3:133 on the 62nd day of Winter

Human mages were going to destroy the world? It was completely absurd. Nothing I could possibly do would have that scale of impact.

"Hush Polenda-nel." said Cedrea-nel. "Kharon, unfortunately my son is correct. Human magic will someday destroy the world if it is not stopped."

"How are we supposed to destroy the world?" I asked. "How would that even be possible?"

"Unfortunately, as a language instructor, I don't understand it very well." she said. "Something about how human mages control their magic has a small chance of destroying the world. The chance gets larger when mages work together or when they are in conflict with each other."

Her legs moved in that unnerving way again.

"I don't know much more about it." she said. "I think I remember one of the full professors at the Sixanthea-ral-balar estimated that, with human populations growing how they were, it was nearly certain that the world would end within fifty years. That was when everyone started calling for war"

I had to sit down. The demons were exterminating humanity because of a research paper? Well probably more than one. Maybe they saw it like climate change back on Earth. Except here the demons actually took it seriously and acted. Acted to kill all humans. But that didn't make any sense. How could controlling magic destroy the world?

"How do demons control magic?" I asked. "We don't. Not the way humans do at least." she said.

"We can make our bodies lighter with earth mana, or faster with water mana. We can make our claws or breath burn with fire mana. Some of the De-mons can even fly with air mana. But none of it is controlled."

She took a moment to consider.

"Have you seen a mage light a fire at a distance?" she asked. "That is something the races of the De-mons cannot accomplish with our magic."

"Okay, quick question. What are the De-mons you keep talking about?" I asked.

"Oh, that's just our name for the country we belong to. It's a coalition of many smaller states and tribes." she said.

So they were like the European Union, or the United States. We called them demons as a more of a species category but they thought of it as their nationality. Whatever, that doesn't matter right now.

"While this is all very educational, I still don't understand why you want to talk to me." I said shaking my head. "I can't imagine what you could possibly give me in the context of what you just said."

Suddenly all her motion stopped. Just like before it was fifteen or twenty marks before she started moving again. When her legs started twitching again, she sagged in exhaustion. It was really strange and I just sat there trying to understand what was going on.

"I'd like to offer you a job." she said. “But I already know that you won't accept.”

I just stared at her for a while. She sounded disappointed. Again with the leg twitching. Was that a nervous tick?

"What kind of job?" I asked.

This was ridiculous. She couldn't be serious.

"An adjunct research position at the Maxiska-nel-balar." she said, but now it was more like she was going through the motions of a conversation she had already been through before. Then she seemed to refocus and try to make a serious pitch.

"I said before that my college preferred to research possible solutions to the problem of human magic. Well research takes researchers and subjects. You are both in one."

Her color turned pink and blue as she got going.

"Your observations on death magic and insight on what they mean are of a caliber I rarely see in human writings." she said. "Part of my group's task here is to review Cinder's library for any research related to the problem of human magic and send it back for further review and study. Instead of reviewing manuscripts in the hope that someone will have stumbled on something, why not commission the research directly?!"

I laughed out loud. I couldn't help it. Here I was, sneaking behind enemy lines, trying to not die, and she wanted me to defect for a research position.

"No." I said, all humor draining from my voice as I continued. "There is no way that I could bring myself to work with a country that is actively exterminating my species. I absolutely refuse."

Cedrea-nel sagged once more in defeat.

"But we are working to find an alternative to extermination." she said.

"No, you are hedging your bets." I said coldly.

"If mages could randomly destroy the world then fewer mages would make it less likely. That would give you more time to complete your research. Political opposition to genocide is not enough. If you were actually opposed to the war you would be working to stop it now, even without a solution."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I stood and hefted my bag. The core was awkwardly attached and the bag felt unbalanced. I let out a long sigh.

"I was good to meet you Cedrea-nel." I said.

I looked around for Polenda-nel but he had scurried off somewhere while we were talking.

"I am happy we didn't try to kill each other for a while. But it will be light soon and I need to return to the city that will be destroyed by your army. Maybe you can learn something from my dead body."

I turned and left.

***

0:023 on the 63rd day of Winter

I made it back to the workshop later than I intended. The city had woken up and I had to switch my cloak out for one that wasn't spooky black colored. I had long since put my helmet and gloves in the backpack but now that I was alone I could take my armor off. Though I wasn't quite alone. Schrodinger was here asleep as had become his routine. I also noticed a letter on my workbench that must have been delivered this morning. I wonder what that's about.

"Good morning friend." I said.

The cat was undisturbed by the noise.

I started stowing my gear. The pouches on the belt were placed in their drawers and the artificial core itself went into a locked chest at the end of the workbench. Then I pulled out my notebook. I would try to keep this on me at all times now I had retrieved it. I thumbed through it to find the sketch I had made of the laser rods. I was disappointed in the performance I was getting. A thousand watts was great, don't get me wrong, but I felt like there was more the magic could do.

Magic did not have to obey conservation laws so I should be munchkining the hell out of it by now. Well, at least it made other systems not have to obey conservation laws. There could be conservation laws that magic worked on that I simply had not observed yet. Maybe that was how human mages were supposed to destroy the world.

"What do you think, friend?" I asked Schrodinger. He only twitched. "Is human magic breaking the world somehow?"

I sat down on the lab stool and started slowly spinning. The stool squeaked and I got dizzy after a bit but sometimes it helped me think.

"If we were breaking the world, how could it possibly still be around?" I asked.

"Are we tapping into the kinetic energy of the world? That would eventually make it slow its rotation and either become tidally locked or fall into the sun."

I was just spitballing.

"No, no. That would be very obvious from stellar observations." I said. "The kingdom has fantastic calendars and they would have noticed if the days or years got longer all of a sudden."

I started thinking about the weird way that I was able to assemble heavier elements from lighter ones. How they just kind of pulled themselves together.

"Hey Schrodinger, listen up. I'm about to lay down some science." I said. I was clearly getting a bit loopy from the stress and lack of sleep. "Entropy is a measure of the disorder in a system. And, because physics is messy and complicated, things are always getting more messy and complicated. Because of that we say that entropy is almost guaranteed to increase in closed systems."

Schrodinger finally opened his eyes. Now he was glaring at me for interrupting his nap.

"Sure entropy can decrease. Water freezes when it's cold out. Ice crystals are much more ordered than water so entropy is lower." I said. Now I was thinking about the feud between philosophers and scientists in the Royal Society of Mages. How they ran a bunch of experiments with how quickly ice freezes. That made me stop spinning the stool. I was looking up at the ceiling in thought.

"But that's not a closed system." I said. "Heat leaves the water, increasing the entropy in the air more than it decreases in the water. But what if…"

I trailed off in thought. Schrodinger got up and stretched. He walked over to a bowl I used to feed him and looked at me expectantly. I got off my stool and retrieved some of the dried meat and rice he liked. As I served him I continued my train of thought.

"What if mages were somehow removing entropy to control how and where their magic took effect?" I asked. "That would explain how the self assembly trick worked. If we were moving entropy somewhere else, maybe that could lead to something bad."

I grimaced as I put the rest of Schrodinger's food away. I didn't understand how that could work. Entropy is more of a statistics thing than a physical thing. It's like saying we're reducing the average person's height even though there is no 'average' person to interact with. Changes in entropy are a visible result of whatever mages do to control magic but there's no way we could work with it directly. I shook my head, I still didn't have even a hypothesis for how it worked.

Working through a problem with Schrodinger reminded me of the early days in the cave. Learning how my magic worked, finding new ways to use it, and then there was the crushing loneliness. That made me think of Arin. I bet she could help me sort through this problem. She had an intuitive sense for the capabilities of her magic I could never match. It had been a while since I got out of the hospital, I wonder what she's been up to. I hoped Fonsa didn't scare her too badly. How might I track her down? Weren't the entrance tests for the iron blood mages coming up?

While pondering that thought my eyes landed back on the letter that was left on my desk. I may as well see what it's about. I picked it up and opened it, noting that it was made with fine paper and sealed with the city crest.

To Theod Aegis,

Sir,

You are hereby notified that you were, on the 58th day of Winter 1208, legally drafted as a Mage into the service of Cinder for a period of 5 years in accordance with the act of City Government "Special provisions for defense" approved on the 28th day of Winter 1208. You will accordingly report on the 67th day of Winter 1208, to central command, or be deemed a deserter, and be subject to the penalty prescribed therefor by the Rules and Articles of War.

Gravely,

Mage Commander Reod

It wasn't unexpected but how little time I had was frustrating. Normally mages would be given a season or two to get used to their abilities before being drafted. It was a sign of just how bad things were that they needed me right away. Still, this meant I was free of any obligations to the iron skin legion. I would never have to deal with Peradeo or my decade again. That thought brought a smile to my face.

I had to be smart with my time so I opened my notebook and started planning out the next five days. I would build and test everything I would need for mage training, I would practice signal as much as I could, and I would try to track down Arin to ask for her help on control experiments. Then a thought struck me and I flipped to a set of drawings I had made earlier in my notebook. A smile lit up my face and I looked at the gift idea I had thought of for Arin. My mind drifted to how much she would like it. How bright her smile would be. Then I looked back to the drawing and realized just how much work I needed to do. This was going to be a busy few days.