by Trevor Pryce
“Follow the king, scorpions!” Effie said, lifting Darel onto a silken-web hammock.
He croaked in surprise, then called, “Scorpions, this way! Watch out for the rocks! Now climb the webbing to the top.”
Effie and a few other spiders carried Darel higher and higher, until he emerged in dust-free air. Even on its side, the red rock tower loomed over the bleak, harsh outback that spread endlessly in all directions.
Lifeless. Dead. Hostile.
Except, when the dust settled, the landscape changed. Water bubbled and frothed around the red rock, and a pond welled up from underground. Not a pond, a lake. Dozens of streams flowed from the lake, surging across the dry, cracked earth. A geyser rose from the middle, shooting sprays and jets in every direction, splashing and splattering into a pure white mist.
Darel stepped from Effie’s hammock, his eyes bulging with wonder.
When the sun shone on the mist, rainbows formed. Not one, not two, but hundreds of little rainbows arched through the vapor, and where they touched the thirsty earth, plants grew. Tiny buds that unfurled into delicate seedlings.
Saplings rose, with branches spreading and newborn leaves trembling, becoming trees before his eyes. Not fully grown yet, but a start of something. This wasn’t simply water flowing across the outback. It was a new land.
“The Rainbow Serpent,” Darel whispered.
Down below the red rock, frogs leaped and laughed and swam, possums splashed, and platypuses waded into the refreshing coolness. Tadpoles flashed in the shallows, racing each other around the legs of thirsty trapdoor spiders.
Colors shimmered in the pools of water rippling from the lake, and a gleam of purple and black caught Darel’s eyes. His father’s colors. “Dad,” he said.
His mother must’ve seen the same shimmer, because she stepped up beside him and said, “Your father would be so proud.”
“He’s not the only one,” Burnu told Darel from where Coorah was bandaging his head. “We all are.”
Darel bowed his head to hide his smile . . . and saw Quoba standing in the still-growing lake with Old Jir, two white splotches against the blue. His smile faded at the sight of her pale skin. No more poison. No more power.
“Even Quoba,” Burnu told him. “Especially her. You made her sacrifice worthwhile.”
“D-d-do you really think so?”
“He knows so,” Ponto said from his stretcher behind Darel.
Darel spun, his throat inflating in relief. “You’re finally awake!”
“I’m in a spiderweb,” Ponto grunted, eyeing his silken body cast. “And there aren’t even any flies.”
“That reminds me!” Dingo stumbled closer, stiff from tick bites. “Did you hear what one spider said to the other?”
“Which spider?” Ponto asked with a worried frown. “What’d they say?”
“‘Time’s fun when you’re having flies!’”
Ponto scowled at the bad joke, and everyone else groaned. Gee, Coorah, Nioka, all the spiders and geckos—even the triplets—groaned. All except the scorpions. Pigo and his scorpions laughed and laughed, nudging each other and saying, “Get it? Get it? Time’s fun when you’re having flies!”
“Finally!” Dingo high-fived a scorpion’s tail. “Someone who appreciates high-quality humor!”
“Just when I was learning to like scorps, too,” Burnu said.
Darel grinned at him as playful splashes and happy shouts rose from the lake below. Then the shouts turned to alarm.
“You’ve got to see this,” Gee called from the edge of the rock.
Darel hopped closer and inflated his throat in surprise. The geyser still bubbled up in the center of the lake—but now it was glowing.
“What is that?” Coorah asked.
“That,” Darel said, recognizing the golden color, “is Yabber.”
A second later, a golden bubble burst from the depths, splashed onto the lake’s surface, and popped, revealing Yabber, his eyes shining like the sun—and Pippi, her eyes shining with excitement.
“Wooooooo-hoooooo!” she shouted, then slapped her tail in joy when she saw her family. “Pirra! Mom! Dad!”
“And Pippi,” Darel breathed.
Gee jumped up and down beside him. “Pippi! It’s Pippi! Pippi’s back!”
While Pippi hugged her family, Yabber’s eyes dimmed and he looped his neck from one side to the other, looking at all the creatures, the lake and streams, the budding plants. Finally, he turned toward the rock, then tilted his head higher and higher until he met Darel’s face.
Yabber said something Darel couldn’t hear.
A moment later, the frogs and platypuses in the lake all turned toward Darel. The possums on the shore gazed at him, and the burrowing frogs and trapdoor spiders looked up from the holes they’d been digging in the water-softened soil.
Darel bulged his eyes toward Quoba and mouthed, “What? What now?”
She smiled, lifted her pale arm, and pointed at him. No. She pointed behind him.
When Darel turned, his breath caught. A rainbow stretched across the sky above the great red rock. And like water welling up from the parched earth, Darel felt the rise of peace in his heart.
Days passed, days of healing and hope and also of hard work. One night, Darel sat alone at a campfire on the shore of the lake. The fire flickered merrily, and the heat soothed his aches and pains. The crackle of the flames mixed with the laughter of the young ones still splashing in the water.
At another campfire, his mother chatted with Nioka and one of the trapdoor spider mothers, trading stories and making plans. It was the sound of a new future being born.
Darel smiled and stoked the fire with his dagger. Sparks twirled and rose in the smoke.
“What are you seeing?” Old Jir asked, sitting beside him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just sparks.”
The old Kulipari looked at him. “Where you see sparks, I see a miracle. So we’re seeing the same thing.”
Darel ducked his head. In the past few days, he’d heard enough gratitude to last a lifetime. Just remembering all the praise made his face heat with embarrassment. It was different coming from Jir, though, because the old frog knew all of Darel’s doubts and fears and failures.
“Thanks,” he said, stirring the embers again.
After a time, Old Jir took the dagger from Darel’s hand. “Your father’s weapon. It was more powerful than we ever expected.”
“It saved us.”
“You saved us.”
As Old Jir scratched shapes in the dirt with the dagger, a soft chorus of night frogs started up across the lake. Soon the possums and geckos joined in, a gentle song of hope. “Do you know where your father got this dagger?” he asked, sketching more lines on the ground.
“Sure,” Darel told him, studying the marks in the dirt: a picture of a frog skeleton, some sort of insignia. “I’ve heard that story a hundred times.”
Old Jir lifted his head, his eyes gleaming in the firelight. “Not the whole story. Not the real story.”
“You mean . . .” Darel’s heart beat faster at the expression on the old warrior’s face. “There’s more?”
“Much more,” Old Jir said with a sharp nod. “If you want to hear it.”
Darel leaned forward. “Yes.”
REVOR PRYCE is a retired NFL player and writer who’s written for the New York Times and NBC.com. He’s also developed television and movie scripts for Sony Pictures, Cartoon Network, Disney, ABC, and HBO, among others. He lives in Maryland.
OEL NAFTALI is the author of many books, several written with his wife, Lee. He lives in California.
ANFORD GREENE is an accomplished comics illustrator whose work has been published by Marvel, DC Comics, Disney, Nickelodeon, Dark Horse, and more. He lives in South Carolina.
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