"I present to you a choice now. One, I execute you right here before you become a burden to the world around you. Or two, you yield to me for the next few days, whilst I test your worth and determine how great the risk is in keeping you alive," Dominus said.
"Then I will come with you," Beam said immediately.
Dominus raised an eyebrow. "Did you not just receive a promotion at your job?"
"I did. But it isn't worth very much if I'm dead."
Chapter 2 – The Price of Power
"This is really cold…" Beam noted with a frown. It was still dark outside. Still during the hour of the tiger. The sun wouldn't rise for another couple of hours yet, so there was nothing to heat the rushing cold water of the small mountainside river.
"Cold? Hah! This is pleasant, that's what it is. You know nothing about cold, boy. Wait till you get a few miles further north and get to the heart of winter – that's when you'll know about cold. Doing this in the early autumn when the warmth of summer is still kicking around? That's a treat, that's what that is," Dominus said back, as he waded deeper into the river, wearing nothing but his loincloth, aiming for the waterfall a little further upstream.
"Why… Why are we even doing this anyway?" Beam asked, fighting to get his words out after the cold took his breath away.
It had been two days since his meeting with Dominus. Two days since he had seen what to him was the equivalent of magic. And ever since then, the old man had done nothing but drag him along and command him to do the strangest of tasks. Beam understood that he wanted to test him, for fear that Ingolsol's curse would overtake him if he ever grew weak, but the tasks seemed more orientated towards testing his skill than anything else.
"Like I said, I want to see what you're worth," Dominus said, seating himself on the chiselled rock just behind the waterfall, so that its rushing waters slapped onto his differently coloured shoulders and tousled his short hair, threatening to fold him in half.
Seeing that, Beam was almost tempted to be grateful that it was at least a smaller waterfall they were doing this under. Had it been any bigger, then they really would have been folded in half – and Beam wasn't confident that Dominus wouldn't have commanded him to get under it anyway.
"That's what you keep saying," Beam murmured despondently. He had to swim now, as the water grew increasingly deep the closer they got to the waterfall's plunge pool. Now that he was fully immersed in the chilly morning water, it wasn't quite as bad, but it was still incredibly cold, and he was waiting for any excuse to go rushing out.
In the past two days, alongside those words, stating that 'he wanted to see what he was worth', Dominus had given Beam all manner of different tests. Or at least Beam had assumed they were tests. Dominus tended not to explain things fully.
First, he had made him lift the heaviest rock he could find. Or at least, attempt to lift it. Beam never managed to get it off the ground, yet Dominus hefted it to his shoulder easily.
Then, he had taught him the rules of a board game. Rules that Beam still didn't understand – for there were far too many of them. It was a game popular amongst soldiers and especially commanding officers. It aimed to simulate warfare, by giving each side twenty pieces of their choice in which to overpower their opponent's army and claim victory by slaying their general or routing the enemy force. In that too, Beam had been thoroughly crushed before he had been able to understand what was going on.
And then swordplay. The test for that had been short, and it cut the deepest for Beam. Even though it was two days prior, the scene kept flashing through his mind, and every time it did, he felt a wave of bitterness.
The swords test had only lasted a matter of seconds. He'd faced off against Dominus with a similarly sized stick in the place of a sword, and Dominus had commanded him to give his best shot at landing a single strike on him. But all Beam had managed was a single swing. He'd thrown it as best he could – or at least he thought so – but Dominus had stopped the strike and thrown him to the ground with such contempt that he was starting to have doubts himself.
After that, he wasn't given another chance to prove his worth with the sword.
"Well, you have absolutely no talent with the blade. It would hurt my eyes to see you swing it any further," Dominus had said, shaking his head with a sigh.
Beam could only grit his teeth and clench the dirt in his hands as his back still throbbed from where Dominus had thrown him. "…These are sticks though," had been his weak attempt at saving his pride.
Those were the words Dominus said, yet in his mind, he saw things differently. As he turned away from the downed Beam, he felt a tingle run through his fingers.
It was no lie that Beam was unskilled. He had no real skill in anything to speak of, as a result of the curse of Ingolsol. Yet seeing him swing a blade was a chilling experience for Dominus. There, frozen within subtle movements, the old knight could see the barest glimmerings of proper talent – a talent that reminded him of Arthur.
Dominus had to shake his head to himself as he walked away. To have such talent and yet to be cursed never to be able to use it, there was cruelty in that, such relentless cruelty.
Of course, he would not say such words to the boy. He wanted to test his mind as much as his skills, to see how he could hold up against anger, to see how the darkness within him would stir when given enough room to move.