Third Law

Nothing was said as the tea seeped. It seemed as if purposefully allowing the time to pass allowed everything else to slow down and find focus.

“Please,” Clara said at last, reaching forward and touching the table with her right wrist beside the cups.

Anna drew a long breath, focused on the horrific result of what others had done to someone for merely the suspicion of using magic.

At last she picked up a cup, taking it in both hands. “What did you mean by nature pushing back?”

“Think of a scale. Every time supernatural magic is used, something in nature has to happen to balance that. If you were to summon a cup of water to this table-” Clara gestured with her wrist to the earthenware cup on the table, “-somewhere else has to lose a cup of water.”

Anna nodded once in understanding. “Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.”

“Where did you hear that?” Clara asked, appearing surprised.

“Newton’s third law. It is well known in my world.”

“Newton sounds quite wise. Did they understand magic?”

“He understood nature.”

“Then as you understand, summoned water cannot simply instantly exist from nothing. If you pull a cup here, a cup is pulled from somewhere else. Maybe from the town well. Maybe from a nearby stream. Regardless, a cup is pulled.”

Clara drew the cup closer to herself with a soft scrape across the wood. “Who is going to notice a cup of water missing from the well? When magic is used and its balancing occurs somewhere else– never seen– then the user wrongly assumes nothing negative happened. So, they continue using and abusing magic, unaware of the repercussions.”

Anna sipped her tea slowly. Her dehydrated body wanted to eagerly gulp it down in one big chug, but she reminded herself this conversation was about patience.

“Well, that explains something common like creating water, but what about impossible things? Like summoning someone from another world? How is that balanced?”

“Easily balanced. The person ceases to exist in the other world.”

Anna frowned. Her body, crushed under a piano, just suddenly going missing? That would certainly create a lot of confusion. “Can I return home?”

“Since you did not exist here before being summoned, that seems reasonable. Your returning home is returning nature back to its original, proper state.”

“What about creating something that hasn’t existed before? Or undoing something that is already existing to make it not exist?”

“You mean death magic.”

“Yes.”

“The nobles violated life magic and death magic for centuries. Extending their lifespans, killing their enemies. Extending their own lives shortened the lives of others. Killing a mortal generated an undead somewhere else, sometimes from existing remains, other times something else entirely."

“Did they know?” Anna asked.

“Of nature’s balancing? I cannot answer that for them, but to think they were completely unaware is difficult to fathom.”

“I suspect something very bad eventually happened.”

“Quite. They kept abusing magic, both aware and unaware of the consequences. What magic that could not be immediately balanced by nature resulted in the creation of something unnatural. It grew for centuries unchecked deep underground, paying for the deficit created by magic abuse.” Clara put the teacup to her lips.

“It is called The Great Undeath.”

“Sounds bad.”

The woman drew a long breath of the tea’s soothing scent before taking a slow sip. “About fifty harvests ago The Great Undeath ruptured out from the earth, in the then capital of the realm. Hundreds of thousands perished, including most of the nobility.”

“The nobility that remained rallied their forces and attempted to defeat The Great Undeath in a series of losing battles. With every loss The Great Undeath became stronger. The last battle resulted in a catastrophic collapse of the battlefield. It is now a wasteland.”

“So because magic is caused by writing, the nobility made it illegal to write?”

“Correct. They finally came to understand that magic use was strengthening The Great Undeath. The last thing they want to do is to make it worse.”

“Why not explain that to everyone? Rather than outlaw literacy.”

“Because, it is easier to rule through fear than through education.” Clara set her cup down, both left hand and right wrist returning to her lap, allowing her words to thoughtfully linger. “Because, magic is far too tempting.” Her eyes danced back and forth, attempting to read Anna, discerning the truth in the blue haired traveler.

“Some will always put their own interests ahead of the good of the realm. Make it illegal to write and few will be able to use magic of their own.”

“So I really am a criminal then?” Breaking eye contact, Anna took another sip before returning her half empty cup to the table.

“To the nobility? Yes. To those who know better? Only if you use magic indiscriminately. Magic is capable of selfless things, but more often than not it is used for selfish means.”

Clara lifted the kettle, refilling Anna’s cup. She did so slowly, allowing the only sounds in the room to be calming ones. That of the hot water shushing into the cup, the crackle and snap of the fire within the brick fireplace.

Anna thought for a while. “If The Great Undeath is effectively a debt created by using magic, how can it ever be repaid?”

Clara shook her head. “I have no idea. But I think some people still believe that it can be defeated through direct conflict. They think, if only there was a powerful enough magic user that could face it. If only they could summon a user of greater magic strength than that of the debt.”

Staring at the pall in her lap, Anna felt an immense weight upon her. The weight of responsibility for saving a realm. “And I am their latest attempt,” she concluded.

“Do not let their choices be your choices. You need to forge your own path. They have done this before. At least twice, to my knowledge. Possibly more. Their ways do not work.”

“If they keep failing, why keep trying the same thing over and over?”

“That, Anna, is the definition of insanity.”