Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

“I’ve just come to tell you I’m still alive!” I shouted.

I’d come home to let them know I was OK.

“Dwendra’s not with you?” asked Mum.

“No, I didn’t see why she had to come.”

“I’d just like you to meet somebody,” said Mum.

“Now, it’s nearly bedtime!”

Mum came into the hall and walked towards me, it was a warm, humid night so she wouldn’t need a coat. “That doesn’t matter.”

We arrived at a run down apartment in what I definitely didn’t consider a good area.

“What do you want?” asked a grumpy female voice from the other side of the door.

“It’s Anden, it’s about that thing we talked about.”

“Just a minute!”

I heard some muffled talking and moving about on the other side of the door. Then the door was opened by a teenage hipsickah who looked like she was part faharni and part quippa, in a very low cut sari, a harness but no bra. “Er, hi.”

“Quildana,” said Mum, “this is Clindar who I told you about.”

“Is she a street prostitute?” I asked Mum.

“No!” said Mum. “She’s a normal girl! I thought it would be good for you to get to know one.”

The normal girl had both hands on the door frame so I could see she had six fingers on both hands but, like most faharnis, that didn’t bother me.

“I know lots of normal girls. School’s full of them.”

“May we come in?” asked Mum. “You know what I mean and be polite!”

I got out a magic detector and wasn’t at all surprised to see that the normal girl, who was backing away, wasn’t a mage and didn’t have any artifacts.

“Is that a magic detector?” asked Mum, shocked.

“So what religion are you?” I asked, ignoring Mum’s question trying to think of what would prove Quildana’s unsuitability fastest.

“Nuhara and Trulist I suppose.”

Mum pushed me into the room, which smelt bad and was untidy.

“How can you be both?”

“Mum’s Trulist, Dad’s Nuhara.”

“But religion isn’t genetic, not like race! You can’t be a polytheist and a monotheist!”

“I thought Winemakers were?”

That was actually a witty answer.

“Winemakers believe in one God of three dimensions with a complex unity. Ahmaza has a simple unity, I suppose a singularity, but Trulists believe in many gods.”

“I just don’t think religion’s important, OK!”

“I do!”

“Can you try to be friendly!” said Mum.

“You know this is a violation of you-know-what-organization’s rules?” I asked Mum.

“Since when did you care about that and it’s in accordance with Trulist law, isn’t it?”

“As your husband thinks Trulist law is just symbolic, I might as well go by my instincts! You’ve completely lost sight of your objectives and now you’re just being anti-Dwendra!”

“Give her a chance!” said Mum.

“I’m just not seeing a way she’s better than Dwendra.”

“Are you a virgin?” asked Mum.

“Er, yes,” said Quildana, lying.

“Have you ever traveled through time?” asked Mum.

“Should I have? You didn’t say ...”

“Just answer honestly!” said Mum.

“No.”

“Have you ever murdered a religious leader?” asked Mum.

“No.”

“What’s the chemical formula of sodium chloride?” I asked.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting questions like this.”

“What’s the atomic weight of carbon fourteen?”

“I could have looked it up if I’d known it was important!”

“Does Dwendra know that?” asked Mum.

“Yohoists were very intellectual,” I said, “particularly the priesthood and Holy Women.”

“Fortunately they were all killed,” said Quildana, “because they didn’t recognize Nuhar as a prophet or ... nobody liked them ... or ...”

I realized Mum was frantically gesturing to get Quildana to change what she was saying.

“... sorry, you didn’t tell me I’d be asked about ancient history!”

“What’s your least favorite korbar?” I asked.

“That’s an easy one it’s ...” she started waving her hands back and forth in front of her and shaking her head, “... I don’t know what this gesture means but everybody hates anavs because they’re weird. Oh I get it, ‘No way do I like anavs! I don’t want no anavs near me!’”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” I said, turning back to the door.

“Sorry, I really thought that was the right answer to that one! You should have told me the answers to these questions because you can’t just expect me to know.”

“Clindar!” said Mum grabbing at me. “She didn’t really mean that!”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “I couldn’t cope with somebody this stupid!”

“She’s still better than Dwendra!” Mum screamed.

“How?” I asked.

“For a start, you can legally marry her!”

“You didn’t say anything about getting married,” said Quildana, “you just said, ‘Take him on a date and show him normal girls are better than his genetic disaster!’”

“Well I tried taking her for a test drive,” I said, “but I didn’t get her off the lot before I discovered her autopilot is a peace of feces.”

“Who cares if she doesn’t know the atomic weight of carbon fourteen? Nobody can remember that!”

“It’s fourteen! That’s what the fourteen bit means! You know fornicating well that isn’t the important issue anyway.”

“She doesn’t have to know!” said Mum.

“And I’m really fornicating sick of you and your fornicating stupid anal raping friends messing with my life because you can’t fornicating make up your fornicating minds! Has to marry a psychic virgin! Can’t let him have sex with a psychic virgin from school, it has to be Sixteen. Oh no he’s getting urinated about being the only boy at school not to have had sex so you get me Miandri, oh but shouldn’t we save him for Sixteen so you get Narblo to fornicate Miandri so I can’t have her because she’s not a virgin and then Sixteen shows up and we fall in love with each other but that’s not fornicating good enough for you, hence this fiasco!”

“Can’t you see I’m trying to help you because I love you?” asked Mum.

“If you really loved me, you’d do what was best for me, not what you and your fornicating friends want!” I pushed her out the way and stormed out the door.

“You didn’t tell me about that stuff!” said Quildana as I walked away.