After the great council of the chiefs, every member of the Athamanas was replaced by a clone of Master Mo, so the members of the team could gather calmly and unobtrusively take part in the Heginjülin and after the event, they could walk together in the lands of Madüjawr. They didn't have to worry about their tribes looking for them somewhere. Master Mo's clones behaved exactly like the boys and could even speak.
While the clones were with the tribes, the Athamanas discovered the secret ways of Madüjawr. They haven't planned very far in advance. This year, it was not part of their plans to leave the safety of Karrabata. They were currently resting in a small clearing, somewhere in the Bokló's area. Rahul was fascinated by the white landscape, the ice covering everything. At first he didn't understand how they wouldn't be noticed, but he soon realized that the snow-white vegetation was thick enough to hide them.
"Oh! This is weird!" Achilleus, who was looking at that particular magical map, suddenly sat up.
"What happened? Found a new city?" Suk laughed and nudged Teveli in the side.
"There will be a change of territory again." The boy said seriously, before the hegins opened their mouths.
"You fucked something up, mudbrain! It was last spring, and the forty years haven't passed yet since the last quick switch. Why would be a change now?" Benkó rolled his eyes.
"My map has never lied. Gaps appeared. Now you are the closest to the chüvighs." The boy scratched his head.
"Hey, where are we going?" Suk asked enthusiastically.
"Between the two big rivers." Achilleus studied the map.
"Why do I feel like I missed something again?" Rahul asked the next enthusiastic question, but he only managed to make everyone look at him again. "Okay, you look at me like that again." The chüvigh boy sighed. "No! I have no idea what's going on here! So could one of you explain it to me?" He grinned, but immediately his gaze became serious.
"Come on mudbrain! This is your area of expertise." Benkó slapped Achilleus on the shoulder, and the Motumisz boy rolled his eyes, but in the end he just sighed and began to explain.
"Karrabata's basin is not only special with its wildlife. The geology is also different from the usual. With you, if you see a mountain on the border of the village, it stays there, no matter how many times you see it in your life. Here, on the other hand, if you live on the edge of a tribe's territory and you see a mountain one day, it won't be there in five years." The boy told, but Rahul somehow found it difficult to imagine this. "You know what, it's easier if I show you." Achilleus snapped his fingers, then poured a large handful of stones from his palm onto the map spread them on the ground.
After a moment, the stones began to move. There were some that came together, some that changed colors. They fiddled around until they made a model of Madüjawr's lands. The small model matched the image that had formed in Rahul's mind of the land of the hegins after their adventures so far.
"Well, this was Madüjawr after last year's change of territory." Achilleus dusted off his hands. "Now here, the borders between the tribes are clearly visible, right?" He looked at Rahul, who nodded. "Every five years, thanks to the blessing of Mother Earth, the locations of the tribes' territories change. So it is possible that a tribe at one time is neighbors to the Bolacsuks and the Vojks, and at other times the to the Motumiszes or the Zaukáns." He said, then put his hand over the model. "The change takes place overnight, no one knows exactly how, but every five years the territories of the tribes separate." As he said this, the pebbles marking the different tribes moved away from each other on the small model. "Then the areas change places." At that, the small stones rattled and slid past each other, taking on a new shape. "This is what Madüjawr will look like now." The boy nodded. "After the change, you can go down into the depths of the earth for four days, after which the chasms are closed for a week, as if there were transparent ice on top of them. And then the territories of the tribes merge again. This is every five years. Every 40 years, the area is changed two years in a row." Achilleus finished the tale.
"The last such change was last year. And the forty-year when we were six. So that is why I say it's not possible now." Benkó shook his head.
"You know that the last two times my map was changed a week before the exchange." Motumisz boy growled at his friend.
"Can't it be broken?" Citar intervened in the discussion.
"Bullshit! This is the most accurate map of Madüjawr!" Achilleus declared.
"Wait, then what you said at home..." Rahul thought, then laughed. "Now I understand how the Tapló boss and his tribe could be the closest to us." He shook his head.
"Why what did you believe?" Citar looked at him curiously.
"That they moved by the summer. I just didn't understand how Kristályvár fits into the picture. Now I umderstand. The outer lines of the Karrabata and the areas beyond them remain as they are, but in here it is, as if children were playing mud cities. No two days are the cities the same. Only here things change every five years." Rahul nodded, then suddenly frowned. "Wait, did you say you can go underground?" He looked at Achilleus with wide eyes.
"Exactly." The hegin grinned.
"Why the hell would anyone want to climb down a chasm?" Rahul snorted, and his face contorted into a pretty little grimace.
"Because special minerals can be obtained in the chasm." Razvan also spoke. "When there is a change of territory, hegin teams always go to the chasms, since only eight people can get down into the chasm. Usually seven young and one older hegin gather in a group to go down. However, if one team has already gone down, more cannot go down. Translucent ice covers the chasms as the eighth man descends. You can come up, but you can't go down." The team leader explained the essence of the five-yearly competition of the hegins.
"Last time we got down with Master Mo, but only because the master said we were stupid to bring up good minerals." Suk laughed.
"Without him, we really wouldn't have known what to bring up." Teveli noted, shaking his head.
"But if it is at such specific times, then how can it be now?" Rahul asked, blinking widely.
"I don't know, but my map doesn't lie. There will be a change of territory soon." He expressed a contradiction in an intolerant voice.
"If we change again, it will cause panic." Wandi shook his head.
"However, we have a greater advantage now than we did last year. Now we're the only ones who know there's going to be change. Others won't even have time to prepare, and we can be down long before they remember the challenge." Razvan smiled. "What do you say, let's surprise Master Mo with another set of ingredients?" The leader of the Athamanas asked the question, and the team immediately began to agree with the idea.