Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

“We’re going to play detectives and find out what’s really happening with Lishrashic!” said Cloud when I met him, Breeze and Irvis at the Vineyard playground.

This was a different game as it didn’t seem to allow the boys to simply blow something up. Also, I thought it may help me to find out the Haprihagfen’s secret.

I climbed onto the climbing frame with them. “The police questioned me about him. They wanted to know who’d knocked him out and made him lose his memory with magic.”

“Date rape spell,” said Cloud.

“What?”

“A spell that knocks you out and erases your short term memory,” said Cloud. “I’m not sure why they call it that.”

“It’s also called a concussion spell,” said Breeze, “because it’s similar to what can happen if you hit your head but doesn’t cause brain damage.”

“They had a mage with them who I think’s a mind reader.”

“Only psychics can tell if people are psychic,” said Cloud.

“Hipsickim don’t like psychics but don’t know why,” said Irvis. “I think Mudar’s like that.”

“Can a mage also be psychic?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Breeze. “Most magi are nibeyim. Was this Poslit?”

“I don’t think he said his name.”

“He’s the local magic teacher,” said Breeze.

“Yes, that’s him.”

“He isn’t much of a mage, level one. Most magic teachers are level one magi because school masters are afraid of magic and feel less uncomfortable if they’re magic teachers are less powerful. He is a nibey.”

I tried reasoning this. If Poslit was a nibey then it seemed reasonable that Iandris was a katcheyah and Haprihagfen, all of them, were anavim. This seemed unlikely as anavim were rare. Then maybe this was their secret but if it was, I should know what to do about it but I didn’t.

“The hairy man’s named Oldriac, he’s Haprihagfen and comes from sephir Kledris,” said Breeze. “They had him doing security for the festival as he’s bigger, stronger and more frightening than most Haprihagfen. He’s also a mage. Lishrashic doesn’t seem to know who put the tether spell on him but has a suspicion that he doesn’t want to share. He’s probably done something wrong and suspects the spell is punishment for it but Grandma Ice says people are often wrong about that sort of thing. They feel guilty about something nobody else knows about or if people do know, they don’t care about it and whatever bad things are being done to them it’s for some other reason. In his case, it could be somebody after his money or company. It’s also possible that the main motive is to attack Haprihagfen or perhaps Winemakers generally and Lishrashic’s just a probe who was chosen more-or-less at random. Grandma Ice also thinks this could be the beginning of the Prophesied Ruination or the Mechanism preparing for it but she doesn’t know how that could work.”

[Translator’s note: Probe - an unmanned spacecraft used to detect things. This is an unimportant piece is fetmish.]

“What’s the Mechanism?” I asked.

“It’s this huge machine thing,” said Breeze. “It was set up long ago, I think shortly after the Landing, to protect the humans on Midbar. Nobody knows how it works but all the Holy Sites and magises and things are parts of it.”

“I thought magises were people?”

“They are!” said Breeze. “But they’re also connected to the Holy Sites somehow, except for the Wild Magis. Anyway, they’ve sent people to Bremplar to try to find out if Lishrashic has any enemies but it seems he’s popular, with lots of friends. Nobody seems to have any idea why this has happened to him.”

“Could it have been some artifact he handled?” said Cloud. “Some sort of weird booby trap? Perhaps something that wasn’t intended for him.”

“He isn’t a mage,” I said, “I’ve only seen Iandris with that one artifact.”

“You wouldn’t know an artifact if you didn’t have a magic detector,” said Breeze.

“Neither would you!”

Breeze looked away, there was something odd about her reaction.

“It’s possible that he triggered this thing without even realizing he was dealing with an artifact,” said Cloud.

“We should start by questioning Lishrashic,” said Irvis. “That’s what police do, start by questioning the people involved.”

“I think we’ve rather done that,” said Breeze.

“Have you asked them why they were trying to get into the shrine crypt?” I asked.

“I thought they were trying to break the spell that keeps Lishrashic in Minris,” said Breeze.

“That doesn’t feel right,” I said. “Lishrashic isn’t a mage, I don’t even think he’s a psychic. Him and Iandris didn’t have any artifacts on them, except that fortune telling thing, when I looked at them with the helmet on. Just a minute, they didn’t have any associates either, shouldn’t the tether spell have an associate?”

“No,” said Breeze, “it’s just a binding that connects him to an associate in the Shrine Crypt.”

“What did he think he could do?” I asked. “Iandris said something weird to me afterwards. That it was something ‘women like us’ had to go through. That’s the first time anybody’s called me a woman! I’m not like her, am I?”

“You’re both faharnis,” said Irvis.

“I think she’s got a bit of bennis in her,” I said. “It’s hard to tell as her hair covers her ears.”

“You’re not the same korbar,” said Cloud.

“That’s a relief!” I said. “She’s a katcheyah isn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Irvis.

“You can tell because she’s a bit nuts,” said Cloud.

“I suppose we could ask them what they were planning to do if you managed to open the shrine crypt,” said Breeze.

Lishrashic and Iandris were staying in the Cascade Hotel but I’d heard they were looking for a house, as it looked as if they’d be stuck in Minris indefinately. We found them sitting on the patio of the bar.

“Hello children,” said Lishrashic, kindly but giving me a strange look, “how may I help you?”

“We’re detectives and are investigating your case,” said Cloud.

“That’s nice of you,” said Lishrashic. “Are you talking about me being stuck in this town or getting knocked out and having my memory erased at the festival?”

“We suspect the two could be related,” said Cloud.”

“I’m a mage,” said Breeze, getting out a bit of transparent polymer that reflected a rainbow pattern (it was white day), “and I’d like to check you for magic residue.”

“Sure,” said Lishrashic, standing up and spreading his arms. “They say, ‘To defeat a mage you must become a mage,’ so you may be saving me a lot of trouble.”

Breeze looked at Lishrashic through the transparent polymer, “There’s more magic residue than I was expecting and you seem to have a couple of artifacts in your pockets? One’s a concussion spell and the other, actually I’m not sure what that does.”

We were too young to buy artifacts and most adults wouldn’t let us play with them (the Haprihagfen did but only harmless ones) so I’m pretty sure Lishrashic believed that it wasn’t a real magic detector. He was clearly shocked by this. “Aren’t you rather young to be using a magic detector?”

Iandris looked as if she’d realized that there was an XT arthropodiod in her fried cicadas.

“I’m special,” said Breeze.

“That’s my line,” I said.

“No,” said Breeze, “you say, ‘I’m important.’”

“Same thing,” I said.

“No,” said Breeze, “you can be important but an ideot who just happens to be a politician. You have to be better than most people to be special.”

“Mum and Dad say I’m special but there’s this school in Ermish for special children but they’re all stupid.”

I realized that I shouldn’t have mentioned Ermish but it wasn’t that far from Grishnarl so I could have heard of this school without having come from Ermish.

“She’s just a kid with a bit of polymer,” said Iandris clearly worried. “She’s just guessing about the artifacts. Aren’t you?”

“Anyway,” said Lishrashic, “I’ve only just bought these artifacts as it’s clear I need to defend myself.”

I was fairly sure that wasn’t entirely true.

“What were you doing on the night of the meteor shower?” asked Cloud.