All Part of the Game by Shawn Keys

Author:Shawn Keys [Keys, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781999285326
Published: 2019-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

The History of Naomi

Naomi

Naomi perched at the top of the ten-foot tall ladder. It was a precarious position, and she wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to her personal safety. That tended to happen when your occasionally unstable, often grumpy, rather powerful wizard mentor told you to go find something…

…and you just can’t find it.

She had developed a bit of a sixth sense for locating whatever he wanted amidst the controlled chaos of his tower. At first, he had done it as a punishment when she failed in any of her apprenticing duties. Then, for a while, it felt like it was sort of game. Now, he had come to rely on her. Maybe I shouldn’t have done so well at it, she mused.

Would have. Should have. Could have. That was all in the past. Right now, he had told her to go find ‘that book with the silver spine and green writing. You know, the one with the salamander on it. And hurry! Before the rogue mist settles!’ She wished that sort of command was abnormal for him. Instead, this was simply a typical third-day afternoon.

Except…

She couldn’t find it. I mean, how many books had silver spines, anyway? But she had climbed all over all three of his libraries, checked his bedchamber, and pillaged the storage room on the off-chance he had stashed it in a box.

Why today? Kallomo had seemed especially testy. He was pushing the boundary with what spell he was attempting, and there was a real chance that if she couldn’t find this book, he would fail. If that happened, he would have a real cause to be grumpy.

So, Naomi was hovering with one leg on the ladder, hitching one arm around the other side of it. She was leaning out over empty space, with two toes of her other foot hooked onto a lower book shelf, praying it would hold her weight. A champion rock climber would have been proud.

Her free hand was running over the top shelf’s tumbled mass of books. They hadn’t been sorted in years, and they weren’t neatly arranged. Some were in horizontal stacks, some were in jumbled piles, and there were even a few hiding behind others, pressed up against the wall! She had missed them on her first time through the library. Once she remembered, she’d cursed herself for forgetting, and climbed up in pursuit of her elusive quarry.

Grasping hold of a particularly thick tome, she paused before lifting it. She was no wilting flower, but stretched out like this took most of her strength away. She should pause and move the ladder, but she couldn’t shift it every ten seconds! There was a whole room to cover! Making sure the tip of her foot was as stable as it could be, Naomi lifted the heavy book out of the way so she could peek behind it.

Two glowing yellow eyes peered back out at her.

Naomi flinched, and had to scramble to keep her hold.

The hiding feline had the coloring of a leopard, and it shared more than spots with that larger cousin.

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