The pestilence rages across the countryside, but in the palace Prospero entertains brilliantly. Hummingbird tongues and the finest Madeira please palates, and we dance away the hours while murmuring of our choices to replace the evil king.
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A man I admire greatly is coming briefly out of retirement to accept an unexpected invitation to mingle with the mighty this weekend. He will enjoy the ball and all its dainties. He will ignore the messengers bringing news of war, of riots, of financial ruin from the outer world. Royal credential pinned to his doublet, he is to be protected from all reality beyond the moat. Like the real lords he will pretend there is no ominous thumping at the gate. And he will, for this brief evening, be correct in doing so. Have not the Duchess Bachman and Lord Perry assured him that they know the incantations to ward off Satan's power?
The gives my dear old friend leave to stay the night, to arise on Saturday and deliver his own ultimately futile decision. That the good doctor from the far province of Texas should replace the king.
It will be ever so much fun, ne'er mind that lords beyond Ames will ultimately scorn the physician and choose a shaman to vie with the current crowned head.
And there will be other balls, laughter echoing from the gilded walls and unending waltzes from the musicians' balcony. My friend will not let his mind wander too far forward. One should not enervate one's system with premature concern for logical processes. Inevitability is a bore. Frightening, yet still a bore, so let others worry about the denouement.
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And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
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