FEAR MADE DAREL'S EYES BULGE. HE didn't blink; he didn't even breathe, afraid that if he moved, the gray wolf would rip his throat out. He just stared at the black eyes gleaming and brown fur bristling and…
And as he came fully awake, he saw that the creature wasn't a wolf at all.
In fact, it was tiny.
Like a mouse.
He felt its four teeny paws standing on his chest, and realized that its fuzzy face was just a few inches from his-that's why it looked so big. Relief flooded through him, and he smiled at the little creature. It licked its paw, then dashed off his chest, its long pink tail trailing behind.
"Good morning, good morning, good morning!" Yabber called, his voice warm and echoing. "You look much better, Darel! In the very green of health. Except, of course, you're browner than you are green, or a sort of sea-bark color, or would you call that 'wombat-olive,' or perhaps-"
"Yabber!" Darel said, croaking in pleasure and grinning at the long-neck turtle. "What happened? Where are we? Is everyone okay?"
He looked around and found himself in a smoky cave like nothing he'd ever seen-like nothing he'd ever even imagined. Hundreds of stalactites and stalagmites shimmered with a red glow. They hung from the arching cave roof and rose like twisty tree trunks from the floor. Steam wafted from a pool of slushy water, and Yabber stood near the warmth of a flickering campfire, fiddling with a bunch of smoked fish dangling from a line. A dozen of the tiny mouse-things nervously perched on his shell.
Yabber craned his long neck toward Darel. "Oh, yes, you look much better now. All thawed out. Well! I told my friends here that you weren't usually so stiff."
Darel blinked. "Your friends?"
"They're mountain pygmy possums. Aren't they sweet? They found you in the snow, and-"
A crunching sound echoed through the cave, and the possums scattered, disappearing into the shadows.
"And they are very shy," Yabber continued. "Now, then, what did you ask? Oh, yes. The answers are as follows: you froze…in a cave…and yes."
"Yabber," Darel said, rubbing his head and hopping closer to the fire. "Slow down. I can't even remember what questions I asked."
"Whaaat happennned?" Yabber said, speaking extremely slowly. "You frrrrrroze. Where are weeeeee? In a caaaaaave. And yesssss, everyone is oooookay."
"Oh. Good."
"And I am supposed to tell you to drink the potion in that flask," Yabber said, speaking as fast as ever and gesturing to a leather canteen near Darel. "Ponto made it. To help you heal. Drink up! You'll feel better in no time."
Darel grabbed the flask. He sniffed, wrinkled his nose, then drank. It tasted like lemon-flavored grub.
The crunching sounded again, and Burnu hopped toward the fire. "Cold out there," he told Yabber, then glanced at Darel. "So you woke the lazy wood frog, did you?"
"He just needed a little warming," Yabber told him. "Nothing to worry about. Of course, if the possums hadn't found you…"
"We were fine!" Burnu said.
"You were a fine-looking collection of ice sculptures," Yabber said. "Perched atop Komodo statues."
"We all froze?" Darel asked, turning so the fire could warm his butt.
"Don't listen to the turtle," Burnu said. "You're the only one who froze. The rest of us are real Kulipari. We tapped into our poison."
"And we were still as slow as slugs and as weak as moths," Quoba said, slipping from the shadows beside Yabber. "Our poison doesn't work well in the cold."
"Would someone please tell me what happened?" Darel said, taking another swig of the lemon-grubby potion.
"It's very simple," Yabber told him. "You froze. The others were stumbling around lost and exhausted in a snowstorm. The possums found you, and brought you here."
"Where is 'here,' exactly?"
"One of the Yarrangobilly caves," Quoba said. "High in the mountains. It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"It's a cave," Burnu said. "It's not beautiful. It's just cold."
"Oddly cold," Yabber told him. "Too cold. I wonder if Jarrah is responsible."
"You think she made the snowstorm?" Darel asked, slitting his nostrils in suspicion. "Can she do that?"
"I don't know." Yabber lowered his head to sniff a smoked fish. "But I've felt her gaining power for weeks now. We are connected somehow, Jarrah and I-perhaps simply because we were King Sergu's best students. Of course, I was always his star pupil, if I do say so myself. Not sure if I ever mentioned that, but-"
"Maybe once or twice," Darel interrupted. "Did the others tell you about the wallaby village we saw?"
"The dead village?" Yabber sighed. "Yes. I think Marmoo is after the Amphibilands, but Jarrah's playing a deeper game. She killed King Sergu because she wants to weave her nightcast web over the entire outback, and he was one of the few powerful enough to stop her."
"And now she's even stronger than before?"
"Much stronger. Her nightcasting skills are growing fast…" Yabber arched his neck. "But so are mine. Well, not my nightcasting skills! I've still only got four legs. Not a spider, last I checked-though I'd look extremely handsome in silk. No, I mean, my dream-casting skills."
"Well, that's why you came here, right?" Burnu asked him. "To hone your powers."
"Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes!" Yabber considered. "Well, not exactly."
"What? You said you needed some time alone, to-" Burnu looked at Quoba. "What'd he call it?"
"Dream deeper," Quoba said.
"Well…" Yabber arched his long neck again. "Yes. I needed to commune with the Rainbow Serpent, the source of all dreamcasting powers."
"What does 'commune' mean?" Darel asked.
"To connect with," Yabber explained. "The Serpent is mysterious, though-only the platypuses even halfway understand it. Well, perhaps King Sergu did, as well."
"He did?"
"I think he suggested that I practice my dreamcasting in these caves for a reason."
"Maybe because they're in the middle of nowhere?" Burnu asked. "Nobody will bother you here?"
"That's what I thought, at first," Yabber told him. "Then I found something deep in the caves. I suspect the king mentioned these particular caves knowing that I wouldn't come until after he'd…well, died. And only if we were in trouble."
"You think he wanted you to come here?" Burnu asked. "And find this strange thing?"
"Who found what now?" Dingo asked, leaping into the cavern and lowering the hood of her cloak.
"Yabber," Burnu told her. "He found something, deeper in the caves."
Ponto hopped one-footed behind her, trying to shake the snow out of his toes. "Let me guess. He found…more dirt."
"And darkness!" Dingo bulged her eyes at Yabber. "You found more cave, didn't you?"
"Of course I found more cave! But on the walls, there are drawings. Mysterious symbols and-"
"You found art?" Burnu grumbled. "There are scorpions to squish and spiders to squash, and we're sitting in a cave freezing our warts off. This is ridiculous. How are the dragons, Ponto?"
Ponto warmed his finger pads by the fire. "They're good. They're ready to move."
"Then let's go," Burnu said. "The Amphibilands needs us. I'm a Kulipari, trained to fight, not to muck around underground like a worm."
"Maybe you're a spelunker," Dingo said.
He frowned at her. "What did you call me?"
"A spelunker."
"You're the spelunk-head."
"Spelunker," she said. "It means cave diver."
"Stop talking gibberish," Burnu snapped, drawing one of his boomerangs.
"You two settle down," Ponto told them, in his deep voice.
"You must see the drawings before you rush off!" Yabber interrupted. "They are quite extraordinary, obviously inspired by the Rainbow Serpent. In fact, I rather suspect they are the key to our future-to the future of the entire outback."
"Or they're the work of a really artistic worm," Burnu muttered.
"Well, come along, and see for yourself!"
For some reason, Ponto and Quoba both looked at Darel, like it was his decision. "Uh, we should have a look," Darel said.
"Fine," Burnu sighed. "But after that, we're all heading home. There's a battle brewing, and I don't want to miss any of it."
"I'm with Burnu," Dingo muttered. "The big spelunk-head."
Burnu threw his boomerang at her.
She backflipped away, and the boomerang dinged off Yabber's shell, then ricocheted into a stalactite. Ponto snatched it from the air and refused to return it until Burnu promised he wouldn't throw it again.
Darel flicked his inner eyelid in amusement at Quoba as they followed Yabber toward the back of the cave. But a second later, he furrowed his brow in thought. Mysterious symbols, inspired by the Rainbow Serpent, deep in a cave that King Sergu expected Yabber to visit in case of trouble?
Who'd drawn them? How long ago? And how could they help keep the outback safe?
