Free Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book One by Dean Cadman

the source of heat myself in the past, but it seems to come directly from the blocks of stone that make up the walls and floors themselves. What I found even stranger, was that in the summer months it actually gets cooler down there. Something seems to be keeping it at a constant temperature, so it never becomes too hot, or too cold. What that is, I have no idea. Feel free to have a look around and see if I missed any obvious source of heat, but I'm pretty sure there isn’t one.”
    “That does sound strange,” agreed Lusam. “While I remember, would it be possible to get either some chalk or charcoal for tomorrow please? It would speed up the cataloguing of the books quite a bit I think.”
    “Of course, I'll get you some after we eat, no problem at all.” Turning towards Neala, Mr Daffer then said, “In the meantime, Lucy has got your clean clothes back from the laundry in town, so you may wish to change back into them before dinner.”
    “Thanks, I will. And thanks for the loan of these clothes too. Sorry, I may have got the trousers a little dirty on the backside though,” Neala said glaring at Lusam, who found it hard to keep a straight face, as the image of her falling off the bed flashed into his mind again.
    “Oh, don’t worry, I'm sure they will be in the next batch that goes off to the laundry anyway,” replied Mr Daffer, as they entered the main shop area.

    Early the following morning, Lusam and Neala went out to the bakery to get some breakfast with the money Mr Daffer had given them the night before. They didn’t spend long outside, and ate the freshly baked bread as they walked back to the shop. They wanted to make a good start that day, and catalogue as many of the books as they could. That way they could estimate how long the overall job might take them, just in case Mr Daffer happened to ask them later.
    Earlier, Mr Daffer had given Lusam some chalk, and he had used it to carefully mark out the letters of the alphabet on the walls around the book room. They both picked up a few books at a time, and placed them on the floor in front of the corresponding first letter of the book's title. After several back-aching hours of bending  over to pick up books, walking around the large room, and bending down to place the books on the floor again, they had maybe three hundred or so books laid out on the floor. Looking over at the gigantic pile of books that still remained, it was obvious this wasn’t going to be an easy, or fast job, Lusam thought to himself.
    “We should ask Mr Daffer if he has a wheelbarrow that we could use later. We could load it up with a lot more books than we can carry by hand. It should make the work much easier, and much faster,” suggested Neala.
    “That’s a great idea,” agreed Lusam, turning around and teasing her with, “Now who’s the smart one?” Neala's face flushed slightly, as she smiled back at him. “I think maybe I should start writing down some of these book titles now, before the piles get too high. Maybe you should take a break for a while?” he suggested, noticing how hot and sweaty her face had become, whilst carrying so much weight non-stop for hours. He certainly needed to take a break, but bravado would have kept him going if she had refused.
    “If you insist, but I'm happy to keep going for a while longer,” she offered in reply.
    “I don’t know about you, but all that fetching and carrying has made me quite hungry. Maybe you could go out and get us something to eat? I could come with you if you prefer, but it may be better if I stay here and start to catalogue these books, just in case Mr Daffer comes down here,” he said, gesturing towards the numerous piles of books, all now neatly stacked in alphabetical order.
    “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. It would be nice to get outside in the fresh air again for a while,” she replied, with much more enthusiasm than he had expected. “Okay, I won’t be too long,” she said. And with a