Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

“Why wouldn’t he let me fornicate a prostitute?” I asked.

“Some stupid, outdated rules but rabbis have no control over priests.”

Of course he was avoiding referring to korbarim.

We nearly reached the door when a rather fat man, who looked faharni but had bennis ears, ran in, sweating heavily and panting, his face red. “Thank Yoho you’re here!” he gasped to Dad. “You said that case was settled but it isn’t!”

“It is,” said Dad, “I’ve got ...”

“Then why are there bailiffs taking all my possessions?” the other man waved his arms frantically, “Jaradin is packing, saying it’s my fault!”

“This isn’t legal!” said Dad and he exhaled heavily.

“They had a lawyer with them! Has a huge pile of papers and computer things written in Old Faharni, Semic and several other languages I can’t read. He says this proves Ruashni is right!”

“A data deluge!” said Dad. “I thought that was beneath Clathmior! Even so, they can’t take your property until...”

“Apparently they can! It’s the law of Reasonable Acceptability or Accountable Reasonableness or Acceptable Reasons or something. It’s from before the Cataclysm and isn’t used much but it’s still on the books and there was some president set in 100AC!”

“Feces,” said Dad with a slight smile, “I suppose I’m going to have to deal with this. You go and get the police, I’ll go to your house, that’s where the bailiffs are is it?”

“Last I saw.”

As we walked out the temple, I asked, “What’s a data deluge?”

“It’s when you present a very large amount of information and falsely claim it supports your position. It’s very hard for your opponent to go through all the stuff and prove otherwise. Doing this is actually illegal but it’s a hard case to fight because you still have to prove the information doesn’t support your opponent’s position.”

Yoho was originally the god of the extinct religion called Yohoism but in this period, he’s mostly worshipped by Winemakers. Trulists consider him to be the god of parties and sexual morality.

All religions on Midbar agree that there are only a limited number of holy sites where temples etc. can be built.

The faharni race has moderately dark skin, usually brown eyes and black hair but other hair and eyes colours aren’t uncommon. A dominant gene that causes polydactylism (having extra fingers and/or toes) is also common among them.

The Great Basin is a very large meteor crater, where most the water is located and therefore where nearly all the humans live.

Bennis is a race of people with light skin and pointed ears.

Old Faharni is an ancient version of Faharni. Few people in this period can read it.

AC is an acronym for After Cataclysm. The Cataclysm was a series of wars and natural disasters which officially ended about 300 years prior to this story.

Dad drove, rather faster than normal, overriding the autopilot, across town and screeched to a halt in a residential area. A truck was parked outside a house and men were carrying furniture out and putting it in the truck as several people stood around staring.

Dad gave me a small object, “This is a film camera, look through this eyepiece and keep it pointing at me and whoever I’m talking to!”

“You didn’t tell you had this.”

Normally I’d have been thrilled about this but right now I was only interested in the fact that I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to having sex. I collected devices but I didn’t have many as they tended to be expensive and there wasn’t anywhere where you were likely to find them just lying around in Laraget.

Dad got out the car and marched up to two men who were carrying a sofa. I got out so I could hear and get a better look, keeping the camera trained on Dad. I had some idea how to use such devices, because devices were my hobby, although they were from before the Cataclysm and not that common.

“This is illegal!” said Dad loudly, his arms spread. “I’m Wennifarg’s lawyer and I know all about this case.”

“Sorry,” said one of the men, “we’ve got orders!”

“Where’s Clathmior?”

“He left.”

“Where’s your documentation? The police will be here soon and they’ll arrest you if you don’t have it or if it’s fraudulent.”

The men put down the sofa and started searching in their pockets. Then they asked a couple of other men who were clearly working with them. They also went through their pockets. One of them found a small bit of paper and handed it to Dad who looked at it.

“This is fraudulent!” said Dad, shaking his fist. “Well at least it mentions a law I haven’t heard of and half of it’s written in what looks like Hecrini, which I can’t read, and very few Paxians can. That’s dubious enough for an arrest at least!”

“Clathmior said it was OK. Sorry but we’ve never seen you before and he gave us strict orders.”

With that the men picked up their bits of furniture and continued putting them in the truck. Dad stood around with his hands of his hips and gritting his teeth for about an hour. Then the police arrived. The police looked at the bit of paper and decided it was legitimate in spite of Dad’s protests to the contrary.

“Expect to get sued!” Dad shouted at the police as they left. “Get back in the car!” he marched towards me with a grim expression. “We’ll need to find Clathmior, he’s probably gone home.”

“This isn’t getting me fornicated!” I complained.

We went to Clathmior’s house and his wife told us she thought he’d gone to his office.

We went to his office and found nobody there.

We went to the homes of several people from Dad’s firm to get them looking for Clathmior but half of them seemed to be out.

Dad was getting increasingly angry and I was slipping deeper and deeper into a black hole.