Kidu unlaced his knee high boots at the entrance of the Ministry Office.  The young monk guarding the door stood motionless, watching the Kidu remove his brown leather boots.  "Don't worry Gori," Kidu said, hanging his boots upon one of the wooden hooks with all the other boots, shoes and sandals.  "Just eight more months of watching people take off their shoes.  Then your assignment is done. Maybe you can then rotate to something more exciting.  I hear the library's looking for a talented team of recorders to sort out some loose pages of old books from the Longtooth era."

Gori remained still in his padded green vest with white sleeves, the standard uniform of the Chamber Guard, his arms folded behind him.  Kidu winked and started down the hall with a half smile.  As he passed Gori turned and whispered "Is that true?"

Kidu shrugged without looking back.  It had been a week since he and Timlan had met the hermit near the top of the mountain. Supplies at the Cloud Seat, the temple carved into the side of the mountain, had been raided of supplies. Kidu and Timlan climbed the mountain to investigate, encountering the odd hermit Serkrit, who had given him a red scroll before leaping off the edge of the mountain. The scholars took the scroll and examined it from corner to corner, studying the craftsmanship, the language, and even the type of ink that was used. After a week, Kidu was summoned to the Ministry Office. 

The Ministry Office was where the highest ranking Uncles and Ministers gathered to discuss issues with the House and city. Whatever they may have found, it must have been significant as the Chief Constable of the city also attended the Ministry meetings. 

The black flag of the SanKai rippled in the morning breeze by the doorway.  At the center of the flag was the white hand with five outstretched fingers representing the five major houses.  As he always did, put his hand out and waved back at the flag.  He pulled on the heavy red and black studded door and squeezed in before it slam shut from its own weight.  The entryway was a long corridor adorned with lacquered wood molding carved with forest animals, trees and landscapes in an intricate story.  It looks as a carving of the journey of Satlilat, the Father of the SanKai, and how he led his people away from the barren desert over two thousand years ago to their current home here, in the three islands at the most northern end of the continent. It was said that when the ancient SanKai first saw the three islands while standing on the shores of the mainland, the difference in elevation of the three islands reminded them of scales.  The new home of the SanKai had been called the Scales since. 

Along the corridor was a long table of a single polished and stained plank of northern pine.  About a dozen candles were lit and placed along the table.  Kidu ran his open palm over every candle as he tip toed in his stockings over the dull green and yellow flower patterned rug toward the council of ministers.  At the end of the corridor was an opening into the council.

Through instinct Kidu curtsied before even waiting to be acknowledged.  He straightened himself and found the room as still as the incense smoke that hung in the room.  There were the usual members of the council, sitting on their orange silk mats on the ground facing each other.  There was an unfamiliar member in a green coat standing in the corner, holding his yellow traveling cap with both hands.  Venerable Father Qizen, the highest ranking monk of the House of Angshar was in attendance, which in itself was unusual. He sat still with his prayer scarf over his lap, his grey furrowed brow raised in a perpetual stare into nothing.  None of the ministers noticed Kidu's arrival.  Master Rengu set a parchment down and waved Kidu in.  Kidu knelt on the rug between Chief Constable Baratis and the city architect Ruthier, who crossed his legs uncomfortably on his mat. Ruthier was on a recent assignment from the mainland and not accustomed to the sparse comforts of temple life. 

No one spoke.  All eyes focused on the parchment Master Rengu set down.  

"My honorable ministers?" Kidu broke the silence. 

"Thank you for coming, Kidu," Master Rengu said, his voice cracking.  "We had asked you to come to discuss the events at the Mirror and the old hermit you encountered, and about the red scroll he gave you.  However that discussion may have to wait.  This guest of ours arrived this morning from the south. He is from the capital. He is part of an envoy from the capital that shall arrive within the week. He rode ahead to deliver a message. The Grey Herald comes to the Scales."

“The Grey Herald?  You mean Menquist. Our old friend Menquist comes to our House?”  Kidu asked, catching himself from smiling.  He looked forward to the King Gordyn’s messenger visiting the Scales, but the ministers were too somber to share his sentiment.  “What is it? He brings ill news, doesn't he?”

The members of the council eyed Father Qizen.  "How many Peers have left our shores and served the realm?" he finally spoke, his voice rasp and faint.  "Of all the sons and daughters that have trained in our temples, have we ever seen a greater warrior-poet among us?  He won me my seat.  A champion not only of these islands but of all the kingdoms.  He truly was peerless.  The Moon Months set to close, but I fear winter shall forever remain in these halls."

Kidu eyed the ministers but their faces remained blank.  "Of whom are you speaking, great Father? Is it Mazi?"  He turned to Master Rengu. 

Rengu nodded, his face weary.

“What news of Mazi?” Kidu asked. 

 “Mazi is no more,” Rengu said. “Menquist brings his remains home.”

Kidu turned to the messenger.  "Mazi has never known defeat. What caused his demise?"

The messenger bowed.  "My ministers, Venerable Father and Uncles, I bear only the news of the knight's return.  The telling of events leading to his end is best left to the Herald, for it is a story for him to tell. The Herald sent me ahead so your House may make the proper preparations in receiving the knight’s remains.  I am also to inform you of the Herald's intention to call the king's banners."

"The king's banners!" cried one of the ministers. "There hasn't been a banner calling in hundreds of years!"

"Aye," nodded Constable Baratis.  "I didn't think the banners still existed after the Lanfryd line ended. Is it even legal?”

"What's a banner calling?" Ruthier asked, shifting his legs into a less painful position. 

"It's the king's call for all able members of the Five Houses to serve," Baratis explained.  "In the old days it was reserved for acts of war. Normally the monks have to achieve the rank of Peer to be in service to the king, but when the banner is called, all must answer the call.  Even the lowliest monk putting away books in the library, if he can serve, must answer.”

"King Gordyn overreaches," Qizen declared.  "The Herald brings news of death but yet will not yield us time to mourn."

Rengu waved at a young acolyte standing in the corner of the chamber.  "Our guest has ridden hard ahead of his company to bear us this news.  See our Kiennese brother to a fresh basin to wash his face and a mat to rest his head."

The messenger bowed deeply and followed the acolyte out of the room.

"New Hearth was attacked by a small band of Isnumurti who traveled through the Purged Forest," Rengu said after the messenger had left the room.  "Mazi had been working with the Aredunians to investigate why the Isnumurti had come out so far."

“New Hearth is a remote outpost,” one minister said. “Why was he working with the Republic of Aredun anyway? Our allegiance is to King Gordyn and to the kingdom of Kienne.”

“Ah, Mazi is the champion for all the kingdoms, remember,” another replied. “We never shunned the glory he brought to our Houses before.”

"But it is impossible," said a third minister.  "The Isnumurti savages could not travel through the Purge.  They could not survive that dense forest. It is home for so many man-eating animals and monstrosities."

"And what do we know about Isnumur?" asked the first.  "A nation of jungle people, secluded from the rest of the world.  They're not much more civilized than the barbarians in the Sea of Ruin."

The Venerable Father sighed.  "Mazi was worldly and his compassion was renown.  It was not beyond his character to aid anyone in need across any border.  But if the herald expects us to help fight off a skirmish half a world away, he will find that our resolve in our own preservation outweighs our compassion for those whom we do not serve."

"Father," Baratis interjected, "if King Gordyn does call the SanKai to his banners, this may include my security forces.  This will cripple our defenses against the bandit Brandarm. We are still embroiled in our own conflicts. The Scales is a sovereign body, you need not comply."

Rengu cleared his throat and stood up.  He approached the altar of Rimsat, one of the Five Gods, and replaced a spent red candle.  "History is uncertain in how we are remembered, as we have ignored the call many times.  When Earc the Conquerer set out in the First Conquest nine hundred years ago to unify all the kingdoms, he called us to his banners.  He needed our help to satisfy his terrible blood lust.  He was the most feared warlord the world had ever seen, barrening fields and hollowing homes as his dominion grew, yet we ignored the call.  It was the right thing to do.  We SanKai protect the realm, we do not partake in the greedy wars of conquest, we had told him.  Earc went on and scorched half the Earth, unchallenged.  Later when his descendant Searc led the Second Conquest, again we were summoned.  Again we ignored the call.  Tyranny knocked upon our door, and we did not answer.  Searc did not find as much success as his forebear but neither did his victims.   Thousands died while we sat in our halls, talking of things like preservation.  How do you preserve a world where you watch thousands die?  There were children among the numbers.  Then later the call to banners came again during the dark period of the Civil War.  Ualryg the Destroyer, upon overthrowing the Kienne government, called us to aid in defending his new rule from the remaining Kiennese loyalists.  At last in our finer moments we answered the call, although not to aid the foreign warlord.  We aided the resistance.  The SanKai helped Mercys, the resistance leader, depose of Ualryg's line and return the throne to the Kiennese, and it was done with almost no bloodshed.  When Mercys was chosen as king, we remained as peacekeepers until he passed the crown to his son. His son of course was Ronyn the Builder, perhaps the greatest Kiennese king of all history.  And so the longest era of peace was ushered in because the SanKai knows when to answer the greater calling."

"You would send us all south to aid a foreign government, would you?" Qizen asked. "Perhaps one day if you ever sit in my chair our sons' and daughters' lives will be yours to throw away for the sake of some Kiennese fairy tales."

“I dare not sit on your seat, Father Qizen,” Rengu bowed. “That seat has already been taken. War has already claimed it. War comes to the Scales, whether we are willing to meet it head on or not.”