He held out his hand. He almost jumped when he felt a dainty hand nestle into his. So that was how Kenner knew which pair he was taking out on the floor! There was a lady here, almost. Chuck felt as though he was clutching a very thin balloon in the shape of a hand. If he squeezed too hard it might pop. He wondered what she looked like. He let his imagination shape her as a small-boned, pretty woman with upswept dark hair and dark eyes, but pale skin like a pearl. And her dress would be robin's-egg blue like her shoes. Once he'd imagined the rest of her, it was easier to relate to the disembodied footgear and the light pressure on his hands. He was curious, but how could he ever find out if his imagination was correct?

The dainty shoes minced out to a place near the center of the floor, stopped, and turned to face him.

The baton on the dais wagged up and down several times, then hovered in the air before dropping sharply. The invisible musicians struck up a grand piece that was too fast for a waltz, with a different rhythm. Chuck's heart sank. He could have faked his way through a waltz.

"I'm . . . not much of a dancer," Chuck stammered. "Maybe another time. I don't know this one."

The ghost hand in his refused to let him go. Obligingly, a pattern of numbered footprints appeared on the floor, with one pair immediately underneath his own feet. The blue shoes tapped, one, two, three, and set off taking one step back and to the right. Chuck had to follow.

For once he was thankful that his partner was invisible so he could see the instructions on the floor through her skirt. His forehead perspiring with the effort, he followed the numbers, putting his feet on the marks in time to the music. It was awkward going at first. He hoped he wasn't making too much of a fool of himself."Oops! I'm sorry," he exclaimed, as he accidentally stepped on his partner's toes. The ghost hand lightened its touch, as if to say it was all right. Sweating, Chuck tried to be more careful. Within a short time, he started to feel more confident. This wasn't too hard, as long as it didn't get fancy. He began to enjoy himself.

"I haven't danced like this since my wedding," he told his partner. The little hand shifted so that he could feel the base of her third finger against the side of his upturned hand. A smooth coldness touched his flesh. Ah, a ring! She was married, too.

Now that he had managed to hardwire the cha-cha into his reflexes, Chuck had a moment to be wistful. He wished he remembered his wife's face, but at that moment he could only remember the shoes she was wearing on their wedding day. They had been white satin with rhinestone clips. He sighed, feeling sad for all the times he hadn't appreciated her. His partner-shoes made a pretty little pirouette, as though to sympathize, and to draw his attention back to what he was doing. She must be a very nice lady. He smiled at her, and felt a friendly pressure against his hands in reply.

Trays full of bite-sized goodies circulated throughout the room at chest level, followed discreetly by leather shoes with plain square steel buckles. Lots of small, scuffed shoes gathered among the pillars to either side of the dance floor. They must be kids watching. Chuck grinned at them as he sailed by with his partner. They scattered momentarily, and regrouped behind another pillar. Yep. Kids.

The music ended. Chuck escorted his partner to the nearest chairs and bowed to her. Her hand squeezed his and withdrew.

"And thank you, too, ma'am," Chuck said. He joined the others in applauding the orchestra.

"Come on!" Keir said, appearing at his side. "You're about to receive a great honor. The duke wants to meet the Visitors." He grinned, his black eyes glinting, and scurried away to retrieve Hiramus.

Keir's dolphin shape didn't lose sight of the fact that he was attending a formal dance: he still wore a bow tie.

"There's no need to be nervous," Bergold assured the Visitors, as they lined up before the dais.

Chuck kept staring at the empty chairs, wondering what the faces looked like that belonged to the footwear. Bergold stepped forward and bowed. "Your graces, I have the honor to present Visitors from the Waking World. Master Chuck Meadows."

Bergold gestured, urging him to come forward. "Chuck Meadows, His Grace the Duke of Oneiros, and Her Grace the Duchess of Oneiros."

"Uh, Your Grace?" Chuck made a hasty bow before the grandest shoes in the room; in fact, the grandest shoes he had ever seen, men's shoes in gleaming white leather with diamond buckles and high red heels, like ones said to belong to Louis XIV he had seen in a history book. Resting on a pillow, they moved slightly as though to acknowledge Chuck's presence.

Chuck bowed to the other pair, very tiny, jeweled ladies' shoes to the left of the man's shoes. Chuck bowed and said, "Ma'am." Bergold nudged him in the back and whispered, "Your Grace." Chuck parroted the response, and backed away, red-faced, as Pipistrella was presented. Pip gathered her beautiful skirts in her hands, approached the dais, and sank a few inches in a delicate curtsy. Her beauty must have made a distinct impression on the duke. The diamond-studded shoes stirred excitedly. One of the tiny, jeweled shoes beside them swiveled over and kicked them in the heel.

Persemid came next. She was much better at this presentation stuff than Pip. When Bergold pronounced her name, she swept a deep curtsy, brushing her ostrich plume headdress on the floor as she bowed her head. Her gesture got an equally good response from both pairs of shoes on the dais.

The duke and duchess didn't seem to have much of an attention span. When Hiramus came forward to make his bow, the red-heeled shoes swiveled around as though they were facing the rear of the dais, where several other pairs were waiting. They didn't trouble to turn back when Keir was introduced, either.

Shallow is right, Chuck thought, backing away from the platform as Bergold instructed him. His dance partner was waiting for him at the doorway to the supper room. He'd much rather spend the time with people who enjoyed his company, even if he couldn't see them.

A clock somewhere in the palace struck twelve. Though the others were still going strong, Chuck felt as though he was ready to go back. He caught Keir's eye while the guide was chatting with Hiramus and a dozen or so of the unseen courtiers, and gestured toward the door. Keir nodded understanding.

Chuck walked down the marble steps, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. It must have rained or, Chuck corrected himself, the sleepers who dreamed this part of the world had been thinking of rain.

His footsteps rang on damp flagstone pavement, making a lonely, late-night sound that made Chuck think of film noir thrillers. He'd had a terrific time. When he came out of his trance and told his wife and friends about his experiences, they wouldn't believe the half of it; dancing at a palace with invis- ible women. If he got back. If he didn't come to pieces in the meantime. All his anxieties came roaring back. He beat them down, thinking of the palace he'd just left. What a place.

The night was a trifle chilly. Chuck pulled up the collar of his fancy coat and clutched it around his neck. There ought to be mood music, violins and oboes, following him. To his delight, just the right kind of pensive blues rose around his feet like fog. A streetlight threw his shadow down on the wet concrete. Chuck smiled and started walking to the beat.

He heard footsteps a long way back. A glance over his shoulder showed no one in sight. If the other person was one of the duke's courtiers there'd be nothing but shoes anyhow. He kept going.

The footsteps grew nearer. Chuck looked back. The sound was more ominous, echoing louder than his own tread. Suddenly, more footsteps joined the first pair. Chuck began walking faster. He heard more and more of them coming. He wanted to see who was there. Stopping to take refuge in the oasis of another streetlamp's halo, he waited for them to catch up. All the sounds ceased. Chuck started walking again, slowly at first. The footsteps began again, pacing him step for step. Chuck sped up. So did his pursuers.

He started striding as quickly as he could, his shoes clattering as loud as a snare drum in the silence of the evening, but they were drowned out by the horde of feet approaching from behind. They were after him!

If only he could get back to the train. The conductor would send for help. It wasn't far, now; only a few streetlamps' distance. He could see the white steam rising from the smokestack. As he turned his head to try and catch a glimpse of his pursuers, he felt the first kick in the back. It knocked him to his knees. Within moments, he was being attacked from every side by disembodied insoles and shoe liners. They plastered themselves to him, immobilizing his hands. Chuck yelled a protest and kicked out, but they covered any part of his body that moved. Then the thugs moved in. Disreputable-looking boots came out of the shadows to jab at him and grind their heels into his flesh. Chuck twisted and turned to avoid kicks in the belly, but a whole gang of workboots took him in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Chuck took a breath to call for help.

"Somebo-"

One of the insoles slapped itself across his mouth. More followed. Soon, Chuck was in a mass of boots, rolling to try and free himself from their bruising assault. Screaming through his gag with frustration, Chuck flung his legs about, trying to kick his attackers away. They had the force of numbers, though. Dozens of them stomped up and down on his body.

"Roll!" cried a voice he knew to be Persemid's. "Roll away! Now!"

Chuck waited until the boots were at the top of their arc, and rolled. The next thing he knew, a - sixteen-ton weight came crashing down on his attackers. Persemid came rushing up, her long hair flying, calling for Bergold. She helped Chuck sit up.

His assailants hadn't finished with him. A stiletto heel came flying out of the darkness, stabbing right into his chest. Persemid let out a banshee scream, snatched the shoe out and threw it to the ground. Chuck was knocked backward by the force of the kick. She pulled him into a sitting position, took the insole off his mouth and flung it away. Before he could prevent her, she threw up his shirt to look at the injury, and stopped dead, staring at the hole in his chest. She gaped at him, her eyes huge with horror in the streetlight.

"It was like that before," Chuck said, desperately pulling his dress shirt back into place. The hole was larger than it had been before. No time to worry about that now. "Please don't tell anyone," he begged. "It only exists here. I don't have this at home."

"That's terrible!" Persemid said. She looked sorry for him, but abashment just made her more brusque than before. "You had to go walking off by yourself, in a strange city. You could have been killed! And that, that . . ." She pointed at his chest.

"Don't tell anyone," he pleaded. "I'm hoping Keir's teachings will help me close it up, fill it in again. Don't say anything. I don't want anyone else to know."

"I won't mention it," she said, sincerely. She shook her head. "Weird."

"Tell me about it," he said as Bergold arrived at their side.

"What in all Nightmares happened here?" the Historian asked. His wing collar had sprung loose on one side.

"I got mugged," Chuck said. "If Persemid hadn't come along and foiled them, I could have been badly hurt. Thank you," he told her, sincerely.

"Don't mention it," Persemid said.

The little Historian turned to stare at the sixteen-ton weight. Incredibly, almost all Chuck's attackers were trapped underneath it, flopping like a fresh catch of fish. "Great night!" The others came running up behind him.

"What happened?" demanded Keir.

"He was set upon by footpads," said Bergold.

"You poor boy!" Blanda exclaimed. She started rummaging in her evening bag.More tramping noises came towards them out of the night. Soon, the prisoners under the weight were surrounded by very flat brogues and shoes with crepe soles who made chalk outlines of footprints all around the place where Chuck had been lying.

"Everything is under control now," Keir said. "The gumshoes are on it."

Chuck felt as though he was a mass of bruises. When he stood up to examine himself under the streetlamp, his fancy suit had footprints all over it. "It's a good thing this body isn't real," he said, trying to keep it light for the circle of worried faces around him. "I'd never get my deposit back on it."

"Are you all right?" Hiramus asked, unusually solicitous.

"Yes, I'm fine," Chuck said. "Sore, but intact."

"Thank the Sleepers," Hiramus said. "Let's get you back to the train and see if the conductor can find you a hot bath."

Chuck groaned as his muscles protested moving. "That would be great."

"Here!" Blanda said, drawing a huge jar from her handbag. "I knew I had some chicken soup. We'll just heat it up for you."

Chuck was grateful for her kindness. The night didn't seem so sinister any more, but he was glad to have a large group around him as they returned to the train. As soon as he mounted the steps of the car, he felt safe.

Chapter 25.

"Not another museum!" Chuck protested. He had retained no physical ill-effects from his misadventure of the previous night, but since then had been keeping an eye on his surroundings like never before.

Thanks to Blanda's chicken soup, a hot bath and a great deal of fussing over by his fellow passengers, Chuck had managed to get a good night's sleep. The leftover soup had been stretched easily into a down comforter into which he'd curled like a caterpillar in its cocoon. Back out in the world, he felt exposed and vulnerable. The sensation that people might jump out at him at any moment was interfering with his ability to relax while they toured the city of Ephemer.

And, because he was expecting it, they did. Museums were good places for sinister things. Every time he turned around, something seemed to be springing out, but only guides who offered to explain the exhibits, or small children running away from their embarrassed parents. Chuck's nerves were half shot, and it was only midmorning.

There seemed to be thousands of museums in this very busy town. Most of them were dusty holes in the wall, some with only one artifact on display, often an object he couldn't identify. The labels were nearly always in a foreign language, too faint to read, or missing altogether. He enjoyed the little museums more than the sprawling, city-sized ones Keir sometimes led them into where every last darned thing was a relic.

The first giant mega-museum was the worst. In the vast, yellow-painted halls, Chuck was overwhelmed by atmosphere, and became unable to keep his bearings. He knew if he lost sight of Keir he might never find him again in the crowd. The little party was surrounded by groups of eager children, none of whom spoke the same language, with notebooks and pencils; and pairs of adults, one of whom was reading raptly from guidebooks while the other mooched around looking as though he would rather be elsewhere. Every time Chuck caught a glimpse of a case that looked interesting to him, the way was blocked by a dense mass of people. In fact, the more who blocked the way, the more interesting he was convinced the item was. By the time he waited his turn to see, he was almost always wrong.

Keir hustled them in and out of mansion-sized buildings that lined Ephemer's grand boulevard. The next one was an art museum. Chuck felt at home the moment they stepped in the door. One of his aunts was an artist. When he was a boy, she used to let him make a mess with her paints while she worked.

Hmm, another memory. Chuck clutched it to him like a teddy bear. He was putting together more of a picture of himself, but so much was still missing. How old was he? Where did he live? What did he do?

Chuck liked the mood paintings, which changed their subject depending on who was looking at them. His were colored blue with worry. He felt bad about that until he saw Morit go by the same display. Every canvas turned black.

Wow, Chuck thought, with sympathy. I wouldn't want to be inside his head.

"They are working together now," Morit grumbled to himself, as he stalked through the exhibit halls without seeing a thing but the floor. His plan to concentrate on the Visitors one at a time had hit a serious drawback. Persemid Smith had turned aside the attack on Chuck Meadows singlehandedly!

The focus must expand to include the other Visitors, but her especially. He couldn't explain why he disliked her so much. She was a Visitor, he thought, furiously. That was more than enough reason.

Morit was frustrated. This last failure was worse than the previous ones because all the conspirators involved had been taken into custody by the authorities. He knew none of them would ever flap their tongues, but it was a setback. Every Dreamlander who did not participate in the conspiracy made them that much weaker. Morit knew the conspirators must make a more concerted effort, something better.

He still did not want to go as far as their fail-safe plan, but would if he had to.

A museum docent stood up from her chair by the door and approached him to hand him a leaflet.

He held up his hand to forestall the young woman, but she looked at him intensely and thrust the paper at him.

"What is it, my dear?" Blanda asked, while he scanned it.

"Just a flyer for a special exhibition," he told her. He crumpled the letter from his comrades and put it in his pocket.

This was the quietest place that they had yet visited. Feeling like a child walking through a haunted house, Chuck crept along a darkened corridor whose dimensions he couldn't guess. It was lit only by quivering white lights the shape of cartoon ghosts. He was only able to tell he had come out into a larger room by the way his footsteps and breathing sounded. It was delightfully spooky.

White lights sprang up near his feet. He discovered himself in the center of a huge, twelve-sided room. Shadows were thrown up on the wall. If it had not been for the big ears he had that day, he wouldn't have recognized his own silhouette. He wiggled his ears, and snickered at the way the shadows mimicked him. He stuck his thumbs up on top of his head and made moose antlers. The shadows followed suit.

All but one. Chuck turned to look fully at the one placed at eleven o'clock, whose hands were down by its side. Why wouldn't it cooperate? Maybe this was an art thing. Or maybe someone was behind him! Chuck started toward it to have a look. The shadow sprang up in alarm, and shot out of the room.

"Hey!" Chuck yelled, and ran after it into the dark corridor. This is silly, he thought. How do you chase a shadow in the dark? He heard no other footsteps, and when he reached the next well-lit gallery, saw no one among the few patrons present who could have cast the long, thin shadow. He must have been imagining it, he told himself. He made his way back into the chamber, and stood in the center again. This time he counted twelve identical shadows. The anomaly must have been an intentional effect of the light by the artist. Unsatisfied but unable to find any other explanation, Chuck went on with his explorations.

His stomach began to remind him that breakfast had been a long time before. He was starting to regret not following Keir's example of becoming less dependent on food.

He remembered that back in one of the galleries depicting dioramas of grade-school classrooms, he'd seen a hot dog stand. Chuck followed his memory back through white-walled chambers and tiled hallways, until his nose led him the rest of the way. There was nothing like the way cooking frankfurters smelled when one was hungry.

The cook looked surprisingly unkempt for such an elegant setting as the museum. He wore a T-shirt that had once been white, covered with a stained apron that could have been put on the wall in the modern art section without hesitation. Chuck propped an elbow on the counter and waited for the cook to pay attention to him. Minutes passed. The man cut pickles into long spears, refilled the shaker with celery salt, turned the hot dogs on the grill.

"Hey, mister," Chuck said. "You've got a customer. Excuse me. Sir? I'd like to buy some food." No matter how he yelled, the rude so-and-so never turned around. He took out coins, jingled them, then slammed them on the counter. "Hey!"

"He's just an image," Bergold said mildly, strolling over from the model of a kindergarten.

"What?"

"This is a work of art," Bergold said, indicating a label on the floor. "Notice how the aroma follows you wherever you go."

"I notice, I notice!" Chuck exclaimed, feeling hungrier than ever. He felt in the bags on his back for all those snacks he knew had been in there. No food. He came up with a bunch of yo-yos instead.

"Bah," he complained, digging through collections of priceless bakelite or carved jade yo-yos in hopes of finding one single bag of pretzels. Where had all those treats gone? He had had enough to feed the whole train! Instead, he found more of the round toys.

While he was decanting the yo-yos onto the floor, a guide in a smock and a serious expression stopped his tour alongside. He turned his pointer toward Chuck.

"Now, here," he said in an authoritative voice, "is the piece, 'Man and Yo-Yos.' A seminal work by Meadows. Notice the expression of frustration and concentration, coupled with the symbol of the toy that plays up and down the string but never truly goes anywhere. A veritable expression of Futility!"

Thanks a heap, pal, Chuck thought. He reached the bottom of the bag. No food at all. He started scooping the yo-yos back off the floor. When he put the last one in his bag and fastened it up, the tour group gave him a polite pattering of applause.

Keir herded them all into baskets balanced on the back of dinosaurs whose bony dorsal plate supported the harnesses like the girders of a suspension bridge. "The next few stops are a distance from here. It's a little too far to walk." He did a head count, and sighed. "I'll be right back. Please sit tight, everyone."

"While you're gone can I get off to look at the dimetrodons?" Chuck asked, excitedly.

"I would rather you didn't," Keir said.

"These are the first dinosaurs we've seen in a while," Chuck pleaded. "I didn't get to see the others up close."

"Why aren't these back in Rem?" Sean asked, as the beast turned its armor-plated head around to snuffle at its passengers with its pointed lips. Keir took on his womanly aspect.

"Here, they are transportation, probably reflecting the minds of some dreamer or dreamers who watch Saturday-morning cartoons. The real archetypes were wild animals. They wouldn't stand for having people on their backs. Just you wait. These could turn into buses or oxcarts at any moment. Or sealed capsules, and then where would you be?" he asked, turning male again as he addressed himself to Chuck.

"Out on the sidewalk with Keir and Pip," Persemid muttered under her breath. Chuck heard her, and snickered. Keir climbed down and went back into the museum. Automobiles on the street pulled up behind the dinosaurs and honked their horns, making the beasts swish their huge tails. The cars had to find a break in the traffic to pass them.

"That gal has been making us late every time," Kenner said. "Boy, if she didn't have those looks I bet she'd be out of here like a shot."