Namor felt a hammering of excess strain at his temples, thus he knew that he was still alive. He opened his eyes wide, taking in a scene far removed from the one he had left, though how he left it he could not say. The cities of the surface-world were not Atlantean, a point which Namor remarked upon, sometimes explicitly, as he moved through them—but they were not unknown to him. Where he was now, amongst the shadows created by a circular swirling emblem over the one large window in the room, defied comparisons, for it was unlike anything Namor had even seen before. There were urns topped with flickering flames, there were tall candles flanking ancient books, themselves elevated on pedestals, and there were eyes—odd, alien, idol eyes peering out at the Atlantean king here and there—like novel stars set in an unknown night.
A movement of limbs caught his attention. He looked warily to it, knowing as he saw Doctor Strange in the flesh that it was somehow the sorcerer's doing that he was now where he was. Strange was busy wrangling the arms of the Scarlet Witch, who stood, but barely, swaying, like a shot animal, moribund but refusing against all to be captured. This task of Strange's seemed manageable enough, yet it remained something he could not master—his arms moved wearily as if underwater, and his aim was poor, his hands always arriving at the place where the Witch's arm had just left. Namor, making his way over to these two from some feet away, noticed Strange's fatigue plainly in the lined face, the ringed eyes, the drooping cheeks, all presented in stark contrast to the tall, erect points of the his cloak and the imperial flow of blue cloth he was costumed in.
The Scarlet Witch's writhing arms increased their flow. Now moving over with urgency, Namor saw her eyes twitch, and, in order to defuse another painful round of taking blows, laid the Witch down on the floor with hurried care.
Bending over her, Strange closed his eyes. He ran a hand, the two middle fingers folded into the palm, over her face, relaxing it. Next, he slowly removed the pointed headpiece she wore, loosening, as he did so, her brown bound curls, which fell and fanned out on either side of a face that slept so peacefully that Namor was hard pressed to find the maliciousness of his former adversary in the innocence with which it beamed.
"Is she out?" Namor asked.
Strange first sighed, prolonging his explanation. "She's spellbound, but I don't know for how long. As soon as my strength returns, we'll have to act quickly."
These words rippled through Namor's body, pumping blood into his tensing muscles. Work for Namor meant, of course, physical exertion. He did not nor could not understand why Doctor Strange rose only to light more candles and light incense at several, what looked like, altars behind which were either masks bearing, to Namor's conservative tastes, hideous aspects, or else undecipherable words, if that was what they were, painted on yellowing scrolls which he could see now that there was more light penetrating the darkness.
Namor found his stored energies released in a twisting search he made of the room, not as one marveling, but as one in desperate need of finding something beautiful, something comforting, something recognizable amongst the frighteningly exotic.
Doctor Strange, having completed his lighting task, and having taken a breathful second to inhale and enjoy the clouds of sandalwood now heavy in the air, rejoined Namor, completely at ease where his guest was wound tightly.
"I welcome you to my Sanctum Sanctorum," said Strange. "All these artifacts you see are trophies of a sort, the physical remembrances of battles fought and won. I wish we had the time, I could tell you the story behind each one." Strange then returned to the Scarlet Witch's side, lowering himself into a lotus position with a moan.
"Of course," he continued, "some of the most important battles have no trophies to commemorate them. Life simply goes on, while no one is the wiser—but you. The name Dormmamu probably doesn't mean anything to you?" he asked, pausing and looking to Namor who continued his restless inattentiveness. "Well, he was a force that threatened life in many different dimensions. Through great pains and sacrifice, I cast the Dread One into the Void Between Dimensions—and yet I have nothing to show for it. Imagine overcoming the obstacles around Neptune's Trident, without winning the Trident itself!"
Namor turned violently to Doctor Strange. "You have been spying on me!" he said.
Doctor Strange's reply was an uplifted hand, which eventually found its way over his eyes. He took a long breath before admitting: "It's true I look into many realms, trying to avoid disaster where I can. If I have ever peered into Atlantis, it was only to observe a potential threat. It is no different then the attention you give my world. You're here because you're prying into our affairs."
Namor's loud huff inaugurated a period of silence, which was broken by the louder entrance of Rintrah, Doctor Strange's minotaur assistant. He opened a door facing the window, which Namor, hemmed in, as he was, by such oddities, had failed to notice, carrying a steaming china cup and bowl of sugar upon a tray. Now that the silence was wounded with the noises of everyday life, Doctor Strange performed its death stroke, addressing Namor: "As if catastrophe was your problem alone, or my problem alone—the defense of life is really our problem, jointly. We heroes don't see boundaries."
While Strange mixed his tea, Namor said not a word. He did, however, watch Rintrah intensely, speaking volumes with his haughty looks, and turning his head, all but his narrowed eyes, away from the minotaur the closer he came.
"Allow me to introduce you," said Strange. "This is my servant—"
"Protégé," said Rintrah quickly.
"…Rintrah."
"Hello," said Rintrah to Namor, with natural congeniality. The furred hand he offered hovered unpartnered midair.
"If she is an Avenger," said Namor, as if Rintrah were absent, "then why haven't they tried to claim their own?"
"I don't know the answer to that," said Strange, holding the tea before his lips. "I also don't think the Avengers know what's going on, or even how to deal with this. They mean well, of course, but—"
Strange finished this thought with an inarticulate sip of tea. Even without its ending, Namor felt, for the first time, something of a kinship with Doctor Strange, if not as a friend, then as someone else who was as distrustful, even critical, of the world's premier superhero team.
"It's too hot," said Strange, softly to himself. The worry this caused Rintrah was written on his face. Such worry then turned bitter when Rintrah watched Namor, nonchalantly, flick the cup still in Strange's hand. "Try it now," said the Atlantean.
To Doctor Strange's amazement the tea he now tried for a second time was the perfect temperature for drinking. "Remember, Doctor," said Namor, "what you can do with the mind, I can do with water."
While Strange finished his drink, Rintrah exited, mocking Namor's words and posture with a mute movement of his lips and a scrunching of his wet, black, bovine nose. Upon the draining of the cup, Strange reached up into the air, in the absence of a flat surface, and let the cup rest there, which it did as stationary as if it had been set down on something stable. His hands now free, he turned toward the sleeping Scarlet Witch. "I'm strong enough to make the journey into her mind," he said.
"Then there is nothing more for me to do here," said Namor by way of reply, making a motion to leave.
"You must stay," said Strange, alarmed.
"My world is being threatened, and you want me to stay here and watch your…séance?"
"You've seen how this psychic takeover can result in very physical confrontations. While my astral form leaves this plain, my body will remain here unprotected—"
"I am to act as your body guard now!"
"You're to act as this world's defender. This rescue cannot be done without my finesse and your strength. Namor, you are needed here."
Namor agreed with the slightest nod.
Strange's long, sonorous incantations followed, a long, timeless period in which Namor began to think over the events of the last twenty four hours—events enough to fill a week!—and to feel exceedingly exhausted from all that had already happened. At a point when Namor's mind, grown so chaotic it was clear, had wandered away from Strange and his incomprehensible domicile, Namor saw an aura surround Strange, an aura of far more intensity than Namor had before witnessed, a golden aura that made Namor think, though his common sense argued against it—desperately, for it was on the losing side—that it was a new sun which rose before him. This same dawning, Namor saw, had spread—it surrounded the head of the Scarlet Witch as well.