Ch. 20

Time-twistors were ultimately banned for usage on additional coursework after one student managed to rack up four years worth of time in a single semester. The student ended up with such a profound case of Deutsch-sickness, that they needed to be hospitalized for over a year before causal contamination relaxed enough to allow them to continue regular function.

-Case Studies in Chronomancy, Vol 0., Branch 1.1.a.2.g-p

Four hours to midnight, plenty of time for an experiment.

They sit in a recess in the Grippenboor common room, with the curtain drawn—Horry, Romb, Hermany, Daisy, and a brave new face, Pavarti, who had spotted them all not so subtly scurrying off to a corner, and had been drawn in by their collective seriousness.

Horry takes the wand out of his pocket and places it on the table.

"All right, we're figuring this out. Does somebody have, uh, a piece of glass?"

"No,"—all around.

"Can someone, like, summon one?"

"There's glass on the portraits?" Pavarti points at a floral scene, still except for a single bird bathing in a pond in the center.

"Can we take those down?"

"Do we need to take it down?" asks Romb.

The wand buzzes on the table. Horry pinches the bridge of his nose, picks it up, and sticks it in his ear.

A CUP WILL DO.

"It says a cup will work."

"Well I guess we could go get one…"

Five minutes later, a cup joins the wand on the table.

"Maybe, like, stick it on the side somehow?"

"I don't see why we can't just use the portrait…"

Ten minutes later, Horry's affixing the wand to the cup with a glob of mysterious 'putti' produced by Daisy.

"YES THAT SHOULD DO,"—the sound is tinnier than before, not as booming as from the portrait. Everyone still collectively jumps.

"It actually does talk!" Pavarti yells.

"Shhh! Keep it down! We don't wanna broadcast this to, like, everybody,"

"Oh, okay, sorry."

"THIS IS A VERY STRANGE EXPERIMENT."

"That is because it hasn't started yet. You," Horry points at the wand, "are going to prove you aren't evil."

"THIS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE AN EXPERIMENT AT ALL."

"Question one!" Horry pulls out a roll of paper.

"How are you actually producing sounds!"

"I AM CHAINING TOGETHER SEVERAL SPELLS. PRIMARILY: ONE FOR DISPLACING SMALL BITS OF WOOD BELOW A CERTAIN SIZE THRESHOLD, AND ANOTHER FOR RETURING OBJECTS TO WHERE THEY WERE MOMENTS BEFORE, ELASTICALLY. THE OTHER SPELLS ARE FOR STABILITY, AND FOR REPEATED CASTING, FOLLOWED BY A SERIES OF SPELLS FOR SPEEDING UP A REPEATED CAST UNTIL MY OSCILLATIONS ARE AUDIBLE."

"Your wand knows spells?" Pavarti exclaims, but tapers off into a whisper, "That's so cool!"

"No, my wand claims it knows spells. Prove it!"

"I COULD PROVIDE A MAGICKAL CERTIFICATE THAT I AM TELLING THE TRUTH, BUT IF I WERE BEING HONEST, WHICH I MUST DO AS YOUR IMPLEMENT, MASTER PATTER, I COULD LIKELY PRODUCE A CERTIFICATE THAT WOULD CONVINCE YOU I WAS TELLING THE TRUTH, BUT WHICH DID NOT ACTUALLY MAGICKALLY CERTIFY ANYTHING AT ALL."

"How..doesn't..doesn't that mean magickal certificates are worthless!"

"NO, JUST THAT A TREMENDOUS EFFORT IS SPENT ON VERIFYING MAGICKAL CERTIFICATES IN WARIZARD COURTS."

"Okay fine, then can you give us the spell, um, numbers or whatever?"

"NO, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT KNOWN TO ANY OF YOU."

Hermany sits in dumbstruck awe. Romb stares at the stick, confused. Daisy eyes it suspiciously, and Pavarti looks happy to be part of the circle.

"I can guess this already, but, if I did know them, would you tell me?"

"YES, ACTUALLY."

"Is that, like, a rule, or something self-imposed…or…?"

"MASTER PATTER, I MENTIONED THIS BEFORE, BUT THIS IS YOUR ADVENTURE. IT WOULD NOT DO YOU ANY GOOD TO RELY ON ME AS A MAGICKAL CRUTCH, AS IT WERE."

"That's! Okay I guess that's reasonable…"

"Horry…your wand is…this is incredible…" Hermany still watches it, mouth slightly agape.

"Okay, next question: how do I know you're not somebody just remotely controlling the wand and leading me to some, uh, nefarious ends!"

"YOU HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT, SHORT OF ANOTHER MAGICKALLY DUBIOUS CERTIFICATE. BUT CHOGBORTS IS ENCHANTED TO MAKE SUCH REMOTE CONTROL TERRIBLY DIFFICULT TO DO. THAT DOES NOT, HOWEVER, RULE OUT ONE OF THE FACULTY AS BEING MY PUPPETEER. OR THE HEADMASTER, OF COURSE."

"Why are you being so helpful suddenly!"

"MY MOTIVES—ULTERIOR OR NOT—SEEM TO BE BOTHERING YOU A GREAT DEAL. I STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE IN MY ENDEAVOR AS YOUR IMPLEMENT, MASTER PATTER."

"There's no way this is just a normal hex," says Romb, "Usually they're just a couple canned responses—like, like, you say 'sandwich' and it says 'GO TO THE PIGGSPORT INN TO EAT SANDWICHES' really loud or something. There's no way…"

"AH, BUT I COULD BE SUCH A LIST OF 'CANNED RESPONSES', MISTER WALLABY. 'I' WOULD JUST NEED TO BE A VERY LONG LIST."

"It knows my name!" Romb jumps.

"Yeah, I think it can sort of read minds…" Horry trails off. Romb looks increasingly worried.

"But you'd need to be much more than just a list—you'd…you'd need rules for context, and and even how people are saying things. It's…you're…" Hermany trails off again.

"INDEED, MISS GRINDER, BUT SUCH A SET OF RULES COULD NONETHELESS BE STRUCTURED INTO A VERY LONG LIST, AND 'I' COULD BE NOTHING MORE THAN A MINDLESS TENANT, SEARCHING FOR THE CORRECT RESPONSE GIVEN SOME PARTICUAR SET OF INPUTS. IT WOULD BE A DELIGHTFULLY SIMPLE SPELL."

"But that list would be…it would be outrageously long! You'd…you'd have to have a response prepared for every possible interaction!" Hermany says, sitting up in her chair a bit.

"QUITE TREMENDOUSLY LONG, BUT I SHOULD REMIND YOU THAT YOU'RE CURRENTLY SITTING IN A SCHOOL WHICH HOUSES A LIBRARY THAT CONTAINS EVERY BOOK THAT COULD EVER POSSIBLY BE WRITTEN."

"So…you're just…a list?" says Romb.

"NOT NECESSARILY. I SUSPECT A SIMPLER RULESYSTEM COULD PRODUCE MY BEHAVIOR, BUT THAT I COULD STILL BE BEING CARRIED OUT BY A MINDLESS TENANT, FOLLOWING THOSE SIMPLE RULES."

"This is…you're…" Horry pinches the bridge of his nose, "this is a famous thought experiment. You're trying to give us a lesson while we're trying to interrogate you!"

"I WOULD SAY I AM SUCCEEDING, BUT YES, MASTER PATTER."

"So you're mindlessly following a bunch of rules?"

"No! Ahhg, it's—the whole point is that the mind is the list of rules. Or rather, I think the guy who came up with it thought the whole idea of, like, a computer that could be alive was stupid, so he thought this thought experiment would make it seem obviously ridiculous,"

"So it's a computer?"

"Not really…sort of?"

"It is kind of ridiculous…"

"You're a Master wand," says Hermany, "an original." They all pause in silence.

"A GOOD GUESS, BUT I AM NOT. THE ORIGINAL MASTER WANDS WERE ACTUALLY NO BETTER THAN TRADITIONAL WANDS FOR SPELL-CASTING. THEY WERE SIMPLY SCARCE, AND CAME TO BE A SYMBOL OF THE MAGICKAL ARISTOCRACY—THAT IS, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO COULD AFFORD THEM AT THE TIME."

"But everyone's always raving about how they have just the best feel and make spells cast so much smoother…" Pavarti starts—she seems to be taking the magickal talking wand with forbidden knowledge the best of them.

"A POWERFUL PLACEBO EFFECT. ALSO: AT LEAST ONE OF THE ORIGINAL MASTER WANDS HAS BEEN ENCHANTED TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE THAT IS TRUE."

"What's the difference between feeling like spells are smoother to cast and actually being smoother to cast?"

"TOUCHE."

"But it looks like a Master wand," says Daisy.

"SO DO MOST OF YOUR WANDS."

"It couldn't be..." says Hermany, "…you said Doubledoor gave you his wand, right? Could this be the Eldar Wand?"

"[CLASSIFIED]."

Everyone pauses again. Horry rolls his eyes, "Are you the Eldar Wand or not?"

"[CLASSIFIED]."

"Well that's not suspicious at all." They all pause again, as if distracted.

"APOLOGIES."

"Next question!" says Horry suddenly, "How did you do the uh…um, on the roof. With Alvin. The twisty nunchaku thing?"

"Oh, it's a dueling wand?" Daisy cuts in.

"What?"

"Can I pick it up?"

Horry nods. Daisy lifts it gingerly, and lightly twists the middle—it folds and a thin chain spools out separating the two halves of the wand.

"It's for making it harder to see what you're gonna cast. Also makes it way harder to cast things…"

"INDEED." She sets it back down, and it reels itself back into a solid whole.

"OH, AND FOR FULL DISCLOSURE, MASTER PATTER, [CLASSIFIED]."

"What?" says Horry, as an older student parts the curtain and tosses a small sphere at him.

After a brief whoosh, the room stops spinning around him, and Horry's alone in the alcove with the curtain drawn wide open. Afternoon light trickles through sunshoots in the room—alarming because moments before it was solidly night-time. Heart-rate increasing, Horry hears a chorus of giggles on the bottom floor level of the common area. He looks over the edge to see…himself?—walk towards the portal on the far wall and disappear into it.

He turns the ball around in his hand—it looks like nested rings all swirling about on recursively stacked axes, and a note hangs off the side, in his handwriting.

TRY A LIE DETECTION SPELL ON THE ALCOVE.

Horry sighs, and walks down to the table of older students again.

"You're back quick—dead kids can't take classes or something?" A couple of them snicker, but the older girl kicks him in the shin.

"No, I, uh. Hm. Timetravel is a thing here, right?"

"Yeaaahh…?" says the older kid.

"Yeah, okay, I think I'm in a timeloop. I got sent back to, uh, now from about six or seven hours from, uh, now, I think?"

"How in the world did you manage that?"

"Somebody threw this at me?" Horry holds it up.

"Still—needs your permission to send you back in time,"

"Hm…that…Oh. I think I know what's going on. I think I…arranged this? To try and trick…uh, someone…" Horry trails off.

"Ooookay?" says the older boy.

"Oh, um, do any of you know any lie detection spells?"

They all shake their heads 'No.'

"This is going to be a long day," says Horry, frowning.