Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

We materialized on a path between twisted trees and terraces growing onion-like plants, with a stream running beside it. It was black night and I looked up and could see stars but no Bet. This was one of the few sephirot where the human colony was on the side of Midbar that faced away from Bet.

“I believeth this to be the right sephir,” said Dwendra, “but art we in the anav colony? Yes I believeth we are.”

I could feel there were many anavim within a kilometer or so of our location.

“Now where are we supposed to go?” I asked.

“Followeth the music?”

There was music playing and faint voices. This seemed obvious and I couldn’t think of anything better so we activated mage lights and headed in that direction. Soon we saw lights and smelt food cooking. We came to a circle of trees with a stage set up on which a band was playing unfamiliar instruments. We turned off our mage lights as there was now enough light to see without them and we didn’t know if this sephir was familiar with associate magic. There was an open area where people were dancing, wildly, throwing each other high into the air, and tables and chairs were set up with people eating and drinking. Then I saw a small building with smoke coming from it, clearly the kitchen. The people were all covered in hair and scantily clad. They ranged in age from babies (one woman looked pregnant) to very old.

We walked up to an old man, covered in grey fur, who was sitting on a chair near us and Dwendra spoke to him in Semic. He pointed at a woman with red fur who was picked up by a large man with black fur and flung into the air.

“He suggests we ask that woman with red fur,” said Dwendra. “She’s the priestess. Priests should only be male.”

“You realize most people here have the gift of tongues,” said the old man in Faharni.

We walked away from him.

“Trulism has both male and female priests and some male priests who dress like the female priests,” I said.

“Which ist what one woulst expecteth from a religion that not only tolerateth sexual perversion but doth sanctify it with Temple Prostitution and same sex marriage.”

“Does it matter what people do in their bedrooms?”

“The Temple Prostitutes art forced into it ...”

“I know that! I was thinking more of the same sex marriage.”

“That not only sanctifies perverse and sinful behavior but doth forceth everybody else to accepteth it as being sanctified, which doth amounteth unto persecution of Yohoism and other religions which teacheth same sex relationships art sinful. I suppose it ist a bit like banning bullying by exclusion will forceth some girls to hath intercourse with boys they doth not liketh.”

“As I’ve said before, I think there are other ways of dealing with it, particularly as, in my case at least, we know the bullying by exclusion was part of a religious conspiracy that you started.”

“It had consequences I didst not intendeth! Thou knoweth that! How couldst I hath started it when I wouldst most likely hath been raped by Zorg if thou hast not teleported back in time, which thou wouldst probably not hath done if Benai Nibeyim wert not preventing thou from fornication or didst not breedeth thou in the first place?”

“I see your point.”

“That canst not be right! Maybe they wert merely keeping you for some other virgin psychic.”

“Why aren’t you dancing?” asked a yellow furred man behind us.

“I’ve never been good at it,” I said.

“I hath never seen this sort before,” said Dwendra. “I don’t even see how this ist possible.”

“You are from Midbar-Binah are you not?”

We nodded.

“Then you have been equipped?”

He and and a brown furred woman proceeded to show us how to use associate magic, which they clearly did know about, to achieve some of the strange dance moves. This took some time and was somewhat tiring.

Eventually the music stopped and we managed to get to the priestess. Dwendra started talking to her in Semic.

“I do have the gift of tongues,” she said.

“We wish to ask you about Yoho,” said Dwendra.

“I expect most Haprihagfen will give you similar answers to me.”

“We had a sign we could discover something here,” I said.

“Well what do you want to know?”

“Dost thou believeth in Yoho’s avatar?” asked Dwendra.

“Of course. He visited the Earth sephir in this universe. He came to a people called Ailathnar, who were priests and prophets. Most of them believed him and realized what he told them explained many things in their scriptures which had puzzled them. They proceeded to spread his teachings throughout the world. Unfortunately, when they came to the cold land of our ancestors, they used spreading their religion as an excuse to enslave us. They forced us to convert to their religion, which was called Ta’haradit. They taught us to read their language and gave us their scriptures to read. Then we realized they didn’t obey their scriptures very well, they ignored some things, like giving slaves rights, and practiced and believed many things that weren’t in their scriptures. When we arrived on Midbar we decided to follow the scriptures rather than Ta’haradit and became Scripturists instead. Of course some have done it better than others. Personally I think we follow the scriptures better than most Haprihagfen communities. It’s kind of weird that in every universe with humans there seems to be a different version of the scriptures, different people and history, but the laws and message is the same. Does that help?”

“The sages wert wise and holy men,” said Dwendra, defensively.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” said the priestess. “What sephir are you from?”

“Midbar-Binah,” I said.

“I haven’t spent much time there. I do think the Haprihagfen there eat some food they shouldn’t, don’t bother with the holy feast days and are too strict with their matriarchism, which is getting them in trouble as somebody put a spell on the Vineyard to stop them having daughters. They also should have an organization to breed nibeyim and katcheyim, not just anavim.”

We ended up having a few dances and telling most our situation to the priestess.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” she said at last. “I can tell you what I believe but you obviously have problems with that as it’s very similar to Winemakerism in your sephir. Perhaps you were wrong about the answer being here or maybe it’s something I don’t know about. They say if you seek you will find but I think the problem is that many people don’t like the answers they find and continue to search for something they would like. The real question is, ‘Are you willing to accept the answer when you find it?’”

“I am,” I said.

“One thing you could try is to ask the hereditary priesthood.”

“What!” said Dwendra.

“There was a naked hereditary priest on the starship. We kept him alive and married him to a hairy nibeyah. Their descendents still serve as priests and are more tolerant of naked anavim than most. The trouble is the temple is at a much lower altitude. The best way for you to get there is to take a helicopter from the naked community but as you can’t speak our language, that could be difficult. You need somebody who’s naked and has the gift of tongues.”