Once the awful sight was hidden Chuck was able to relax a little and think. Who could the timely shout have come from? Practically everyone in the car had gone into full panic mode. The sensation stayed in the air like the smell of ash after a fire. He still felt uneasy.
Chuck settled down in his seat. The cushion felt too hard under his backside. It was full of little lumps. He tried using a little influence on it, the way Keir had taught him, to make it as comfortable as it had been before. The more he smoothed it down in some places, it rolled up again in others. Chuck put everything he had into the effort, grinding his bottom down onto the upholstery and pushing with all the influence he could muster. It fought back, bucking and bulging like a car on a roller coaster track. All he wanted to do was sit in peace for just a while. His jangled nerves couldn't take a second shock so soon. The seat arched up, raising him over the heads of the other passengers. Grimly, he shoved down with all his strength and all the influence that was in him.
"Look out!" someone cried.
When Chuck pushed down on his cushion, the curtain covering the view of the engine compartment belled out as though a strong wind was blowing through from behind it. It flapped in Chuck's face, sending him flying. He grabbed onto a wall sconce as the whole car seemed to go insane. Something like a tremendous shock wave hit the car, warping everything in its path. Persemid huddled down, bracing her legs against the seat opposite. Pipistrella screamed and threw her arms around Sean's neck for security. Hiramus looked alarmed, sitting straight in his chair as it was bounced nearly to the ceiling.
The floor picked itself up in rolling waves, tossing the seats like whitecaps in high surf. Suitcases and boxes flew off the shelves and bounced on the floor like beans on a skillet. The train was derailing! The track must have buckled under the weight of the locomotive, and was pulling it downward. Or was the abyss reaching out to grab them and swallow them, like a monster? Chuck opened his mouth to call for Keir, but his teeth felt gummed together. He fought to breathe against the pressure.
Did I do that? Chuck thought desperately. He swallowed panic. Mere thoughts couldn't cause an upheaval like that, or surely it would have happened before. Was the world created around his astral projection beginning to unravel and fall apart? Having escaped a train wreck, would he die now? Would he snap back to his room at home? Oh, please, not so soon! It had taken him years to get this far!
They weren't falling. Chuck fought his way back to the chair and held on tight to the armrests. The train was still sitting on the tracks. Chuck cast about desperately, unable to see anything to account for the wash of energy.
"What is happening?" Hiramus demanded. "Another disaster?"
Keir was here, there and everywhere, comforting, scolding, and calming. "It's nothing to be worried about," he said, assuming his various forms as though he was walking on a level floor. "Just take it easy. Yes, this is normal. Please don't be frightened."
As quickly as it had come through, the tossing and rolling came to a halt. Chuck's teeth stopped knocking together as his seat anchored itself once again.
The party was the only group who appeared surprised or frightened. The Dreamlanders around them went on chatting, knitting, trying to control their children, eating. But things were different. The wood paneling was lighter, and the chairs were no longer plush; they were leather. Not only his surroundings had altered. Chuck stared at the other members of his group.
"What's the matter?" Pipistrella asked, noticing his distress.
"You're all changed," he said. "Everything's changed."
"Oh!" Pipistrella fumbled in her many bags, yanking up ones that trailed behind other people's feet with a strength surprising in such fragile-looking wrists. She came up with a hand mirror and searched her face all over, worried that she had suffered deformation, but she began to look pleased, even smug. In fact, she was prettier than ever. Her clothes gleamed with the sheen only real silk produced, and her jewelry had moved upscale to precious stones and gold from silver, pearls and crystals. "I think it looks nice." She glanced up at him. "You're different, too," she said, before going back to a close study of herself.
Chuck's hands flew up to his face. He tried to figure out what had changed. It felt like a face. Nose, mouth, eyes, ears were all in the right places. He waited for a moment, hoping for the loan of Pipistrella's mirror, but she seemed in no hurry to finish with it. She seemed to be examining each pale-gilt curl in turn.
The others had altered, too. Hiramus's beard was shorter, shot through with silver hairs and parted in the middle. Mrs. Flannel had shrunk, her skin had darkened to a light coffee color, her silver hair had lengthened and was tied into a complicated bun, and she wore an aqua silk sari. Spot, clinging to the folds of cloth hanging over her shoulder, was a tiny monkey. Bolster, stout, charcoal-skinned, wore a business suit, but instead of pants he had on Bermuda shorts. Kenner looked more like a body builder than before, his head shaved bald and oiled.
Bergold had sustained a more unexpected change. He had become a large orangutan with thin red hair all over his body. He was scratching himself idly and chatting with Persemid about buttons. Bergold didn't seem to care what shape he took. He was contented. Chuck felt a pang of envy. He never really felt contentment. Chuck noticed, for no particular reason, that Persemid's and Bergold's hair was the same color. She probably wouldn't appreciate the observation. Still rather heavy, she was shorter now, with tiny hands and feet.
Keir must come and explain what had just happened. Chuck was puzzled and angry. He had thought that once Keir had taught him to deal with influence after the debacle with the tickets that things would remain under his control for the rest of his journey. He waited impatiently for Keir, in the guise of the kind-faced woman, to finish his conversation with Sean and come to him. Sean was shaking and pale with fear. Chuck couldn't see what the guy had to be afraid about; he looked pretty much the same, although the part in his hair had moved to the other side of his head. Chuck attempted to catch the guide's eye as he rose from his place beside the tall man. Keir ignored the urgent signalling and moved over next to Hiramus, becoming a dolphin in mid-aisle. The two of them engaged in a conference, too low-pitched for anyone else to hear. Chuck began to twitch with impatience. If he had caused this upheaval, he was a danger to himself. He needed lessons in control, and he needed them now! Why were the others more important than he was?
By the time the guide had gone around to everybody else, Chuck was fuming and frightened.
"Did I cause all that bouncing around?" he demanded in a very low voice, hoping the others wouldn't hear him.
"You might have caused a little of it," Keir said. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
"I thought you said I was in control of my surroundings now!"
"You're in conscious control," Keir corrected him. "When you think about something, it should hold true, at least in your immediate area, for the time being. But what you just experienced was a common effect of the Dreamland, a wave of influence. In fact, you ought to enjoy it quite a lot. They can be refreshing. I like them. Do you ever surf?"
Chuck wasn't going to be distracted. "That whole change wasn't something I caused?"
"Oh, no," the guide assured him. "It didn't come from you. It came from the Sleepers."
"What sleepers?"
"Not any sleepers, the Sleepers," Keir said, carefully. "I told you they would take care of things, and they are. They have. Look out the window. Go on."
With a skeptical look at Keir, Chuck threw open the window to his left and leaned out.
The whole landscape had undergone a makeover. Where the weirdly flattened walls of grass had been there were split-rail fences and wildflowers, each individual board and petal perfect and distinct, even up close to the tracks. He followed the rolling expanse of lush grass past the engine and out as far as the eye could see for miles and miles in every direction. The abyss had closed up. There was no sign that it had ever existed. Chuck plumped back in his chair with wide eyes. Keir was smiling at him.
"That's amazing!" Chuck exclaimed. "You say sleeping people rebuilt the landscape, and changed everything just like that? Everyone in the world, all at once?"
"No, just the main Sleepers, capital S," Keir corrected him, "whose responsibility it is to maintain the shape of the Dreamland—its infrastructure, if you like. There are seven great Sleepers each dreaming one of the Dreamland's seven provinces. They provide the basic landscape for the rest of the minds from the Waking World to play in and rid themselves of the burdens of their waking day."
"Seven Sleepers?" Chuck asked. "Who are they? Why have I never heard of them?"
"Because they have no special rank in the Waking World," Keir said. "Because you wouldn't know them if you met them in the street. They're as ordinary as you and I. They simply have the most creative and stable minds in all existence, capable of building a plane that offers continuity to the rest of us. Human beings have known for a long time that seven is a very important number. This is one of the reasons why. Your sanity depends upon your being able to dream at night. Sanity is also a vital consideration here. Just hold tight to your marbles, and all will be well."
"Why is sanity important? This place is crazy?"
"Crazy it may seem, but the structure has purpose. The insane mind is a powerless mind, influenced by any and all stimuli that come along. If your mind can hold sway over the meaning of a symbol over all the other dreaming minds, then your interpretation will take precedence. If you are incapable of keeping focused, you are at the mercy of all those others. That goes even for your own self-image, which is why you keep changing in spite of yourself. Your identity is more important than anything else, because that's all you can count on staying the same. Do you understand me?"
"Yes." Chuck envied these Sleepers. They were the ones who decided if grass should be green, or if there ought to be mountains. They made all the big decisions. No one told them they were wrong. In fact, they could change whatever anyone else had done. That was power. To think of having that kind of control over dreams, over the dreams of everyone else in the whole world. Chuck shook his head, overwhelmed by the possibilities. He wished he could be one of the Sleepers, capital S, instead of an ordinary sleeper, small s, one out of trillions. Then, Chuck wondered if dreaming a whole province meant each of these people were in comas, or if the Dreamland stopped existing when these seven people woke up for the day. Better to focus on the small questions, the ones whose answers he could handle without panicking.
"And they fixed the landscape?" he asked Keir.
"Yes. The chasm interfered with their vision of continuity for this area. Not that they won't change their minds as other things catch their attention. Sooner or later this area will be reconfigured to suit their purpose. It's always happening. There is also the influence of all the other dreaming minds in the Waking World, including you. You're influencing dreams, and being influenced by them, too. Even right here, right now."
"How can they work on me?" Chuck protested. "I'm solid!"
"Not here, you're not. This is a projection of your mind into this place. Look." Keir reached down and pulled up the hem of Chuck's shirt. He pointed to Chuck's navel. Chuck stared, startled. A thin silver cord was coming out of his belly button. It faded into nothingness only inches away from his body. Chuck touched the cord, and felt a fundamental twang vibrate through his body from the root of his soul all the way to his extremities. It was thrilling, disturbing, a little painful, but pleasurable, too.
Chuck handled the silver strand gingerly, steadfastly ignoring the sensations that shot through the rest of him. It rolled like mercury between his fingers. A slight but steady beat pulsed through it, slower than his heart but faster than his breathing. There was no doubt it was part of him. He looked up at Keir, feeling uneasy, as though he'd discovered he had grown another leg.
"All Visitors from the Waking World have this," Keir continued. "It's how you can tell them apart. Your presence here is a direct dream, if you like, the product of one mind; but even as you are affected by other people's opinions and the state of the world where you come from, you are affected by their dreams here, especially by those of the Sleepers themselves. Unless you control your shape yourself, intensely, at all times, you will change."
Chuck looked around at the changes that everyone had sustained in the wave. "Well, why didn't this happen before?"
"Consider it a kind of protective bubble that your psyche assumed when you projected into this world that maintained the illusion you wished it to," Keir said. "Until you first lost control, it was holding fairly well. Now, under the wave of influence you've lost the image you settled on at that time."
"Can I get it back?" Chuck asked, feeling helpless.
"No. You'll have to get used to you in this shape. Until the next change comes."
"That's unacceptable," Chuck said. "How can I stop it? I have enough to worry about. I want to stay the same. I mean, the same as when I stopped changing before."
"You can't!" Keir said.
"But, I don't look like me now."
"It wasn't you before, boy," Keir said, rapping him on the side of the head with his knuckles. "Weren't you listening?"
"But I liked looking like that," Chuck said. "He . . . I mean, I was kind of handsome."
"What did it matter? You couldn't see your face most of the time. If there hadn't been a reflective surface nearby you'd probably never know if you went through a dozen changes."
Chuck was taken aback. "Did I?" he asked.
"You'll never know," Keir said. "You'll get used to it. It's a fact of life. Everyone in the Dreamland changes all the time."
"Well, not everybody," the orangutan Bergold said, then stopped short, looking a little embarrassed, scratching his back. "I spoke out of turn. I'm sorry."
"No, please explain," Chuck urged, looking sincerely into the ape's round brown eyes. "You made yourself into an ape on purpose? How do you keep from changing when you don't want to?"
"Oh, it isn't me," Bergold said, raising an enormously long hand. "I change all the time. It's normal. I rather like it. There is only one man I know of who never alters a hair, except for having grown up. His name is Roan Faireven, and he is my dearest friend."
"Not even when something like that happens? A wave of influence like the truck that just hit us?"
Bergold shook his head and scratched under his bristling jaws. "No, not even then. He stays astonishingly similar. It's a marvel, though I must admit many of my colleagues don't see it that way. I consider his uniqueness a tribute to the Sleepers. The other Historians are not so charitable."
"But that's what I want," Chuck said, desperately. "I want to be like that! How does he do it?"
"Sleepers only know," Bergold said, a grave expression on his kind face. "I assure you. He would pass along the honor if he could."
Pipistrella lifted her mirror and had another look. Chuck realized she was different again than just a few moments before, albeit equally pretty.
"Why wouldn't you try on as many faces as you could, if you had the opportunity?" she asked. "Sometimes change is good."
Chuck started to say that he would like to get used to the way he looked now, but maybe Bergold was right. His appearance really shouldn't concern him, since he wasn't looking at himself all the time. Maybe he could get to enjoy trying on different faces, especially since he couldn't really remember the face he had while he was awake, but it bothered him not to have control of his own body. He felt lost, as though the real him was now buried under a dozen strangers' faces, instead of just one. Or had it been torn away, like the outer skin of an onion, revealing more and more layers beneath? That was good, if it got down to the real him. But what would he do if there was nothing at all at the bottom? The haunting hollowness inside him seemed to expand, making it hard for Chuck to swallow.
The train whistle blew a mighty blast, and the car juddered into motion.
Keir rose to his feet. "If you think you can get along without me for a while, I have other people to see to."
Chuck nodded. "I need to think."
Keir smiled angelically at him, and floated away.
| Title: | The Grand Tour |
| Author: | Jody Lynn Nye |
| ISBN: | 0-671-57883-9 |
| Copyright: | © 2000 by Jody Lynn Nye |
| Publisher: | Baen Books |