She shook her head slowly. “I could never make love to a crazy man.”
“You believe he’s nuts?”
“He admits to it. Who am I to argue with him? Burnfingers Begay is a wondrous person I have yet to figure out. He is too much of a mystery for me to be intimate with. I prefer my love predictable.”
She came toward him and he nearly panicked and ran. Because he knew that in spite of everything he’d said, if she kissed him like that a second time he wouldn’t be able to resist, wouldn’t want to resist.
“Burnfingers’s spirit is pure and unencumbered by guilt. It’s amazing to encounter someone like that in your corrupted world. I think maybe he’s a yeibichai.”
“A what?” They were making their way back through the trees, following the cheerful creek toward the motel.
“A Navajo spirit. What kind, I don’t know.”
“Come on. I mean, I know I just stepped over the edge of the world, but a spirit? Begay’s about the solidest-looking spirit I ever saw.”
“You may be right. Perhaps he is only a man. A smart crazy man can fool people into thinking peculiar things. I am perceptive, but not perfect.” She put her hand back on his arm, circling it through the crook of his elbow. “You cannot fly home to your Los Angeles, Frank.”
“Don’t tell me stuff like that. Please. I’ve just about reached my limit.”
“Your limit is greater than you know. I’m sure of that now. I can only tell you no matter how painful you may find the hearing of it that if you try to leave me now you’ll never see your home, your reality, again. You’ve come too far. Now I am your only link to that reality. You cannot abandon me any more than I can go on without you. I cannot prevent you from so doing, however.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He sighed heavily. “I guess I’m stuck with you. Got no choice, right? It’s like Russian roulette. I can go ahead and pull the trigger, but if I guess wrong I don’t get a second try.”
“I’m afraid so. If you leave me and try to drive or fly home you might just make it. Or you might slip onto another thread of reality. Then I would never be able to find you again. You and your lovely Alicia would be lost forever.”
“From here on it’s all or nothing, is that it?”
She nodded. “You’ve crossed too many boundaries, jumped too many lines. There’s no going back now until we reach the Vanishing Point.”
“Which is somewhere between here and Wyoming, right?”
“As you would define it, yes. You’re going to have to take me all the way.”
“Just so long as you don’t expect me to go all the way.”
She smiled up at him. “You see? Only a truly brave man would be able to joke about something so serious.”
“Yeah. Or else I’m crazier than Burnfingers Begay. Knowing you’re in deep shit doesn’t make you brave. Just realistic.”
“I know it pleases you to demean yourself because you think of yourself as unattractive and not as intelligent as some. You do yourself repeated injustices, Frank.” She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed tightly. “You must take me all the way to the Vanishing Point.”
“What about my wife and kids? They ain’t ‘truly brave,’ or whatever it is you’re convinced I am.”
“For that, I sorrow. I wish it were otherwise because of the great danger. I know how concern for their welfare preys upon your thoughts. Sadly, we have come this far together and so must continue to the end together. Console yourself in the knowledge that when the Spinner is soothed, reality will stabilize and you will be returned to a world no longer in danger of coming apart around you.”
“Good thing I’m not paranoid or I wouldn’t be able to handle any of this.” She freed his hands. They burned from the contact, as his lips still burned. “When we get to this Spinner I’m gonna have some choice words for it. What business does it have screwing up reality, anyway?”
“It is not a purposeful thing. Not even the Spinner is immune to illness and unhappiness.”
“I hope we hit it off well. What’s it like, anyway? I know quite a bit about spinning. My stores only stock top-quality stuff. Jogging suits, sweat socks, uniforms, like that. Is the fabric of reality natural like cotton, or artificial like polyester?”
That made her laugh softly, as it was intended she should. It faded rapidly. When she spoke again it was in deadly earnest.
“The Anarchis will stop at nothing to prevent me from soothing the Spinner and realigning the fabric of existence. By now all the evil on every reality line will be watching and waiting, hoping to be the one that interrupts our journey. Evil thrives where Chaos reigns, remember, and nothing could do more to stimulate its expansion than the unraveling of order. Goodness requires the presence of stability, logic, and reason to do its work.”
Frank considered thoughtfully. “You think maybe our little detours have been less than accidental?”
“It’s difficult to say. My being marooned in the desert for so long before you stopped to pick me up was an unlikely happenstance, as was your subsequent shunting to Hell. As for our detour to Pass Regulus, only Burnfingers Begay’s driving helped us escape from there.”
Frank stepped around a tree. He ought to be exhausted, but there was no dozing in Mouse’s presence. Not when she was keyed up like this. She exuded enough energy and sense of purpose to keep an army awake.
We’re all the army she’s got, he told himself. Myself, Alicia, and the kids, and one crazy Comajo. Or maybe Burnfingers would prefer Navamanche.
“I know this isn’t a dream. I know it’s all happening for real. But every now and then I find myself wondering if it’s some kind of elaborate hallucination, if you’re a terrorist or foreign agent or something.”
“Think of me as a foreign agent if it makes it easier for you. Think of the Anarchis as a terrorist. The analogy is not so very extreme. All terrorists are agents of Chaos to some degree. All affect the fabric of existence. All alter reality or attempt to do so. It is the degree to which they achieve their aims that matters.”
“You said the aim of the Anarchis is Chaos. What’s the aim of Evil besides encouraging the spread of Chaos?”
“Extermination of the good. I’m sorry you’ve been put in this position, Frank, but I can’t change that. More than just your reality is at stake here. Mine is endangered as well. The fabric of existence weaves through all worlds. A single substantial rip anywhere”—she drew her hands apart sharply, as if ripping a sheet of paper in half—“can shock many worlds, many lines. The Anarchis will move quickly to exploit the smallest tear.”
“Once reality gets ripped, how can you fix it?”
“I cannot. Only the Spinner can do that.”
“What’s this Spinner like, anyway? Is it like you?”
“Oh, no.” She laughed gently, bells in the night. “It is difficult to describe. Whatever you imagine will be insufficient. Grand it is, and vast.”
