Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

We went to Lascril. This is quiet a big port town near Ermish. They have lots of hotels, restaurants and theaters as well as docks and a ferry terminal and a beach.

We had a look at the boats and the ferry terminal. It was red night by then, which made everything look exciting in black and red.

Do I have to explain red night?

This is when Aleph is in the sky and the sapphires are off so everything looks red and black.

I remember it was windy. We found a restaurant, one of the boring sort grown ups like. However the food was very good and I ate a bit more than I should. Then we went to a concert, which was also fairly boring, except for a comedian, but I was getting tired.

“Now we’re going to have an adventure,” said Mum.

Usually when grown ups say something like that it turns out to be really lame. When the grown up describes the adventure it includes the words, “In our own backyard,” or “Right here at home.” I was tired so I didn’t really care and fell asleep in the car.

Yes I think they were trying to do something nice before things got bad.

I was awoken by the car bumping around to find it was black night. That’s when the sapphires are off and Aleph isn’t in the sky but, if there aren’t any clouds, you can see Bet and the stars. Aleph would have set about midnight so it must have been the morning of the first day of the light cycle.

Do you want me to explain that as well?

Aleph rises and sets in an eighteen hour cycle and the sapphires go on and off in a twenty four hour cycle, so that produces a three day cycle of periods of black night, red night, blue day and white day. White day’s when Aleph is in the sky and the sapphires are on.

Can I get back to the story now?

I couldn’t see much apart from what was illuminated by the car’s lights, showing that there were lots of trees and bushes near the road. We must have been somewhere out in the country. I assumed that we were between Lascril and Ermish. We were on a rough, narrow road.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“We’re nearly there,” said Mum.

“Nearly where?”

“It’s an adventure,” said Dad.

I really didn’t like the sound of this. I was starting to worry that they were taking me to a Holy Site to abandon me but we clearly weren’t near, you know which, temple.

We stopped and Dad got something out the trunk and put it in bushes at the side of the road. Then he got back in.

“What was that?” asked Mum.

“Something I don’t want them to take.”

We drove a bit farther and I started to feel more uncomfortable. Then we stopped outside an old, broken down barn with trees around it. We got out the car and Dad had a quick talk to a man I couldn’t see very well and we went into the barn.In the barn, there were some mirrors and seats set up, a bit like a hairdressers, and a young faharni woman I didn’t recognize with short, light brown hair. I got a strange feeling from her. Yes probably. She looked at us as if she was thinking.

“You’re faharnis so you won’t stand out in a crowd,” she said, “not in Pax anyway.” Then she pointed at my father and said, “Shave your beard off!”

To my astonishment, Dad sat in front of one of the mirrors, picked up a razor and started shaving his beard off.

“Let’s see what we can do with you little girl,” said the woman, shining a bright light at me. “Interesting eyes.”

“They’re dark blue,” said Mum, “but most people don’t notice unless they look at her closely in bright indoor light or during white day.”

“Five fingers on both hands,” said the woman.

“I’ve got six toes on my left foot,” I said.

“How many people know about that?”

“We haven’t kept it a secret,” said Mum. “Why would we?”

“Mum’s got six toes on both her feet,” I said.

“Any tattoos?” asked the woman.

“I’ve got one on my back,” said Dad, with half his beard hanging off.

“My family don’t really do them,” said Mum.

“Winemakers don’t usually have them,” said the woman. “We can remove that one.”

“They’re orientationist,” I said.

“We could disguise her as a boy,” said Mum.

The woman sat me in a chair in front of another mirror and picked up a pair of scissors, “That can get too complicated.”

Then she started cutting off my beautiful, long, black hair and I started screaming. “No! Stop! I’m important!”

“Of course you are,” said Mum. “We’re going to pretend to be other people, you’re good at pretending.”

“Can’t I pretend to be somebody with long hair!”

“We’ve got to change nearly everything about you,” said the woman. “We can’t change your race so you’re still faharnis but most people in Pax are faharnis. We can’t change your sex either so you’ll stay a girl. We can change your religion so you’re going to pretend to be Winemakers.”

“We’re not Winemakers,” I said. “They’re weird, intolerant and orientationist. We’ll be as phony as avatars!”

“For a start,” said the woman, “try not to say, ‘phony as avatars,’ Winemakers can find it offensive. If you say it accidentally, add ‘of Trulist gods’.”

I’d heard that a number of people had claimed to be avatars of Trulist gods but even most Trulists thought they were all fakes.

“Look on it like a game,” said Dad.

“Yes,” said the woman. “Try to think of it as a game or acting in a play. You’ll be given information about who you’re supposed to be.”

“Can I be a priestess?”

Like all small girls, I was obsessed with priestesses and marrying a Trustee. Mum had told me that I was highly unlikely to become a priestess or marry a Trustee and nobody ever did both and the stories about them were very old and didn’t represent what modern priestesses were like or they were just plain unrealistic.

“Stay still! You’ll have to be something normal that won’t attract attention.”

“Winemakers aren’t normal,” I said.

“It’s different from Trulists! You can be normal apart from being Winemakers.”

“You can be a priestess on a secret mission so she’s pretending to be something normal,” said Dad.

I started crying.

The woman pinched my chin in one hand and made me look into her eyes. “Don’t cry! I realize it’s natural and it can be hard not to. When you’ve got a problem, even if you do cry, try to think how to solve it. Right now we need to make sure people don’t know who you really are. Hair isn’t very important. You might run into mind readers. Some are better than others, they can mostly just tell if you’re trying to fool them and they need to know the right questions to ask to find out what’s important. Often they don’t know the right questions.”

“I’m a mind reader!” I said, realizing that I could normally tell when people were lying to me.

“No you’re not!” said Mum, with unusual, sudden anger.

“Yes I am! That’s why I’m important!”

“No you’re important but you’re not a mind reader!” said Mum.

“We’re not supposed to discriminate against them,” said the woman, “but most people don’t like mind readers so it’s best if you don’t tell people you’re one. Anyway, the way to fool them is to read the information about who you’re pretending to be over and over and tell yourself the lie so many times that you nearly believe it yourself and to think like it’s a play, don’t think that you’re trying to trick them. I know, why not be a priestess on a secret mission? The Winemakers where you’re going have an important secret and you’ve got to find out what it is.”

“How will I know when I find it?” I asked, skeptically.

“It’s magic, you will know when you find it and you’ll know what to do about it.”