began to race towards them. Then, with a muttered curse, Nartaka cut through the circle and simply disappeared.

Desperate now, she tried to slip out of her captor’s grasp, but he was holding her arm in a vice. Soon every participant in the circle was aware of the drama being enacted around them. A guard charged back towards them from the darkness beyond the circle. “He just melted into the ghats!” he exclaimed, bewildered. “One moment I had him, the next I was holding thin air!”

“Our Maharajah will be livid,” the leader of the guardsmen muttered. “The intruder wore the ancient mask of the priest-king, which disappeared during Shaardul’s reign…not even Lord Charaka knows who he is or how he got here.” He turned to Ishvari, numb with the shock...

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