Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

Footsteps came back up the corridor.

"Perhaps we should take your daughter with us," said the man I'd just spoken to.

"She's in a snit because we wouldn't let the Haprihagfen teach her magic," said Mum.

"She probably wants cheering up then," said the man. "Do you want to come with us? We're going to a restaurant."

"Is that going to teach me anything Breeze doesn't know?" I asked.

"It might," said Mum. "I doubt she's been to the Mountain Goat. That's very grown up."

I wasn't sure that going to a grown up restaurant would put me ahead of Breeze. "Don't they have prostitutes there?"

"I've heard it's not really suitable for children," said the unfamiliar man.

"The pimp leaves local girls alone," said Vritan. "Great place if you want to get chatted up by truckers,"

"I've heard there's a nice place by the lake in Taunbrit," said Dad.

"I don't like fish," said the unfamiliar man.

I realized that he was lying and Iandris gave him a strange look.

"I've been interested in checking out Crater's Edge," said Dad, "it's right on the highest point of the pass, past there you're officially outside the Great Basin."

"I'd like to get to know Minris better," said the unfamiliar man.

There was something odd here.

"The Eagle Flutter's Nest is more family friendly," said Vritan. "They have a play area and a petting zoo and it's officially in Minris."

My parents and their new friends decided to take the unfamiliar man’s car, which was a lot larger and nicer looking than ours. It was even nicer than the one we’d had in Ermish. He’d programmed the autopilot for Minris so he just had to enter the name of the restaurant and then turned his chair to face us as we pulled out the hotel car park.

“I don’t see what the big problem is with magic lessons,” said Iandris.

“We want her to be normal,” said Mum.

“I think you’re shutting the cage door after the ship’s left orbit,” said Iandris.

“She is normal!” said Mum.

We were going west along High Street. I could easily see as it was red night.

“When was the last time you heard of a kid wanting more lessons!” said Iandris.

“As normal as possible,” said Mum.

“Doesn’t she have little friends who live in the Vineyard?” asked Lishrashic.

I think his name had been mentioned by then. He was a fairly normal looking faharni man with a bone and a leaf tattooed on his face.

“It’s them who are having the magic lessons,” said Dad.

Iandris and Lishrashic seemed rather surprised by this.

“I want to know more than Breeze!” I said.

“Is it a good idea to teach them magic?” asked Iandris. “What if they get a client they don’t like?”

There was a pause. The car turned north towards my school.

“Why do you think they have children there?” asked Iandris.

“They were born there,” said Dad.

“Winemaker Holy Sites don’t have prostitutes,” said Mum.

“What’s a prostitute?” I asked.

We were now past my school and heading up hill.

“It’s complicated,” said Mum.

“You mean there are no Temple Prostitutes in this town?” asked Lishrashic, clearly shocked.

“No,” said Dad. “They’ve got some in Taunbrit and I think they have street prostitutes at the Mountain Goat, although that’s illegal.”

“Why don’t they do something about it if it’s illegal?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mum. “That’s really a very good question.”

“Why are prostitutes illegal?” I asked.

“Temple ones aren’t,” said Iandris.

I really didn’t understand this and tried formulating another question.

“So Lishrashic, what line of work are you in?” asked Dad.

“I inherited a record keeping company from my father but I’ve done a good job of running it.”

“It’s a pity that plant told you to move here,” said Iandris.

“Well I’m sure there are business opportunities here and Nitrian’s old enough to keep an eye on things for me.”

“Yes,” said Dad, “I’ve noticed that there are a number of businesses that could be run better here. I’m also very knowledgeable about investments.”

“Is that how you lost your money?” Lishrashic asked.

“No, we were persecuted by Nuharas and it took everything we had to escape.”

Lishrashic and Dad proceeded to discuss business. I tried to follow this but it was difficult for me. There seemed to be some weird logic to it that didn’t make sense to me.

“I suppose there are limits on what you can do in ...” Lishrashic started saying but just then he lurched forward, stopped by his seatbelt and the car jolted to a stop.

“Progress impeded!” said the car’s computer.

“Car reverse six meters!” barked Lishrashic, desperately.

The car reversed and stopped. Lishrashic fell back in his seat, gasping for air.

I giggled.

“What the fornication was that!” asked Iandris. “Do you have a spell on you?”

“I thought this restaurant was in Minris!” said Lishrashic.

“The town boundary is on the watershed between ...” I started to say.

Criadria had been teaching me things visitors wanted to know. Sometimes people were interested in buying property or doing things that required knowing the town boundaries. I was also encouraged to try to direct them to things within the town boundaries so I needed to know where they were.

Lishrasic got out the car and shouted, “Astrigis! I’m not leaving town! The restaurant’s in the town boundaries!”

Iandris also got out as Lishrashic walked back up the road a few meters and stopped.

“It probably just determines how far you can go from a certain place,” said Iandris. “Shouting to Astrigis won’t help.”

“He’s a god isn’t he!”

“That’s why you insisted on going to a restaurant in Minris. You’re trapped in Minris! That’s why we had to move here, wasn’t it?”

“This is embarrassing,” said Mum.

“I’m glad this isn’t my problem,” said Dad.

Lishrashic was trying to walk up the road while shouting at Astrigis but kept bouncing off some sort of invisible barrier.

“If I knew about magic I might be able to help him,” I said.

“I thought Iandris was a mage,” said Mum, “she told Eleprin’s fortune.”

“Perhaps she’s just a psychic,” said Dad. “I think a lot of fortune tellers are frauds, not even psychic.”

“She used an artifact,” I said. “Do psychics use artifacts?”

Mum leaned out the car and said, “Iandris, can’t you do something?”

“What? I’m a fortune teller, not a mage. Well I use a few artifacts but I’m not a mage mage. I’m not allowed to use a magic detector.”

“Does that mean she’s psychic?” I asked.

“Don’t ask things like that,” said Dad.

Lishrashic marched back and he and Iandris got back in the car.

“Well it seems that Astrigis doesn’t want me to go to that restaurant,” said Lishrashic crossly. “Where else can we go?”

“Criadria said that the Old Mill has a nice restaurant,” I said.

“Is that in town?”

“Yes, it’s not far from the Cascade.”

“Right,” said Lishrashic, “the Old Mill it is!”

I met Breeze, Cloud and Irvis as they walked past the hotel on their way to school.

“That first magic lesson was very interesting,” said Breeze.

“It’s a pity the Haprihagfen aren’t allowed to teach you magic,” said Cloud.

“Only we’re actually Benai Haprihagfen,” said Breeze. “Our parents are Haprihagfen but we haven’t been initiated yet. Therefore I can tell you that there are four types of magic user. There are artifact users, that’s pretty much everybody really, as nearly all machines are artifacts, they were built before the Cataclysm and they’ve only lasted this long because they have protective spells on them.”

“Spells are when associates are bound to things with bindings,” said Irvis.

“You’re actually teaching me about magic!” I said.

“Sure,” said Breeze.

“We don’t want to alienate our only friend who isn’t Benai Haprihagfen,” said Cloud.

I realized that must be tough on him as he was in a different class from us. Didn’t he have any friends in his class?

“Thank you, I love you guys!” I shouted, hugging Breeze and jumping up and down.

I really think that’s about the best thing anybody has ever done for me. It did make me feel a bit guilty about trying to find out their secret but I wasn’t sure I’d hurt them when I did find out what it was.