The creatures made no response. None of the dryads so much as lifted a finger.
Tahngarth brushed a hand over his horns.
His sudden motion alarmed their captors. From one dryad came a single soft note.
The minotaur looked sleepily at his comrades. "Must sleep," he said in a voice filled with weariness. "Tired. Must
…" Without another word, he fell forward on the ground, almost flattening Sisay. He began to snore.
"What the…?" The dark woman leaped back. "They enchanted him somehow."
The dryads regarded the sleeping minotaur stoically.
Gerrard quietly lowered himself to the ground and told the others, "Sit down."
"What?" Sisay stared at him. "Are they enchanting you, too? Chamas, take Gerrard's right hand, I'll take the left-"
"Belay that." Gerrard's voice was low but sharp. "Sit down, all of you."
Slowly, the crew sank to the ground.
Sisay glared at Gerrard, but she too followed suit. "What are we doing?"
"A long time ago, I overheard Multani tell Rofellos that among the tree people sitting is a sign of peaceful intentions. While we were standing, they thought we might attack them."
There was a long moment of silence. Then the dryad who had sounded the note glided a foot or two closer. His eyes were half-closed, as if in concentration. From his lips there came a series of notes, some long and languorous, others sharp and sparkling.
Gerrard bowed his head submissively. The dryad chieftain advanced to within a foot of the Benalian and slowly, tentatively, extended long fingers toward him. Gerrard's hand came out in response, and the two gently touched.
Something passed between their fingers-small, leaping energies. The others in the glade could see the tiny lightnings in the air. Auras roiled up Gerrard's arm and sparked in his eyes. He felt power jagging through his mind, and he suddenly knew this was the way whole forests thoughtinfinitely intricate networks of bough and vine, tangled masses of root, and energy leaping from one to the next. Each tree and plant was an individual being until those minute synapses were bridged, and then, each and all became one.
Gerrard suddenly understood. He understood this place, these people, the guardians of the wood. He rose. His boots pulled free of the entrapping earth.
The dryad chief took a step back. He too understood. He knew of Weatherlight and the Matrix, of the Cho-Arrim and Saprazzans and Rishadans, of the coming rebellion…
"We have reached Ouramos," Gerrard told his crew. His voice sounded oracular in his own ears. "This place was shaped by the arrival of Ramos on this world."
"Ramos…" Sisay whispered in amazement.
Words rolled out of Gerrard in a steady, strong stream.
"Long, long ago, in the wake of the Brothers' War, Ramos fled Dominaria. He had been on the battlefield of Argoth when Urza unleashed the sylex blast. Ramos flew out before it. Naked energy pursued him. It leveled mountains and sank continents. It lifted oceans in killing waves. Ramos soared ahead of them.
"Beneath the waters, he spied merfolk fleeing in terror. Reaching one gigantic hand into the flood, Ramos bore the merfolk away with him. He flew on, ahead of the hand of death. Next, Ramos came upon a great galley packed with refugees. In his mercy, he reached down with his other hand and lifted the ship from the waves. He bore them away, that they too might be saved. Ramos flew on, ahead of the incinerating blast.
"Perhaps, though, Ramos sought to save too many. So weighty was the great galley and the host within it that Ramos-great Ramos-was slowed. He could not outrun the shattering wave. It struck him and the ship he carried. Chaos energies and magic vortices enveloped them. Madness dragged at reason. Falsity overwhelmed truth. In the malign irony of destruction, the wave flung Ramos and the ship beyond Dominaria to his former world-to Phyrexia.
"Yes, the great Ramos was himself Phyrexian. He had been brought out of Phyrexia by none other than Urza Planeswalker. Once created to hunt and destroy humans, Ramos was altered by Urza to save them. He had been redesigned to fight the malign leviathans of Mishra and to bear away from battle wagonloads of wounded. When the sylex blasted away the isle of Argoth, Ramos had only followed Urza's design and become a rescuer. Ramos had flown ahead of the blast, seeking someone to save. He had lifted the merfolk and the refugees in the great galley in hopes of saving them-but this was not saving them. Bearing them to Phyrexia was not saving them. In that horrible place, the folk would be mangled and mutated into monsters.
"Ramos knew of another world beyond Phyrexia, a fair place linked to that foul one. Gathering the last of his might-for the blast that had borne him to Phyrexia nearly destroyed himRamos soared through a near-forgotten portal that led from Phyrexia to Mercadia.
"It was truly the last measure of his saving power. Through a portal in the sky, Ramos emerged, bearing in one hand a school of merfolk and in the other a great galley. They all were mantled in fire. The folk Ramos sought to save were burning alive. Seeing their distress, Ramos's heart broke. It cracked away from the core of his being and fell into the sea. There it waited in the deeps, the great artifact called the Power Matrix.
"Hollow hearted, Ramos lowered the hand that bore the merfolk. He released them gently into the ocean. Water hissed to steam, extinguishing the fires that burned the people. As the burning ship neared shore, Ramos reached onto the deck, where crew struggled among blazing lines and masts. He clutched them up and rolled them out on the beach of Rishada. Sand extinguished the fires that burned the people. As the ship soared over Mount Mercadia, Ramos reached into the hold where the refugees of Argoth cowered. He hauled them forth and spread them through the forests of Rushwood beyond. Leaves extinguished the fires that burned the people. When next his hand reached inside, there was nothing but corpses to be found. In his pity, Ramos lifted even them and sprinkled them through the fens of Deepwood.
"Only the ship and Ramos himself remained. Together, they burned like twin suns. Beneath them, the forests and cities flashed away. Buildings were shattered, stones turned to ash, and folk in the hundreds of thousands died. Hundreds of thousands died because Ramos sought to save hundreds.
"It was this last, cruel irony that shattered the core of great Ramos. The immortal's crystalline soul, which had withstood incendiary heat, could not bear the deaths of hundreds of thousands. His will fragmented. The burning ship fell from his hands. It struck ground just behind us, carving out the vast crater there. Fires erupted from the spot and blazed through the forest. Ramos fell into that burning bowlhis own killing sylex. He did not rise. He no longer had the will to.
"Fire is the bane of mortal things but not of things immortal. Ramos was not slain, though every living thing around him fell to black soot. In time, the flames died. Ramos was left alone among ashes. Shards from the shattered core of his being rattled loose within him. Five great pieces had chipped away, and for their lack, he could not muster the will to move.
"If fire is the bane of mortal things, time is their ally. Life always returns. Grass covered the torn earth. Saplings pushed up through the ashes. Black gave way to green. With the rise of life, Ramos rose too. He placed an altar stone at the center of the blast crater, and upon that stone, he set the five crystals that had broken away from the core of his being. He made those stones a symbol for the hundreds of thousands. He made Ouramos a temple, sacred to their memory.
"As the forests around had brought will and life back to Ramos, he brought will and life to them. He enlivened the trees with his spirit. He gathered the dryads from among them and made them into his people. He raised even the dead folk in the Deepwood and made them guardians of his realm. He longed to heal all the shattered world, to make it whole again, but such feats were beyond the ruined immortal. His will, his true power, lay in shards on the altar stone."