Demetrius had spent the rest of the morning moving from one secret place in the University to another. He did his best to avoid people, and he tried even harder than that to make sense of the things that Cyndy was telling him. The problem as he saw it, was not just his lack of understanding the words, but her seeming inability to maintain a line of thought to completion. This he figured was probably a result of being an illusion. It seemed like her thoughts were her own in some ways, but it also seemed as if she darted from topic to topic like a bee flying between flowers.

Now he was in the cafeteria. He sat at the servants table. The table was crowded and yet he sat alone. Rarely was he spoken to, and he never spoke to anyone. He had considered telling someone about Cyndy, but he couldn’t think of anyone that he trusted enough to tell. She was gone anyway, and he wondered if she was going to return.

She said she was going to come back. She said that she was going to do some ‘geocaching’ on her own in the University for some ‘easter eggs’ and flew off. She promised she wouldn’t be long. Demetrius was left alone in his secret alcove on the roof and decided that it was probably safe to head down to the cafeteria and get something to eat.

The meal today was very good in his opinion, though he heard many of the students complaining about it. It was meat and it was bread, and there were even vegetables. In all his years working and living at the University he had never grown sick of the repetition. He thought back to a night in his youth, shivering on a stoop with the eave of a building barely shielding him from the rain, and crying because a larger boy had stolen his crust of moldy bread. It was a very good meal in the cafeteria today.

The serving staff at the table finished their meals, and made their way to their various duties, leaving him completely alone at the table. They were the only ones in the room that cleaned up after themselves. The students were mostly lordlings, or the children of rich merchants. They all ate voraciously, complained about the quality of the food and the frequency with which they were served the same things, and left their trays covered in filth on the dirty tables. They’d gather up their books and their belongings and leave the cafeteria in chortling groups. It was Demetrius’ responsibility to buss all the tables, then wipe them down. He didn’t mind.

There was one table today however, that lingered well after the rest of the room had emptied, and while he made his way around the room cleaning the tables and picking up the discarded food and shaking his head at the waste, he couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

One of the students speaking had a voice that would carry through stone walls, “I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, professor. You think that the war was righteous?” The speaker was a stocky young man that had a face covered in acne scars, wearing the robes of a fourth year student over his large frame.

It was a soft and silky voice that answered him, the speaker a professor that seemed to tower over the others at the table even while sitting, “That’s not what I’m saying at all, what I’m saying is that we need to examine the situation objectively. What they teach in the Ethics of Magic classes is based on fear, and we need to think for ourselves and ask ourselves what it is that we would do with our powers personally, rather than showing blind allegiance to a fear based rhetoric.”

A pretty, fair-skinned girl wearing sixth year robes, that Demetrius had remembered watching from a distance over the last six years, the first to respond, “I don’t know, Professor Veles. I think that there is a lot of reason behind the self-regulation of magic by the University. I think that the war is all the empirical evidence we need. Unregulated magic is a recipe for disaster. In the Morality and Philosophy class, we are taught to examine the maxims. You know, maxims of skill versus maxims of morality.” Demetrius was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, as he cleaned a table closer to the group and listened in unnoticed, “We say for example that if we’re examining only skill, the assassin who kills all of his targets by poison is as successful as the doctor who saves all of his patients, but that we can’t base our beliefs on skill alone. We have to ask ourselves if everyone were to universally apply the either skills, which skill is moral? Because if everyone were to kill for money the entirety of society would collapse. Just like it did when every wizard sought power and to rule as opposed. If everyone sought to heal like the doctor which could only benefit society. At least, that’s what I took out of the lecture.”

Demetrius wondered if anyone noticed how long he’d been washing the same table, but he was fascinated by the conversation, it was intriguing even the parts he didn’t fully understand. He moved across the room and started slowly gathering trays from another table. It was of course the professor called Veles that answered the young woman, “That’s very good critical thinking, Mariless. Answer me this however, is it righteous for the doctor in your scenario to be obligated to use his skills and efforts. Is the knowledge that he has gained through his own efforts and labours, the herbs he gathers and the medicines he makes, are these things that he is to be forced to offer up freely to those in need of healing simply because of their need? Or does he have a right to charge a fee for his services because of the value of what he is providing? Are those that he can help entitled to his help simply because of their need for it? And are we therefore obligated to offer our knowledge and our power to the kingdom simply because the king demands that we do so? Or is our power rightfully our own to use as we see fit?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Demetrius considered the question as he walked the stack of trays to the waste bin, and began shaking the discarded food into the bin. Demetrius enjoyed questions like that, they seemed to have many correct answers. He wet his towel in the bucket by the bin and rinsed it out, walking back to the table to wipe it down. The students all seemed to be considering the question.

It was a pale faced boy that seemed too small to be wearing second year robes who finally answered, “I think our powers should be our own! Regulation of magic seems to be an antiquated concept, I mean, it was important in dealing with war criminals, but we should be trusted to use any and all magic as we see fit! I am no criminal.” The boy grew more and more excited with every word.

The girl called Mariless looked shocked at his words, she was shaking her head when she said, “No. That’s not right, there has to be rules, there has to be some order or who knows what would happen.” The tide of the conversation was turning against her however.

The large fourth years student spoke up again, “I don’t know Mariless, I’ve always kind of thought it was unfair, we work so hard to learn to do so many things, and then we graduate and we have to get permits to use even the simplest cantrips!” The other students at the table murmured their assent.

Mariless seemed to be genuinely upset now, she gathered up her robes and her books, “I’m very glad that this little group of people is not in charge of thaumic law! We have to have order or we’d just be a pack of wild dogs fighting over the scraps of this continent like the Tower Wizards!” She stormed off, leaving the cafeteria.

Veles took an appraising glance at the remainder of the group, and seemed to smile at the ideas that were apparent on their faces, “We all have classes to attend. Not everyone is open to new ideas, remember that.” He stood up and smiled a snake’s grin, “It takes an open mind to embrace new thinking, so many are stuck in the mire of tradition. I am not saying there is any real truth to either side of the argument students, I’m simply saying that you all need to think for yourselves. Let us adjourn for the day, and make our way back to our pursuit of knowledge.” The group gathered up their books and made their way out of the cafeteria, leaving Demetrius completely alone.

Cyndy’s tiny voice chirped in his ear, “Whatcha doin?”

He dropped the stack of trays he was carrying, and reeled looking all around until his eyes fell on her tiny form. She was wearing a tiny tight-fitting black garment now. He had spilled the contents of the discarded trays onto his clothes, and he was trying to clean himself off as he spoke, “I thought I was rid of you, demon. I’m cleaning. That’s my job you know.”

She smiled at him, hovering a few inches from his face, “Oh Demetrius you are so much more than a cleaning servant you know. You do so much more than that.”

“Yes, I talk to imaginary demons.”

She laughed at this and flitted around his head as he picked up the fallen trays from the floor. “So I was thinking that maybe you could show me around the University some more. I’m having trouble finding some of the easter eggs.”

He sat the fallen trays back at the refuse bin, and looked around the filthy cafeteria. There were many of his duties that he was sure would go unnoticed at least for a day or two if he were to neglect them. Cleaning the cafeteria was definitely not one of them. He looked at the tiny woman hovering in front of him on nearly invisible wings, and poking at the tiny rectangle that never seemed to leave her hand. His mind wandered back to the conversation that he had been listening to, and for the first time in all the years he’d cleaned the University he wondered why it wasn’t maintained by magic.

Working in the University he was as aware as anyone not actually learning magic could possibly be of the rules and regulations of the school. Magic was only used by permit, and acquisition of necessary permits was said to be quite difficult. Demetrius had overheard many an outraged mage throwing a fit about being denied a permit for this spell or that. The professor called Veles made some interesting points. Why was it such a big deal to use magic? Why teach it all if it was going to be so heavily policed. Why was the University kept clean with buckets of soapy water and sweat when it could be cleaned instantly with magic! He asked her, “Do you think you could use some of your magic to clean this room? I, well I’d have time, you know. To show you around, if you cleaned this room with your powers.”

She giggled in her tiny voice, and answered through the fit of laughter, “I’m not magic silly. I could no more clean this room with magic than you could! What makes you think I’m magic?”

Demetrius considered this. He wondered if he was being mocked, and decided that he probably was but that there was no harm in it. Still, the complexity of the spell to create this illusion was such that there was too much doubt in his mind that someone would go to such efforts to mock a servant. There was also the question of the permits involved. Could there be a whole conspiracy involving the upper echelon of the school to mock me? In spite of himself, he answered her, “You are obviously magic. I’ve never heard of a race of tiny flying people, and that seems like the kind of thing the first years would talk about. You were a tiny naked woman in the bathroom so at first I thought perhaps someone conjured you, you know, in the men’s room. A naked woman.” He cleared his throat and pushed on, “Then there was the matter of your clothes appearing and disappearing. You seem to be able to come and go as you wish. You speak in tongues. I mean, you’re either of a magical origin or I’m losing my mind!” It was the first time he had voiced the thought aloud, but it was not the first time today he had thought it. Have my years of self imposed isolation finally caught up with me?

She cocked her head to one side, and hovered right in front of him speaking into her tiny rectangle, “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. You see, the amount of magic that gets used here at the school has created a thinness between this reality and another reality where your exploits are observed. I simply pushed on that thinness and found my way through.”

He looked at her and said, “Of course. Makes perfect sense.”

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