After the danovus funeral, the crowd headed back together to the large hall where meals were usually spent together. Everyone took their seats next to the packed tables and with the arrival of the last guest, the funeral procession began. The danovuses told stories about the deceased out loud, sang and joked.
It was very strange for Rahul to attend such an event. He was used to relatives grieving silently after a person's death, but here it was as if the person had never died. He felt as if even the dead himself would be offended if they did not do so. This habit was completely different from the one he knew. It is different, but also strangely familiar, as if he has always known it, from somewhere long ago, from somewhere deep. The hegin blood running in his veins knew this custom well, the tradition, which is inherited, lived indelibly in him.
By the time the danovuses served the third round of drinks, Rahul had heard five ways of how Wandi's uncle had described the great Athira he had seen as a child when the danovuses arrived in Madüjawr, and four ways of how he had terrorized an entire troop of wild danovuses in little more than at the age of two hundred.
"What's wrong, Tev? I didn't know you couldn't stand alcohol." The boy was hit in the side by Achilleus, who was sitting on his left.
"I don't know..." The boy muttered slowly to himself, then reached to his forehead with a trembling hand. "Can't you feel that it's hot?" He asked, with which he attracted the attention of many others and managed to get Achilleus to pull his hand away from his forehead, so that now he would press his palm on Tele Teveli's forehead.
"Damn, you're on fire." Achilleus caught his hand. "What kind of disease did you swallow now?" The Motumisz boy frowned.
"I... I don't..." Teveli stuttered, but when he started to shake, Suk, who was sitting on the other side, held him down and stared at his arm with such a cold look that it could have killed.
"Listen to me!" He pressed on the blinking Teveli's arm. "What was the last thing you put in your stomach?" Hearing this question Rahul could only blink.
"Wine." Tev groaned, and Suk looked suspiciously towards the table, but he just pulled out a blue flower from the bag on his waist.
"Open wide!" He gave the order and when Teveli opened his mouth to answer, he pushed the flower inside and didn't let go until he swallowed it. "It relieves your fever." He declared, but he had already let go of his friend and picked up Teveli's empty glass, which he also sniffed.
"Poison?" Razvan asked the question in a harsh voice.
"It is. But I don't know what it is." Suk's eyes sparkled excitedly and he even smiled. "I wouldn't drink in your places." He said seriously, then picked up his own glass and smelled it. "It's in this too." He announced, and then drank it in a gulp, which made several people around the table gasp in fear, including Rahul.
"There will be no problem, he is a Zovárd." Razvan waved. "Teveli, are you okay?" The boss asked.
"Yes, I'm not sick now, but it's still hot." The boy sighed.
"I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it brought you close enough to death to change your alliance mark." Suk stared suspiciously at Teveli's arm.
"Tell me, Chief, do you have any idea who could have wanted to poison my friends?" Razvan questioned the Vojk tribal chief.
"I have no idea. None of my people would do that." Came the harsh answer, from which even the stupid could hear the anger.
"I don't think it was meant for humans." Suk grabbed his chin.
"What?" The question came from several sides, and Suk continued thoughtfully.
"Although I don't know exactly what it is, there is something I recognize in it." He moved his chin as if he licked the inside of his mouth. "A strange mixture of herbs, it will make your blood warmer, as if you were boiling from the inside. Everyone knows that the Vojks bleed less. I think it's because your blood flows slower than ours, if my calculations are correct, that would make it flow almost as fast as ours. Based on this, the nails would fly out of you like the cork from a badly sealed barrel." The boy waved.
"But he won't die from it, will he?" Rahul asked, which made Teveli also look worriedly at Suk, who bit his lip and turned his head away.
"It won't be a problem for me, I'm used to poisons, but..." He sighed here. "If we don't somehow stop the effect, your blood will get hotter and hotter and you won't last long." He hissed between his teeth.
"Are you saying I'm going to die?" Teveli's quiet question came, but he didn't get an answer from his friend, whose hands were only clenched into fists. "Don't you know an antidote for it? They did it against you!" Tev looked desperately at the tribal chief, and by the second sentence he was shouting with tears in his eyes. "Doesn't anyone know anything?! Should I just accept that I'm going to die?! It's that simple?!" He stood up and began to stagger a few steps. "I, I don't want to die! No one? Can no one help?" The voice caught in his throat.
"He might know." At the sudden unearthly voice, everyone looked in surprise at the transparent that appeared behind Teveli.
"They haven't left yet?" The chieftain asked surprised.
"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" Etele also appeared next to the transparent, arms crossed in front of him.
"He can help." The floating transparent answered.
"You have no idea how much I want to oppose you." Etele growled.
"Grandpa, who is it?" Rahul also stood up at the table.
"It's better if you do not know. It's better that none of you know." Came the cold answer.
"But..." All the members of the Athamana spoke almost at the same time, but Rahul's next act managed to get the word stuck in all of them. The chüvigh boy did the impossible, he slapped a ghost.
"He is my friend! I won't let him die! There has to be a solution, and if you're not willing to tell me, then you'd better go the Fene!" The boy yelled with clenched fists to the ghost, who only held his face and looked seriously at his living relative.
"That's exactly where he wants you to go." Said the ghost.
"What?" Rahul blinked.
"The daimon king. He may know the antidote to the poison." The transparent spoke again.
"The... The daimon king? In the Fe... Fene?" Teveli stuttered, but not from the fever, because when Rahul looked at him, he saw pure fear in his eyes, and this look was shared by several people in the room.
"Who else could bring someone back from the brink of death if not the lord of the dead himself?" Etele sighed. "If you want to save the child, you must go to the Shadow World. You don't have much of a choice, either he dies or you all go to the Fene."