DARK CLOUDS GATHERED OVER THE hills of the outback, and a dry wind blew. A thousand spiderwebs shimmered at the mouth of a rocky cave.
Inside the cave, dozens of pale forms dangled from the ceiling. When the breeze touched them, they twisted and stretched…then dropped from the craggy roof. Spreading their wings, they took flight: a swarm of ghost bats, with huge ears and white bellies and teeth sharp enough to kill.
They poured from the cave in a swirling cloud, swooping past the glowing spiderwebs.
"It's the spider queen," a scowling bat said in a whispery voice. "She commands us to hunt."
A red-eyed bat hissed. "Queen Jarrah is an eight-legged guano-head."
"She does only what Lord Marmoo tells her. The scorpion lord is the real power."
"No, no," the red-eyed bat whispered. "It is the queen who is in charge now. And she'll kill anyone who stands against her. Like the wallaby troop-she dried up their springs with her nightcasting."
"They died…of thirst?" the scowling bat asked with a nervous shiver.
The other bat nodded. "Jarrah's power comes from dust and dryness. Now that the turtle king is dead, she'll turn the whole outback into a desert, fit only for spiders and scorps."
"But she'll let us have water?"
"Enough to survive-if we obey."
With a tremor of fear, they joined the pale cloud of bats flitting through the evening, following the hill downward toward the swamp.
Looking for prey.
Deep in her snug burrow, Okipippi woke early-which for a platypus meant "before sunset"-and yawned and stretched her tail. She drowsed in her comfy twig nest for a few minutes, listening to her parents snoring away in the other room.
Then she rubbed her eyes and noticed that her sister's nest was empty. Pirra was probably already on the river, floating around with her friends. Pippi wasn't old enough to swim in the river before dark, but that didn't bother her. She liked to spend most of her time with the Stargazer anyway.
The platypus tribe didn't have a chief or a king or a queen. If they needed advice, they went to the Stargazer, an old gray-furred platypus with notched ears and bright eyes. She taught the newborn pups after they hatched in the deep, mud-walled nurseries, and she had her own kind of magic. Not dreamcasting, like the turtles. Not nightcasting, like the spiders. The Stargazer simply twirled herself into a trance, then focused on the distant whispering of the Rainbow Serpent, the ancient god who'd brought life to the Australian outback.
Pippi loved the legends of the Rainbow Serpent. She liked the one about the colors of the Serpent dripping onto the Kulipari to give them power, and the one about her great-great-grandparents digging endless burrows beneath the outback-tunnels that connected the deep waters of the Amphibilands to the rest of the land.
But her favorite story explained how the Serpent had created the platypuses in its own image. Just as a rainbow contained many different colors, a platypus contained many different parts: a duck-like bill; webbed feet; thick, waterproof fur; and a chunky tail. The males even had a poison spur on one ankle!
Maybe that's why the platypuses followed the Serpent more closely than anyone else. At least, the Stargazer did. She didn't actually talk to the Rainbow Serpent, but she deciphered messages in the ripples and splashes of the river's current. There were a hundred myths and tales and legends about the Serpent, but they all agreed that the ancient water god had breathed life into a dry land, creating streams and lakes and pools.
After one final yawn, Pippi wandered into the kitchen, grabbed a crayfish tail, and called, "Mom! Dad! I'm going outside!"
"Don't go too far," came her father's sleepy voice. "You're still a platypup."
"Okay!" she called back, as she headed for the burrow entrance.
Old trees rose along the wide river that snaked through the platypus village, and their roots twined down along the riverbank-some gnarled and thick, others as skinny as kite strings. Most of the burrows were hidden behind the curtain of roots, dozens of neat holes just above the waterline.
Using her wide webbed foot, Pippi pushed aside the dangling roots. She looked at the blue water shifting to gray in the fading light of day. Furry brown platypuses floated lazily in the river, getting ready to hunt, their duck-bills breaking the surface and their beaver-like tails swishing behind them.
Pippi spotted her sister. But since Pippi was too young to slip into the water until the safety of nightfall, she stayed where she was and ate the last bite of crayfish tail. Then she climbed the riverbank, walking on her knuckles to protect the sensitive webbing between her toes. Most platypuses didn't like walking on dry land, but Pippi didn't mind. Pirra called her a weirdo and their parents called her a dreamer, but the Stargazer just said that she was curious.
She headed upstream, toward the gentle roar of the rapids. Mist drifted through the air, and she paused now and then to lick the moisture from her fur. Walking on dry land made her thirsty.
Finally, she stopped beneath a riberry tree that grew from the bank of the river. Roots dangled over a wide burrow mouth, and she parted them with her bill.
"Stargazer?" she called. "Are you awake?"
"Hmm…I think so," the Stargazer's soft voice said from within. "But what if I'm asleep and dreaming that I'm awake?"
Pippi giggled. "Then you wouldn't be talking to me!"
"Come in, Pippi," the Stargazer said with a laugh. "I'm in the dripping room."
Pippi waddled deeper into a comfy curving tunnel that ballooned here and there into a kitchen, living room, and bedrooms. It looked like everyone else's burrow, except the Stargazer also had a "dripping room"-a candlelit earthen chamber with one wall of solid rock. Water trickled down the wall, making damp, crisscrossing tracks and splatters.
Pippi found the Stargazer staring at the wall. The elderly platypus's small eyes were bright in the flickering light.
"I feel the call of the Rainbow Serpent," the Stargazer told her. "An important message, but I can't quite make it out."
Pippi settled beside her and squinted at the wall.
"What do you see?" the Stargazer asked.
"Mostly rock," Pippi answered. "And some water."
The Stargazer tsked. "Look closer. The Rainbow Serpent speaks to us through water."
Pippi wrinkled her bill and peered intently at the wall.
Water dripped. Patches of moisture caught the glint of the candles. The roar of the rapids outside sounded like a thousand platypuses murmuring. The damp tracks of the water seemed almost to form a picture, a mural, a-
The Stargazer gasped. "There! Did you see?"
"What? Where?" Pippi blinked. Had she seen something? "I'm not sure."
"I'm afraid…" The Stargazer stepped closer to the wall, and for a long moment just studied the dripping water. Then she rubbed her face and sighed. "I'm afraid it's bad news, Pippi-indeed, the worst I've seen."
Pippi shifted nervously. "What's wrong?"
"We're in danger, the whole tribe."
"F-f-from what?"
"I think…birds? It's not clear. But something in the air."
"When-now? I'll run and tell everyone!"
"Wait. It's not just us. The whole outback is under threat-all the wet places, all the streams and springs." The Stargazer swayed as her eyes became unfocused. "A war is coming…a battle for water. The final battle. The scorpions and spiders and-"
"They can't hurt us!" Pippi said, her voice squeaking. "Everyone knows bugs can't swim. We'll hide in the river if they come."
"But the spider queen knows that we listen to the Rainbow Serpent, and she knows the Serpent will oppose her. She'll try to kill us, to silence the Serpent-nobody else heeds the signs the way we do. I see villages burned, Pippi. Death and destruction and wetlands turned into desert…"
Pippi's bill trembled in fear. "Wh-wh-what should I do?"
"We need help. We need the Blue Sky King."
"The what?"
"The frog called Darel," the Stargazer told her. "From the Amphibilands."
"Th-th-the one who beat the scorpion lord?"
The Stargazer nodded. "He is the key."
"Blue Sky King?" Pippi blinked in confusion. "Isn't he more of a Brown Pond Prince?"
The Stargazer smiled but didn't explain. Instead, she fell into a trance, humming to herself and shuffling from side to side as she gazed at the droplets of water on the rock wall.
"Stargazer?" Pippi said. But the old platypus was already lost in her dreaming.
Pippi knew better than to disturb her. With her heart pounding, she raced toward home. A war for water? The final war? Entire villages destroyed? A frog?
When she reached the village, she paused on a mossy log above the river to catch her breath. She spotted Pirra lazing in the current, but before Pippi could call out, a look of concern crossed her sister's face.
Turning to a friend floating nearby, Pirra asked, "What's that? Do you feel that?"
"Is it a shrimp?" her friend said, shaking his head slowly. Platypuses had a special sense beyond sight and smell and hearing-when they moved their bills back and forth, they could pick up electric fields created by other animals. "Water worms? I'm not feeling a tingle."
"I can't tell," Pirra said. "It's almost like it's coming from above."
Pippi spun to peer through the dusk, her fear suddenly as sharp as a blade.
"Water worms can't fly," the friend cracked. "You're getting as weird as your sister."
"Okipippi isn't weird!" Pirra could call Pippi that, but no one else could. "She's just…little."
Pippi almost smiled, happy that her sister had defended her, even if she had called her "little." Then she spotted motion in the trees: a flurry of white wings swooping and darting silently toward the river.
What was that? Not birds. Not fireflies. Then she realized, staring in shock. Bats! Ghost bats! She knew that the village sometimes fought the bats, if two hunting parties stumbled into each other in the middle of the night. But not like this-not an entire war party attacking the village for no reason.
"Bats!" Pippi screamed. "Bats are coming!"
Pirra swiveled in the water, finally seeing her. "Quiet, Pippi! You're going to wake the-"
"Ghost bats!" Pippi yelled, pointing frantically into the woods. "They're coming!"
"And now," the friend said with a snort, "she believes in ghosts. She's such a-" He stopped when the bats emerged from the trees, then screamed. "Bats! Help! Bats!"
As other young platypuses started yelling, the grown-ups sleepily emerged from the root-hidden burrows along the riverbank. They grumbled at the noise, then saw the bats angling directly toward them.
"Watch out!" Pippi cried. "Go back!"
It was too late. The ghost bats, their needle-sharp fangs bared, streamed through the air toward the slower-moving platypuses. A chubby platypus swiped at one with the poison spur on his back foot, but the bat simply flitted backward, higher in the air. A moment later, a gang of bats attacked the chubby platypus, teeth slashing. Pippi looked away in horror.
"Quick-get inside!" Pirra yelled. "Everyone, block off your burrows! Pippi, c'mon!"
Pippi started to slide down the muddy bank to the safety of the water, but three white bats, fangs glistening, suddenly appeared in front of her.
