When it's foundation stones were laid and it's deep cellars excavated, Khulmo's great meeting-house had been intended to hold the entire population of the Hesh. Even in those days when the people were few, thin and stunted, that hadn't been quite true - for all it's mind-blowing size, it wasn't exactly monumental. Still, it had comfortably hosted every individual interested or dutiful enough to attend the Moon council for well over a century - only a fraction of the total population, thankfully. Today, though, even a fraction was enough to overwhelm the hulking old beast, and the early morning light - filtering in from above - lent scant illumination to a gloomy, shifting mass, packing the structure wall-to-wall, eager observers and would-be orators pouring out onto the worn dirt of the Dancing Place, the eerie after-Moon glow of the township cut by a buzzing, airborne excitement and the scent of a crowd. For many - the rising young cohort of the recent prosperity and the people of the Condor, come down from their little enclave - it would be their first Moon council, and it promised to be an important one, with the little hill of Valley-dirt packed already with the influential and well regarded of Khulmo - famed craftsmen, old matriarchs, charismatic Finders, and the entirety of the Magnolia Lodge's speaking-council, including Tzimtseki of the Condor, member of the House of Jade by marriage.
Too gathered - though further from the center of the hall - were their opposites, such as they were. The Headmen of the Warriors Lodge and crones of the Lambs Society - thorns in the side of proper society, ranks swollen by bird-headed warriors of the Condor who chafed against Hesh culture and demands, and perhaps surprisingly a great deal of Condor women, those veiled unfortunates with no place in the Houses of the Earth and - unlike their male counterparts - no chance of seeing themselves or their children join them. Ironically, the crowd of malcontents also contained a great deal of those Hesh displeased with the very people who now stood with them, albeit in their own little cluster. Some grumbled of the crowding, other the Condor-people's barbarity. Many were coppersmiths, upset that their previous position of prestige among the craftsmen of Hesh had been usurped totally by the Condor bronzeworkers and ashamed at having to learn the new ways of metalcraft from people who could barely speak the Hesh language. All had something to whine about.
The beating of a skin drum, somewhere in the tight crowd atop the dirt rise, signaled a start to the council - chatter quieted down and jostlers stilled as the music-less beat rose and, slowly, trailed off. Steadfast of the Obsidian, a speaker of the Brown Magnolia, cleared her throat.
"Seeing as everybody is here - everybody who will fit, at least - I, speaking with Choosewell of the Black Earth, with Tzimtseki of the Condor, with Redrock of the Blue Clay and Blackhand of the Jade, with the Brown Magnolia Lodge and the Citron Society, and with the others here beside me, will end the Moon by saying; this way of doing things is no longer working. As the Valley changes, so must the Hesh way, and in speaking for a long time with people known for right-thinking, and with any others who would listen and respond, I believe that I know the way we should do things to remain on the old path even in these new times."
As Steadfast stopped to take a breath, a murmur which had been building as she spoke erupted, everyone in the crowd speaking and arguing - with eachother and at the rise - all at once.
"Who are you, to tell us that our way of doing things is wrong, to dictate at us change in what makes us Hesh? Are 5 people to decide how we do things? 5 people to change the Valley?"
Redrock responded - "We aren't going to dictate anything. We're going to open discussion and voice our thoughts."
"This way of doing things has been kept to for a hundred years. It is how our mothers did things, and our grandmothers, and it is the right way, the way which has kept us from falling back into wrong living - if we change it we are no better than savages."
Steadfast responded - "Our mothers and our grandmothers worked without benefit of machines or metal as well - not all things which are old are good. Things must change."
After a few minutes the rioting calmed down enough for one man, raising his hand above the crowd from a knot of supporters, to be heard and listened to in some degree of silence - his voice came from a section of the hall occupied by members of the Houses of Yellow and Red Earth, and the speakers of the farming lodge and Olive Society, a bunch stereotyped as simple, rural and reactionary. In some ways they were the mirror of the Warriors Lodge and their ilk, and as such were generally respected.
"We know what way you think we should do things," he began, "and we know why. You will say that we need a Coming In, that we need to listen more to people such as yourselves, that we should do what you say, and only a few certain people should tell you what we think of it. You choose a day where there are more people coming here after the Moon than usual, so you can point and say the way we do things is not working, but that is only because the way we do things involves not lavishing you with praise and gifts, and not letting you lead us by the nose."
"We chose to speak on this day so that we can reach the most ears, and have the most voices involved in coming up with ideas for a new way things can be done," Steadfast said, "but the crowds after the Moon have been growing impossible for a long time, and they have become such that everybody can no longer be heard here, and no real discussion can be had. It was so at the time after the Moon before this one, and it will be at the time after this Moon. Our idea for a new way of doing things isn't to make it so only we are heard, but to have everybody heard, as they are at the village meetings, and at the meetings of the lodges and societies, and as they once were at the meetings of all Hesh. With so many voices in one place as this, that cannot be."
A grumbling from around the rise - a voice again from the rural folk: "If the issue is that the meeting-house is too small, build a new one. Meet outside! If the people are too loud, beat the drum more often! Do not change everything for such little problems as these!"
A response from Steadfast was cut short as, elbowing their way through the crowd, members of the Warrior Lodge - faces bare but retaining the light green stains of their paint - began to shuffle their way onto the rise, displacing most of the pack of ancients and sending waves of shifting discomfort through the hall. New people shoving their way into the prime speaking space was expected - albeit somewhat rude when the current occupants were obviously winding themselves up for a speech - though, for some reason, the Khulmo magnates now milling about the base didn't look particularly nonplussed. Nonetheless, the fact that it was the Warriors Lodge doing the displacement - a cadre of stout, middle aged headmen in dark tunics, copper bangles and the occasional Condor hood - made the act all the more inappropriate, and the ascension was met with a renewed onslaught of jeering.
One of the more senior of the chiefs - a scarred convert from the Hunters Lodge who went by Spear - raised his hands for silence, and the crowd slowly complied, their own compulsion for compliance overcoming distaste towards those who lacked it.
"The Warriors Lodge agrees - this way of things isn't working, and we can say with confidence that whatever Steadfast and her esteemed fellows have to propose won't work either. No matter how much they wish it, humans are not ants, and whatever half-measures they'll propose are not going to set us on the correct path. We need government, rule of law, if we wish to preserve what of the way we live - the way Hesh must live - is to be preserved. We need men and women of virtue to come to the forefront, to protect our rights and to ensure that we are not misled, to ensure that all are heard and that what they truly wish - not just what the loud few are able to scream over the din of the after Moon - comes to pass. We need to choose the best of us in election, send them to represent us, keep them at a number which will ensure they are able to debate productively, come to quick decision when is necessary and make the hard choices. If we do not, the Valley will fall into chaos, and we will return to the wrong way of living. So the Warriors Lodge thinks."
As could be predicted, the Warrior's proposal was met with a wave of disapproval - though the cheering and chanting in support, while a minority, wasn't limited to their own core of supporters in the crowd. Spear met their scorn with a shrug and, with a smirk all too easily missed, herded his lackeys off the rise to make room, again, for Steadfast and her lot, who on this ascent made a great show of shooing off the warriors and casting rude gestures at their backs. Jeers shifted to cheers, and it was now Steadfasts turn to hold up her hands for silence, this time in the face of approval.
"I know where Spear got his ideas for 'preserving' the right way," she began, "and I know where that path leads. What he describes is how the cities of Ulhar and Kish, Sharesh and Nakans were ruled, before all of them were cast down by their own arrogance. It is a way which promised to differ from the temple-priests, the despots and oligarchs, but it is a way which led to the same result. It is wrong, but if we continue to go as things are, I fear that it - and Spear's sort - will take root. Most of you saw through his words, but many did not, and so long as the Hesh remain indecisive and confused, more someday will. We must have a more organized after Moon, a more frequent one - we must ask the Valley villages to send less listeners and speakers each, and limit the number of people who attend only to jeer and enjoy rather than argue and relay. Ideas, proposals and issues need to be thought out beforehand, and an order of address for each meeting agreed upon, as in the lodges."
Steadfast's proposal was met with a lukewarm muttering, but as arguments for and against began to emerge from the crowd, Choosewell stepped forward, clearing this throat gruffly.
"Well, part of the reason that we need to change the way of doing things is that these things take too long, and there are too many problems to address. This meeting is no different, but we will be speaking and listening about the new way of doing things here, again, in the month. For now, though, we should move on to the issue of Western Slope's Oumal's issue with the Road -"
With a vigorous outbreak of shouting from the scruffy representatives of the distant Western Slope, the Moon Council turned it's attention elsewhere, and - it seemed - the issue was settled.
