134. Csito Athira

Kamu saw the ghost of his ancestor again only long after sunset. After getting to know the camp members and their new family, the children spent the afternoon quite peacefully. After dinner, they were led back to the yurt that would become their home for the years to come. But the children didn't know this at the time, they were just happy that they were finally safe and didn't have to worry about anything.

Kele and Keche fell asleep in less than an hour as if someone had knocked them out. The little sister of the Teike twins was still clutching the rag doll she had played with that afternoon with their new brother and the camp leader, Csito, and thanks to the doll, the little girl was even cuter than usual. Two hours after going to bed, sleep was slowly bypassing Kamu as well. But before sleep could overwhelm the young hegin, a ghostly figure appeared in the yurt.

"Why now?" Little Kamu muttered grumpily and pulled the blanket over his head.

"I couldn't just show up, what if he sees me? Besides, I can't help it that you've been hanging around Athira all day." Teike's angry, or rather, his cracked voice made Kamu pull the blanket onto his lap in surprise and sat up.

"I was with his twin brother, not Athira, you bastard." The child rolled his eyes, and the ghost snorted.

"I don't care what he says, but that guy is still Athira." Teike folded his arms in front of him.

"You're blind." The little boy grimaced.

"They are still the same. He may call himself Csito, but his energies don't lie. I have no idea how he does it, but whoever left the camp under the name Athira was no longer Athira. Because Athira is that Csito guy." He declared, not tolerating any contradiction. And little Kamu finally just waved and pulled the blanket up to his neck and lay back down in bed.

"If it makes you happy, then you're right, I don't care." He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

In the following weeks, the Teike children slowly got used to life in Csito's camp. They trained with Etele, Inepta and Viktoria, played with the other youngsters, helped around the camp and, as usual, Kamu always found time to take a nap under a tree, which was not really sleep so much as observation with closed eyes, but then everyone didn't need to know about that.

In addition to his new daily routine, Kamu also took special lessons from Teike, who decided shortly after their arrival at the camp to teach Kamu the ancient forgotten language. So the little boy even had private language lessons, which of course he didn't enjoy as much as the ghost ancestor would have wanted.

"Aren't those the ancient runes?" Kamu blinked from behind a yurt at his new father, Etele, who was working on making a new summoning circle.

"Yes, they are." Teike shrugged, who suddenly appeared next to Kamu and was now leaning against one of the crates with his arms folded in front of him.

"How can he write them so easily, when I've been suffering with them for weeks?" The boy demanded grumpily, whereupon the ghost snorted.

"Being able to draw them and understanding what he's writing are not the same. He doesn't understand anything about the symbols, they're just pictures to him." The ghost king explained.

"Compared to that he writes pretty bloody things." Kamu shivered, when a demon stepped out of Etele's summoning circle.

"Ah, I was wrong." Teike suddenly spoke up. "He does understands something about them. He knows which sign determines what kind of demon he summons." The ghost smiled faintly. "If I didn't know that it was impossible..." He started, but he just shook his head. "Nowadays, no one knows which part of a circle means what." As the ghost said this, his voice again took on that deep, age-old resonant tone that it always had when he spoke of the ancient world he mentioned.

Little Kamu already knew by now that it was useless to ask anything of the ghost, he would not get an answer. Teike didn't like to talk about the past, as he had said, "It is useless to mention what cannot be changed." That was how he thought of those times and he didn't bother with little Kamu, who wanted to use the ghost's stories for learning.

In any case, as little Kamu was looking at Etele, his conversation with the ghost king was about to fade away when a bird scream was heard from somewhere. The young boy immediately looked towards the sky, from where a huge brown turul bird descended towards the camp. More precisely towards Kamu's new father. The young hegin was about to move to warn the man he had considered his father in just a few weeks, but when he saw the smiling face of the táltos, his feet were rooted to the ground.

"Riki!" Etele stretched out his arm in front of him, on which, to Kamu's greatest surprise, the huge turul bird landed as carefully as if it were a fragile branch. Then the huge bird rubbed its head in Etele's hair.

"I missed you." The bird spoke in a human voice, causing Kamu to open his mouth.

"Me too, my Riki. Come, I'll take you to your other father. Then tomorrow I'll introduce you to your new little siblings." The táltos explained as he let the turul settle on his shoulder. Then, true to his words, he really set off in the direction of the yurts.

"I didn't know there were still such turul birds." There was a hint of astonishment in Teike's voice, which was enough to make Kamu, whose mouth was still hanging open, look at him now. "Shut your mouth, a hawk will fly in it." The man rolled his ghost eyes.

"How could that bird talk? Birds don't talk." Kamu blinked, but this only made his ancestor laugh.

"Of course not, but if they have a contract, they can talk to a human." He shrugged.

"So that turul has a contract with father?" The boy scratched his head.

"Absolutely not." Teike snapped. "That bird is one of the ancient turul birds. I thought there weren't any left. In ancient times, every city had a family of them, they were the protectors of the cities. These birds look at you and can tell you how strong you can become in your life." He explained, and upon hearing his words, the young Kamu looked nervously after the departing figures. "What happened to you?" Teike grimaced and leaned in front of the child's face, waiting for an answer. Kamu, on the other hand, just took a deep breath and turned on his heel.

"I don't think I'll sleep much tonight." He whispered to himself, but his ancestor couldn't understand anything from his words now. He didn't know what had happened to little Kamu, but there was only one way to find out. He had to follow him in the evening, wherever the child planned to go.