Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

“Two very unreliable sources! I think you need more than that.”

“I think that’s enough to be worried though.”

“Large conspiracies aren’t possible because large numbers of people can’t keep secrets.”

I was sure there was something wrong with that argument and he wasn’t convinced by it himself. “Perhaps it’s just a few people; the girls, who probably don’t know much, and one or two other people.”

“Maybe but why would there be some conspiracy to mess up your sex life?”

“I don’t know but multiple girls are telling other girls I’m the rapist and they’d permanently have a score of negative infinity if they have sex with me. That’s a conspiracy!”

“Only a few stupid girls being stupid,” his nose wrinkled.

“So far they’ve been a hundred percent effective in preventing me from having sex. There’s clearly at least a small conspiracy here but I don’t understand it’s motivation. Maybe they think I have a rare korbar or something.”

“Korbarim are just symbolic.”

Again he was lying about this.

“Not everybody believes that.”

“Korbarism is a difficult case to make because your korbar is supposed to be confidential.”

He was evading this issue.

“What’s with this girl Miandri? Do you know anything about her?”

“I met her mother a long time ago. She was at University with your mother and myself but your mother knew her better. She’s a controversial mage named Yoldasia. She’s famous, some would say notorious, for using Old Magic and combining it with associate magic. You know the magic we mostly use now is something we discovered after we left Earth?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently there are some records claiming to explain the types of magic we used back on Earth. This is called ‘Old Magic’ and some people think it’s evil.”

“You mean the sex craze?”

“I don’t know if that’s a real spell. Old Magic is forbidden by some religions but Yoldasia say’s that’s nonsense. I don’t know why Miandri’s been sent here though.”

“Talking of magic, the police used a magic detector on all the boys as we went into school. They said I had a lot of magic residue but I can’t see how I got that.”

“Ah, yes,” he shifted in his chair and drew hips lips back from his teeth. “I’m afraid that’s my fault. I’m a mage. I don’t use magic much but I got equipped because I tend to upset people so I thought it would be useful to be able to defend myself.”

Equipping is the process magises use to make people into magi.

“You’re a mage?” I sat up straight. “Let me see if I’ve got this right? You’re not only a controversial lawyer and a controversial rabbi but you’re also a mage. There’s a conspiracy to stop me having sex. My sister, who we thought was a Temple Prostitute, turns out to belong to a fundamentalist Winemaker order and claims some organization is stopping her from helping me and this has something to do with anavim. Mum turns her away very quickly and seemed to know she was Haprihagfen before she had a chance to say. Now we have the beautiful but somewhat strange, teenage daughter of a controversial mage staying with us. Attan tried his damnedest to mess up my chances with her. Oh, there’s also a serial rapist, who lots of people think is me. Am I going paranoid or is there really something really weird going on that has something to do with me?”

“So you’re the police and you come to me to prosecute who for what?” he grasped the edge of his desk.

“I don’t know and I don’t know. Well I think part of it is preventing me from having sex, thus causing me a lot of psychological torment. I think there’s more to it.”

“You’re case isn’t ready to go to trial is it? You’re alleging some sort of conspiracy but you don’t know who’s behind it or its objectives.”

“It’s clear multiple kids were stopping me from having sex at school. By definition, that’s a conspiracy.”

“Do you have any suspicions as to what it’s trying to achieve, keeping you celibate seems an unlikely motive?”

“I think most likely is some sort of attack on you because of your religious beliefs or legal stuff. Could be a way to get at Haprihagfen although I know very little about them but a lot of people hate Winemakers and anavim - I know but most people do believe in korbarim and belief is all that’s required, they don’t have to be right. I suppose it’s always possible it’s something really out there that involves things I don’t know about. I only just discovered you were a mage, Mum’s old University friend is a particularly controversial mage and my sister’s a Winemaker. What’s going to happen next?”

“So you have a couple of half way plausible motives. Do you have any suspects?”

“Well there’s Master Kiard for not running the school properly. There’s Pendina for giving me a negative infinity sex rating. There’s probably some cases you can make against some other kids and maybe teachers or people associated with the school.”

“It might be better to offer the minor players leniency in exchange for their cooperation. Any other suspects?”

“Mum, I think she was lying when I questioned her about this, including what Miandri is doing here. She’s also strangely hostile towards Egrindreth. There’s Egrindreth but as far as I know, she’s just told me some strange things. I suppose there’s Haprihagfen but I don’t know if they really have anything to do with it. There’s the other organization but I only have Egrindreth’s word they exist, no the claim Pendina was told to give me a negative infinity sex rating supports that. Miandri is definitely suspicious but I think she’s only just arrived in town. I suppose there’s her mother who I know very little about.”

“Your mother’s a wonderful woman but in many ways she’s a very ordinary woman, I think it’s unlikely she’s involved in this conspiracy. Probably out of the lot, we really should look at Egrindreth and Haprihagfen.”

He was being honest but I suspected he was letting his prejudices show.

“So we need to question Egrindreth and probably some Haprihagfen leader?”

“Perhaps you should just try to get to know Miandri better. She’s safer.”

The Sex Craze is a notorious Old Magic spell. If cast on somebody, it makes them experience an increasingly strong desire to have sex and become increasingly mad. A male will usually rape a woman if he’s unable to find a willing partner. A female will normally throw herself at increasingly “inappropriate” men until one has sex with her. The only way to break this spell is for the subject to actually have sex. Only penal-vaginal intercourse is thought to work (there are various opinions about the results of casting the spell on a homosexual). In stories it’s normally cast on people in situations where sex would be awkward such as a woman who’s trapped with a man she doesn’t like or somebody who’s trapped with a member of the opposite sex who they’re forbidden to have sex with. Another fictional scenario is somebody casting it on a less passionate spouse from whom they get unexpectedly separated so the spouse has sex with somebody else.

The next few days were interesting. Miandri started coming to school with me. Apparently the master had agreed to this without realizing she was connected with me. For some reason this made Gerdni even more interested in my bus pass. Perhaps it was just an excuse to get close to Miandri. Part of me would have liked to pretend Miandri and myself didn’t know each other so she could find out things people wouldn’t have been willing to tell me but that didn’t seem to be the way her mind worked. I think, probably for the first time in my life, I made the other boys jealous, although people did think it weird how Miandri was always sucking on that glass ball (apparently it wasn’t an artifact but I suspected it was Old Magic), particularly as Miandri felt we should at least kiss and cuddle as everybody else was having sex.