"Yes, Cap'n."
"I'll bring up the rear." Then, turning back to Ramos, Gerrard said, "We thank you for this gift, great Ramos, and for the chance to prove you wrong."
"I dearly wish you could do so," the dragon engine said.
"Perhaps you can prove yourself wrong. Perhaps you can be united with the Uniter," Gerrard said.
"Perhaps." With that single mournful word, the ancient Phyrexian dragon engine coiled back into his nest. Wings flapped, stirring storms of sand to settle over him.
The crew of Weatherlight turned and started back across the bowl.
As they ascended the side of the crater, Ramos's warnings were borne out. One by one, the inner light of the stones guttered and failed.
Sisay's stone-the Skull of Ramos-flickered tepidly, its blue gleam disappearing by the time she stepped from the crater.
"It's dead, just as he said," Sisay muttered, sadly shaking her head.
The others gathered, showing similarly dark stones.
Gerrard joined them, staring down.
"Well, that's it," Takara said bleakly. "We've come all this way, chasing a lie."
Gerrard patting her and Sisay on the back. "No. It's not a lie. This morning I would have had doubts but not now. We'll camp with the dryads tonight. I need a night to think. The answer lies here somewhere."
Takara sighed angrily. "Well, while you're holding on to hope, I'll hold on to hate." She gestured toward the bloody ground where Ilcaster had died. "We'll be sleeping among the folk that killed your crew, Gerrard. I forgot how skillful you are at burying your friends."
The rest of the day was spent burying the remains of Ilcaster and holding a memorial for him and Tallakaster. Gerrard and Weatherlight's crew made their camp in the dryad glade nearby. All the while, the tree folk watched them, hemming them in lest they should try to escape with the stones.
When night came, the dryads simply faded away into darkness. Gerrard had a vague impression that somehow they were absorbed into the trees themselves and remained there until they had renewed their energy. Only the elders of the wood folk remained visible-standing in a line at the edge of the clearing.
While the rest of the crew bedded down, Gerrard approached the chief of the dryads. He lifted his hands in a sign of peace and sank to the ground cross-legged. The chief imitated him, though the others remained standing.
The Benalian took the Heart of Ramos from his breast pocket. Holding it up, he pointed to it and tapped it sharply.
The dryad chief stretched out a slender, long-fingered hand. Gerrard held out the powerstone, and the chief took it. He held it up, closed his eyes, and made a sound that resembled a single, clear note of a bell. The tone resonated until it filled the air. The trees themselves seemed to vibrate.
The dryad lowered his hand. In its center was the powerstone, and within its heart there now glowed a distinct spark of energy.
Gerrard gave a whoop that brought the others running.
The dryad sprang back in alarm.
Weatherlight's commander gestured frantically to the others. "Sit," he hissed. "Look at this."
Sisay gasped. "It works. How did you-"
"I didn't do anything. He did it." Gerrard jerked his head in the direction of the dryad, who had now been joined by several of his fellows and was looking nervously at them. They conversed between themselves with the soft musical tones that served as their speech.
Tahngarth was examining the powerstone more closely. "It is fading," he observed.
Sure enough, the glow within the stone had diminished appreciably. Even as they watched, it flickered, flared briefly, and then went out. Gerrard held out the stone to the dryad again and spread his hands in an interrogative gesture. The creature carefully picked up the stone and made a sweeping gesture toward the forest, accompanying it with a low quiver of sound.
Chamas spoke up. "I think he means to say something about a circle-a gathering."
Sisay asked, "How do you know?"
"I've been watching them and listening to them," the woman replied. She extended a hand toward the dryad, two fingers outstretched in a V. At the same time, she gave a ululation ending in a kind of squeak.
The dryads watched attentively and replied with a series of motions and trills.
"What did you just say?" Sisay asked.
"I think I said thank you," returned Chamas. "It's an odd language. They've developed a relationship between words and gestures. I'm not sure, but I think if you make the same sound but match it with a different hand movement, it will have a completely different meaning."
Gerrard said, "Everybody, pull out the stones I gave you and give them to the chief."
They did, and the chief received them, beginning a keening song.
In the cold, clear night all around, dryads shifted. They emerged from the trees and gathered, adding their voices to the song of the chief.
Gerrard and his crew remained where they sat. He felt Sisay shivering and heard her teeth chatter. Earlier, she'd wanted to light a fire, but Chamas had warned her against it.
"What are they doing?" Sisay whispered.
"I don't know." Gerrard turned to Chamas. "Any ideas?"
She shook her head.
Soon, dryads surrounded the crew in a dense thicket. The tree folk seemed to root themselves. They stood unmoving, their faces lifted to the stars that shone brightly down from the cloudless sky.
The dryad song fell away into a low humming noise, so faint at first Gerrard thought it was the sound of night insects. Then it grew in intensity, a vibration that made the ground quiver. It was as if they were at the center of an enormous drum, its tense surface trembling with suppressed power.
From the north, Gerrard felt an answering call. With a start, he realized it came from the dragon engine. Unutterable loneliness infused the sound, as if Ramos had waited an eternity for this moment. For millennia, he had been alone, truly alone. Phyrexians had built him, and Urza had given him a purpose, but for eons, Ramos had dwelt beyond any purpose. He had waited. The folk he had saved remembered him in myth, not truth-the folk he longed to help lingered forever beyond his reach. The cry of the dragon filled Gerrard with overwhelming sorrow.
In other parts of the forest, new minds awoke. Ramos's loneliness gave thought, being, to the forest around him. Animated by visions of the dreaming dragon, the denizens of the forest were woven together in a pattern of increasing complexity, drawing their power from the land itself. Trees became individual neurons in a great mind. A circle of wolves lifted their throats in howling. Flora and fauna raised a single song of many voices, swelling into a triumphant anthem.
A new light awoke. In the hands of the dryad chief, the Bones of Ramos were beginning to glow. Dimly at first, then brighter they shone. Light splashed across the circle of dryads, across the waiting crew. Sun bright, the stones beamed.
Gerrard turned his face away. He saw his companions shielding their eyes, their faces bathed in the brilliant light. Waves of power surged from the stones, far stronger even than fluxes from the Thran crystal at the core of Weatherlight.
"Ramos is joining us!" he shouted to Sisay through the omnipresent song. "He is joining himself with the stones. He is joining the Uniter."
The stones were linked to the dragon. None could function alone for long, but when joined together by the power of Ramos, they formed an inexhaustible source of energy. It was as if five unique worlds had been united in the stones, and each universe within the stone was a part of the greater multiverse.
Suddenly, Gerrard knew with certainty that the struggle he was engaged in-the enemies he faced on Rath and here in this reality-were part of a cosmic struggle that was being played out across the entirety of existence. These stones connected him and Ramos to that struggle. Each stone was a cosmos, and within each cosmos were myriad worlds.