Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

I came home to find Mum sitting outside our door with Iandris.

I didn't know who she was.

OK!

A small faharni woman, well she looked more like a girl, with long, yellow hair, rather heavy makeup and a number of tattoos of leaves and bones on her exposed skin. She wasn't wearing a harness and her breasts were hardly noticeable so I thought she was probably about eleven. Did I mention that we had a small area outside the door at the back of the hotel with a few chairs and a table? There was also a light, which was good as it was now red night. I got an odd feeling from this woman, girl, person, a bit like I did from Olaria and Aglin but stronger.

"Hello, Eleprin," said Mum. "This is my friend Iandris, she's only just moved to Minris."

"What a pretty little girl," said Iandris. "You've picked some flowers."

"I found it lying in the street," I said. "It's an Echeveria inflorescence, you can tell by the five petaled, tubular flowers with five sepals, five separate carpels, five stigmas and ten stamens. Aeoniums look similar but have terminal inflorescences instead of axillary ones, you can't tell as this is broken off. Also Aeoniums have more petals and open out more and have the same number of carpels, sepals and stigmas as they do petals and twice as many stamens."

"Well it's very pretty," said Iandris, clearly thinking it was stupid. "Are you going to put it in a vase?"

"I'm going to plant it. Criadria says it will probably grow."

"Criadria's teaching her about ornamental plants," said Mum, "because she's trying to learn things that her know-it-all friend doesn't know."

I looked around and decided that the best thing was to leave the inflorescence on the inside of my window, for the cuts to dry. Then I got a drink and my math book and went outside to study. Mum and Iandris were discussing Dad and a man named Lishrashic who I didn't know. It seemed that Lishrashic had dragged Iandris to Minris from Bremplar because the god Astrigis had spoken to him.

"Is he a prophet?" I asked.

"No, hardly," laughed Iandris.

"Then how can he hear a god speaking?"

"Perhaps he's a prophet but you just can't tell," said Mum.

Iandris gave her a strange look and said, "Well you have to be psychic to tell if people are psychic."

"Astrigis speaks to him!" I said.

"I think only the once. I wish he hadn't. Why would he want us to come here, to this town where the only Holy Site is Winemaker? Oh, sorry."

"We had to leave Grishnarl because the Nuharas were persecuting us," said Mum. "They said they were going to kill Eleprin so we decided we'd have to leave."

I was a bit shocked to hear that the Nuharas were threatening to kill me and then remembered that this was a lie.

"And they deleted all my school records," I said. "Which was very annoying because I'm very smart. Now I've had to borrow this book from the library because the math they teach in school is too easy but they've given Breeze a hard book. This bit's about probabilities but it just seems to be the same as fractions."

"Aren't we a little nitrous oxide cylinder?" said Iandris. "Semic plant names, frightening looking math."

[Translation note: Semic plant names are translated into Latin scientific names as far as possible.]

"I'm important, I've got to learn stuff."

"And modest too!" said Iandris. "Most men don't like your type, well not hipsickim anyway."

"She's going to marry a hipsick," said Mum, "but she only needs one to like her."

"Obviously," said Iandris, "but it's not going to be easy finding one."

"Who am I going to marry?" I asked.

"I don't know but he or she had better be a hipsick or hipsickah!" said Mum. "Sorry I'm not korbarist but I just want you to be happy."

"I'm not homosexual," I said, "I don't like boys and we're orientationist because we're Winemakers."

Mum and Iandris laughed.

"Why's that funny?"

"You do realize that two of your three friends are boys," said Mum, "and you keep complaining about the other one."

"But the boys keep blowing things up and Breeze thinks she knows everything."

"Blowing things up?" asked Iandris.

"Magic fireworks," said Mum. "I don't really like kids playing with artifacts but apparently these are harmless."

"Well genius," said Iandris, "how do you defeat a mage?"

"No!" said Mum.

"I don't know," I said.

"No!" said Mum.

"You become a mage!" said Iandris. "Why don't you find something that will counteract the magic fireworks?"

"No you don't!" said Mum. "I'm not having you learning magic."

Too late! I hadn't realized that you could learn magic but now I'd been given the idea and it seemed like a good one.

"How do you learn magic?" I asked.

"You don't!" said Mum. "You're normal! I'm not having you turning into a mage!"

"Why?"

"For one thing, you're too young to have artifacts," said Mum. "That's the law. The Haprihagfen just let their kids use a few harmless ones on the Vineyard."

Iandris looked as if she'd been given a mild electric shock, "You play with the Vineyard children?"

"Yeah. There's Breeze, she knows everything. There's Cloud, he's Breeze's big brother but doesn't seem to know quiet as much and Irvis who's Criadria's grandson. He's the same age as me and Breeze."

"Really, they let you play with them?" asked Iandris.

"Yeah," I said, not understanding what the problem was.

"And they have two boys and one girl?" asked Iandris.

"Some other kids come on the worship day but they're not really Winemakers, they're just too lazy to go to Taunbrit on the first day of every second light cycle."

"Winemakers obviously do things differently from Trulists."

Mum and Iandris got back to talking about Dad and Lishrashic. It seemed that Iandris had a brother or something who was a bit older than me and had stayed in Bremplar.

I got back to studying.

After a while, Mum went into the apartment to get another drink.

"I've met girls like you before you know," said Iandris. "Do you know what you are?"

I looked at her, wondering what she meant, "I can feel Yoho when I'm in the Vineyard."

"I think your mother suspects but is in denial about it, well she's a hipsickah. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"No. I'm somebody important."

"You're studying math I can't do! You know Semic plant names! You can feel Yoho. You probably have some idea what people are thinking and what's going to happen in the future. What do you think?"

I stared at her. I realized that this sounded a lot like a nibeyah or an anavah.

"Let's see how important you are shall we?" She got a small bag from her pocket, shaped like a three sided pyramid, yes a tetrahedron. "Now take this, give it a shake and drop it on the table."

I did as she asked. I could feel things moving about inside the bag. When it hit the table, the top point opened up and the three sides fell flat to form a triangle of fabric. A number of little colored crystals and tiny figures of people and animals made of different materials scattered over the surface. Then lines and what looked like writing in a language I couldn't read appeared on the surface.

"Is this an artifact?"

"Of course it is," said Iandris.

"Children aren't allowed to play with artifacts."

"I'm not playing. Well let's see what we've got here!" She pointed at a cluster of figures. "Just as I thought, here's you in a temple, or probably the Vineyard, with some other children. Now a man's kissing you. You're not very happy about it."

"Why not?"

"Because there's death!" she clearly was surprised by that. "Lots of death. What's that! Screaming abortion!"

[Translator's note: swear words are translated literally but you can probably figure out what English equivalents would be well enough.]

She turned pale and was clearly very shocked.

"Don't use language like that in front of Eleprin!" said Mum, returning with a glass of fruit juice in each hand.

"Sorry," said Iandris, folding up the bag. "I was telling her fortune but this kid's going to get into some serious problems!"

"I don't really believe in those things," said Mum.

"Perhaps it's the paradox avoidance stopping her from telling me how to change the future," I said.

"What did you see?" asked Mum.

"Lots of people getting killed and monsters. It probably wasn't literally true."

I probably should have paid more attention to this.

Yes Iandris should have known better.