Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

“I can’t move my legs,” I said. “What have you done?”

Breeze started to fall over but Iandris caught her and started dragging her towards me.

“Just a mild paralysis spell,” said Iandris. “You’re just a nibeyah with no magic and you’re too young to have much psychic power but I can’t risk you running off and bringing other people here.”

She dragged Breeze past me and put her on the table with her head towards the machine. I realized that there was a thin flexible tube from the machine to the device, it had to be an artifact, that was on Breeze. I mean the tube thing.

“Why?” I asked.

I could move my legs a bit, with effort, but I could barely walk and certainly wouldn’t be able to run and was worried I’d fall over.

“To break that spell on Lishrashic. Yoldasia says that her Old Magic requires him to do something that’s important to him that he’d do if he could leave Minris but can’t do here.”

“How’s he going to do it, if he can’t do it here?”

“Well, the closest approximation he can!” She adjusted Breeze’s position on the table.

No, it was an alter! I’d just noticed an idol, a fat man with a garland of flowers and bones, Astrigis! Could you have an alter in a place that wasn’t a Holy Site? Could they have a relic?

“Lishrashic’s very faithful to Astrigis,” said Iandris. She’d got a small box from somewhere and opened it. “The thing he desperately wants is to worship Astrigis by using his Temple Prostitutes but he can’t do that here. You’re the Vineyard’s prostitutes aren’t you?”

She started dabbing something from the box onto Breeze’s face. I did my best to walk towards them, I think to see what Iandris was doing to Breeze. I really didn’t have an idea of what to do.

“No,” I said, “Winemakers don’t ...”

“But the Haprihagfen won’t share you with us.” She paused. “Do you understand?”

“No.”

Iandris let out a high pitched whistle. “The Haprihagfen insist that they don’t have prostitutes but why else do they have kids?”

“The same reason most other people have children?” I said, I didn’t really understand this.

“Don’t act so stupid! They always use psychics as Temple Prostitutes and I saw you kissing a man in a temple when I read your fortune and Yoldasia’s Old Magic showed you and Breeze with a Temple Prostitute.”

I was now close enough to see that she was putting light colored, everything looked red or black, stuff on Breeze’s face.

“Those things haven’t happened yet and don’t a lot of people get killed by monsters or something after I kiss a man in the temple? Anyway fortune telling and Old Magic are dangerous and unreliable.”

“And you didn’t seem very shocked when Lishrashic tried using you before.”

“I don’t understand.”

“How far did he get with you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You said that he didn’t do much but you might be too ashamed to tell me.”

I remembered what the woman in the barn had told me. If I was unhappy about something, think how to get out of it. I could hardly move my legs so I couldn’t run away. I could move my arms but didn’t think I could reach anything useful. If I kept walking towards the table I may be able to interfer with what Iandris was doing. I could talk but I wasn’t sure if anybody would hear if I screamed. Just a minute, Irvis and Cloud were probably nearby! I opened my mouth and let out the loudest scream I could manage. Iandris spun round, clapped her hand over my mouth and said a strange word. My throat became strangely numb and my screem turned to a faint squeak.

“Sorry but Breeze is right,” she said, “there is a dangerous combination of magic artifacts in here so we can’t risk having somebody come in and mess things up. That could kill Breeze and the puppy you’re so concerned about. The puppy’s blood is powering the Old Magic component in the artifact that’s suppressing Breeze’s magis power so the sooner we get this over with, the more likely the puppy is to survive. Do we understand?”

“How’s it going?” asked Lishrashic, arriving from somewhere behind the alter, smiling. “I heard a scream.” He was dressed in Astrigis ritual robes with pictures of leaves, flowers and bones on them.

“They’re not being terribly cooperative,” said Iandris letting go of me and turning to Lishrashic. “I’ve suppressed the magis’s powers, well she can’t do anything much, I suppose that thing also suppresses her anav power but that basically leaves her pretty much paralyzed.”

Lishrashic stood over Breeze, ran a hand up her leg. “I’ve never had an anavah before, nor a magis and she’s a red head.”

“Trulist temples don’t use anavim,” said Iandris. “Apparently they’re too dangerous so we just hand any we get over to Haprihagfen. I think they send them to Hecrin or something so they can convert.”

“What are you doing to her?” I asked, finding it hard to talk.

“I haven’t finished her make up,” said Iandris. “Hold Eleprin while I finish it!”

Lishrashic did an energetic kind of skip between the alter and the flower bed on the other end from the puppy and the machine. Then he came behind me and grabbed me rather hard by the sholders.

“I’ve partly paralysed her,” said Iandris, turning back to Breeze, “because I know you like them to be able to talk and move. She can’t speak loud so she won’t be doing any more screaming.”

“If Trulist temples don’t use anavot as prostitutes,” said Lishrashic, “shouldn’t I use Eleprin?”

He pulled me close to him and put one hand across my chest, as if he was trying to feel the breasts I didn’t have.

“Breeze is Benai Haprihagfen and Eleprin’s just a Winemaker. Breeze is clearly the senior prostitute.”

“She’s not ..!” I gasped.

“Also your strongest predestination line leads to Eleprin,” said Iandris, “so if you do too much to her you might use it up and won’t live much longer.”

I could see that Iandris was putting the light colored stuff all over Breeze’s face.

“Does she still need that artifact on her?” asked Lishrashic.

“Yes,” said Iandris. “She’s the anavah magis! When she grows up, she’ll be the most dangerous person on the planet. We can’t risk her getting her powers back before we finish and erase her memories.”

“You shouldn’t tell ...” I said.

“Stop winjing!” said Iandris to me. She got out another thing, I guess a makeup thing, from the box and started dabbing it around Breeze’s eyes. “We’re not going to do anything to you the Haprihagfen haven’t and we’ll erase your memories.”

“The Haprihagfen have never done this to us!”

“They’ve trained you, haven’t they?” asked Iandris.

“They’ve taught us about Winemakerism and picking fruit,” I said, “and they’ve taught Breeze some magic. I don’t know how that’s relevant.”

I couldn’t do anything with the paralysis and Lishrashic holding me.

“About what to do with men?” said Iandris, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t understand.”

I could pray! I didn’t even have to do that out loud, I only needed to think the words.

Do I really have to say this next bit?

Lishrashic reached one hand down and felt between my legs.

Who should I pray to? Yoho would probably want to help Breeze but he didn’t like me pretending to be a Winemaker. He was supposed to be more powerful than Tianamet. Then Tianamet should help me as she was my goddess but I wasn’t sure if she liked me pretending to be a Winemaker either and perhaps wouldn’t like Breeze as she worshipped Yoho who was the enemy of all other gods. I think that included goddesses but I wasn’t entirely sure.

Iandris put some dark stuff around Breeze’s mouth. “This will have to do, it isn’t very good but you can’t see her well anyway.”

Lishrashic let go of me and Iandris stepped beside me and put her arm around me. Lishrashic stood over Breeze, put one hand on her leg and fiddled with her hair with the other. Then he undid her bun.