Ushers Passing

by Robert McCammon

Chapter 44

 

  SOBBING AND TERRIFIED, THE LITTLE BOY HAD SEEN A CRACK OF LIGHT at the end of a long, black tunnel. He ran toward it, his knees bruised from falling down a stone staircase. There was a gash across the bridge of his nose, and his eyes were swollen almost shut from crying. He reached the light, which edged beneath a door with a rough, splintery surface. His hand searched for the knob, found and twisted it.

  He burst into a cold room with walls and floor of uneven gray stones. Two torches guttered on opposite walls, casting a dim orange light with long, overlapping shadows. Somebody was here! he thought. Somebody would find him at last! He tried to cry out, but his voice was a hoarse rasp. He had screamed his throat raw during the eternity that the Lodge had sealed its corridors and redirected its staircases behind his back.

  But there way no one in the chamber. Someone had been here, though. They'd lighted the torches and then gone to look for him. He could wait right here, and somebody would be back to find him.

  He was exhausted from running into walls, struggling with doors that refused to open, feeling his way along corridors that had taken him deeper into a world of cold and silence. He could see the gray mist of his breath before him in the chamber, and he shivered, wrapping his arms around himself for extra warmth.

  And in the torchlight, knives of different shapes glittered on wall hooks over a long, dark-stained table.

  On one side of the room was what looked like a metal bathtub on wheels. Above it, dangling on a chain that hung from a rafter, was something shrouded with a long black cloth. Big hooks with sharpened points hung at the ends of similar chains.

  In a corner of the room was a large, rectangular metal box with a hand-crank on it.

  The little boy walked toward the collection of knives. There were ten, ranging in size from one as thin as an icepick to one with a curved, sawtoothed blade. Next to the table was a grinding wheel to sharpen them with. The knives looked very sharp and well cared for. The little boy thought that the display belonged in a butcher shop. The tabletop was smeared with thick, encrusted scarlet clots. On it was a roll of brown wrapping paper and a ball of twine.

  He approached the metal bathtub. The liquid in it was dark red. It was the color of one of his mother's favorite gowns. The liquid smelled like the old Indian-head pennies in his treasure box.

  But in the liquid floated hanks of hair. Somebody got a haircut, he thought. Somebody got scalped.

  He looked up at the black-shrouded object that hung directly over the tub. The shroud's edge was only inches above his head. He raised his arm, touching the cloth. It felt damp and slightly greasy. He pulled at it gently, but it wouldn't give. The motion of his arm made the object creak back and forth on its chain. Something dripped down info the metal tub.

  Shouldn't touch, he thought. Shouldn't!

  But he put both hands on the shroud's edge and yanked sharply downward.

  It ripped and fell away.

  "I knew you were beginning to remember," Edwin said softy, standing behind Rix in the doorway. Rix stared blankly into the darkened chamber, but a pulse had begun beating harder at his temples. "When you told me the plot of Bedlam over the telephone, I knew it was coming back to you. Something must've triggered a memory - I don't know what. But when you mentioned the skeletons hanging in the basement of your fictitious building, I knew you were remembering what you'd found in this room, when you were a little boy. Yesterday, I was certain when you told me about the skeleton you kept seeing in your mind - and what you thought was a silver doorknob . . . "

  Rix released a quiet, agonized gasp.

  He remembered the black shroud ripping, falling away to the floor.

  The skeleton swung like a pendulum over Rix's head. There were still bits of flesh and muscle clinging to the bones, and its eyes were red holes of crusted blood and tissue. A hook had been driven through its back, and its mouth gaped open. The skeleton was about Rix's size.

  He had backed away and slowly collapsed to his knees as the grim visage of death continued to swing back and forth, the chain rattling. Then he had fallen on his side, curling his knees to his chest, his eyes sunken and staring.

  "I found you in here," Edwin said. "I told you to stand up, and I held you in my arms. I made you forget what you'd seen, and I took you out of the Lodge. I didn't want you to find it, Rix. I was trying to find you first, but it was the body of a boy I'd taken the same day you and Boone came into the Lodge. I hadn't had time to prepare it properly. "

  Rix's bones had become a cage of ice. He knew where he was, and who was with him, but he couldn't concentrate beyond Edwin's soft, soothing voice. Images streaked through his mind like meteors: the Rastafarian cabdriver's skeleton earring, the plastic skeleton that Boone had hung in the Quiet Room's doorway, Sandra's hair floating in the bloody bathtub. He remembered what had happened here, he remembered Edwin being with him, he remembered the small hand reaching out to cover the silver button embossed with the face of a roaring lion . . .

  "It was later," Edwin continued, "that I realized I'd lost a button from my blazer. I found it in your treasure box, the day I returned the furniture to your room from the Lodge. You must've twisted it off that day, and I think your mind fixed on it to block out what you'd seen. You were looking for it today, weren't you? I think that stupid trick Boone arranged for you at the De Peyser Hotel helped trigger your memory even more. '' He grasped Rix's arm and led him into the chamber. New followed dazedly, and the panther's advance forced Raven in.

  A match flared. Edwin began to light a series of oil-dampened torches set in the walls. His shadow grew larger. Orange light jumped and capered, flashed on the ends of the hooks that hung on chains from the ceiling, gleamed off the collection of knives over the bloodstained table, illuminated the metal bathtub and the rectangular box in the corner. As the light strengthened, Raven looked at New's face; his eyes were bright green, and he was staring straight ahead. She feared that he was already lost.

  There was a pile of clothes against the wall a few feet away. Raven stood looking numbly at the little sneakers, faded jeans, sweaters and shirts, socks and underwear.

  "This is where I bring them. " Edwin's voice curled silkily across the room, echoing off the stones. "Most of them I can find on Briartop Mountain. Sometimes I take one of the old cars from the garage you and Master Newlan found, Miss Dunstan, and I drive a safe distance, where no one's ever heard of the Pumpkin Man. It's no different from hunting small game. Except I'm slowing down now, and sometimes they get away. " He looked at Raven, a thin smile spreading across his mouth. "When I was a young man, I could freeze them at thirty yards. Stop them dead in their tracks. I could catch them within shouting distance of their houses. The landlord helped me refine the power I was born with, Miss Dunstan. I can even blind the people who come out to search for their lost children. They may look right at a footprint, and never see it. I can stand in a shadow, close enough to touch them, and they'll never know I'm there. "

  "You . . . bring the children here . . . and kill them. "

  "Prepare them," he corrected. "It's part of what the Bodanes do for the Ushers. " He crossed the room and stood with his hand on Rix's shoulder. "Can you hear me, Rix?"

  "Yes sir. " Pumpkin Man's in the woods, he thought crazily.

  "Something else has to be passed,' Edwin said, his face close to Rix's. "First the wand that was created for Hudson Usher's great-great-grandfather. Then the responsibility of Usher Armaments. Then the knowledge. For centuries, your ancestors have worshiped the landlord. The true landlord of this world, not only of Usherland. The wand was a gift, a symbol of trust given from the landlord. It will protect your life, Rix, but to fulfill that trust you must do as the landlord pleases. You're his hands, Rix. I'm his voice. He's given Usher Armaments to you, because of Walen's three children you're the one most suited to carry out what the landlord wants done. "

  Sandra's hair floated in the bloody water. P
umpkin Man's in the woods. Edwin was there to protect him, and he had always loved Edwin very much.

  "You can use the anger that's bottled up inside you for the landlord," Edwin whispered smoothly. "I watched that rage grow over the years. I know what you're capable of, and I think you're just understanding it yourself. There's a cold fire inside you, and you can use it for Usher Armaments. I've been helping you, all along . . . "

  "Helping . . . ?" Rix rattled.

  "Sandra," Edwin said. "She wasn't good for you, Rix. She was teaching you to use your anger in those books of yours. You were wasting a valuable resource that should be channeled through Usher Armaments. We talked over the phone, and I told her what I wanted her to do. I knew it would disrupt your writing. Do you understand that I did it for you?"

  A tear slid down Rix's cheek. "I . . . loved . . . "

  "That wasn't love. It was waste. What you're going to do for the landlord, for me, and for Usher Armaments . . . that's love. "

  Something twisted within New's soul. From a terrible distance, what the Mountain King had said to him started to come back: Evil . . . evil exists . . . evil exists to destroy love.

  There was a long, sliding sound in the corner beside the rectangular metal box, the bone-crushing machine that Edwin had been operating when Boone blundered into the Lodge early that morning. Edwin turned - and a bloody shape with a battered face rose up from the shadows. Logan's head twitched, and one arm dangled uselessly. His eyes were bright with madness. When he opened his mouth to make a pitiful, garbled noise, blood leaked from the corners.

  Edwin had brought him here from the woods two nights before, when he'd found Logan waiting for Greediguts near the rains of the zoo. He'd decided to give the boy a demonstration of the powers he used as the Pumpkin Man - abilities that Logan had as well, but that were still raw and unrefined in him. Here in this room, Logan had acted like a kid in a candy shop as Edwin let him examine the knives. Edwin had told him everything, and Logan had been stunned to realize that he could spend the rest of his life using those knives, and that even his own father and mother and his grandparents, too, had already given their approval.

  Edwin had sent him to the garage with strict instructions: he was to hold Kattrina there for the panther, but he was not to touch her. Logan's abilities were still apt to be affected by his passions, and Edwin had always liked Miss Kattrina; there was no need to defile her before the landlord's judgment was carried out.

  From the Gatehouse, Cass had watched Kattrina die. When Logan hadn't returned, Edwin had gone to the garage and found blood on the concrete. A tire-iron lay nearby; one end of it was bloody, with clumps of hair and scalp on it. The hair was not the color of Kattrina's. Edwin knew something had gone wrong, probably due to Logan's refusal to obey orders.

  Now, as Edwin stared coldly at the young man, he saw how much damage Kattrina had done with the tire-iron. Logan was a ruined masterpiece, and Edwin shook his head with disgust.

  "So," he said, "you dragged yourself back down here, did you?"

  Logan, grinning witlessly with blood dripping from his chin, shambled forward.

  "I was wrong about you," Edwin continued. "You don't have the discipline that's needed. I thought I could shape you . . . because I was just like you as a boy. But I was wrong, wasn't I?" He glanced quickly at the panther.

  Greediguts rose from its haunches and ran across the room toward Logan. With a blurred leap, it drove the young man to the floor. Logan's legs kicked, his mangled mouth making an awful choking noise. Raven put her hands to her ears and backed away until she met a wall. Around her feet were the children's clothes. The panther's jaws began to crunch bone, and Logan was silent.

  "I . . . loved . . . her," Rix whispered. Cold beads of sweat were surfacing across his face.

  Edwin watched the demonic panther feed on Logan's body.

  Then, satisfied, he turned toward Raven. "You'll be its next meal, Miss Dunstan. It's always hungry. "

  "New!" she whispered weakly. "Please . . . help me . . . "

  "Master Newlan has come home, where he belongs. He'll be the next Pumpkin Man. The landlord and I will teach him very well. You see, the Usher diet is very important. If they don't eat properly, the Malady ages them before their time. Hudson Usher and his brother, Roderick, and their father, Malcolm, were trapped in a caved-in coal mine in Wales. It was weeks before they were found. But Hudson and Roderick survived by . . . sharing their father between them. The Ushers are cannibals, Miss Dunstan. For years they got their meat from a butcher shop in Chicago. Uriah Hynd also served the landlord. But, alas, the Chicago Fire destroyed his business - and the man himself. "

  "They . . . eat . . . "

  "The children, yes. My wife makes a wonderful Welsh pie. "

  Her knees buckled. Before the Chicago Fire, she realized, there'd been no need for a Pumpkin Man. It was only after the fire, when the Ushers couldn't buy more human flesh, that the Pumpkin Man had come to Briartop Mountain.

  New's clenched fist felt an object in his pocket. Nathan's toy. This man had brought Nathan here, and carved the meat off his bones.

  His soul was shriveling. Everything, he thought. Everything . . . and all I have to do is use the magic. Evil exists to destroy love. Everything. All I have to do is . . .

  Satan finds the man, the Mountain King had said. It's not where you live, but what lives in you . . .

  Everything . . . use the magic . . .

  "Master Newlan?" Edwin offered his hand. "Come to me. "

  He tried to resist, tried to make his feet root to the stones.

  "Come to me. Take my hand. "

  New was pulled forward. His green eyes glowed like lamps, his face chalky and strained.

  "Come home," Edwin whispered. "Let the landlord love you. "

  Step by step, New approached him. He was powerless to turn away. Edwin's face hung in the orange light like a misshapen moon.

  Everything, he thought. Use the magic.

  Their fingers met. Edwin's hand clamped solidly around New's, and the older man smiled.

  New felt himself being dragged down, down into a volcanic pit; and in that steaming pit were images of hell: cities collapsing through tremendous fissures, blocks of stone crushing people running in the streets, exploding fireballs and mushroom clouds and charred bodies lying in tangled heaps, a scarlet sky full of missiles and rising screams that became the laughter of the thing that lived behind Edwin Bodane's face: a dark, leathery beast with yellow, catlike eyes and a forked tongue that darted out to taste the sulfurous air.

  "Come home," Edwin urged.

  New's mind was about to crack: Evil . . . evil exists . . . evil exists to destroy love . . . God help me . . . give you everything . . . use the magic . . . it's what lives in you . . . God help me . . .

  USE THE MAGIC!

  The snare! he realized. The smiling monster that was the Pumpkin Man had just put his arm into the snare!

  USE THE MAGIC! New shouted inwardly. He thought of Nathan being slaughtered here in this chamber, of the hundreds of children who had died in this room to be served on fine silver plates on the Usher dining table. USE THE MAGIC! Rage boiled in his blood, steamed through his pores, swept away the illusions of the rich life at Usherland like pieces of rotten tapestry. New's head cleared; he tightened his hand around Edwin's, felt the man's knuckles grind together.

  Edwin's smile froze. In his eyes was a quick red glint of fear. He started to wrench his arm away.

  USE THE MAGIC! New's hair danced with blue sparks.

  And from the jacket sleeve of his outstretched arm, the magic knife ripped loose of the tape that had held it to the inside of his forearm. It tore along his wrist like a projectile, leaving a path of scorched flesh.

  Before Edwin could deflect it, the magic knife drove itself to the hilt beneath his arm. It corkscrewed violently, powered by the sheer force of New Tharpe's rage, and as Edwin screamed and staggered
backward, the knife disappeared into his body like a drill, spewing bone and tissue. Edwin gurgled and danced as the knife continued to drive through his body; it exited from his back in a gush of blood and hit the stone wall so hard its blade snapped off.

  Edwin collapsed, but his body continued to writhe. His eyes were open, his mouth gray and gasping. Cold shockwaves of power crashed back and forth between the walls. The hooks swung violently on their chains. The knives left their wallhooks and ricocheted viciously from wall to floor to ceiling. One snagged Raven's jacket, another flashed past her face. The metal tub reared up from the floor and tumbled toward New, narrowly missing him as he leaped aside.

  A blade grazed Rix's cheek with a noise like a hornet. A trickle of warm blood ran down, and the pain cracked the ice that had closed around him. As he stared at the swinging hooks, reality flooded back into him. Edwin was the Pumpkin Man. Edwin had caused Sandra's suicide. Cannibalism kept the Ushers young, warding off the Malady as long as possible. The Ushers worshiped evil, and had built Usher Armaments as an altar to the force that lived within the Lodge - the great malengine that had gathered around him and shaped him to be fuel for the furnace of destruction.

  Edwin contorted on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. When a spasm jolted him, the shockwaves shook the walls. Like an animal snapping madly in its death throes, he was striking in all directions with his awesome, evil magic. The chamber's door blew off its hinges. The freezing crosscurrents of energy whipped back and forth, staggering Raven to the floor and throwing Rix against a wall as if he were caught in a hurricane.

  New heard Raven's warning cry, and as he whirled around the black panther leaped for him, its claws extended.

  He dodged aside, at the same time directing a burst of his own magic like a sledgehammer blow that struck Greediguts in the ribs and sent the beast hurtling against a wall. The panther scrabbled to its feet and attacked again, its eyes blazing with bloodlust.

  New stood his ground until the panther was almost upon him, and then summoned a burst of energy like an iron spike driving itself into Greediguts' skull. The panther howled in pain and was thrown backward, crashing into the metal tub. Again it leaped up, its muscles shivering.

  As the panther tensed for a third attack, New brought the table flying end over end and smashed it across Greediguts' back. The table was heavy, and New realized that much of his coiled strength had gone into driving the magic knife through Edwin Bodane. He was rapidly weakening.

  Greediguts rolled on the floor, snapping at its reptilian tail - and then jumped for New with a burst of speed he hadn't expected.

  He tried to aim another blow, but was drained like an overheated engine. As he flung himself to one side, talons ripped through his jacket and dug into his ribs. He cried out and fell to his knees, blood streaming down his side. Greediguts spun to face him, its tongue flicking out, and New saw the red flash of triumph in its eyes. The monster knew he was almost used up, knew his mind was now clouded with pain.

  Greediguts went back on its haunches to propel itself forward, and as its jaws opened wide to smash his skull, New smelled its breath of blood and brimstone.

  New glanced up. The hooks! he thought. If he could find enough strength . . .

  Greediguts suddenly rose on its hind legs and hurtled toward the mountain boy.

  New strained with every fiber of his body to summon and direct enough power; pain hammered through his head, and as he cried out he felt a bolt of energy ripple through him, blasting from the same molten core of rage that his long-ago ancestor had possessed. It tore through his bones like a fireball, and for a terrible instant New thought that he had exploded into flames.

  New's last surge of magic met Greediguts in midair. It threw the panther toward the ceiling - then, as the beast fell, it was brought violently down upon one of the swinging hooks.

  The spike pierced its underbelly. As the panther shrieked and struggled, the hook plunged deeper. The weight of its body stretched the chain and bent the rafter to which it was secured.

  And then Greediguts began to slide along the hook toward the floor; its stomach split open, spilling coal-black organs from the gaping wound. The rafter cracked like a gunshot.

  New was exhausted, unable to rise from the floor. He clasped his bleeding side, as the panther snarled and thrashed to free itself.

  Cold waves of energy continued to shake the chamber as Edwin refused to die. And from the corridor, Raven heard a chilling bass moan, gaining volume and strength.

  Pendulum! she thought in horror. The warlock's death throes had set the sensitive machine in motion!

  Rix, fighting for balance on the trembling floor, reached Raven and helped her up. His face was gaunt and gray, except for the line of scarlet that crept down his cheek. He blinked heavily, still leaden with shock.

  "We've got to get out!" she shouted at him. Across the chamber, knives that were scattered on the floor whirled up like a deadly storm and stabbed against the walls. "Can you find the way?"

  He shook his head. He didn't remember how Edwin had brought him here, and he feared the Lodge would seal them in.

  They'd have to go back through the tunnel, Raven realized. The rafter that Greediguts hung from was tearing loose. She pulled New to his feet and said, "Come on! Hurry!"

  At the doorway, as the bass moan continued to rise, and the currents of black magic from Edwin's contorting body began to crack the walls, Rix stopped to look back at the elderly man he'd loved.

  He saw only the Pumpkin Man.

  Then he turned away and ran after New and Raven.

  The entire corridor was shaking, chunks of stone falling from the ceiling, rock dust churning through the air and almost blinding them. "The wand!" New told Raven. "I have to get it back!"

  In Ludlow's workshop, the pendulum was swinging steadily. The tuning forks were vibrating blurs, and the bass tone had passed the pain threshold. Raven, her bones twisting as the sound pierced her, retrieved her lantern. The walls and floor shivered violently, cracks snaking across New's path as he picked up the Mountain King's wand. A piece of rock the size of an anvil fell from above, crashing only a few feet away. Rubble rained down, striking him on the head and back. The pendulum was swinging faster, and New felt a terrible pressure building in his head. There was no way to stop it, he realized. The thing was out of control, and God only knew what it was going to do. They had to get out of the Lodge as fast as they could.

  The chamber's floor buckled, almost throwing New to his knees. The bass tone had become a low, demonic bellow.

  Guided by their light, they ran through the pitching corridor to the staircase that had brought New and Raven from the lower level. In another moment, Pendulum's moan had reached a pitch of pure agony. Rix's eardrums were about to explode, and as he struggled down the stairs, his equilibrium dangerously unbalanced by the noise, blood burst from his nostrils.

  On the lower level, the granite pillars were shivering. The iron pilings were making high whining sounds, like the strings of a harp being plucked by a madman's hand. One of the pillars cracked and collapsed, followed by a second and a third. Stones tumbled from the ceiling.

  "The foundation!" Raven shouted, barely able to hear herself. "It's destroying the foundation!"

  The tunnel stretched before them. Around them the stones grated and shifted. Black water poured through cracks above their heads.

  Still the moan of Pendulum pursued them. Raven faltered, but Rix supported her and took the lantern before she dropped it. Water swirled around their ankles.

  And then the hair stirred at the back of New's neck, and he turned toward the Lodge. Several paces ahead, Rix looked over his shoulder, then aimed the light in the direction from which they'd come. He froze with terror. The beam illuminated the panther racing after them along the tunnel, coming like a massive black machine of destruction. It dragged chain and entrails after it, the hook still buried deeply in its belly.


  As the monster hurtled toward them, New tightened his grip around the wand. He had no power of his own left; he was weak, worn out, and would have to trust in the power that had been passed from generation to generation, contained within a gnarled stick that wouldn't bring two dollars at a flea market.

  "Come on, you bastard!" New shouted in defiance.

  Greediguts leaped, gory steam bursting from its nostrils.

  New swung the stick like a baseball bat.

  A blinding ball of blue flame shot from it as it met the panther's head. The monster shrieked - and for an instant both New and Greediguts were connected by the fiery wand. Then Greediguts' body was thrown backward as if it had hit a stone wall, and New fell into the water that surged around his knees, his nerves on fire.

  The panther's body, its mangled head hanging on strings of tough tissue, slowly began to rise to its feet again. Its jaws snapped together, tearing at the air.

  And over the wail of Ludlow Usher's machine came the sharp cracking of tunnel stones, like sticks broken in powerful hands. A section of the tunnel between them and the Lodge caved in. Black mud, water, and weeds collapsed into the tunnel. A torrent of water swept toward Greediguts, New, Rix, and Raven. Rix had time only to put his arm around Raven's waist before the water hit them with a force that knocked them backward and off their feet. He was blinded. New's body collided with him, then was tossed away.

  Rix was lifted up in the thrashing water; as his head emerged into a space of air in the darkness, he heard the tunnel stones above him cracking, splitting open. Water from the lake was hammering down into the tunnel. Rix gasped for air and shouted to Raven, "Hold on!"

  Raven's hand found his shoulder and gripped hard. The entire tunnel was flooding, and again the water surged over Rix's head.

  They tumbled before the wild currents. Rix was thrown violently upward, his back scraping across tunnel stones that had not yet collapsed. Air burst from his nostrils and Raven was almost wrenched away, but Rix held on to her with all his strength.

  His lungs burned for air. Currents swirled in all directions, pushing and pulling at the same time. A cold sweep of water threw him upward again, and he braced for another collision with the tunnel's ceiling.

  But then he was tangled in weeds and mud, and he realized the current had shoved him out of the tunnel, onto the lakebed. Now the water was sucking him down again, and his body fought wildly against it. Raven was kicking too, trying to escape its suction.

  They were drawn downward, halfway into the tunnel - and then another surge of water boiled beneath them, and they were thrust upward through the black water and the weeds.

  Rix's head emerged into a gray curtain of rain. Beside him, Raven coughed and gasped for air. Rix's arm had been almost dislocated from the effort of holding on to her. Waves rolled over them, propelling them toward the rocky shallows. As they lay on the rough stones with the rain and the waves beating around them, Rix looked back toward the island.

  The Lodge was trembling like a massive tuning fork. The glass cupola shattered, the marble lions rocked and plummeted from their positions on the roof.

  Pendulum's moan pulsated in the turbulent air. It changed, became a hoarse, maddened scream that pounded into Rix's mind:

  - traitorrrrrr -

  The Lodge was falling to pieces like a house of cards. It heaved and shook, its towers and chimneys swaying, then collapsing. The roofs caved in. Lakewater battered the house, black spray shooting fifty feet into the air. The west wing shuddered and fell, the contents of rooms spilling out like jewels from a huge treasure box.

  - all for you -

  The voice of the Lodge was weakening.

  With its next vibration, the entire front of the house cracked and fell away in an avalanche of marble and masonry. Revealed was an intricate warren of rooms, corridors, and staircases that slowly collapsed, one after another, and disappeared into the water. The lake had become a churning cauldron filled with beautiful trash that boiled up and then was drawn into the depths.

  Suddenly the remainder of the Lodge was split by a massive seam that worked its way up from the foundation, branching off into a dozen more cracks, a hundred more, crawling inexorably across the stones.

  - traitor all for you -

  The Lodge sagged, crumbling away in what looked like a gigantic, slow-motion explosion, tons of marble plunging into the lake.

  The walls fell. From the ruin of the Lodge came a Shockwave that crushed Rix and Raven together, a cold fury that carried the scream traitorrrrr across the lake and over Usherland, echoing from Briartop Mountain in the crash of a thousand falling trees.

  The voice of the Lodge and the roar of Pendulum were silenced.

  Waterspouts danced like tops across the lake. Chairs, desks, stuffed trophies, curio cases, beds, tables, and pianos had surged toward shore. Around the lake, the trees had been sheared off at their trunks, and much of the forest up the south side of Briartop had been leveled.

  The Lodge was rubble, utterly destroyed by Ludlow Usher's sonic weapon.

  When they could move again, Rix and Raven slogged through the shallows. Near the shattered remnants of the bridge, another figure lay on its side in the mud.

  Rix helped Raven to the ground, and turned toward the ruins. Blood dripped from his nose, he was bruised in a dozen places, and his right arm dangled uselessly. He knew Pendulum hadn't reached its full potential; the weight of the Lodge, he thought, must have crushed the machine before it could destroy the mountain and everything else for miles around.

  The front of the maroon limousine suddenly rose up from the depths. It was covered with mud, and its grille looked like a grinning, warped mouth. Then it slid slowly back into the water.

  It was only then that Rix realized he still held the ebony cane in his hand. The silver lion's head had been washed almost clean of mud.

  He was holding it so tightly that his knuckles ached.