Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Chapter 22: Furniture Shopping - part 1

A dark alley in Rendamar during black night was not what many people would consider to be a safe place. However, it was a good time and place to materialize without being noticed.

“Are we where I think we are?” asked Egrindreth, crossly.

“Probably,” said Breeze.

We walked to the end of the alley. Rendamar is built in a steep walled crater on the edge of the sea at the north end of Pax, near the border with Aramator. There’s a large breach in the seaward wall, flooding the middle of the crater and forming a harbor. Part of the wall extends into the sea, rising and thickening towards the end. The temple is built on the flat topped hill at the end, a large oval structure, like a small crater itself, with a strange pole, or narrow tower, extending from one end and slanting towards the middle. Everybody in Midbar-Binah would recognize even a crudely drawn picture of it. We were on the opposite side of Rendamar, near the top of the crater wall, so we had a good view of the harbor and temple.

“This is the Trulist quarter,” I said. “Besides we’ve got some magi and a magis with us.”

“We art taking back Rendamar and its temple!” said Dwendra.

“I applaud your zeal,” said Stone, “but you realize a beit should be a safe place to raise children.”

“Nothing ist completely safe,” said Dwendra.

“Shall we actually take a look at it and then decide?” I asked, looking around. I wasn’t quite sure where our destination was. The alley had opened onto a junction with three narrow roads, two following the contour of the crater, and the third slanting downwards rather steeply. There were several buildings with tiled roofs. I got out my map and examined it. “According to this it should be right here!” I said pointing to the wall beside the alley we’d come down.

We followed the wall while trying to explain our plan to the various people present, mostly slegim although there were also a few slegmetot, along with Breeze and Stone. Most the slegmetot had their hair tied in buns and Dwendra had tied her’s into a short ponytail as it wasn’t really long enough for a bun. After a few minutes, we came to a large, arched door in the wall with the words, Temple View Heights over it. It opened as we approached and a large, faharni nibey stepped out.

“Clindar?” asked the nibey.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve brought some friends with me, I hope that’s OK.”

“Er, sure,” said the nibey, clearly not sure.

He ushered us through a passage and into a courtyard. The buildings around it were old and some had scaffolding against them. There were areas of dirt in the courtyard, suggesting there should have been beds of plants. A tall, stately looking, faharni nibeyah walked up to us, flanked by two large, faharni hipsickim. A girl who looked part faharni and part glildac was trying to hide behind her, the way small children often hide behind their mothers. The strange thing was that this girl had small but obvious breasts. I reckoned she must have been about eleven or twelve but small for her age. I couldn’t determine her korbar as there were so many psychics in close proximity but she seemed very neurotic.

“Sorry,” said the nibeyah, “but we weren’t expecting such a large delegation.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “We just want to have a look round for now.”

“Sure,” said the nibeyah. “I’m Buxnir’s wife, Holmiath and this,” she patted the girl on the head, “is Sanmino, daughter of high priest Agrildrin.”

She proceeded to show us round the complex while explaining how it was run and what they were planning to do. It was clear it was very much under construction. There were a number of apartments or perhaps more townhouses, in various states of repair and some occupied. There was one that was ready to be occupied and another that required a bit more work. Stone asked a number of questions about law and finances.

Then we shut ourselves in the living room of the ready to be occupied apartment to discuss things.

“Is this a Haprihagfen thing or a Benai Nibeyim thing?” asked a faharni boy who seemed to be tagging along with Breeze and Stone. He looked like a younger version of Stone.

“We’re planning to negotiate with Benai Nibeyim,” said Dwendra, “but until we have their response we don’t know what organization or organizations we’ll be affiliated with.”

“This thing is basically Benai Nibeyim though?” asked the boy.

“I think it would be more accurate to say Winemaker,” I said. “Anavim who’ve been bred by Benai Nibeyim aren’t allowed to join Haprihagfen but my sister did it because there was some mix up and the treaty which forbids that has been broken repeatedly by Benai Nibeyim so I’m told it’s going to be re-negotiated soon.”

“Are you like a prophet giving new teachings?” asked an anav who looked as if he’d only just reached puberty.

“No,” I said, “we’re just calling for a stricter following of all Winemaker scriptures, which include the Yohoist scriptures, rather than randomly ignoring some bits.”

“Some things are hard to apply to a planet with no moon,” said Breeze.

“The Yohoist traditions are the same as the Kledris scripturist ones,” said Dwendra, we were speaking Semic. “I believe those must be correct.”

“Assuming you are a real priest,” said another young man, “Midbar-Binah still doesn’t have a temple you can use. I suppose you can teleport across the harbor but the Nuharas have rather messed up the interior and could enter at any time.”

“Rectifying that has to be one of our objectives,” said Dwendra. “Obviously it would help if we had more people behind us so we could take our position to the authorities who administer at least one of the temples of Yoho.”

“The acting chief priest of Rendamar temple seems to be cooperative,” I said.

“You could just join Beit Kerem,” said Breeze’s idlan friend. “They need some more clametot and they’d probably let you do your priest stuff in the Vineyard.”

“We haven’t entirely dismissed that,” said Dwendra, “but if we did that we’d really need to live in the Vineyard and it would probably be better to live somewhere at about the same altitude as Laraget and Rendamar.”

“Benai Nibeyim are a very controversial organization,” said the idlan. “Do you really want to be associated with them?”