Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

We spent a fair bit of time talking to Narblo and Velden, the school’s only other katcheyah. Being in the middle of a three way conversation between katcheyim could get a bit mentally disorientating but it was fun. Mostly we discussed religion and magic, particularly Dad’s and Miandri’s mother’s beliefs. I rather felt they’d have married each other if it wasn’t for the Trulist prohibition against psychics marrying each other (like most female magi, Yoldasia, was a nibeyah). Miandri was rather obsessed with the idea of predestination although why one should have to work at achieving their predestination was a mystery to me. She wasn’t even consistent about that. Sometimes she said you didn’t have to worry about things because the end results were predestined. Other times she said it was important to do or not to do certain things in order to attain your predestined fate.

At one point Miandri demonstrated a spell to foresee the future. I’ve heard this is a very bad idea with Old Magic but Miandri insisted this was safe and only helped you to understand your predestination and Narblo didn’t have a problem with it. Velden didn’t have a problem with it either but I really didn’t have any faith in her knowledge of magic.

We were in Narblo’s office, each sitting on one of the four chairs. Miandri placed a small candle on the table, lit it, took my hand and placed a crystal in it and asked, “How can Clindar get over his problems with girls?” and then had me hold the crystal over the candle. Several pictures appeared, hanging in the air. It was odd as they were fuzzy around the edges and didn’t seem to fit the perspective of the room. One showed a faharni girl with a big tattoo on one side of her face.

“Perhaps that’s who you should have sex with,” said Miandri, smiling and showing her big, white teeth.

“I don’t know who she is,” I said.

“I think I’ve seen somebody who looks like that in Laraget recently,” said Narblo, rubbing his chin. “I don’t really know anything about her, I just vaguely recall having seen her in the street or something.”

“You need to find your own truth,” said Miandri.

Another picture showed a woman in a simple, white dress or shirt. It had no sleeves or straps, just went around her tightly above her large breasts. She didn’t have a harness. This only showed her from her shoulders to just below her breasts. It was in a dark place lit by a small electric light or mage light so I couldn’t really make out much detail but her nipples were making small bulges in the fabric.

“I think she’s totally wearing a Winemaker wedding dress,” said Minadri, vibrating. “You’re totally going to get married.”

“I’m a Trulist!”

“There’s nothing wrong with marrying a woman from a different religion,” said Narblo.

I knew most people didn’t think inter-religious marriage was a good idea, although there was no actual law against it. I knew Nuhara women were only supposed to marry Nuhara men although Nuhara men were allowed to marry women from other religions (which I didn’t think was fair). I had some vague idea Winemakers were only supposed to marry each other.

Another picture showed four teenagers: two faharni boys, a faharni girl with short hair and a bennis girl.

“You’re going to have friends,” said Miandri.

Another showed Rendamar Temple.

“Religion will be very important to you.”

“That’s a Winemaker Holy Site!” I objected.

“I think it’s basically a Nuhara Holy Site now,” said Velden.

“But I’m still a Trulist! What about that one?” I pointed to a picture showing Miandri in a dressing gown with a shocked expression.

“I’ll be totally surprised by who you have sex with.”

The other pictures showed a faharni girl with red hair in a bun and her hands in strange positions, a grape vine and a box but the one that really struck me was weird. This showed an older faharni woman with a very strange hair style and a young, bald man with a large tattoo on top of his head and a moustache that was short on one side and long on the other.

“What’s this got to do with Under Bet?” I asked, lowering my eyebrows.

Yes, I’m sad to say I recognized these characters! Under Bet was an internet soap opera which had been running since the Cataclysm although nobody seemed to like it. I think the producers gave the characters unusual hair styles, facial hair and tattoos so the audience could keep track of who was who as they kept changing the actors, often replacing them with actors who looked completely different.

“Perhaps you should watch it to learn how to handle women,” said Velden, shrugging her shoulders.

“But the characters’ behavior is completely unrealistic!” I said. “My Mum’s addicted to it and used to force me to watch it. As far as I can make out from it, anybody can have consensual sex with anybody, even a close relative or somebody who’s happily married or a homosexual of the opposite sex or a heterosexual of the same sex just by doing this!” I put my left arm around Miandri’s waste, took my right hand from over the candle. The pictures vanished with a breath flash of another picture showing a faharni girl, an idlan girl, two bennis girls and a bennis boy (I think, it was very breath). Then I put my right hand under Miandri’s chin, tilted her head and kissed her on the lips. “Now how do we go from here to having sex?”

“That was nice,” said Miandri, still smiling, “but I’m not sure copulation is consistent with our predestination.”

“My point is,” I said, “they show a couple kissing and then the next time you see them, they’re waking up in bed together and they don’t show you what happens in between.”

“It’s a family show,” said Narblo, putting his elbows on the table with his hands grasped above them.

“But what happens between the kissing and the sex?” I asked, holding my hands in front of me with the palms upward. “I’ve kissed a few girls and thought I was getting to the stage of kissing a number more but something always goes wrong before I get to the sex.”

“You’ve got to make a connection before the kissing,” said Velden. “That’s what you always get wrong. That’s why it’s better to find somebody from your own korbar.”

“The only anavot I know are my sister and her friend and I hardly know her friend and then psychics aren’t supposed to have sex with each other.”

“But nobody likes anavim!” said Velden. “Not to have sex with anyway.”

“I think it’s more predestination,” said Miandri. “Let’s see what Narblo’s future is like?”

This showed what looked like Narblo and Miandri walking with a lot of other people, Narblo with his arms outstretched and what looked like the aftermath of a very large fire that had burnt an entire city.

It was a basic principle of Paxian law that legal cases proceed quickly as, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” However, in practice things tend to get more complicated, particularly in civil cases. I had to make several trips to lawyers’ offices and courts to make statements and depositions regarding my legal situation. This required going over a lot of painful events and answering difficult questions. I’m not sure how I’d have got through that without Miandri to give me emotional support.

I was getting bored rigid in my lawyer’s office as he and Dad went over the various suits they’d filed relating to my expulsion. I rather think Dad was enjoying this. I had been playing a board game with Miandri but she’d gone to sleep. She had her head in my lap but even watching her large breasts going up and down didn’t entirely alleviate the boredom.

“Well Pendina claims she was told to give Clindar that sex rating by Benai Nibeyim,” my lawyer chuckled. “That sounds ridiculous but it might make it difficult to get people to take our case seriously.”