A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I am in disagreement with that, but I shall accept your decision, my Lord," Verdant said.

"…You coddle Ser Patrick far too much. What he needs is a kick in the rear, and a point of the finger in a new direction," Greeves said. "He's been mopping far too much lately. First with Nila, and then with something else. It's depressing to watch."

"Come on now, you've finally managed to put the bottle away from your lips for the first time in years, and now you're preaching?" Oliver said hotly.

Greeves laughed at that. "Aye, you're a cruel little bastard, Ser Patrick. That there's the hero of Solgrim? I ain't convince.d. That's just a normal man."

"Sorry to break the illusion," Oliver said.

"Naw, you know my policy. I would never have served a man with sunshine shining out of his arse," Greeves said. "I don't understand such men. But sometimes, I reckon I can understand you. You're stuck for something, ain't you? That's why you're mopping.

You want to be doing different things, instead of sitting in one place thinking, though. Thinking never gets you all the way. You need thought, and action."

"Enough of that," Oliver said, pulling himself out of his seat in a hurry. "You know you're in a bad spot when Greeves of all people starts to lecture you. I have done my part here, merchant, so I'll take my leave. I'll be trusting in you to see that this gamble doesn't all blow up in our faces."

"Could do with a little less trust, and a little more action…" Greeves grumbled.

It is odd what a man does, when he finds himself stuck on a problem. An earnest man, at least, one genuinely in pursuit of the overcoming of his problem. When one grows too tired for thought, the strangest of ideas start to take hold, and the man has no rational grounding in which to refute them.

Oliver found himself all the way in the Black Mountains. He had wandered past where he had once camped with Dominus, and he had looked upon the stones that he had once lifted, before trying out the heaviest of them, and grumbling his satisfaction at the ease in which it had shifted.

And then he had found the ravine that Dominus had once made him sprint across several times. He recalled the brief moment of grace he'd felt, when one step had aligned with the next, and he seemed to be operating not against gravity, but in tandem with it, creating a movement that would have been impossible with its assistance.

Now, that ravine did not even require the use of his hands. It had rained the night before, and the mud was slick, but even as it gave way beneath Oliver's feet, it did not send him into a panic. He used the extra speed lent by it to hop onto a section of grass, and then nto another mud slope, until he was skidding all the way down to the bottom.

He'd grin with the ease of it all. "That's what progress is meant to feel like," Oliver said to himself, satisfied. When one obstacle became a springboard with which to confront that next. There was an explosion of momentum there, only possible because there had been an obstacle in the first place. It was a speed that would have not been achievable, in a flat world devoid of difficulty to be overcome.

Soon enough, his feet found their way to the stream that he had Dominus had frequented. He recalled the cold winter's mornings, swimming in its freezing waters, and he recalled how he had once trusted in the sensation of that cold to see a solution for his battle with the Hobgoblin. It had hardly worked back then. It had only been the barest sense of an idea, but it had been something.

Dominus had spoken, many times, of progress being like a river. And when he had done so, he had pointed towards that mountain stream, and all its different sections. To Oliver, that stream was not simply like the River of Progress. It was the River of Progress itself. It was the heart of all things, the very birthplace of what had been his transformation.

Its clear waters had a mystical quality to them, as he put his hand in their depths. It almost felt like he was being overwhelmed by knowledge that he would never have any chance of understanding. He sat like that, with a vague yearning, not entirely sure what it was he was searching for.

He wanted to be a better leader – to command more adeptly on the battlefield, but he didn't have the slightest clue how he might achieve that.

It felt like a gulf as deep as the ravine that he had crossed. He wondered if that was what Dominus had felt, when he eyed up the Sixth Boundary and contemplated its crossing.

But for Dominus, it had been even worse. He had no examples to go on, for none had crossed the Sixth Boundary before him. He was well and truly directionless. However, Oliver knew himself to have no such excuse. There was Karstly, there was Khan, there was Blackwell, there was Skullic – who he hoped to be meeting shortly enough – and there was, he supposed, Hod too, and Volguard.

Though the latter could be called a strategist only, Oliver had a feeling from Hod that he was more than that. He was the Pillar of Logic, after all. When he had spoken in defence of Oliver at his trial, he'd been able to move the entire room. Was that not a subject of Command?

Oliver thought it to be so. He thought that same Command could be applied to all matters involving people. Or at least he hoped so. He'd felt a degree of its stirring in his battling with Ferdinand, when he had intentionally stirred him and the opposition to an anger, by virtue of Greeves' plan. There were the vaguest connections to them all. Some sort of balancing point that had to be navigated.