Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Holy Woman - part 4

I did as she said. I was very conscious of the curves of her body against me.

“Thou thinkest impure thoughts!” she said, staring into my eyes with her forehead wrinkled.

She didn’t need telepathy for that.

“I’m holding a beautiful anavah, what do you expect? Anyway my thoughts when I teleported weren’t exactly pure!”

“I art a Holy Woman, promised unto the priesthood.”

“Are you sure that’s Yoho’s will, it seems a waste of a good body?”

“What doth thou meaneth?”

“You could make a man very happy.”

“I wilt, that ist why I must remaineth a virgin.”

“That makes no sense!”

“Yes it doth! I art promised unto the priesthood! A priest must marryeth a virgin psychic, usually a nibeyah, who wast born unto a priestly family but sometimes they do taketh psychics bred by Benai Nibeyim and very rarely other Yohoist psychic women. As I hath been chosen for to be a priest’s wife and art an anavah, an anav must have been born unto a priestly family. He must be the anav priest who art prophesied to restoreth Midbar unto the teachings of Yoho. Of course, the Winemakers thinketh that meaneth Yoho’s avatar but we believeth he art an anav priest who hath yet to come. For that reason, the Benai Nibeyim interbreedeth nibeyim and katcheyim every five hundred years to produceth anavim but also marryeth nibeyot with katchey parents unto priests.”

Crazy though that sounded, it sort of made sense. The only problem was, why had the man pretending to be Zorg not pretended to be a Yohoist priest?

“Sorry, I thought you were supposed to stay a virgin forever. Why didn’t Zorg become a priest?”

“He wast the Book Barer, a male line descendant of the false prophet and leader of the Nuharas. Being a hipsick, he wast not greatly spiritual but I thinketh he didst believeth the false prophet’s lies. Therefore he had no desire to converteth unto Yohoism and he wouldst have been slaineth for apostasy by his fellow Nuharas hath he done so. Also priests must be nibeyim or anavim, descended from the prophet Fandril and Zorg wert a hipsick and probably not descended from Fandril.”

The Great Basin is an enormous crater. It’s the lowest part of Midbar’s surface, surrounded by mountains. This is where most the water is located and there’s a small sea in the center (with a large island in the middle of it). Almost all the humans live in the Great Basin. The rest of the planet is a huge desert.

Towards evening (I think), the sandstorm finally abated and we decided it was time to go to the palace. Of course Dwendra had to pray first. Then we left the tent. It was after sapphire dark (there must have been sapphires because there were a number of palm trees, cacti and Aloes but they all looked the worse for wear from the sandstorms) and Aleph was low in the sky. My heart was beating fast and I was breathing heavily. This wes partly because I had my left arm around Dwendra, pretending my right side was paralyzed and could feel her breathing heavily. Also there was enough light to see there was indeed a palace, a few hundred meters from the tent. It was a truly impressive looking building, in a good state of repair with domes and towers and many windows with lights on inside. I didn’t realize there were such buildings in the desert.

We made our way slowly towards the palace. I was wearing Zorg’s boots, which were a bit too small for me. Therefore our progress was slow. Dwendra was holding my left hand with her’s (I think to stop me from touching her breast). People must have been watching for us because we’d only gone a hundred meters or so when four yellow-bearded quippa men and a red-bearded faharni man, two of them (including the faharni) nibeyim and the rest hipsickim, ran out from the palace towards us.

One of the quippa’s said something in Quippa.

“My lord, art thou hurt,” said the faharni.

How many people believed this delusion!

“He art unable to moveth one side nor talketh,” said Dwendra.

“She art lying!” said the quippa nibey.

Feces a mindreader!

“I speacketh the truth!” said Dwendra. “Nuhar Zorg art unable to speaketh.”

She was trying literal truth but the nibeyim would probably still know she was trying to deceive them.

“What hast thou done unto him!” snapped the lead hipsick, raising a rod, probably an artifact.

“Only what thou wouldst expecteth of a wife!” said Dwendra.

“Lies,” said the faharni.

“Get away from him!” said the man with the rod.

My back up plan relied on people realizing Dwendra was delusional and this clearly wasn’t going to work. I needed a secondary back up plan and I could only think of one idea. I tried remembering how Miandri had told me our relationship was a mistake, how Egrindreth had materialized in front of me. How Narblo had been naked in Miandri’s bed talking his sanctimonious sophistry. I imagined the rod holder was Narblo. I pictured Miandri’s room, which had been Egrindreth’s. Miandri was behind me. Narblo was on the bed in front of me. Egrindreth was up against the window.

“There art something wrong with ...” somebody was saying.

I threw a punch at rod guy, I don’t think he’d been expecting that, he believed I was his lord. Fireworks went off in my head.