Waking in Dreamland

by Jody Lynne Nye

  “Not a word,” Felan said, looking worried. “I’d better send another note at our next stop.”

  The guard captain wheeled his mount, and took his place at the head of the line.

  “We’re going into Cloud-Cuckooland, if you ask me,” he said. Far away to the west, they all heard a crack of thunder, followed at a distance by the bright flash of lightning. Clouds rushed to fill the sky above them. The sun darkened to a grayish blot. Rain poured down in a torrent.

  “Wonderful,” Spar growled. “That’s all it lacked.”

  Colenna pulled rain gear out of her bag, and changed Spar’s regulation slicker to a completely waterproof tunic and hat.

  “There, it’s not so bad,” she said, beaming.

  “Look on the bright side,” Bergold said, heartily. “It rains on the just and unjust alike.”

  Roan followed Spar’s answering stream of blue smoke into the worsening downpour.

  Chapter 15

  Taboret started counting when the clap of thunder came. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, then the sky to the north was peppered with small white zigzags indicating lightning strokes. Twenty one thousand. Flash! Lightning burned the sky overhead bright white, and left it a dark ash. It had been raining for hours, and Taboret’s cold hands were starting to slip on her handlebars.

  Overhead was a massive capital L surrounded by an irregularly circular isobar that stretched out almost from horizon to horizon. Numerous isobars ringed the central one, and off to the west Taboret caught glimpses of a long, blue, low pressure front studded with blue semicircles. This was one of the largest rainstorms she had ever seen. Where was the high pressure H that would bring them dry weather? Taboret got a stream of water in her left eye from her hood brim when she tilted her head to look. She ducked her head to avoid a branch that bent and showered her with its load of raindrops.

  She was fatigued. The extra influence she and the others had provided Lurry to plant traps for Princess Leonora’s party, as well as continuing to ride and occasionally transforming their surroundings to ease their passage, left them drained and silent. Brom had had them halt a short while for a high-calorie meal, but did not allow them much time to rest. The break had done some good for their bodies, but couldn’t help Taboret’s feelings of guilt. She was trying to hide her distaste for her forced complicity in possible regifilicide. And the Alarm Clock dug into her shoulders like an attack of bad conscience.

  Several times since they’d crossed over into Wocabaht, Brom had had them create holes in reality, to be filled by chance-met who-knew-what that was attracted to the vacuum. Instead of erasing their trail, they had purposely left it in plain view to lure the King’s Investigator into it. Sooner or later, Brom reasoned, the pursuers would be discouraged by the dangers, and give up. Taboret was afraid of the holes. She felt as if they sucked creative force out of whatever came near them. Roan would never give up, so he and everyone with him could be killed.

  The roar of an engine surprised Taboret by its enormous volume. Brom signaled them to a stop as a huge vehicle came over the horizon and rushed toward them with the menace of a charging bull. Taboret squinted. It was one of the mercenaries’ motorcycles. The bike had been enhanced again until it was twenty feet high, with wheels the size of houses. At the machine’s peak was a wheelhouse that looked tiny in perspective. Lurry, now bearded and wild-haired, was visible behind the windshield, waving. He gave them a happy thumbs-up. Maniune, just as bearded, but looking grimly satisfied, hunched over the steering mechanism.

  As they approached Brom, the vehicle shrank rapidly until it was reduced to the motorcycle and sidecar. Lurry’s steed detached itself from the host bike, and reasserted its own form as they rolled to a stop before the chief scientist.

  “Report!” Brom ordered. “Did you find Roan?”

  “We’ve been having some fun,” Maniune said, showing his teeth in a feral smile. “We tore up the road he was on.”

  As if in confirmation, the motorcycle let out a tremendous belch. Maniune patted it. Lurry grinned, and Taboret got a sudden mental picture of the road rolling up like a carpet.

  “Did they get away?” she asked, anxiously, and flinched as Brom’s gimlet eye turned to her. “If not, we won’t have to worry about pursuit any more.”

  “True,” Brom said. “Well?”

  “He jumped in time,” Lurry said, gleefully. “You should have seen them. Wheee-ew,” he whistled, describing an arc with his hand that traveled up and then down. “Right off into the weeds.” Brom raised an eyebrow.

  “Is that all?”

  “No,” Maniune said. “We put some traps down. We left the trail alone, like you wanted, up to where we planted some misdirections. If they manage to find the way again, they’ll have some other surprises waiting for them.” The feral grin reappeared, and the mercenary’s canines sharpened to little points. Taboret gulped.

  “Any messages from our friend?”

  “Acton is finding out,” Maniune said, jerking a thumb behind him. “Here he comes.”

  The other motorcycle, fearsome albeit unenhanced, roared up, and ground to a halt on its side in the mud.

  “Report!” Brom said. “What news?”

  “They still don’t suspect a thing,” Acton said, hauling his beast to its wheels. He brushed at the mire clinging to his legs and chest. His steed shook itself clean, spraying filthy drops all over the apprentices.

  “Is this your assessment?” Brom asked, coldly.

  “Nah, we got a message from your mole,” Acton said, with admiration. “It was stone clever of you to leave somebody behind who’d spy on anyone chasing us.”

  “Clever.” Brom mused upon the compliment and found it within the low range of acceptability. “Thank you. What

  became of the message?”

  Acton grinned. “I ate it.”

  “Good,” Brom said. “Perhaps some of the writer’s subtlety will infuse you from within. However, we must not depend solely upon what we have left behind. We must make some headway. Staff! Form the gestalt! We will create a ridge of high pressure directly over this road, and ride in dry weather.”

  “But the road might shift,” Basil pointed out.

  Brom dismissed the objection with a flick of his long fingers. “Then we will change the pressure zone to keep us dry. Would you rather talk about the weather, or do something about it?”

  Tired as they were, the apprentices hopped off their bikes and joined the circle gratefully. Strapped to the Alarm Clock, Taboret couldn’t take a direct part in the procedure, but she was glad to lend her energies to them. If there was a chance to be dry and warm again, they wanted it. It was amazing, Taboret thought, that when they left Mnemosyne they had all been dreaming of power. Now all she wanted was clothes that didn’t chafe anywhere.

  Brom gathered in the apprentices, and laid his heavy, cold hands atop theirs. Taboret watched with interest as the beings of the apprentices shifted just a bit, taking on characteristics of one another, and everyone looking a little like Brom. She felt the warmth flow from her, funneled together with the others, which flowed endlessly outward, until she was part of the landscape. Her hands—not her physical hands, but metaphysical ones—pushed up and out against the clouds and wind. Taking the substance of air, they created a solid egg-shaped shell on one small place in the road. Suddenly, the pit-a-pat of raindrops on her upturned face ceased. Her hands relaxed.

  The boundaries receded, leaving her in her own body again. She looked down at her hands and saw a different color of skin, and new texture. All the others had changed, too. It was odd experiencing the effects of the crucible from outside. This was a new function, that her energies could be used without having to touch the others. Before they had set out, Brom had given them a list of potential stages of development. He’d said that later on in the journey each of them should be able to tap into the crucible energy from a distance without being able to see one another.

  Taboret looked up. It seeme
d miraculous the way the blue lines turned their arrows away from the road ahead, and the huge H-balloon wiggled its way into the center. She could feel her clothes drying out already, and used a mite of personal influence to make sure they stayed soft. The Alarm Clock felt a little lighter now that Taboret wasn’t coping with other miseries.

  At Brom’s signal the group took to the road again, Taboret looking right and left through a glasslike wall of water, while she pedaled in the dry air. They passed a farmer herding his cows from one field into another in the rain. The man gaped at them curiously, water running off the brim of his peaked felt hat.

  “Let him stare,” Brom said, triumphantly. “We are the future.”

  “If we’ve got one,” Gano muttered.

  Taboret glanced behind at her, but the older woman was huddled into her collar, concentrating on the road.

  Now that she was more comfortable, Taboret’s conscience began to nag at her again. She started to worry about those holes in reality Lurry and the mercenaries had been strewing behind them. They might kill someone, maybe even the princess! Taboret had always envied Leonora her wardrobe, her beauty, and the adulation of the masses, but never, never wished her any harm. There had to be something she could do to help save her future sovereign’s life.

  The road curved ahead, leading through a grove of narrow saplings. With an imperious gesture, Brom pointed upward, and the high pressure center actually began to turn with them. Everyone was watching with wonder on their faces. Taboret had an idea. At the last minute, as she passed a clump of trees closest to the road, she skidded her rear wheel sideways, ramming the axle with a bang into the bole of a sapling. Glinn let out an exclamation.

  At once the Alarm Clock reacted to a shift in its center of gravity. The bells under the tarpaulin warbled a low warning sound, ringing on and on in her head. Taboret gritted her teeth. Brom wheeled his nonpedaling bike around to confront her.

  “What happened?” Brom demanded, his eyes flaring red from within. “What did you do?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Taboret said, shrinking under the yoke. “I’m just tired. I’m sorry. I was careless. I’m sure the Alarm Clock is all right, sir. I’m so sorry. I apologize, truly I do.”

  She babbled contritely on until Brom got disgusted and went away. He hated emotional displays, and she knew it. Taboret was satisfied. She had managed to leave a solid, intentional mark on that tree, and function would affect form. The pursuers would know the true road now, in spite of Maniune’s machine and machinations.

  Taboret pedaled on in grim determination, keeping her thoughts firmly on the road and the rhythm of her knees. She jerked her mind away from the contrived accident, flooding the scene with remorse for almost damaging the Alarm Clock. Brom left her alone, and no one else had energy left to talk.

  “Whoa,” Glinn’s voice said softly from the other side of the draped litter. Taboret coasted to a stop and craned her neck to see over the edge. Brom had come to a halt in a rocky niche just off the road. Above him, a cliff face soared high into clouds of mist. A line of wet, dark stone showed where runnels from a spring coursed gently down into a pool behind the senior scientist. It was so pretty it didn’t look quite real.

  “This is where we stop for the night,” Brom proclaimed. “We have reached this point sooner than I thought.” He folded back his chart, took a pen from his breast pocket, and made a note on it. “Good. We are making excellent time. We can stop early.”

  “And not a moment too soon,” Gano muttered to Taboret. She ordered the green motorbike to stand still as she helped to lift the yoke off Taboret’s shoulders. Together, they set it on the ground at the edge of the cliff face. Brom stood rubbing his hands together over his precious device.

  “May we begin, sir?” Glinn asked. He cleared his throat loudly. “Sir?”

  Brom seemed to wake up when Glinn addressed him, as if he was coming back from a place far away. He looked up, straight at Taboret. The expression in his eyes was positively inhuman. Taboret thought she was looking at a being that was part man, part . . . thinking machine. She reddened, but held on to her awareness of how tired she was, projecting that as hard as she could. The machine acknowledged her, and whirred on to the question it had been asked.

  “Proceed,” Brom said, waving them away. “Follow the plan. You have it, Glinn.”

  It was a statement, not a question. Taboret couldn’t help lifting an eyebrow at the cold tone. Glinn just nodded and turned away, gesturing to the others to come with him, away from their chief, who had already retreated into deep contemplation of his plan.

  The first night the apprentices had been allowed to use individual plans they had created for assigned parts of the campground in order to get them used to working together on small programs in gestalt. This night was to be a trial run of complete domicile-building according to a single master blueprint.

  Glinn studied the chart, and pointed out a natural sheltered corral where the apprentices could wheel their bikes. According to the print, which Taboret read over Glinn’s shoulder, a stable with natural-seeming camouflage would build up around it when the plans were carried out. Brom had either made use of some very detailed research about this specific locale, or the plans changed themselves to suit. Whichever was the truth, Taboret found it impressive.

  “Form up, everyone,” Glinn said, holding out his hand. No one moved. After a moment’s hesitation, Taboret put her hand on top of his, and positioned herself so there would be plenty of room for the next person to stand behind her. Glinn gave her a grateful look, and bent his thumb upward to give her hand a little squeeze. She gave him a half-grin, and thought hard at projecting support for his effort. With an impatient grunt, Gano joined them, followed by Carina. Gradually, grudgingly, the others fell into line. Taboret could feel through the link a tinge of resentment towards Glinn for acting as supervisor, even though any fool could tell that Brom wasn’t paying any attention to them, and no one would sleep in a bed tonight if they didn’t get cracking.

  “All together now, the way we studied it,” Glinn said, flipping the paper out flat over their fists so they could all see it. “This is Housing Plan Two. Do you recall the images? Then, let’s begin.”

  Taboret closed her eyes and concentrated on bending reality. The plans were in her mind, reinforced by the minds of all the others. They recalled details that she did not, and her memory provided information to fill in gaps in theirs. Well done, so far. She was enjoying this part, in spite of the Countingsheep brothers, whose irritating presence was ever more palpable through the link.

  Her thoughts reached out to touch the cliff face, and stopped against the surface. It felt solid, cool, and moist. With a gasp, Taboret opened her eyes. It was real stone. She couldn’t believe that the chief expected them to be able to sculpt that. She had thought when she had seen his grandiose plans back in the castle, that he meant them to be working with nebulosity, a substance that felt mushy, like marshmallow fluff at the bare end of tactility, but was easily molded into temporary structures. She never dreamed he’d try something so ambitious, so impossible as forming stone.

  “Go on,” Glinn’s voice said in her mind. She turned her head to meet his eyes, and he gave her an encouraging nod. Taboret looked up at the cliff-face. All right, she’d try. It was only the impossible, after all. She shut her eyes once again.

  She saw the blueprints in her mind’s eye. Angle the stone walls upward until they closed together in a seam like a peaked roof. Above her, a vaulted ceiling hung with glittering glass lamps shut out the sky. Natural gaps in the rock became baffles for ventilation, wide so they could breathe easily but narrow enough to prevent them from being observed from outside. All the time, the apprentices were also making the walls grow outward to envelop their circle.

  Those walls in her mind’s eye smoothed over, and sprouted red nodules that lit up: Brom’s patented security system. Near the original cliff, a small door was to be formed through which only one person could pass at a tim
e. Stone melted down over it in a concealing curtain only a millimeter thick. This was a secret escape hatch, meant to act as a last hope if enemies invaded during the night. Other walls grew out to form rooms. One of them enclosed Brom and the Alarm Clock. A pit in the ground opened up, and fire belched out from the middle of the earth, and a fireplace-stove combination formed over it, with a chimney reaching for the ceiling flowing upward like a wax taper melting in reverse motion.

  When Taboret realized that she was shifting stone as easily as changing her mind, she thought of bursting through the hidden door and leaving a her-shaped hole behind her as she ran home. She was astonished, frightened, and exultant all at the same time. She had always had a reasonable command of her surroundings, but it would have taken months for her to accomplish what the gestalt did in moments. The wonder and awe felt by the others coursed through her body, and a surge of giddiness made her sway on her feet. When at last they were finished with all the details of the plan they stopped. Taboret looked around. She was impressed, and exhausted.

  “Well done, all,” Glinn said. His voice sounded tired, too. He took his hand away from under hers, breaking the spell of the gestalt, and the feeling of camaraderie died away. Quickly, all the others withdrew, too. Taboret felt forlorn as she was left alone in her own head. “Now, let’s eat, and we can get some sleep.”

  “Right you are,” Basil said, immediately buoyed up by the prospect of cooking, his greatest passion after scientific research. “Give me five minutes.” He bustled away. Taboret grinned indulgently after the plump apprentice. She hadn’t liked him much when they’d started their journey, but he was growing on her.

  The apprentices sat down to dinner as soon as the food was ready, without changing their traveling clothes, or even brushing off road dust. Taboret’s only accession to etiquette was to take off her outer tunic, damp with sweat, and carefully remove the pen protector to her undertunic’s pocket. The next level of construction plans would call for an automatic cleaning system that would tidy and launder them without physical effort. In the meantime, they had to wash themselves and their clothes in the old-fashioned way, by influence or elbow grease. Without wanting to appear rude, she sprang up as soon as the meal was finished, to be first in line at the bath. Her legs were long in this particular body, and she took advantage of their extended stride. Carina looked a little perturbed, evidently having similar plans, but the older woman arrived at the door a fraction too late.