The Teacher staggered into the small cave overlooking the darkened prairie. The northwest skyline was a sea of orange-red flames dancing against a blackened sky
. He had fled from the fire raging at the Western Star Shift Institute. He turned to the north and saw the red and yellow glow emanating from the distant black resin wells and in the sky the Star Path of the Way to the Stars was gone. Tears flowed down his face to mingle with the sweat that poured down his face and chest.
His hands were bleeding from scraping the rocks, his cassock was tattered from his headlong flight, and his black skull cap lost somewhere along the trail. His breath came in ragged pants and he felt as though his chest was being crushed. It has to be here was the thought that drove him higher into the deepening
