Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

We pulled up outside a house I didn’t know.

“This family have a nice daughter about your age,” said Dad, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Obviously she isn’t a prostitute but you can try with her but promise to be nice to her.”

“I’m always nice to girls,” I looked at my lap.

“Then why don’t they like you?”

“I don’t know. They have sex with boys who are ugly, stupid and obnoxious, not to mention disabled, gay or Winemaker.”

We got out and went to the door and Dad rang the bell. I found myself breathing heavily. A dog barked. After a few minutes, the door opened but had a chain on it and a teenage girl I didn’t recognize peeked through it. “What?”

“Can I speak to your mother?” asked Dad.

“She’s out!” the girl said and closed the door.

Dad knocked again and the girl opened the door, still with the security chain on. “I said ...”

“I’m your mother’s boss! I need her for an emergency. Do you know where she is?”

“No!” she tried to close the door again but Dad stuck his foot in it to wedge it open. The girl hugged herself, emphasizing her breasts.

“I also need to leave my son ...”

“Clindar!”

“Yes.”

“Everybody hates him, he’s the rapist!”

“No I’m not!” I shouted.

“That’s the only way you can get a girl.”

“Who told you he was the rapist?” asked Dad.

“Everybody knows that! Can you ...”

“Look you stupid vagina!” said Dad. “I’m trying to deal with two crises at once and you’re not helping!”

“Help rape!”

With that Dad let her close the door. “Well that didn’t go well,” he said.

“The police haven’t even questioned me about the rapes!” I shouted at the house. “I didn’t do any of them and I’ve no idea who did!”

Now I felt even sicker!

“The girls hate you because they think you’re the rapist because the girls don’t like you,” muttered Dad walking away. “I supposed we’d better try to fix... Which problem is more urgent? What would cheer you up other than having sex and preferably something I don’t need to hang around for?”

“Right now I’m really having trouble thinking of anything.” I was shaking. “Isn’t it slander to claim I’m the rapist?”

“Yes but proving that in court is difficult. Do you know why they think that?”

“No. I thought this guy used a date rape spell to erase his victims’ memories so... I don’t know who the victims are...”

“That’s kept confidential.”

“It’s possible he raped one or more girls I liked. Also I don’t know exactly when and where the rapes were.”

“I think it’s difficult to be sure because of the use of date rape spells and it may also relate to concealing the victims’ identities.”

“It’s possible I was seen near the scene of one or more of the rapes at about the same time but I don’t know that, I’ve never seen something that looked like a rape in progress. How can I know if I was near one when I don’t know when or where the rapes happened?”

“Let me know if you think of something that would cheer you up.”

By now we were back at the car.

“Fornicating a girl!”

“That’s obviously very difficult, unless you rape one but ...”

“No! I won’t do that! She’s got to want it!”

“Good but I don’t know how we can find one who would want it. There are street prostitutes but that’s illegal and I don’t know where to find one.”

I was fairly sure he wasn’t being entirely honest about that but I considered prostitution to be uncomfortably close to rape so I didn’t want a street prostitute.

“There’s one other thing,” I said, “but I’m not sure it will really cheer me up. Can you answer a question?”

“You know there are lots of things I’m not allowed to tell anybody.”

“Am I an anav?”

“You know korbarim are just symbolic but you are a very powerful psychic. That’s probably part of your problem.”

“Then can you take me to another psychic like me? I don’t think I’ve ever met one and they may be able to help me.”

“You have met one but it was a long time ago and I don’t think you realized at the time.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Sorry but I don’t know any. I don’t think there are any in Laraget.”

“What, I’m the most powerful psychic in the city!”

“I suppose but you’re not a mage and your powers aren’t a lot of good against magic, particularly as most magi are also psychics.”

I thought about that, sitting with my arms wrapped around my stomach, rather like the girl had done, and then decided to take a different approach. “The girls having sex with all the boys except me constitutes bullying by exclusion. It’s likely to give me bad epigenetics so I grow up with poor self esteem and bad social skills. Can’t you take action against the school for that?”

“Difficult. You’d need evidence.”

Dad got out a pendulum and a map and tried dousing for Clathmior.

“Why didn’t you try that before?” I asked.

“Because I don’t like doing this sort of thing and I’m not sure it will work because I don’t have a biological sample of Clathmior and we’re not very close. Looks like he’s in the King of Photoorganisms.”

A street prostitute is basically any prostitute other than a temple prostitute.

Almost all magic on Midbar is associate magic. It uses normally invisible and intangible things called associates which can be invisibly linked to objects using bindings. Associate magic is really a branch of previously unknown science that was discovered after humans left Earth. It isn’t forbidden by the ancient religions.

A mage (plural “magi”) is somebody who has associates bound to them and has had training and taken vows to obey certain laws so they can do magic without artifacts (objects with magical power because they have associates bound to them). Some people have bound associates but are not magi, these are called chelases. Unlike psychic powers, this is not genetic.

Dousing a psychic power that allows you to find things. It’s probably the easiest psychic ability to learn.