A Dragon and Her Girl

by Max Florschutz

  The three young villagers shared the secrets of their forest with the wizard. They followed deer paths to small clearings, far away from where any people might tread. They pointed out holes created by generations of woodpeckers, deep enough to conceal a purse of coins. They showed him uprooted trees with tangled roots that formed perfect hiding places for a larger cache. The wizard rejected them all, and urged his poor horse ever deeper into the woods.

  It was slow going. The wizard’s cart did not navigate easily through the wild growth of the forest. The gold pile jingled precariously each time a wheel hit a protruding tree root. On several occasions the wizard was forced to unharness the horse and levitate the cart over a particularly rough patch of terrain. Hurlee watched in awe. This was real magic, far more impressive than the healing salves and love potions brewed by the local hags.

  As they walked, Burlee passed the time planning on how to spend the gold they’d been promised.

  “We should buy new clothes,” she said. “I’m sick of wearing this ratty uniform. I want to wear green again.”

  “Green does not flatter your skin tone,” said Hurlee. “And besides, we should invest the money into something more practical. We could buy a horse. That way we could try for jobs guarding nobles’ carriages and merchant caravans.”

  “I’m going to buy a goat,” said Olaf. “It’s cheaper than a horse, and I’ll get all the milk and wool for free.”

  Having not found a satisfactory location by nightfall, they were forced to set up a makeshift camp under the open sky. Burlee started a fire and the four of them shared an evening meal.

  “I still don’t understand,” Hurlee said, exploiting the chance to chat up the wizard. “Can’t the Emperor make better use of his gold than to leave it lying around in some ditch? You know, hire more soldiers, pave the roads, that sort of thing?”

  “His Imperial Majesty has thought of everything.” The wizard poured himself some wine from a large flagon he produced from the back of the cart. He did not offer any to his companions. “Since the gold will be hidden, rather than spent or lost, the exchequer will issue paper money backed by its value.”

  “Coins made out of paper?” Burlee snorted. “That’s a wild thought. They’d be ruined by the first rain. Besides, paper isn’t worth very much.”

  “The value of the paper money is guaranteed by the Emperor,” explained the wizard. “So each note will be worth exactly as much as a gold coin. It’s a novel concept and it may take some time for people in the countryside to get used to, but we’re already having some success introducing the new currency in the capital.”

  “City folks might be too stupid to tell paper from gold, but we ain’t,” said Olaf. “You best plan on paying us with the real deal.”

  The wizard promised that they’d be paid with actual coins, and didn’t seem interested in any further conversation.

  That night, Olaf tried to steal some of the treasure.

  Hurlee had known this would happen. She could tell from the way Olaf kept glancing at the cart, his face alight with greed. So, when the fire went out and everyone settled in for the night, Hurlee willed herself to remain awake.

  Both Burlee and the wizard were fast asleep, exhausted by the day’s journey. Even the wizard’s horse was snoring lightly. Hurlee pretended to be asleep, but instead watched out of the corner of her eye as Olaf got up, checked to make sure his companions weren’t alert, and crept toward the cart.

  The gargoyle was curled up atop a gilded plate, covering its face with a winged paw. Asleep it looked like a big, gray cat. Very quietly, Olaf reached into the cart and palmed a large nugget. The gargoyle was up immediately, hissing and screaming and clawing at Olaf with its sharp talons. Olaf dropped the nugget and staggered back, clutching at the shallow, bleeding cuts along the length of his right arm. The gargoyle perched at the edge of the cart and hissed at Olaf until the wizard, roused by the noise, waved it off.

  “You’re lucky Maynard didn’t rip off your face,” the wizard told Olaf. “Go clean yourself up. Next time you try to steal, or interrupt my sleep, I’ll turn you into something unpleasant.”

  Olaf skulked off toward the nearby stream. Hurlee finally allowed sleep to claim her.

  By the late following afternoon Hurlee feared they’d be spending yet another night in the forest. But to her great relief, the wizard found what he decreed to be a perfect hiding place, far from where any hunters or gatherers might roam.

  The wizard produced a pair of shovels from the bottom of the cart and instructed his guides to dig a hole. He rested in the shade while Olaf, Hurlee, and Burlee worked, sweated, and cursed.

  “Look at us,” said Burlee, “reduced to digging around in the dirt. If we wanted to do this sort of filthy work, we could have remained on Father’s farm.”

  “It’s paid work,” said Hurlee. “It’s not perfect, but we need the money to see us through until we can find something better.”

  “There is nothing better,” Burlee said bitterly as she drove her shovel deep into the moist earth. “We might as well get used to handling a shovel, because there’s no room for our skill set in this weird new age of peace treaties and paper money.”

  “You can’t give up hope,” said Hurlee. “We’re young, and we’re smart. We’ll adjust.”

  “Your problem is, you’re too picky,” said Olaf. “Shovelin’ is good work, when you can get it.” He put his back into it to underscore the point.

  “Shut up, Olaf,” said Burlee. She turned to her sister. “Take the shovel. It’s your turn to dig.”

  When the hole was deep enough, the wizard placed a few handfuls of gold into a sack and lowered it to the bottom. He then motioned for the others to begin refilling the hole.

  “That’s it?” asked Burlee, eyeing the lion’s share of the treasure that remained on the cart.

  “Our empire is vast,” said the wizard. “Hiding smaller amounts of treasure across the land will serve the Emperor’s plans better than a single large trove.”

  Covering the hole with freshly dug earth was easier work than digging. Afterward, the wizard made Olaf collect some leaves and twigs to cover up the recently disturbed patch of ground.

  Halfway back to the village, the wizard stopped the cart. “Now that the treasure is hidden, I must remove your memories of its location with a spell. Then you’ll be paid.”

  Hurlee had expected something like this to happen. After all, burying treasure would be pointless if one left behind three greedy and highly motivated locals who knew exactly where to look. If anything, Hurlee was relieved that the wizard hadn’t planned on a more severe and permanent solution to this problem.

  “This won’t hurt very much,” the wizard promised. He beckoned Olaf to him.

  The wizard touched Olaf’s forehead and recited a spell that he said would drain away the memories of the past few days. Olaf lumbered off like a drunk, looking like he just got hit in the head with a rake. He appeared to be stupefied by the experience, but with Olaf it was rather difficult to tell.

  Burlee was up next. Hurlee watched her sister step forward, and an inkling of a plan began to formulate in her mind. Burlee was right; they couldn’t just wait around and hope for their circumstances to improve. She saw an opportunity, and she was going to act on it.

  While the wizard was reciting his spell for the second time, Hurlee touched Olaf’s shoulder and pointed at the cart.

  “Look. Gold,” Hurlee whispered.

  Olaf’s eyes grew wide as he discovered the treasure. Without the memory of Maynard to restrain him, Olaf stumbled toward the cart. The gargoyle hissed in warning, baring its teeth at the hapless villager. And while the wizard, who had just finished enchanting Burlee, was distracted by the commotion, Hurlee traded places with her twin sister.

  Hurlee counted on the wizard not being able to tell the two of them apart. Their army uniforms hadn’t helped the sisters land the cushy bodyguard or sentry jobs they had hoped for in the past, but in this one instance, the
matching garments might help them secure their future.

  Having made certain that the treasure was safe from Olaf, and Olaf was safe from the gargoyle, the wizard turned his attention back to the sisters. He gently nudged Hurlee, who was standing in front of him with as blank an expression on her face as she could muster, out of the way, and grabbed Burlee.

  Hurlee watched as the wizard zapped her poor sister with another forgetting spell. She wondered if Burlee would lose a few extra days’ worth of memory, or just forget their forest adventures that much more thoroughly. Either way, she reckoned it was well worth keeping the memory of where the treasure was. Even the small portion of the cart’s riches that the wizard had left behind was enough to set them up for life.

  The wizard let his guides rest for a few minutes, until they regained their senses. Their old memories of the forest were unaffected and so they had no trouble finding the way back to the village. There, the wizard paid them, just like he promised. He was even kind enough to let the other villagers know that the guides’ memories had been erased. That way no one would think of trying to force the treasure’s location out of them.

  Hurlee waited for over a day, to make sure the wizard was gone and not coming back, before she shared the secret with her sister. Burlee was so excited by the news that she didn’t even grumble too much about being made into the lightning rod for the wizard’s forgetting spell. The twins immediately decided that such information was best kept away from Olaf. So it was just the two of them sneaking out of the village to claim the treasure.

  They traveled back to the site, dug up the still-fresh earth, and retrieved the sack. But when they opened it, there was no gold at all. The sack was filled with rocks.

  Burlee examined one of the rocks and tossed it aside. “That treacherous wizard must’ve enchanted these rocks to look like treasure, and kept the real gold for himself,” she said.

  “For his purposes, the rumor of hidden treasure is as good as the real thing,” reasoned out Hurlee. “This way, the Emperor can keep his riches and still get adventurers to come searching for them.”

  Frustrated, Burlee kicked some dirt back into the hole. “But then, why bury the rocks in the first place?”

  Hurlee mulled it over. “The old warlock must’ve suspected that some of our memories might eventually return. If so, he couldn’t risk not going through with the charade.”

  “What a cheat!” Burlee continued to rile herself up. “We should go back home and let everybody know the truth. Screw up his convoluted plan. That’ll show him!”

  “No,” said Hurlee, after thinking hard for a while. “No, we shouldn’t. I have a better idea.”

  Hurlee picked up a shovel and began to fill the hole again. “Let people think that the treasure is buried somewhere in these woods,” she said as she worked. “We aren’t supposed to remember exactly where, but we’re the local guides, and we’re the ones who showed the wizard all the likely hiding spots. This information will be worth something, once the adventurers come.”

  Burlee was beginning to understand, annoyance and disappointment draining from her face as she listened to Hurlee’s plan. “The Emperor wants these treasure hunts to help spur the local economy? Well, we’re part of the local economy, too. There’s no reason why we can’t cash in.”

  “It won’t be long until the adventurers show up,” said Hurlee. “There will be no shortage of demand for guides, then.”

  “There must also be other ways to profit from this,” said Burlee. “Let’s get some parchment and start drawing maps. Two . . . No, three silver coins for a genuine treasure map sounds about right.”

  “That’s the spirit, sister,” Hurlee clapped Burlee on her leather-clad shoulder. “Who needs the dangers of the orc wars, or the tedium of sentry duty? We’re getting into the tourism trade.”

  Dragon in Distress

  Mercedes Lackey and Elisabeth Waters

  “Ah, my heart, and a-a-a-ah my heart,

  My heart it is so sore,

  Since I must needs from my love depart,

  And know no cause wherefore . . .”

  The light tenor voice wafted into the cave with the spring breeze from the ledge outside where the prince had been spending his days for the past two weeks. Unfortunately, since both of the cave’s occupants were tone deaf, the melody was wasted on them. The words, however, were another matter.

  Princess Rowena, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor going out of her mind with boredom, looked up at her companion. “Do you suppose that means he’s going away now?” she asked hopefully. “He’s been out there for quite a while.”

  The dragon smiled, an expression that did not look as forbidding as one might suppose. Her life had become much more amusing since Rowena had moved in with her, following the receipt of a birthday gift from her Aunt Frideswide which had been chosen with more poetic license than common sense. Boredom was the bane of a near-immortal’s existence, which was probably why the dragon had agreed to foster Rowena when the princess had decided she did not wish to return home. So far the arrangement was working out quite well for both of them, although there were occasional drawbacks—such as the prince outside.

  “I’m afraid not,” the dragon replied calmly, using two foreclaws to pick up a particularly fine emerald from the pile of gems in the girl’s lap and twist it so that it sparkled in the light from the fire in the back of the cave. “He’s been here only two weeks, and he strikes me as the persistent type. He could be here all summer—perhaps even until the snow falls.” Her voice was wise with centuries of experience. “Princes as a whole talk a lot, sing romantic ballad after romantic ballad—”

  “—after romantic ballad. Maybe he’d like to perish gallantly for love,” Rowena suggested brightly, then sobered under the dragon’s glare. “All right, it’s not all that funny, but I’m getting very tired of being cooped up in here.”

  She sighed, which added an opal to the pile of gold coins and jewels in her lap. “Unrequited love is hell. And if he finds out about this—” she gestured at the gems which fell from her lips with each word she spoke, “he’ll never leave.”

  “Just don’t ask me to kill him,” the dragon said tartly. “Those stupid princes taste dreadful, and they’re difficult to digest.”

  Rowena giggled. “Especially if you eat their armor.” Then she sobered. “You don’t think he knows about the spell, do you?”

  The spell in question was the birthday gift which had resulted in Rowena’s sudden desire to leave home. Originally it had been the standard fairy tale version, where every word spoken produced a flower or a jewel. After Rowena left home and moved in with the dragon (that afternoon), the dragon, who had given Frideswide the original spell, had modified it somewhat, substituting gold coins for the flowers. Unlike roses, gold coins had no thorns, so Rowena was relieved by the change and more than happy to give the dragon the coins for her bed.

  The young prince outside sang on. He could scarcely have found a less appreciative audience.

  “It’s not that I want him dead,” Rowena sighed. “And I know that knights don’t cook evenly and they’re hard to digest. But still, it’s a pain to be stuck here inside for weeks on end, especially when the weather is so beautiful outside. And if he doesn’t go away soon, all the berries will be gone, and I wanted to pick a lot of them before the season ends. It’s not fair!”

  “True,” the dragon agreed. “It’s not as if he is a real guest. We’re not obliged to entertain him or arrange our schedules to suit him.”

  “And it’s all so pointless. Why did he come here to ‘rescue’ me?” Rowena frowned fiercely. “I don’t need to be rescued! I’m much happier here than I ever was at home.”

  “You might wish to marry someday,” the dragon offered, sounding amused, “and you don’t get many opportunities to meet young men living alone here with me.”

  “If I were ever to marry, which I don’t plan on,” Rowena said firmly, “I’m sure I would want a husband who had
some sense of self-preservation. Camping out on a ledge just outside a dragon’s lair does not betoken any great degree of intelligence.”

  That actually provoked a snicker from the dragon. “You might try explaining that to him.”

  “Sure I could,” Rowena said sarcastically. “I tried that four—or was it five—princes ago. That particular idiot insisted that I was bewitched and begged me to come away with him so that I could be freed from the nonexistent spell you have me under.”

  She grinned up at the dragon, in a lightning change of mood. “Besides,” she pointed out, “It’s very difficult to talk to anyone face to face without having him find out about Aunt Frideswide’s birthday present.”

  It had been quite a shock for Rowena to wake up in this condition on her fourteenth birthday. The gems were all right, but the rose-thorns hurt. And she had known immediately what her fate would be if anyone discovered that she was producing something more rewarding than flowers; she’d have been locked in the palace treasury and forced to talk herself into exhaustion. Ordinarily, Rowena was something of a chatterbox, but there were limits!

  Fortunately the dragon had carried her off that afternoon, before anyone at the castle realized why Rowena had locked herself in her room and was refusing to talk.

  “There’s a full moon tonight,” Rowena said, still trying to find a way out of her current trap. “And I think he goes somewhere else at night to sleep, because I never hear him on the ledge after dark.” She looked up at the dragon again with a touch of defiance. “I’m going to sneak out tonight and pick some berries; there’s enough light for that at full moon. And if I don’t get out of here for a little while, I am going to lose what’s left of my mind!”

  “Very well,” the dragon agreed. “Just be sure that you’re back before dawn.”

  “I shall,” Rowena said grimly, “I’ve no desire to be carried off by anyone or anything, let alone some stupid prince.”