Nye, Jody Lynn - The Grand Tour
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The Grand Tour
by Jody Lynn Nye
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to
real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2000 by Jody Lynn Nye
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 0-671-57883-9
Cover art by Gary Ruddell
First printing, August 2000
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Typeset by Brilliant Press
Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com
Printed in the United States of America
To Beth
From her godmother
OUT, DAMNED SPOT!
As one, the group of visiting dreamers spun around. Morit and his minions were behind them, a
host that spread out across the land as far as Chuck could see. Protectively, Chuck moved out in front
of Persemid and Mrs. Flannel.
“You are not welcome here,” Morit boomed, spreading his cloak upon the wind. He wore the
terrifying aspect of an evil elemental as he pointed directly at each visitor in turn. “You are the source
of every evil thing that has ever happened to us. We can’t do anything about the Waking World, but
we don’t want any of your kind ever coming back to the Dreamland.”
“Dreamland for the Dreamed!” the crowd at his back shouted.
“No,” Chuck said hoarsely. He trembled for life that had become more precious than it had ever
been before. “I don’t want to die. I’m ready to live.”
“That’s a shame,” Morit said, smiling so all of his shark’s teeth showed at once. “You’ll never be
able to find your way out of the province. This has been planned a long, long time. You won’t be able
to tell what’s real and what isn’t until it’s too late.”
“Run,” Roan advised, taking to his heels.
“Stop them!” Morit shouted behind them. Chuck glanced over his shoulder. Morit came riding
toward them on the crest of a moving wave of earth. It was the most terrifying thing Chuck had ever
seen. Morit’s eyes were wild and red-rimmed like a fiend’s.
“Oh, dear! Oh, Spot!” Mrs. Flannel cried. She scurried along in their wake. Chuck doubled back to
pick her up. With her and Spot in his arms he put on a burst of speed. He had to get to the border!
“You can’t get away!” Morit shouted after them, his voice dying away in the distance. “I’ll get all
of you if I have to discontinue to do it!” Spot barked defiance over his mistress’s shoulder. “And your
little dog, too!”
BAEN BOOKS by JODY LYNN NYE
Also in this series:
Waking in Dreamland
School of Light
The Death of Sleep (with Anne McCaffrey)
The Ship Who Won (with Anne McCaffrey)
The Ship Errant
Don’t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear (editor)
Book Three of
The Dreamland
Chapter 1
“Wake up, sir, you’ve arrived.”
Chuck blinked awake with a start, flailing against the soft bonds that contained his hands. It turned
out to be a blanket. Panting, Chuck thrust it aside and twisted around in the padded airplane seat to
look up at the stewardess. She was a middle-aged woman who looked calm and motherly in her soft,
pearl-gray uniform. She favored him with a gentle smile. Her hair, light brown shot with a few silver
threads, was folded up under a gray pillbox hat that was adorned with a silver feather lying on a cloud.
The same insignia was embroidered on the breast of her uniform and on the headrests of each seat.
Chuck looked around warily. He didn’t recognize the logo, nor could he remember having gotten onto
a jet. The last place he remembered being was lying on his back in bed, holding very still, fighting
down feelings of depression and self-loathing. He had counted backwards from a hundred, as he’d
been told to do. The last thing he recalled clearly, somewhere around counting down to seventy-two,
was a warm and floating sensation.
Chuck twined his fingers together and stretched his arms forward, popping the kink between his
shoulder blades. The whole jet was decorated in the same soft gray: the walls, the carpet, even the
ceiling. He looked around for his fellow passengers, but found that the capsule-shaped chamber was
empty except for the two of them. Was he the last to get off? How odd—where was he? He glanced
through the jet window, but outside it was dark. Instead, he got a glimpse of himself in the glass. The
face that looked back at him was serious, long and narrow, with troubled, dark blue eyes set deeply
under straight brows. His straight brown hair was sun-streaked with blond. His mouth was almost
feminine in the sensuous lushness of the lower lip, but the jaw was square and decidedly masculine. He
looked about eighteen years old. Chuck stared at his reflection in confusion. That wasn’t right, was it?
He clawed at memories that eluded him. How could a reflection be wrong?
He looked up at the flight attendant, who was busy fluffing up his discarded pillow with an expert
hand.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“The Dreamland, sir. Just where you were going.”
“You mean I’m dreaming you?” he asked.
“Not just you, sir.” The motherly woman picked up his blanket and folded it over the armrest of the
chair. Chuck stood up in the aisle and brushed at his sweatshirt and blue jeans, hesitant, uncertain what
to do. “You’d better go, sir. They’re waiting for you.” The flight attendant held her wrists up even with
her head and flapped both pointing forefingers toward the exit. She smiled brilliantly. “That way. And
thank you for making your flight an Astral Flight. We’ll be looking forward to serving you when you
return.”
Cautiously, Chuck followed her gesture and went to the front of the jet, where he looked around in
confusion. The cockpit door stood ajar. The pilot had already gone. No one sat before the banks of
dials and knobs. He started back toward the seat to ask the stewardess for help, when his way was
blocked by the gray carpet. It came rolling up the aisle, shoving him toward the exit. Chuck hopped out
the door onto the nearby stairway to avoid getting tangled in it.
“Hey!” he yelled. Couldn’t they even wait until he was gone to start cleaning up?
He walked down the steps to the concrete apron, following yellow-painted arrow signs pointing
toward an open door through which brilliant white light was pouring. Workmen in white coveralls and
painters’ hats passed by him, carrying tools and buckets. Curiously, Chuck watched a pair approach
carrying a long, wooden ladder. One of them propped the ladder against thin air. It settled firmly, as
though it was resting against a solid wall. The other climbed up it and took down the arrow signs he
had just passed. Puzzled, Chuck looked back toward the plane.
He had to blink a few times to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. The plane was not a real
plane. The body of the chamber from which he had just come was a plywood capsule supported by
wooden studs and braces. The airport around it was a mere painted backdrop, like a movie set. Was it
constructed to fool him? Why was someone going to so much trouble to deceive him into believing
that he had been in an airliner? Who? He felt despair. If it wasn’t a real plane, how was he going to get
back home?
He felt an emotional twinge. Did he even want to go back home? There was nothing for him there.
All that thoughts of home summoned up was an overwhelming sensation of being a failure. Everything
went wrong, and it was all his fault.
Chuck stopped to think, hoping to recall more details, but the workmen moved their ladder. They
reached up to take down the arrow sign beside him. In a moment, he’d be lost again, just because he
hesitated too long. Before they could remove any more of his guideposts, Chuck ran toward the
doorway full of light.
As soon as he was inside, he became confused all over again. This was an airport. Men, women and
children hauling bags, suitcases, teddy bears, coats on hangers, boxes and carts walked purposefully up
and down the carpeted, pale-gray painted corridor that stretched three stories high and off out of sight
to either side. Square yellow signs with black printing hung over his head. He couldn’t read most of
them. They were either in a foreign language, or blurred when he tried to concentrate on them. How
would he know where to go?
A small, thin man Chuck thought might be in his sixties hurried over and gripped his arm in wiry -
fingers.
“So, Chuck, you decided to come in after all,” he said. He had very dark, knowing eyes, sharply
defined cheek and temple bones and, half concealed in a thick white beard, a quick smile that made
Chuck think the old man knew far more than he did about everything. He was dressed in a tunic woven
out of rough, gray wool thread, a pair of dark-colored, baggy trousers and leather sandals. “I thought
for a moment you weren’t going to make it.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Chuck said, resentfully. “They were taking away my signs. I was afraid I’d
be lost.”
“You did have a choice,” the old man said. “You always have a choice. I’m glad at least your sense
of self-preservation is intact, if not your curiosity.”
“Who are you? What am I doing here? How do you know who I am?”
“Ah, there’s the curiosity,” the small man said with satisfaction, poking Chuck in the chest with a
forefinger. “Your wits are working after all. I’m Keir, your spirit guide. You wanted to expand your
mind, you said. You wanted to get it together, you said. Learn who you really are, you said. Find the
real you, you said. Astral travel as the path to enlightenment. Eh?”
Spirit . . . ? “Ah, yes,” Chuck said, excitedly. Something was coming back to him now. “You mean
it worked? I’m here! That’s great! But how did I get here? That’s not a real plane out there.”
“Of course not. It was merely a construct to help transport you here. Any means that works is good
enough. Like chopsticks. It could be anything that would help you to understand that you have been
conveyed from one place, the Waking World,” Keir picked up something invisible with both hands,
“to another, which is here, the Dreamland.” He set down his invisible burden, and looked up at Chuck
for understanding. Not finding it in the puzzled young man’s eyes, he waved a dismissive hand. “It’s
all symbolism, not real stuff. As you’ll see. Come with me.”
“Have I met you before?” Chuck asked, as they walked. “You don’t look familiar.”
“Everything is going to look different here,” Keir said. “Even you. Oh, yes, we’ve met. You’ve
known me before. But I’m not going to remind you of how. It isn’t necessary. The important thing is
the here and the now. Don’t overanticipate. Try always to be in the here and now. You might find it to
be the most vital thing you do, to keep safe. Please come along.”
They stepped out into the carpeted corridor, joining the throng of travelers. As soon as they were
out of the gate area, counter, doorway and all were promptly taken apart, folded into a box, and hauled
away by the ubiquitous workmen. They started to unfold a different scene that when it sprang up
looked every bit as real as the gate had. Chuck kept looking back over his shoulder, watching in
fascination as solid walls compressed down into a space much smaller than they should have fit, and
three-dimensional objects came out of flat portfolios that couldn’t have concealed a newspaper. The
workers picked up their boxes and hauled them away as if they weighed no more than a carton of
cornflakes. It was the most remarkable thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to watch some more, but Keir
kept tugging him along. Chuck was aware of the guide’s voice asking him questions, but he was too
interested in his surroundings to pay attention. More marvels sprang up at each new turning. Was that
woman really walking a fur coat on a leash? And that party of huge fish in Hawaiian shirts! What were
they doing? There was so much to absorb.
Something Keir said finally drilled through to his conscious mind. Astral projection! Was he really
astrally projecting, or projecting astrally, or whatever you called it? He had tried so often, for so long,
to make it happen. He wanted to be raised to a higher plane, where meditation would bring him true
peace of mind. His life had hit a dead end. If he couldn’t find a way to untie the knot of misery that
choked him even now, he might as well be dead. Chuck could recall being on the edge of suicide
again. Again? He racked his memory for details. He couldn’t remember anything about his past
clearly, but somehow he was sure finding himself was a matter of life or death. His own.
He was so desperately unhappy that it made him feel hollow. That was why he had gone to so much
effort to learn to meditate and look inside himself, in hopes of finding peace. He couldn’t mention his
attempts to anyone he knew, because they’d think he was absolutely nuts. If he failed again, he didn’t
want anyone else to know. It looked—he hardly dared think it—as if he’d gotten this right.
Practice, the guidebooks said. And he had. He remembered reading up on several techniques.
Trying some of them made him feel silly even though he was alone. Others were downright
uncomfortable, either to his physical body or his upbringing. When he found a method that made him
feel at ease, he had worked on it nightly. Only once he had succeeded in lifting himself out of his
physical form, or at least thought he had. It had lasted for only a brief moment. He had felt as though
he was flying. Then, he was whisked right back to his bed in his room. That single, exhilarating
moment of weightlessness was so uplifting to his spirits that it made him delve further into
parapsychological and metaphysical studies. If he was capable of that kind of joy, surely he could find
the key to setting his life onto a more positive path.
He really could not recall how he had come into contact with Keir, but he did remember something
about the instructions for attaining the altered state of consciousness that ought to work. He knew if he
could do it right he would meet his spirit guide and go on a journey to himself. He really wanted to
succeed, but hardly dared that he could.
It looked as if this time he had made it, Chuck thought again, looking around with satisfaction. This
astonishing place couldn’t be a figment of his imagination. He wasn’t that detail-oriented. But it wasn’t
at all what he had thought the astral plane would look like. What had that flight attendant called it, the
Dreamland? He didn’t feel as though he was out of his body, but this certainly was not where he had
lain down, nor was it anywhere he’d ever been in his life. But, now what? To tell the truth, now that he
was here, he had no idea how to begin to straighten himself out, and he only had one night to learn.
Who knew if he could ever achieve this state of consciousness again?
Keir’s voice interrupted his thoughts, jerking him back to the present.
“Did you bring any luggage?”
Chuck reluctantly returned his attention to the way ahead. He thought hard. Again, that film over
his memory got in the way. “I . . . I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Keir sighed. “You probably did. Almost everyone does. Especially people with personal agendas
like yours. They usually have lots of it.”
The small man escorted him down endless square passages, some of them carpeted and some not,
some of them with moving walkways, decorated with murals, paintings, sculpture, filled with music,
the sound of falling water, or the rumble of engines. All around Chuck were more wonders, the most
astonishing collection of people and things. Waiting in line at another gate was a host of unlikely
beings, including cartoon characters. As he went by, he recognized Hopkins the Rabbit, the main
character in his favorite childhood Saturday morning TV series. The giant bunny shifted his green
briefcase to his other paw and looked at the outsized wristwatch on his arm. Chuck gawked. To his
amazement, Hopkins looked up and met his eyes. He seemed to recognize Chuck, too. He gave a wink
and a buck-toothy grin, turned sideways and became a tall, thin black line. He was still only two-
dimensional, even here.
As they went around the next corner, Chuck hesitated, eyes wide. The chamber ahead was filled
floor to ceiling with water, pale green and alive with waving fronds of seaweed. There was nothing
holding the water back from flooding the rest of the hallway, yet it stood there like a wall. Keir
plunged in without hesitation. Chuck held back, fearing he might drown. Keir didn’t stop. Chuck
pulled in a huge gulp of air before plunging forward after his guide.
Men in business suits wearing bowler hats and carrying briefcases walked or swam by. A blue-and-
green-skinned mermaid hovered behind a desk resting on the floor and chatted in a stream of bubbles
with a giant, brown crab while humans, animals and fish waited their turns in line. At small white
tables with wrought-iron legs in an underwater cafe, dignified women in business suits sat and sipped
tea, ignoring the fact that their hair was waving around them in the current.
They seemed so at home under the water, yet they looked as normal as Chuck. He wished he felt as
comfortable in his surroundings as they did. He reminded himself they were only dream creations, but
he was a real person. If he inhaled, he would die. The next section of dry corridor was hundreds of
yards ahead. Too far. Chuck felt his lungs twisting with cramp. He couldn’t possibly make it, and
looked in vain for a pocket of air. He tried to get Keir’s attention, but the guide strode ahead, jauntily
buoyant, as if he walked underwater every day. Probably he did. Chuck hopped and paddled after him,
hoping to catch up before his air ran out. The section of water-filled corridor seemed to stretch from an
oversized fish tank to a river. He ran and ran, never getting close enough to hail Keir.
When his lungs could no longer squeeze any oxygen out, Chuck’s vision closed into a narrow black
tunnel. All his muscles quivered like rubber bands, refusing to hold on. Chuck’s knees gave way. He
stumbled to the ground. The breath rushed out of him in a burst of bubbles. This was it. He would die
in his sleep. Unwillingly, he gasped, and snorted in surprise. Instead of the inward wash of water he
expected to fill his lungs, the water was as permeable as air. If it was a little warmer and more humid
than his last breath, he found it just as sustaining. Chuck was so relieved he stopped in his tracks to
pant. Women in veiled, velvet hats, Victorian brocade and bustles and the hairy faces of goats pushed
around him, and shot him looks of annoyance.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and picked himself up to run after Keir.
* * *
“Look for what you think belongs to you!” Keir shouted over the rumble of the baggage carousel.
Chuck hopped up and down, trying to see over the shoulders of the throng surrounding the
conveyor belt. It ran for miles all over the beige-painted stadium-sized chamber, up toward the ceiling,
down into depressions and pits. People crowded three and four deep at every loop. Uniformed porters
with two-wheeled carts and stevedores running with sweat hauled suitcases off the rumbling belt and
swung them around, where they were promptly seized by someone, yet the mob never got any smaller.
Chuck scanned the astonishing array of cases, boxes and containers rolling by. Most of them were
black, many travel-scarred in some way. None of them looked familiar.
“Mine won’t get lost, will it?” he asked anxiously.
“Oh, no,” Keir assured him. The spirit guide stood at a slight remove from the crowd, untouched by
the bustle. “You’ll have all the baggage you came with, more’s the pity.”
Chuck watched as the porters helped a man take dozens of huge, matching brick-red suitcases off
the conveyor belt. They strapped most of them to his back and legs with rope and sturdy belts. The last
remaining case they put into his arms. The man staggered away, looking like a one-person depot.
Chuck worried that he’d be as overloaded.
Something hit him in the knees. To his surprise, he’d moved all the way up to the metal bumper
surrounding the river of luggage just as a teal-blue carryall caught his eye. That was his, he knew it! So
was the blue steamer trunk behind it. He was glad and relieved to see them. With difficulty he hauled
the two pieces off, then snagged a few small, mismatched document cases rolling by that looked too
familiar not to examine. Yes, he was sure those belonged to him. He couldn’t read the tags, but his
hands seemed to know every scar and nick as he ran a loving hand over their surfaces. Oh, he’d had
these for a long time. He couldn’t recall how he knew that, but he knew. He felt an attachment, even an
affection for them.
Chuck waited fruitlessly for a while, staring at the rolling conveyor belt, and decided that this was
all the luggage he had coming. He wasn’t as badly off as he could have been. He glanced at the people
around him, some dealing with ten, twenty, even three dozen pieces. As he turned away from the
barrier, an anxious, tawny-skinned man in a sarong and a woman in a fussy red and black dress and
high heels with a poodle crowded in past him to take his place.
The steamer trunk had tiny wheels on its underside. Chuck piled the other boxes on top of it, and -
attempted to push it out of the crowd. It didn’t budge. None of the wheels wanted to go in the same
direction. No matter how hard he tried, it would not roll forward, or in any other direction. He looked
around for a porter. The entire uniformed cadre seemed to be at the far ends of the room. Chuck
waved, but no one even glanced his way. He didn’t dare leave his bags to go get their attention. If he
wanted his luggage moved, he was going to have to lift it bodily. He stooped, gathered the whole mass
in his arms, and stood up. A small part of his mind told him what he was doing was impossible, but he
quashed the thought. He was doing it, wasn’t he? The mass was heavy but not unbearable. Chuck
tottered through the churning mob of people toward the waiting Keir. A low bump in the floor caught
his toe, and Chuck found himself staggering wildly after the weight in his arms.
“Help!” he cried. The spirit guide stepped forward and helped him lower his burden to the floor. He
tucked the smaller valises under his arm while he took the steamer trunk and tied it to Chuck’s back.
Chuck kept looking over his shoulder in disbelief. No one could hold four suitcases with his elbow as
if they were newspapers. But when Keir heaped them in Chuck’s arms once again, the carryall and the
document cases puffed out to three very heavy dimensions.
“Take it slowly,” Keir told him, giving a final pat to the top valise. “No one gets more than he or
she can handle.”
Chuck doubted that as he took a gingerly step. The pile was manageable, but clumsy, as if
something kept shifting inside each piece, throwing off his balance.
“I hope I can get all this home with me,” Chuck said, peering around the jumble at his companion.
“Oh, no,” Keir said. “Your object is to leave as much behind as you can.”
“Then why did I pick it up at all?” Chuck asked, surprised and a little resentful.
“You can’t help it,” Keir said, with a wise, little smile that irritated Chuck. “You have to start out
this way. You’ll lighten the load. I promise you. This way, now.”
Keir put his hands on Chuck’s shoulders and turned him until he was facing toward a row of high, -
mahogany-framed doorways in the far wall, each with elaborate carvings around the arch, and its own
incomprehensible sign overhead. Their bags in hand, people streamed out of the hall. Chuck wondered
which way to go. With a little toss of his head, Keir started walking. Chuck had no choice but to
follow.
The boxes propped on his arms cut into his muscles and jabbed sly corners into his ribs. It seemed
that at each step the weight lurched a different way. Chuck found himself trotting in an impromptu
cha-cha, trying to avoid dropping anything. He gritted his teeth and struggled to take the shortest path
possible. It was difficult. Sweat dripped down strands of his hair and rolled into his eyes. He blinked
angrily. Why did he need so many things for his journey? Keir said he’d be abandoning them sooner or
later. Why couldn’t he do it now? As much as he loved them, he could do without them. He tilted the
pile to one side, hoping to dump off at least the top two briefcases. They’d never be noticed, in this
heaving crowd.
Contrarily, the valises’ weight shifted so they fell back against him. Their touch reminded him that
they were something familiar in a strange place. The top one nestled into his chin and neck like a kitten
seeking a caress. Chuck relented. He just couldn’t abandon them. They were his. Hating himself for
being so weak, he settled his burden into the neatest pile he could, and kept walking.
Just ahead of him, a woman in a neat forest-green pantsuit stumbled. Some of her bags dropped to
the floor. She stopped short to frown down at them. Chuck started forward to help her pick them up,
when she suddenly threw all the rest that she was carrying into the air. She shrieked with delight, and
skipped toward the portals, free. Chuck tried to emulate her, but his arms refused even to try. He
watched her go, full of envy.
Suddenly, the woman stopped, spun about, and hurried back to her pile of discarded luggage. She
picked it all up again, looking frightened.
“Too soon,” Keir sighed, having reappeared beside Chuck. “But it shows a willingness of spirit.
That means everything in the end. Keep that in mind.”
Chuck looked forward to attaining even that one moment of liberty. Still, he should be happy to be
here at last. It was so exciting to know he had finally succeeded in his goal of reaching an altered state
of consciousness. He had found the guide who would help him solve all his problems. This dream
landscape gave him power. In spite of the heavy load he was carrying he had more energy than he ever
did in his daily life. He was about to set out and explore the world inside himself.
“Where will we go first?” he asked Keir.
“We must board the train,” Keir said, guiding him into the leftmost portal. “But first we must pick
up the others.”
“Others?” Chuck demanded, twisting his head to look at Keir even as he was steered along. “What
others? This is my vision quest. You’re my personal guide!”
“I’m their personal guide, too,” Keir said. He gave Chuck a little smile.
“That’s not fair!” Chuck protested, feeling cheated. “I’m supposed to have a mystical experience,
and you’re the one who’s guiding me through it. Alone.”
Keir raised a wiry gray eyebrow. “And who is your mystical experience supposed to put you in
touch with? Rocks?”
Chuck was defensive. “Maybe.”
He didn’t want to be with other people yet. If he got too close to others he felt vulnerable. They
might try to change him, maybe against his will. He wanted some time alone, to explore the inner
workings of his soul, to get to know the innermost layers of his personality and fix what was wrong.
Had he gone to all this effort only to be part of a crowd? Why would he come all this way for group
therapy?
“Don’t be so precious about your psyche, son,” Keir said, with a lift of his bushy eyebrows. Chuck
was disconcerted. Keir seemed to be able to read Chuck’s mind. “You can’t knock the rough corners
off yourself without rubbing up against others. To evolve to a higher self, you have to change.”
How could he do that and still remain himself? Chuck wondered, feeling as though he was
swimming in waters too deep for him. He wanted to become more himself, not less. But Keir left that
question unanswered.
Chapter 2
Beyond the grand archway was another airline gate like the one he had come through. He knew that
he was seeing what Keir had seen while he was arriving. This airport was not like any he had ever
flown to. It was almost claustrophobic, with its low, dark gray, oval corridor, slatted walls and
melamine desks, and rows of bright green upholstered seats. The small, cramped jetway door opened
to allow the passage of a tall, slim, pale-faced man with dark hair. His clothes were of a classic cut, of
materials that spoke unmistakeably of quality. His slate-blue jacket was tweed, flecked with
unexpected spots of bright colors that gave depth to the dark color overall. There were big suede
patches on the elbows, but they were purely decorative. His shirt and tie could have been silk, and
maybe so were his dark blue trousers. His feet were shod in immaculately polished black leather half-
boots. His eyes, as slate blue as his coat, flicked expressionlessly from right to left, taking in his
surroundings. Their gaze lit briefly on Chuck and Keir, then slid off, darting to the next thing. What he
thought of them Chuck couldn’t tell. The man’s emotions didn’t show on his face.
“Thank you for joining us on this Astral Flight,” said a pert-nosed woman in a cloud-gray uniform,
waving good-bye from the narrow desk next to the door. The man ignored her. Just as they had when
Chuck arrived, the white-suited workmen moved in and began to disassemble the gate. If the
newcomer was disconcerted, he never showed it. Keir bustled over to him. As Keir got closer to the
stranger, he began to change. Chuck blinked, unable to believe his eyes. In the space of a few steps
Keir went from being a thin bantam of a man with white hair and a beard, to a plump, motherly
woman, her dark hair going white at the temples. Impossible!
Chuck was still dazed when Keir came back with the stranger in tow.
“How?” he sputtered. “Why?”
“I’m the shape they need to see,” Keir-the-woman said. “You want a wise old man. Most of my
clients respond better to other faces of wisdom. This is for him.”
“Oh,” Chuck said. He tried not to stare, but the transformation was so complete! She was a nice--
looking woman, really, warm and kind-looking, who must have been a real knockout when she was
young. Chuck shot a glance at the tall man. The close resemblance suggested that Keir was meant to
represent his mother. The man walked along in a kind of daze. Chuck understood how he felt; the
stranger must have absorbed all the weirdness he could for the moment. He had only one suitcase with
him, an old-fashioned carpet bag like those Chuck’s grandparents had kept in their front closet, but
from the sag of the cloth and the whiteness of the man’s knuckles on the handle, it must have been as
heavy as a trunk.
Chuck had to blink as Keir led them through a low arch. Just like that, the walls of the building
dropped away into the distance, and the ceiling shot upwards into midnight gloom. The quiet landscape
was painted with silvery light from a full moon that hung above them like a benevolent face. They
were outside in a grassy meadow. A grand, winding stone staircase spiraled down and around out of
nowhere, until it came to rest on the ground between a pair of classic, alabaster, nude statues, one man
and one woman. It was so tall Chuck couldn’t see what was at the top. He had no notion of its scale
until he spotted a bundle painted in chiaroscuro at its foot. He squinted. It was a woman. Had she
walked down it and gone to sleep at the bottom or, Chuck shuddered, with a hollow feeling in his
belly, fallen down it? She lay very still, with her round cheek pillowed on one arm, a wing of hair
draped over her face. Cloth bags and suitcases of several sizes lay scattered around her.
“Is she hurt?” he asked Keir. His voice was a hushed whisper in this calm place.
“Oh, no,” Keir assured him. “Sometimes they come this way. All depends on what’s comfortable
for you.” He signed for the two men to stay back as he trotted towards the sleeper, shifting from
woman to silver-coated wolf. Chuck shook his head, marvelling. If this alternate realm was as
wonderful as the guide, he’d never want to go back to his mundane existence. The wolf nudged the
sleeper with his nose. She sat up, looked startled for a moment, then reached out to touch its furry ears
with an expression of pure delight.
In every way this newcomer was the opposite of the male stranger. She was short, heavy-set, with
wide hips and a large bosom, dressed in swathes of soft, earth-toned cloth and jingling with jewelry at
neck, wrists, and ankles. She gathered up her possessions as if she was used to doing it, and followed
Keir toward the rest of the group. Her eyes never left the furry back.
“Is that it?” Chuck asked, impatiently, peering around his briefcases. His bags were getting heavier.
“Two more,” Keir assured him, trotting alongside his charges with his pink tongue hanging out of
his mouth.
Chuck fidgeted behind his heap of luggage as they entered another vision of the outdoors, this one
as sunlit as the other had been moonlit. He waited impatiently while a cloud began to drop slowly from
the sky. He was only momentarily beguiled by the color changes it sustained, shading like a rainbow
from green to blue to violet as it descended toward the ground. When it touched down, Keir stepped
forward. He became an angel with golden halo and iridescent white wings, as beautiful as anything
Chuck had ever seen in a piece of classical art. Was this his true form? If so, Chuck was fortunate that
Keir would consent to interact with mere mortals.
He felt awe rising in him as the angel offered a hand to the woman resting on the cloud’s surface
like a pearl in the palm of a celestial hand. She rose in a flutter of flowing white garments. Taller than
the male stranger, she was ethereally thin, with hollow cheekbones, a narrow nose and thin lips. Her
large hazel eyes regarded the Angel Keir almost blankly. Her hair was dark blonde, and fell in straight
tresses down her back. A silver chain belt hung slack about her narrow hips, hanging there without
visible means of support. The other woman, whom Chuck could now see had hair of a defiant shade of
red, stared at her distrustfully. The dainty grace of the newcomer made her look coarse and earthy.
Chuck fell a little in love with the newcomer. She epitomized beauty. The very power of that
realization made him feel shy about looking at her. He glanced up at her through his eyelashes. When
lightning didn’t strike him down, he stared at her more openly. She didn’t seem to mind, or even
notice. She was too taken up with studying her surroundings. He was glad. He felt refreshment in
taking in her image. If she was so perfect already, Chuck wondered why she was here.
When the lady in white climbed down, Chuck could see that the chain around her hips extended
into a hollow in the cloud. Attached to the silvery links were several silken bags and tapestry-covered
boxes shaped like treasure chests that dragged behind her as she walked. She seemed entirely unaware
of them or their weight. The Angel Keir beckoned to her, and she followed meekly, without
acknowledging she could see any of the others.
Chuck thought that Keir must have forgotten about the fifth member of the group, for he led the
four visitors through a door that emerged onto a crowded railway station platform. No, Keir had taken
on another shape, indicating that he was expecting a client. Incongruously for the busy workaday
setting, he was now a dolphin, hovering about four feet above the ground, flicking his crescent-moon-
shaped tail to propel him through the air. He swam to the tracks just as the sound of a train reached
Chuck’s ears.
But what a train! The shining green-and-black locomotive rose only three feet above the tracks. The
clicking wheels were the size of Chuck’s hand. Its smokestack was so low that the puffs of white steam
blew into the face of the bearded man sitting astride the middle car.
“We’re not riding on that, are we?” Chuck asked. “None of us will fit!”
“It’s an arrival,” Keir said. His voice was squeezed down to a soprano gurgle. “Not a departure.”
As it neared the platform, Chuck got a good look at the train cars. They appeared to have been fitted
together from integrated circuits and solar panels. It ought to have generated plenty of power to run. If
that was the case, why did it need a firebox?
“What is it?” asked the dark-haired man, speaking for the first time.
“A search engine,” Keir said, unapologetic, as the red-haired woman groaned. “Dreaming minds
make puns. You may as well get used to it. It represents nothing. It’s simply another means of finding
one’s way here. Welcome,” he chirped to the newcomer.
The new visitor did a startled double take.
“You’re a dolphin,” he said.
“Delfinitely,” Keir squeaked. “Welcome.” Chuck gave a brief snort of laughter at the stranger’s
surprise, but smothered it.
The newcomer gave Keir a curt nod, and bent to unstrap his bag from the roof of the caboose. His
movements were precise and focused. Chuck eyed his trim, charcoal-gray suit, and wondered if he was
a clockmaker or a banker. He worked a hand free and extended it for the bag so the stranger could
climb up to the platform unencumbered, but a fierce glare from the man’s gray eyes made him step
back a pace. Chuck resented him all over again.
“No. Thank you.” The newcomer wrapped a protective arm around his suitcase and clutched it to
him. The ubiquitous workmen in painters’ overalls bustled over and rolled up a set of steps for him to
ascend to the platform. Six more disassembled the search engine and took it away. The stranger sent a
distrustful eye around at them all. Chuck vowed not to touch the suitcase if he could possibly avoid it.
The guy might go ballistic. He had a precise manner about him like a scientist. He looked to be
somewhere in his middle age, with gray starting in his hair and deep lines at the corners of his mouth
and eyes. Chuck noticed he was studying them, too. The blonde woman suddenly looked around, as if
she realized for the first time that she was not alone.
“Where did the angel go?” she asked, innocently. Chuck blinked at her. Hadn’t she been watching
Keir change shape? It wasn’t the kind of thing you’d miss.
“Here at your side,” Keir said, shifting effortlessly back to the luminescent presence. The woman
breathed a sigh as the sunlight caught his halo and fell around him in coruscating rainbows. Chuck
watched the transformation with renewed astonishment. How could she have missed seeing that? She
must be completely unaware of her surroundings. He hoped he wasn’t being such a dunce.
A burst of static exploded from the fan-shaped loudspeakers tucked in the corners of the
overhanging roof.
“Garmurfle vargh grmfoah nah rmhm Platform Two!”
“That’s ours,” Keir said happily. “Please follow me.”
He floated ahead of them, his bare feet not touching the boards of the platform. Light from his
wings and halo tipped the dull-colored paint and bricks of the station as he passed, and made them
beautiful. If any of the other travelers were disconcerted at his shapechanging, they didn’t show it.
Maybe they couldn’t see it, Chuck reasoned. Perhaps he was the only one who could. This was
supposed to be his vision quest, after all.
The railway station didn’t look exactly like any of the stations he’d visited over the course of his
life. It looked more like all of them. The concrete walkways between tracks were familiar, as were the
brick buildings with gingerbread-cutout eaves hanging from the edges of the shingled roofs. A huge
sign hanging overhead was painted with the word rem.
“What does that mean?” Chuck asked, tugging on the angel’s sleeve. He felt the cloth change to
gray homespun under his fingertips. Keir was turning back to his wise old sage to suit Chuck’s needs.
He was a little sorry to see the glory of the angel vanish, but he felt far more comfortable with a plain
old man.
“Do you ever get confused altering from one shape to another so rapidly?” Chuck asked.
“Not so far,” Keir said, cheerfully. “Rem is the name of this station. Rem is the province of the
Dreamland that we are in. It’s the central hub for travel from the Waking World.”
“Do seekers always arrive here?” Chuck asked.
“No, but they do pass through here,” Keir said, with an approving nod. Chuck was glad. It meant he
was asking good questions. He was anxious not to seem a fool. “This time, today, to launch your
experience properly, you begin here, but you’ve already passed through many places in the Dreamland
over the course of your life. Any living being that dreams does. All this you see around you is a
product of the Collective Unconscious. You think that things look very familiar to you. So they do. So
they are. You have seen some of them in your waking time, but some of them you have only seen in
your dreams. That is because the Dreamland has some constants about it that give you points of
reference from which to start.”
The ornate sign that said track 2 was unnecessary to direct Chuck. He was drawn to the train sitting
on the tracks as if it was a magnet. The hissing steam train had come straight out of a Victorian
fantasy. The original Orient Express must have been this beautiful. The engine was all brightly
polished brass and black steel. Every angle was cut cleanly, every arc perfectly round, satisfying the
soul of meticulousness in Chuck to the last degree. The smokestack belched white puffs into the
cloudless blue sky as if impatient to get moving.
The exterior panels of the cars were neatly painted dark green. Chuck gazed with admiration at the
fabulous curlicues, leaves and gods’ heads carved into the woodwork and adorned with gold-leaf trim.
Metal flourishes and finials wound outward from the spokes of the great steel wheels. The car
windows were cut glass that twinkled in the sunshine. Through them Chuck got an intriguing glimpse
of fine, white curtains tied back in swags, and beyond, the shadows of heads bent together in
conversation.
“It’s been beautifully preserved,” Chuck said, whistling through his teeth. “Someone’s taken good
care of it.”
“Memories like this are often cherished,” Keir said. “In this case, it’s been stored in the Collective
Unconscious, where it will be safe for as long as there are minds to recall it. They won’t need to have
seen it themselves.”
“It’s just a memory?” Chuck asked, puzzled. He reached out a hand to touch the engine. The
smooth metal vibrated under his hand. “How real could it be if it’s only a memory?”
“Sometimes more real, to some people,” Keir said. “In fact, it looks better than it did when it was
real. No soot or grease, at least not in this form. Trains are one of the glories of the Dreamland. They
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TheGrandTourbyJodyLynnNyeThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©2000byJodyLynnNyeAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereofinanyform.ABaenBooksOriginalBaenPublis...
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