“Who are you?” he said, and heard his own voice croak.

I am the soul of Lucanor Magus the Physician. Far-

Something surged in Sigebert. Relief, preternaturally sent? Blinking and with sudden hope he said, “Physician?”

Aye. And mage, Sigebert of Metz, and mage!

“You-have you come to help me in my agony?”

Sigebert received an impression of mirth, which angered him even while it despoiled his shaky foundation of hope. Against your enemies, he was told. Is not your hatred for them as much a part of your agony as your physical hurts?

This time Sigebert was unable to speak, and the bird continued, voicelessly.

Far to the south, in a village of the seafaring Basques, my fleshly body sleeps. All of me that is significant has winged hither, to aid you to destroy those you hate whom I also hate-yea, and for greater reasons than yours! Yet it is known to me aforetime that you will not heed my advice… this time. On the morrow, in day’s bright light, you will believe this was merely a dream, gendered by your hate and pain. You will ignore it.

Sigebert’s thoughts moved in slow, murky channels. Already he had gone from fear to disbelief to fear to hope to shattered hope and wonderment-and curiosity. Half drugged and but partly wakeful, he yet put a shrewd question.

“You know this? Then why trouble to come to me, physician, mage… creature?”

For reasons that you will learn from your folly, and heed me when again I come to you. You know those enemies I refer to; you well know them and their inhuman prowess and luck! They are Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere the Skull-splitter of the Danes-those bloody devils of the sea!

At those names Sigebert came wide awake, and hatred pulsed in him more strongly than the pain that rode his heartbeat. “Ah.”

They live, and thrive.