Licerio took a step back without taking his eyes off Marlleo. His legs felt ready to give at any moment, and he was edging steadily toward the door. His hand groped behind him for the handle without breaking his gaze. He searched and searched and found nothing.
He started smiling nervously, then wrenched his body around—betting everything on getting out—but when he looked toward where the door had been, it was gone. Only one wall.
Licerio turned his head back to Marlleo and stared at him, his breathing unsteady. All color had left his face, his expression gone cold and tight, his gaze low. The most striking thing was Marlleo's right eye—the one that still had its pupil. It now looked as though a film had been drawn over it, clouding it, hiding it.
"What did you just do?" Licerio asked, after managing to summon some composure.
"Nothing special. Just a small trick. Quite ordinary."
"You're a theurge—and a powerful one by the look of it. Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what? Let us talk, as you wanted. Sit down," he said, gesturing to a chair beside Licerio.
Licerio could not make sense of the being inside Marlleo and could only hesitate—afraid, watchful, guarding every second. His gaze slid to the chair, and after a few seconds he sat.
"Let us introduce ourselves properly so we can speak more comfortably. I am Licerio Bareo, baron of the lands of Lisea and Rosea, belonging to the kingdom of Caslea."
"Not very comfortable to introduce oneself in chains." As Marlleo said this in his rough voice, the chains dropped all at once—passing straight through him as though he were not there—and struck the floor with a loud clatter. "I am a theurge."
Licerio looked at the chains on the floor before speaking again. He had already decided to let the situation run its course and be carried along by it; if anything happened, he would deal with it then. He had no capacity to oppose anything right now.
"If I may ask—what law do you follow?"
"You want to know?" he smiled. "I am a being of concealment."
Something clicked for Licerio, and many things began to fall into place. So the missing lock on the chains, my soldiers, the door… He nodded inwardly.
"How does that work?"
"It should be fairly obvious—are you an idiot?" Marlleo raised an eyebrow, then said in a tired tone, "I can conceal things from the world. The door, physical forms, existence itself—anything can be concealed. I can even hide something from the entire world."
Licerio sat stunned, not quite sure how to take what he had just heard. He had deduced some things already from knowing the man followed the law of concealment, but his deductions now fell well short of the truth.
Inevitably, it made him tremble—made him feel how utterly weak he was before the being inside Marlleo. He could barely grasp the extent of its powers, and if it chose to use them against him, he knew he would die. It was dangerous, and that did not seem to cost it much effort. He could not run either. He felt his breath shortening, struggling to breathe normally, his heart pounding loud enough to hear, every part of him wanting to bolt from the room.
All of it was cut short by the sound of an aged voice rising from Marlleo, filling the room, its weight settling over everything.
"Fear is natural—difficult for an ordinary person to conceal. It is good that you know fear." Marlleo's body settled into the chair. "Calm yourself. Now we can speak in peace." His right eye slowly returned to clarity, the pupil coming back into focus.
Licerio hesitated—though it was largely pointless; he had no other option at that moment, and he thought he understood what the being in Marlleo had meant when it said they could now speak in peace.
"You may begin, young one."
Licerio spent a full two minutes organizing his thoughts and working through the recent chain of events. He also had to choose his questions carefully so he would not regret them after asking.
Though two questions had been firmly lodged in his mind since the moment he had entered the room and seen Marlleo's state.
"Is Marlleo all right?" The words came out harder and colder than he had intended, despite trying to hold them back.
"That boy is fine. Right now he is quite happy hearing how much you worry about him."
The eyelid of the eye with the pupil clenched shut, as if trying to hide itself from the world out of embarrassment.
That did not escape Licerio, and he smiled with quiet amusement. So when both eyes are different, it means both of them are present at once, he theorized.
"Will he be in danger while you are in his body?"
"Perhaps. If he trips and falls, am I to blame for that?"
Licerio's lips pressed together, somewhat irritated by the way the being answered him. It understood what he meant but preferred to twist the question and respond with whatever it liked. Even so, it had answered him—Marleo would not be in danger because of it.
"Were you inside the sarcophagus in the ruins?"
"I am still inside the sarcophagus."
Licerio was confused and was about to ask what it meant, but the theurge's voice cut across him.
"My body is still in there."
What was that long pause for? It must be enjoying this tremendously, Licerio thought, frustrated. Not only did he have to be careful with every question, he also had to endure this strange manner of answering.
"Will your presence around us cause us any problems?"
"As long as I do not draw attention by using my powers openly."
From that alone, Licerio could understand a great deal; this ancient theurge before him was a significant opportunity but also a significant danger—though one that seemed fairly manageable. From its tone and its words, he understood it would rather not be found.
"You were hiding… weren't you?" he asked slowly, leaving the question unfinished, then watched Marlleo's face closely.
"Yes. They are hunting me—to devour me."
Licerio looked at Marlleo confused as his mind seemed to fracture. A deafening ringing filled his head, growing louder with every second. He touched his face and found the tips of his fingers soaked in blood.
He was bleeding from all seven openings—a heavy, rushing flow. His head reeled, and he felt himself close to falling. One hand pressed against his forehead, the other gripped the chair firmly, fighting to keep himself upright.
He fought to keep his eyes open, coughing blood, feeling his head on the edge of bursting. Then an aged voice rang in his ears, pushing everything else momentarily aside.
"It seems you did not die immediately. It seems you truly are something interesting."
One of Marlleo's eyelids twitched wildly; then his face contracted, his lips pressed together, and his body began to tremble.
"Settle down. I will save him," he murmured.
Marlleo's body moved a hand, and Licerio's condition improved quickly. The ringing in his mind eased, and the blood stopped pouring freely from every opening. Even so, it took several minutes to fully stabilize.
When it was over, he tried to ask what had happened—but the words would not come. He did not know what to ask. He knew the old man in Marlleo would not give a straight answer to anything too broad; the question had to be precise, with no room left for misdirection.
He had shaped the question in his mind—but the moment it formed, the ringing returned, building rapidly in force, and Licerio felt the sharp headache come back and blood begin to flow from his nose again. This time it was less severe, but it was worsening quickly.
"You must be very eager to die," Marlleo's body sighed. "Stop thinking. Just focus on me."
Licerio tried to bring his full attention to Marlleo, fighting through both the physical and mental pain, and emptied his mind of every thought. It took considerable effort.
A few moments later, Licerio drew in a long breath and let it out slowly through his mouth. He appeared to have come close to dying twice in quick succession—both times very close indeed.
"What happened to me?"
"You almost died twice in a row. You heard something you were not meant to hear, and your mind tried to understand it. It could not. It nearly came apart from the inside. That is how knowledge works, little one. It is not for everyone."
Licerio could only fix him with a resentful stare. If you already knew that was going to happen, what were you trying to accomplish by almost killing me the first time?
"What do you want to achieve by entering my knight's body?"
"Neither you nor your knight are anything special—though now it seems you may be something after all. You were simply stupid enough to put your hands where you should not have. What happened is that your knight touched the runes I had prepared in advance."
"Two more questions. Will you always take control of my knight's body? And what should we call you?"
"No — this was a special circumstance. If I did it regularly, I would only be inviting death to my door. As for the second question: call me Telón. Though it would be better never to say it aloud in public. If you need to tell me something, speak to Marlleo. I will hear it."
With that, Telón rose and went to collect the chains and shackles from the floor. With a simple motion, the chains seemed to dance around his figure, settling back into place on their own, and he returned to the chair and sat. He smiled and closed his eyes.
When they opened it, much had returned—both of Marlleo's eyes had their pupils back, the soldiers were present again, and the door was there.
"What just happened, my lord?" López asked, confused, moving to Licerio's side.
One moment he had been standing beside him. In the blink of an eye he had vanished, and now Licerio was sitting in a chair a little way off.
Licerio could not answer that either; many minutes had passed during his conversation with Telón, yet his knight seemed to find only his brief disappearance strange.
"You didn't notice anything unusual during all that time?" Licerio asked, irritated.