After Razvan's embarrassing debacle, Rahul ignored the Athamana leader for a week or so. He didn't say a word to him and generally acted as if he didn't even see the other. It went on like this until this morning, on the morning of their break-up, the Zaukán boy broke and fell on his knees in front of Rahul.
"Please forgive me." He lowered his head, but the chüvigh boy just folded his arms in front of him.
"Why would I?" He asked the question.
"I..." The team leader was confused.
"Give me one good reason to forgive you." Rahul snarled.
"I l..." Razvan couldn't finish the sentence because Etele appeared and covered his mouth.
"This is the worst possible reason you can come up with in this situation." The ghost noted, then released him and looked at his successor with his hands on his hips. "Don't be hard on him when you know why he did it and you've gotten over it a long time ago." He waved. "You are seriously worse than an old married couple." The ghost grumbled and left the pair with a straight face.
"I'm sorry, I thought you knew. The others told you everything they shouldn't have, I didn't think they'd miss this one." Razvan shook his head.
"I know you meant no harm." Rahul sighed. "All right, stand up, because you look terribly pathetic like that." He noted with a faint smile.
"We are ready. Shall we go then?" The others appeared in the clearing.
"We are going." Razvan stood up and started towards the river.
"By the way. Could you explain again where we are going now?" Rahul scratched his head as he followed Razvan to the boats the team had been making for the past week.
"To the Rimejülin." Benkó shrugged.
"Yes, you already said that, but this chüvigh still doesn't know what the hell that is. Just that it's some kind of celebration where all tribes are present." Rahul rolled his eyes.
"And where do you know from?" Citar explained.
"It's a jülithingy, everyone was there on the other one, which also had that name." Rahul waved.
"Rimejülin is an occasion when the spirits of the ancestors return for one night. Most ghosts do not like to come back from the Shadow World or have already been reborn. This is the day of the year when we can see our ancestors from the Shadow World." Razvan explained.
"And how do you know when it is?" Rahul scratched his head.
"It's easy in early summer when the day and night are the same length." Teveli shrugged.
"And then we're going there now. But where is this taking place?" Rahul asked the next question, and Achilleus grinned.
"To us." He announced triumphantly. "Up here on the river, then we have to walk a little further on the other side, but if we're lucky, we'll see Holdvár in two days." He explained.
"Holdvár?" Rahul asked back.
"The center of Madüjawr, from where the field protecting the basin of Karrabata is maintained. But we can't go inside the castle, Rimejülin is held in the valley." Achilleus explained.
"We have to go." Wandi noted.
"Of course, if we wait too long, we'll miss it." Citar said excitedly as he got into one of the boats. "On board guys." He shouted, so the team took their places in the boats.
Benkó and Achilleus went first, since the former knew the river and the latter the road better than the back of his hand. The small group rowed all day and only stopped when they were all hungry, but they quickly continued their journey until evening to get as close as possible to their destination. They covered the rest of the journey on foot and, as Achilleus had predicted, after two days they saw the walls of Holdvár standing proudly on top of the mountain.
Closer to them in the valley were several colorful yurts and smaller, unlit fires. The Athamana team set up their yurts away from the others, but they did not light a fire. After their work, all they had to do was to wait for the evening, because, as Rahul had been told by the hegins, that's when the festivities would begin. Of course, Rahul didn't really understand this, but he didn't bother himself, he knew that sooner or later he would see what was going to happen, he didn't have to be impatient.
First he rested in the yurt, then he sat outside in front of the building and watched from there as the sun slowly turned from bright yellow, to orange, and then to red and set on the horizon. As this happened, somewhere in the far part of the yurt camp, the first fire was lit. Rahul watched in surprise as unusual yellow smoke rose into the air.
"Well, it looks like we started this year." Suk remarked, looking at the camp with his hands on his hips.
"It was us last year." Citar shrugged.
"How do you know?" Rahul narrowed his eyes.
"From the color of the smoke." Teveli explained.
*It varies depending on who is summoning someone." Benkó said unanimously.
"You won't see ours, the Vojks don't summon. You know why." Wandi noted calmly.
"You know, now it makes sense that you never do it." Achilleus added, and as he spoke, more and more colorful columns of smoke flew into the air.
"Why are you just standing here anyway? Don't you want to talk to your ancestors?" Rahul asked looking at the team.
"I'm an orphan, I can't summon anyone." Citar shrugged.
"I'd prefer to miss this, mine always only talk to my parents." Benkó grimaced.
"Those I would like to talk to have already moved on. Usually only the chieftain families stay in the Shadow World to pass on their knowledge." Achilleus folded his arms in front of him.
"It doesn't make much sense for me to summon anyone, since I remember." Razvan also spoke.
"You won't make me summon someone. The tribe has a tradition of murder. At the end, someone wants to knock me off my feet." Suk rolled his eyes.
"The person I wanted to talk to turned out to be alive." Teveli's lips twitched into an awkward smile.
"But you can try it if you want." Razvan gestured towards the nearest unlit fire.
"I don't think the others would take kindly to the appearance of a fugitive and a chüvigh woman. And grandpa comes even without a summon." Rahul muttered the end. But he suddenly raised his head when there was a great commotion.
"Ah, our tribe founder has arrived." Teveli snorted. "I don't understand why he always have to make such a fuss." The boy shook his head. "Especially since he never talks to anyone, he just walks around."
Not far from the team, a bonfire ignited by itself and a man in his late thirties stepped out of the dark blue smoke. His stature was tall, his radiance almost regal. He attracted all eyes for a moment, but most people turned away from him after a polite nod. The man would have started in the direction of the crowd with measured steps, but to the greatest surprise of the team, Etele appeared next to him and simply grabbed his ear, then began to pull it and spoke with his one of his hands on his hip and a grumpy face.
"Ungrateful child of the world! What about you being the tribe founder, huh? What am I to you, turul bird? What do you think of yourself, my sweet boy?" Etele asked, and the ghost looked up at him with wide eyes. Then, much to the surprise of Rahul and the Athamanas, he spoke softly.
"Dad?"