"Joel Rosenberg - Omnibus 03 - To Home and Ehvenor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

Road to Ehvenor. III. Rosenberg, Joel, 1954- Road home. IV. Title.

PS3568.O786G836 2004
813'.54тАФdc22
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:

тАФthe others in the workshop: Bruce Bethke, Peg Kerr Ihinger, and Pat Wrede;
тАФDavid Dyer-Bennet;
тАФHarry F. Leonard;
тАФmy copyeditor, Carol Kennedy;
тАФmy agent, Eleanor Wood;
тАФmy editor, John Silbersack;
тАФmy wife, Felicia Herman;
тАФDiane Duane, for the hiccup cure;
тАФBeth Friedman, for the last-minute poorfreading, er, proofreading;
тАФand, 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