Ancient order who could harness the power of the Metapsychic. Now extinct and their art is lost however some wonders still remain.
Heineman dined that night with his sisters Atlanta and Panjalo. Outside, a metapsychic storm was raging, but inside the Salsa Soko Pelchis, the Presidential Mansion, all was quiet. Thanks to the classical art of the Balancers, the ancient building was virtually immune to the wrath of the emotional weather, and seldom suffered any metapsychic effect worse than the intrusion of the occasional ghost. Still, it was an uneasy meal, and not only because of Heineman's emotional queasiness. [NoP Ch11]
He never lingered long by the window, however, because the cold of the stone floor inevitably forced him to move on. While the climate of Islam Demaxus was generally warm, a peculiarly gripping cold seemed to settle into the stones of the Salsa Soko Pelchis by night. This was, said some, a consequence of the art of the Balancers, the Masons of Chalakanesia's classical period whose surpassing excellence in construction was proved by the fact that this building, one of the greatest of their works, had stood for centuries without needing so much as half a morning's repair work. [NoP Ch1]
In the past, in the classical age, when the Balancers had tapped the powers of the metapsychic faultline to do the incredible, Midas Makorum had been the seat of power, and Islam Demaxus nothing but a poor and degraded province. The people of the Second Pearl had never let those of the Seventh forget that. But now, in the modern age, the faultline was not an asset but a liability - and Islam Demaxus, suffering least from that liability, had the potential to become the most powerful state in the Federation. [WoH Ch15]
A number of senators were already there, milling around the kelakirikus, a free-floating table of white marble. It hung in the air without apparent means of support, apparently tapping in some manner the energies of Chalakanesia's metapsychic faultline. All the expertise of Heaven and Hell had been unable to discover how this was done, just as that same expertise had been unable to explicate the cool light which luxed from the senate chamber's domed ceiling of skystone.
In Chalakanesia's classical period, there had been a breed of savants known as Balancers, who had been able to channel and control the energies of the metapsychic faultline for productive purposes. The Balancers had fabricated both the kelakirikus and the dome of skystone which roofed what had then been a Temple of Logic. Unfortunately, Chalakanesia's great classical civilization had been destroyed by religious schism, and most of what was left of its learning had been forgotten in the following feudal period, and the modern age had been unable to reclaim it.
Still, the kelakirikus survived, a proof of the glories of Chalakanesia's classic age, and it now served as the centerpiece of the senate chamber. The carved and varnished chairs of the senators were arrayed around it in a horseshoe formation, and the throne of the Speaker stood at its head. [EoH Ch5]