Character
Markus Telus
Wizard-censor of the Ark
Markus Telus was one of the Ark's three censors, called the scholar, and one of the greatest wizards who ever lived. He built his palace on Tyrena, the island that later took his name.
An old man with white hair, a jeweled staff, and the Ark's white-and-blue robes with gold sleeves, Markus preferred demonstrations to entrances. At dinner, he could turn the wine in every guest's cup into a doorway, walk through it, and let the wine settle behind him. Cerberan wizard robes copied that older style.
His family's ruin began with his second son. Commode Telus courted Anastasia Varanov, got her with child, murdered her, and arranged Vlad's condemnation; in one night he made both the Minotaur and, on the scaffold a week later, the first vampire.
Antoine de Cerberus brought him what he had seen. Markus stopped trusting his advisers and investigated alone. He found Commode at the center of it and chose the house over the truth: Vlad's sentence stood, and Commode went to the lighthouse, then into exile on Brazzant, without a word made public. He then ordered the hunt that failed to kill Vlad Varanov. His justice removed his son from the Ark but left every consequence alive, and it cost the Ark its best paladin.
Three centuries later, Cerberan agents killed the Minotaure beneath Telus. Markus declared them Heroes of the Minotaur, blessed by Archon, and ordered a scribe to preserve the story with the explosives omitted. When they asked him to support Florentus Telus's land bill for veterans, he agreed. It cost him little and made an enemy of Censor Crassus.
The bill became part of Gérard Alois's design. Florentus was later murdered, and Markus went to war against the rival censor blamed for his grandson's death. The Ark began tearing itself apart before Cerberus landed an army.
Telus became the main front of the invasion. Markus fell there against Gérard Alois, the Varanovs, and Brisé. The surviving records disagree about which Varanov fought him, but his death was what convinced Sylla to unleash Total Destruction.