Joel Rosenberg - Omnibus 03 - To Home and Ehvenor.pdf
(
872 KB
)
Pobierz
303361183 UNPDF
Guardians of The Flame 3-To
Home And Ehvenor
Table of Contents
Prologue
PART ONE
HOMEWORK
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
PART TWO
ROADWORK
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
PART THREE
NEW WORK
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Road Home
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
L'ENVOI I
L'ENVOI II
Appendix
Guardians of The Flame 3:
To Home And Ehvenor
Joel Rosenberg
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any
resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Joel Rosenberg
The Road to Ehvenor
© copyright 1991 by Joel Rosenberg;
The Road Home
© copyright 1995 by Joel
Rosenberg.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Megabook
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
ISBN: 0-7434-8858-X
Cover art by Dominic Harmon
First Megabook printing, November 2004
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosenberg, Joel, 1954-
Guardians of the flame—to home and Ehvenor / Joel Rosenberg.
p. cm.
"A Baen Books megabook."
ISBN 0-7434-8858-X (hc)
1. Fantasy games—Fiction. I. Title: To home and Ehvenor. II. Rosenberg, Joel, 1954-
Road to Ehvenor. III. Rosenberg, Joel, 1954- Road home. IV. Title.
PS3568.O786G836 2004
813'.54—dc22
2004019235
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Produced by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH (www.windhaven.com)
Typeset by Bell Road Press, Sherwood, OR
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
This one is for
Mary Kittredge
Acknowledgments
I'm grateful for the help and advice
I've gotten with this one from:
—the others in the workshop: Bruce Bethke, Peg Kerr Ihinger, and Pat Wrede;
—David Dyer-Bennet;
—Harry F. Leonard;
—my copyeditor, Carol Kennedy;
—my agent, Eleanor Wood;
—my editor, John Silbersack;
—my wife, Felicia Herman;
—Diane Duane, for the hiccup cure;
—Beth Friedman, for the last-minute poorfreading, er, proofreading;
—and, particularly, for some ongoing research assistance on the subject of fatherhood, my daughter,
Judith Eleanor Rosenberg.
Prologue
The Dream Is the Same
The nightmare is always the same:
We're trying to make our escape from Hell, a whole crowd of us running through the slimy
corridors. Everybody I've ever loved is there, along with strange faces, some of which I know
should be familiar.
Behind us, there's a screaming pack of demons, some in cartoony shapes, some that look like
misshapen wolves, all of whom have me scared so bad I can hardly breathe the scalding, stinking
air. The walls keep trying to close in on me, but I push the hot, slime-covered surface away.
The exit is up ahead, a gash in the wall, and the crowd starts to push through. I can't tell who's
gone through, but I can only hope that my kids are among them. Please.
Some have made their escape, but there's no way for the rest of us: the demons are approaching
too quickly, and they're going to catch us.
And then I see him: Karl Cullinane, Jason's father, standing tall, face beaming, his hands, chest,
and beard streaked with blood and gore.
"We're going to have to hold the corridor," Karl says. "Who's with me?" He smiles, as though he's been
waiting his whole life for this, the fucking idiot.
Figures push out of the crowd, all of them bloodied, some of them bent. I guess I notice
Kosciuszko and Copernicus first, although both of them are shorter than I thought they'd be.
A buddha-faced Chinese steps forward, his face shiny with sweat that he doesn't seem to notice. "A
boddhisattva," he says, "is one who pledges not to attain heaven until the rest of humanity does."
Another man stands tall, lean as a sword, not seeming to notice that the right side of his chest is cut
open, slashed to the grayish liver. "Of course," he says, taking his place next to a slim, hawk-faced
woman in what looks like a burial robe. Her robe is burning so hard I can hear her flesh crackle, and she
winces in pain, but it doesn't stop her.
"Moi aussi," she says.
Two nondescript men push forward together. "Once more, Master Ridley," the first says, his accent
clipped and British.
The other shakes his head and smiles wearily. "I'd thought—but no: once more, then."
A heavy-bearded, heavy-set man, still wearing his hangman's noose, his eyes wide in madness,
pushes forward, shoulder to shoulder with Georgie Patton himself.
Humanity streams by us, and it's all I can do not to be swept along with it.
The corridor has always seemed tight, maybe twenty feet across, but the line of them—thousands
of them, arms linked tightly—can't quite stretch across it.
They need one more to close the ranks, or it's all for nothing, and the demons are fast
approaching.
One more. They always need one more.
Karl looks at me—they all look at me: Brown, Ridley, Joan, Ahira, Horatius, all of them—his
bloody face puzzled. "Walter? What are you waiting for?"
* * *
Then I wake up.
PART ONE
HOMEWORK
CHAPTER ONE
In Which I Spend
a Morning at
Castle Cullinane
If you don't think that sex is violent, next time try thrashing around a bit.
—WILL SHETTERLY
My name is Walter Slovotsky.
As near as I can figure, I should be turning forty-three in the next tenday or so, and maybe it's time I
grew up. I've spent the past couple of decades as, variously, a hero, a trader, a farming consultant, a
thief, and a Jeffersonian political fanatic. Oh. And a killer. Both retail and wholesale. I'm sort of a jack of
all trades.
In addition, I've managed to father two daughters (that I know of; I, er, get around a bit), generate a few
hundred interesting aphorisms, and sleep with an even more interesting variety of women than I did in
college (see above), including my second-best-friend's wife-to-be (we weren't all that friendly at the time.
When he found out about it he almost killed me, but we all ended up as friends) and, some years later, his
adopted daughter (he never found out about it; I'm not sure how that turned out, not yet).
But here I am, getting on in years, about to make some major changes in my life, and I thought I'd do it
this way. May as well start with food.
Food's an important part of my life.
* * *
Plik z chomika:
margozap
Inne pliki z tego folderu:
Joel Rosenberg - 01 - The Sleeping Dragon.pdf
(465 KB)
Joel Rosenberg - 02 - The Sword And The Chain.pdf
(449 KB)
Joel Rosenberg - Guardians Of The Flame 08 - Not Exactly the Three Musketiers.pdf
(1513 KB)
Joel Rosenberg - 03 - The Silver Crown.pdf
(574 KB)
Joel Rosenberg - 04 - The Heir Apparent.pdf
(556 KB)
Inne foldery tego chomika:
Abbott, Edwin A
Adams, Douglas
Aesop
Akers, Alan Burt
Alcott, Louisa May
Zgłoś jeśli
naruszono regulamin