Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

“That’s probably the only reason the Mage Council has tolerated her this far,” said Ice. “Every mage knows how dangerous Old Magic is. Psychic powers work by interacting with a sort of cosmic database containing information about the universe through a proper interface so it’s hard to do much damage. Associate magic doesn't use the database. Old Magic is rather like reading the database by looking at particular positions in the computer’s memory or changing that database by changing the values at particular positions in the computer’s memory, bypassing the interface.”

Mum and Dad both stared at her, they didn’t know much about computers.

“I’ll certainly be sending the council a report on what she’s done here,” said Ice.

“Which was more dangerous than you realize,” said Rinjac, indicating Mum and Dad.

“I’m certain that this spell will have truly dreadful consequences,” said Ice. “The only thing we can do is appeal to Yoho for help and he’s given us rituals to perform in such situations. Unfortunately most that thing went east, probably to people who aren’t in Minris.”

Just then Aleph burst out from behind Bet, bathing everything in red light. We’d been seeing with mage lights as the street lamps didn’t come on in eclipses.

“Let’s go and talk to Lishrashic,” said Dad. “Ice, you take care of Eleprin!”

Me and all the local Haprihagfen and Benai Haprihagfen went into the shrine crypt and they had me and Breeze kneel down in the middle of the ring of statues. Then they prayed and chanted in Faharni and Semic and splashed water and oil on us and waved some burning herbs and spices around. All the time, I was getting this weird combination of love and disapproval from Yoho and felt that the statues were staring at me.

“Do you feel anything?” Ice asked at one point.

“Not really,” I said.

“It’s like those associates are calling to me,” said Breeze, pointing up. She stood up and spread out her arms. “Oh, wow, it’s like it’s telling me how to use my magis powers. It’s hard to explain.”

“I don’t suppose there’s anything there about how to deal with Old Magic?” asked River.

“I don’t know, there’s lots, like an enormous library. There’s something on how to operate FTL drives. I can see types of associates I’ve never seen before and how to change associates, I didn’t realize you could do that, not the way you want to. I think I can bind associates to artifacts, make ordinary objects into artifacts now.”

“This isn’t really a possession,” said Mountain. “The Old Magic has somehow used the paradox avoidance law to lock them into a particular possible future. I think it will make them do something to bring the spell caster to Minris.”

“I don’t know who that is,” I said.

“He or she’s connected with you somehow,” said Cloud. “Lishrashic’s here because of you but neither of you know how you’re connected.”

“That information was from Old Magic,” said Ice, “it may well be misleading.”

“I don’t understand why,” said Mountain, “but I get a strong feeling that this is the beginning of the Prophesied Ruination. I wish I could see things more clearly.”

“Paradox avoidance,” said Cloud.

“Probably,” said Ice.

Ice walked me back home, saying that she wanted to talk to Mum and Dad. I was feeling weird. I think what the Haprihagfen had done to counteract Yoldasia’s spell had made things worse. I realized that the problem was that they’d done Winemaker stuff to a Trulist and it was rather like trying to connect up computers from different periods. I had no idea what it had done to Yoldasia’s spell.

I remembered what Yoldasia had said about the Haprihagfen’s secret. I didn’t want them to be reviled but I thought this would be a good time to return.

“What did Yoldasia mean about your secret being revealed and making everybody revile you?” I asked.

“I don’t think she knew. You know that people have to have secrets, particularly magi and psychics, because some people, particularly hipsickim, are afraid of us and want to hurt us.”

“So people will revile you if they found out the truth?”

“Some. Well I’m not sure what secret she was referring to but I have my suspicions.”

“Would I revile you if I knew?”

“I don’t know. I hope not but you might not be able to keep it, maybe somebody would read your mind or you will be sick or drugged. We don’t even tell our own children until they’re older than you.”

“This has something to do with the sephirot?”

“There are secrets involving the sephirot, that’s all I’m going to say. Why do you want to know this when it will only cause you problems?”

“I’m curious.”

“Curiosity is usually good but there are times when you can learn things it’s dangerous to know, like information about Old Magic. You might discover that somebody has done something bad in the past but not realize that they didn’t have much choice or have changed their ways. Then you may have all the problems of having to keep the secret yourself.”

“What if somebody told you that you could have something you wanted a lot if you found out a secret?”

“Did somebody ask you to find out our secrets?”

“No.”

She gave me a strange look and I was pretty sure she knew I was lying.

“That could be something we need to be worried about,” said Ice. “I like you and I believe that you’ll do some great things in the future. I know you’re in some sort of trouble and I may be able to help. I haven’t tried to discover the truth and I hope you’ll respect our secrets as well.”

This was a shock. I realized that she knew we weren’t telling the truth about having left Grishnarl to escape Nuhara persecution but how much did she know? Even I didn’t know the truth.

“She didn’t tell me to tell them your secret. She said that I’d know what to do about it when I found it. It’s magic.”

Ice gave me a very strange look. “Well I don’t know what the woman thought you’d find out, that sounds very strange. I know there are no associate magic spells on you and only Yoldasia uses Old Magic, was it her who told you to do this?”

“No. I don’t know her name, I’ve only met her once.”

“People have found out our secrets before and it’s usually ended in disaster. It’s not just a stupid rule we made up for no reason or even something Yoho told us and we don’t know why. I don’t want that to happen with you and I don’t want to have to tell my grandchildren to stop being friends with you. I don’t think they know any secrets you don’t, yet.”

I realized that I’d probably said too much. “I don’t know what to do. You’re nicer to me than most people and I hardly know the woman who told me to find out your secret but she said I could ... well have something I really wanted if I found out.”

“Well it sounds as if you’re a lot closer to us than this woman who’s name you don’t know. I expect Breeze will make you a mage when she figures her powers out, isn’t that something you want?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I think you’ll figure things out and do what’s right.”