Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

My parents weren’t happy to have a group of anavim materialize in the house and Attan was shocked people could teleport and more shocked to discover Dwendra, Egrindreth and myself could. We’d brought all of our new clan and Gribron, the Haprihagfen’s leading legal expert. Dad wasn’t exactly happy to have to deal with an anav lawyer. We’d tracked Screld down at a private party and dragged him back to our house.

“Well,” said Gribron, when everything had been explained, “this is a complicated situation. Clindar and Dwendra are in unique and not entirely clear positions with respect to their status with Haprihagfen and Benai Nibeyim. I’m personally satisfied they haven’t done anything wrong, as far as Haprihagfen is concerned. Benai Nibeyim are generally more lax in how they interpret their rules but they’re also very prone to twisting their laws to fit what they think convenient and occasionally make very harsh rulings if that fits their agenda. What is clear is that Anden and Screld have violated Benai Nibeyim laws by trying to get Clindar to have sex with hipsickot. They’ve also conspired to rape two anavim, and it was only the quick thinking by them and their friends that allowed them to have sex with the partners of their choice, although not in the time and place of their choice. I suppose this new legal mess could constitute attracting hostility to anavim.” He looked around at everybody.

“You have no authority over me,” said Screld. “Nor Anden.”

“No comment!” said Mum.

“Attacks on anavim are always of concern to Haprihagfen,” said Gribron. “Of course the currently uncertain status of the the treaty makes the exact position here uncertain. Another thing we should be concerned about is Benai Nibeyim have been known to use rulings in regular law in their decision making, sometimes without consulting the people concerned. That could be a problem if it’s officially acknowledged Clindar is the father. This would also certainly give the child’s mother and her relatives some control over Clinder for the duration of the child’s life and that isn’t a good situation. Am I right about that Latchmir?”

“The same would apply if Attan’s officially the father,” said Dad. “Also influence over Attan would extend somewhat to Clindar.”

“Attan’s less important,” said Gribron.

“What?” said Attan.

“You’re a hipsick, you’re not privy to Haprihagfen secrets and Benai Nibeyim don’t consider you to be a priest. For most purposes you’re a normal boy! Exerting damage on Haprihagfen or the Winemaker priesthood through you would be harder.”

“So you’re just throwing the hipsick son out the airlock?” asked Dad.

“He is partly responsible for this situation,” said Gribron. “If there isn’t a baby or he isn’t the father, then he doesn’t really have a problem. Maybe you can find some legal ruse even if he is the father but I personally think he should have some responsibility for his biological child, his DNA is still being perpetuated even if he was tricked into the conception.”

“You do realize fighting this case with our other problems will be problematic,” said Dad.

“You could really mess up Clindar’s life if you don’t fight this case,” said Gribron. “We could get you intelligence on this woman and her family and maybe other people connected with them. It’s possible there’s something going on here that isn’t obvious. Anyway, I suggest we all get some sleep now and look into this further tomorrow. Oh yes one other thing.” He waved his hand and Mum, Attan and Screld lost consciousness. “I’ve put a short term concussion spell on them, they’ll just be unconscious for a few minutes and lose a couple of hours’ memories. We don’t want them to know Clindar had sex with Dwendra and Attan isn’t supposed to know about teleportation or that all these people are anavim. Is that understood?”

“This is precisely why I try to stay out of mage and psychic business,” said Dad. “I won’t tell them those things.”

Mum got us access to the council records (which she hadn’t thought to check before trying to get Zonlaria to date me). This showed Zonlaria and Ildias were indeed siblings, children of Broldarin and Gintena. Their father, Broldarin, had been prosecuted for multiple frauds and imprisoned shortly after Zonlaria was born. Most the family’s money and property had been seized by the authorities as illegal earnings. It seemed likely Zonlaria and Ildias were following in their father’s business.

Haprihagfen records had no mention of this family so it seemed likely they didn’t make a habit of interfering with Haprihagfen or anavim. They also had no record of Brulin but the Mage Council did have her listed as an official mage.

Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to work on this as there was a more important issue to be dealt with.