Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Chapter 12: The Trial Begins - part 1

The next morning, I prayed with Dwenda again but this time Attan left in disgust part way through.

The preliminary trial was excruciating. It consisted of a basic recounting of the facts, although there was now no mention of Benai Nibeyim. My lawyer claimed by not having sex with me, but having sex with all the other boys in the school, the girls were bullying me by exclusion. It was also argued the school was complicit by not taking action to rectify this.

About that point, Dwendra arrived and sat beside me. She was clearly rather shaken and I felt something very bad had happened.

“I thought you were going shopping or something with Miandri,” I whispered.

“I shalt explaineth later.”

“It looks as if he’s managed to get himself a girlfriend anyway,” said the defense lawyer.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said.

“I canst only marryeth a Yohoist priest and until then must remaineth a virgin,” said Dwendra.

“Where are you going to replace a Yohoist priest?” asked the defense lawyer, looking at us as if we were mad.

“This case is about past events,” said the prosecutor, “it doesn’t matter if the plaintiff has found a solution although it looks as if this isn’t the case. Anyway, him getting a girlfriend wouldn’t resolve the matter of his unfair expulsion.”

“Can we get back to the actual case,” said the judge.

The prosecution lawyer pointed out my problems were at least partly due to a conspiracy orchestrated by some of the girls and the school should have been aware of this and taken action about it.

There was a break for lunch and Dwendra teleported me to a quiet hillside on Central Island. It was Aleph set on the second day of the light cycle so Aleph and the sapphires were casting red and blue shadows in different directions. This, combined with the rocks, palm trees and cacti and the sparkling sea in the distance, looked like some weird dream.

“Miandri wanted to go unto a park,” she said. “I felt it wast a trick but I wast unable to thinketh of a good counter argument and thou hath instructed me to learneth more of her. She took me into a steep, wooded valley in the park. Here we didst meeteth a group of five teenage boys, dressed in very dirty clothing. They didst maketh it clear they intendeth to rapeth me but wert not interested in Miandri so she didst runeth away. They saideth I wouldst not remembereth it. Of course, I wast not going to letteth them rapeth me so I knocked them out but maybe I shouldst hath killed them.”

We were now level one magi.

“What?”

“They art rapists! I art certain Miandri ist conspiring with them and if we doth not slayeth them, they wilt tryeth again, possibly with a better plan. If we leaveth them permanently paralyzed or otherwise incapacitated, they wouldst be able to testifyeth against me in court. Anavim and Yohoists normally doth not getteth treated fairly by the legal system. Perhaps I couldst hath erased their short term memories but if they hast been planning this for more than a few hours or wert conspiring with others, they mayest remembereth enough to deduceth I hast done it. That art another reason to killeth them. Also Yohoism teacheth rape gangs shouldst be putteth unto death and any society that doth not doeth so art to be severely punished, possibly by Yoho himself. I also wenteth back in time a bit so I hath now gotteth a good alibi. Miandri’s the only one who might deduceth the truth but who art going to believeth her?”

I put my arms around her and said, “I don’t like rapists either. All the teenage girls in town seem to think I’m responsible for the serial rapes. I thought it was just one man but if it was a gang, or one of these guys, it may be hard to clear myself.”

“They hath to proveth thou didst it in order to prosecuteth thou.”

“That’s a point, I’m being unofficially punished without being convicted!”

“There art the issue that they may be working for Benai Nibeyim and if that art the case, legal action art likely to beeth impossible.”

“Was this what Mum meant by sorting you out in a way I wouldn’t like? Why would Benai Nibeyim want to rape you?”

“To maketh me ineligible to marryeth a Yohoist priest. Perhaps they hath decided I shouldst not becometh a priest’s wife. Perhaps they planned to murdereth me so it wouldst look like unto a random sex crime. Hath thou considered moving unto another sephir?”

“Yes but Benai Nibeyim will take some sort of action against Haprihagfen if I do that. I think our only real option is to replace some way to deal with Benai Nibeyim.”

“We must decideth what to doeth with the rape gang before we replaceeth out what happened unto them and become unable to goeth back in time and changeth it.”

“Can you reverse the knockout spell?”

“I believeth so. Why?”

“So we can question them, it might help us decide what to do.”

“We shalt have to removeth our shoes.”

Central Island is basically the above water portion of the central peak of the crater which is the Great Basin. It consists of a single mountain.

The sea mentioned in the previous scene is the only sea in Midbar-Binah. It’s in the center of the Great Basin and surrounds Central Island.

We materialized at the bottom of a steep valley, above the river and promptly dropped into it. Fortunately it was only a few centimeters deep but had hard pebbles on the bottom. We had to do this because it was a problematic place to teleport to because there was lots of long grass, bushes and trees on the banks. These things had to be avoided. The top of the valley was an open area of grass so it was difficult to materialize there without being seen. Fortunately the rocky ground would mean we didn’t have to worry about footprints.

I was shocked when we found the rapists. They were Goflakh, Utnisdian, Jedris, Sned and Orblas, all popular boys from my school. I remembered the police pulling Goflakh, Utnisdian and Jedris from the line when checking for magic residue so perhaps that should have been a clue. I don’t know how they hadn’t been caught, perhaps Benai Nibeyim had protected them.

“That one’s gotteth an artifact,” said Dwendra looking through the magic detector she’d just bought from the Vineyard artifact shop and pointing to Utnisdian. “So hath that one,” she pointed to Goflakh.

I’d got out my magic detector that I’d bought at the same time and place Dwendra had bought hers. Breeze had insisted we get magic detectors. I found a ring, probably a date rape artifact, in Utnisdian’s pocket.

“This one’s got a camera,” said Dwendra holding up a small device.

I went over and looked at it. Dwendra already had the screen folded out and was looking at it’s files. “This idiot doth not knoweth how to nameth files.” She started playing the most recent one. It showed Utnesian, Sned and Jedris holding Saldren down to a sleeping mat. One of them had his hand over her mouth and another pulled her shirt open and then cut her bra to reveal her breasts. “I thinketh that ist enough of that!” she switched off the camera.

“Wake up that one,” I said, pointing to Sned who was nicer than the others but not very smart.

Dwendra undid her spell and Sned’s eyes opened.

“Ah, hi, Clindar. Did you just get here? What happened?”

“Why wert thou trying to rapeth me?” asked Dwendra.

“You talk funny.”

“Answereth the question!”

He started getting up but I pushed him down with magic.

“Clindar, look it’s me. You’re not listening to this crazy vagina!”

“Answer the question!” I said.

“It was just a bit of a laugh. You understand don’t you Clindar? Your father says sexual morals don’t matter. How did we get knocked out?”

“Have you been doing all these rapes everybody thinks I did?” I held up the camera.

“Ah, that well, you know it was just a laugh. You can watch the films.”

“Rape isn’t funny! Neither is being the only boy at school not to have had sex!”

“We could still rape this vagina, we’ll ...”

“No! Did Benai Nibeyim have you do this?”

“What?”

“Who’s idea was it?”

“Oh, I get it, you think if you’re nice to her she’ll let you fornicate her but wouldn’t raping her be more fun?”

“Who’s idea was it?”