A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 341: The Will of Men, The Will of Gods - Part 2

"So what now? Will you overpower him?" Desebel asked. "That would be quite the drama, do you not think?"

"Would that I could," Ingolsol sighed, though he didn't look too disheartened. "My will grows in him. The fragment he bears of me has been given a voice. It talks to him. I can hear it whisper. Simple words, maddening words, but they have an effect.

I suppose I better commend Francis for finally being useful, and granting the opportunity."

"He's probably going to die," Desebel pointed out. "Does that not ruin the game for you?"

"If he dies, he dies. I will still have my moment. As he is now, his death would let me reach that princess, if only for a moment. Ah, how startled she will be. I can't wait to see it," Ingolsol said, laughing heartily.

"You still love her," Desebel noted.

"Have I ever denied it?" Ingolsol asked.

"No." Desebel said, as she looked away, uncomfortable, searching for a change in topic.

"What of Francis? Will you reward him for the good work he's done for you?" She asked.

"Reward him?" The question made the God go silent for a moment, before he boomed his laughter. "Of course not. I'm not some dog to come when people prepare treats for me."

"Then why did you give him power in the first place?" Came the obvious question.

Ingolsol merely shrugged. "I thought it would be amusing – and it was. Anyone willing to do what he did to his own family… his own lover… mm, that must be a fellow madly craving power, would you not say?"

Desebel sighed. "So petty."

He grinned at that, and said nothing. It was as though the words delighted him. Silence returned once more, as he returned to watching the mortal realm, and Desebel did all she could to overhear him.

"ANTS!" Came Francis' cry again. He'd said the word several times over, as two of the most powerful Gods listened in on him, along with an entire village full of people.

Even with an army behind him, he could not contain his fury.

They were not kneeling. None of them were. This was not how it was supposed to go. It was not what happened back then – back when he'd first gotten his power.

Back then, the conditions were different. His sacrifices gave so willingly in to despair that they begged that he kill them. And then Ingolsol had responded. The whole room had filled with a dark light. It was an incredible thing, a confusing thing – for it was light of the darkest black.

One might argue that, being black as it was, pitch black, then it couldn't have been light. It was merely an absence of light – it was that which drank in light. It was darkness.

Francis knew differently, for he'd been there, and he'd bathed in it. He'd felt the darkness swim over his skin. It had a shine to it. A shine that wasn't seen with the eyes, but rather felt with the soul. Something that smelt of fear, that contained its ingredients, but wasn't quite related to it either.

With it, he'd felt the presence of something powerful, he'd felt a cascading movement of power itself, coming from a seemingly bottomless source, and endless well. He'd known in that moment that such a well, such a being – that was certainly the most powerful entity in the universe.

And now, despite all his preparations, despite all his effort, he felt none of that.

Of course, Ingolsol's presence was there – he felt it. He knew it. It made his bones ache, like an arthritic sensing poor weather. Ingolsol was here, and he was watching, as he was sure other Gods were. But none could peer through that shield of darkness other than he, his Lordship, Dark God of Despair, Ingolsol.

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This wouldn't be good enough for him, Francis knew there.

He was a clever man. He'd always been a clever man. If something was not working, he would not lie to himself and insist that he was. He moved on a very particular set of facts – a strange, and possibly mad worldview, for true, but a worldview that had afforded him as much power as he currently had, the power to have a whole village burst into flame with a single click of his fingers.

And yet why did they not kneel? Why were they still standing there, cautiously, tensely, without even a backward step, as though they meant to fight him?

What was that boy that they all insisted on shouldering forward, that they all kept glancing to, as though he was the centrepiece in some massive art gallery.

He didn't understand it. Francis was far from the laws of society. He didn't feel the same conformist gravities that afflicted them, so he was unable to tell what it was that made a man kneel, that made lovers fall in love, that made children choose their friends. He was a stranger to it all. He was a stranger to people in general.

He could not see it, he could not understand it, and thus he raged against it.

He clicked his fingers for what must have been the fifth time, and once more a barrage of icicles shot and that encampment.

There were fifteen of them, and that was where those three knights were gathered. He still insisted on calling them knights in his head, for he knew the auras. He would not fall for their tricks in suggesting that the boy was no knight at all – for none but a knight would give off the strong scent of Claudia's love, of her blessing.

He knew that, for he had sought such a thing. He was no peasant either – he was a man of the Serving Class. He was an entirely different species to the mere peasantry. To suggest that a peasant could receive Claudia's favour when all his efforts had failed, it was beyond insult, beyond lies, and pure, deafening folly.