"Ask Karn," Orim suggested.
Nodding stiffly, Gerrard said, "I want to take the rest of the serum to whomever might survive there, as a sign of our alliance. We'll land in the center of the devastation- there's a ruined palace down there-and we'll search until we find the native people."
Orim's eyes shone. "Good. Perhaps we'll also find more Phyrexians. Give me more Phyrexians, and I'll give you more serum."
Gerrard nodded, his eyes like poniards. "I'll give you more Phyrexians."
It was no easy task for Multani to find the refugees, down so deep. The Dreaming Caves lay below Llanowar's water table. Most roots sank no lower than this subterranean sea. Its bed was a shelf of granite a hundred yards thick. The Dreaming Caves hid beneath. The Phyrexians could not have found them there, and even Multani would not have except for the guidance of Molimo. He showed the way. Though most roots did not plumb the water table and crack the granite shelf, quosumic tap roots did.
A tree that stands thousands of feet tall plunges equally deep.
Still, the way was not easy. Multani spiraled down a quosumic tree that pulsed with agony. The tree's crown had been eaten by plague. Not a single leaf remained. Half the branches were destroyed. Rot-plague girdled the bole in five separate rings. To move through dying wood was terrifying. Every impulse cried out that Multani should escape. Instead, he coursed lower, beneath the fecund humus, through the frigid underworld sea, through even granite, to the caves.
Multani emerged from the taproot precisely where the refugees had. He assembled a body for himself out of albino tendrils and glowing lichens. Cave crickets became his eyes and blond roaches his fingers and toes. It was a spectral form, venous and shimmering, but it was the only life he could gather in these deeps. Surely, he would be no more ghastly than the refugees themselves. He followed their footprints.
Something strange-a fresh warm breeze rolled up the passage toward him. It felt like the soft tides of air that bring spring rain. It smelled of lightning. Here, three thousand feet below the over-world, blew breezes redolent with life. It was impossible or at least miraculous.
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."