A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 14: The Price of Power - Part 8

Soon, he was crawling back up the muddy path towards Dominus' feet, somehow his clothes having remained clean, yet his hands were covered in filth. He collapsed on a knee beside Dominus, a look on his face that indicated he was displeased in some way.

"What?" Dominus asked, after waiting in silence for a few moments, the only sound being Beam's heaving breaths.

"I've gotten slower…" Beam said, realizing for himself that it was true.

He knew his body rather well. And he was getting to know it even better over these past couple of days. This wasn't the first time he had been told to run by Dominus. He'd done it a couple of times over the past couple of days in various ways. Sometimes for speed and sometimes for endurance. But all the time it had been on relatively flat surfaces, places fit for running. Nothing like the course that had been set for him today.

But still, Beam could tell, he was slower than he had been the past two days. Not only had his dreams of getting faster not been fulfilled, but he'd actually gotten slower instead.

"How is that even possible?" He asked, with big round eyes, looking almost ready to cry. "How can I get slower after training so much?"

Dominus heaved another sigh, and flicked the boy on the forehead, somehow feeling almost as tired as the boy looked. "Fool," he said. "It's been two days. That isn't 'so much training'. Have you not endured a lifetime of pitiful progress? Why complain now?"

"I thought things would be different… 'cos they were on the stones."

"Gah… You kids are so damned impatient," he groaned. "Stand up, boy. That's enough running for now. Join me by the river."

"But I haven't done it three times…" Beam murmured, the fact of his failure digging into him again. The failures just kept mounting up and up.

"You'll have your opportunity. But today you are incapable," Dominus told him, his hands behind his back, as he gracefully leapt from foothold to foothold, as though gravity and the slick mud weren't an issue. Before Beam knew it, he was at the bottom, glaring at him impatiently.

The glare was enough to get Beam to speed up, despite his exhaustion. Besides, he already knew a way down now, so it was much easier than it had been before.

Dominus brought him to the side of the river that Beam had just crossed earlier, and he pointed at it. "Why does this river not flow straight, boy?" He questioned.

always were. But now that he was considering it, he supposed there must have been a time when the river wasn't there at all, and its formation must have been somewhat gradual. So why then did it end up where it ended up?

"Because of the ravine? Water falls into holes in roads, making puddles. I guess this is just kind of another hole that it fell into?" Beam mused.

"As true as that may be, that does not answer my question," Dominus said. "This river here springs up from deep within the earth and pours down the Black mountains from a source a few miles north of your village. Many thousands of years ago, this river will have merely been a trickle of a stream. So then, I ask, why did it widen? Why did its course change? Why did it end up where it is, and how it is?"

Beam scrunched his eyebrows and shrugged. "I don't know… It just… kinda… did?"

"Aha, despite that being a non-answer, you're closer than you think. The water simply flowed where it was easier for it to flow. Where the soil was softest, the banks of the river crumbled fastest and it widened there. It might suddenly change course after hundreds of years, after breaking through a mud bank further upstream. And so, the river flows where it's easiest for it to flow. It doesn't always move as a straight line."

"…I see," Beam mused, processing the information, having forgotten why it was brought up in the first place.

Dominus sighed seeing that, noticing the easily distracted gaze of a youth. "And as for your speed, it happened for much the same reason."

"You mean I got slower because that was the easiest route for it? But then, isn't it always easier for us to get worse at something?" Beam asked.

Dominus shrugged. "It isn't a perfect metaphor, for progress is not a river and a river is not progress. But as you grow older and you try your hand at more things, and you notice the patterns of improvement, you realize the acquisition and the progression of new skills follow much the same routes. There are times when you will be blessed with so much progress, it's as though the Gods have each granted you their blessing. And then there will be other times when you spend years stagnating in a single place, or even, as with your speed, you notice that it's gone backwards."

"Mm…" Beam said quietly.

"Of course – such a thing is only the case for normal people. The ingredient in making the river flow is struggle, that's what gives it its current. But in the end, the river will only flow where it might. Had you not been cursed, you would have noted such things as a result of your own struggle – you would have noted the winding path," Dominus said. "Now, perhaps, it will open up to you. But can you truly balance the seesaw between light and dark? Is your will strong enough to stand in both the shadow and the light? If you only grow your goodness, the darkness will rebel and it will consume you."