On a desert world a village struggles to survive. Pell's passion is deciphering the odd bits and pieces that the Ancients left behind. Her neighbors consider it a waste of time and would rather melt the artifacts down for the metal they so desperately need. Everything changes when a stranger, the first Pell has ever met, asks her to help repair Ancient machines in what the villagers thought was an impenetrable Tower. Driven by curiosity to see inside the Tower, and Moseus' promise of payment in the form of scrap metal, she agrees. In the Tower she finds three Ancient machines, all larger and far more complex than anything she has seen before. She also meets the other inhabitant of the Tower, Heartwood, and she wants to decipher his mercurial moods as much as she wants to know what the machines actually do. Almost immediately she begins to have visions, or maybe memories, of the Tower and its inhabitants, which draw her ever deeper into the mysteries of the Ancients, a tale of warring gods, and the history of the village of Emgarden.