The last bead revealed itself in the summer, shortly before the Ceremony. Though I’d spent many nights imagining how the village in my third bead might have looked before its destruction, never, even in my wildest imaginings, had I come close to the sight of its restored glory I now beheld. Houses of glass towered over me, piercing the skies like daggers. Everywhere around, a dazzling horde of metallic beasts bustled about, tame and eager to serve the Man. These obedient minions blazed through the roads faster than our best stallions and flew higher than birds, carrying people inside their welcoming bosoms. The village lay vast and majestic, stretching farther than an eye could see, and on its outskirts, other gigantic beasts labored, knowing no rest, building new dwellings for their masters.

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Eager to unburden my soul, I shared the last two visions with the tribe. The old Masters did not as much as admonish me for concealing the third vision for so long, perhaps forgetting to do so in their joy, perhaps seeing that my motives were pure.

Only one thing from the fourth vision I still kept to myself: the fate of the Maker. He stood, humble and mundane among many of his gleaming metallic brethren, all forced to give N’Keles left and right, with no discernment, no Ceremony, and no respect paid to them. Everyone, it seemed, had the Tokens to feed to the Makers, and more than anyone, it was the immature children, who’d hung numerous N’Keles at once all over themselves, playing with them as if they were a mere trifle. Perhaps that was what the Maker foresaw for himself, and who was I to judge his wisdom and will?

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

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My contentment would be complete if not for the Ceremony that encroached towards the present without my notice, and the task of initiating my successor that came with it. Since none of my beads showed this year’s Ceremony, I had to think of how, in the future, I should send a message to myself in the “now”. First, I decided that after the Ceremony, I would visit the same forest clearing we’d frequented with Tak in the days before our initiation and plant a few oak seeds in such a way that when they grew, they’d form a number – my position in the rite. But, when I visited the place through my beads, no trees grew where I’d meant to plant them.

“Silly you,” I thought, slapping myself in the forehead, “what if some of the seeds fail to sprout? What if a hurricane came and tore the saplings down? What if new seeds fell around and formed a grove, so that no numbers can be read?” The idea was doomed from the beginning, and my future self must have abandoned the plan.

I then resolved to stash a metal figurine – a digit indicating my position in the rite – in the pyre of the old M’Lenssey’s house that’d burned down a few years prior and that was rebuilt in my first bead. If, after the ceremony, I dropped the figurine into the deep crack in the foundation, no one would get to it but me, as in my visions, walls and stone posed no obstacle. But, try as I might to locate the figurine in the restored house, it was not there.

I was left to search for another method, hoping it would be final. What I came up with seemed so simple that I immediately chided myself for not thinking of it sooner: after the Ceremony, I was to carve the number in stone. To make sure it works, I decided to leave a mark now, so that my future self knew where to write the message. I borrowed a chisel and a mallet from M’Kimma – a young stonemason – and went on a day’s journey to the Waterfall Crags.