The others rushed to the windows to look, but Keir never rose from his perch on the arm of the aisle seat. Just as the train looked as though it would plummet under the surface, it grew in height and breadth, each successive car piling into the rear of it adding to the bulk of the graceful cruise ship putting out magnificently from the shore.

"Good!" he exclaimed. "We've just reached the Sea of Dreams."

Influence took over their car and changed it out of all recognition. The party found themselves sitting in overstuffed armchairs in a marble-floored lounge. The roof soared three stories above them, where a crystal chandelier threw sparkling light onto twin spiral staircases, a walnut and brass bar, and a tall teakwood desk behind which stood the conductor and a host of smiling young people in white uniforms. A trim man in a coat like a streamlined tuxedo bowed to them."Welcome aboard. My staff will show you to your quarters."

Morit dropped his bags on the floor of the cabin to which he and Blanda had been assigned. He was displeased. He'd seen the nice accommodations set aside for the Visitors. This cabin wasn't nearly as large or as well appointed. In fact, it was downright shabby.

"Oh, look, dear!" his wife exclaimed, throwing back the curtains. "We have a balcony."

"Look at those curtains," he said sourly, regarding the sorry lengths of gray hanging on either side of the sliding glass doors. "And the bedspreads! They're threadbare!"

"Oh, they're not so bad," Blanda said. She tugged the curtains back. When she touched them the grayness sprang away from the expanse of cloth, leaving them crisp and colored a translucent, pale blue. She dusted her hand over the bedspread, which took on the same character. "I'm sure they're every bit as good as the Visitors have."

"Yes, but the Visitors are on the top deck," Morit growled.

"Oh, Morit, there's only so many cabins up there. We're on the next floor down," Blanda said, always willing to see the best in things, even if it meant she got shortchanged. Morit had never been able to understand her. It never bothered her that their lot was always to get the leftovers when everyone else had a proper share of the meat. She didn't feel the injustice that ate away at him.

"You see how the door works," the cabin steward said, getting their attention in order to demonstrate. The young man simply would not go away. He'd led them here. With that, Morit considered his job at an end, but he insisted on prolonging his stay. "It opens, and it closes. See?" He wiped his nose on his cuff, then extended his hand expectantly to Morit. Morit eyed him, ignoring the palm.

"I know how doors work."

"Oh," the steward said, eying him with open speculation. "So, then, sir, just exactly how nice do I have to be to get the tip you're obligated to give me at the end of the cruise?"

Morit smiled slowly. This man was one of his kind. Nothing was free or freely given. He expected to give service for reward, but not a pencil's worth more.

"I think we understand one another very well," he said. "What do you think of the passengers upstairs, eh?"

"Morit!" Blanda said, warningly. But Morit had seen the light of interest in the young man's eyes.

"We'll talk later," Morit said, pushing him out and closing the door on him. It didn't matter what his wife thought. The moment of the destruction of the Visitors was coming very close now. It was unavoidable. The very forces of nature that the Sleepers of the Waking World brought to bear would themselves make it possible to wipe out five of their own number. Who knows? he thought, as he followed Blanda out to the promenade deck for lifeboat drill. There might even be more Visitors aboard this vessel who would perish in the coming disaster.

Chuck liked the new incarnation of the train. The slower they traveled, the more sumptuous the meals became. Now that they were going only twelve or thirteen knots, instead of sixty to ninety miles per hour, the food service was positively luxurious. Champagne flowed at every meal. The Visitors were regaled with tiny sandwiches and petits fours at teatime, pheasant under glass and filets mignons for dinner, and chocolates on the pillow at night. The map of their journey was posted on the bulkhead.

A miniature ship that moved on its own described their progress. Small islands dotted the face of the Sea of Dreams. Chuck looked forward to visits to the ones that had been highlighted.

Keir held classes, if Chuck could call those casual gatherings such, all over the ship. It made a pleasant change from the first-class car which, though well appointed, was still one room. On the finite environment of a ship, there was only so far Pipistrella could stray. Keir simply tracked her down wherever she was: in the library, shopping in the gallery of expensive stores on the center deck, in the spa receiving relaxing massages or facials, or on deck near the swimming pool sunning her beautiful body with her luggage strewn around her. The group conducted its meditation exercises in that spot.

Chuck took the opportunity for a private word with Keir during one of these Pip hunts.

"I don't mean to be a pain," he said tentatively, reluctant to bring up such a minor fault as chronic tardiness, "but having to do this because she can't keep track of time is a hassle to the rest of us. It's like she's not completely here."

Keir smiled. "The problem is that your perceptions don't match. She's such an advanced soul that it's difficult for her to retain the mundane forms for very long. It is frequently annoying for me, too. As you can tell, even I have trouble keeping up with her. She goes her own way to fulfill the requirements of her own soul."

That was difficult for Chuck to accept. She didn't seem to connect in any vital way he could see.

But he remembered her helping Sean so effectively. She seemed to know just what to say, and she had a generous heart. "If she's so advanced, what's she doing here?""You want me to tell tales out of school?" Keir asked, with that sharp look in his black eyes. Chuck wasn't going to be put off.

"Yes. Frankly, it would help us stand her more. Sean worships the ground she walks on, but I think I can speak for Persemid and Hiramus as well as myself that she drives us crazy. We're already tense, since you won't take our word for it that we're being stalked. We don't need another irritant."

Keir cocked his head. "I like your progress. You're making a consensus among your fellow passengers. Do you think you'd have done that even a short while ago?"

Chuck gave up. Arguing with Keir was like wrestling with a curtain. He ended up enfolded in Keir's logic, completely losing track of his own question. On the other hand, he realized that Pipistrella wasn't his problem. It was two other things that marred the journey for him. The subtle presence continued to follow him wherever he went. Chuck often caught the corner of a bearded or cloaked silhouette flitting away whenever he looked up. Chuck had tried chasing it, or setting a trap for it by pretending to be distracted, then spinning around, but he never managed to catch the person attached to the shadow.

The other worry was the hole inside him. As he had feared, it was growing larger by the day. It was already a foot wide, and was beginning to affect his muscles. When it reached his shoulders, his arms would fall right off. He sat through his meditations, ate his meals, and went to bed worrying about what was gnawing away inside him. Nothing could take his mind off it for very long. The ship's cruise director had arranged plenty of evening entertainment for them. The auditorium changed shape often to remain appropriate to the type of amusement being offered. It was a nightclub to accommodate bad comedians, a theater-in-the-round for acrobats and animal acts, even subway seating for buskers with guitar cases open at their feet for tips.

Chuck sat through all of it with a hand on his chest, monitoring the gap. If he was going to fall apart, he wanted to have that moment's warning so he could leave to be by himself. He didn't want anyone else to see him go to pieces. The undercurrent of fear he felt spoiled his pleasure in everything he did or saw. Even when the entertainers made him laugh or gasp with wonder, it didn't fill in the fundamental emptiness. He'd hoped it would; nothing else on the journey had so far, and time was running out.

He discovered the open-air bar on the top deck was open all day and all night long. Overindulging in food and drink numbed his perception. That way, too, when he inevitably glimpsed the shadow hovering around, he didn't care.

Chapter 30.

The sky was already growing rosy when the ship docked in the harbor of the Sunset Isle. As soon as the ship stopped moving everyone in the debarkation lounge surged forward onto the gangway to the pier. Chuck was going to wait behind until the crowd had cleared a little, but he was caught up in the mob and carried along in its midst. His feet scarcely touched the metal plank as the passengers moved out of the narrow corridor and into a narrow, painted stucco passageway that led between buildings.

He couldn't see a thing except backs ahead of him, faces behind, and high above him, a sky growing richer in color by the moment. He hated to think that he might miss the whole event because he was stuck in a bottleneck.

Just as suddenly, the crowd thinned out. A constricted passage opened off to the left, then a slightly wider one to the right. Tired of claustrophobic conditions, Chuck followed the rightward alley, and immediately regretted it. The shadows were falling the other way. He was heading away from the sunset, instead of toward it. When a corridor angling back in the right direction offered itself, Chuck took it, even though it began with a flight of steep stairs.

From his slightly improved vantage point, he could see a little more of the island. Below him, thousands of people wandered a rat's maze of high walls. The blue sky was paling into handsome pastels on the west. Chuck glimpsed a knobby peninsula in that direction. That would be the best place to watch from. He thought he could see a way to follow this higher path over most of the crowd, even though it would be much harder going.

The hardy few who'd opted for Chuck's path were red-faced and panting by the time they reached the ridge that ran the length of the island. At the top were more stucco walls, just high enough to lean his chin on. The gleaming seas were visible from there, but he wanted to get as close as he could to the action.

To his amazement, Pipistrella was already at the top. The strangers thinned out between them until Chuck was immediately behind her.

"Hello," she said, smiling. "Isn't this lovely? Oh, look!" She pointed down over the wall at salt- white domes with painted, blue trim. "That's as pretty as a postcard." She stopped every few feet to gaze around her and look at the scenery. The way was so narrow he couldn't pass her without shoving her into the concrete wall, so he grew more and more hot and impatient. The people behind him were beginning to make angry remarks. He wished that he had been able to get up here before her, like Sean had. The mop of light-blond hair Sean sported after the latest round of influence was well out of sight in the bobbing crowd.

"Please, go on," he said. "We don't have a lot of time."

"You shouldn't be in such a hurry," Pip said, turning huge brown eyes to him. "That's your trouble, you know. You're always in such a hurry for the large revelations you don't appreciate the little things." The nearby roof spilled over with vines laden with scarlet blooms. She reached over to pluck one and offered it to him. "You see? It's all the same, in the end."

But the people behind Chuck didn't appreciate her little lesson either, shoving Chuck before he could take the flower. Chuck braced his arms on the stuccoed walls and pushed back, keeping them from knocking him into her. Pip never noticed the byplay. She tucked the flower into her waist-length tresses of rippling, black hair and floated on ahead of him.

To his relief, the way became wider. With a muttered apology to Pipistrella, he edged past her and strode along the descending slope, looking for a good place to sit. Sunset was big business here. Every little house had a balcony. Every little bistro and taverna had a sign that offered the best view on the island! There was an equal number of places painted with warnings that said, danger! do not stand here! The thousands of people obeyed the signs at first, but Chuck noticed that as soon as one person ignored them and stepped into forbidden territory, another followed. In no time the signs were hidden by milling tourists. He thought for a moment that he could feel the ground sway slightly under his feet.

Was this place prone to earthquakes?

Chuck found a taverna he liked the looks of. It wasn't as close to the isle's end as it could have been, but he had a clear westward view because the line of the coast belled out slightly to the south.

The proprietor, a loudly hospitable man in an open-necked shirt, escorted him to the best seat in the house. With a drink on the little table at his elbow, Chuck watched in comfort as everyone else pushed and shoved by. He was relieved to be out of the way.

"You'd think," a woman on the path near Chuck complained in a whiny voice, "that they'd pay attention to demand, and make this area larger!" The man ahead of her, obviously her husband, grunted agreement.

Chuck thought it was a little weird to want to enlarge a geographical feature, but he realized it wasn't out of the question in the Dreamland. He drank his wine, which tasted like warm Mediterranean days, while watching the sun pass through some mighty picturesque clouds. Birds flew across them.

Chuck set down his glass. It sloshed slightly. He steadied it carefully. Perhaps the table legs were uneven.

The height of the prominence on which he sat became lower or higher as everyone around him kept altering their positions to get the best view. The eventual effect was of steeply raked arena seating.

When everything settled out, his taverna reestablished itself as the highest and his seat the best placed.

He heard some complaints from others without as much influence as he had. After all, most of them weren't sitting down, and few had table service. For once Chuck appreciated rank having its privileges.

Cameras appeared all around him, snapping pictures of the sky. The handsome scene was getting grainier or spread thinner on the sky. Too many people were taking photos, the woman near him complained, diminishing the view that was left. The colors were quickly restored. It would take more than a few pictures to dim the sunset.

Chuck's drink sloshed again, and a waiter on his way to serve other patrons tripped. This time Chuck distinctly felt a shudder underneath his feet. Would the whole island collapse like broken bleachers under the weight of the mass of tourists?

Less than a block away to his right, he could see Sean and Pipistrella seated together on a bench in someone's private garden. The shy young man really liked her. He wondered what Pipistrella did at home. Chuck figured that had to be in California. No one as out of touch with reality as she was could be comfortable anywhere else. Persemid sat a couple of rows below him, legs dangling, on a stone perch with a jug of wine and a loaf of bread. He glanced around for Hiramus. To his discomfiture, the older man, not far away, was looking at him. Their eyes met, and Chuck flinched. Hastily, he turned to search out Keir, but without success. The guide was a small man, and there were plenty of tall people around.

The sky grew more richly blue, tinting the sea darker, and the sun lowered a little more. It wouldn't be long now before what promised to be a glorious sunset. The crowd seemed to lean avidly toward the west.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced a man with a megaphone. "Please spread out. The point is getting too crowded! Ladies and gentlemen, we ask for your cooperation!" Chuck glanced behind him.

There were more and more faces crowding in along the narrow lanes, swarming over the tops of houses like ivy. He definitely felt an unsteadiness underfoot that he could not put down to the wine.

Clouds moved in, covering part of the sky. Instead of blocking the horizon, they formed an envelope that the sun inserted itself into like a celestial love letter. Streaks of light came through holes in the cloud and touched the sea. It was so beautiful Chuck found himself holding his breath. People crowded in from everywhere, unwilling to miss a single nuance of light. The sun started to peep below the edge of the clouds very close to the sea, tinting the sky with rose.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the loudspeaker blared. "You are creating a dangerous situation here, folks! This place can't hold you all."

That was an understatement. The land started to wobble and tilt toward the west. Chuck clutched the pillar holding up the bar's roof as the floor lurched and his chair skidded away from him. It tilted back again. Crowds of people began screaming and running around.

"You're only making it worse," Chuck shouted, waving his free arm for attention. "Stand still! Hold onto something!"

Morit stood in a bowllike courtyard, clinging like a limpet to the stuccoed wall. He watched with satisfaction as his supporters pushed and shoved their way into the narrow lanes, filling them to capacity. Yes. Yes. The moment was nearly at hand.

"Look, dear," Blanda said, lowering her field glasses to point. "The sun is just going down."

Morit leaned over the wall and shouted to the milling crowd.

"Now!"

Wherever they were, his comrades surged forward toward the west. The whole island tilted upward, and dumped everyone on it into the sunset sea.

Chuck clung to the pillar by his hands, kicking frantically to get up to a level surface. Midnight blue waves lapped his feet. He'd been fortunate to be holding on when the island tilted. Everyone around him was flailing in the water, trying to get back on dry land. Where were his companions? He scanned the sea for signs of them. Terrified people were grabbing his legs, climbing up to hang on to the walls, to trees, to each other. He let them swarm up him like a ladder, and found Persemid hanging onto the concrete standard beside him.

"Tell me this wasn't supposed to happen," Persemid gasped.

"The others," Chuck said. "Can you see the others?"

"Over there," she said, looking out toward the west. Chuck squinted through seawater spray running down his face.

Sean popped into his field of view first. That beacon of golden hair bobbed up in the water. Beside him was Pipistrella's mass of black hair. He was helping her swim. All around them, people were going down for the first, second or third time. Chuck shouted at them to come toward him, but he knew his voice was swallowed up in the crash of waves and screams of hysteria.

"I see Keir," he exclaimed, drawing Persemid's attention to the huge wolf dog-paddling toward them. Hiramus was nowhere in sight. Chuck hoped he wasn't on the part of the island that was now - submerged.

The clouds that had cloaked the sun suddenly dropped closer to the sea. They massed into a swirling funnel, and marched toward them over the water's surface, churning up huge waves. More people were sucked down, never to be seen again. Chuck grew frantic. Sean's progress was slow. They couldn't outrace a hurricane!

"Help me!" Chuck yelled at Persemid. "Throw all the influence you've got at that storm! Stop it!

Slow it down!"

Persemid's face contorted as she concentrated. Together they made a barrier by turning the winds outward. The hurricane bounced against it. It tried to break through, or loop around it, but Chuck moved his influence to counter its moves. The storm's screaming wail increased, as if it was angry to be thwarted. Then, as if setting its shoulder to a door, it bowed over and thudded directly into the unseen wall.

Chuck could almost feel the strength of it pounding against his body. Each blow shook him physically. He felt himself losing his grip on the iron beam. He hadn't the practice to control influence and protect himself at the same time. What else could he do to turn the storm's strength against itself?

The hurricane sensed his dilemma, and whipped up its winds. Debris and thousands of gallons of seawater flooded against the upturned island. The pillar holding Chuck and dozens of others cracked alarmingly. He lost concentration as it broke off from its concrete bearings. The storm rushed in.

The image that burned into Chuck's mind before he got dumped into the ocean was of the storm, made up of thousands of angry, screaming faces bearing down on him. Sean and Pip were still swimming, looking over their shoulders in terror as the hurricane swept over them.

Splash! Chuck and Persemid fell into the tossing waves. Chuck fought his way to the surface, flailing with his arms to keep his head above water. He spat out the salty water.

Think calm thoughts, he kept telling himself, but it was too difficult when his ears were full of furious shrieking, and he couldn't tell which way was up.

"Change shape," Persemid gasped, popping up to the surface with her red hair plastered against her head. "Change shape. We're no good in these forms. Can't help anyone. The sea wins."

Chuck thought of all the shapes he could take, but he couldn't make up his mind which was the best. He had to hurry, or he'd drown. Persemid's face flashed before him for a moment, then she was a dolphin, arrowing through the water toward the hurricane's foot. That made Chuck's mind up for him.

He had always wanted to be a seal, so he effected the transformation, and followed her. They had to save the others.

They swam among thousands of people all getting in each other's way. Bunches of them were sucked up by the tsunami. Screaming, they whirled upward, disappearing into the gray funnel. Chuck struck out grimly, making for the last point he had seen the others. They must not suffer the same fate!

Persemid and Chuck got separated. He looked around for her, but spotted Sean and Pipistrella swimming frantically toward him. He flicked his tail, grateful for the advantages of influence, and swam toward them.

Just before he got within reach, the hurricane twisted its funnel around, seeking survivors on the water. Pipistrella, a few strokes behind Sean, was snatched up by the wind.

"Come back!" Sean shouted at her, holding his hands out. He tried to climb the hurricane, but it shrugged him off, blowing him a thousand feet away. His body splashed into the water. Chuck stared, shocked, until a high wave knocked him over and sent him rolling. He came to his senses all at once, and zipped toward Sean, vowing not to lose two companions. The hurricane bore down upon him.

There was a moment when Chuck imagined the thousands of horrible faces grinning down at him from the whirling cloud. In his heart he knew storms weren't sentient, but this one seemed to loop back around to try for him, too. It wasn't possible, Chuck kept thinking, as he dove for the sea bottom.

When he surfaced, he spotted Sean right away. The fair-haired man was tossing limply in the waves, not trying to swim. Chuck came up under his arm and held his face out of the water. Persemid appeared at Sean's other elbow. They kept him afloat as they dodged the waves. Thwarted, the hurricane skittered away over the sea.

A brilliant white dot of light followed it, the angel Keir in hot pursuit. His shining wing feathers were buffeted by the winds. He chased the funnel cloud, but to no avail. A hole in the water opened up, and the waterspout swirled away like water going down a drain. On the sky, Chuck saw the faintest, thinnest line of silver snap upward from that point, like a strand of broken spider web. Chilled, Chuck realized it was Pipistrella's navel string. Keir was left hovering over the unmarred surface, his beautiful face contorted with grief.

"Now what?" Persemid asked, in a shrill voice that cut through Chuck's numb shock.

"Get to the ship," Chuck barked. The two of them started swimming back toward the island, hauling Sean between them.

The Dreamlanders who had not drowned had turned into sea nymphs, tritons and fish, frolicking in the calmed sea. The sun was now below the horizon. In the dusk, Chuck saw a huge wall loom up over him: the hull of a liner-sized rowboat. The hand of a giant fisherman swept a net down into the water, scooping them up and dumping them into the bows of the boat.

"Happens all the time," he sighed.

With the loss of Pipistrella, the cruise ship was plunged into mourning. The colored carnival lights that lined the deck were gone. In their place were dim lanterns and black bunting. The conductor and crew had rushed forward to swaddle the refugees in towels and blankets, murmuring words of sympathy as they escorted them into the warm lounge. Though grief-stricken, Chuck, Hiramus and Persemid were able to take care of themselves, but Sean obediently followed whatever directions were given to him. He accepted a hot drink and sat down where he was told while a fortune-teller in full gypsy rig came along to examine him and say he'd be all right.

"I can't believe she's gone," Sean kept saying, staring moodily out of the window at the water.All their friends from the first-class cabins sat with them in the lounge, offering silent compassion.