Wearing a monocle was not actually strange. Even wearing one over the right eye posed no problem.
-Of course, all of that depended on one condition: you had to be unaware of Amon's existence.
For anyone who knew the connection between a monocle and Amon, deliberately putting a monocle over their right eye amounted to imitating Amon on some level.
That imitation would cause a disturbance in fate, allowing Amon to detect it and immediately parasitize them through the powers of the Error Uniqueness.
Amon wore a monocle over his right eye. You wore one the same way. You = Amon.
The equation settled it instantly.
So, to Pallez, whether the fellow before him had been Amon all along no longer mattered. From the moment the other party put on that monocle, everything else became irrelevant.
He even made his peace with it.
What else could he do? Never mind that Amon would never specifically send a low-sequence avatar to parade in front of him. The mere fact that Amon had discovered him marked the end of this thousand-year game of hide-and-seek.
Had he been in Backlund, he might have gambled on this being merely an avatar of Amon and tried to draw a true god into intervening. Unfortunately, this was only Tingen.
Pallez Zoroast gave up resisting and waited for Leonard and himself to put on monocles in the next instant.
Heh, first he put the monocle on the left, making me think an old friend had come specifically to play a joke on me.
Just the sort of nasty trick Amon would pull...
Yet the seconds and minutes passed, and nothing happened.
Pallez did not awaken to the realization that he had been Amon all along, nor did Leonard put on a monocle.
*?*
What happened?
Utterly bewildered,