Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Chapter 8: Nuhara Anavim

I looked around nervously at the mountainous desert area where we had materialized. This was my own universe, Midbar-Binah but it was the most unnerving place we’d been taken to in our teleportation training. We were in Aramator. This was a remote area in the northern mountains, near the only Nuhara anav community.

“This way!” said Gircari cheerfully.

She was our teleportation instructor, belonging to a race from another universe so she had very dark skin, unusually long limbs, metallic purple hair and violet eyes. Dwendra and myself had been concerned the Nuharas would do something drastic when they saw a glildac but Gircari had insisted they wouldn’t hurt an anavah without a very good reason.

We rounded a bluff and saw a village of stone buildings with fields around it and many white, sheet-like water collectors. Two male anavim with grey robes and yellow beards materialized near us.

“You know you’re not welcome here,” one said. He spoke Faharni with a strange accent, not the way Aramatorans normally speak.

They looked at us but didn’t seem to have noticed Dwendra’s race.

“They’ve got to know where they’re not supposed to go,” said Gircari.

“Why art thou Nuharas?” spat Dwendra, snarling.

They looked at her with puzzled expressions.

“Most anavim art Winemakers,” said Dwendra. “They claimeth that as they haveth a stronger link unto to the paranormal, they knoweth Winemakerism art true and other religions art false.”

Normally that sort of talk would anger a Nuhara but these seemed more puzzled than anything.

One of them said, “We are quippas and live in Aramator, of course we are Nuharas.”

“There art many Nuharas who art not quippas and liveth not in Aramator. Why art there faharni Nuharas living in Pax?”

“We don’t answer for the actions of other Nuharas,” one of the quippas said.

“Then how canst thou believeth Nuhara scripture? It sayeth that if it were written by man, not Ahmaza, it wouldst hath contradictions but it hath contradictions.”

“We don’t care about things like that,” said the other quippa. “Religion is really about fitting in, or at least that’s how we see it.”

“Why doth thou liveth in Aramator. Thou canst teleporteth anywhere.”

“We can’t teleport our children,” said the quippa who was doing most the talking. “That would make relocating difficult.”

“Have we clarified things?” asked the other quippa. “All we really want is to be left in peace.”

Aramator is a Nuhara country that borders northern Pax.