Thursday

Their oaken false teeth clacked ...

    Just as certain diseases have varying effects on their victims, so too the being radiated an evil that touched people in different ways. Two of the castle valets, men of hard and gray age, shook so hard their oaken false teeth clacked like wind shutters in a storm. One of the younger maids began to sing, words that sounded to Freddie, at a distance, like lines from an Italian opera. Something by Pollarolo? While another maid nearby shrieked in a savage, curse-like alien language no one understood, flinging words like "Ho dah, ha dibah!," at no one in particular, the maid right beside her slapped her own face as if fighting herself. A German noble, the Duke of Mecklenburg, clutched at his chest with a groan and fell to one knee just as a stunned castle guard dropped his musket to the ground, causing it to fire with such a loud report that it slammed the courtyard walls and broke two giant windows. And as the glass crashed loudly to the stones and the smell of gunpowder bit their nostrils, the assembled servants and nobles, mouths hanging open, instinctively stepped back. All of them knew this emissary from Hell to be the legendary spellcrafter and royal puppet master: 
    Mirza Yesun Temur.

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