Jibutu: Daughter of the Desert

As part of the ritual to become a healer, Jibutu drinks the fermented juice of the Death Cactus and dreams of her unknown birth mother, who calls her by a name she can neither hear nor understand. Later, having gained status as a healer, on a quest to learn who her birth parents were, and her true name, she also becomes a shaman. Astride a giant lizard, she crosses the desert with her sister shaman and is attacked and taken by slavers. Jibutu loses everything and everyone she knows and loves as her world is turned upside-down.