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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.
    “No. There was somebody there. A complete person but he
had no face.”
    Goblin and Croaker exchanged troubled looks. At that time Otto
and Hagop were still away. “What sex?” Croaker
asked.
    “Wasn’t clear. It wasn’t the Faceless Man,
though. I don’t think it was anybody from our past. Might
just have been something out of my own head. I might have separated
me into pieces so I wouldn’t have to deal with so much pain
in such big blasts.”
    Goblin shook his head, not buying that. “It ain’t
you, Murgen. Something is doing this. Besides who, we want to know
why and why you. Did you catch any clues? How did it go? Try for
specifics. It’s teeny details that will give us our
handle.”
    “I was detached completely when it started. I went down
into it gradually. Then I was the Murgen back then, living it all
over again, trying to get it all down in the Annals, unaware of the
future at all. You remember going swimming when you were a kid?
When somebody would come up out of the water behind you to dunk
you? He would jump in the air and put his hand on top of your head,
then let his weight push you under? If you were in deep water
instead of just going straight down you would sort of curve through
the water and lay out flat? This whole thing went like that. Only
once I was out flat I couldn’t float to the top. I forgot
that I have done it all before, almost always the same way, who
knows how many times? Maybe if I could remember the future back
then I could change the way things went, or maybe at least I could
make extra copies of my books so they don’t
get . . . ”
    “What?” Croaker was alert now. Mention the Annals
and you have his undivided attention. “What was
that?”
    Did he realize that I was remembering the future? In this time
my volumes of the Annals are still safe.
    The fear and the pain swarmed in on me, then. The despair
followed. Because despite all those plunges back there, and despite
the visits here, I cannot stop anything from happening. No amount
of willpower can divert the river from the horrors.
    For a moment I could not talk because I had so much to say.
Then, obliquely, I managed, “You came here about the Grove of
Doom. Right?” I knew this night. I have been through this
country often enough to know its terrain well. Here the landscape
varies slightly from visit to visit but afterward time becomes the
same relentless river.
    If I squinted I could almost see the ghosts of other versions
playing out alternate dialogs.
    Croaker was surprised. “The grove?”
    “You want me to take the Company out to the Grove of Doom.
Right? It’s time for some Deceiver festival. You think
Narayan Singh himself might show up for this one. You think
there’s a good chance to catch him or to catch somebody who
knows where he has your baby hidden. Worst chance, you think
we’ll get the opportunity to kill lots of them and make them
hurt more than they already do.”
    Croaker has been implacable in his resolve to exterminate the
Deceivers. More so even than Lady has been, I think, and she was
the more deeply insulted of the two. Once upon a time he wanted his
legacy to be the completion of the Black Company’s historical
cycle. He wanted to be captain when the Company returned to
Khatovar. He has the dream still but a nightmare shoved it aside.
The nightmare