Alpheo was of the mind that lust for power is one of the greatest evils a man can swallow, for what true happiness can be found in sating one's thirst with poisoned water? Long ago, a younger, hungrier boy would have gulped greedily at every single sip of that bloody drink, but now? Now he had an entirely different desire spurring him forward: a better one.
Still, that lust never quite disappears from the world. It resides within most men, big and small alike; each of them possesses their own internal lake of ambition. Some lakes are bone-dry, while others are filled to the absolute brim, ready to overflow at the slightest stir of the water.
In the end, it is always those with the fullest lakes who end up drowning in them. And as Alpheo looked across the table, he realized that even the men of the cloth were entirely immune to that watery grave.
