Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

The woman led us out the room and along a path of worn and irregular stones up the hill.

There were a number of buildings scattered among the trees. There was even a children’s playground.

“I’ve never seen a playground at a Holy Site,” I said. Then I thought that maybe this was normal for Winemakers and I should have known that.

“Most don’t have children unless you count the child prostitutes,” said the woman. “They normally keep them hidden away and I don’t know if they have playgrounds. We have families but no prostitutes.”

I’d heard that there were children living in you know what temple but I didn’t know much about them.

“That’s against our teachings,” said Dad.

“Exactly,” said the woman. “Some people think we run an orphanage or a mental home or something. On the rare ...”

Just then the sapphires went dark plunging us into black night.

“Stand still!” said Mum.

I didn’t need to be told! I looked up and saw stars, far more than I could in Ermish where the streetlights were timed to come on shortly before sapphire dark. There were so many that I could see the silhouettes of the limbs, tentacles and ropes and the dark disc of Bet. Then a yellow light came on near me, lighting the trees and vines to reveal some tortured faces. I looked at the woman and saw a small yellow light hovering just above her head and a bit to one side. I gasped.

“It’s just a mage light!” said Mum.

“It works in a similar way to the sapphires,” said the woman. “This is a Holy Site and there’s a lot of magic here.”

Of course I’d been to Holy Sites, particularly that temple, many times but always during the day, when there were lots of other people; usually religious services or when I was part of some sort of group being shown round. Usually I got rather unpleasant feelings from them but this was a different type of creepy.

We started walking again, now going off the main path to go past the playground. The mage light followed the woman as if it was the eye of an invisible bird that was sitting on her shoulder.

“Anyway,” said the woman, “I was saying that on the rare occasions people do leave children here, we hand them over to the authorities. The only exceptions are those qualified to be Haprihagfen, usually teenagers. The few children we’ve got now were born here, to my sister and myself.”

I could just about make out the dark shapes of several larger buildings in front of us. One had lights on and the sound of voices coming from it and a smell of strange food, rather like I’d smelt outside some restaurants.

The woman led us into the building and her mage light vanished as the sapphires do at sapphire dark. There was a large room with several long tables with chairs and about twenty people sitting at them. The power was immense and I was sure that most, perhaps all, of them were minions. Most of them weren’t faharnis and some were races I’d never seen before. Most were dressed in a similar way to the women who’d led us there. Of course the male version didn’t have the bodice or corset thing. Two of them were in very odd costumes. I clung onto Mum, hoping nobody would notice me.

Our escort put two fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle and everybody went quiet, “We have goyim guests!” she said loudly. “One of them’s a little girl, Breeze! Anyway, be nice to them!”

“We could do with ...” Mum started to say.

“Oh, of course,” said our escort. “It’s that way. Then just help yourselves to food and drink and sit wherever you want.”

The washroom was small, just down a corridor from the refractory.

Mum turned to me, bent down to look into my eyes and said quietly, “Now, it looks as if the food is different from what you’re used to. It’s important that you pretend you’re used to it. Just copy everybody else, do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. “You still haven’t told me why we’re doing this?”

“There were some bad people back home and we need to escape from them.”

“Why didn’t we just call the police?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You were wrong.”

“What?”

“You said they were just like us but believe different things but they’re all minions.”

“Don’t be silly darling. Minions don’t look like people and I’ve never met anybody who’s seen one.”

“These people are weird and scary.”

“Remember what the woman said in the barn. Just think how you’re going to get out of this. Just pretend that you think they’re normal and try to act like them and I’m sure you’ll discover that they’re OK and really just like us.”

“They’re not. I know the secret!”

“What?”

“The secret I’m supposed to find out, I know what it is.”

“How can ..?”

“They’re all minions, can we go home now?”

“This is our home now. Look, what would an undercover priestess do? She’d pretend that she isn’t frightened of them because she’s a Winemaker ...”

“I’m a Trulist!”

“Don’t let anybody here hear you say that! I meant the priestess is pretending to be a Winemaker. Real Winemakers won’t be afraid of these people so you’re going to pretend that you’re not frightened. Can you do that?”

I didn’t answer. I was worried about what she’d said about this being our home now. I wasn’t sure if that was more frightening than the minions.

The food included a lot of fruit, including types I hadn’t seen before, but also some meat, insects, fish and vegetables.

We sat down at an unoccupied table.

“It tastes funny,” I whispered to Mum as soon as I took a bite.

A strange hot, faintly stinging sensation filled my mouth.

“It has a lot of herbs and spices on it,” said Mum. “Try to eat it like you’re used to it.”

This wasn’t difficult as it didn’t taste bad, just strange.

A girl and two boys about my age came up to us, holding plates of food and sat beside me. The girl was faharni and had red hair tied in a bun. The boys had short hair, like most Trulists. One was faharni but I wasn’t sure about the other, he had dark skin for a faharni although he had six fingers on one hand. They were all dressed in a similar way to most the men. I was fairly sure they were minions although they didn’t feel as powerful as the adults.

“Do you want to be my friend?” asked the girl. “I’m fed up with just playing with stinky boys.”

There was something about the way she moved and the thoughts I wasn’t reading from her because I wasn’t a mind reader. She clearly thought she was very important.

“We’re not stinky!” said the faharni boy.

“You’re being sexist,” said the other.

“I don’t like boys!” said the girl.

“Because you’re not homosexual,” I said “We’re orientationist because we’re Winemakers.”

“All they want to do is play at being warriors or astronauts,” said the girl. “I want to play at being a priestess or a teacher or a shopkeeper or a healer.”

“We’ve played priestess,” said the faharni boy.

“You blew up the temple!” said the girl.

“The god was evil and he attacked us with his minions,” said the faharni boy.

“All Trulist gods are evil,” said the other boy.

This struck me as very religionist but I thought I’d be more subtle about arguing this so I said, “The Winemaker god is a Trulist god,” and immediately hoped this didn’t give me away as a Trulist.

“Not really,” said the faharni boy, his nose wrinkling. “The Trulists have a counterfeit form of him.”

I didn’t know what that meant but thought it best not to say.

“We’ve played teacher,” said the darker skinned boy.

“You blew up the school,” said the girl.

“And shopkeeper,” said the darker skinned boy.

“You blew up the shop!” said the girl.

“And healer,” said the faharni boy.

“You killed all your patients!” said the girl.

“They were possessed by ancients!” said the darker skinned boy.

This was the first time I’d heard that ancients could possess people. However all I knew of ancients was that they’d lived on Midbar before humans arrived and nobody knew much about them.

“And blew up the hospital,” said the girl.

“It was on an ancient breeding ground,” said the faharni boy.