“He was old. He just died of fright,” One-Eye said. “Ain’t nothing mysterious about that.”

My headache was not improving. I had vague recollections of those events but they were not as clear as my memories of other events immediately before previous seizures. “I don’t recall much of it.”

“The red-hand Deceiver got here all right. We meant to start questioning him that night. But you went back to your apartment, supposedly just walked through the doorway and collapsed. Your mother-in-law, uncle, wife and brother-in-law all agree. Probably the first, last and only time that will happen.”

“Probably. The old lady is like One-Eye. She disagrees just to be disagreeable.”

“Hey! Kid...”

“Quiet,” Croaker told him. “So you just fell down and went rigid. Your wife got hysterical. Your brother-in-law came for me. We took you out of there to ease the stress on your family.”

Ease the stress? Those people never heard of the word. Besides, Sarie was the only one of them I considered family.

Goblin said, “Open your mouth, Murgen.” He turned my face to the best light and stared down my throat. “No damage in here.”

I knew what they thought. Epilepsy. I had considered that myself. I had asked about it of anyone who would listen. But no epileptic I ever heard of got bounced into the past from a seizure. Into a past that was never exactly like the past I had lived already.

“I told you it isn’t a disease,” Croaker growled. “When you find the answer it will be right there inside your own field and you’ll probably feel stupid about not having seen it earlier.”

“If there’s anything to be found we’ll find it,” One-Eye promised. Which left me wondering what he had up his sleeve. Then I knew that I had to know already because they were going to tell me pretty soon. But I could not recall that future clearly enough to grasp it.

Sometimes it was spooky being me.

“Was that headless character there again?” Croaker asked.

After figuring out what he meant I said, “Yes. But he was faceless, boss. Not headless. He had a head.”

“Might represent the source of the problem,” One-Eye suggested. “You ever remember any features, anything at all, tell somebody. Or get it written down right away.”

Croaker told me, “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. Can you imagine managing a campaign when your people can fade out on you any minute, for days at a time?”

I felt confident that that would not happen. But I didn’t say so because they would press me on it and I did not feel like being poked and prodded. “I need something for a headache. Please. A hangover kind of headache.”

“Did you have this headache the other times?” Croaker demanded. “You never mentioned it.”

“It was there but not this bad. Just a minor discomfort. A four-beer hangover kind of headache, if it was beer brewed by Willow Swan and Cordy Mather. That mean anything?”