Chapter Text
When Mongke wakes that morning, the bustle of the markets is louder than usual. He doesn’t think too deeply of it as he rolls out of bed.
Mongke greets his parents with a loud yawn. His mother ruffles his hair as his father hums a greeting in return, then sets a plate of fried eggs and a bowl of beef stew in front of him. He devours both in minutes, not caring for Ma’s half-hearted, scolding looks or the barely contained guffaws from Baba.
After breakfast, he sees his parents off with hugs and kisses. Then he readies for the day himself by wrapping his chest and fixing his unruly hair into a short braid. He tugs on his robes and mask before peeking out.
People are hasty and tense outside, but there aren’t as many customers haggling merchants. Mongke frowns as he steps out. No one is looking at each other… that’s strange.
He decides to beeline straight for his mentor—maybe they’ll have a better idea what’s happening.
But when Mongke arrives, there is a weeping couple and a small crowd of friends comforting them. His hackles rise, and his stomach churns anxiously. He already feels off-balance as he enters the shaman’s ger.
Khenbish bursts out of nowhere and grabs Mongke by the shoulders. Before he can make heads or tails of the situation, his mentor steers him towards the back of the ger where curtains have been drawn. His chest tightens at the sight. If there’s anyone behind them, then something terrible has happened.
Khenbish draws back the curtains. Mongke is sure he stopped breathing.
A small body trembles in the pile of furs.
He is afraid to touch the body, in case he exacerbates the patient’s condition. But, Khenbish changes the cloth on their forehead with such ease that Mongke wonders how long the patient has been in here.
His heart aches when he catches a glimpse of soft, round cheeks. A child fell sick. All the worse.
He glances around the ger for the medicines, but Khenbish catches his eye and slowly shakes their head. Somehow, his heart sinks even lower than the ground. None of the cures available are working. They’ll have to outsource the medicine—but would the elders approve of such a thing? Masters of the markets the Qestir may be, but medicine makers they are not. They don’t like the idea of foreigners meddling in the sacred art of healing either.
Except, neither Khenbish nor Mongke are sure they’ll have the luxury of refusing such help.
Later, Mongke learns that the patient is a young girl named Enkhtuya. He has seen her flitting around the shaman’s ger once or twice, trying to get a peek of his mentor’s work. She fell sick after coming back from a hunting trip with her father. As far as initial inspections go, there aren’t any wounds that point to an infection. Her father didn’t see anything strange with her until they returned to the Reunion, when she fell unconscious earlier today. The usual cures for colds aren’t working either.
After all these facts, they aren’t any closer to a solution.
It’d be irresponsible if they tried other medicines in their current arsenal—there’s a chance one might poison her and worsen her condition. But they don’t have anything else that will work. Khenbish’s healing magicks can only do so much for the body, and Mongke can’t wield healing magicks at all without hurting himself. Purging the sickness is becoming a daunting task as more time passes, and the sickness steadily grows from her head to her shoulders and arms.
Enkhtuya’s scalp is hot to the touch, and her scales are beginning to flake off to reveal raw patches of skin. Khenbish launches into action first—they order their apprentice to gather bandages. They browbeat precision and patience into him while they both wrap Enkhtuya’s limbs. Once they finish, Khenbish levels a pointed look at Mongke. He nods in turn and tries to calm his jittery nerves.
Mongke sharpens his focus as he calls forth ice-aspected magicks to his hands. A thin layer of frost coats his palms. He coaxes the magicks into a thinner, pliable form, and leans over Enkhtuya’s prone form. Sweat forms on his brow and back as he searches for the safest places to lay down his magicks. He taps bandages wrapping Enkhtuya’s arms, then her ankles, before collapsing back into his seat as his magicks gently coils around the bandages and soothes her aches.
Khenbish replaces the cooling pad on Enkhtuya’s forehead with a gnarled finger. Their healing magicks emerge in a soft, green light that twines from Khenbish’s arm to Enkhtuya’s forehead. Mongke watches as Khenbish draws out impurities formed from the sickness into a thin thread of volatile, mossy green. Khenbish is careful to manipulate the thread into an empty clay pot they prepared beforehand, before dismissing their healing magicks altogether.
For now, Enkhtuya will have a reprieve from the sickness. But they haven’t gotten anywhere near close to curing it.
In the midst of their troubled ruminating, Khenbish jerks as though struck by something. Mongke quickly turns to his mentor, worried for a second, until he is suddenly seized by the shoulders again and staring into Khenbish’s bright, wild eyes. But the idea dies in an instant, and Khenbish withdraws from Mongke with a strangely thoughtful look. He stops his mentor by curling his hand over their wrist, and urges them with his eyes.
What did they have in mind?
Khenbish is reluctant at first, but then makes an undulating motion with their arm, followed by a handsign formed with their two middle fingers touching their thumb, their first and little fingers pointing upwards like antennae. Mongke has never seen that sign before, but he guesses it represents an animal of some kind. Before he can determine what animal, his mentor immediately shifts into another motion.
There’s some kind of ingredient from an animal in the sea, and it might be of some help , Khenbish says through their hands.
Then, suddenly, it clicks in Mongke’s head. He remembers the panacea the foreigners used to peddle in the markets some time ago. One of the ingredients they claimed was from a matured, rare sea creature. Their wares almost started a war among the tribes, so the foreign merchants were banned from selling their strange medicines. Neither he nor his mentor got a chance to test the medicine for themselves, but surely there might be some merit to its rumored miraculous properties.
Mongke surges to his feet and tugs on Khenbish’s hands. They have to go gather it. But Khenbish shakes their head and pulls an ugly, constipated face that Mongke immediately associates with the tribal elders. He deflates into his seat, frustrated. These stupid traditions will end up killing a child if they don’t act swiftly.
Khenbish just sends him to the back to replace Enkhtuya’s cooling pad.
As he wrings out the water from the startlingly warm pad, a clammy slaps at his wrist. Mongke jolts and turns to the feeble girl trying to open her eyes.
“H… ba… ba…”
Something within Mongke’s chest twists painfully. A Qestiri doesn’t speak, even from childhood, but even pain can’t be contained for so long. One must cry if they are suffering, just as one must shout if they are joyous.
He cards a gentle hand through her sweaty locks and hums something comforting to her. She relaxes as he continues stroking her hair until her breathing evens out. Mongke tugs down his mask, and breathes ice-aspected magicks into the pad in his free hand before carefully setting it on her forehead.
The space between his shoulder blades itches as though someone is watching him. Khenbish must’ve let the parents in. He hurriedly fixes his mask, settles the furs around Enkhtuya, and vacates his seat to make room.
On his way out, a tall, scarred hunter stops him with a heavy hand on his shoulder. Mongke swallows thickly. This must be one of Enkhtuya’s fathers.
Suddenly the ger feels much too small, too cramped, too stifling. Families always have expectations. What if he can’t save their loved one? How does Khenbish cope with such heavy failures? Is that why shamans are hated—because even they can’t cheat death, for all their spiritual and magical prowess?
What if he’s already failed?
Mongke steels himself, and looks up.
There is surprise and gratitude written across the father’s features. With a nod and a squeeze, he lets go of Mongke.
For a moment, he isn’t sure what to do with himself. Then he half-walks, half-runs out of the ger. A blast of hot air hits his face and makes his lips crack. The grass is sharp and crackly under his feet. Tension gathers in the pit of his stomach, then snaps once he realizes that the sluggish heat of summer will only prolong the sickness. He stares down at his hands. Is this all a shaman can do, in the face of the impossible? Pray and hope for the best?
There has to be something better than this.
He marches towards the middle of the Reunion, towards the khan’s ger. Maybe if he can convince the khan, he can go procure the medicine quickly.
It goes as well as Khenbish expected—horribly. They had to stop Mongke from throwing his mask at the khan’s impassive face.
What did their sprout expect? The khan will not allow an apprentice to leave the Reunion’s premises, especially one like Mongke. His talents in magicks have not gone unnoticed, and any tribe would not hesitate to kidnap new blood for their own gains. It doesn’t help that the Dortharli are beginning to absorb more tribes into their numbers for some upcoming raid against the Oroniri again. They shudder at the memory of the Hotgo’s recent massacre. That new khatun of theirs—Sadu?—is one to be feared, if those craters still dotting the Sea of Blades are any indicators of her strength.
They’re glad Mongke won’t be like her. He isn’t suited for the life of a mage-warrior, especially when he worries so much about keeping his patients alive.
Speaking of whom, he’s still fuming beside them. He has stopped some distance away from the shaman’s ger, fists still clenched at his sides, and breathes hard through his mask. Khenbish stares at their apprentice, willing to wait out his next temper tantrum.
Instead, Mongke pivots and storms back to his family’s ger.
Khenbish sighs. It’s better this way. The boy needs to cool his head off before he does something stupid. They understand the khan’s concerns—it’s too dangerous to leave the Reunion right now. They’ll have to think of another way to cure the girl.
But as the day trudges by, there’s no sign of Mongke returning to the shaman’s ger. Khenbish doesn’t think overly much on it—he’s done good work in implementing his ice-aspected magicks. All Khenbish needs to do is keep drawing out impurities from Enkhtuya to ensure the sickness doesn’t worsen any further. He’ll be back in the morning and they can draw up another strategy. That silly story can’t be the only method for a cure.
Their work carries on into the night, and Khenbish hobbles back to their own private ger to rest. They sleep dreamlessly, for once.
The next morning, they discover that the sickness has stopped progressing. Good. They can focus more on restocking and maintaining Enkhtuya’s condition until a better solution comes along. It’s worrying that she hasn’t awoken yet, but she will in time. Everything seems alright for the most part. All there’s left to do is wait for their apprentice to come in to begin work in earnest.
Except Mongke’s mother bursts into the shaman’s ger in a frenzy.
Khenbish’s hackles rise as the huntress stalks towards them, all wild eyes and hunched shoulders. She holds up a mask with shaky hands. For a moment, Khenbish isn’t sure what she means—until they recognize the pattern on the mask. They feel the blood drain from their face.
Mongke is missing.