Some cool foreshadowing early on at the Concent of Saunt Edhar
Incanters’ chanting is related to their Third Sack praxis, Third Sack praxis is related to Narrative selection (i.e., exploiting consciousness’s ability to promote the potential to the actual), and —at least in the Thousander math at Saunt Edhar—their Third Sack praxis is related extending their lifespan.
Early in the novel, Erasmas describes the clock-winders’ role in Provener:
At the proper moment in the service, Jesry, Arsibalt, Lio, and I each went to the end of a pole and put his hands on it. At a certain beat in the Anathem, each of us threw himself behind his pole, like a sailor trying to weigh anchor by turning a capstan. But nothing moved except for my right foot, which broke loose from the floor and skidded back for a few inches before finding purchase. Our combined strength could not overcome the static friction of all the bearings and gears between us and the sprocket hundreds of feet above from which the chain and the weight depended. Once it became unstuck we would be strong enough to keep it going, but getting it unstuck required a mighty thrust (supposing we wanted to use brute force) or, if we chose to be clever, a tiny shake: a subtle vibration. Different praxics might solve this problem in different ways. At Saunt Edhar, we did it with our voices.
(part 1, PROVENER, Saunt)
Very early, we’re getting introduced to the idea that something with an expiration date, in this case the continued progression of the clock, can have its expiration date manipulated, even indefinitely postponed. And this can be accomplished relatively easily through the seemingly-magical, but actually the result of clever yet completely prosaic engineering.