“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead…”

Solongo gradually became aware of the muttering in her ear. Nimble fingers pinched open her mouth and a rush of liquid followed. It had the vaguely murky taste of a cave. But she couldn’t complain. Water. Her body screamed for it. It was painful to drink. Each mouthful tasted like fire. Blind and greedy as a newborn child, she drank without any thought to where it came from or how much her stomach could hold.

“That’s enough—you’ll make yourself sick otherwise.”

Solongo’s eyes fluttered open. Gradually she dragged herself back to awareness. The figure leaning over her flickered like a mirage before settling into focus. The other shaman. He looked a mix of concerned and extremely put-upon by her predicament. Solongo was struck with the urge to apologize, but bit back the impulse. An apology might convince the other shaman that he had the right to be annoyed. Like being lost in the desert and fainting was something that she had wantonly chosen to do. She settled for muttering her thanks instead, since she wasn’t a total ingrate.

“Yes, yes fine,” her unenthusiastic savior said, reverting to his initial rudeness. His eyes flicked up at the clouds and he huffed a small sigh, as if to ask them why they had seen fit to drop such a burden on him. He then looked back to Solongo. “There’s a shelter not far from here, but you’ll have to walk: I already tried carrying you.” To no success, his expression implied. At least he didn’t grouse at her for being sturdy, however she had no doubt he was thinking it though. The light in his eyes was far too appraising for him to deny it.

Why couldn’t I have stumbled across a burly camel herder instead? Solongo thought, as she pushed herself to her feet. A friendly, well mannered camel herder who could carry me to his ger and fix me a bite to eat.

There was no point in complaining. That she had found anyone was a miracle. She would have to be content with a rescuer who was every bit as irascible as he was puny. He did, however, deign to help her to her feet and offer his arm for balance as she trundled the distance to his ger. The door opened of its own accord to admit them and clicked securely into place once they stepped inside. A pang of regret washed over Solongo. If she had stayed in her own ger she never would have found herself in such a predicament to begin with. No one who meant her harm could have entered while she was away from her body, not even the most skilled thief. A shaman’s ger was her sanctuary and its magic would have protected her. If she hadn’t been careless enough to leave her body lying out in the open she would have returned to find it snug in her own pallet. Someone might have come by to tend her fire or comb her hair so she would wake in comfort. Kind people with good intentions always had a way of finding their way inside, no matter how tightly the door was shut against the rest of the world. She wondered if anyone had noticed that she was missing. And then she wondered if any of them were missing themselves. No one she knew would ever have done such a thing to her body. It had to have been a stranger. And what sort of a stranger would rob a sleeping shaman and leave her to die in the waste? Someone that unscrupulous might not have confined himself to one evil act.

“I don’t have much to offer you,” the other shaman said, leading her towards the fire in the center of the ger. It was sating itself on the dregs of several charred pieces of firewood. With a careless flick of his wrist, the young man tossed another piece on top of them and the ger blazed with light. Solongo spared her surroundings a cursory glance. There wasn’t much to see. The walls were bare and the floor was lined with nothing more than a thin carpet. A simple wooden trunk sat against the back wall, only large enough to house the essentials of what a person might need: clothes, simple cookware, dried goods. The closest thing Solongo spied to a homey touch was a modest pallet and camel wool blanket. The most she could say for the shaman’s home was that it kept out the elements. There was nothing in it that hinted at the sort of person he was, nothing that spoke to his tastes. It struck her as strange.

Her own ger, though admittedly humble, was at least warm and inviting. There were woven rugs lining the walls and hand-sewn pillows to sit on; a low table by the fire where she kept her proudly polished tea set and the assortment of painted cups she had carefully collected over the years. She hung dried plants from the rafters to conserve space, so when she opened her eyes in the morning it was like staring up into the treetops. At least how she imagined they might be; she had never been to a place with enough trees to make a forest. Before Solongo could begin to wax poetically about her painted chests (she had two) and treasured trinkets, she called herself back to the present. The other shaman was regarding her curiously, his crooked teeth peeking out from behind his front lip as he grazed them against the bottom one in thought. His whole bearing was tense, as if waiting to be doused with cold water.

“Do you need to eat?” he finally asked.

Solongo guessed he wasn’t speaking generally and nodded. There was no telling how long she had been away from her body for. That she had been able to walk as far as she had before fainting was more a testament to her resolve than her strength.

“If it’s no imposition,” she said. Maybe that was why her host was so unhappy to house her. She wondered at his ability to provide for himself, living in such meager circumstances.

“I can give you rice or porridge.”

“I would be grateful for either.”

“Rice it is then.”

Solongo warmed her hands over the fire while her host busied himself preparing their meal. It occurred to her that she hadn’t asked his name, nor he hers. Now that the initial shock of their encounter had faded, he had asked her remarkably few questions. Solongo had expected more. But if he was interested in who she was or how she had come to find herself in such a predicament, he made no effort to show it.

“Can I ask your name?” Solongo asked him.

“I have no name.”

“I see. Then what am I supposed to call you?”

“You don’t need to call me anything. You don’t need to speak with me either,” the other shaman said, fixing her with a sharp stare. “You can stay here until it occurs to me what to do with you, but only if you can remain silent.”

He handed Solongo a bowl of piping hot rice. She breathed in the steam and let out a contented sigh. Things could be worse, she told herself. She could be back wandering the sands instead of enjoying a warm meal with a roof over her head. An unfriendly host was a small price to pay for it.

“I can try,” she told him. “And I’m happy to leave as soon as I can. But there’s the matter of me not having a horse.”

“I was hoping you were sun drunk when you said so,” the shaman said with a longsuffering sigh. He pinched his fingers into his bowl, taking a terse bite of rice. He chewed it longer than what was necessary, seeming to take no joy in its taste. “I only have the one and you’ll excuse me if I don’t offer it to a stranger blindly.”

“No. I understand. Is there somewhere nearby that you could take me then? A village maybe?”

“There is. But it’s nearly a full day’s ride from here and I can’t afford to leave.”

Solongo bit back her frustration. If he wanted to get rid of her so badly, the least he could do was offer her a ride. “Is it possible to walk there?”

“If it were, I would have told you how to get there by now. But I can’t just throw you out into the desert waste…” He seemed to be toying with the idea even as he said so. Solongo was relieved to see him shake his head, his lips twisted into a bitter pout. “No. You shouldn’t be here, but I can hardly toss you out. All things considered. You’ll just have to agree to be patient and wait.”

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“For what exactly?”

“For me to finish my meditation. Once I do, I’ll take you to the village on my way.”

That seemed reasonable. “All right. And how long do you think that will take?”

“A week. Maybe two.”

Solongo balked. “That long?”

The other shaman gave her a prim nod. “You interrupted me in the middle of a sacr—” He abruptly stuffed his face full of rice. Whatever he had started to say was drowned out by the sound of sticky chewing.

While his mouth was occupied, Solongo took the opportunity to speak. “I don’t mean to inconvenience you, but I can’t wait that long. I need to get back to my village as soon as I can manage. You see, someone stole me from it and left me out here in the waste. It happened while I was away from my body, so I don’t know how many days have passed already since then. If something has happened there, then I need to get back to set things to right.”

The young man forced himself to swallow. “What sort of a shaman just leaves her body lying around like an old pair of boots? Didn’t your master teach you better?”

“Didn’t yours teach you not to be so rude?” she snapped. “I tell you that someone stole me from my rightful place and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is something like that? It was careless of me to go wandering outside of my ger, but don’t you think I’ve learned my lesson without you rubbing it in?”

The shaman held a hand up to his mouth as if he had been slapped. His face turned a shade darker from the blush the crept up under his skin. “Ah…well, maybe I am being callous,” he admitted. “No person in their right mind would meddle with a sleeping shaman. I’m sure you didn’t expect anyone to, in any case.”

“No, I certainly didn’t,” Solongo curtly stated.

“Sometimes we just find a nice place that speaks to us and wander off for a while…I’ve done it too,” the young man conceded, softening his tone.

Solongo eyed him uncertainly as she picked at her rice.

“What’s your name?” he asked her. He winced as he did, as if he regretted the question as soon as it left his lips.

“Solongo.”

“Solongo…you seem like a good sort of shaman and I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. I truly am. If I were able to help you, I would. I would even take you back to your village myself. Unfortunately I can’t and you’re just going to have to be patient. You’re welcome to stay in my ger and help yourself to my food, but I have to insist that you don’t speak to me. Or do anything to interrupt me for that matter.”

He told her so politely enough, not raising his voice outside of its soft-spoken tenor. However his tone was one that brooked no opposition. He spoke like someone who was used to being obeyed. It caught her so unawares that she almost agreed to it. Almost.

“And you’ll have to excuse me for telling you how strange that sounds,” Solongo told him. “You won’t take me to a village for another two weeks, but you expect me to remain here perfectly silent for all of that time? Never speaking to you and not being allowed to ask your name?”

“It does sound strange when you put it like that. But there’s a reason for it. If you knew what you had interrupted, you would probably agree to it.”

Solongo stared at him expectantly. His shoulders deflated with a sigh.

“Fine. I’ll explain it to you. But only so you’ll understand why it’s important for you to respect what I’m asking…” He paused for a moment, contemplating no doubt what it was that he wanted to say. “My name is Olzii. But it won’t be for much longer. If everything goes as planned, in a few weeks I’ll shed that name and be known as Teb-Tengri.”

Solongo stared. She realized that her mouth was hanging open and snapped her jaw shut. This scrawny creature was Teb-Tengri’s heir apparent? Teb-Tengri, the spiritual leader of all the desert shamans? Her brows rocked skyward and Olzii nodded like he was used to getting that sort of reaction.

“I know, I know. It sounds unbelievable. I’ll be the first to admit it. But for what it’s worth, I am. That is, I’m supposed to be. That’s the whole purpose of my being here now. To detach myself from the person I am to make room for…well, I suppose for the person that I’m going to be soon. It probably doesn’t make sense to you and I don’t expect it to either.”

“Why, because I’m just some bumpkin village shaman?”

“Because you haven’t been raised to understand that you don’t matter.” That anyone could say so without the vaguest flicker of bitterness in his voice was astounding to Solongo. He stated it like someone else might have said that they were raised to be a herder or a craftsman.

“That’s not to say of course that I grew up without any sense of self. You can’t treat a child like you would a piece of clay and expect their experiences not to mold them. I am a person just like any other—I have my likes and my dislikes, my strengths and my foibles. You’ve seen for yourself that I have a tendency to be…abrupt. Well, actually rude. Abominably rude.” He twisted his fingers together in apparent remorse for it. “The only difference between someone like me and someone like you is that I can separate myself from all of that. I’ve been taught to at least. All of the thoughts and memories and preferences that make up the person I am are unimportant compared to what I’ve been prepared to be.”

“So this period of meditation is to forget about all of that? To become nobody?”

“More or less. And it’s difficult to do that when I have someone around me. Someone reminding me of my name and everything that goes with it. No one is supposed to bother me while I’m out here; they’re actually forbidden to. If anyone found out that you were, for whatever reason, you would be punished for it. They would probably toss you right back out into the waste.”

Solongo couldn’t resist a shudder. “That hardly seems fair.”

“Fair has nothing to do with it. You’re interrupting a sacred ritual whether you meant to or not. The wellbeing of one shaman is insignificant in comparison to Teb-Tengri’s succession. If I fail my Rite of Ascendance because I’m distracted, centuries worth of cultural memory will be lost; if you die in the desert, what effect would it really have in the scheme of things?” Olzii cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m not going to throw you out, of course. I just wanted to put things to perspective, so you understand.”

“You have no idea how many people it might effect. That’s not to say that I’m an important person like you are—I’m not lofty by any means—but where I come from I matter just as much as any Teb-Tengri. Probably more, since I’m actually there getting my hands dirty.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you’re worthless or anything like that,” Olzii said.

“But you matter more.”

“Not me. I don’t mean anything. What I’m going to carry on does, however. It matters much more than any one person ever could.”

“What is the point of Teb-Tengri?” Solongo asked. “The point of his knowledge, I mean.”

By the quirk of Olzii’s brows, her question flummoxed him.

“You’re asking me what the point of knowledge is? Does knowledge need a point?” His tone was incredulous.

“What do you use it for?” Solongo asked, amending her question.

“To give counsel.”

“To help other shamans?”

Olzii nodded.

“If the whole point of Teb-Tengri is to help other shamans, then shouldn’t the life of every shaman matter to him?” Solongo asked.

“Yes. But if the choice is between helping one or helping many…”

“Try telling that to the one.”

Olzii cracked a smile. It was unrepentantly crooked and not just because of his teeth.

“It’s too bad you couldn’t have gotten in lost in the desert some other time. I think I would enjoy talking with you. Things would probably get very lively.” He scooped a bite of rice into his mouth and shook his head. “Unfortunately the last thing I need right now is an interesting guest. Much as it pains me to say it, I would prefer it if you were boring.”

“Is that a hint for me to stop talking?”

“I’m sorry. If you want to visit me after I become Teb-Tengri we can continue our conversation then,” Olzii said, rising to his feet. He nodded to the pot hanging over the fire. “Help yourself. You can take the pallet too if you like. I haven’t been using it.”

He favored her with a light nod and saw himself out.