until Chuck had to crane back his head to see them. Church steeples, broadcast towers, gold-leafed domes, even a triangular framework that looked like the Eiffel Tower peeped over the top of the highest. Suddenly, a vast, scaly lizard head peeked out between two of the buildings. Chuck gasped and sat back, not believing his eyes.
He turned to the others, wanting to exclaim to a companion, "Did you see that?" But he surveyed the rest of his group, and changed his mind.
Hiramus Reston didn't look up when Chuck glanced his way. He was pleasant enough in a curmudgeonly sort of way, Chuck supposed, though you could tell how opinionated he was by the way he sat, by that disapproving twist to his mouth. He held his newspaper just so. His suitcase was arranged on the rack over his head just so. Hiramus eyed everyone suspiciously as they went by. His bag was alternately under his chair with one of his feet on the handle, or sitting on his lap with his arms around it. Chuck wondered what he was hauling around with him. Dire secrets? A load of guilt? Money? The man didn't look rich, but who knew what the true appearance of anything was under the Dreamish glamour.
The large lady, Persemid Smith, bridled defensively as he looked over at her. Short but broad, he saw a million of her on the streets of his city every day. Chuck thought that if she was much like her astral image he would avoid her at home. She was too prickly. He was uncomfortable with people who were openly New Age, knowing he was treading on unfamiliar and potentially dangerous territory. He didn't like it that others might be more at home with nature than he was. Pipistrella was another one, covered with gauze and silver jangles. No doubt she had her room at home furnished in teddy bears, sparkles and fairies. She was thin, dreamy, and graceful, but that total unawareness of her surroundings could drive him insane in time.
Sean Draper, the good-looking man with dark hair and dark blue eyes, was the very image of an Irish poet. He was even wearing an Aran sweater under that terrifically-cut tweed jacket. Chuck wondered if the man was anything of the sort in his real life, or if this was an idealized version of his mental picture of himself. He was too private. The very air around him shouted, "Leave me alone!" Only Keir had braved the barrier to deal with what was inside, but that was his job. Chuck forced himself to stop thinking about sharing Keir, because he became upset all over again.
Bergold, the short, round man with his shining round cheeks and a sharp thin nose, looked like a cheery robin. He was the friendliest person in the car. Chuck would really have enjoyed knowing someone like him in his normal life. Dreamed people didn't seem any different than the real ones. Impulsively, Chuck turned to Hiramus to ask him what he thought, but the older man sat up stiffly straight and brought his newspaper closer to his nose. What a pill, Chuck thought. He's going to be loads of fun. He began to ask Bergold a question, when the old woman across the aisle leaned over and put a hand on Chuck's arm.
"I couldn't help but overhear your guide," she said. She could have been anywhere between sixty and ninety, her plump cheeks crisscrossed with fine lines that deepened into smile grooves next to her eyes and mouth. "You're from the Waking World! I'm very excited to meet real Visitors." Chuck could clearly hear the capital letters in her voice. "I'm Gloriana Flannel. Mrs. Flannel. And this is Spot. We're taking a nice holiday from our home in Frustrata." She held up a fluffy white toy poodle with a single black dot the size of a plum on its chest. She waggled its front paw at Chuck. "Say hello to the nice man from the Waking World. I said to Spot when I saw you, `That's a Visitor, that is.' And I was right, wasn't I?" she said to Spot. "Yes, I was. And here we are—us!—traveling with them!"
The dog happily panted at Chuck, showing its pink tongue in the delight dogs worldwide had at the prospect of meeting new people and going for a ride. Chuck scratched it on the head, and the dog looked blissful. Mrs. Flannel settled Spot in her lap and rummaged around in her bag to disgorge a prodigious but unidentifiable knitting project in pale blue.
"Kenner Farside," said the grinning man riding in the seat facing Mrs. Flannel, rising to offer a hand. Though the man stood just under medium stature, the muscles of his arms and wedge-shaped torso showed powerful lines of definition even under his immaculate white shirt. "Call me Kenner, Chuck." He gripped Chuck's fingers with a bone-crushing squeeze. Here, the handshake announced, was a man of the world, equal to everything and everybody. "On the way to see my girl."
Chuck took back his mangled fingers and rubbed them absently. "Didn't I see you out on the platform with some other woman?" She'd been a pretty one, too, with soft brown hair and light hazel eyes. Chuck remembered noticing her and Kenner because they were totally involved in passionate kissing to the exclusion of all else. They'd only broken the clinch when the boarding whistle blew.
Kenner grinned, man to man. "That's my girl in Rem. A lady friend in every port means you're never lonely." Mrs. Flannel gave him a reproachful look that he ignored easily.
"Bolster," said the quick, thin man in the aisle seat beside Kenner. He had very large, round blue eyes that protruded slightly from under prominent brow ridges. His thinning, light hair hung wispily around a domed skull. His fingers looped around Chuck's, contracted briefly and withdrew, a butterfly kiss instead of a knockout punch. "Of Sheep, Sheep, Fence, Moon, and Bolster. I travel in comfort."
Chuck poked at the upholstery of the wide seat. "It looks like all of us are doing that."
"No, no, no," Bolster said. "You do not understand me. My firm sells peace and quiet. When our clients employ our services, it is to facilitate their minds' passage into the Dreamland. We know how many people in the Waking World are suffering from sleeplessness. Our mission statement is to deliver relaxation to free the sleeper to let his or her dreams range freely. To do this, we employ a large number of time-honored forms, such as sheep to hop over fences. I am chiefly an accountant. My job is to count the sheep, and make sure the client has precisely the number he or she needs. We know exactly how many sheep there are in the Dreamland at any time."
"So, how many are there?" Chuck asked, curiously. He'd never thought about whether anyone kept track of that sort of thing.
"I'm sorry, but that's proprietary information," Mr. Bolster said, in a brisk but not unfriendly way. "I would be happy to discuss other phases of our business with you, however."
The man with the glasses and short beard smiled at him a little shyly. "Morit Nightshade," he said. Chuck put out a hand, and Morit hesitated before taking it. The plump woman beside him beamed. "My wife, Blanda. Happy to meet you, er, Chuck."
"Thanks," Chuck said, sitting back. Everyone was pretty nice here. He felt the disappointment in not having his own quest abate a little. He knew he'd resent it if he started to think about it again, but there was so much else to see and, now, other people to talk to.
"Where will you be going . . . ?" Morit began to ask.
The light coming into the car suddenly turned dark green. Chuck glanced out. They were out of the city and passing by forest again. This one was thick, almost primeval, filled with ferns. Chuck admired the breadth of the huge, shaggy-boled trees. No logger had ever mown down these proud beauties. He wondered if trees dreamed. What did they think about, standing in forests all day? As if in answer, the train passed a few saplings playing cards on a rock. They straightened up as the train hurtled past, one of the young oaks not quite in time to conceal the straight flush in hearts it held behind its spindly trunk. Chuck distinctly saw one of the maples stick out a bent bough and elbow its companion. He grinned. The forest fell away from the tracks briefly to form a glen. In it, an unshaven giant clad in shaggy bearskins tore up boulders from the ground and heaved them at a small frame house. The rocks, every one of them larger than the house, failed to knock it down. They didn't so much as scar the paint. The boulders rebounded as if they'd hit a trampoline, and landed with a BOOM! that shook the tracks.
"Weird," Chuck said out loud, and laughed. "What's that house made of?"
"Frustration Dream," Bergold told him. "Whoever's dreaming that is suffering from powerlessness at some small irritation that he can't seem to overcome. I hope it'll work out in time."
Chuck looked at him in surprise. "You know you're being dreamed? It doesn't make you feel creepy, or anything?"
"Oh, no," Bergold said. "It gives us a sense of purpose to know."
Chuck studied him and decided he believed that he was sincere. "Wow. Can we talk more about that sometime during our trip?"
"Any time," Bergold said, cheerfully. "I'll surely tell you more than you'll ever want to know."
Chuck turned back to the other traveler, who swiftly hid a glower. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Nightshade. I just got distracted. I've never seen anything like that outside of a cartoon. What were you saying?"
* * *
It took all Morit's will to keep smiling while he clasped the Visitor's hand. As soon as he could decently withdraw, he did. He didn't wipe his hand, although he wanted to. He could feel the taint of the Waking World burning his skin. Any moment now it would begin to smoke. Then they'd see how wrong it was for the Visitors to be here. He was infuriated that the Visitor lost interest in him while he was talking. So he didn't have enough reality to keep the Visitor's mind on him, did he? All the other Dreamlanders including his dolt of a wife liked the Visitors right away. Fools! he thought, eying his fellow passengers with disgust. You should fear them! They mean destruction for us all! They could destroy you with a thought.
"Such a nice man," Blanda murmured in Morit's ear. He shot her a look full of contempt, but the scorn bounded off the invisible armor that surrounded her and scattered like dust on the wind. She never could see the truth about things that would have been obvious to a child. To Blanda, everything was just fine, no trouble. She didn't understand that the Waking World was the source of all that was evil. Morit had certainly suffered at their whim all of his life. Every misfortune that had ever befallen him was the fault of those billions of dreamers he couldn't touch, couldn't confront, couldn't call to account. Everyone he knew had bought into the myth of Sleepers' invincibility, Sleepers' infallibility. His neighbors spoke in hushed and respectful terms about the Seven who had created the Dreamland and everything in it for the purpose of working out the problems of their Waking lives, in whatever form those needs took. His neighbors were nervous about doing the right thing. They cared. Morit sneered, and immediately hid his face in his hand. Sleepers expected the Dreamlanders to do all their dirty work for them, eh? Well, he for one was one Dreamlander who didn't intend to do anything of the kind.
He despised the others on the train for sucking up to the Visitors like a pack of toadies. Wake up, he thought at them. Do you like being slaves to these . . . these ordinary beings? They all thought the Visitors were a cut above them, something special, but anyone could see there was no discernible difference. Why should the Dreamlanders settle for being servants of the Sleepers? What in Daydream's name did they ever get out of it in exchange? Not a thing! Existence? No, thank you! How would the people in the Waking World like it if Dreamlanders started ordering them around? They would resent it, just like he did.
As if his life was not bad enough without being changed all the time. Morit hated change. He hated getting used to one shape, and having it whisked away from him the next moment. He never lived in the same thing from one day to the next. He had a tiny house most of the time, always the smallest in the village, always the least conveniently placed, always the ugliest, with the darkest garden and the most difficult lawn to mow. If the house was large, it was drafty, creaky and ill-maintained. His front walk was constantly overgrown with crabgrass and creeping ivy, and his garden sprouted weeds instead of flowers and vegetables. He couldn't keep rosebushes alive, but box elders sprang up overnight. He had pulled out millions, but there seemed to be no end to them.
One of his chief resentments was never knowing what he was coming home to at night. He never was certain whether he'd have a wife, or what she'd look like. What was worse, when he had one, it was Blanda. He half-suspected that Blanda might be an imaginary or only a part-time person. She was a little vague, always being nice to people whether or not he thought they deserved it. In his opinion she put up with the most horrible things. She never protested, even when they were surrounded on all sides by nuisances, distractions, and the like fit to make one's life a waking nightmare. Morit was constantly outraged and furious at neighbors who used their leaf blowers in the middle of the night, their hordes of barking dogs, revving engines, occasional gunfire, jangly music from street vendors, loud music just when he was trying to get some sleep. One night he had personally chased a string quartet off his lawn with a stick. The next night it was a full-scale rock concert with thousands of screaming fans. Blanda had never said a word.
He felt powerless to stop the annoyances, and he hated the powerlessness. The space invaders! The little blips ate away at his personal space, until there was nothing left for him at all. They eroded his territory, even his person. People crowded in so close, until he had no room to breathe. He had moved over and over again to flee the feelings, but as soon as he settled in one place, the crowding began again. And now the Creators were coming here in person, taking away even more of his reality by their presence? If they had created them to solve the problems of their lives, then by all means why couldn't the Waking World leave the Dreamlanders alone to do it? Why must they invade, making the Dreamlanders feel more pressured, more put upon, than they already were?
Blanda had argued with him that it wasn't so, that they were very courteous people, but the evidence was clear. Look at the way they took up all of the overhead luggage space, so there was no room for his baggage. These so-called Creators were as inconsiderate as any of their wretched creations.
The shorter man in blue jeans got up to rearrange his bags, and accidentally touched one of Morit's suitcases. Morit felt his blood pressure rise. Hands off that, you! he wanted to shout. It's your fault that it took me all night to get that packed! The size and shape changed over and over again so nothing fit. Your fault, do you hear me? But, of course Chuck couldn't hear him. They didn't care what he was thinking. It didn't interest them. They were the high and mighty ones, who thought up such as he for their pleasure. Chuck and the others acted so friendly now, but they would treat him like a ticking time bomb if they knew what he was thinking. Yes, Morit thought, sitting back with his arms folded in satisfaction. They'd treat me with a lot more respect.
It was the worst day of his life when Visitors started coming to the Dreamland in person. He wanted them to leave the Dreamland alone now, for good and all, never to return. If they resisted, they must die. It was only right.
Morit was not alone in his thinking. There were plenty of others who wanted to drive these Visitors back to the Waking World with a message to give the others—that the Dreamland is dangerous. Their war cry resonated throughout Morit's very being: Dreamland for the Dreamed!
Morit meant to send a message to all the Creators that not all of their precious toys liked being played with. Unbeknownst to the passengers aboard the train, Morit's coconspirators waited ahead, prepared to deal a blow for the dispossessed and manipulated citizens of the Dreamland. The Visitors would be forced out. It wouldn't be long now. He hunched over in his seat, bracing himself to await the event. It took all his influence not to change outwardly to reflect his inner glee.
| Title: | The Grand Tour |
| Author: | Jody Lynn Nye |
| ISBN: | 0-671-57883-9 |
| Copyright: | © 2000 by Jody Lynn Nye |
| Publisher: | Baen Books |