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.”
Calling the Mom Squad
by Sarah A. Hoyt
Fighting dragons is nothing to removing gum from a three-year-old’s hair, and it doesn’t hold a candle to keeping a three-year-old and a six-year-old amused during a snow day in Colorado, with all the roads closed and the schools closed, too. I should know. I’ve done all of it.
The alarm came at the worst possible time. It always does, of course. If there is one thing you can count on, it’s that life will happen exactly like a sitcom, with difficulty piled on difficulty and situations going for the most ridiculous laugh line.
It was a snow day. I was home. Mind you, I was usually home. I worked as a freelance translator, which was a way of staying with the kids, and being there when they came home from school, and generally being a housewife