His hands traced the outline of the eyes again and again, slowly and carefully. Marlleo's mind was a mess of buzzing, dizziness, and disorientation—with no room left to feel his body moving without his will, controlled by something else.
When a fragment of clarity came through, he tried to climb down from the sarcophagus at once, but his body would not move—it was fixed in place. He felt his hand still tracing the outline of the eye and tried to pull it away, but his commands could not seem to leave his mind; they were trapped inside him.
When his fingers had finished tracing the outline a few more times, the eyes began to glow intensely—so intensely that by reflex he tried to close his own, but they would not obey, staying open.
His finger grew hot, and a sharp pain traveled up his arm, rising slowly until it spread through his entire body; something was crawling beneath his skin, dragging itself through his muscles, sending small spasms through them. In his mind he was begging, trying to scream, hoping someone would help him.
The spasms grew and intensified until one of his squires noticed something was wrong and called out, asking if he was all right. Marlleo felt his eyes closing against his will—until they shut entirely and he was lost in absolute darkness, sealed inside his body.
The strange substance that had entered Marlleo's body kept dragging itself through him; by instinct, however, his body resisted and tried to repel it, with little success.
His body went rigid the moment he felt the intruder moving through him—it was climbing upward, heading toward his head.
He had no way to fight it, so he could only trust that his body would manage on its own, and it almost did, slowing the substance considerably—but it reached his head in the end. His vision clouded, his mind lost its footing, and he felt his limbs giving out beneath him as he collapsed under his weight.
Marlleo fell from the sarcophagus and rolled across the floor, gripping his head and crying out in pain, seeming to have reclaimed some degree of control over his body after the fall. That scream of agony brought everyone running—they gathered around him quickly, taking hold of his arms and body, afraid he might strike himself against something in his current frantic state.
No one knew what was happening to him. The squire's account was all they had: Marlleo had climbed to look at the top of the sarcophagus, but the height of the sarcophagus was so great that the squire could not see what he was doing up there. He had waited patiently for him to call down. After a couple of minutes, the silence struck him as strange, and he called up to check on him.
When no answer came, he feared something was wrong and stepped back from the sarcophagus to get a view of Marlleo from the side. He was shaking, caught in spasms and odd movements, and the squire cried out in alarm—again with no response. Then Marlleo had fallen suddenly, and there had been no time to catch him.
Marlleo began to convulse in fits, twisting without control and struggling to pull his limbs free, needing two people to hold him down. He shouted, cursed, and fought while sobbing—fighting to survive, to hold against the intruder.
After that, he felt his thoughts slowing, some of them fading altogether until he could no longer feel—and finally, he was lost to the darkness inside him. Licerio crouched down and opened one of his eyes to check for any pupil response but found none.
Marlleo lay on the ground without moving. They confirmed at least that he was breathing, though barely—so faintly it was almost imperceptible.
"We're leaving. We have to get out and see to Marlleo's condition," Licerio ordered. "Everyone collect the object they chose, and let's go. López, carry Marlleo over to one of the objects, and let's hope he can leave by touching it."
This was not the moment to lose time, and everyone moved and followed Licerio's orders. López and Astor carried Marlleo to one of the more striking objects and laid him on top of it.
For the first few seconds nothing happened—then his body faded away with the object. That alone took a great deal of the weight off everyone's minds.
With the most pressing problem resolved, the rest gathered their objects and made for the exit, not before collecting what they could of the old books and attempting to take more than one object at a time. Since they had no way of knowing which ones held any power, each person tried to take as many as they could carry, hoping at least one of them would be the right one; in the end, they had no way of knowing which object was special—they could only go by condition and appearance.
Licerio and López were the last two to take their objects, making sure everyone had already left. Both took hold of theirs and waited through the few seconds it took to pull them out, looking at each other and hoping everything would go smoothly.
When their vision sharpened again, they were greeted by the place they had been standing before they entered the ruins. After confirming everyone was present and accounted for, Licerio let himself drop to the ground with a sigh of relief—and in his hand was a single pendant from the five objects he had grabbed. The pendant grew warm, and Licerio felt his arm going numb, the control of it becoming sluggish and slow. The effect vanished almost immediately, leaving him puzzled and unsure what to make of it.
He spent a few moments studying the pendant, trying to open the small sealed compartment attached to it. He tried to replicate whatever he had done to trigger it and passed it to others to try as well—neither approach worked.
Does it require some kind of ritual or condition to activate? Licerio wondered, turning the pendant over in his hands.
While he was doing so, Marlleo—still unconscious beside him—opened his eyes. White eyes. Eyes without pupils. No one seemed to notice. Licerio dropped the pendant to the ground in alarm as it suddenly grew hot enough to be concerning and looked around him, uneasy.
Beside him, Marlleo lay with his eyes closed again, resting peacefully. Licerio put the pendant in his pocket and asked Marlleo's two squires to take care of him and carry him the whole way back.
The return journey was much the same as the first, only slower—they had to hold their pace for the squires carrying Marlleo.
When they reached the village, they went quickly to retrieve their horses while a squire went to borrow a cart and mule from one of the villagers. To secure it, Licerio gave the squire a button with the family emblem engraved on it to give to the villager so he could come and claim a reward whenever he wished.
The journey back to the manor took a little over a day. There, they brought Marlleo straight to the manor's doctor to have his condition assessed.
He appeared to be in a coma—in a state of total rest, with a weak but steady breath. The doctor prepared a special bed in the room adjoining his own to monitor him closely.
Licerio finished handling the final details regarding the ruins—arranging a dedicated room for Lecaro to use as a research space, bringing in more people to assist him, and managing the storage of the objects brought out of the ruins.
Over two days, Licerio and Lecaro had uncovered a fair amount of information about the ruins. Though they had no way to test the use or quality of the objects, they could tell that the ones that had made it out carried some kind of power. When leaving the ruins, everyone had tried to take multiple objects, but each person had emerged with only one of significance—those who came out with more than one found the extras were nothing but junk.
They had not brought out many objects—only ten in total—but without any means of identifying their use or power, Lecaro had to focus his attention on a carefully chosen pair, guided by instinct. These were a silver chalice with several inscriptions on it, a bone coated in a yellowish paint, and a set of scales.
Marlleo's condition improved enough that his breathing returned to normal, though he had still not opened his eyes or responded to any external stimulus.
Over those two days, he had been fed porridge, milk, and broth—at least he was eating. Licerio knew more than most from his previous life; however, his knowledge on this was too thin—he knew the name of what Marlleo's condition might be called and a handful of possible causes he had once heard of.
Two days later, another royal envoy arrived. He also carried a decree from the king himself, along with a letter—though this time he was accompanied by two soldiers bearing the king's emblem.