Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
I Art Sixteen - part 8

Pictures appeared in the air. They showed Egrindreth stepping through a door; Zorg standing over Dwendra, naked and holding the knife; Dad fighting Narblo; the cat fighting the long-eared creature with glowing swords; Narblo naked with arms outstretched; Dwendra and myself unscrewing the toilet, and Zorg’s boot. However, the most striking pictures, at least to me, showed Dwendra in what looked like a Winemaker wedding dress and Dwendra and myself laying side by side, looking very happy.

“No, no, no, no, no,” said Mum. “Has she been raped?”

I just stared at the pictures with my mouth open, to stunned to even try to formulate a response. I realized the Old Magic was considerably better than I thought, the images were, as far as I could tell, true but without understanding the context, you couldn’t make sense of them. These had a strong and somewhat shocking message for me or maybe they were misleading.

“Dwendra and Egrindreth had something to do with what happened the other night?” asked Mum.

“I met them after I left,” I said vaguely.

“What’s that cat and that cute thing with long ears?” asked Miandri.

“I really don’t know,” I said, truthfully.

Mum stormed back to the living room and screamed, “You’ve been raped!”

“No, I art a virgin.”

I started to follow.

“Lofaracri!” said Mum, she was standing in the doorway to the living room with her right arm stretched out. “Lofaracri!” She looked at her bracelet.

Most artifacts didn’t work on magi. I guess whatever associates Breeze had equipped us with blocked this particular artifact at least.

“Thou shouldst not attempteth to put spells ...”

“You’ll have to get dinner!” snapped Mum. “I’ve got to go somewhere. Miandri, make sure nothing happens while I’m gone!” With that she stormed out the house slamming the door behind her.

“What was all that about?” I asked Miandri, who’d followed me into the hall.

“You must replace your own truth to follow the path of predestination.”

Dwendra, Miandri and myself collaborated to make dinner. This was slightly complicated by the fact Miandri was a vegetarian and Dwendra has some fussy food laws because of her religion. The old saying about it being bad to have two women in the same kitchen also seemed to apply. Miandri actually helped, or tried to, but it was somewhat counterproductive. The food was about cooked when Dad got home. I told him what had happened with Mum but he didn’t really say anything about it. I think he was in denial about Mum being Benai Nibeyim, which I was now certain was the case.

After dinner I said Dwendra and myself had a private function to attend.

“Remember the preliminary trial starts tomorrow so don’t stay up too late!” said Dad.

“Won’t I just be sitting there while the lawyers argue?” I asked.

“Probably but things can develop in unexpected ways,” said Dad.

“I’m sure they’ll let me in,” said Miandri, walking towards Dwendra and myself.

“No they won’t!” I said.

This wasn’t exactly true, we were planning to teleport, something she couldn’t do.

“Let them go without you!” said Dad.

“Anden told me to make sure nothing happens when she’s gone,” said Miandri, “and my Mum totally said Clindar wasn’t to go anywhere with Dwendra or have sex with her.”

“And it’s black night,” said Attan, “no telling what might happen in the cover of darkness.”

“I art a Holy Woman and must remaineth a virgin. Clindar doth respecteth that.”

“He’s totally hot for you,” said Attan.

“As Yoldasia didn’t explain the problem, I don’t care?” said Dad.

“And she has no authority over me!” I said, walking out the door. “Anyway, I’m doing things they don’t like until they get me a girl or tell me the rules and let me play the game.”

“Nobody has authority over me,” said Miandri, following us, “Arr!" she stopped dead and jerked around. "That was totally harsh and you can’t fight predestination.”

I was nearly at the door with my back to the kitchen so I didn’t see what happened there.

“I was equipped to ...” Dad started to say.

“I have power,” said Miandri. “You can’t perceive what you are ...”

“Why don’t you explain it to me?” asked Dad.

Myself and Dwendra left the house and closed the door.

We got back and Dad met us at the door.

“Mum’s back,” he said quietly. “Her mental state doesn’t look good so can you try to be nice to her. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Miandri?”

“No,” I said.

“I suppose she’s a mage and should be able to look after herself,” said Dad. “Not many spells work on magi but they can often be affected indirectly. I stuck her shoes to the floor and tried asking her about Benai Nibeyim but she just spouted rubbish about predestination until she figured out why she couldn’t move her feet, took her shoes off and went after you with bare feet. Haven’t seen her since. Attan’s pretty upset too so try not to aggravate him!”