But the fire-eater’s eyes had become murky ponds and only quivered with fear and revulsion—until at last they went completely blank, and Dravidian set about reviving him with a fevered intensity, alternating, in the manner in which he’d been trained, between blowing into his mouth and pumping his chest. And it was at that moment that there was a commotion on the shore and the sound of someone running along the planks toward them. An instant later a boy burst from the fog, and, seeing Dravidian looming over the dying man, stopped dead in his tracks ... before a pair of sentries arrived with a rattle of armor and wrestled him back into the gloom. But not before he’d swept up the blue scarf and his eyes met Dravidian’s square on and he shouted, “A curse on you for killing my father! A curse o
