The Desert Nomad

“Sister Zagin, aren’t you hot?” Girim had a look of concern that Zagin might collapse at a moment’s notice.

“What are you talking about? I’m perfectly fine.” Zagin brushed sweat-damp hair away from her forehead. Though the mid-year Akitu marked the ending of the hot and dry Emesh season and the beginning of the cold and wet Enten season, it was still fairly warm during the day.

That morning, Zagin had dug out her old traveling clothes from the cedar chest in their room and worn them underneath her temple vestments. They were the same tunic and trousers she’d worn when she arrived at the temple at age fourteen, so while their length stayed the same, her limbs had grown in the three years since. The fact that the tunic still fit her chest made Zagin alternate between relief and frustration that it was the one place she hadn’t grown.

Zagin passed an envious glance at Girim’s bare arms. The sleeves of their temple garb were usually pinned up at the shoulders most of the year, but she let hers down to cover up the long-sleeved tunic underneath. It was nearly dusk, but she’d been sweating under her clothes all afternoon while they provided charity at the base of the Grand Ziggurat.

They’d been serving stew made with leftovers from the previous night’s feast to anyone who lined up for it. Free food seemed to be a great equalizer amongst the people of Urukalil as their goodwill drew in both rich and poor, citizens and non-citizens alike.

“May The Seven bless you… May The Seven bless you…” Just how many times had Zagin said that today?

As she handed a bowl to a man wearing road-dusty clothing, Zagin felt a kinship with him from the way his body was covered from head to toe in fabric. He must’ve been even more miserable than her.

The man wore a dark cloak over a belted tunic, over trousers tucked into leather boots, and a dingy white scarf wrapped around his head and face—the kind that was typical of desert nomads.

She did a double-take as he moved down the line to receive his serving from Girim. There was no mistaking it. He was the man she saw in the vision from Nanshe.

When he walked off after receiving his bread at the end of the soup line, Zagin shoved an empty bowl into Girim’s free hand. “I’ll be right back…” she mumbled, darting after the man.

“S-sister Zagin…?!”

Zagin pushed through the crowd of people gathered to eat and receive blessings, searching for him. When she spotted a desert nomad wearing a white scarf standing amongst a group of his own, she ran up without thinking and tugged on his sleeve.

“Um, excuse me!”

It was only after he turned around that Zagin realized he was a completely different person.

The man she was looking for had tan skin and kohl around his eyes, with the edges of a tattoo peeking above the scarf across his cheeks. While the one who turned around was also tan with kohl around his eyes and facial tattoos, he was bearded and twice as old, with skin like worn leather.

“...Yes, Priestess?” His gravelly voice heavily accented.

Now up close, Zagin recognized that she’d been so fixated on the scarf, she hadn’t noticed his clothing was almost entirely different from the man she was looking for. What she’d mistaken for the other man’s cloak was a faded indigo robe draped over the old man’s hunched shoulders. His long tunic underneath was white linen, but free of the wear and staining present on the other man’s clothing.

“Um, well… Thank you for joining us for Akitu. Please enjoy your meal,” Zagin said, ears burning with embarrassment. She offered a quick bow, then turned to hurry back to her station.

“Wait, Priestess!” called out a woman among the group of desert nomads.

Zagin stopped to look back as a young, more heavily tattooed woman approached her. Though a majority of her tattoos and their placement seemed unique to her, the woman shared a V shape on the forehead with the rest of her group—likely a tribal identifier.

“What god do you serve?” Her accent wasn’t as thick as the old man’s. Nor was her skin darkened from sun exposure remotely as weather-worn as his.

“I serve Nanshe. The goddess of protection, fairness, and divination,” Zagin explained politely. She didn’t know much about the desert nomads, but had heard that they mainly worshiped gods of the sky and, as such, might not be familiar with the worldly deities like Nanshe. “Y-your people are welcome at any of our temples should you ever need shelter or aid,” she quickly added, remembering their plight.

While desert nomads lived by trading with the cities, their appearance and lifestyle often made them targets of discrimination by city dwellers. The Temple of Nanshe welcomed any and all in need of protection.

The nomad looked back toward her people. After a series of nods in a non-verbal exchange, she held her chin up and asked Zagin another question. “Then, as her servant, what would you do for a person who was falsely condemned?”

A bead of sweat tickled as it rolled down the back of Zagin’s neck beneath her braid. In a bizarre coincidence, the woman’s question reminded her of Nanna’s son. But it was likely the nomads had one of their own falsely accused of a crime while in the city walls.

“I…I would want to help them, but…” Zagin held her hand to her heart, thinking about her own mission. “I don’t think I could do it alone. I would turn the matter over to someone with more power.”

“Our Ummagal had a dream recently that this person would soon be freed by a follower of Nanshe. What do you make of that, Priestess?”

“While I cannot provide a prediction without knowing more, I hope it comes true for the sake of your kin.” It would likely be an insurmountable task to prove a condemned person’s innocence, but Zagin spoke with sincerity.

The nomads murmured amongst themselves, and the tattooed woman had another non-verbal exchange with her group. Turning away from Zagin, she curtly remarked, “Thank you, Priestess. May Anutusin guide you.”

Zagin heard countless people refer to the nomads’ beliefs as heretical, but having never met any of them, she always assumed it was exaggerated. And while she still wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt since she’d never heard of a deity named Anutusin before, the mere mention of ‘sin’ in that name gave Zagin chills.

She hurried back to her station amongst the many soup lines before someone else could stop her. There was no sight of the man from Nanshe’s vision in the crowd, so she’d have to search for him later.

“What was that about?” Girim whined. “I thought you were run–”

Zagin clapped her hand over Girim’s mouth and gave her a pleading look. “Sorry about that!” Removing her hand, Zagin directed an apologetic smile both to Girim and the other girl handing out bread at their line. “I thought I saw someone I knew, and then someone else asked for my help on the way back.”

***

When the moon reached its apex, the statues were carried out of the Sanctuary of Enlil at the top of the Grand Ziggurat and returned to their respective servants. Zagin watched as more senior priestesses than were needed to carry the Oracle struggled to lift the vibrantly painted statue of Nanshe into the air.

Once all the statues were raised on their various floats, the procession began.

As they exited the grounds of the Grand Ziggurat, Zagin looked toward the goddess’s statue. The benevolent smile carved into Nanshe’s face, her outstretched palms, and unflinching blue stone eyes all seemed to urge Zagin forward as if to say, ‘Seize your freedom.’

The groups devoted to The Seven broke away from the procession first, as their respective temples were located near the ziggurat temple complex. Zagin fell back to walk next to Girim as the procession thinned. She held her hand, knowing it wouldn’t be much longer before they reached their own temple.

Girim kept her eyes forward but gave Zagin’s hand a tight squeeze. She must have guessed what was going to happen next.

When the Priestesses of Nanshe broke away from the procession to turn down a street made narrow by crowds watching with reverence from the sides, Zagin slipped her hand away from Girim’s. She tugged the veil off her head and bundled it under her arms, then let herself be swallowed up by the crowd.

Nobody seemed to notice her while they surged forward to fill the opening left behind after the breakaway procession passed through. After being pushed every which way, Zagin managed to break through the crowd into an empty alley. From there, she took off running.

She needed to find the man from Nanshe’s vision. If she hadn’t lost him at the soup line, she would have arranged a meeting place with him.

Remembering that he was with two very distinct foreigners, Zagin knew it would all work out. If she asked around the various inns for the pale man or the Easterner, then they would lead her to the nomad.

As Zagin darted through the thin, winding side streets of Urukalil, she passed a group of desert nomads while turning a corner. A strange sensation came over her at that moment—she’d seen all of this before.

Sure, many of the buildings in the city looked identical. It was also possible that those were the same nomads Zagin spoke to earlier. But it was enough to distract her.

Without looking where she was going, Zagin crashed into someone hard enough to see stars. As she stumbled backwards, eyes closed, an arm wrapped around her waist to catch her.

“Whoa there!” said a man.

Rubbing her nose, Zagin opened her eyes to begin apologizing profusely. “Ack! I’m so sorry, I–”

It was him.

Even with his face partially covered, there was no mistaking him for a different desert nomad this time, because he was flanked by his two foreign companions. Realizing why the street was so familiar, Zagin looked up towards the rooftops, expecting to see two out-of-place kingfishers roosting in an alcove.

“Just be more careful next time, yeah?” Though his manner of speech was rough, it was unaccented. The nomad righted Zagin on her feet and started to move past before she gripped his cloak.

“P-please, wait!”

The man and his companions paused, eyebrows raised as Zagin shoved a hand down the front of her tunic and produced a small pouch.

“I need your help,” Zagin announced, jingling the coins inside. “If you take me to the Magician’s Tower, I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”