Then reports came of demons raining from the clouds over Benalia and Yavimaya, over Zhalfir and Shiv and Keld.

Villagers flocked to Eladamri. If this man had known of the coming monsters, surely he would know how to fight them. Eladamri did know. He told them what to do, how to make arrows that would pierce carapace skulls, how to mix glistening-oil poisons, how to stab all the hearts of a vampire hound. The people listened to every word. When he said he could not linger on the road to Llanowar, they heard that he had a messianic mission there. They followed him. They preceded him. Runners went ahead to the forest kingdoms, telling the glories of the elf who was coming, who had raised an army on the road and who would fight the monsters that came to destroy Llanowar.

Fhedusil, King of Staprion, sent Steel Leaf warriors to intercept this man and his army. Savage-shorn and tattooed, elves crouched at the forest eaves. Past Freyalisean eye-patches, archers watched the man approach.

Eladamri strode sternly. Sweat glinted on his brow. Eyes sparked beneath. Takara lingered at his right hand, allowing petitioners one by one to approach the man. Liin Sivi lingered at his left, keeping back the rest of the crowd.

The Steel Leaf elves emerged from the forest to bar the way. They were immediately surrounded by the believing throng. That is enough to sway most men, but these were elves. In the name of King Fhedusil, they demanded that

Eladamri halt his human army and turn them back to Verdura. His followers took great exception.

Eladamri himself did not. He said only this: "May you survive the coming plague." He turned to go.

The Steel Leaf did not allow it. They demanded in the name of the Staprion Elfhame that Eladamri accompany them to see King Fhedusil but that he turn back his human army. Again, Eladamri's followers took exception.

Again, Eladamri did not. He told his followers, "Go to defend your homes. I have an army of my own awaiting here." He gestured into the trees, where Steel Leaf warriors crowded in their multitude, peering through their stylized goggles.

Just now, Multani's senses traveled in the midst of the elf throng. They strode among colonnades of stately trees. They ascended spiral stairways that wound around trunks. Overhead, just beneath proud crowns of green, spread villages and cities of wood, with conic towers and widecurving plazas, lookout posts and cozy huts. At their center stood the exalted palace of the Staprion Chief.

I must go too, Gaea. I must see this savior of the elves.

Moving across the world was more difficult than moving through Yavimaya. At every edge of the forest, an ocean covered the land.

Multani leaped above the sparkling waves, riding on currents of pollen. The rarefied life of those tiny spores could barely hold him. It was a long leap to the nearest landfall.

Below appeared a great jungle of kelp. Multani swept down out of the pollen, skipping across the plants. Their leaves crowded atop the waves, ten miles of salty respite before he surged again into pollens on the trade winds.

Land appeared ahead, a black line too still to be water. Where there was land, there was green. In a mere thought, Multani reached it. He plunging into cliff-top woodlands as a child into a pile of leaves.

This was not Llanowar. These woods were but scrub on the edge of fanned fields, windbreaks and no more. Still, Llanowar was not far. A patchwork of hickory and sumac led across the undulating fields. Multani leaped through them. He moved with the quick surging motion of water. Beyond were redbud and alder, which led in turn to juniper and fir. Llanowar loomed on the horizon. Multani was there in a moment.

He breathed again. To be among these great trees-this root tangle and colonnade and crown-it was almost like his own Yavimaya. Magnigoth was replaced by quosumic, Gaea by Freyalise, the volcanic Mori Tumulus by the Dreaming Caves, but otherwise, this might have been Yavimaya.

Except that Llanowar had a spirit of its own. Reserved, refined, reticent, the soul of Llanowar stared at Multani through the leaves.

Forgive me this intrusion, honored Molimo- Why come you here, Multani of Yavimaya? – came a thought that was as much accusation as question.

Circling through the bark of one great forest giant, Multani could sense the angry heat in the heartwood. I come to see this man, this Eladamri.

As with all outsiders, he is nothing, came the reply.

He is nothing, but Gaea makes something of him, said Multani. I come at her bidding. It was only a slight exaggeration.

At the name of Gaea, a troubled rumble came to the great mind of Molimo. Freyalise rules Llanowar, not Gaea

– Gaea rules all Dominaria, even if your elves do not know it, Multani replied. Freyalise is no goddess. She is but a planes

– Be quick, then, Multani! See what you must. Do what you must, and leave.

Yes, Molimo. As you bid.

Smiling inwardly, Multani continued on his way. Molimo would suffer his presence now because he had no other choice. He would suffer it later when fiends started falling from the sky.

In the time it had taken Multani to skip across the ocean, Eladamri and his entourage had nearly reached the treetops. There was no missing the path he had taken. Every fox shied from the trail of the throng; every coney poked its wondering head out at them. Eladamri marched forward in the company of Steel Leaf warriors and their sleek, shouldering hounds.

Even now, they ascended to the palace of King Fhedusil.

Multani coiled up through vast vines, some as fat as trees elsewhere. He surged to the high court of the Staprion Elfhame.

It was a glorious palace of white wood, grown through complex magics out of the crown of a quosumic tree. The tree's boughs spread wide, an enormous hand holding aloft the palace. Foliage rioted across woodland murals and up tall towers with roofs of living thatch. Green pennants snapped among the leaves. Wide courtyards, hanging gardens, blooming bowers-it was a beautiful court in the treetops. Yavimaya had no such magically constructed halls. An elf from Multani's homeland might have thought it all pretentious, though today it seemed only wonderful.

Multani seeped out into the quosumic's leaves and saw it all.

Eladamri stepped beneath a gate of twining vines and out into the main courtyard. To his right hand walked Takara. Her eyes were hard beneath her shock of red hair.

To his left hand strode Liin Sivi, gripping the toten-vec at her waist. All around them marched tattooed warriors. They walked with him as though they were his bodyguards. Their bright-dyed hair made savage gardens around Eladamri. He progressed up the winding way toward the high court.

The doors of the high hall swung wide. More guards, King Fhedusil's elite, stood aside to let the visitors through.

Multani withdrew from the leaves, slid into the living thatch on the roof of the grand palace, and peered down.

The high court within was opulent in shaped wood, inset with gold and silver. At its far end, atop a red rug and backed by a wall of glass, stood a huge black throne. There sat King Fhedusil. Ancient but powerful, the chief had white hair that spiked within his crown. His limbs were thin and long, with the same sinewy strength of tree roots. Across one gnarled knuckle he wore a ring of Staprion nobility.

King Fhedusil gazed, patiently amused, at the man who had been called the Seed of Freyalise.

Eladamri entered the throne room. Takara and Liin Sivi accompanied him, as did a score of Steel Leaf warriors. The rest kept the throng back behind a wall of pikes.

Eladamri approached the king's dais. He motioned for Takara and Liin Sivi to remain behind. They complied, in their own turn holding back their elf escorts. Alone, Eladamri strode to a dense rug of red and blue before the throne. He knelt there in front of Fhedusil.