Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

I learnt basic magic theory fairly quickly. You know how magic users are classified into artifact users, chelases who have at least one bound associate but aren’t full magi, magi and magises. A lot of people use “mage” as the generic term for all of them but this is technically incorrect. Magis is often considered a type of mage.

Associates are invisible and intangible so they can’t normally be seen or felt. They can be attached to material objects using bindings (the definition of a binding is basically something that connects an associate to matter), so they change the properties of that object. This can get very complicated as the associate changes the objects properties in very strange and complicated ways.

Do I really need to go over this?

We were on the playing field, nearing the end of lunch break. Breeze, Cloud and Irvis were telling me about associates and bindings.

“My parents have a friend who has a spell on him so he can’t leave the town,” I said. “Well it doesn’t seem to exactly follow the town boundaries. He can’t get to the Mountain Goat or the Eagle Flutter’s Nest.”

“That’s interesting,” said Breeze. “Does he know who put it on him?”

“Astrigis.”

“Who?” asked Breeze.

“The god of horticulture and famine.”

“None of the Trulist gods are real,” said Cloud. “Even their version of Yoho’s messed up.”

I knew this wasn’t true because I could feel Tianamet’s presence but I didn’t want them to know I was really a Trulist. “Lishrashic says that Astrigis spoke to him from a plant and told him to come to Minris and put this spell on him. I know the spell’s real because I saw him trying to get to the Eagle Flutter’s Nest.”

“From a plant?” said Irvis.

“That’s what he says.”

“What sort of plant?” asked Cloud. “Was it actually a plant or an XT photoorganism?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might be able to break the spell.”

“That’s difficult,” said Breeze. “Breaking spells is a lot harder than casting them. Well some spells are designed so they can be easily removed but you have to know how. It’s easy if you cast it or have the artifact that was used to cast it. The problem is if you don’t know how it was done, you have to figure it out and that can be very difficult.”

Practical magic lessons were more problematic as they had to be done on the Vineyard as it was the only place I was allowed to use artifacts. We partly got round that by finding excuses for me to sleep over at the Vineyard.

Again we went to worship and again the protester was there with the bored cop.

“The claim that twenty percent of men are homosexual was a lie by a religionist homosexual,” I said. “Only about two percent of men are homosexual so if twenty percent of pedophiles are homosexual there’s a huge positive correlation.”

“Actually ninety five percent of pedophiles are heterosexual men,” said the protester.

“You’re changing your statistics!” I said.

“Do you have sources for any of these statistics?” asked Dad.

“Well if twenty percent of men are homosexual, then twenty percent of pedophiles must be homosexual but if only two percent of men are homosexual, then only two percent of pedophiles are homosexual because there’s no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia.”

“So these are just theoretical statistics not real ones,” said Dad. “You can’t prove a theory by making up statistics to fit it! Even my eight year old daughter understands that!”

I nearly said, “I’m nine,” but bit my tongue.

“No they’re real statistics,” said the protester.

“Where do you get them from?” asked Dad.

“Well, they were researched.”

“By whom?” asked Dad.

“I’m sure they’re right!”

“But they change depending on the proportion of homosexuals in the population!” said Dad. “Also, as there are very few female pedophiles and very few bisexuals at all, even if ninety five percent of pedophiles are heterosexual men, that still means there’s going to be about four percent of pedophiles being homosexual and that’s still a positive correlation!”

“Orientationist Winemaker inbreds!” shouted the protester and the cop moved between him and us.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Breeze, jumping over the classroom wall. “I had to help my grandmother with some work, it was rather educational.”

“What did you learn?” asked Ruvin, the teacher.

“How to track bindings from distant associates.”

There were several sniggers, I think most the class at least recognised this as magic terminology.

Ruvin looked confused momentarily and then said, “Oh, yes, your grandmother’s a mage, isn’t she.”

“Yes,” said Breeze. “She doesn’t keep that a secret.”

“Go and sit down!”

Breeze sat beside me.

When Ruvin had finished telling us about the life cycle of Jarvacrid XT’s, she asked to find some Jarvacrids in our book and look up the various stages in its life cycle.

“I was helping your friend Lishrashic,” whispered Breeze. “He has a binding to a remote associate and I tried to find it. Unfortunately it’s in the shrine crypt, which is full of associates and bindings. It seems a simple tether spell but it’s mixed up with complicated and important stuff even granny Ice isn’t willing to mess with.”

“Is that why he can’t leave town?”

“Yeah.”

Me and Mum and Dad went to the Vineyard for worship one night and Ice pulled us to one side to among the trees and vines near the shrine. She was a very old faharni woman, I think about a hundred.

Older?

How do you know, people age differently now?

She had long, grey hair and six fingers on her left hand.

“Your friend Lishrashic has asked us to break the spell that prevents him from leaving Minris,” she said. “We’ve determined that there’s no way to do it safely without knowing how it was cast. Do you know who did it?”

“Astrigis,” I said.

“He isn’t real,” said Mum.

“We know that’s what Lishrashic claims but obviously we don’t believe that," said Ice. "Who really did it?”

We just stood there looking at her.

“What about his wife?”

“She was surprised when she found out about it,” I said.

“Perhaps she was acting,” said Mum.

I didn’t think so but I didn’t say anything.

“Most likely this spell was cast by somebody in Bremplar,” said Dad.

“Do you know of any enemies Lishrashic might have?” asked Ice.

“He’s rich,” said Dad, “and a successful businessman, I’m sure there are people who resent him but I can’t name anybody.”

“Why did Lishrashic and his wife move here shortly after you?” asked Ice.

“I’ve no idea,” said Dad. “Probably a coincidence.”

“Well thanks,” said Ice. “You said what I thought you’d say and didn’t really help much but I had to try.”

“We just don’t know anything about this,” said Mum. “We’re not magi or anything.”

“If you find out anything, it may save a lot of trouble if you let me know, enjoy the worship.”