Surely that breeze would circle the Seed of Freyalise.

Multani followed it. Through winding ways, it went. No longer did he track a trail of blood and tears but now a breath of hope.

He reached a wide cavern. The folk there not only breathed hope. They sang it. In fire circles they gathered, singing and speaking, eating and healing. The fires were impossible. There was no fuel, no ventilation. They burned even so. The food, also, was ludicrous-groppa wine, dried apples, braid bread, honey butter, arbor grapes, onion chives, and game hens. Some circles ate lesser fare, mere trail rations, and others feasted on eel and cheese and the board of kings. It was dream food. Still, it nourished them as surely as the fires gave them warmth and light. Those who believed health were healed. Those who made themselves glad were glad.

One man had taught them to dream beauties, and they had dreamed him into glory. He was just ahead, walking among the multitude. Eladamri's hands gently lingering in theirs and awoke health.

Multani approached. Even in the enthralled throng, a man made of roots and tendrils was a strange sight. The people parted before him.

Eladamri lifted his face to behold a man with cavecricket eyes.

Multani bowed, a wry smile on lips of white moss. "Greetings, Seed of Freyalise. I bring news from the forest."

The man's eyes were changed. He was no simple elf now. He was something more. Divine forces had conspired to make him a tool, and he had at last allowed himself to become one.

"Do not tell me here, amid the throng. I would not let your news resound needlessly through these Dream Caves."

He was wise. Word of atrocities above could awake atrocities below.

Multani said simply, "You will not escape this throng, and so-" he took Eladamri's hand. Through touch, he sent his thoughts.

The palace tree is destroyed, with all who remained above. This is despite the ceaseless labors of giant spiders to contain the contagion. So too, plague ravages the trade house of Kelfae and the port of Wellspree of the]ubilar. Throughout the forest, death is rampant.

Eladamri gazed bleakly at the tendril man. This is not news. We knew all above was destroyed by the bombs.

It is worse. The first ship has landed in the ruins of Staprion Palace. The smell of oil-blood pervades the ship and its crew. They descend within the palace tree, following the route that led you here. You must take a war party up to battle them.

Yes, answered Eladamri simply.

You are their savior now. You must save them.

And I was a warrior before. I will gladly fight these monsters.

Gerrard led Tahngarth, Sisay, and a party of warriors down the winding heart of the tree. In one hand, he clutched a lantern and the jar that held the last of Orim's serum. In the other, he clutched a sword. Death in one hand and life in the other.

Gerrard snorted, slashing a cobweb that draped the treacherous path. He paused, peering into the gloom below.

"Someone's down there." He lifted the lantern. Its light beamed against the splintery hollow of the tree, tracing out the spiral stairs.

It showed more webs, and dead elves hanging in them. "Someone's alive down there. I can sense it."

Tahngarth stared over his shoulder and lifted an eloquent eyebrow. "You can… sense it?"

"There's a presence. A power I can't quite describe."

The minotaur rumbled quietly. "Since when have you been a mystic?"

"I sense it too," Sisay said behind him. "A fey power."

Sheathing his sword, Gerrard cupped a hand to his mouth. "We come in peace. We come with serum to stop the plague."

A voice came from below, resonant like the voice of the wood itself. "Since when do Phyrexians come in peace?"

"We are not Phyrexians."

"You smell like Phyrexians."

"It is the plague treatment," Gerrard replied. "Its immunity is derived from Phyrexian blood. We have been treated. We have brought more for you."

The voice was dubious. "We have found our own cure, one that does not make us reek of Phyrexia."

"Your forest is cured? It does not seem so to me. Do you prefer the reek of rot and death to the reek of oil-blood?"

The voice was angry. "Who are you?"

"I am Commander Gerrard Capashen of Weatherlight, here with Captain Sisay and First-Mate Tahngarth."

A laugh answered. "Oh, yes, Gerrard-the Korvecdal."

"The Korvecdal?" Gerrard laughed as well. "No, I'm no Uniter, just an honest fighting man." He took a long breath. "How did you know?"

"I know because I am the true Korvecdal, the true Uniter."

Even as the stately figure ascended into the lantern's glow, Gerrard realized. "Eladamri of the Skyshroud! What are you doing here?"

"It's too long a tale," said the elf. A retinue of elf warriors came behind him. "Let it simply be put that you and I have traded places. Once you were thought the Uniter and I the common hero. Now, it is as it is. Let us trust that higher powers understand this chess match."

"I don't trust any powers but my sword arm and these friends."

"Which, again, is as it should be."

"And one of those friends devised this serum," he said, holding up the jar. "It has saved the crew of my ship. It can halt the plague among your people."

Eladamri's eyes seemed brighter than the lantern. "My people, just now, are safe from the plague. It is the forest that languishes."

"Then, give this serum to whatever druid or nature spirit might make use of it to heal the forest."

Suddenly, a figure took form between the two men. He was a green-man, made of splinters and vines. His eyes were a pair of seed pods, his teeth a row of mushrooms.

Other men might have shied back from the strange creature, but Gerrard himself had learned maro-sorcery from such a man.

"Master!" Gerrard said in sudden recognition. His knees buckled. His fingers went nerveless around the jar of serum. It slipped free, plunging toward the hollow of the tree.

Multani's viny arm shot out, snatching the jar from the air. "Thank you, Gerrard."

"I-I feared you… I feared you were dead," stammered Gerrard.

"I feared the same for you, many times over," Multani replied, lifting Gerrard to his feet. "It is good to know fears do not always prevail." He spread fibrous arms through the darkness. "Welcome, Gerrard and Weatherlight… Welcome to Llanowar."

Chapter 25

"Come away from Keld," Urza said, appearing suddenly out of nowhere.

Barrin did not even startle. He didn't care enough anymore to startle. He'd been crouching here beside the fjord, watching frigid water mound up with the rising tide. Foam stole tentatively across the sand bars and kissed the keels of Keldon longships. In less than an hour, the warships would stand in twenty feet of water. Then Barrin and his erstwhile foes, the Keldons-gray and massive and impatient on the docks- would ship together for more wars in Western Keld. "Come away from Keld," Urza repeated.

Barrin squinted up at him. "How dare you? You told me this battle was everything. You told me I'd just have to forget what these… what these beasts did to Rayne. So I did. I did just like you said. And now you so blithely call me away?"

Urza stared back, his eyes like twin candles. He stood on a black fist of basalt beside the fjord and seemed just another stony extrusion. Beneath woolen skies, his warrobes were dark except where snowflakes pasted themselves.

"This battle is no longer everything."

"Damn you, Urza," Barrin said bitterly.