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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.
The song of the dryads slowly faded. As it did, the glow
within each stone lessened. When the music ended at last, the
powerstones each retained some portion of their inner fire.
Silence settled like a blanket on the grove. A hush
extended across the land for miles, a stillness that embraced
every living creature. For a long moment, it stretched
outward. Gradually, normal night noises resumed.
Gerrard found, to his surprise, that he was breathing
rapidly. Beside him Sisay sat, head bowed to her knees. When
Gerrard touched her arm, she stirred and looked at him, her
eyes dark pools in the night. Tears glinted on her cheeks.
"Did you hear it?" she whispered. "Did you?"
He nodded.
The chief dryad approached, laying the stones at Gerrard's
feet. Twiglike fingers reached toward the Benalian. He held
his hand out as well. Small, snapping surges of power arced
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