A full belly and solid night’s sleep painted the desert in a less daunting light. The shock of waking up in the waste had disoriented her, but when Solongo ventured outside of Olzii’s ger the next morning she found that she wasn’t as lost as she had first thought. If she had a horse, she guessed that she might be able to find her way back in a matter of days. Olzii was responsible in part for jogging her memory: the last time Solongo had traveled so far from home had been to visit Teb-Tengri.
Like every desert shaman worth her salt tea, Solongo had paid her respects to Teb-Tengri when she first took in her spirit. He hadn’t had much to say to her, nor she to him, but the ritual had been observed. She hadn’t paid him much mind since then. A lofty shaman like Teb-Tengri didn’t much factor into the life of a simple village shaman; she was too busy blessing goats and warding off blights to be concerned with the mysteries of his magic. Solongo had yet to encounter a problem that she needed his counsel to solve. That wasn’t to say, however, that she wasn’t respectful of it. Although a shaman was a law unto herself in her own village, there were rules even for them. And Teb-Tengri was the one who enforced those laws. If a shaman spoke curses and caused mischief, a person only had to go to Teb-Tengri and he would set things to right. Either he himself or the shamans who served him. The last thing Solongo wanted was to interfere with the ascension of his next conduit and be branded a troublemaker. Once it was known that Teb-Tengri had put a black mark on your name, no one would want you in their village. Solongo enjoyed the cozy life she lead there too much to risk something like that. If she had to keep her mouth clamped shut for two weeks and stay out of Olzii’s way, then she would do it and not complain.
Only it was a more difficult task than she imagined. It wasn’t because she was naturally talkative, used to spending most of her day in conversation as she went about her tasks. She could be silent when she needed to be. It had occurred to her to follow Olzii’s lead and use the time at hand for introspection. But introspection quickly gave way to brooding when she thought about what had happened. What if something really had happened back in the village? What if she wasn’t the only person who was missing from it? If it were only a matter of herself, she would have been able to tolerate two weeks of silence. When she considered all that could happen in that time if her intuition was right she broke into a cold sweat. Being a village shaman was about more than her cozy ger and her herd of goats: it was about looking after the people who had given them to her in the first place. If what had happened was a test of her ability to, she had failed.
It didn’t take her long to make up her mind: any amount of time was too long to wait. The prospect of heading back into the waste was frightening to be sure, but Solongo couldn’t think of any way around it. There was no point in trying to convince Olzii to lend her his horse either. Even if he would speak with her, she doubted he would be quite so generous. No person in their right mind would agree to being left in the desert without one for any period of time. That he had allowed her to stay in his ger and share his supplies was generous enough when she considered what he had told her the night before. She decided to be on her way without disturbing him.
Olzii had returned to his rock perch after speaking with her the night before and hadn’t left it since then, not even to eat. Solongo did her best to be quiet as she passed him by, but the crunching of sand and shale beneath her feet caused his back to stiffen. His whole body tensed, as if he expected her to speak. When she didn’t, his neck swiveled. He regarded her curiously, a question painted across his face. Solongo answered it with a parting wave then turned her back.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Olzii called out to her. “Hey! Shaman Solongo! I know you can hear me!”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to speak with you,” she said, turning to face him.
He twisted his fingers together uncomfortably. “I did say that, yes.”
“Well, all right then.” Solongo nodded curtly and took a step forward.
“You still haven’t told me where you’re going.”
“To the village. If I remember correctly, you said it was in this direction,” she said, pointing to an outcropping of rocks in the distance.
“And didn’t I also say that you can’t walk there? It’s too hot during the day and too cold at night. You won’t make it on foot.”
“I don’t see that I have much choice but to try. I’ll stop to rest if I get tired.” Taking in a deep breath, she steeled herself to begin her trek, but felt a hand grip her elbow before she could manage. She looked up at Olzii with surprise. The most she expected from him was a shrug.
Instead he glowered down his nose at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m trying to do my duty. You have yours and I have mine.” She couldn’t keep a peevish note from entering her voice when she said so.
“By feeding the buzzards your corpse? What will that accomplish?”
“More than just sitting around. As they say, you have to saddle your horse if you want to ride.”
“You notice they say horse, stubborn girl.”
“Unless you want to lend me yours, my boots will have to suffice.”
“I’m not giving you my horse.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say, other than to thank you for your help I suppose.” She plucked his fingers gingerly from her arm and strode forward.
“You really mean to walk it?” Olzii called after her.
“I told you: I have a responsibility to my people. If something has happened, I need to get back as soon as I can to set things right,” Solongo said over her shoulder.
“Don’t expect me to come after you!”
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“I don’t! Good luck with your meditation!” she said with a parting wave.
The sound of muffled hoof-beats moved through the sand. The horse and its rider appeared as hazily as a mirage in the afternoon sun as they crested the hill behind her. Solongo squinted up at them from the low-ground, shielding her eyes from the harshest light. The desert was playing tricks on her. For a moment she swore it was Olzii she saw riding towards her. Only mirages didn’t speak.
“Get on,” he ordered, thrusting his hand out for her to take.
“I’m not going back to the ger.”
“And I’m not offering to take you there; without a cart to pull we can make it to the village by sundown. You’ll have to make your own way from there, but I can take you that far at least.”
Solongo stared up at him incredulously. It was too good to believe. Maybe he really was a mirage.
“Do you want a ride or not?” Olzii asked.
“Yes, please.” A starving woman knew better than to question the meat in her dumplings. She accepted his hand and pulled herself onto the horse behind him.
Olzii clicked his tongue and Solongo slid backwards in the saddle as the horse trotted forward. She gripped onto Olzii’s waist to keep from falling. It had been a long time since she had shared someone else’s saddle. It was snugger than she would have liked. However she couldn’t complain; it was better than walking all the way, especially when she wasn’t sure of it to begin with.
“You seemed like you had a good head on your shoulders when I spoke with you yesterday,” Olzii said. “But I guess I was wrong for thinking so. Only an idiot would walk into the desert without so much as a skin of water.”
“Did you ride all this way just to tell me that?”
“I rode all this way because you made it impossible for me to concentrate on my meditation. It’s clear to me now that the only way I’ll be able to focus is to rid myself of all distractions first. Once you’re in the village I’ll be able to again.”
“I didn’t set out to be a distraction. I really meant to walk there myself. It wasn’t a ruse to force you into taking me or anything like that.”
“That much I gathered after the first couple hours. I’m not blaming you for it either; no one forced me to leave my seclusion. I could have chosen to let you perish somewhere in the waste and it would have been your own fault, not mine.”
“Why didn’t you then?”
“I suppose it’s because I understand what it’s like to be burdened with a great responsibility. To take it on, even knowing that the attempt might kill you. Yours might be different, but to you it doesn’t matter any less than mine. If I had to cross a desert to see mine through, I would probably do the same.”
“Thank you.” It was all Solongo could think to say in the wake of his words. If he wasn’t careful, she might have to revise her initial opinion of him.
“It doesn’t make you any less of a nuisance. I wonder if you weren’t really sent here to test my resolve—but then again if you were, you probably wouldn’t tell me.”
“For what it’s worth I wasn’t. But if I had been, I still think this would reflect favorably on you.”
“I’m not so sure of that. I’m supposed to be divorcing myself from the world, not gallivanting through the desert with a girl wrapped around my waist.” Much as he tried to disguise it, Olzii couldn’t help but sound a little pleased.
“How can you offer good counsel to anyone if you’re divorced from the world? Shouldn’t you try to be a part of it?”
“It allows you to be objective in your judgment. Unswayed by the concerns that govern other people.” He sounded as if he were reciting a lesson to her. One, that by the sound of it, he had heard many times.
“Being objective is good, I guess, if it allows you to be fair. But there’s something to be said for being a part of things too. No one I know would listen to my advice if they thought that I didn’t understand their problems. Sometimes it’s first hand knowledge that allows you to be objective.”
“That’s all well and good if you’re a village shaman like you. But when people come to Teb-Tengri it’s not to settle a dispute over goats,” Olzii sniffed.
“They go to you for more serious things which makes what I’m saying all the more important.”
“Are you normally so argumentative? Or is it just because you were sent here to question me?” It was hard to say if he was joking or not.
“Why? Are you not used to being argued with?”
“The opposite actually. Conversations like these are like mother’s milk to me. Most of my time with Teb-Tengri is spent like this.”
“What’s it like? Being his…” Solongo’s words trailed as she searched for the proper word. “Pupil,” she finally decided.
“Teb-Tengri has more than one pupil, but I’m his only apprentice. I have been since I was eleven. I went to pay my respects to him when I took in my first spirit and never left. He’s closer to me than my own parents.”
“Then this must be—” Solongo clamped her mouth shut before she could finish her sentence. Sad for you, she had almost said. It wasn’t only his own ascendance he was preparing for, but his mentor’s death. The old Teb-Tengri had to pass on to make room for the next. That much she knew. But she had never considered it before in such personal terms.
“Be what?”
“A difficult time for you.”
“Yes. And I’d prefer not to talk about it.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. There was enough of a silence that she was certain he didn’t mean to speak with her anymore. It took her by surprise when he did.
“I’m not supposed to think about it like that, but it is. Even if we’re both fulfilling a sacred responsibility, a friend is dying. That’s why it’s so important for me to clear my mind before I go back. I can’t be thinking about something like that when the time comes. If I do, I’ll fail.”
He lapsed into silence after that. Not knowing what to say, Solongo clasped her arms more tightly around his waist, giving him a light hug. Olzii was tetchy and peculiar, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. His back stiffened. She expected a sharp word to follow, but he said nothing, settling into the embrace.
“I’m being tested. Whether by you or the Blue Sky, someone has seen fit to,” Olzii muttered cantankerously under his breath.