It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. Phillip stared at the empty portals before him in frozen terror, his heart hammering against his ribs in panic, his breath fast and shallow.
Ingwa Wep and Sand Snake both opened their mouths far wider than possible. Bubbling black filth filled their mouths, tentacles with sucking, leech-like mouths dangling from the scum, dancing in the air as the wind continued to whistle.
“It’s the detectives!” Snake shouted, his voice taking on a disgusting, slimy tone that clung to his syllables.
“Get ‘em!” Ingwa snarled, charging at Daring as she drew a knife from beneath her cloak.
Sand Snake stood up and drew a large-caliber pistol from beneath his cloak, sweeping the sights up to aim at Phillip. Phil shook his head, his muscles unlocking at the sight of the deadly threat; the hallucination faded away and he was suddenly facing an ordinary stallion that was aiming a gun at him.
On instinct alone, Phillip drew and threw his boomerang, the weapon whistling through the air and cracking into Snake's wrist, sending the gun tumbling to the ground. Phillip caught the boomerang as he closed the distance, his heart slowing from a panicked rush to a more controlled rhythm.
With a snarl, Sand drew a machete and charged. He swung towards Phil’s neck, the blade swooshing sharply through the air.
No worries. In a move that he’d practiced a dozen times, Phil stepped aside and ducked just enough that the blade passed over his head by inches, so close he felt the wind from the strike kiss his ear; with a sharp clicking, Phil’s baton was conjured into his hoof and he brought it down like a hammer, the steel smashing onto the foreleg with a crack.
“Aargh! Fuck!” Sand bellowed through gritted teeth as he continued his charge through the pain, ramming his shoulder into Phil’s body. Phil grunted as the blow knocked his hat from his head, dropping and tumbling back through the still-warm sand as the blade whistled through the air where his neck had been a moment later.
A quick glance told him that Daring and Ingwa Wep were both dancing around each other, blade and kusarifundo whipping through the whistling wind, every strike dodged.
She’s fine. Focus on the wanker.
Phil’s hoof darted to the pocket on the back of his vest and he seized the smooth, carved wood. A snap of his wrist sent the weapon spinning through the air, its own whistle adding to the music of the cold wind as he sprinted in.
Sand grunted as he slashed with the machete, the metal clacking against the boomerang in midair and sending it spinning away before he swung again at Phil’s head. Phil ducked, snapping his baton up at the knee of Sand’s left foreleg, which was still supporting him.
His strike hit nothing but air as Sand reared up onto his hind legs, spittle flying from his mouth as he smashed the machete down at Phil. “Shit,” Phillip gasped as he threw himself aside in another roll, the machete thumping into the sand.
“Stay still!” Sand Snake shouted, aiming a kick at Phil as he popped back up. Phil grunted as the blow hammered into his forelegs, but held onto the extended limb, causing Sand to awkwardly hop up and down in place as he fought for balance. Phil swept his hind leg across the sand, striking Sand’s supporting leg and sending the stallion tumbling to the ground with a snarled curse.
Wrapping his body python-like around Sand’s captured leg. Phil laid down sideways on the ground and pulled, thrusting his hips forward. Sand roared in pain as his knee was bent past its normal limit. “Get off, get off!” he yelled, stabbing at his foe with the machete.
Phil deflected the first two strikes with his baton, but the distraction was enough for Snake to wiggle loose of Phil’s grasp and give him a kick in the side, knocking some of the air from Phil's chest. He made to crawl away, only to bellow in agony as Phil’s baton cracked down on the back of his leg.
Panting and grunting, Phillip crawled on top of Sand Snake, seizing his blonde mane and drawing his head back for a strike.
“Jackboot fuck!” Sand snapped, seizing a hoofful of red sand and flinging it back at Phil. Phillip grunted as some of the sand stung at his eyes. Momentarily blinded, he paid for the distraction when an elbow crashed into his side; even with his armored vest, the blow was hard enough to stagger him.
Sand roared like an angry boar and threw Phil off him. Shit, shit, stupid! Phil cursed himself as he did a quick cartwheel back to his hooves.
The machete was already cleaving at his head. Phillip ducked again, but before he could counterattack, the blade whipped back. Fire whipped across his face and Phillip cried out as blood began to run down his cheek, hot and sticky and reeking of copper.
Sand Snake sneered and swung again. Phillip stepped inside the swing, his foreleg smacking against his foe’s as his baton rocketed up, aimed at the unicorn’s crotch.
The blow was halted by Sand seizing Phil’s foreleg in an iron grip. The two stallions struggled back and forth in a lock, the sand stirring around their pounding hooves, each refusing to give any ground or let go of the other’s limb.
Half-laughing and half-growling, Sand tried to tilt the blade down towards Phillip’s head. Phillip leaned back, huffing through his teeth as the starlight reflected off the black blade, inches away from his face. He tightened his grip on Sand’s wrist as his arm began to tremble from the effort.
“Die, you fucking pig!” Sand snarled, the blade inching closer and closer to Phil’s neck as the earth pony tried and failed once more to yank his baton free. In the back of Phil’s mind, he faintly noted that the wind seemed to be whistling even louder, the sand assaulting his exposed limbs like a flurry of horse flies biting at him.
Fuck it! Phillip released the baton and sidestepped, using both forelegs to direct the blade down past him. He locked Sand’s foreleg like a lever, trapping it against his body as he pivoted around, the unicorn cursing as he was pulled along like a dog on a leash.
The horn lit up with a pale green aura, but a knee to the gut forced the air from Snake’s lungs, his horn sparking as the spell was disrupted. He couldn’t even cry out as he stumbled over Phil’s leg, sprawling across the ground. Spitting on sand, he looked up just in time to see Phil’s hoof swinging towards his jaw. The next thing he saw was a lot of stars, accompanied by a blinding pain across his skull.
Panting, Phillip turned from his sprawled foe to Daring, watching as she cast her kusarifundo out like a fishing line, entangling Ingwa’s left foreleg. A tug of war began between the two mares, Ingwa skidding in the dirt as Daring pulled with her wings, grinning victoriously.
Ingwa snarled and her knife flashed up, severing the rope in one slice. “Wahfuck!” Daring cried out in surprise as her balance was stolen from her, sending her rolling back. She looked up just in time to see Ingwa’s knife spinning right at her face.
She ducked too late. A cry of pain rent the air as the blade struck Daring’s right wing, blood running down the limb as the knife bounced off onto the ground.
“Daring!” Phillip cried, rushing forward.
Starlight glimmered off of metal to his left and a heavy whooshing struck his ears. Phillip jumped into an aerial cartwheel just in time: the machete in the pale green aura spun past so close that it chopped off some of his mane.
“Ingwa, we’re outmatched! Let’s go!” Sand Snake barked, still holding Phillip’s stolen baton as he magically pulled his machete, the bloodstained knife, his weapon, and the battered green book back to his hooves.
Ingwa hurried to his side, drawing a pouch from beneath her cloak. Glaring at her charging foes, she drew some black powder from the bag and flung it into the air. Darkness descended over Phillip and Daring like a curtain descending over them, the air suddenly stinking of charcoal.
“Where’d they go?!” Daring shouted, clawing through the enchanted darkness.
Phillip felt motion in front of him and lunged, his hooves wrapping around somepony’s body. “Gotcha!” he declared, driving his target into the ground.
“Idiot, you’ve got me!”
The artificial shadows faded away, starlight piercing the darkness. Phillip had indeed tackled Daring to the ground; she spat sand from her mouth, glaring daggers at him. Both of the mercenaries were long gone.
“Sorry,” Phillip winced, getting off her and looking around for any sign of their prey, but the wind had even covered over their tracks.
“Shit!” Daring cursed, then winced as pain rocketed up her wing, blood dripping down her feathers.
“Let me see it,” Phillip said, bending down next to her. He frowned as he studied the cut in her wrist, the blood that freely ran from it staining her entire wing. “Looks worse than it is,” he reported, taking some disinfectant and gauze out of his vest and treating the wound. “Didn’t hit bone or anything. Probably should limit flying for the time being. Here, I'm going to have to suture it.”
Daring grunted as she stretched the wing out, testing its range of motion. Sure enough, flexing it too far caused waves of pain to run up the muscles, each one drawing a hiss of breath.
"Hold still," Phillip ordered her, taking a set of enchanted suture thread, a needle, and a set of scissors from his first aid kit. He dabbed the injury with a disinfectant wipe and set to work sewing the wound closed.
“Dammit,” Daring relented. She glared at the severed half of her kusarifundo laying uselessly on the ground. “Little bitch,” she growled. “I liked that weapon," she grumbled, wincing as waves of pain ran up her wing, each one thankfully less intense than the last as the pain-relief charms in the medicine and thread set to work.
“Phil! Daring!” Rolling Thunder called as he and his wife hurried up from the distance. “Are you two all right?”
“We’re fine,” Phillip said, finishing treating Daring’s wound and wrapping it up with gauze. “But they got away with my baton, and the journ--”
He paused, catching the smirk on Daring’s face. Daring reached beneath her coat and pulled out a battered green book, the cover barely hanging onto the binding. Scrawled on the first page was Captain J. Bushwhacker.
The other three ponies all gaped in disbelief. “But...how did you…?” Creek Fog stammered.
“I snatched it up after knocking bitchface down,” Daring grinned. “Replaced it with the book your mom gave me. I’ll pay her back for it.”
Phillip beamed and kissed Daring on the lips. “I think she’ll forgive you for that,” he said. “Let’s take a butcher’s at this over dinner.”
Daring glanced at the snake sitting on the abandoned spit. “Uh...maybe something besides reptile,” she suggested.
Creek Fog giggled. “We’ll find something, don’t worry. You two just get to work on that code,” she assured them as she and Rolling Thunder dropped their bags next to the campfire and set off for the river, bringing their knives and some fishing line.
“You remember what he said?” Phillip said, sitting down next to the fire and carefully opening the book to the first yellowed page.
“‘The key changes by three to the left after every sixth letter and seven to the right after every eleventh,’” Daring recited, her eyes wide as she stared at the faded letters from centuries ago, drinking in the mundane tale of Jamie and Aherrk tending to a leaky water tank for their cattle. Sure enough, there was a tiny “R” scrawled in the bottom left corner of the page, just barely distinguishable from the ordinary writing.
“At least we have some of the code already,” Phillip said, taking out a notepad and a pen. “Let’s get to work.”
Rolling Thunder and Creek Fog soon returned bearing several lines of fish, just as Phil and Daring finished transcribing the original code from the journal. As the fish cooked over the fire, the two detectives set to work translating the message, aided by the Aborigineigh.
Finally, they managed to decode the entire message.
“‘From the laughing fire, chase the spring solstice crow to where the rocks weep.’” Daring read out loud. “‘Follow the Rainbow Serpent as she kisses the ground, and find the first key beneath the marked rock. Where our ancestors first sang, find the second key in the pool. At the battlefield, place the key in the rain.’” She paused and frowned at the words. “Well, that’s enigmatic.”
“Purposefully so, I believe,” Creek Fog nodded sagely as she and Rolling Thunder drew a wide circle in the sand around their camp. Once the circumference was complete, both ponies placed their hooves on the drawn circle. With a soft snap, the magic circle closed, a shift in the energy currents that Daring felt in her wings and Phillip felt as a faint tingle in his hooves.
"Is that necessary?" Phillip asked.
"Trust us," Rolling Thunder said. "It'll help keep us all safe tonight."
Phil and Daring shared a glance, then shrugged. “So, you have any idea what any of that means?” Daring asked, opening up her map.
“Well, the Rainbow Serpent kissing the ground probably means we’re supposed to head towards Coober Pedy, a village,” Phillip said, pointing to Daring’s map. "There's a huge mine with opals there."
"That’s where the Rainbow Serpent first touched the land,” Creek Fog said.
“And the place where the rock sings would be Cathedral Gorge,” Phillip continued, pointing to a small village and a marked canyon on Daring’s map. “It’s a stone formation. Great echoes there.”
“The spirits first taught their people the songlines there,” Rolling Thunder noted with a sentimental smile.
“And finally, the battlefield would be Uluru,” Phillip concluded.
"What's Uluru?" Daring asked.
"A massive red rock, miles across," Phillip explained. “According to Aborigineigh mythology, that rock was the site of a battle between good and evil spirits. The rock is red because it was stained in blood.”
“A long and hard battle that was,” Creek Fog said quietly, her eyes momentarily distant.
“Hmm?” Daring asked, looking up.
Creek quickly turned back to the fish cooking on the spit. “Dinner’s ready!” she declared, taking the grilled meat off the spit and setting it onto a roll of canvas that her husband rolled out. The aroma of cooked fish made Phil and Daring’s mouths water.
“So we’re supposed to find two keys and bring them to Uluru,” Daring concluded as they gathered around to eat. “Doesn’t seem too hard. The trick will be finding the place where the rocks weep to start off.”
“We can find that in the morning, when it’s light,” Rolling Thunder said, cutting into a grayling. “Right now, let’s eat.”
“You know, that little code is kind of like a songline,” Creek Fog commented as she chewed on a slice of catfish. “I imagine that Aherrk wrote it himself.”
“How do you make a songline?” Daring asked. “I can understand using landmarks as a way to find your path before you had accurate maps and using stories to remember those landmarks, but who came up with the idea of ‘Hey, I’m gonna make a song about this?’ Do ponies just randomly burst out into song?”
Creek and Thunder both laughed heartily. “A songline is more than just directions,” Creek Fog told her. “It tells the stories of the Dreaming, of the lessons that ponies learned and the adventures that their ancestors and tribal spirits went on.”
“What is the Dreaming?” Daring asked, stabbing a slice of catfish with a spork.
“The Dreaming is hard to put into words,” Rolling Thunder explained, setting his food aside. “In the Dreaming, nothing is, but there is all that can be. Your physics say that a rock sitting at the top of a cliff is full of potential energy: in a way, the Dreaming is full of all potential energy.”
“I think I understand,” Daring nodded pensively.
“The first beings to wake up, to truly exist, were the Rainbow Serpent and other spirits, beings of great energy: beings that some creatures would call gods,” Rolling Thunder continued, slowly drawing in the air with his hooves as if gathering the air into a sphere. “They saw the Earth, what it could be, all the creatures that could walk and swim and fly upon the land, and they wanted to make them real as well. They sang to them, sang to the Earth and the sun and the moon and the stars, sang to the lakes and the rivers and the trees and the creatures. And all of them woke up and began to sing back in joy for being alive.”
“The spirits continue to sing to us, teaching us, guiding us,” Creek Fog added. “If you listen, you can hear the songs of your totem spirit, helping you on your way. And so, a songline is more than just a map through the physical world: it is the evolving music of your life and of your tribe, a bridge between what is and what can be.”
Daring pondered this information for a few moments of silent chewing, then swallowed and sighed. “I see,” she nodded. “I don’t really see how ponies could be comfortable with a god who controls their entire life, but to each their own.”
“The songlines do not control anypony,” Rolling Fog corrected her. “A songline is a harmony between the spirits of the Dreaming and the mortals of the world. The mortals are free to not listen if they choose, and their own choices can change the song. You are not here, the mare you are today, solely because some spirit that you cannot see sang about everything that happened in your life. You are here because of your own choices: but when you learn to quiet your own fear and anger and pride, you can hear your own songline, trying to guide you through your troubles.”
Daring scoffed. “I don’t really think I need some help from a god who doesn’t really care about me,” she grunted, stabbing another piece of fish.
“Why do you think the gods don’t care about you?” Creek Fog asked, her brow furrowing in a look of concern.
Daring sighed. “If gods that created the universe do exist, they’d be so much bigger and more powerful than us, we’d basically be ants to them,” she reasoned. “If ponies don’t even notice ants most of the time, why would the gods even notice us? Especially when they’re part of this Dreaming.”
Creek and Rolling glanced at each other for a moment, faces reflecting soft concern. “You think that just because the gods are bigger than you, that they don’t care?” Creek Fog asked. “Well, part of being a god is being omnipresent, yes?”
“I guess,” Daring shrugged.
“Then if the gods are present everywhere, at all times, then they see everything that we do,” Creek continued. “They see when we cry or hurt ourselves or when we triumph. They hear when we scream or laugh or when we speak unkind words. They feel our pain, our joy, and our fears.” She shook her head. “You ask why they would care? I ask, how could they not care?”
Daring was silent for several long moments as she chewed her food, pretending that she couldn’t see Phillip’s querying glance out of the corner of her eye. “But if the gods really exist, and they really do care,” she finally said, almost more to herself than the guides. “Why can’t they do more? Why can’t they just come down and, I don’t know, zap the bad guys with lightning bolts and...help out the ponies that they’re supposed to protect?”
Rolling and Creek both sighed sadly. “You remember what I said about the gods being energy, being part of the Dreaming?” Rolling asked. “Well...the thing about energy is that it can’t do anything on its own. It has to be channeled, directed through the proper channels at the right time. A rock at the top of the cliff might have the potential to fall, but it can’t without being pushed...and if it is not carefully directed, it could easily smash through somepony’s house or hurt an unfortunate creature in its path. That’s just its nature, the way the laws work, the same as how a fish cannot fly and a bird cannot breathe underwater.”
Daring frowned. “Hard to think that a god has rules that apply to it,” she commented.
“All things have their own nature, their own rules that they must obey by virtue of existing and being of that nature,” Rolling Thunder nodded over his hot mug of tea. “Yes, even the gods, who cannot always be there to help even when they wish they could.” He stared into the dark liquid for a long moment, then sighed sadly. “Even the gods weep, Daring Do,” he admitted quietly, not looking up. “Even the gods weep.”
They finished their meal and evening ablutions in silence save for the crackling of the campfire. “Those thieves might be back,” Rolling Thunder declared as he finished his meal. “I shall take first watch.”
Phillip nodded and proceeded into the stolen tent, throwing out Ingwa and Sand’s sleeping bags and rolling out his and Daring’s. Daring poured some water from her canteen onto her toothbrush and began to brush her teeth over the running water of the river.
As she brushed her teeth, she caught a glimpse of Creek Fog’s reflection looking at her in the star-spangled water. She paused and frowned at the reflection, which quickly turned and looked away. Daring stared at the guide’s image for almost half a minute, half-formed thoughts and questions dancing on her tongue, then finished brushing her teeth and spat the foam into the river, where it was quickly swept away.
“G’night,” she grunted to Creek Fog, who was unrolling her own sleeping bag near the campfire and setting up a simple lean-to to sleep beneath. The two Aborigineigh nodded and murmured good night back to her as Daring ducked into the tent.
The small tent had only enough room for a small battery-powered lantern and a pair of sleeping bags. Phillip was already curled up in his own, with Daring’s waiting for her.
“You okay?” Phillip asked as Daring entered, zipping the tent flap closed behind her.
“I…” Daring sighed and mopped her forehead, taking off her pith helmet and setting it down next to her bags and shirt. She was silent for a beat, her jaw moving as though she were masticating on a question. “Phil?” she asked aloud.
“Hmm?” Phillip asked, raising himself up on one foreleg.
“Do you think that there’s…” She paused to try to form vague emotions into words, stretching a wing out so she could feel the faint shifting of static around her primary feathers. “Something more out there?”
He frowned at her. “Like what?”
“Like…” Daring hesitated at putting the ridiculous possibility into actual words. “Spirits. Gods. Whatever.”
Resting his head on his forelegs, Phillip stared at the floor for several long seconds, and Daring saw in his eyes that he was considering the evidence, going over the facts, coming up with theories. Following his gaze, she saw that he was staring at his totem of Angkakert, no doubt pondering the same things that she was.
Finally, he shook his head. “I once would’ve said no,” he admitted. “But now...now I just don’t know.”
“First time I’ve ever heard you say that,” Daring said.
Phillip turned back to her with a sigh. “Let’s focus on the treasure right now. We can worry about the secrets of the universe later.”
Daring chuckled dryly. “I’ve been rubbing off on you too much.”
Phillip leaned up to kiss her on the lips. “G’night, Daring.”
“G’night, Phil,” Daring said, taking off her totem of Awely-Awely. She studied the little image of the rain goddess, its white eyes staring silently back at her.
With a quiet sigh, she set it aside and laid down beneath the covers, quickly falling asleep.
The sky was red and empty, the only sound she could hear her own rapid breathing. She stepped slowly forward, the clay cold beneath her hoof. She darted her gaze around, looking for any movements in the forest of doors.
“Phil?” Daring called out, her voice sounding tiny in the seemingly infinite expanse. “Phil?!” she cried again.
But there was no response.
Then Daring felt it behind her: cold, wet, stinking breath, tongues that slurped at the cold air. Daring whirled around and froze at the sight of the cold black eyes behind her, the writhing tentacles already reaching for her face…
“WANDJINA!” Daring screamed in desperation.
Thunder shook the air and rain began to pour down from the sky, which was suddenly covered in gray clouds. The water felt comfortably cool on Daring’s back, but the thing writhed and shrieked beneath the onslaught. Before Daring’s eyes, its body began to melt, turning into black, inky goop that ran into the puddles around her hooves.
Daring looked up, closing her eyes to enjoy the rain on her face, the soothing temperature slowing her breathing and pounding heart. She opened her eyes as the forest around her began to dissolve, and she found herself standing on the porch of 221 Honeybee Bakery, looking up at the cloudy sky.
She thought she saw something moving behind the clouds, something large. She should have flinched, but she knew deep in her core that whatever was up there was not something she had to fear. And beneath the soothing pattering of the rain, she could hear singing; a voice that sounded like a didgeridoo, low droning wind that formed words that she could not understand, but that she knew were speaking to her. Just out of her sight, just beyond her hearing, but there. Maybe she could…
The laughter of a kookaburra tore Daring from the dream and she opened her eyes with a soft gasp. She was still in the tent, wrapped up in her sleeping bag. Phil was still asleep next to her, snoring softly.
With a yawn, Daring climbed out of the bag, rubbing her eyes and stretching her wings out, groaning softly as faint ripples of pain ran up from beneath her bandages. “Just a dream,” she grumbled, opening up the tent flap and climbing out into the morning.
A faint layer of mist clung to the red scrub, the distant trees sticking out above the clouds like they too were just waking up and stretching their branches out to welcome the rising sun. Birds were hopping about on the ground, hunting for bugs.
Rolling Thunder and Creek Fog were bathing in the river, washing out their manes and tails. “G’day!” Rolling Thunder greeted her with a wave.
“Morning,” Daring nodded back, bending over by the bank to wash her face and take a long drink of the cool water. As she pulled away from the river, a rainbow trout leaped out of the water before her, its colorful scales briefly catching the sun as it flapped in midair before splashing back into the river.
“What do you want for brekkie?” Creek asked as she climbed out of the river and shook herself off. “I can make hash browns with hay bacon.”
“Sounds great,” Daring said, wandering over to a tree to do her morning business. This completed, she returned to the tent to find that Phil was waking up, sitting up in his bag and yawning.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Daring said, donning her shirt and pith helmet. Beneath it was the Awely-Awely necklace. She stared at the little carving for a moment, then picked it up and put it on, tucking it beneath her shirt. “How’d you sleep?”
“I was dreaming,” Phillip said, shaking his head. “I swear I heard music...it sounded familiar somehow.” He frowned in thought for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “Just a dream,” he grunted, climbing out of his bag and grabbing his shirt.
Daring stared at him for a beat. blinking in mild surprise. “What?” Phillip asked.
Daring shook her head. “Nothing,” she grunted. “C’mon, let’s get some breakfast and get moving.”
Phillip finished getting dressed and he and Daring exited to the smell of cooking hash browns and bacon, steaming over the campfire that their guides had built. After a brief meal and morning ablutions, the group packed their saddlebags.
“What should we do about the tent?” Phillip asked as he swung his saddlebags onto his shoulders. “Don’t have much room for it.”
Daring pondered for a few moments, then smirked. Taking out her pocketknife and clicking the blade open, she pounced upon the canvas and started slashing and hacking with abandon, tearing the tent into ribbons.
When she was finished, she clicked her knife closed and stepped back, nodding in grim satisfaction. “That’s for breaking my kusarifundo,” she declared.
Phillip chuckled and shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said. “C’mon, let’s find where the rocks weep. And keep your eyes open: those two wankers are out there somewhere.”
They proceeded up the river, following along the bank, looking for any sign of their target or their foes. Finally, after about an hour of trotting, Daring pointed.
“Look at that,” she said. “That set of rocks there. Doesn’t that look like a face?”
The small waterfall did indeed look like a face if viewed from the left, a profile with an angular jaw, a snout, and a single eye that water was pouring out of, as if the stone figure was weeping unashamedly.
“That’s gotta be it,” Daring grinned, taking out her map and compass. “Okay...Coober Pedy...that way!” She pointed to the northwest. “C’mon, let’s go, old-timers!” she cried, bounding over the river.
“Says the only one with wings” Phillip replied, splashing across the river after her as she blew a raspberry back at him. Creek Fog climbed up onto her husband’s back and he carried her over the river, stepping carefully on exposed rocks.
“Okay, we’re looking for a marked rock,” Daring continued. “Everypony spread out and keep your eyes on the ground.”
The four spread out in a line and began walking forward slowly, sweeping their gazes over the red scrub. The day grew hotter as they trotted on, the sun mercilessly blazing down upon them. Sweat ran down the four ponies' manes, and they had to pause frequently to take long drinks from their canteens.
"Anypony see anything?" Daring asked as the sun started to reach its apex.
"Nothing but sand and rocks and scrub," Phillip replied, mopping his forehead.
"Okay, we should stop for lunch," Creek Fog said, looking around and shrugging her shoulders to adjust for her saddlebags. "There's a river near here where we can restock our canteens and maybe find some shade."
"We're probably about halfway to Coober Pedy by now," Rolling Thunder commented, looking around and fanning himself with his hat. "Wish we had time to see the opal mines, that's a sight to hold onto. The most beautiful blue-green you've ever seen in your life."
“So, who’s this Rainbow Serpent and why would they create opals?” Daring asked.
“It was long ago, when the world was first being created,” Creek Fog explained. “Julunggul was one of the first spirits in the Dreaming who awoke. When the earth was first formed, she descended from the sky in a rainbow and when she landed, her colors bled onto the rocks, forming a mine of opals. Her tribe dug up the precious stones and used them to make art and to channel some of her magic to help control the weather.”
“Interesting story,” Daring commented. “But I personally don’t see why anypony would worship a giant--SNAKE!” she screamed, leaping up into the air and clinging to a cloud, her bulging eyes fixed on the serpent slithering through the scrub.
Shaking his head, Phillip bent over to study the reddish-brown serpent with light brown spots running down on its body. The snake paused and stared up at him curiously, sticking its forked tongue out.
“It’s just a children’s python,” he chided, gently shooing it along as Creek and Rolling both tried to stifle their laughter. “Completely harmless. I had one of these as a pet as a kid.”
“Well, I hope you’re not planning on bringing this one home,” Daring scowled at the serpent as it slithered away. Only once she was sure it was gone did she descend back to the ground. “That never happened,” she grumbled at the others.
Before anypony could respond, there came another familiar howl, like sandpaper on piano strings. Only loud, and close. And hungry.
“Oh, no,” Rolling Thunder breathed as they all turned to face the sound. In the distance, Daring could see dust swirling in a churning red cloud, speeding across the ground towards them. More bays and howls sounded from the cloud and Daring saw dark shapes loping within the sand, racing towards them.
“Sandingos!” Rolling Thunder cried.