Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
Chapter 14: The Strangler Figs - part 1

The Strangler Figs was a large Hotel downtown and actually did have some huge strangler figs outside, looking very dramatic in the light of red night.

We went to the reception desk and I asked where my family were.

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you guests’ rooms,” said the rather stupid girl who was slouching behind the desk.

“The police sent us here. Our home is being investigated as a crime scene.”

She looked at a computer screen. “Are you Clindar and Dwendra or Miandri?”

“Yes.”

“Room 375,” said the receptionist, handing us a key.

We found our room and opened the door. To my surprise, the room was empty.

“Art we both supposed to sleepeth here?” asked Dwendra.

“I can’t see any option,” I said. “It’s not like we haven’t slept in the same room before.”

“We could tryeth to locateth the rest of our household or teleporteth anywhere we wisheth.”

“There’s some danger somebody will wonder how we did the former or if we go somewhere else, people will discover we’re not here and ask awkward questions and I’m pretty exhausted.”

“So art I.”

“I hope Attan isn’t fornicating Miandri, that would really urinate me. I wonder if she’s found her way here.”

“Thou still hast feelings for her?”

“I just hate the thought of my younger brother having sex before I do.”

“We didst killeth five people, even if they wert rapists and we didst both seeth ten people killeth themselves.”

“Want to pray about it?”

“Of course.”

We prayed and then decided to stay in the room. I stripped down to my underwear. Dwendra said she couldn’t sleep in her bra so she somehow took if off without removing her dress. I just lay there with the events of the day going round in my head.

“I canst not doeth this,” said Dwendra.

“What?”

Suddenly she rolled me onto my back, lay on top of me and started kissing me very passionately. I didn’t exactly put up any resistance. I started fondling her breasts, the feel of her nipples was very strong without the bra. Then I tried to pull the neckline of her dress to one side to expose her left breast.

“Sorry,” she said and got off me.

A moment later, she was gone.

I was relieved when Dwendra returned in the morning.

“I art sorry but thou dost knoweth I must remaineth a virgin.”

“You were tempting me.”

“Thou didst not needeth to feeleth my breasts.”

“It’s kind of an instinct.”

“Thou wouldst not violateth me in the tent.”

“You didn’t come onto me in the tent and now I know you better and respect you more.”

She gave me an odd look as if that didn’t make sense.

“I don’t know about other guys but I desire a girl more if I have more respect for her. I think that makes sense because that should give my children better genes. You left me alone in the tent.”

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We washed the best we could and prayed and went down for breakfast.

We had a nice breakfast, as they had a buffet. We’d nearly finished eating when Traivanin arrived with the cop mage, who was wearing her visor. They both looked very tired.

“So you showed up?” said Traivanin. “Where are the others?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “The receptionist wouldn’t tell me.”

“They’ll tell me!”

The cops got the other room numbers from reception and we found Attan in the first one we tried. He didn’t seem very well but we took him to the third room, and found my parents, also looking sick.

“Where’s the other girl?” asked Traivanin.

“Haven’t seen her,” said Mum. “I thought she was supposed to be with Dwendra.”

“I hath not seen her since shortly after we left your house yesterday evening,” said Dwendra.

“We sent Attan to one room,” said Mum, “and told reception to direct Clindar to Attan’s room and put Dwendra and Miandri in the same room.”

“Well we were just given a key to an empty room,” I said.

“You two spent the night in the same room?” asked Attan.

Mum looked horrified. “Harlot!”

“I art a virgin!” said Dwendra.

“We didn’t do anything!” I said.

“You’ve been raped!” said Mum.

“When?” asked Dwendra.

“Are you going to press charges relating to this rape?” asked Traivanin.

“I wert not raped!”

“Anyway,” said Traivanin, “can any of you tell us what happened at your house?”

“Dad called a family meeting,” I said, “it got acrimonious with Miandri and Attan saying stupid things and I think somebody couldn’t say something because it would breach some confidentiality law so Dwendra and myself left and Miandri followed for a bit and went off somewhere by herself and Dwendra and myself went to the Arts Cafe. We got back to find the police had cordoned the house off and we were told to come here.”

“Anybody got anything to add to that?” asked Traivanin.

“I agreeth with Clindar,” said Dwendra.

“Now we had sixteen suspicious deaths yesterday ...” said Traivanin.

“Sixteen!” said Dwendra.

“Unfortunately yes,” said Traivanin. “I think that’s a record since the Cataclysm. One of those deaths seems unrelated to the others. The others are all connected with your family. We’ve already questioned you about the five boys who died in Valley Park. It now looks as if that was probably a tragic magic accident. Children really shouldn’t play with artifacts. They had some broken devices which they may not have realized were artifacts. That leaves the other ten.” He got out some photos and put them on the table. I recognized them as the Benai Nibeyim group.

As he put the pictures out, Mum and Dad clearly became more and more agitated. “I need to talk to you in private!” Mum said.

“It may be better to ...” Dad started to say, obviously choking back tears.

“No,” said Mum, standing up groggily.

She went into the hall with Traivanin. A couple of minutes later Mum returned and Traivanin stood in the doorway and said, “Well I think we’ve clarified that. Sorry to bother you. It might be an idea to find that other girl though. We’ll let you know when you can return to your house.”

With that Traivanin and the mage cop left.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“Never mind,” said Mum.

“It’s just you’re getting very good at doing things like that.”

“Go and find Miandri!” said Mum, crossly. “Before anything happens to her!”

“When wert I raped?” asked Dwendra.

“Does it matter?” asked Mum.

“Yes,” said Dwendra. “I art a virgin but thou claimeth I hath been raped. When doth thou thinketh I wert raped?”

“It was in Miandri’s spell and I think I vaguely remember something about you being raped yesterday. It was yesterday wasn’t it?”

“Miandri tried to make it look as if I wert raped in Valley Park,” said Dwendra.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Mum. “Just find Miandri!”

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