by Sarah Noffke
“Oh, that was quick,” Sophia said with relief. “What is it?”
“The water supply is poisoned,” Lee stated matter-of-factly.
Sophia lowered her chin and gave the woman an irritated expression. “Yeah, we already knew that. I was hoping for something more specific.”
“You live a charmed life, don’t you?” Lee asked, sincerely looking interested in her answer. “You want answers and specifics and some ice cream.”
“I never said anything about ice cream,” Sophia argued.
“I know,” Lee answered. “I just did. Can we have some? You have some up this far north?”
“The water.” Sophia tried to steer the conversation back on track.
“Right.” Lee clapped her hands on her hips and looked out as if appraising the large body of water. “It’s a complex spell that’s pretty impressive. It will only work on one type of animal.”
“Sheep,” Sophia offered.
“Don’t interrupt when adults are talking,” Lee admonished. “As I was saying, the spell in the water only works on sheep. If my assessment is right, which it undoubtedly is, then it should cause the sheep to—”
An explosion on the eastern hills of the Expanse shot flames and bits of dirt into the air. The herd of sheep quarantined around the small blast scattered and made complaining noises as they did.
Lee glanced out at the disturbance. “You’ve got neighbors worse than mine. Anyway, the poison will make the sheep explode.”
Sophia gave Lunis a look that said, “Kill me now.”
“Can you help?” Lunis asked, strangely being helpful, probably sensing that Sophia’s patience was waning fast.
“Yes, I most certainly can,” Lee answered.
“Finally.” Sophia sighed. “Okay, so what do we need to do?”
“Go to the worst place on Earth.” Lee sounded ominous.
“Of course we do,” Sophia stated dryly.
“Hmmm…let me guess,” Lunis began. “Skillman Road?”
“That’s very specific.” Sophia was surprised.
“Have you been there?” Lunis asked. “The city planner who created that obviously hated this planet and its fellow people.”
“No, that’s not it,” Lee stated. “This place isn’t horrible because of its traffic. It’s because of its schizophrenic weather. We need to go to Wyoming.”
Chapter One Hundred
Lee drew in a deep breath that puffed out her chest upon stepping through the portal into Southern Wyoming. “Smell that?”
Sophia drew in a breath. “Is that cow manure?”
“Probably,” Lee answered. “I haven’t had my olfactory senses intact since the lobster incident. That’s why I was asking. What do you smell? That will help us find our way, so I’m counting on you, Little Bit.”
“Don’t ever call me that,” Sophia warned.
“I need to hear about the lobster incident,” Lunis begged after stepping through the portal. He had wanted to come. Not because he wanted to help, but because he seemed highly entertained if confused and intimidated by the assassin baker as if she could out-bad joke him.
“It’s a good story for another time,” Lee stated. “It involves a bottle of lilac-scented lotion and a guy named Moes. After that, I can hardly smell a thing.”
Sophia looked out at the vast wilderness that was rural Wyoming. It was a beautiful country, no doubt, with autumn colors and blue skies. The mountains framed the rolling hills in front of them. “I used to be a curious person. Then I met you. Now I feel better off not knowing things.”
“Strangely enough, you’re not the first one to tell me that,” Lee related.
“Why are we here?” Sophia asked. “What am I supposed to be smelling for? I have enhanced senses so if you tell me I should be able to home in on it.”
Lee shook her head. “Again, so spoiled. You get enhanced senses, and I’ve got a mole in the shape of a stag on my back. Definitely not as cool.”
“Can I see it?” Lunis asked, but Sophia shot him a punishing look, and he quickly added, “Later. After the lobster story.”
“We’re here in Wy-freaking-oming because that’s where my specialized water purification system is currently,” Lee stated. “It uses reverse osmosis advancements paired with magitech and a secret ingredient.”
“So it will work to fix the water in Scotland for the sheep?” Sophia made sure their efforts would pay off.
“Absolutely,” Lee answered. “We just have to find the place where I left the device.”
“Why don’t you remember?” Sophia dared to ask.
“Donuts and absinthe were involved,” Lee replied.
Lunis laughed. “Adding that to the story list.”
Lee nodded. “In all honesty, I had to leave it with my mechanic here in Wy-what’s-wrong-with-the-weather-here-oming. The purification system broke when Cat tried to use it to sift flour. He was getting it fixed up ages ago, and I haven’t been back to retrieve it, not having needed it until now.”
“Why is your mechanic here in Wyoming?” Sophia watched as a flock of geese crossed the clear skies.
“Because that’s where he lives,” Lee answered quite seriously.
“I was more referring to why do you have a mechanic in the middle of nowhere?” Sophia questioned.
“I don’t know.” Lee shrugged. “I can’t be responsible for Mike’s bad decisions. Anyway, he’s the best, so I endure the torture of coming to Wy-is-this-place-so-awful-oming for his services.”
“I don’t see what you mean about Wyoming.” Lunis looked out at the landscape appreciatively. “This seems like a lovely place. Like God’s country.”
“More like the devil’s country,” Lee corrected. “Just you wait. This place, much like Sophia, drives me to want to drink…more.”
“So where is this guy Mike?” Sophia asked. “What am I supposed to be homing in on?”
“The smell of tagorine-juiceper oil,” Lee answered. “It fuels the purification system.”
“I don’t know what that smells like,” Sophia admitted.
“No, you wouldn’t because it’s a mixture that I invented,” Lee stated.
“Can I eat her now?” Lunis asked Sophia quite seriously.
Sophia shook her head. “Let’s see if she can recover from this. Since I don’t know what that is, can you give us another option for how to find this Mike guy and your water purification system?”
“Fine,” Lee huffed. “Let’s go that way. It’s not far from here, but saying that in Wy-did-Mother-Nature-make-this-place-oming is like saying the weather here is pleasant.”
Sophia drew in a breath as a cool breeze laced with grassy smells ran across her cheeks. “I think the weather is pleasant here. Not too cool or too warm. It’s nice fall-ish weather.”
Lee groaned, and her shoulders slumped as she started forward. “Now you’ve done it. You’ve entered into a game with the devil. We better get a move on before we get stuck out here.”
Sophia glanced sideways at Lunis and mouthed the words, “What is wrong with her?”
Before he could answer, a dark shadow fell on the dragon’s face. Sophia looked up to see gray storm clouds overhead, obscuring all the blue that was once there. A spark of lightning zipped through the clouds, followed by a clap of thunder that nearly made her jump. Seconds later, a torrential downpour drenched the lands and the three at once as they set off across the fields in front of them.
Chapter One Hundred One
Lunis was crouched low on his belly, crawling across the plains that stretched out between the mountain ranges.
“I had to be the tallest of us as we sludged across flatlands during a lightning storm,” the dragon said bitterly.
“I’ll open a portal for you back to the Gullington,” Sophia offered, nearly having to yell to be heard over the splattering rain. It had started as a downpour and only gotten worse as they crossed with no cover overhead.
“No, give it a minute,” Lee advised.
>
“And what, the rain will get worse followed by more lightning strikes?” Lunis asked as three simultaneous bolts lit up the dark sky that had been pristine moments prior.
“Oh, first-timer, you’ll see,” Lee sang, her chin high as the rain hit her in the face. “Wy-I-do-whatever-I-like-oming will surprise you.”
“I can’t wait.” Lunis sounded like he could wait, and wanted to be anywhere but there, army-crawling through what had quickly become a swamp. The blue dragon was covered in mud, none of his scales showing through.
“This will cheer you up,” Lee began. “What do you call a boomerang that never comes back?”
“I’m certain that it won’t.” Sophia peeked out from under her cloak, which was soaked all the way through and provided little coverage from the rain that seemed to know how to get in everywhere.
“A stick!” Lee exclaimed with laughter.
Lunis shook his head. “That didn’t work. Excuse me, but this close to death, with a lightning storm threatening to take me out since I’ve got horns on my head that make excellent lightning rods, I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“I still remember the last thing my grandfather said before kicking the bucket,” Lee fondly said as she looked out at the lake that had formed around them. Soon they’d be swimming.
“What’s that?” Sophia tried to do anything to make Lunis feel better.
"Hey, do you want to see how far I can kick this bucket?” Lee laughed at her joke.
To Sophia’s relief, Lunis chuckled at that one.
She always wanted to believe that, like the giggle of an angel, that gesture from a dragon had powerful effects. At that moment, she convinced herself it was true because the torrential downpour stopped as suddenly as it had started. As if forced away by a godly power, the lightning and clouds blew away and were replaced by dazzling sun overhead.
“What hell is this?” Lunis straightened and looked up at the clear skies.
“Wy-I’m-the-devil’s-home-oming,” Lee replied proudly. “Told you this was Satan’s land.”
Sophia shook off some of the water although she didn’t think she’d ever be dry again. “Well, I’m glad the rain stopped. How much farther do we have to go?”
Lee threw her hands up. “Amateurs! Why did I have to be sent out here with a bunch of novices who only want to tempt you, Satan?”
Sophia thought that maybe it had been too long and Lee’s meds had worn off. Then something pelted her in the head. She mistakenly looked up and was assaulted in the eye by something cold and round. Sophia covered her face, tucked her chin, and noticed as little bits of hail fell from the sky all around them, floating in the puddles of water created by the sudden storm that preceded this one.
Lee held out her hand and let the bits of ice gather there. “Oh look, Satan has given us a welcome present. His frozen tears. Yay, he’s happy to see me.”
Chapter One Hundred Two
“This is a very strange place,” Sophia commented, thankful for the shelter Lunis provided as they strode across the ground, constantly pelted by various sizes of hail. He had extended his wing to make a shelter for Sophia as if she had an umbrella overhead.
“You haven’t met the locals,” Lee stated. “Also, a word of advice, don’t drink the water here unless you want to become one of them. It keeps the population of Wy-would-anyone-live-here-if-they-didn’t-have-to-oming going. Otherwise, I don’t think there would be anyone in this place.”
“Is it ironic that we’re here to fetch a water purification system and you think the water spells people into living here?” Sophia asked.
“Irony is the very theme of my life so yes, probably.”
“Why don’t you use the purification system on the water here and allow the prisoners…I mean, residents to escape?” Lunis asked.
“Because then they’d probably move in next door to me with their goats and alpacas and I’d have to kill them,” Lee stated. “Everyone has to live somewhere, and if there aren’t folks in Wy-not-oming, they’ll clog up other places. I figure they’re taking one for the team.”
The hail subsided, which made their trek across the vast space easier. When the last of the bits of ice had fallen, Lunis folded his wing back into his body and looked Sophia over. “You okay?”
She nodded. “I’ve learned my lesson and won’t tempt the puppet master again by commenting on the weather.”
“You don’t have to,” Lee replied. “I was only joking about that before. The weather is going to do what it wants regardless, and Satan will have his little fun with us no matter what.”
“Well, we’ve had rain, lightning, and hail.” Sophia listed them off on her fingers and shrugged. “That’s pretty much the worst of it.”
“No, Wy-this-isn’t-a-vacation-spot-oming has much more to offer than just crazy weather.” Lee pointed into the distance. “Like the local wildlife, who probably hate living here as much as I hate visiting, which is why they’re all so angry.”
Sophia narrowed her eyes at where Lee indicated, trying to figure out what she was pointing at. Camouflaged into the hillside and puddled Earth were hundreds of small creatures.
Then Sophia’s eyes focused on the figures and she realized that they weren’t small. It was only that they were far away. But they were on the move. Hundreds of angry buffalo were headed in their direction with their heads down and their feet racing.
“Oh, hell!” Sophia exclaimed.
“Yeah, we got a fun little stampede afoot!” Lee cheered, excitement in her voice as she took off in the opposite direction, running across the plains for the next mountain ridge.
Chapter One Hundred Three
Sophia’s first instinct was to crawl onto Lunis’ back and ask him to carry Lee with his feet. However, he must have sensed that idea in her head because he sprinted on the ground, encouraging her to follow his unfolded wing.
“The hail must have frozen my muscles momentarily,” he explained as they ran. “I can’t fold and unfold my wings to fly properly.”
“This is the devil’s land,” Sophia spat and pushed forward harder, hearing the stomping of hooves at her back.
“Told you,” Lee called over her shoulder, having gotten a head start. “And this is Act One. Usually, it gets better the longer you stay.”
“And by better, you mean worse, right?” Sophia passed Lee, then hung back not wanting to leave her behind. She and Lunis could no doubt run much faster, but she couldn’t allow her friend to get trampled.
“Way worse.” Lee laughed.
For having to run for their lives, she sure seemed to be enjoying the whole thing.
Sophia dared to look over her shoulder and saw the wall of charging buffalo closing in, only about fifty yards behind at that point. They were much faster than she would have expected as they barreled across the plains and kicked up the water that had fallen minutes prior.
The hail had mostly melted, which made the terrain wetter and slippery. The mud they often had to cross seemed to suck her down into the Earth and slowed Sophia’s pace.
“Get on,” Lunis encouraged as they ran and brought his extended wing closer to her. “Then Lee can too.”
“But—”
Sophia’s protest cut off when she nearly tripped over stones and mud, her boots squelching in the muck. She decided it was best not to argue with the dragon.
She leapt forward as she ran and caught Lunis’ side. Her legs flailed in the wind as she held on tightly and tried to find a place for her feet on the moving dragon. They’d practiced this before, but never while sludging through mud and swamplands.
Sophia’s hand slipped and nearly made her fly off where she would have landed in the mud and been trampled.
“No you don’t,” Lee declared and rammed her shoulder into Sophia while running side by side with Lunis. The motion was rough but did the trick, and shoving Sophia back onto Lunis. Using the momentum, she swung her leg over the side of her dragon and pinned her knees tight around him.
With the two magicians on him, Lunis picked up the pace, running much faster than either of them could have on their own.
Sophia looked over her shoulder, startled to see the charging buffalo right behind them. The closest one was about to run over Lunis’ tail flying behind them in the wind. However, he kicked up the speed in time and pulled away.
If they had waited to jump onto him a second later, they would have no doubt been trampled. Lunis gained more distance from the racing buffalo, who didn’t appear apprehensive about running into a dragon.
They were probably deranged from their time spent in Wy-freaking-oming, Sophia thought and faced front.
The mountain ridge ahead approached, but it wasn’t a good option since it would only slow them and the buffalo seemed fine with running straight into the rock walls ahead.
“There!” Sophia pointed at a set of boulders a few dozen yards before the mountains. “Can you jump over those and hide on the other side?”
The set of rocks wasn’t high. Even better, the land on the other side was sloped. Sophia thought it was unlikely that the buffalo would climb straight up the rocks. Instead, they’d probably go over them, but there was a chance some would run up them since they were all clustered so tightly together.
“I’m on it.” Lunis tried to flap his other wing as much as it allowed. Lee bounced all over the one they’d climbed on, which was luckily straight as a board thanks to being frozen by the hail.
When they were almost to the boulder, Lunis leapt into the air and caught the wind with his wings like a paraglider over land. He soared up, but not high—only enough to clear the boulders.
Once they were on the other side, he folded both his wings into his body. That made Lee drop to the ground, but thankfully it wasn’t far.
