Page 36 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

TOBI

T obi is practising Ambolk conversation with Baby at his feet, when Lymok says in Ambolk, “Does your hair grow that way?”

“My hair?” Tobi responds in Ambolk, touching it. “Colour? No. I do it.” He lifts some of the blond strands on the left to show where almost half an inch of hair grows dark from his scalp. He switches to Artemian to say, “It’s growing back. See?”

Lymok nods and says in Ambolk. “So it comes black? How you make silver?”

“Soap,” Tobi says in Ambolk, then in Artemian, “Lye soap. I’d like to do it here, but I have to get the right kind of soap with the right amount of lye. It needs to be strong but not too strong. So it lightens my hair without burning it off.” He laughs.

Lymok laughs too, switching to Artemian himself to say, “How can you tell if it’s the right kind? Or do you just use it and see if you end up with black hair, silver hair or no hair? ”

“You can tell. You lick it. If you lick the soap you can tell how much lye it has from how it feels on your tongue. And I know how much the right soap tingles.”

Lymok sucks his bottom lip. “Why do you do it? Why change the colour of your hair?”

It had been Cyrus’s idea, Tobi thinks. Cyrus had suggested Tobi colour his hair so it looked more striking in the performance circle. His life with Cyrus and the rest of the Copperhead Circus feels so far away.

But he shrugs and thinks he will not mention Cyrus.

“It makes me look more interesting when I perform. With Baby,” he shakes his head, making his hair move.

“It stands out in the light. Some people are amazed I could get my black hair to turn silver with only lye soap. I’ve known other people who try and all it would do was make their hair coarse and orange.

But lye soap turns it silver for me easily.

And Old Mother, that’s another one of the players, Old Mother, she mostly tells fortunes, she taught me the mariandcards, she said my hair turned so easily to silver because I have fae blood.

All the Dareks do, passed down through the Hevelikar Princess that Sarelik Darek married. ”

Lymok whistles. “That’s some blood you have, kushir. Fae and Darek and some from Archillia too. No wonder Harok wanted you for his bed.”

Tobi laughs then says, “Do you think that is the reason?”

“Harok is Irgo. He does not need to share the reasons for the things he chooses to do,” Lymok says coolly.

“You have noble blood too. Did your mother ever tell you? Your mother’s father was the Duke of Northern Azuria.”

“My grandsire?” Lymok looks taken aback by this. “ Alyse’s father? My mother never spoke of her family in Azuria. They were nobles? Wealthy?”

“They were. But the Duke of the North rode into the Amber Forest to rescue your mother, against the will of Emperor Erond,” Tobi nods.

“My own grandsire. He was driven back by the Ambolk. By the Solwen. He returned to Ceruleum to find Imperial troops waiting for him. He was stripped of his title and his residence, the Great Ivory Palace, for his treason.”

“Why did Emperor Erond punish him so?” Lymok says.

“He had forbidden him to take Alyse back. He wanted to make a trade pact with the Amber Forest. And he did not want the Duke to insult the Solwen. But he defied Erond and, as a result, lost his palace and the family title.”

“The Ivory Palace?” says Lymok. “That great palace on the hill above Ceruleum? That was where my mother lived?”

Tobi nods. “Gold Alyse was once a young duchess.”

“And she gave that up to live here?” Lymok shakes his head. Tobi wonders if Lymok, like Tobi himself, feels the sting of a birthright denied to him. “Who lives there now? Someone told me once that the palace belongs to Emperor Selim. But surely he lives in Attar.”

“After the Ivory Palace was taken from the Duke, it was made the residence of whomever holds the title of Crown Prince of the Empire. That’s currently my father. Prince Rafus.”

Lymok smiles like this is very amusing. “Don’t you think that’s rather interesting. My grandsire’s palace is now in the hands of your father?”

“I suppose,” says Tobi. “I have been there. It is beautiful. It is over a thousand years old. Built by the Hevelikar. Some say it is more beautiful than the Rose Palace. It is certainly far older. Your mother never told you any of this?”

Lymok shakes his head. “My mother never told me anything about the family she came from. She ran from them so perhaps she did not care to. But I wonder if she meant me to go back to them someday.” Lymok sighs. “Perhaps she hoped to escape and take me with her.”

Thinking of Lymok’s mother makes Tobi remember the story of what happened to her. The sudden shock of it makes him gasp and say, “Your own mother was given to Diazuul.”

Lymok lifts an eyebrow. “Yes, kushir. I am aware of what happened.”

“How old were you?”

“Five,” Lymok says it in Ambolk.

“Five,” Tobi repeats the Ambolk number. Endel .

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.” He finds it hard to imagine something so terrible.

It is easy to forget, spending time in Urynwud, that blood sacrifices were once part of this place.

Not so long ago. When Lymok was a child, and he is still only a young man, twenty-six summers, younger than Tobi.

“It was a long time ago,” says Lymok lightly. “And when it happened, I had grown up with the idea of Diazuul and the blood sacrifices. Diazuul was called a God, not a demon. I was taught it was an honour to be given to him. But, of course, now I understand that Vahul made sure she was chosen.”

“Because he discovered she was teaching you Artemian.”

Lymok nods.

“You think those priests were corrupt and chose who Vahul wanted? ”

“Of course they were. Why do you think they named Irgo Lal?”

Tobi gasps. “Irgo Lal was given to Diazuul? Harok’s father? Your king was given to the demon.”

“Oh, yes.” Lymok smirks, as if he is enjoying Tobi’s ignorance of something so significant in Harok’s story.

“It was, of course, a great shock at the time. But looking back it was inevitable. There was a great deal of tension in Urynwud between the Blood Priests and the Verilissia. The Verilissia always kept the old ways. They never paid tribute to Diazuul. They worship the triple God of the Forest. The beasts, the trees and the earth.” as he says this Lymok makes a gesture, raising his right hand with his thumb and smallest finger curled down.

He uses this shape to show a beast, raises it to show a tree, then plunges it down to symbolise the earth.

“ Karran, Bellan, Solwen, ” he says. Tobi understands those words.

Beasts, trees, men. But perhaps could solwen mean both men and the earth?

“So,” Lymock continues, “it was no surprise when the Blood Priests declared Irgo Lal the sacrifice, they loathed him. I suppose it cannot be known for sure where the idea first came from. If Vahul suggested it to the priests, or the priests to Vahul, but Irgo Lal was named, with Harok as his successor and Vahul as regent. Vahul did all he could to undo everything Lal had done in the name of progress.”

“And Irgo Lal just let them give him to Diazuul?” Tobi says, stunned.

“Lal was weak,” Lymok spits this as if he still holds a great anger to Lal. The man who brought his mother to Urynwud, and, in some ways, was responsible for what happened to her.

“Is that why Harok banned the worship of Diazuul? Because of what happened to his father?”

“That was part of it, but revenge on Vahul was perhaps the greater part. Vahul did much to make Harok want to hate him. My father was as blind as his brother. It amused him to destroy his brother’s legacy.

So he banned the speaking of Artemian in Urynwud and executed any he caught doing so in the firepit.

He banned the Verilissia from conducting their rituals in the zhilvar.

He gave the Blood Priests more power and wealth.

He took Alyse and kept her shut up in the kushir chambers.

But he saved his greatest savagery for Harok. ”

“How old was Harok when his father died?”

Lymok shrugs. “Nine or ten. And the Long Night after Harok reached his sixteenth summer, The Blood Priests named him. Named Harok. They could not do so until he was of age. But none were surprised when they did so as soon as they could. By that time the Blood sacrifices had become blatantly corrupt, nothing more than a way for Vahul to rid himself of anyone he misliked. So Harok was named, but he leapt into the pit before the Blood Priests could cut his throat. He faced the demon alive. Harok rose back out of the pit beneath Susal-ur-Bellan with a magical blade he claimed the Triple God had given to him. A sword called Demonica that could slay the demon. Said to be one of the weapons the five fae brothers used to slay the ancient Bellator that once ruled this land. He slayed Diazuul. Aged sixteen summers. And he carries that sword still, on his back. A sign of what he has done for all Solwen.” Lymok does not seem to have much respect for Harok, but there is genuine reverence in his voice as he says this.

Tobi shivers. Harok’s story is surely as rousing as any he has heard.

A weapon bestowed by his mother’s God. A usurper trying to take the throne that is his by right by having him sacrificed to the same demon that usurper used to kill his father.

This would make a good play. Perhaps when Tobi returns to Azuria he will sell the tale to a band of mummers.

That thought startles him a little. He will return to Azuria. His father will rescue him and he will leave this place and go home. He hasn’t thought of that for a while.