Invasion

Chapter 24

Orim's sick bay seemed a menagerie. Rats and flying squirrels paced in makeshift cages. Mounds of what seemed fish eggs occupied airtight vials across her desk. Four dead Phyrexians lay nearby. They seemed giant, overturned cockroaches. Only one true patient remained- Hanna. She languished in feverish sleep on the far side of the room. It was for her that the menagerie existed. It was to save that one human that Orim had worked so tirelessly over Phyrexian corpses.

From those corpses, Orim had tapped every fluid she could find-glistening-oil, green bile, saliva, gastric juice, venom, lymph, cerebral-spinal fluid, even cardiac liquids. Gladly these vat-grown creatures had no reproductive fluids. Using a centrifuge and Cho-Arrim water magic, Orim separated each fluid into its component parts. The lymph and blood contained many of the disease-fighting compounds, and comparing the materials common to them allowed Orim to narrow the immunity substances. Then, it was a matter of applying distillations of each part on plague-infected flora and fauna from Llanowar.

The Benalish aerial armada had proven itself quite intrepid in gathering test subjects.

The immunity substance, as it turned out, was a black platelet suspended in glistening-oil. It could not reverse the disease, but it prevented its spread. Uninfected leaves treated with the substance were made immune to the plague. Infected leaves did not worsen but neither did they improve. No cure, this, it would at least prevent the disease from spreading, flesh to flesh and person to person.

Squee had gathered rats from the bilges-healthy beasts that had feasted on hardtack and ale. The black material was gobbled greedily by the beasts. In mere moments, they proved immune. Infected flying squirrels from the forest also liked the taste of Phyrexian immunity, and their disease ceased its advance.

Now, it was up to Orim. She would not test this substance on any person until she had tested it on herself. After dissecting Phyrexian corpses, Orim had little stomach for the curative caviar, but she would do anything for Hanna. Drawing a deep breath, she lifted the jiggling black mass to her mouth. The spoon slid reluctantly over her teeth.

Tiny, cold spheres settled on her tongue. They felt like minute beads of glass, sliding down behind her teeth. They tasted of oil. She dared not chew but only swallowed. The platelets crowded down her throat. They slid into her belly. It felt chill and dark. The sensation spread from her stomach into her blood. Was it only her mind, or did this feel like a tiny invasion? A shudder moved through her, the coolness spreading under her clothes and out to her fingertips.

"That should be enough time," Orim sighed.

She lifted a knife from her worktable, set its tip on her biceps, and drew the blade down in a brief, deep cut. It was almost painless, the knife was so sharp. The blade came away. A drop of crimson welled up from the slit. Putting down the knife, Orim lifted a plague infected leaf, opened the cut, and crumbled the black corruption into the wound. Every instinct she had-not only as a healer but as a living being-shivered at the sight of those black flakes adhering to the cut flesh.

Clamping a cloth over the spot, Orim closed her eyes and hissed. This strain of the plague was virulent enough that it would turn the skin necrotic in moments. She needed wait only those moments to see if she had devised a serum or if she were joining Hanna on the road to death.

Pulling the cloth away, Orim drew the sides of the wound apart. She peered down into perfect, red flesh. A deep, thankful breath filled her. She said a silent thanks to the powers of healing and water.

"Oh, Hanna," Orim said, though she knew her patient still slept. "The first hope. It cannot save you, hut it can save others. I'll keep working until I have a cure." Dashing tears from her eyes, Orim snatched up a vial of the platelets and approached Hanna.

She lay on her side, knees drawn up over the belly wound that was killing her.

Sitting on her bunk, Orim reached out gently to stroke her friend's hair. Hanna was so thin. Her face seemed skin stretched over a skull. Her eyes were visible beneath translucent lids. Her neck was a bundle of straining cords. Only her hair was as it had been-streaming gold. Fondly, Orim drew her fingers through the strands.

"Hanna, wake up. I have something for you."

A shuddering breath went through Hanna. She rolled to her back. She eased her legs downward. They seemed as thin as sticks beneath the blankets. Blue lids pulled back from bloodshot eyes. Orim bit her lip to see the chronic pain there.

Hanna muttered weakly, "Something… for me?"

"It's not a cure-but it will stop the disease from advancing." Orim held up the vial. "It'll keep a healthy person from catching it."

"Thank you," Hanna said, reaching up. She did not clutch the vial but Orim's arm. "Use it on someone it can save."

Orim's eyes clouded. "There is enough. I want you to take this. It will buy time."

Not releasing her friend's arm, Hanna drew aside the gown. The bandages that looped her midsection seemed loose, as though she had shrunk. Even beyond the edge of those bandages, her skin was gray from shoulder to thigh. Tendrils of corruption reached farther, to elbow and knee.

"Time for what?" She covered herself again. "Please, give it to someone it will save."

Orim sadly patted her friend's cheek. "Gerrard has ordered it. Now, open up."

Her eyes hard and angry, Hanna took the spoonful.

"I won't give up, Hanna. I'm going to find a cure."

"Thank you, Orim," Hanna said quietly. "Thank you… I need to sleep."

"Yes," responded the healer. She drew Hanna's blankets up to her shoulders. A chill went down her spine. One day, and sooner than later, she would be drawing these blankets up over Hanna's face. "Sleep, dear girl. Sleep."

Turning, Orim retreated to her worktable. Hanna breathed in quiet rest as Orim gathered the rack of vials. She pushed back the sick bay door and climbed the stairs. The tiny bottles rattled as she rose.

Here, beyond the Phyrexian corpses and the caged testcreatures, Weatherlight ceased to be a laboratory and became a warship. An ensign hurried down the companionway above, reading from a page in his hand the names of the refugees who were to eat next. Orim continued on until she reached the amidships hatch. She climbed through to stand on the deck.

Gerrard crouched on the deck, working with a crew who were easing the repaired port-side ray cannon back into its moorings. He was bare to the waist and sweating, though a steady breeze came over the prow to him.

Orim approached, lifting the rack of vials. "I have it, enough serum for the ship's whole complement and some left over."

From the grease-track where he knelt, Gerrard looked up. "You have it? A cure?"

"Not a cure. I have an immunity serum."

He was on his feet. "Will it help Hanna?" Orim shook her head slowly.

An angry line knitted Gerrard's brow, but he managed to say, "Good work. You've saved us."

"Most of us."

"Administer the serum. Once everyone is treated, I want you to set aside the rest-as much as you can spare- for a gift."

"A gift?" she asked.

"We're landing in the treetops. Not the whole armada, just Weatherlight and her immune crew. The ship herself should somehow ingest some of the serum, to make her hull impervious. I'll ask Hanna how-"

"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."

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."