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 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?"
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.