Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Chapter 15: The Safe House - part 1

This trip was uncomfortable. Dad told Attan off for trying to get Dwendra into trouble and suggested we wait until we got to the safe house so we could discuss our problems in private. Mum seemed to think this was my fault but didn’t really say anything, just sat there sneering at me. Miandri was seriously sulking about Utnarata’s death.

The safe house turned out to be a large house in the country, I think somewhere west of Laraget. It was still raining and we were shown the books and internet and told we would be able to go outside within a limited area. As the house had to accommodate a number of cops as well as us, we only had three bedrooms. Apparently they only anticipated couples with three children at most. Of course my parents wanted to put Miandri and Dwendra in the same room.

“She tried to hath me raped,” said Dwendra, gritting her teeth.

“What?” said Miandri, still looking dejected. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Miandri, Dwendra is more weird, get over it,” said Attan.

“Dwenda killed Utnarata,” groaned Miandri.

“I didst not burneth my clothing prophesying upon the temple steps,” said Dwendra.

“I just want to lie down and sleep,” mumbled Miandri, going into the room and collapsing on a bed. “All hope is lost, my goddess is dead!”

“I art still not sharing a room with her!” said Dwendra. “My virtue art safer with Clindar!”

I realized this wasn’t really true. The truth was she didn’t have to hide the fact she could teleport from me.

“Well he’s not good with girls,” said Attan, jabbing me in my ribs with his elbow.

“What exactly did happen yesterday?” asked Dad. “It is just one day I can’t remember?”

Dwendra and myself proceeded to give, Mum, Dad and Attan a somewhat edited account of the previous day. We made it sound as if Dwendra had left Miandri before reaching Valley Park and like neither of us were present when anybody had died. However, Dwendra did give the impression Miandri had tried to get somebody to rape her and this may have had something to do with the boys being killed. Mum seemed to think everything was because I was trying to solve my problems myself, as Yoldasia had told me to but thought me incapable of doing. I suggested she get me a girlfriend, which she refused to do, saying I needed to solve my own problems. Dad pointed out that her and Yoldasia couldn’t have it both ways.

It was a pretty dull day, both in terms of weather and activity. The cops didn’t want to tell us anything else about who they thought was after us and I suspected it was Benai Nibeyim trying to protect me from Sixteen (so Attan was basically right). Dwendra and myself tried to get my parents to tell us my genealogy. Mum just got cross and Dad said he didn’t like his parents and their relatives. Dwendra decided to try to teach me more about Yohoism, much to Attan’s disgust. Some spare clothing from our house arrived around sapphire dark so we could wash and dress in clean clothes.

Everybody else crawled off to bed before Dwendra and myself, probably because they were still suffering from the Old Magic date rape spell. The police weren’t watching us so we just took the opportunity to teleport.

We materialized in a dark alcove in the semi-ruined part of Grishnarl railway station. It looked really creepy in the black and red of red night. There were a lot of Nuharas in Grishnarl and I think that gave the whole city an oppressive feel.

“I art replaceing it strange being with thou after the events of the previous night,” said Dwendra.

What she meant was she was replaceing it hard to be with me without getting physical.

“I think we’d better figure out if I’m really a priest as soon as possible.”

“Thou dost realizeth thou wilt have to converteth unto Yohoism?”

“You could convert to Trulism that would ...”

“But I replaceeth Trulism to be completely unconvincing! Grud wast one of the major gods but nobody has worshipped him since long before my time. His temple art in the desert and none visit it.”

“That’s why nobody worships him.”

“The accessibility of a god’s Holy Site should not be the criteria upon which people chooseth to worship him!”

By now we were entering the used part of the station. There were a number of people walking around, most in Nuhara dress and some gave us unfriendly looks with tight lips and lowered eyebrows.

“What should it be based on?” I asked.

“Truth.”

“How do you know the truth? My father points out this could all be a big computer simulation or something.” I waved my arms to indicate that I meant everything.

“Well Nuhara art merely based on the teachings of a mad terrorist and pedophile who wast not even a psychic.”

“Don’t say things like that too loudly here!”

Now we were coming up to the ticket kiosks. We paid our fair and proceeded onto the platform. The train was there but didn’t have it’s doors open.

“Winemakerism art merely based on claims by anavim.”

“Wasn’t Kindras an anav?”

Kindras was the prophet, who’d lived on Earth long before we developed space travel, who was largely responsible for most the Yohoist teachings although Yoho seems to have been worshipped before his time.

“Why art thou better at defending Winemakerism than thou art at defending Trulism?”

We were both facing the train, the way people do. There was nobody very near us but I could feel some hostility from others on the platform or perhaps I was just imagining it.

“It seems the main argument against Winemakerism is it relies on claims by anavim that Yoho’s avatar was born on Earth after the nuclear war. We know he was born in a parallel universe, we’ve travelled to parallel universes and we’ve even met somebody from that universe. That seems to make the argument against Winemakerism much weaker.”

“Trulism hath no basis, it art merely a collection of stories grafted to a feeble excuse for prostitution and prohibition against psychics marrying each other.”

At this point I would have liked to disagree with her but I’d been raised to think the gods, morals and korbarim were purely symbolic, although my father had always been rather vague about what they were symbolic of. There were many interesting stories of great deeds the gods had supposedly performed but they seemed to have no historical basis. I now realized much of Yohoist scripture had become legends in Trulist Yoho worship but I knew these stories were supposed to have happened at specific times and places, albeit, back on Earth. I could only think of one counter argument.

“Yohoism really just comes down to the claims of Kindras.”

“He worked great miracles and predicted many events which took place millennia after his life. Subsequent prophets endorsed his teachings and many of them also correctly predicted unlikely future events and worked miracles. Yoho’s avatar also endorsed his teachings but the Winemakers prefereth to ignoreth that.”

“You’re agreeing with Yoho’s avatar now?”

“I wert pointing out a flaw in Winemakerism. Thou seems to hath decided thou ist a Winemaker.”

“No. Well it does seem to have better evidential basis than the other religions.”

“Only if thou believeth anavim. I think we needeth to seek a sign from Yoho.”

“Miandri had that Old Magic thing but I’m not sure what it meant.”

“I thinketh it ist not to be trusted.”