by Rick Cook
They saw no signs of life, but once they heard something scrabbling over the rubble as if fleeing their approach.
"Boy, what a mess," Jerry panted as they pulled themselves to the top of the latest obstacle.
Wiz shaded his eyes and looked ahead, trying to find the easiest route. "I don’t remember it being this bad. On the other hand, I stayed away from this part of town as much as I could."
Danny consulted the crystal device. "It’s over that way, in that big black pile of rubble."
Jerry scanned the horizon. "Which big black pile of rubble?"
"That one," Wiz pointed. "Let’s go."
Another fifteen minutes of hard travel brought them through the shattered black gates of the palace. The going was easier here because there had been just one building set in an extensive courtyard. None of the roof remained and everything had collapsed in on itself, but enough of the walls still stood that you could pick out the general outlines of the floor plan.
"This guy sure had lousy taste," Jerry said, eyeing the remains of a strangely twisted mosaic on a partly standing wall.
"I think some of it’s kind of neat," Danny said as he looked over a doorway shaped like the gaping mouth of a monster. He reached out and stroked the door jamb admiringly.
The door growled and Danny jumped back, landing sprawled on the rubble.
"I told you not to touch stuff," Wiz said.
"Yeah." He consulted the locator to hide his embarrassment. "Uh, what we want is down this way."
Another couple of hundred yards and the trio came to an archway that was still mostly standing. Through it they saw five or six searchers hovering around like a patch of smog, pulsing weakly as they sensed their quarry.
"I guess it’s down there," Danny said.
"Great," Wiz said, eyeing the remains of the room. "The debris is only about ten feet deep in there. I don’t suppose you guys brought shovels?"
Jerry looked down at the equipment festooned about him. "No. We’ve got enough stuff here to flatten this place in an eyeblink, but we don’t have anything that will let us move the rubble."
"I could send shovels to you," Moira’s voice said in Wiz’s ear.
Wiz considered. "Let’s try it bare-handed first. Where’s Bale-Zur?"
"The Watchers say it is down by the harbor."
"Moving this way?"
"Not yet. We will let you know."
"Well, come on," Wiz said to his companions. "Maybe the heart is close to the top."
"Maybe pigs will grow wings," Danny said, eyeing the rubble.
"Around this place you never know," Wiz said as he cast the first stone.
As he followed the nurse down the hall, Craig felt like the place was closing in on him. Everything was hushed, like sound didn’t carry here. The lighting was all indirect and the colors were all neutral browns or dark greens. It was like your senses didn’t work right.
He didn’t like hospitals anyway. They reminded him of the time he had spent in corridors, rooms and visitors’ lounges waiting for his mother to die. But even for a hospital this place was spooky. It was visiting hours, but most of the room doors were closed. Only once did he catch a glimpse of someone sitting at a bedside, a dark form outlined in the flickering glow of a TV screen.
The nurse stopped before one of the too-wide doors, gently pushed it open and then motioned him to follow her in.
At first he thought Judith was someone else. She was wizened and shrunken down into the immaculate white sheets of the hospital bed. They had cut her hair short and shaved part of one side of her head. There was a tube in her nose and another one running from her arm to a bottle of clear liquid hanging by the bed.
Craig looked dubiously at the nurse.
"Can she hear me?" he whispered.
"Perhaps," the nurse said gently. "Try talking to her. You don’t have to whisper."
"Thank…" Craig started to whisper and caught himself. "Thank you."
"I’ll be at the nurse’s station."
As she went out the door the nurse felt a flash of pity. The young accident victims were about the worst, second only to the little kids who had nearly drowned. Maybe the visitor would do the patient good, but she doubted it. After six years on Neuro she had a feel for the patients and this one probably wasn’t ever going to come out of it.
At first the programmers didn’t have too much trouble digging through the rubble. The pieces were about the size of Wiz’s head; small enough to handle easily and big enough to make obvious progress. The stone was freezing cold, but their sturdy gloves protected their hands and kept their fingers warm.
The heart wasn’t under the first layer of rubble, or the next. By now the job was getting harder. They started to run into pieces that took two or all three of them to shift. More and more of the pieces were locked together like jackstraws and could only be moved in order. Soon all three of them were sweating in spite of the cold and panting from the effort.
"You know," Jerry said as they took a breather, "logically the heart should be all the way at the bottom of this pile."
Danny picked up a pebble and chucked it against the wall. It bounced off with a metallic clang. "It’ll take us days to dig down that far, even with picks and shovels."
"Well, we can’t bring anyone through to do our digging for us," Wiz said. "We’re the only ones the demon won’t harm."
Jerry rubbed his thumb where he had mashed it between two stones. "This seems to be an ideal job for magic. We could use a summoning spell and just call the heart to the surface."
"We could also summon Bale-Zur right on top of us. No thanks."
"So?" Danny interjected. "He won’t hurt us."
Wiz thought of the huge black demon with the yard-wide mouth and glowing red eyes. "You seriously do not want to meet this guy. I still have nightmares about what he did to those Dark League wizards. Anyway, we can’t conduct the next phase of the operation with him right on top of us."
"May I make a suggestion?" Moira’s voice spoke in his ear.
"Sure darling, go ahead."
Danny started and then realized Wiz wasn’t talking to him.
"Jerry is right. Could you use magic to do your digging?"
"Won’t that attract Bale-Zur?"
There was muffled noise over the crystal as Moira conferred with other wizards.
"Perhaps, but it is imperative we complete this before nightfall. Unless you want to spend the night there."
Wiz remembered some of the things that inhabited the City of Night after dark and he shuddered again. "No thanks."
"Besides, should worse come to worst we can lay the demon elsewhere."
Wiz weighed that. "Okay. We’ll give it a try." He turned to his companions. "Now does anyone have any good ideas for a digging spell?"
As the nurse left, Craig pulled a chair close to the bed, wincing at the slight scraping sound.
"Hi, Judith. Can you hear me?" Always Judith. She hated to be called Judy and she had pinned his ears back when he slipped the first time they met.
The figure in the bed did not respond. There was not a flicker from the eyelids and the rhythm of breathing continued uninterrupted.
Craig wanted to bolt. This was too much like his mother had been, before she’d wake up and start screaming for her shot. The only thing that kept him in the chair was knowing he’d have to pass the nurse and she’d know he couldn’t take it. He had to stay for a few minutes anyway.
He felt like an idiot for coming. None of the others had, not since Judith was transferred out of ICU. So he’d said he would at the last gaming session and then he was committed.
"Everybody misses you on Friday nights," he said brightly.
"Bill and Sheri are taking your place in the campaign, but they’re really not very good."
Still no response from the bed.
"We had a really good game last Friday. Joe was dungeon master and he set up a really nasty scenario. You had all these flocks of dragonlets in a crystal cave a
nd they’d just swarm the party from all directions. But you had to be careful what spells you used because a lot of the crystals were Reflect Magic and you could get the spell thrown right back in your face." His grin made him look even younger. "Boy, you should have seen it! Dragons diving on us everywhere. They’d make flame attacks and then swoop down with claws and tail, ssshhhewww." He imitated the motion with his hands.
Judith tossed restlessly and mumbled.
"Anyway we were up to our asses in dragons. Then Howard’s mage figured out you could use the Reflect Magic crystals for bank shots and he started bouncing stuff off the walls and hitting the dragons from behind! Hey, did you say something?"
"… real dragons ugly," Judith mumbled. "Smell like snakes… ride over the castle."
She was talking! For an instant Craig thought about ringing for the nurse, but then he realized she probably wouldn’t give a shit.
"… tie into the saddle…" Judith went on. "… takes years to learn to ride. No fun, anyway… better dragons imagine…"
"Yeah, dragons are neat all right."
"Real," Judith said very distinctly.
"Huh?"
"Real dragons. Saw them myself come over the Wizard’s Keep first morning we were there. Real dragons…" She settled back and trailed off into incomprehensibility.
Craig hunched closer to the bed.
"Tell me more, Judith. What about the dragons?"
Five: UNSOUGHT PROPHECY
It was late in the afternoon when they got the digging spell working. The wan sun was sinking toward the horizon, throwing highlights off the sullen gray surface of the Freshened Sea and sending dark shadows creeping out across the ruins. The cold deepened with the growing twilight and all three programmer/magicians had wrapped their cloaks tightly around themselves to try to stay warm.
"I’m not sure I like this," Jerry said as they huddled together for a final review of their handiwork. "We really should run a couple more tests."
"We don’t have time. Unless you want to stay here all night?"
Jerry looked around at the menacing ruins and pulled his cloak tighter. "No thanks. I just wish…"
"Oh come on, we’ve tested the thing to death," Danny said. "Let’s get this over with. I’m freezing."
Mentally Wiz reviewed the spell one more time. It simply checked each loose piece within its radius of operation to see if it was the heart of the demon and if it wasn’t, tossed it aside. When it reached the demon’s heart, it would stop. It was straightforward enough and Wiz couldn’t find any flaws. Besides he was as cold as Danny was.
"Okay," he said. "Let’s do it."
All three of them stepped back from the pile of rubble and out the collapsed archway. When they were in position, Wiz called:
"emac"
A three-foot-high demon with enormous ears popped up before him. "?" it said.
Wiz pointed his staff at the rubble choking the room. "kill exe!" he commanded.
The Emac turned toward the spot and gabbled soundlessly. Then it bowed and popped out of existence.
For a moment nothing happened.
"It takes a while for the effect to build up," Wiz explained unnecessarily.
"I just wish…" Jerry began. "I have this awful feeling we forgot something."
"It’s working!" Danny shouted, pointing at the rubble. A single pebble detached itself from the pile and flew off in a flat arc. Then another pebble whipped off in another direction, and another and another.
As the three watched a head-sized chunk of material shook itself loose and lobbed away from the rubble. Then several more pebbles.
One of the pebbles flew over Wiz’s head with an ugly singing whirr.
"Direction," Jerry said abstractedly. "Did we put anything in the spell to control which way the rubble would go when it left the pile?"
"No," Wiz said apprehensively, as another volley of material broke loose from the mound.
"Then hit the dirt!" Jerry shouted as a dozen big chunks of rubble came flying straight at them.
All three of them dropped and rolled behind the remains of the wall just as a half-dozen pieces of stone went through the spot where they had been standing, humming like angry bees. Then a torso-sized slab of black marble lofted over the wall and crashed into the frozen dust behind them.
Then all Hell broke loose.
The pile of rubble exploded outwards in all directions. The small stuff came off with the velocity of rifle bullets. The bigger pieces arced away like mortar shells. The three wizards pressed themselves against the base of the wall and tried to burrow into the dirt as debris landed all around them.
I am not a target, Wiz told himself as he tried to become one with the base of the wall. This is not aimed at me. He shifted slightly just as the remains of a large piece of furniture sailed over the ruined wall and crashed to earth a few feet from him. Abstractedly he realized there should be a simple command to shut the spell down, but it’s hard to think when you’re in the middle of an artillery barrage and impossible to talk when your mouth is full of dirt.
There were crashes and thuds and whizzes and occasionally a nasty spang as something hit the wall and ricocheted away. Once a big piece hit the top of the wall, knocking off chips and showering them down on the cowering trio. The dust grew so thick that Wiz couldn’t see two feet in front of him-not that he was looking.
Then suddenly it was quiet.
No more crashes. No more earth-shaking thuds. Just a couple of zips from small stuff and then silence. Even the dust started to settle.
Wiz raised his head and looked around wonderingly. Then he realized Moira was screaming at him through the communications crystal.
"We’re fine," he told her, looking at his companions. "The spell was just a little more effective than we thought."
"Oh man," Danny muttered. "Anyone got anything for shell shock?"
"It’s the details," Jerry said to no one in particular. "It’s always the details that get you in trouble."
Wiz made a feeble attempt to brush himself off and peered around the archway.
The remains of the arch were pocked and scarred with fresh blemishes, white against the polished black granite. But the room itself was as clean as if it had been excavated by a team of expert archaeologists and then scrubbed and vacuumed by a village of Japanese housewives. There, almost exactly in the center of the room, sitting on the newly exposed mosaics of the floor, was a cloudy gray sphere.
Wiz stepped through the archway and realized he was tracking dirt back onto the clean floor.
"Okay," he said into the communications crystal. "We have the thing located. If it’s safe come on through."
Then he looked around and bit his lip.
Wiz didn’t like any part of the operation, but this next step was his least favorite, even counting facing the golden demon. Moira was not immune to Bale-Zur, but she knew more about controlling a demon than any of the programmers. In addition to having more skill at natural magic, she had spent long sessions at Heart’s Ease with Shiara the Silver learning all the former wizardess could tell her about such things. If their plan failed, Moira was their last line of defense.
"Sharp lookout everyone," he called over his shoulder. Danny and Jerry spread out, staffs ready, peering into the building gloom for any sign of trouble.
Two figures popped into existence on the polished floor, not just one.
"What the hell is she doing here?" Wiz demanded.
Moira frowned at the greeting and then she whirled. Standing behind her, not two paces away, was June.
"How did you get here?" Moira asked sharply. But June just smiled triumphantly and made a beeline for Danny.
"I thought you said she didn’t have any magical ability," Wiz whispered to Moira as the couple hugged and June clung to Danny’s arm.
"She does not-I think," Moira whispered back.
"Well then?"
Moira only shrugged.
"Let us get it over with," Moira said. With Dann
y, Wiz and Jerry forming a perimeter guard, she knelt by the heart of Bale-Zur and reached slowly out to it.
For a long time she stayed motionless, her hand hovering over the cloudy crystal sphere. At last she began to move her fingers slowly over the surface, caressing it without quite touching it. Her lips began to move as she started the chant she had been taught to bring the demon back under control.
With the point of her staff she marked a pentagram around the demon’s heart. Then she stood up, backed off a step and raised her staff. Her voice rose to a wild cry as she gestured into the air. In spite of himself Wiz found his attention was drawn to his wife and her work.
The sphere pulsed and glowed with an inner light, casting a greenish-gray luminance around itself and Moira. It rocked back and forth as if seeking to break free of the imprisoning figure. Still Moira continued the eerie chant, bouncing the words off the ruined walls like bullets.
And then Bale-Zur was there.
Half-hopping, half-shambling, the huge demon moved into the circle of weird radiance. Its great horned head turned neither right nor left and its glowing eyes, red as the fires of Hell, stayed fixed on the hedge witch and the heart. For an awful moment Wiz thought the monster would reach out and grind Moira into a red smear, as he had done with a legion of wizards from the Dark League. Instead the demon approached her across its heart and sank down on its haunches to stare motionless at the woman and the sphere.
Moira continued her chant as if nothing had changed. She lowered her staff and pointed at the heart. Bale-Zur stayed motionless, great taloned hands resting on his misshapen horned knees. The hedge witch extended her staff and tapped the crystal sphere once, twice, three times. The demon leaned forward as if in special interest. Moira repeated the three taps and Bale-Zur cocked its head. Again the three taps and this time the demon seemed to shrink in on itself like a deflating balloon. Suddenly, noiselessly, it shrank and vanished without a trace. The glow faded and all that was left was a woman and a head-sized ball of some shiny black material.
