I groaned again. Now I knew who I was but not where I was or why, or who that voice belonged to. “I’m getting up!” I tried to say. Must be some kind of training. “I’m getting up, god-damnit!” And I tried. But my muscles would not lift me.

They were rigid.

Hands pulled on my arms.

A new voice said, “Stand him up. Get him walking.”

The original voice said, “We’ve got to find a way to head these seizures off before they happen.”

“I’m open to suggestion.”

“You’re the doctor.”

“It’s not a disease, Goblin. You’re the sorcerer.”

“It ain’t sorcery, either, Chief.”

“Then what the hell is it?”

“Anyway, it isn’t any sorcery like any I ever seen or heard of.”

They had me upright now. My knees would not cooperate but these guys would not let me fall down.

I opened an eye. I saw Goblin and the Old Man. But the Old Man was dead. I tried my tongue. “I think I’m back.” This time I had it. This time my words were slurred but understandable.

“He is back,” Goblin said.

“Keep him moving.”

“He ain’t drunk, Croaker. He’s back. He’s aware. He can hang on here. You can hang on here now, can’t you, Murgen?”

“Yeah. I’m here. I won’t drift away as long as I’m awake.” Where was here? I looked around. Oh. There. Again.

“What happened?” the Old Man asked.

“I got pulled into the past again.”

“Dejagore?”

“It’s always Dejagore. This was the day you came back. The day I met Sarie.”

Croaker grunted.

“It hurts less each time. This trip wasn’t bad. But you lose a lot besides the pain. I didn’t see half the horror I know was there.”

“Maybe that’s good. Maybe if you can shed all of that you can break out of this.”

“I’m not crazy, Croaker. I’m not doing this to myself.”

Goblin said, “It’s getting harder to pull him back, not easier. This time he wouldn’t have made it without us.”

My turn to grunt. I could get caught in a cycle of reliving the nadir of my life, over and over.

Goblin had not guessed the worst. I was not back yet. They had dragged me up out of the deeps of yesterday but I was not home. This was my past, too, only this time I was aware of my dislocation. And I knew what evils lurked in my future.

“What was it like?” Goblin stared like that every time. Like some facial tic of mine might be the one clue he needs to unravel the puzzle and rescue me. Croaker leaned against the wall, the way he does, satisfied now that I was talking.

“Same as every other time. Just less painful. Although this time when I started out I wasn’t really me. That was different. I was just a disembodied voice, just a viewpoint giving a guide’s sort of speech to a faceless visitor.”

“Also disembodied?” Croaker asked. This variation had him interested.