Usher's Passing

by Robert McCammon

Oh, he thought, if Edgar Poe only knew the rest of the story! If he only knew the real nature of the madness that brother Roderick had harbored!

and the Lodge—it always came back to the Lodge—immense and dark and silent, holding its secrets like a closed fist.

THE MOUNTAIN KING AWOKE when he smelled the sun coming up. He had no idea what time it was. Time meant nothing to him anymore. For him the clock had stopped long ago, and all hours were the same, the present destroying the past, the future crowding the present. He only knew that the bitter, chilly wind had died to a whisper and the sun was rising over the eastern peaks, its golden light smelling like wild strawberries.

It was a madman’s dream, Rix thought. No emperor, tsar, or king had ever owned such an ungodly monument to the spoils of war.