The shaman was gone from his body. At least that was what they had been told when they set out in search of him. But that was more than a day ago and even in more modern trappings than those one he chose to live in people knew better than to walk into a shaman’s ger unannounced.
Regbi waited for her spirit to confirm it before telling the others. Her spirit was the least conspicuous of the three. No one would think to fear a little wren, much less the shaman who had attracted such a weak guardian to begin with. They would be wrong to think so, of course. When it belonged to a thief, a little bird could signal danger in the same way dark clouds did a storm or fangs did a viper. She held out her hand to receive it and breathed it back into herself.
“So?” Osol asked. He lounged against the hood of his truck. The young man was half ox and the truck half rust; it was a wonder it didn’t buckle under his weight and leave them stranded in the steppe.
“He’s out,” Regbi said, hobbling over to join him. Her bad leg normally didn’t give her so much trouble, but a night spent cramped against the wheel of a lurching truck had done it no favors. There was an ache growing in it that would only get worse as the day progressed, but there was no time to attend to it. Neither time nor privacy; she didn’t want to call any more attention to it than she had to. She was already pathetic enough as it was: undersized, underfed, and magically underdeveloped. She hardly needed a crippled leg to top things off.
The two city shamans that had come with her were anything but. At least physically speaking. They were flat faced and broad shouldered, large of hand and hard of head. Herder stock if Regbi had to guess. Though who could say for certain when any sort of person could be found within the colorless confines of a city? Their magic might have smelled of grassy pastures, but the rest of them was back alley bruiser through and through. If Regbi lifted her nose to the air she could just make out the ghost of steel and motor oil clinging to their clothing. Factory workers by day, thieves by night, and shamans on occasion. They were magicians of the modern age. But Regbi couldn’t afford to take such a lofty tone when it came to them. Her threadbare clothes reeked with the same industrial odor, her hands were stained by the same factory oils, and her fingers just as sticky from stolen goods. She might have had a child’s face and an adolescent’s body, but at eighteen Regbi felt her childhood as but a distant memory. The papers that should have been neatly tucked in her coat pocket would have said that she was a seamstress. The truth was that she was a failed shaman and a thief.
“You sure?” A brick wall of a girl regarded Regbi from behind a frowning mask. Saruul, Osol’s cousin. Maybe she was aiming for thoughtful, but it read more as constipated. Or maybe she was just trying to throw her impressive weight around a little more. As if Regbi needed more of a reason to be thorough.
“You can check for yourself if you like,” Regbi said. She knew better than to think that either of them would. The spirits that they had attracted couldn’t help but sniff their way into trouble. They might alert the shaman to their presence and then where would they be?
Saruul looked to Osol who simply shrugged.
“If he’s sleeping then what’s the point?”
“He’s wandering, not sleeping: there’s a difference,” Regbi said. A person’s soul didn’t leave their body when they slept. Regbi appreciated the distinction as only a person who had once wandered far could. She supposed that Osol and his cousin must have experienced such a phenomena at least once for themselves to have spirits, but some journeys were shorter than others.
“Sleeping, wandering—either way he won’t mind if we take a look inside his ger,” Osol said. Saruul chuckled her agreement.
“How much do you think a wandering shaman really has with him?” Regbi asked. She knew better than to think there was any going back, but it didn’t stop her from digging her feet in a little along the way.
“Enough to merit a horse and a camel to pull it,” Osol said.
“Why not take those too?” Saruul suggested.
They might as well bash his head in with a rock if they were going to do that. It would certainly be kinder than leaving him stranded in the steppe.
“We don’t have any place to put a horse or a camel. We’d have to tether them to the back of the truck and then it’d take us days to get back,” Osol said. “Besides, we didn’t come all this way for that.”
Even a simple hide drum could fetch enough to keep them fat for a month. There were few shamans who had them anymore and to the right buyer they were worth their weight in government issued stipends. Regbi had learned to ascribe a new sort of value to such things. To appreciate them not for the significance they held to the people who wielded them, but for the price they could command.
“Are you sure he’s not in there?” Saruul asked.
“His body is, but he’s not,” Regbi said. “But even so…”
“What?” Osol wanted to know.
“This isn’t a city shaman we’re dealing with,” she said. The others simply stared their confusion. But that was why Regbi had been sent with them; she understood the difference even if all she had to show for it was a joke of a spirit. Even the mongrels that Saruul and Osol had attracted were preferable to her little bird. At least they were whole. “This is a full time shaman, not someone who conducts séances in his kitchen after work.”
“So? We’re shamans too,” Osol said and Saruul nodded her agreement.
Regbi was tempted to laugh. Just because they had spirits didn’t make them shamans. Not in the sense that she understood them to be. Her thoughts turned to one she knew, but she choked back the thought of him before she could picture him sleeping in the strange shaman’s ger. About to be robbed, his most precious possessions stolen from him so they could adorn some bureaucrat’s desk in a crappy cement housing complex. She shook her head. This shaman wasn’t her friend, her fellow apprentice, or her grandmother. All he was to her was a meal ticket.
“All I mean to say is that it won’t be as simple as strolling in and ransacking his things. There are probably protections on his ger—”
But the others were tired of listening.
“The more time you waste running your mouth, the more time he has to get back to his body,” Osol said. “Let’s get it done with already.”
~~~~
The shaman had built his ger in a flat expanse of rocky undergrowth and scrub nestled among the hills. There were certainly prettier places to set up camp. If he had traveled only a few hours further he might have opened his door to a rippling expanse of gold and green rather than scabby brown dirt and lumpy hills. His domed dwelling stood out against the dull scenery like a fat, white egg waiting to be cracked. A ger was a practical sort of home made for a time when people had a choice where they lived. The ones Regbi knew were made from a circular wooden frame, easily folded for travel, and covered with a thick, felt cover to keep out the cold. The shaman’s looked no different from the outside, though perhaps more lived in. It made sense that it might be. A real-deal shaman like this one could hardly be expected to live in communal housing. If he wanted to practice his art it would have to be away from a city. He had made a mistake in coming so close to one to begin with.
“You sure we can’t take the animals? The horse at least?” Saruul asked. Her eyes gave off a greedy glow as she looked at the mare the shaman had left out to graze by his ger. Sleek and nimble with a coat the color of burnished wood, she was no common cart pony to be sure. Her mane was as black and glossy as a crow’s wings. The expression in her deep brown eyes gentle, but alert. Regbi couldn’t help but shake her head. Anyone who left such a fine horse out in the open like that was just begging to be robbed. He might just as well have erected a sign over his ger that read “Welcome Thieves.” Or maybe he had his reasons for thinking that no one would dare even if he did.
“No,” Osol said. “The boss wants us back by tomorrow. The animals will just slow us down. Shame though. It’s not every day that you see one of these outside of the desert.” His eyes ran along the shaggy red fur of the camel looming nearby. Regbi had never seen one in person before. She was tempted to run her fingers through its fur, but the wicked glint in its hooded eyes made her rethink it. They spit if she remembered right. As if reading her thoughts the creature lobbed a stinking projectile at her face. It hit her square between the eyes and brought the two city shamans to their knees with laughter. With a disgusted hiss, Regbi scraped it from her face and ran her hands through the scrub to clean them.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Be quiet already,” she muttered. She couldn’t deny that she deserved it. She was about to in any case if she already hadn’t. The door lurked just behind her shoulder. Having had their fill of laughter, Saruul and Osol had set to examining it.
“How do you figure we get in?” Saruul asked. The tips of her fingers hovered a mere inch from the painted wood. There were floral designs painted on top of its bright yellow lacquer—reds and pinks, greens and blues all in swirling, cloud like petals. Osol slapped her hand away before she could give in to temptation and touch it. For all his bluster he had fallen uncharacteristically silent. He sensed that something was there even if he couldn’t see it, much the same way that a steppe gerbil could feel the shadow of a falcon overhead. His beady eyes flicked to Regbi. Expendable, was what she read in them.
“You’re the one who says she knows so much about shamans,” he said.
That’s what she got for opening her mouth, she supposed. Regbi took a hesitant step forward. She held her hands above the wood. There was old magic etched in it to be sure, carved out perhaps over the span of centuries despite the fresh coat of paint. It breathed against her fingertips, whispering for her to touch it. She felt no malice in it, only invitation. Tentatively, Regbi touched her hand to the door. She flinched, expecting to be blown skyward for her intrusion. But the door simply opened as if by its own accord to admit her.
“Special protections, she says,” Osol said with a shake of his head. Even so he hung back behind her.
“Should we go in?” Saruul whispered.
The logical side of her said no, but the irrational side said differently. The spiritual side Regbi once called it. She couldn’t think to explain it, but she felt drawn to step inside, the same way she might after a long absence from home. If she still had a home. As if to reassure her, the door opened wider still, flapping like a beckoning hand. With a shrug, she pushed it open to peer inside.
If it weren’t for the task at hand she might have stopped to gawk. It was nothing like any ger she had ever been inside of before. The wooden latticed walls were covered with brightly colored rugs and tapestries, charms and silk paintings that swirled together like a kaleidoscope. Even the cylindrical cloth roof above its head wasn’t left without a splash of color: the wooden rafters holding it in place were painted a crimson red that had faded with age. In its funnel-like center was the only window to the outside world, a round skylight that afforded little more than a spattering of dull, gray light on such a cloudy day.
Across from the door arranged in a crescent along the wall were an assortment of intricately painted wooden chests haphazardly stacked with all number of things: jars of herbs and spices, bottles of alcohol, wooden masks and ivory figurines, vases, musical instruments, and shining precariously out of the corner of Regbi’s eye, several well polished knives of varying length.
“Jackpot,” she heard Saruul murmur. The worst part of Regbi couldn’t help but agree. Any one of the knives would sell for a fortune, let alone the masks and the ivory carvings. She wouldn’t even have to dig through his chests to come away with a prize.
“You go inside,” Osol said to her. “Me and Saruul will keep watch.”
Regbi cast a wary glance towards the back wall. Resting comfortably in a nest of plump, embroidered pillows lay the Wandering shaman. “For what exactly? The camel? No one else is here—why should I be the only one to go in?”
“Because no one’s going to notice a little bird,” Osol said, pushing her over the threshold. “We’ll be right here. Be quick about it and you’ll be fine,” Saruul added, with what was supposed to be an encouraging smile. It held too much menace to qualify.
Regbi took a hesitant step forward. The floor under her feet was as thoroughly decorated with rugs as the walls around it save for a bare circle in its center surrounding a stone fire pit. A dim fire was flickering in its hearth. Its flames filled the ger with an eerie, dancing light that put Regbi ill at ease. A deep silence hung in the air as thickly as the haze of incense and old wood smoke drifting from the fire. It made Regbi’s head feel as light as her eyes did heavy. Hopefully it would have the same effect on the shaman sleeping so precariously nearby.
Even in sleep he had a wild look about him. Lean and wiry as a fox, he was swarthy from the sun with a dark thicket of hair as unruly as a crow’s nest. Despite the hints of gray in his hair and spidery creases by his eyes he was still a young man. Regbi guessed he might be no older than thirty, though it was hard to say with desert people. He had a long, angular face that managed to be menacing for all that he slept, but maybe it was nothing more than the slant of his bushy brows and the curl of his lips that made her think so. Having no desire to find out for herself, she took extra care to tread lightly as she slunk by him.
“Make sure you get the knives,” Osol hissed from the doorway.
Regbi gestured for him to be silent. For all that the shaman was gone from his body, she saw no point in making any more noise than she had to. There was no telling when he might come back to himself and when he did, the last thing she wanted was to be there—especially when he noticed so many of his treasures missing. They wouldn’t be easy to replace, Regbi thought with no small degree of guilt. Heirlooms no doubt, the same sort that her grandmother so jealously guarded. The sort that were passed from one generation to the next in any shamanic lineage. Her hand hovered above the carved bone hilt of the largest knife. She swore under her breath and curled her fingers back into her palm. She had stolen before, but nothing like this. Nothing quite so special. Nothing that someone would miss so badly. Her eyes darted to the wooden masks and carvings. She saw her grandmother’s scowling face in them and recoiled from their gaze.
“Hurry up already!” Saruul called in a hoarse whisper. “Just grab whatever you can hold and go!”
Regbi looked to the other trinkets laid out on top of the chest. They weren’t worth nearly as much as the heirlooms she had passed by, but they might fetch a decent price if the buyer knew they came from a shaman. She began to rummage through them, looking for something that might satisfy the appetite of the other thieves, but would pain the shaman less to lose. An enamel box maybe, or a jade comb.
“What are you doing!” Osol bellowed, throwing all caution to the wind. “The knives you idiot—”
He moved to cross the threshold. With a thundering boom, he was sent cartwheeling through the air like a leaf caught in a gale wind. Saruul screamed as he plummeted to the ground with so much force that Regbi could feel the impact. But she wasn’t as concerned for him as she might otherwise have been. Not when she could see something stirring out of the corner of her eye. She had never been so aware of the trouble her bad leg gave her as in that moment. Of each extra second its birdlike hop added to the time it took her to get to the door. She could feel an energy building just outside of it, an ambient pressure like the one that came just before a storm. And then came a crack of thunder so loud it sent Regbi sprawling onto the ground in panic. The walls of the ger shuddered from it and the door slammed shut.
The air around her had taken on a cool, clammy quality, dank as if breathed from the mouth of a cave. The fire suddenly blazed to life behind her and shadows shrieked onto the walls. They weren’t cast by any flame. Regbi felt something breathe against the nape of her neck and scrambled towards the door. She could barely make it out in the cacophony of flickering light and shadow that converged upon her. Spirits. They appeared stretched and exaggerated, a plague of wild eyes and teeth, claws and beaks. Her own spirit was no match for them. All it could do was light her way through the spectral mist that had settled in the air around them. She crawled to the door and pressed her hands against it. It pulsated with thunder. But the storm outside paled in comparison to what she faced. Regbi slammed her full weight against the door, but it didn’t so much as budge.
“Saruul! Osol!” she screamed, pounding her fists against it. The shaman was looming over her now and she cringed against the doorway. With no thought for dignity she hid her face in her hands, as if somehow she might will herself into nothingness before he had the chance to reduce her to it himself. It would serve her right if he did; above the din of thunder she could hear the roar of an engine. They had no intention of waiting for her. If she weren’t so terrified she might have screamed her frustration.
“You,” the shaman said, his voice no more than a low growl. The air grew colder for it, though not as cold as the pelt gray of his eyes. They were wild as they stared down at her. “How did you get in here?”
“I—I’m sorry…” she muttered.
“Move your hands so I can see your face,” he ordered. It wasn’t without hesitation that she complied. She preferred to keep them exactly where they were, comforted in the same way a child would by hiding under a blanket. The shaman clicked his tongue at what he saw. “There’s mischief in you no doubt. But there would be in a thief, wouldn’t there?”
“Thief…?” she managed. “N—no…”
But the shaman merely let out a hoarse bout of laughter in response. “No? Then what do you call a person who slinks into someone’s ger when he’s sleeping and rummages through his belongings?”
“Someone who’s very sorry for it?” She trailed her hand along the door; it was still as firmly sealed as it had been. “Please, I didn’t mean you any harm—”
“That much I believe. The ger never would have admitted you if you had…which raises the question why it admitted you to begin with if your intention was to steal from me.” He rested a long fingered hand on his chin and shifted his head from side to side as he considered it. The expression in his eyes drifted between a day dreamer’s calm and an intense sort of inquisitiveness as he trained his eyes on her face. He stared as if each feature held some hidden meaning that he was trying to decipher. “You look like someone I might let in; I can’t help liking the look of you, even if you are a thief. But then again I’ve always had a weakness for bold girls…”
“I’m not as bold as I look.” Her hand groped behind her for the latch.
“You should be careful sneaking into a stranger’s ger then: you might give the wrong impression.” He crouched level with her face. The look on his own was impossible to read. He might have been mocking her, threatening her, flirting with her, or some odd combination of the three. “It’s lucky for you I’m not as wild as I look. A little bird like you might be in trouble otherwise,” he said in a deep desert drawl. It suited his voice which was roughly melodic, like wind against the desert sand.
“Can I go then…?” Regbi ventured.
“I didn’t say that,” he chuckled.
“Then what?” Regbi wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer. She only had the one spirit and a weak one at that. What threat could it pose to a predator like him if he meant to harm her? A shaman who had more spirits at his disposal than she had feet to run or hands to fight him with. “If you’re not going to let me go, then what are you going to do with me?”
A wolfish grin played at his lips. “I thought maybe I would start by feeding you soup.”
“Soup,” she repeated. Strange that such a simple word could cause her so much confusion.
“I’m too hungry to know what I want to do with you yet and it would be rude to eat without offering you something as well,” the shaman said, rising back to his full height. Without another word, he turned his back to her. Regbi couldn’t manage anything more than to blink her bewilderment.