A dark time will be had by all …

There’s something unnerving about the October north wind. It makes a wolf in the wilderness turn southward, in search of dangerous prey. It gets inside people, opening their minds to bizarre ideas and inclining them to violence.

Of course there’s the comet too, a spectacular one, tracked by ordinary people and by not-so-ordinary cult members.

Something’s gusting into Epsom, Minnesota. A witch feels it with dread. A Norwegian poet greets it with triumph. And Professor Carl Martell listens to its song with worry — because Martell cannot tell a lie, but he knows one when he hears it.