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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

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.

Rosenberg.

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.

* * *

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