50. Punishments

"Well, where is my favorite offspring?" Etele chirped as he appeared in the yurt in front of Rahul, who was staring at the sky.

"I don't have an idea either. Go find somewhere else." Rahul announced, not even looking at the ghost.

"You just broke my heart." The ghost put his hand on his chest, and the young traveler finally looked at him.

"You should get one for that first." He frowned.

"Well, if you don't want to see your team and your Tapló boss, then you don't have to come." Etele waved and turned away from him.

"He is not my boss." Rahul rolled his eyes as he stood up.

"I didn't mean it that way." Etele giggled.

"Can you take me out without being noticed?" Rahul asked quietly.

"No, but I don't have to. Inepta brings the unfortunate ones out of their confinement right now." The ghost shrugged.

"Who?" Rahul blinked.

"The one-eyed man who kept you here. Well, come on. When your friends come over, I'll explain everything." Etele grinned as he led Rahul out of the tent. Outside, the boy already saw his friends sitting by the fire with a suspicious look. "Where did you leave Inepta?" Etele spoke again.

"He went there." Citar nodded in one direction.

"Oh." Etele nodded.

"Here you go, young gentlemen." Finally Inepta appeared with the other members of the Athamana. "Take a seat." He said, then turned to his men. "Bring them something to eat. There was a misunderstanding, they are our guests." Inepta remarked, while the others, led by Razvan, took their seats.

"Come on Rahi, put your ass down." Etele pushed his relative down next to Razvan, and then plopped down on the other side of the boy. "Don't stare at me like that, Inepta. It gives me the chills, even though I'm dead. You better sit down too." Etele shook his head.

"Right. I will be the one to ask the question we all want to know." Achilleus suddenly spoke. "Who the daimons are you?! And what the earthquake is going on here?" He pointed to Etele and Inepta.

"My name is Etele. I am an ancestor of Rahul. This idiot here is an old friend of mine, Inepta." The ghost put his arm around the shoulder of the one-eyed hegin sitting next to him. "He's not a bad person, he's just a little violent, but I managed to get him to see better, so now you have a safe place to rest." The ghost explained. "By the way, I'm the ghost next to Rahul, so hello everyone and you can thank me."

"Controll yourself, grandpa, before I stop you." Rahul scolded his relative before he started scratching his neck.

"Would you like to introduce yourself, young gentlemen, I want to know my guests." Inepta spoke as well, which caused the whole team to turn towards Razvan at the same time, who let out a big sigh.

"Etele is with Rahul, so he is with us. And the gentleman seems to have good intentions. This means that we have become guests. Let's act like it." The boy explained, then turned to the one-eyed man. "I'm Zaukán Razvan." When he said his name, the team continued in line.

"Tele Teveli." The boy nodded.

"Zovárd Suk." He narrowed his eyes.

"Bokló Benkó."

"I am Achilleus, from the Motumisz tribe." The boy pulled himself out.

"Vojk Wandi." The young man looked coldly at the half-eyed one.

"I'm a Citar from Bolacsuk tribe." He grinned.

"And I am Chüvigh Rahul." The traveling boy closed the queue.

"If he is your relative, how can he be a chüvigh?" The one-eyed hegin looked suspiciously at tEtel, who just waved.

"He grew up there." He said as much, before the team was interrupted by Inepta's men who had finished the food. So they gathered around the fire and spent their dinner. The mood, as it was usual for the people living in the Karrabata ranges, slowly dissolved during the meal, and by the time they were done they were already joking with each other.

"So young people, tell me, if you are all from different tribes, how come your parents let you do moonwalks together?" Inepta suddenly asked, and the Athamanas almost laughed as one. "Now what's so funny?"

"They aren't letting us." Citar groaned. "They keep punishing us for it." He wiped his eyes and shrugged.

"You will be punished? How?" Inepta asked the surprised question that was also on Rahul's mind.

*It's different everywhere." Citar waved. "With us, you have to copy a book for an hour." He rolled his eyes.

"We have to write down all the rules of the tribe, three times." The boy Vojk announced.

"We get frozen." Benkó grimaced.

"What is that like?" Rahul cooed.

"Like this." The boy raised his left arm and suddenly ice covered his arm from the top of his hand. "The bigger your mistake, the better it covers up. So far, the most I've received has gone to the middle of my chest." He shook his arm and the ice broke off.

"For us, you have to sit next to the hottest geyser." Achilleus shrugged. "Although, if you asked me, it has a particularly good effect on the skin. I send myself down there once a month." He grinned.

"And how do you achieve that?" Benkó raised his eyebrows.

"Simple. I stand next to the chieftain's house and loudly begin speaking like..." He's taking a deep breath here. "Bokló Benkó is the smartest, wisest, nicest and most talented hegin in all of Madüjawr."

"Do you really think so?" Asked the aforementioned moved.

"Of course..." Achilleus cut him off, then turned to the boy and grinned. "No."

"I'll kill you!" Yelled Benkó.

"Guys, enough." Razvan scolded them, and the two of them, albeit grumpily, stopped fighting.

"As for us. Three bottles of different poisons are placed in front of you. You have to drink one, and then you'll be dangled upside down over the swamp. If you're lucky there's no tide, if you aren't..." Suk just shrugged his shoulders. "Then one hegin less."

"And how long did you stay there?" Citar asked horrified.

"So far, the longest day for me was one day, with two high tides." Suk shrugged.

"Zovárd." The other hegins said at the same time.

"Punishment is just unpleasant for us. You re locked up for an hour in a hidden room of the tribe, next to a trouble-making ghost, and usually it is not possible to talk properly with the punished person for days afterwards. Let's say it was never a big punishment for me, I used to talk to the ghost." Teveli leaned forward and supported his chin on his hands.

"We have to clean out the cave of the mountain spiders." Razvan frowned.

"What?" Several people blinked at him.

"The spider's thread blocks our energy vision. We have to blindly clean the entire room." Razvan said in one breath.

"And what about you Rahul? You must also have some kind of punishment if you are bad." Citar looked questioningly at his friend.

"We have to kneel in the building where we keep our pegin and we usually have to repeat the praise of the Onegod, but since I am not properly blessed, I just read one of the holy books." Rahul explained.

"You got away easily." Inepta shivered.

"I don't know what's wrong." Etele shrugged. "I only had yurt captivity." The ghost frowned.

"You, not us." Inepta snapped at him, which made everyone look at him curiously.

"Well, now I'm curious about it too. Out with it Inepta! What was your punishment?" Etele also asked, but the one-eyed man just shook his head.

"Please!" The children begged at the same time, but the táltos continued to object and this continued for some time.

"We had to make fun of Etele." Inepta's hands clenched into fists, but with the answer he only managed to make everyone look at him questioningly.

"Wait..." Etele pulled himself out. "Then, when someone got on my nerves and I set a demon on them, you were in punishment?" He opened his mouth in surprise.

"Yes." Inepta whispered to himself.

"Let's just say it's not pleasant to be chased around the camp by a demon." Etele grabbed his chin.

"Grandpa, you are worse than me when I get upset." Rahul frowned.

"What?!" The whole team was surprised by this statement.