Rick Cook: The Wizardry Cursed

"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 and 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?"

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."