The Western Valley Mystery
By Thomas Mc

Chapter 4

"How long until the effects become irreversible?" Lois asked with a feeling of alarm.

"By the next sunrise." Sugar Plum responded.

Clark remarked. "So as long as we leave before tomorrow morning, Lois will experience no lasting effects?"

Sugar Plum grinned. "Correct."

Clark opened his mouth to say more when he heard the faint sound of a radio feedback squeal. He looked over at the opening in the mountains and froze. "We have a problem." He remarked with a frown.

"What!" Lois exclaimed as she looked toward the prominent cleft in the Barrier Mountains.

"I don't see anything." Maryanne commented at the same time that Lois had spoken.

"There is a man up in that cleft watching us." Clark responded.

"Did he see us floating?" Lois inquired in a worried tone of voice.

"No." Clark shook his head. "I took a quick look around when you first floated and there was no one there. I also checked when we flew over to this fallen tree." He glanced again at the cleft in the mountain wall. "When we were in the village I overheard some villagers commenting about a small group of outsiders that had been seen in the area recently." He shrugged. "I've been trying to keep an eye on that gorge opening since we arrived."

"Can he see the fairies?" Lois asked with a surprising hint of worry. Bog and Maryanne were both looking at Clark with looks of concern.

Clark stared intensely for a moment, pushing his telescopic vision as much as he could. "His binoculars are powerful but not that powerful." Clark replied. "At best he will be able to make out a swarm of butterflies. At this distance he might not be able to make out that much." He glanced around then continued. "We need to find a place where he can't see us."

Sugar Plum pointed to the large nearby cluster of trees. "We could move over there."

"That's where the elves spring festival is." Maryanne remarked as she glanced at Sugar Plum in surprise. She glanced at the nearby copse of trees with a hint of worry in her eyes. "Moving these two over there could cause other problems."

"That will make it more fun." Sugar Plum responded with an impish grin.

Bog had his hand over his face. "This could be a disaster." He looked up at Clark with a sigh and a shrug. "But the surrounding trees would make a very effective screen." Clark found it fascinating that Bog could execute such an intricately delicate movement in his heavily armored exo-skeletal shell.

Lois considered the suggestion to move to the nearby copse of trees for a moment then replied. "We might as well." Her brow furrowed as she continued to speak. "But, with me unconsciously moving so much faster than normal, how do we move over there without giving ourselves away?"

Clark slowly put his arm around her. "I'll take care of that. Just relax and move your legs to match mine." With, what seemed to be agonizing slowness, Clark stood up. Floating just inches off the ground, their feet were still well below the top of the lush ground cover. Then Clark began to drift slowly forward while his legs moved in an extremely slow walking motion. Her sense of time was so radically skewed that Lois had to depend on Clark to control the timing of their movement. Lois began to move her own legs in a mirror image of Clark's legs.

With Clark's arm around her and carefully controlling their movements, Lois and Clark made their slow tortuous way toward the partial security of the large copse of trees. After a short time she noticed that they were not taking a direct route. "You seem to be wandering." She commented curiously.

"I'm trying to make it look like we are just taking a leisurely stroll . . . taking in the sights." He responded to her with a smile. "I don't want our friend up there to think that we are deliberately trying to hide from him." At intervals Clark would slowly point to some random feature while speaking soft endearments to Lois.

As they finally entered the outer edge of the trees, Lois relaxed and Clark set them down on the lush forest floor. Together they strolled forward while carefully watching where they placed their feet and soon found themselves entering a clearing about the size of their house. Nearly half of the clearing was taken up by what looked like a miniature country fair. The area was already starting to fill with elves and fairies as well as some creatures that were far less savory looking.

Near the edge of the clearing was another ancient downed tree that served as a convenient place for Lois and Clark to sit down. Once they were comfortably settled Clark turned his attention to the one they called Sugar Plum. "I have heard the term 'The Magic' mentioned more than once since we arrived in this valley . . . "What exactly is it?"

" 'The Magic' is what makes this place what it is." Sugar Plum responded enigmatically. "It fills the whole valley and shapes everything that lives here. Any living being that stays in the valley for more than the time from sunrise to sunset will become like the rest of the valley inhabitants." She cocked her head. "I have been here a very very long time and seen it happen many times." She glanced over at The Bog King. "I saw Bog's great grandfather arrive here in a giant noisy flying machine that fell into the Dark Forest. He and two others survived and by the next sunrise he had transform into something very much like Bog. One of the other survivors became Bogs great grandmother." She looked over at Bog. "Within one Moon cycle he had established himself as the ruler of the Dark Forest."

Bog looked at Sugar Plum in surprise. "No one ever told me about that!"

At that point the thing that had been niggling at the back of Lois's mind suddenly became clear. Bog bore a strong resemblance to the lost helicopter pilot. And Sugar Plum was a perfect fairy caricature of one of the females in that old tintype picture of the original group of explorers a hundred years ago. "Where did you come from?" She asked Sugar Plum.

Sugar Plum paused a moment then shrugged. "One of the effects of the change is that as it progresses your memories slowly begin to fade until in the end you have no memory of your old life." She glanced around at all the creatures that had paused in their revels to listen to the conversation with the giants. "I am much older than anyone else here so there is no one around that could tell me what went before." She paused with an introspective look on her face. "I have no idea where I came from." She shrugged then turned to Bog. "Most of those that you know were not there to see what happened and your great grandfather had no memory of it."

"I think you're one of the very first to come here. I saw a hundred year old picture of you in the village east of here." Lois remarked. "If I remember right, your name was Sabrina."

Bog and Maryanne looked at each other, lost momentarily in their own world, as they both digested this revelation.

After a few moments deep in her own thoughts Sugar Plum shook herself and cocked her head at Clark. "You are the first to be able to resist the power of 'The Magic'." Her gaze shifted to Lois. "And your aura has significantly slowed the effects of 'The Magic' on your woman."

"But where does this magic come from? . . . And I'm not his woman, I'm his wife." Lois finished with a bit of a huff.

"Whatever," Sugar Plum responded with a roll of her eyes. "It comes from the great sky stone." She responded while gesturing toward where the giant rock formation resided. "It is the source of all of 'The Magic' in this Valley."

"You called it the sky stone?" Queried Clark

"Because, it came down from the sky." She replied. "And over time the Fairy Kings have made it their home." She passed, frowning, then she shifted her gaze toward Lois's middle and her eyebrows went up in surprise. "You may not have as much time as I thought. You need to be out of here by sundown."

"You said earlier that we had 'til sun-up." Lois remarked. "Why the change?"

Sugar Plum looked up to Lois's Face." You're safe until sun-up but the baby is absorbing the magic faster than you are."

"My what?!" Lois exclaimed as she and Clark looked at her middle in stunned surprise, then glanced at each other.

"An un-born baby that young changes faster than normal. The younger, the faster. And she is very young indeed."

"What makes you think I'm pregnant?" Lois inquired suspiciously. It couldn't be true . . . could it?

"I see her aura." Sugar Plum replied with a hint of exasperation at what she apparently saw as obvious. "It's mostly masked by his aura," She indicated Clark. "And her aura looks very similar to his aura. So I didn't see it right away."

Lois looked at Clark. "I'm Pregnant?" She inquired as though seeking corroboration from him.

Clark removed his glasses and stared, eyes narrowed, at her middle for, what seemed to be several seconds. Then he smiled and looked up at her. "She's right. You are pregnant . . . " He glanced at Sugar Plum in surprise. ". . . and it's a girl."

Lois looked at Clark with a hint of panic. "We have to get out of here now, before this 'magic' harms our baby!"

Clark looked worriedly back at her. "I know," He glanced in the direction of the cleft through the mountains. "Our friend is still up there watching. How do we leave without being seen?"

Lois glanced around the clearing searching for answers. The elves' Spring Festival had already started but most of the creatures attending it were congregated around Lois and Clark watching everything that was happening with these curious giants in their midst. Lois had noticed the looks that passed among them as the conversation progressed. Now she saw concern on most of their faces.

Bog looked at Sugar Plum with an expression of inquiry on his face and she responded before he could ask. "They are honorable people. I believe they can be trusted to keep our secrets."

After a thoughtful moment, The Bog King turned to Clark and inquired. "Am I to understand, from what you just said, that you can see through things, like the trees?"

Clark nodded.

Bog glanced around the clearing then addressed a small knot of the more unsavory looking characters. One looked a bit like an anthropomorphic frog. The other two looked like nothing Lois had ever seen before except perhaps in a nightmare. "Thang, Stuff, Brutis, gather as many of the Dark Forest Guards as you can find and mount up."

A minute later there were a few dozen of the tiny nightmarish creatures mounted on, larger than normal, dragonflys and gathered before the Bog King. Bog turned toward Clark. "Keep your eyes on us. The distraction will not last long so when you see your chance, you must leave here as quickly as you can." Bog then took off, followed closely by the dragonflies and their strange looking riders.

Clark saw the swarm spread out as they exited the trees flying dangerously close to the ground at very high speeds. He doubted that the watcher in the cleft could even see them from that distance. The swarm soon disappeared into the dark swampy forest that ringed the valley but Clark was still able to follow their advance. A minute later the strange group burst from the other side of the Dark Forest and swarmed up the rise toward the cleft. The next instant the watcher found himself engulfed in a swarm of flying things that were moving too fast for him to make out clearly.

Clark turned his attention to Lois wrapping his arms securely around her. "Now's our chance!" He lifted off and accelerated, rapidly, straight up. As they cleared the tree tops Lois glanced toward the gorge and saw a distant figure wildly waving his arms. By then, they were already moving fast, and within seconds they were going just below the speed of sound.

Clark finally came to a stop several thousand feet up and he looked down at the cleft. The swarm was already disbursing from the frantically flailing watcher and disappearing back into the Dark Forest. As far as he could tell, the watcher had not managed to hit any of his attackers. After a long period spent trying to calm down, the watcher settled back into position and resumed his vigil. Meanwhile Lois and Clark soared, silently above him, moving toward the other end of the gorge. Clark soon dropped down to where they had been forced to leave their car.

After he set Lois down, Clark noticed a lot of extra footprints in the dirt around the car. He scanned the car and spotted a tracking device inside the rear right fender. He also found a listening device under the driver's seat. A quick blast of heat vision shorted out the bug and the tracker was left lying in the nearby shrubs as the car pulled away.

Lois glanced at the clock in the car's dashboard. "I still seem to be moving too fast." She remarked worriedly."

Clark thought a moment before responding. "Based on what Sugar Plum said, the effects should probably wear off by tomorrow morning." He remarked soothingly

"They found and bugged our car. What should we do?" She asked, a hint of worry still in her voice.

Clark thought a moment. "Our room is on the third floor and the balcony faces away from the rest of the village. We can sneak in through the balcony and lay low for a while. Meanwhile I need to hide this car."

Clark pulled into a secluded parking spot in a small roadside camping area. After locking the car he turned to find Lois floating a couple of feet off the ground.

She dropped gently to the ground. "I think that I'm really starting to get the hang of this. It's a shame that it won't last very long." She remarked with a half hearted grin.

Clark held out his hand to her. "Shall we?"

She took his hand. "Let's fly."

Together they rose up into the twilight. Then with Clark's hand to provide guidance they headed toward the village. At first Lois thought that they were going way too slow then realized that this was due to her distorted time sense. Still she was enjoying the sensation of flying partially under her own power. And the view from up here was, as usual, spectacular.

With a sigh Lois looked away from the view and focused on Clark. "I just wish I had more control over this thing than just up and down."

Clark shrugged. "If we thought that this ability would last, I would get you one of those flying suits we saw on that sports channel special last year and you could take sky diving lessons." He shrugged again. "But we know that this isn't going to last long enough for that."

She sighed in response. "I know but it is a pleasant thought." She thought a moment then inquired. "Do you know how fast time is actually passing for us?"

He contemplated the question for a moment before responding. "Actually you have already slowed down some. I think time is now moving about seven times faster than normal for you."

They came down and landed on their third floor balcony. "Is the room secure?" She asked cautiously.

Clark quickly scanned their room. "The room is empty now but somebody has searched it."

"Damn," Lois exclaimed looking in through the glass balcony door. "And they didn't even try to hide it." She glanced at Clark. "This mess suggests that they wanted to intimidate us. They're a dangerous bunch, whoever they are."

He looked a little closer at the main door. "There is some kind of electronic device at the base of the front door." He used his special vision to scan the device more closely. "It has a transmitter but no microphone or camera . . . I think it just signals when the door is opened." He narrowed his eyes and a thin red beam appeared for just a second then a puff of smoke erupted from the device on the door. "It won't be sending any signals now." Another quick scan and Clark announced that the room was clean. He opened the door and entered the room, alert for any other surprises.

Continued in Part 5

( 181028)

Disclaimer: This story is a crossover between the television series 'Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' and the animated movie 'Strange Magic'

'Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' and its characters are the property of D.C. Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions, and anyone else with a legal right to them.

'Strange Magic', and its characters are the property of George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd, etc.

No infringement on copyrights is intended. This story is presented merely for the enjoyment of fans. Original concepts and story elements may be used by other authors as long as appropriate credit is given.