TORTOISE HEADS TURNED AS YABBER emerged from the surf and crossed the beach. Friends and neighbors nodded greetings, their eyes warm and welcoming, even if no one spoke. Yabber smiled in return. His people didn't say much—well, aside from him—but that was okay; he understood them.
Plus, the soft sand underfoot felt like home as he made his way toward the lagoon. He wanted to curl up and sleep while the sun warmed his shell, but urgency drove him onward. At least until a few hatchlings scooted around him, chanting, "Yabber's back, Yabber's back!"
"My back is what?" he asked, blinking innocently.
"Your back is back!" a little one said.
Yabber laughed and rapped the hatchling fondly on the shell.
When he reached the lagoon, his long-necked clan served him jellyfish on abalone shells around a driftwood fire. As the sun set, Yabber told the tale of the Snowy Mountains. He described the cave paintings showing the Hidingwar, and the one depicting the Rainbow Serpent arching over underground water holes.
He told of the fight with the spider queen and Tasmanian devils, and of melting the snow to wash them away. When he recounted his recent battle with Marmoo, mending the Veil an instant before Marmoo stung him, most of the turtles shrank slightly inside their shells.
Finally, as hatchlings snored in the shelter of their parents' flippers and moonlight glinted over the waves, Yabber said, "And now the Amphibilands prepares again for war."
"So you will strengthen the Veil," an old turtle said, nodding.
"King Sergu raised the Veil to save the Amphibilands," Yabber told her. "But he never wanted it to stand forever. He never wanted the frogs to live apart from the rest of the outback. He once asked, 'Does the Veil keep the scorpions out, or the frogs in?'"
The old turtle thought about that. And thought about it, and thought about it …
"He was convinced," Yabber continued, when he realized the old turtle wasn't going to say anything, "that one day the scorpions and frogs and spiders would live together in harmony. In fact, he'd hoped that Queen Jarrah would lead her people to join us in peace. That's why he taught her to dreamcast."
"But she betrayed him," a sea turtle said.
Yabber nodded. "But now there's been a vision."
"Of what?" a turtle mother asked, rubbing the belly of a hatchling sleeping on his back beside her. "What did you see?"
"I saw the Rainbow Serpent," Yabber said. "But someone else talked to it."
Murmurs of wonder sounded around the fire. The turtles honored the Rainbow Serpent, the ancient spirit who spread life across the outback, but they hadn't spoken with it since the days of legend, when the Serpent taught them dreamcasting.
"Who?" the old turtle asked. "The platypus Stargazer?"
"Darel," Yabber announced.
A voice in the darkness said, "Who?"
"Darel the wood frog."
"Never heard of him."
Yabber curved his neck peevishly. "The one who hopped all this way to ask for King Sergu's help!"
"Oh!" the voice said. "You mean the chubby one."
Yabber sighed. "That's Gee."
"Right. The wood frog."
"That's not important." Yabber looked at the flickering flames. "What's important is that the Rainbow Serpent told him to take down the Veil."
A stunned silence fell, and the first rays of sunrise crept over the horizon before someone said, "How will the frogs survive?"
"I don't know," Yabber admitted.
"Does this Darel know what he's doing?"
"I, uh …" Yabber swallowed. "Yes. Yes, I think he does."
"So what will you do?"
"Take down the Veil," Yabber said. "But I need your help."
