A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1780 - 1780: Demands of the Wind - Part 5

"...Then why have I no control of it?" Oliver asked.

"Control where?" Hod said. "With this?" He tapped his own head. "Is this what you attempt to control it with? Don't be a fool. You will end up falling down the same trap as me. That which is beyond perception – that which our mind cannot perceive. How could we rely on our mind to wield it?"

It was a good point, so much so that Oliver could not find an easy refutation for it. Though he still sat there, entirely dissatisfied.

"You don't like it still," Hod noted.

Oliver shook his head.

"Yet you will have to take responsibility for it. When you needed it, you found it. In holding Ernest as you did, you begged for that which was beyond you – now you have found what was beyond you. And its ingredients were in the very man who bore the request. You cannot ask for magic, and then turn it away when it inconveniences you," Hod said. "You must take responsibility.

Still, Oliver was silent.

"How much did it mean to you, that you stood and decided to defend Ernest in the way that you did?" Hod pressed.

"It meant everything," Oliver said, clenching his fist.

"How much did that victory mean?"

"It meant more than anything that I was given before. It was beyond me. I could not do that myself. I was defeated from the start."

"Defeated from the start and you still dared to ask for victory," Hod said. "Do you not see? These are the consequences of your own actions, your own wants. You pried open the doors. You turned your heart to the Gods, and you begged for them to show you a path, and indeed they gave you one. Take responsibility, Oliver Patrick. You might have enjoyed what you were before, but you can no longer return to it."

Oliver took in a deep breath. "Supposing what you say is the right of it, Minister, that what I bear now are the consequences of those actions—"

"More than that," Hod smiled. "Though you knew it not in your heart, I believe this to be what you truly asked for."

"Nonsense," Oliver said.

"You have ambitions that are quiet," Hod said. "I will not pry them out of you for the crows to feed on, for to be revealed before their time would be to tear you apart. But not all of you detests where you currently stand. A part of you, no doubt, feels overwhelming delight."

"...I will ignore that, for you already know full well that you are wrong, which is why you don't push the point. But I shall assume your first point, that this is payment for what I asked for in the battle with the Emersons. Then what is it I ought to do?"

"Carry the banner," Hod said. "Go beyond that which you are comfortable with. Suffer for that which you have awoken, and follow it to its conclusion."

"You say that, but you meant to ask something more concrete of me, don't you? You've rearranged this strategy, and you still have not declared why it is that I am to remain as a detached force."

"For that which Blackthorn asked us to pursue. His instincts aren't wrong. We need to find victory, and soon. His impatience is right, and I tell you why he is right to see it so. I can not defeat Tavar, I can only delay him. You, Oliver Patrick, will have to find victory."

Oliver's fist thundered against the table, and he ground his teeth hard enough that they could be heard over the roaring of the fire in the hearth. "You go too far Minister. That which you claim to see in me, it has passed a point. With all of you, it has passed a point. I was almost willing to humour you, almost – but now you put this on me? You think I have what it takes to defeat Tavar?"

"Not at all," Hod said. "I think we have what it takes to defeat Tavar, you and I. My capacity, at the very least, is enough to distract him. With Blackthorn to aid me, we can even begin to punish him, and we might even find some margin of temporary victory. But you are the extra weight on the scales. You, if you do as you have done, and you look to produce this magic, you will find that which is necessary for victory."

Hod pulled his fingers together, making a solid mass out of his two hands. "Together," Hod said. "You can merely wait, and watch, and find these opportunities that your instincts seem to excel in putting together. We will allow you that. The strategy of Tavar is that of a fortress – we might weaken a part of the wall, but he will only shift in retaliation and see it more properly defended. What we need is a single overwhelming attack, of the likes that he cannot respond to in a single instant."

Oliver leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the ceiling. He had to wonder whether he could do it. The immediate thought in his mind was "not a chance, you fool," but when it was that he dwelled on that, to the point that it grew to a dusty sort of redundancy and lost the energy that it once had, something else wormed in. When his mind was quiet, that little worming sense was strong, and it was certain. As Oliver lay relaxed, it seized upon him like a corruption, and it grabbed at him. Not only could they find it, did that thing declare, they would find it. And more than that – they delighted in the opportunity to be able to do it. There was nothing more that they had wanted than that.

"...You're such a fool, Hod," Oliver said.

"You're the first man since Tavar to dare to call me that," Hod said.