Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

The flight was all to short, although I’m sure Beauty would disagree with me. The craft, after souring through the Tarm valley, which dropped ever deeper below us, high over the foothills and the plain, started dropping rapidly as we approached the sea. We went through the layer of sapphires again, one of them momentarily protruding into the craft and flooding the cabin with bright, cyan light. We fell towards the sea at a speed that had me worried. Then the induction fans kicked in, slowing us and the wings morphed back to ground effect mode. Huge plumes of white spray shot up around us and I was pulled into my seat when we reached the water. Then we started skimming over the water, turning in a huge arc. There were various ships and boats around. Some people were windsurfing and paragliding. Next we were heading for the land. The great harbor of Vindian was spread out in front of us, with the shinning gold and silver towers that were merely legend in my time, this port city having been almost destroyed in the Cataclysm. At last we hovered up, over the beach and settled at another small airport.

“Verily I doth not wanteth to travel in one of those things ever again!” said Beauty, between heavy breaths as we got off.

“That was the greatest experience of my life,” I said as quietly as I could but punching the air above me with both fists. “That must have been nearly as good as sex! Of course part of sex is that a girl thought you good enough to do it with you. At least that’s how I feel it should work but I find that hard to reconcile with knowing girls who’ll have sex with any boy who isn’t me.”

“I agreeth part of the satisfaction of intercourse ist a good woman agreeing unto it,” said Mountain, “but I art married unto a very good woman.”

“All guys desireth to hath intercourse with me,” said Beauty. “They careth not about my korbar nor my mind. Even thee two, and thee art in love with Ice and Dwendra!”

“I’m not in love with Dwendra,” I said.

The others sniggered and I realized I’d refuted the wrong part and I wasn’t sure if I was lying. “I do care about your mind and korbar.”

“Thou art the same korbar as me!”

“We shouldst findeth the toilets,” said Mountain. “Rendamar Temple art much the same as thou doth knoweth it except it art now occupied by Yohoists who mayest not liketh thou but wilt only becometh violent if thou doth provoketh them greatly.”

We looked around and saw the expected stylized picture of somebody squatting over a hole (this was one thing that was still the same a millennium later) and started heading in the indicated direction.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” I said to Beauty. “All you have to do is walk into a dog house and choose a sleg.”

“I art a slegmet! I needeth to be adopted by a clan ...”

“We art seeking to adopt clametot,” said Mountain.

“... or foundeth one. I doth plan on founding a clan in Midbar-Teradriel but everybody thinketh that to be a bad idea.”

“There art already two beitim there and the government and bureaucracy art becoming increasingly rigid and controlling,” said Mountain.

“Well I’m not allowed to join Haprihagfen,” I said, “even if I converted to Winemakerism. Therefore Dwendra’s the only anavah I know who I could marry but she’s obsessed with marrying a Yohoist priest. My attempts to date goyot have never worked well but that’s probably because Benai Nibeyim keep messing things up for me.”

“Thou couldst seeketh a girl in another sephir,” said Beauty.

“Faharni’s the only language I speak well.”

“Or a distant city,” Beauty suggested, “this art a large colony and Benai Nibeyim doth not knoweth thou’s ability to traveleth.”

“Don’t doeth that!” said Mountain. “If Benai Nibeyim were to deduceth ... Sorry, I understandeth your problems, really. I shalt talketh unto Ice and see if we can deviseth a solution.”

I’d visited Rendamar temple during my teleportation training because Haprihagfen thought this was an important place we should know how to get to. I was horrified at how it had been vandalized and seemed to be used as giant toilet and rubbish dump. There were even a few human bodies, apparently Winemakers, including priests, who had been inside when the Nuharas had cut off access. I was sure this was entirely the fault of the Nuharas because nobody else has that sort of disrespect for Holy Sites.

This time, Mountain and myself materialized in a men’s toilet but it was clean, with no sign of damage and the only rubbish was in the bin.

We walked out into the corridor, near the main entrance. This likewise was clean and undamaged with no rubbish. A passing glildac nibeyah gave us a dirty look, biting her lower lip and narrowing her eyes. Another glildac nibeyah emerged from the women’s toilet and also gave us a strange look. She was followed by Beauty.

“Excuse me,” Mountain said to the nibeyah who’d come out the toilet. “We art seeking a Holy Woman, I wonder if thou canst directeth us unto somebody who knoweth where we might findeth her.”

“Why wouldst anavim wanteth a Holy Woman?”

“We hath an important matter to discusseth with her,” said Mountain.

“Goeth unto visitor information!” said the woman.

“I’m not detecting any anavim nearby except us,” said Mountain. “Perhaps thou should douse for her.”

“I’ve never done that before and I don’t have a biological sample and I’m not sure I know her well enough.”

We had to ask several people who referred us to somebody else. However, by about the third person it became clear somebody had decided we were of some importance. After seeing a couple more, we were sent to a small meeting room. I was a bit puzzled that everybody was dressed in a similar way to the other people we’d seen, who were presumably Trulists and Winemakers. I was expecting them to be dressed in the strange costumes which books and websites always had Yohoists wearing. We waited there for nearly an hour. There was a computer screen showing internet shows, mostly news. This was interesting as it was so different from the news we got in my time.

At last two male glildac nibeyim entered. One was about my age and looked very upset, with half-closed, red eyes. The other was somewhere between twenty five and a hundred and seventy and seemed very somber but more emotionally stable.