Amphibians' End

by Trevor Pryce

  On the third day, a bullfrog tapped Darel on the shoulder. “The princess wants to talk to you.”

  Darel leaped up beside Orani’s stretcher. “You’re awake!” he said, relief washing over him at the sight of Orani sitting up. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling ready,” she said, struggling to her feet.

  “Ready for what?”

  “To strike back! We can sneak into the Amphibilands and attack. The scorps won’t expect that.”

  “We lost, Orani,” Darel said. “We already lost.”

  “Bullfrogs aren’t made for all this wandering,” she told him. “We stay in one place, we hunker down, and we never give up!”

  She lifted one arm to rally her troops—then collapsed back onto the stretcher. Coorah was suddenly there, applying a poultice and scolding Orani for pushing herself too hard before she was fully healed.

  Darel turned away, his shoulders slumped under the weight of responsibility. He didn’t feel he’d “given up” when he’d surrendered, but maybe he had. Maybe he’d been wrong all along. He hopped toward his mother, to talk things through, but found her emptying her water gourd into a bassinet, with the triplets hunched beside her. His little siblings looked bad—tender frogling feet swollen, colors faded from the sun and dust—but they still smiled when they saw him.

  “It’s Darel!” Tharta announced to the tadpoles.

  “Blue Sky Darel!” Tipi said.

  “Tell us a story, D!” Thuma croaked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Go on, Darel,” his mother said, her voice soft. “It’ll take their minds off . . . things.”

  He couldn’t say no to that, so he cleared his throat and began. “Well, once upon a time—”

  “Tell us about the Snowy Mountains!” Tharta said.

  Thuma jumped up and down. “The cave!”

  “The paintings!” Tipi insisted.

  “Once upon a time, I traveled deep into the heart of the Snowy Mountains,” Darel told the tadpoles, “with the Kulipari and Yabber, the great turtle dreamcaster. And there we found a cave covered in drawings. Red and yellow outlines of rats and ostriches, snakes and wallabies. And spiders and scorpions and—”

  “Frogs!” the triplets said all together. “And frogs!”

  “That’s right. But the most amazing part was a picture of the Rainbow Serpent stretching across the entire cave, over tunnels . . .” He paused as the memory flashed in his mind. “Tunnels and rivers and—”

  “Tell us about the blob!” Tipi said.

  “The blob!” Tharta said. “The blob!”

  Darel lifted Tharta onto his shoulders. “Okay, okay! There was a picture of a huge flat blob.”

  “What kind of blob?” one of the tadpoles asked from a bassinet.

  “I don’t know. Quoba thought it looked like a boulder, but Dingo said it looked like Ponto after he ate too much!”

  A few of the tadpoles giggled.

  “And beneath the blob,” Darel continued, “there was a picture of a frog with a pointy tail. Except Burnu thought the frog looked like a cricket with pointy legs and—”

  “We want to hear about the Tasmanian devils!” Thuma interrupted.

  Darel talked and talked, trying to cheer up his siblings and the tadpoles. And he did, a little. But he kept thinking, If there’s no water, there’s no life.

  They didn’t need stories, they needed water.

  Pippi followed the tunnels deeper into the burrow until she reached the dripping room. With the river gone, she’d been soaking a cloth with the condensation on the rock wall, then squeezing the water into a bowl.

  She paused in the entrance of the dripping room and sighed. She’d lost track of the days since the Amphibilands fell. She’d lost track of her family and her friends. She slumped against the wall and stared at the water on the rock. Not trying to see patterns, not trying to decipher the Rainbow Serpent’s messages. Just thinking about her mom and dad and sister, and Gee and Coorah and Arabanoo, who’d saved the platypuses. About Chief Olba, who’d sacrificed herself. And the Kulipari, who risked everything in the fight against Marmoo.

  And what about Darel? He was just a wood frog . . . just a kid, like her. But the Rainbow Serpent had given him the heaviest burden of all, telling him to tear down the Veil, to let Marmoo’s hordes rampage across the Amphibilands.

  And they had.

  Pippi’s eyes filled with tears when she realized how Darel must feel. Like he’d caused the death and heartbreak, like he’d helped Marmoo destroy his home and—

  “Oh!” she blurted as a rainbow glinted on the dripping wall.

  Then she snorted in embarrassment. That wasn’t a rainbow, just the flicker of torchlight in her teary eyes.

  Except . . . maybe she did see something. She peered closer, and the patterns looked like a dozen trickles flowing from a puddle to a boulder. Or like a dozen rivers flowing from the ocean to a mountain. But darker than normal rivers, or deeper . . .

  HE DESERT HEAT SAPPED THE FROGS’ strength. The geckos and spiders fared a little better, but soon Darel noticed that even the scorpions were flagging.

  The last day of the journey before they reached the possum village was a blur of thirst and heat. Even the uninjured frogs stumbled every few hops and barely spoke. Darel knew they were conserving their strength for pulling stretchers and collecting dew for the tadpoles. The platypuses suffered even more, marching over the scalding, pebbled earth on tender knuckles.

  That night, Darel dreamed of battle. Of Marmoo’s gloating laughter and of the Amphibilands burning. Then the smoke changed to the darkness of a platypus burrow, and Darel found himself standing beside Pippi. She looked skinny and bedraggled, but he felt himself smile at the sight of her.

  In the dream, she nudged him with her ridiculous bill. His smile widened. Pippi nudged him harder, turning him to look at a wet rock wall. Trickles of water slipped from a crack in the ceiling, spread across the wall, then joined together in a green puddle on the floor. Except the puddle was a pond, and the green was lily pads. Dozens of streams flowed across a great distance, then joined together in a—

  “Ghost bats!” a spider scout shouted. “Stay low!”

  Darel awoke with a start, his heart pounding and the dream fading. He scanned the sky and spotted motion near the yellow sunrise, bat wings flitting across the outback in the distance.

  He watched until the bats disappeared over the horizon, then checked on the tadpoles and platypuses and geckos. He talked with Coorah and her dad, and spent a few minutes with the spider archers and Pigo’s scorpions before giving the order to break camp.

  A few hours later, Old Jir collapsed. Burnu and Quoba lifted him onto a stretcher the spiders wove, claiming they felt strong enough to handle the weight, even though Darel suspected they were tapping their poison when he wasn’t looking. Ponto still hadn’t awakened, but at least Dingo was on her feet again.

  Then Coorah told Darel that the healers were out of medicine. “And we’re running low on bandages, now that the spider mothers can’t spin us new ones.”

  “Why can’t they?”

  “They’re getting weaker,” Coorah told him.

  “No medicine, no water . . .” Darel looked toward the horizon. “At least we’re almost to the possum village.”

  A soft hand touched his arm. “If we don’t reach water today,” his mother told him, “half of us won’t see tomorrow.”

  “The possums will share,” he promised her. “They don’t have much, but they’ll share.”

  “You’ll see us through.” His mom squeezed his arm. “I know you will.”

  But hours later, when they reached the outskirts of the possum village, Pigo skittered beside Darel. “My king,” he said. “One of—”

  “Would you stop calling me that?”

  “One of my scouts spotted the ghost bats again,” Pigo told Darel. “Flying toward the possums.”

  Darel looked toward the possum woods
rising from the plain. “How many?”

  “A legion.”

  “Too many to fight when we’re this weak,” Gee said, hopping in worry. “Maybe if they play dead, the bats will leave them alone.”

  “The bats eat dead things,” Pigo said grimly.

  “We need to do something.” Gee gulped. “C’mon, Darel.”

  Darel blinked at him. “C’mon, what?”

  “C’mon, c’mon!” Gee said, rubbing his hands together. “Think of something!”

  “How am I supposed to think of anything when you’re hopping around like a—” Darel stopped. “I just thought of something.”

  “That proves it,” Gee said. “Hopping around works!”

  “Follow me,” Darel told Pigo, “but stay out of sight until I tell you.”

  Darel leaped through the scrub toward the possum village, hearing Pigo close behind him. The scuttle of scorpion feet still made him nervous, and he wanted to spin around to check that Pigo’s stinger wasn’t slashing at his back. But he looked to the sky instead, and saw ghost bats swarming toward the possums, from the west.

  From the west. Hmm. Darel sped around the village to the east, then started racing closer.

  When he spotted the slides and rope bridges of the village, he told Pigo, “Hide behind that rock. Don’t come out until I raise my arm.”

  “What are you—”

  “Just do it!” Darel snapped, then leaped forward and shouted, “Nioka! Possums! It’s me—Darel!”

  He landed high in a leafless bush, the thorny branch prickling his feet. He shouted again, and the possums gathered in the trees and leaf-strewn gardens, gazing toward him. Toward him, instead of toward the ghost bats, who approached from behind them in a silent deadly cloud.

  “The frogs are back?” the possums said. “Maybe they’ll know what to do!”

  “Behold!” Darel shouted at them. “I am the Blue Sky King!”

  “The what? The who?” they murmured. “What’s he talking about?”

  “My power has grown!” Darel bellowed. “And you have angered me!”

  “We’ve what? That frog’s spent too long in the sun . . .”

  The ghost bats swooped toward the unsuspecting possums from behind, fangs bared.

  “Now suffer my wrath!” Darel shouted, raising his arms. “And die!”

  As he lifted his arms overhead, Darel heard Pigo step out from behind the rock. He was visible to the possums but not to the bats. Almost immediately, a tremor ran through the possums, and then every single one of them fell to the ground as if stone-dead, scared stiff by the sight of Pigo.

  The ghost bats hissed in fear. “What? No! What did the frog do?”

  “He killed them with his magic!”

  “That’s right!” Darel shouted at them, waving his arms. “And you’re next!”

  The bats spun in the air, flapping furiously away. “Fly!” one hissed. “Flee! Reinforcements!”

  “Reinforcements, yes! Faster, faster—”

  Darel ranted at them, shouting threats and waving his arms until they disappeared.

  “Now that,” Gee said, hopping closer, “was king-errific.”

  “Very clever,” Pigo said, snapping a pincer in satisfaction. “Surely the possums will share water with us now.”

  But they didn’t.

  After they came to, they scolded Darel for terrifying them. Then while the possum healers scurried from stretcher to stretcher, holding pots of medicine with their tails and applying it with their hands, Nioka told Darel the bad news. “Our water hole is dry.”

  “What?” Darel said, a hollow pit forming in his stomach. “When?”

  “Yesterday. It drained away.”

  “First the trapdoor spiders, now you?” Darel frowned. “It’s like all the water is . . . connected.”

  “It’s like all the water is gone,” Gee grumbled.

  “Something’s happening,” Darel said, slitting his nostrils thoughtfully.

  “Water’s running out,” a possum said. “That’s what’s happening.”

  “Something big,” Darel said, lost in thought. “Something huge. This isn’t over. The Rainbow Serpent is still with us.”

  Effie nodded. “The mothers feel it, too.”

  “The Stargazer would know,” Pirra said, tears in her eyes. “Pippi would know, if she wasn’t . . .”

  “She’s alive,” Old Jir said from his webbed stretcher, his voice certain even though he couldn’t possibly know. “And Darel’s right. The Serpent is with us.”

  “Where’s it hiding, then?” Burnu grunted as he sat heavily on a tree root. “I don’t see any rainbows.”

  “I don’t know,” Darel admitted.

  The possums didn’t have water, but they had edible flowers and juicy seedpods. They cooked a feast, and that evening the refugees from the Amphibilands ate a real meal for the first time in days.

  Darel dug into a roast leaf sandwich and only halfway listened to the conversation.

  “We’re eating all your food,” Gee said, his mouth full of pigweed. “Shouldn’t we save some for you?”

  “Nah,” his burly possum friend told him. “None of this will last long in the outback heat.”

  “So keep it in your root cellars.”

  “We can’t stay here without water.” The possum grabbed a barbecued blossom with his tail. “We’re leaving the village. We’re leaving home. This is our last feast before we join your trek.”

  “Our trek? We don’t have a trek! We don’t know where we’re going!”

  “We might,” Darel said.

  AREL HOPPED INTO THE DRY POSSUM water hole and turned to face the crowd.

  “When the Rainbow Serpent told us to lower the Veil,” he croaked, “we lost friends and family . . . and water. We wandered in the desert, asking for help. But the trapdoor spiders’ underground river ran dry. And look at this.” He stomped on the dry ground. “Another empty water hole.” He paused. “How is this happening?”

  “First Marmoo took the Amphibilands,” Burnu said, chewing on a seedpod. “Now the water’s drying up. He’s doing it.”

  “That’s true,” Darel replied. “But this water hole’s been getting lower for years. Before Marmoo. And the same is true of the trapdoor river.”

  “So the outback’s been drying up for a long time?” Coorah asked.

  “Maybe since King Sergu raised the Veil,” Darel said. He ignored the murmur of shocked voices. “Maybe that’s why the Rainbow Serpent wanted us to lower it—to share water with the possums and spiders and everyone else.”

  “Except you’re—” Pirra started.

  “Not sharing with anyone!” a gecko crackled.

  Pirra curled her bill. “Because Marmoo—”

  “Took your water!”

  “Yeah,” Pirra said, “and now—”

  “Things are even worse than before!”

  “Stop interrupting,” Pigo told the gecko, who flicked his tongue in fear and fell silent.

  “Things are worse, though,” Effie agreed. “We lost our home, too.”

  Pigo gestured around the dry water hole. “We need to—” Half of the possums fell to the ground at the sight of his pincer. “Sorry.”

  “What we need,” Darel said, “is a new home.”

  “A new Amphibilands?” Gee asked.

  “A new land for everyone,” Darel said.

  “But how?” a platypus asked. “Where?”

  Silence fell. An expectant, hopeful silence, as everyone eyed Darel for the answers.

  He inflated his throat, and looked from face to face to face. At least this time, he had a plan. “How is Marmoo drying up the possums’ water hole,” he asked, “when he’s in the Amphibilands and we’re out here?”

  “Nightcasting!” someone yelled.

  “No,” Darel said. “I think it’s because they’re connected. The Amphibilands, the rivers, the water holes, the springs—they’re all connected.”

  “How are they—” Gee started.
/>   “Underground,” Darel said. “The platypuses dug tunnels for the Rainbow Serpent. The trapdoor spiders did the same, and—”

  “So did we!” a gecko crackled.

  “And so did the geckos,” Darel added, though he hadn’t known that. “Tunnels crisscross the outback—underground rivers where water once flowed.”

  “But if they’re dry,” Coorah asked, “how does that help us now?”

  “Because these tunnels will lead us to a green and watery land.”

  Cries of Where? and How far? came from the crowd.

  “I don’t know! All I know is this—” Darel crouched and drew two Xs in the mud, an arm length apart. “This is the Amphibilands, full to the brim with water. And here’s the trapdoor spider village.” A few feet away, he drew another X. “This is where we are now. The geckos, your village is . . . where?”

  A gecko ran up beside him and drew an O. “There!”

  Darel straightened, then gestured to the X-X-X-O. “Look at that. Do you see what I see?”

  “It’s a line,” Gee said, his eyes bulging. “It’s a straight line.”

  “Leading from the water of the Amphibilands, straight across the outback.”

  “What kind of line?” Effie asked. “A line of what?”

  “The Rainbow Serpent’s tunnels are rivers,” Darel said, smiling for the first time in days. “Showing the way. The way to water.”

  “But . . . how do we know they’re leading to water, not just from water?”

  “The Serpent told the platypuses, spiders, and geckos to dig these tunnels,” Darel told her, still smiling. “And an ancient water spirit didn’t build underground rivers to guide us into the desert. Rivers start in water, and they end in water, too. These tunnels will lead us to our new home.”

  Darel’s smile didn’t last long. As the refugees prepared to continue the march into the desert, Orani took him aside. “We’re staying,” she told him.

  “You’re what?”

  She scratched at her bandage. “Staying in the possum village.”

  “There’s no water here, Orani. The gardens will die; the trees will wither. You can’t stay.”