"Come and watch, then," he said.

Chuck found he didn't have to move at all. Their chairs drew into a circle. A round table appeared in their midst, covered with a blue linen tablecloth on which was set a silver bowl of fruit, a stack of magazines, knickknacks, a selection of children's toys, a magnifying glass, a pair of tweezers, and a hammer.

"You don't really need this table, in a purely physical sense," Keir said, "but it will probably make you feel mentally more comfortable to have something to set your work down on. And these items are just to get you started. Use the bowl of fruit. Use the building blocks, or the crayons. Use the table. It's all dreamstuff. You have the ability to change it into anything you can think of."

Chuck looked at the array of items, wondering what to do first. Could he play with the same abandon with which he had made pies out of air? He was almost afraid to try. These things didn't need to be changed. They looked just fine the way they were. He could see that the others were reluctant, too.

"What the heck," Persemid said, at last. With great ceremony, she set a building block down in front of her, raised the hammer, and brought it down. Instead of cracking or bounding away from her, the alphabet block mashed flat. Persemid raised her eyebrows.

"You see?" Keir said. "It's already different than you expected. Now, stretch the envelope."

Persemid picked up the block and began to pull the substance of it out like taffy. She laughed for pure glee. It oozed out between her hands. She let it stretch out, and tossed one end toward Hiramus.

The fussy man caught it, with an expression of distaste. The end he was holding became clear and suffused with an aura of orange-red. The alteration traveled up the length to Persemid, who dropped her end and shook her hand.

"Ow! That's hot!"

Chuck watched with interest. He'd seen workers in a foundry blowing glass that looked just like the mass Hiramus was now holding. Seemingly unaffected by what had to be intense heat, Hiramus twisted the molten glass around and around until it became a disk. As it cooled, it grew smooth and shiny. Hiramus picked up the disk and peered at his companions through it with one eye that looked a dozen times the size of the other.

"A magnifying glass!" Chuck said. "But how is that like an alphabet block?"

Keir wore his delphine grin, floating on the air as though it was water. "Both are aids to reading, are they not? Well thought out, Hiramus," he squeaked.

"Thank you," the bearded man said, with a twinkle in his eye. "I feared that my attempt wouldn't work, but I see the association of related ideas is as malleable as the-what did you call it?- dreamstuff."

"You only have to believe in it," Keir said, in his shrill voice. "Make the connection, and you can do anything!"

Pipistrella did not need any more encouragement. She peeled pictures of people off the covers of the fashion magazines and blew them up until they formed a circle around her. The figures primped and preened and turned about, even though they were all still two-dimensional. Very gradually, they shifted in color and configuration until all of them looked like her. Persemid started putting together more of the blocks into words, and crowing with delight when they turned into a crudely-painted wooden model of what the word represented: purses, blouses, shoes, objets d'art. Chuck toyed with the knickknacks, changing them effortlessly from one useless, gaudy thing into another. He had just succeeded in making a cluster of china flowers into a painted wooden nutcracker, when he noticed that Sean still hadn't touched anything.

"Your turn, my lad," Keir said, leaning over him and laying a maternal hand on Sean's arm.

"I think I'll pass," Sean said, pressing his lips together. His face was pale.

Chuck found himself feeling sorry for Sean, without knowing exactly why. The tall man seemed reluctant to have anything to do with the unseen. Uses of influence and all the changing seemed to frighten him, although Sean tightened up that strong jaw to prevent even the hint of a whimper from coming out. Chuck wondered why, if he was so scared, he was here?

"You looked like you were having a good time at the pie fight," he pointed out. Sean folded his arms.

"Maybe because that was physical. I can see and feel that."

"But you made some of those pies yourself," Keir pointed out, gentle blue-gray eyes intent on the tall man. "Those had no more eternal reality than anything else in this world, yet you handled them without qualm."

"No, I did not!" Sean protested at once.

"Oh, yes, you did."

"No! I . . . wouldn't have. I couldn't have!"

"Well," Keir asked, reasonably, "were any of the ones you threw whole?"

"Well, of course they were!"

"Pies smash to crumbs when they hit something, you know, my dear. Where did you find them?"

Sean began to look frustrated. "I just found them, that's all. I don't know." He looked at Chuck.

"Maybe I took some of his. He was making them like there's no tomorrow." He stopped, as if the phrase bothered him, and licked his lips.

"I doubt they were mine," Chuck said. "I was under siege a lot of the time." He glanced behind him to make sure the lemon-meringue ladies didn't overhear him. To his surprise, they were no longer in the car. My, people come and go so quickly around here! he thought.

"You see?" Keir asked, brightly. "You must have done it yourself."

The concept bothered Sean greatly, but after a while, he admitted, "Well, I will allow that I enjoyed it."

"Then why not learn what it is you did?" Keir said. "There's no harm in it. It's meant to be fun." He pulled the silver bowl from the middle of the table toward Sean. The fruit in it quivered slightly, as if ready and willing to change at the first opportunity. Sean raised his hands, but hesitated.

"I shouldn't meddle with what it is already. I could mess it all up."

"You can't make a mistake," Keir said, gently. "You have a new ability, a new chance to use it.

Reach out and try."

"Join us," Hiramus said, with his wintry smile. "This is part of the education to which I was looking forward."

Almost shyly, Sean picked up an orange. He rolled it between his long hands. Chuck found himself waiting eagerly to see what the other man would make.

"I shouldn't be doing this," Sean said, reluctantly. But the orange started to change as it sat on his palms. It grew yellower and larger. Chuck thought it was meant to be some kind of melon.

"You see?" Keir asked. "You can't help changing what is around you. The knack comes out of your very beings. This is the motive force that created not only the Dreamland, but our own world. It's like adding more paint to a painting. You might as well know how to create pretty pictures, because otherwise all you're going to do is spread blobs all over the rest of the landscape, and that will cause more mischief than the responsible use of your own imagination. See? You're creating already."

"I'm not much of an artist," the tall man said, blushing when the sphere between his hands elongated and flopped over to one side. "Well, do you see that? I've ruined it."

"Here," Chuck said, glad now to share his experience. He reached over for the blob of matter.

"That's easy to fix."

"No, let me," Pipistrella said, floating over in her silver dress to sit very close beside Sean, like milkweed fluff settling on a leaf. "Now, here is what I do," she said. She gathered up the sagging mass in her delicate fingers and began to pat it together. The color changed to yellow, and the surface texture smoothed. She began to draw tendrils of matter from the main body. It seemed as though she wanted to make a bunch of bananas, but they were coming out as round as marbles. "Oh, my," she said, helplessly. "Oh, dear." Any attempt she made to have them curve outward seemed to backfire.

She patted and shifted the mass, which tumbled about but didn't form into the expected long, tapered cylinders.

Sean, watching her, could bear it no longer. Impatiently, he reached over and took the mass out of her hands. A few deft movements, and the bananas hung together in a bunch, all of uniform shape. He offered it back to her. "Isn't this what you were trying to do?" he asked, a trifle exasperatedly.

"Oh, yes!" she said, with a heart-melting smile of delight for Sean. "That's perfect." In spite of himself, Sean smiled back.

Chuck had been thinking all along that Pipistrella hadn't an ounce of sense in her lovely head, until he caught the glance she threw him from under her long eyelashes. Chuck bit the inside of his lip to keep from bursting out laughing. She knew exactly what she was doing. Catching the byplay, Persemid let out a snort of amusement. Puzzled, Sean looked up at her.

"Nothing, nothing," she said, waving a hand. "That's good. I've never seen better bananas. Keep going." And to his own surprise, Sean did. He took a bunch of grapes out of the bowl and as he picked them off the vine, set them out in a square pattern. Each grape became a little house with white, stucco walls and a peaked roof. The blue tablecloth warmed to green among the houses, and little white fences divided the lawns into long, narrow strips. From the fond way Sean regarded the scene, Chuck guessed it must represent his hometown. Chuck was envious, since his memory was still befuddled.

Sean had a very vivid visual recollection, with an exceptional knack for details. Chuck wondered if Sean was an artist. Chuck turned his attention back to his own experiments. He was trying to create a perpetual motion machine.

The wolf Keir sat beside Persemid, guiding her hands with the occasional nudge of his nose. She was really good, needing only a little direction to really make use of her boundless wealth of influence.

She and Keir communicated without spoken words. She would glance at him now and again, nodding as though she was listening, and change something based upon what she saw in the depthless silver eyes.

Persemid caught Chuck's eye on her, and raised her brows with a little smile. They exchanged looks of shared enthusiasm. There was satisfaction in accomplishing something, seeing a mental vision made real. Chuck glanced down at what Persemid was doing, and let out a low whistle of respect. She had captured a ray of sunlight. It bounced between two opaque slices of dreamstuff like a nuclear sandwich.

"How did you do that?" he asked. "Will you show me?" Her brows went up again, this time in surprise. He was glad he had asked, just to see the gratified look on her face.

"I'd be happy to," she said, holding out her hands to him. Chuck watched closely. He wasn't sure if he could do what she did even though she was demonstrating it openly and at a learner's pace. She seemed to be able to gather the light that fell on the table from the lamp in her hand. The harder she squeezed it down, the brighter the smaller mass became until it was diamond-sized and hot. She took an orange out of the basket, snapped it apart with a twist of her hands, and put the dot of light into the center.

"You know the old saying about a day without oranges," she said, with a self-deprecating grin.

Chuck nodded. His hands chased a beam of light around the table until he penned it up. It felt like mercury on his palms. When he squeezed it, some of the light squirted out between his fingers and dribbled down the back of his hand like mustard. What was left was only a little brighter than the original lamplight.

"Forget it," he said to Persemid. "You're much better at this than I am." Persemid seemed surprised by the compliment, but she gave him a brusque, shy nod before going back to her own work of art. The truce was holding. "Hey, Pipistrella, that's pretty," Chuck said, noticing that the other woman was sculpting a rainbow. It looked very real, and he loved rainbows. "May I see that?"

"Oh, of course," she said, looking up at him with wide green eyes. She held the tiny arch out to him in both hands. Chuck picked it up gingerly in the middle with careful thumb and forefinger. The rainbow sagged and it changed in his hands to interlinked rings of rainbow hues.

"Oh, did I mention influence can shift each other's visions?" Keir said innocently. "You affect everything around you to varying degrees. Whether or not you know it, you are always creating. The things you set in motion during your own dreams respond to you even while you are awake. Your own mindset, if you like, changes things to suit your view of them. Something, or someone, has to have a strong personal identity to avoid being changed. Sometimes it takes constant vigilance."

Sean's little village had people, now, walking to and fro across the miniature square, stopping to talk as they met one another. The tall man sculpted a white stucco church and put it down. All of the little people began to walk towards it, as a seed-sized bell tolled in the steeple. All the others let out a collective sigh of admiration. Sean looked up with a start. Chuck thought he just figured out he had been having fun, and that that enjoyment hadn't caused him to be whisked off straight to hell. Sean sent around a shamefaced grin.

"That was fun, and it was indeed effortless, thanks to you distracting me out of myself for a while.

I'm grateful, Pip," he said, bowing over the hand of the lovely woman in silver gilt. He stopped, embarrassed. "I am sorry. May I call you that?"Pipistrella looked delighted. "I've never had a nickname before. How sweet of you. Pip. I like it."

She leaned over to kiss Sean on the cheek. He turned red to the roots of his dark hair and sat back in his seat mumbling. Persemid grinned at him.

"Attagirl," said Chuck.

He could feel a kind of collective energy gathering at the table, as though they were forming a cohesive group. Chuck felt empowered. He could do anything. He picked up the top hat that sat in the center of the table. Making pies out of nothing had been so easy that a complicated and indirect transformation ought to be a piece of cake. Why shouldn't a hat be a . . . a book? Chuck brought his palm down hard on the silk cylinder, flattening it. He let it start to rise again, to a little over an inch in thickness, then began to press it out into book shape.

Fitting a round peg into a square pattern wasn't easy, but he persisted. The hat liked being a headcover, and didn't like being a book. Every time Chuck pushed the image until it got pages, they turned into lining or ruffles. He yanked the black silk savagely, tugging the corners into place. The whole mass changed from black to white, and became covered with printing. Chuck found himself holding a cocked hat folded out of newspaper. Irritated, he slapped it down again. The entertaining exercise was turning into a battle of wills, and he was losing to a hat! He reshaped it again and again, but the best he could get was a thinking cap. He got a derisive chortle from Sean, who had lost his fear of using matter as modeling clay and was bending metal with his fingers. Chuck shot him a sour smile and fought the mass until it was shaped the way he wanted. Now, that was a handsome book. He looked at the crisp, black morocco cover. The title read The Story of the Hat. Pleased, Chuck opened it.

On each page, in 96-point Garamond type, was the same number: 8.

Hiramus glanced over. "Hat size."

"No," Chuck said, frustrated, yanking the book out of shape and patting it back again. "I want a real book."

"No, no," Keir said. "Remember what I told you yesterday. Form follows function, I said. Unless you're making something out of thin air, stay with the basic use of the object. Food is food. Clothing is clothing. Unless you see something otherwise. You might see liver as an instrument of torture, or a tie as a noose, so that is how it would change under your particular influence. Take Mrs. Flannel's pet here," Keir said, indicating the fat brown tabby that sat on the old woman's lap. "If you like cats, her pet is a pet to you. If you're afraid of cats, it will change into another object of terror when it alters. If you worship cats, it might become an icon or a living god."

"Would you like to try transforming Spot?" Mrs. Flannel asked.

Chuck grinned with embarrassment as the old lady offered the cat to him.

"Go on," she said. "Try it a bit. He's been a lot of things in his time. Haven't you, my darling?" The cat purred foolishly, almost drooling on her sleeve.

"I might hurt him by accident," Chuck said, eyeing the large striped bundle with alarm.

"A Visitor like you could never harm my little love, could he, darling?" she said, cooing to the cat.

She tucked the cat into Chuck's arms, where it hung like a sack of flour. "You never know what you can do until you try. We have confidence in you."

Spot purred throatily, nestling trustingly against Chuck. That made Chuck all the more determined to be careful. Everyone's eyes were upon him now. He felt uneasy deliberately working on a living thing. His transformation of Persemid had been an accident.

How should he begin? He did like cats. Spot turned his head up with eyes slitted closed, inviting Chuck to tickle him under his chin. Chuck scratched the sensitive place, feeling the cat's purr resonate in his own chest. The vibration seemed to jump-start the influence that flowed through his hands. Now it would be easy.

When Mrs. Flannel looked at her pet, she saw a treasure. Spot didn't seem to mind shifting, sensitive to Chuck's impression, into a pirate's casket of gold. The deep purr echoed from the depths of the chest. Dreamlanders must be very secure individuals. What could he go on to from there?

Purring still reminded him of catness. Spot resumed his cat shape. His coat grew shorter and coarser on a thinner, longer body with a narrow, wedge-shaped head. The dark stripes that had been tarnished brass banding on the chest melded together and moved out toward the extremities, leaving the tan body a blank canvas. The eyes brightened from pale yellow to sapphire blue. In just a few moments, Spot's species had shifted from tabby to treasure chest to Siamese cat. Chuck was amazed how well the transformation had gone. And Spot was now a prettier cat, too. He shot a glance at Mrs. Flannel, worried what she would think, but she gathered Spot in her arms, cooing at him and scratching between his ears. She really didn't care what he looked like; she still loved him overwhelmingly.

"Nice job," Keir said.

"I don't think I was really in control of that," Chuck said. He caught Morit looking at him, and thought the grim man was smirking at his stupidity. Anyone would have, Chuck thought, glumly. "I mean, I still don't know intellectually how I did that."

"But you know now more of what you don't know, don't you?" Keir asked.

"Yes, I think so," Chuck said, hope rising at the guide's words. "I think it's a tremendous - breakthrough."

"Into what?" Persemid asked, looking up from the lamp she was sculpting. She tapped a finger on the tabletop, then pointed straight at Chuck's nose. "Revelation time: No matter how good you become at using influence right here it won't change a thing about your real life. It'll take more than making modeling clay to snap you out of whatever funk that's been making you such a joy to be around. What you're doing here isn't permanent. It doesn't even last. Look."

The now familiar upheaval of Sleeper-driven influence rolled through the car, changing the wood paneling to striped wallpaper, and giving all new faces to the people. Nestled in Mrs. Flannel's arms, Spot changed in a heartbeat from a Siamese cat to a tiny green parrot with red circles around its eyes. It gave Mrs. Flannel a kiss on the lips with its beak. Chuck was disappointed. Well, at least it's still affectionate. I didn't ruin that.

"So this so-called skill is good only for party tricks," Chuck said, unhappily. He flipped a hand toward Spot. "I don't even make a permanent mark in this world. I have wasted all that time in just playing."

"Not at all," Keir said, sincerity in his dark eyes. "You have no idea of the profound reach of your talent. It will mean more than you know in learning to be content with yourself. And that is why you are here. That will make a difference in your world."

The train whistle tooted, splitting the air, and the train began perceptibly to slow. Keir brightened, his wiry eyebrows climbing toward his brow. He slapped Chuck heartily on the back.

"The Meditation Gardens! We're here. You'll enjoy this, my boy."

Chuck was feeling sorry for himself. "How will this help? I already know how to meditate. Will this make any difference in me?"

"You have too much trouble simply relaxing and letting things happen," Keir said. "I believe this is just the place to help you learn how to let go and just be." Keir drifted away from him, his limbs shortening into dolphin flippers as he went to tell Hiramus the news. The two curmudgeons and the woman looked up at him. Morit nodded grimly. Hiramus's expression didn't change. He just tucked his newspaper under his arm and prepared to rise. Keir went on to Sean to offer him an enthusiastic description of the Meditation Gardens.

Uh-huh, Chuck thought skeptically, sitting in his seat playing idly with a handful of seat cushion that he sculpted into a troll doll. The discontentment he had banished was back with reinforcements.

Why did Persemid have to remind him of how powerless he was in the real world? He wished he could be a Sleeper, and order the dreams of millions-billions, even! But he couldn't even control his own dreams for very long.

Morit had been watching the Visitors. There they sat, in their closed circle, working away with bucketfuls of influence as if it was so much water, violating all the rules of dreamstuff to suit their selfish purposes. Did they think of sharing power with those less fortunate than themselves? Of course not! He smiled when they met his eyes, but they would have been shocked if they knew he was thinking of the easiest way to dispose of them.

One of his comrades had communicated with him at last. The next attempt on the Visitors' lives would come soon. This time, it had better be more effective than the abortive train wreck. He wanted to see the whole lot of them crushed the way they smashed the blocks and fruit with which they played so idly.

The train jerked suddenly to a stop, propelling Morit halfway out of his seat. He cursed. The harness he had made to shield himself from the wreck the day before had vanished without a trace. Just like the Sleepers, to withdraw a gift exactly when he needed it! Blanda glanced out the window, and leaned over toward him.

"We're in Murmur, dear. I am looking forward to seeing the Meditation Gardens. That will be nice.

We've never been."