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    Kindling
    Kindling
    Kindling
    Ebook42 pages38 minutes

    Kindling

    By Patricia S. Bowne

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    About this ebook

    A 11,000 word novella. The autumn holiday season finds geomancer Linus Ukadnian from The Royal Academy of the Arcane Arts and Sciences at Osyth saddled with an unwanted museum curatorship. He knew about the vampire in the museum's basement, but even greater dangers await!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPatricia S. Bowne
    Release dateDec 23, 2011
    ISBN9781465716590
    Kindling
    Author

    Patricia S. Bowne

    Hello, and pleased to meet you!I've been writing the Royal Academy at Osyth stories for over ten years now. They say to write what you know, and I know the academic environment.Since the age of 3, I have been hanging around university science departments. I've spent time collecting fishes and invertebrates, cataloguing museum specimens, putting up educational displays (some of which involved live rattlesnakes), creating scientific illustrations, supervising student field work in lakes, rivers, and on coral reefs, assisting on deep-sea sampling cruises and in a giant clam farm, taking the jaws out of a 7-foot shark, and picking through piles of dead fish from Alberta to Taiwan. In the process, I've accumulated a B.Sc in Biology, B.A. in Humanities, M.S in Marine Biology, and Ph.D. in Zoology.I now work at a small college in the Midwest, where I've added experience in the less fishy aspects of academic life. I've worked there for over twenty years including a 6-year stint as a Dean, during which time we built a new building -- an experience which inspired my most successful story, 'Want's Master'.Though I always wanted a small-college teaching position, when I got one I missed the excitement of a large university. Rather than go hang around the local university, making myself dissatisfied and neglecting my day job, I created my own: the Royal Academy of the Arcane Arts and Sciences. I've sold seven stories set in the Academy, and three novels. The first two, ADVICE FROM PIGEONS and A LOVESOME THING, are available now from Double Dragon Publishing and Amazon Kindle Store. The stories are out of print, or were until I discovered Smashwords! So watch this space for more from the Royal Academy at Osyth.

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      Book preview

      Kindling - Patricia S. Bowne

      Kindling

      A Royal Academy at Osyth Story

      Patricia S, Bowne

      Cover and decoration by Patricia S. Bowne

      Published by Patricia S. Bowne at Smashwords

      Copyright 2011 Patricia S. Bowne

      Discover other titles by Patricia S. Bowne at http://www.raosyth.com

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Linus Ukadnian put on his bow-tie and scowled into the mirror. The slow burn of irritation built inside him like magma. A new semester, and he would have to face the other demonologists at the Royal Academy of the Arcane Arts and Sciences and act as if he respected them, as if dimwitted students had potential and meetings were more than a waste of time.

      Linus was a man with his feet on solid ground, a man in touch with the plain facts. And massaging the plain facts to flatter other people's self-delusions was worse than a waste of time; it was a sin, a perversion of the intellect. He would have no truck with such rubbish, he told himself every morning as he trimmed his gray beard. He put on his bow-tie with a feeling of determination, as if it would give him strength to live up to his ideals, and fierce righteousness blazed up inside him as he looked into the mirror.

      But by noon Linus had always soft-pedaled his opinion, pretended there were two sides to an issue that had only one, or kept silent while somebody spouted nonsense. Then his bow-tie stopped reminding him of valour and became a mark of cowardice, one he wore as a penance and a promise that one day he would live up to it from morning to night. Today, Linus vowed, would be the day. He would begin this academic year as he meant to go on. He huffed in satisfaction, and his breath made a cloud in the cold air.

      ***

      Linus took journals to department meetings so his time would not be completely wasted. He arrived precisely on time and spent fifteen minutes on the latest issue of Arcane Intrusions, reading about sedimentation and what happened to elemental magic embedded in layers of silt. Then the tardy department members arrived and more time (but not Linus' time!) was wasted on apology and explanation, the agenda, the minutes, arguments over the wording of last semester's arguments over the wording of, etc. Linus read about infinite regress and the arcane calculus of fractals in The Annals of Theoretical Geomancy.

      At last the meeting got underway, but was immediately monopolized by Theodora Whin and her report from the benefits committee. Whin loved the sound of her own voice… Linus found one of his own letters to the editor in Annalen

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