Roger Zelazny - The Black Throne

"I am waiting," she said.

"Here is my half of the way. Meet me at the middle, pray."

The corridor of silver shot forward to join with its counterpart. As I walked it to the place where the lady waited I heard at my back a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters.

I kept going.

Months later I discovered to my total surprise that I had been named in the last will and testament of Seabright Ellison, inheriting from him a small stipend and the residence known as Landor's Cottage, where Annie and I now reside as I labor at the assembly of these memoirs.

Our friends, such as Dirk Peters, have come to visit us from time to time. Neither of us has forgotten Edgar Allan Poe, who has left two worlds the poorer for his passing. We would that he could share with us the park-like splendors of this place where, on all sides, the violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses entangle amid the tall trees, among lily-fringed lakes and meadows.

And at times we open a different door, to the rear of that pleasant dwelling, stepping out upon a foggy beach where the sea flows warm as blood and dark shapes pass. From there we've journeyed many a midnight mile to realms both rare and strange, whose ways would not be open had our dear brother never been:

By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule—

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE—out of TIME.

From Dream-Land, Edgar Allan Poe