The high priestess rose from her desk with exultation coursing through her. She felt forty years younger. She had talked with a woman in the top of the tower. Not a man. A woman. A professor. This feeling she had must be close to what it felt like for a devout to speak to their god. She bent and hung the white orb around her neck with the same true reverence as the first time she had held it. She had never thought such a thing would ever happen, would ever be possible. Now, all she had ever strove for, all she had ever believed through these long years of darkness and silent service, had finally been confirmed.

Contact. Acknowledgement. The Great Reclamation did still exist, and it was still striving to succeed. The plan was still there. Being worked on. It was a real thing, not an old story, an old wives’ tale. Humankind could be reborn. But it would take strife. Further struggle. A battle against those who would pillage and take the power of reclamation for themselves. The twisting of the reclamation was something she’d always worked against. A glimpse that had been shown to her in the cantina that stormy night all those years ago. All of them on their own separate paths. Her own sacrifice, her strife, workings and manipulations in the shadows, a nudge here, a sickness introduced there, an agent placed here, all because of her devotion to the greater good; all had been confirmed now, on this day.

Today.

She left her desk and strode through the dark tomb, her crystal orb alive, giving her light as if pushing back the weight of the looming stone. She was an ancient woman, and she was still alive. She may not see the end of this, but she would see the beginning of the end, and that would be all she would need.

At the end of the tunnel, she stopped at the closed exit and raised her hand to it like she had done many times before. She passed her hand across the stone, waiting for the colour and the images of its foretelling. The stone-etched pattern on the portal, derivatives of the teachings of the Sisters, she traced with her palm.

All these symbols etched into the blocks of the pyramids, the tower bases. These symbols as reminders to the one true goal. The Great Reclamation and the salvation, the reawakening of mankind. All of the teachings of the Sisters was here; she let her hand drift over the complex maze that warned of the unexpected path, the straight lines of force that could be attack or defence, and the round spheres that represented the fulcrum points.

The stone of the portal began to change colour. The desert sand colour changing towards crimson today. The pyramid always told the Sisters of the outside before the stones would slide away and gave them the foretelling of the day: the threat level and the weather.

This is a point of no return. Everything will hinge from here forward. The silver sphere, as foretold—our people must reach it and whatever power it awakens.

An attendee appeared out of the darkness. Senior clergy in the full mask, like her own. She didn’t know who they were, totally covered, dressed in the complete attire for the day of offerings, mask and hooded long white robe. The way of the Cloistered was to be subtle in one’s movements. To hold a posture of self-reflection and calm demeanour and servitude and study. This resulted in very muted body language. Until they spoke, it was nearly impossible to tell who any sister may be.

The attendee watched with the high priestess as the stone colour held at the crimson, the strongest warning of the instability of the outside conditions and a storm. Bolts of lightning traced the red.

“Crimson with lightning,” the sister remarked. “Excuse my insolence, but I only address this point in order to improve us. I ask your forgiveness for my possible ignorance of all determining factors. You understand, High Priestess, but it is not yet noon. It is still early to begin the day of offerings. We could wait until this threat passes.”

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The one beside her was old Waterwalker. Her gravelly voice was unmistakable. Of course it would be her. They had been Sisters in the Cloistered for the same amount of time, but with her unbroken service, old Waterwalker should have been named high priestess before her. But the one named high priestess had been the one to give the ambassador the service of the clockworks. From that day forward, he had formed his heavy cavalry astride the clockwork horse, and in doing so, she had saved the Sisterhood. Only a Sister had command over a clockwork. A single woman rode with a cohort, commanding the horse, staying apart in all other ways. And, in this way, the Sisters had been protected. They were subdued, but they had survived the ambassador and Sisters of the Cloistered were intact, unlike the Brotherhood. Some hated her for supplying the ambassador with their power over the clockworks and some were devoted to her for saving them. But she had seen the Brotherhood hunted to the end of the valley. She would not let that happen to the Sisters.

One of the Sisters she was not sure of was Waterwalker.

“I understand, Sister,” she replied. “And thank you for your considerate guidance. But today is a special day. There has been a message sent from the observatory. They observed activity. Signs from the city of glass that matches historical launches. If a drone is launched, I will witness it, even though this day is a threat to us.”

She would not speak of the professor. She did not completely trust Waterwalker.

At the pressure of her hand on the carved relief, the stone blocks rumbled and moved to fold back on themselves like grass parted in the wind. The stone grated and churned as it slid back to become an opening. Blinding sunlight flooded them. The women squinted inside their masks at the glare.

They passed through the opening and walked to the sun-washed deck of stone, emerging on a shelf of stone halfway up the side of the pyramid.

Behind them, two younger-robed women in partial masks carried out a woven reed table.

As the young priestesses set the table down, the older women waited. The high priestess took her pendant off and, wrapping the cord around its base like a nest, placed the optic at the leading edge of the table. She subtly placed it, so the optic was in line with the canal to the Western City, with the ambassador’s airship in the foreground and the far cliff face and the waterfall in the background.

The younger priestess then brought two woven seats for the elderly women.

The high priestess could see the small old orangutan working with his gliders. Three gliders now. She could see two small figures in the desert below him. The girls had run out a line and had launched a chute balloon. She wondered if she had increased his food allotment. She would have to remember to check on that. The extra gliders were undoubtedly the work of the two girls under his guidance. She had reports that his arthritis had grown severe.

It looked like they were prepared. The trials and tribulations of the girls’ family had driven them here, and now they had three gliders where there had been only one.

Luck works in mysterious ways, she thought.

The morning breezes had freshened, and the sail chute at the end of the balloon was lifted higher. Tethered above them, a line from the base of the tower to the balloon pointed out at an angle north over the desert. The gliders would use that line to launch. It was a runway in the air.

They would do well today. The wind and weather were good. The orangutan had confirmed that he had received the optics. The last key to any hope now was up to the Wayfarers.

The high priestess looked down to the canal. She could see the worshipers, the few of them, fewer all the time, as they began to make their climb up the pyramid to her.

“So very few these days,” came the old gravelly voice from beside her.

“Yes, Sister. It is true.”

“They don’t expect us so early. Still in the morning.” She could feel the critical gaze turned towards her. “More will come later, and they may be too late. We will miss the tech they bring us,” the old woman reprimanded.

“All are welcome,” she said, keeping her tone light and her head facing front. “And we will stay until we have seen all the things this day has to offer.”

There. Let the little witch wonder what I may know, she thought to herself. But she did agree with her. Things were moving too quickly.

She had kept her mask and her raised hood towards the worshipers that were climbing up to them.

She wondered if Camomile had made it in time to save the Wayfarers from certain slaughter.

Things are moving too quickly, she thought, and sighed as she sat down at the offering table beside Waterwalker.

“Come! Welcome!” she called out below, her arms up in the traditional welcoming gesture. “The Sisters welcome your offerings! Such a fine day!”