Building A Better Watch
Johan sat uncomfortably across from Professor Malus, several notebooks resting on the wide desk between them. He had asked Malus to act as his advisor on the subject of his thesis for graduation, but now that he was sitting across from the older man, he didn’t know exactly what to expect. All of his notes, references, and tools sat on the near side of the desk, but one notebook had been pulled out, and Malus was reading from near the middle, with his brow furrowed.
The topic that Johan had selected was on the investigation of historical ritualism as a method used to buffer the side effects of manipulative magic. Ritualism was a practice with a long history in Ardglas and the surrounding area, but had mostly died out in the last few centuries. It was regarded as, at best, understandable superstition by ignorant savages, but Johan believed that it might have been a crude way to identify and avoid the side effects of manipulation. There was a fair amount of evidence that the practitioners of ritualism had been magic users of a sort, and some evidence that the ritual components were somehow associated with different parts of whatever system was being manipulated. To use the same example that Malus gave in his introductory course- healers drawing blood away from a wound might inadvertently starve surrounding tissues of the oxygen they needed to survive, killing flesh and organs. Ritualism, then, provided safeguards that either drew in additional blood from ‘upstream’, so to speak, or that would push back against the manipulation, if there were no other way to prevent damage.
His notebooks included copious notes on both the historical record and more modern speculation (much of it his own) as well as dozens of diagrams and tables listing fragments of different rituals and speculating about their function. Johan was proud of the work he had put into his research, but his crowning achievement was sitting on the near side of the desk.
It was, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly normal pocket watch. The outside was made from some sort of cheap metal plated with pinchbeck (a type of imitation gold). Johan had bought a relatively cheap pocket watch from one of the many markets in Ardglas and then removed the mechanism to replace it with his own, made from corporeal magic. The gears and levers of the watch had been constructed laboriously over three months, by drawing from his own shallow well each day and carefully layering new magic over old, willing it into physical existence. The work had left him hungry, tired, and with almost no magic to use for anything else during that time.
This, on its own, wasn’t particularly noteworthy, except as a measure of his personal determination. What was novel about the watch was that, as far as Johan could tell, it would never run down, once wound. Or, rather, it might run down eventually (even in the safety of his own head, he was leery of making absolute claims) but likely not in the span of a lifetime.
Each gear was a very simple magical artifact that only did two things- maintained a passive connection to the balance wheel of the watch, and gathered energy from heat. The balance wheel drew on those reserves of energy to reinvest waste heat back into the movement of the watch, which made the entire system almost perfectly contained.
He had considered creating a watch crystal that would gather additional power from sunlight, but he hadn’t managed to find a way to make corporeal magic that was both transparent and capable of photosynthesis. It didn’t help that the total volume of the crystal was larger than any of the internal gears by several orders of magnitude, and the thought of spending an additional six months (at a minimum) tired, disgruntled, and powerless was just… unbearable. He hoped the demonstration of corporeal magic would be impressive, despite what he felt was something of a glaring flaw. Malus set down the notebook with a sigh, and removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes for a moment. Johan realized that he was biting his nails and stopped just before the professor opened his eyes again and replaced his glasses.
“And you believe that ritualism can be harnessed to mitigate the negative effects of manipulation magic in general? That’s what all of this is gesturing toward?” Malus asked flatly.
“Yeah- Yes. Corporeal magic could be used to create patterns that will mimic the rituals, and provide the same… buffering effect. Which would make manipulation magic more practical.”
“If the rituals were actually an attempt to do what you describe, which there’s very little evidence for, then corporeal mechanisms might be able to do the same, which might make manipulation more practical. There are a lot of leaps in that chain.” Malus reach forward and picked up the watch, turning it in his fingers.
“And this?” He asked, as he popped the cover open to inspect the ticking hands and the watch face. “Ah- I’ve recreated each gear in the watch using corporeal magic, designed to gather waste heat and pass it to the balance wheel, which reinvests the energy into-” Johan began, but Malus cut him off.
“Balance wheel?”
“A central component that rotates back and forth, driving the operation.” Johan answered.
“The balance wheel gathers the energy from the waste heat and reinvests it into the operation of the watch. The entire mechanism is essentially self-contained, and shouldn’t wind down for… well, I’m not sure exactly, but a very long time. Perhaps as long as fifty years.” Johan felt that he was being wildly conservative. Corporeal magic was nearly frictionless, if made correctly, and would produce much less waste heat than the original mechanism would have, even if one ignored the reclamation enchantment.
“Huh. And then…?” Malus asked, raising one eyebrow. “I imagine it would only need to be wound again to run for another fifty years?”
“Yes.” Johan said.
“Very clever… unique, I think.” He turned the watch thoughtfully on the table. “There are enchantments, magical items and so on that do similar things, but none that are so small and intricate, that I remember. Of course, most of those enchantments are concerned with effects much larger than keeping a watch running, but still.
“I’m not sure what the watch has to do with the research, if I’m being completely honest.” He glanced questioningly at Johan.
“If the rituals were large, clumsy attempts to buffer the side effects of manipulative magic, then I think that we could create a- ah -a focal pattern, is what I’ve been calling them- that would do the same. For example, imagine trying to heal a wound to the side of the head. Pushing blood from the wound back into the body might cause an aneurysm, or something like it, unless the wizard has an intimate knowledge of each vein and artery, and a way to model the blood pressure in the brain. A focal pattern connected to the subject would automatically manipulate the body to avoid this, and allow the wizard to push the blood while disregarding side effects.” Johan leaned forward excitedly as he spoke, his eyes focused on an image in his mind, rather than on his teacher.
“The watch is a demonstration of just such a self-correcting mechanism- albeit without a connection to a subject or any way to control the operation.” He trailed off. The parallel seemed obvious, to him. “It’s a proof of concept, a way to show that a very simple magical artifact can automatically maintain a closed system.”
“Hmm…” Malus stared at the watch in silence for a moment. Johan wondered if he was exploring the watch with his magical senses to verify the truth of what he had been told. There was no way to know, unless Johan were willing to extend his own magical senses into the watch as well. There were popular stories of wizards who had special vision to see other magic in the world, but the truth was that it was more like feeling your way around a dark room and bumping into other people doing the same.
After a moment, Malus sat back in his chair with a thoughtful expression, looking out the window. The university was constructed in a large rectangle, though with many outbuildings and expansions that had been added at various times. In the center of the building was a large garden full of walking paths, benches, and a few small statues of important people (most of whom Johan had briefly investigated at one time or another, mainly to satisfy his own curiosity). Malus’ office bordered the garden, and large windows on one side of the room looked out over a row of bushes toward a walking path. Students were visible in the distance, walking from one classroom to another, sitting on the benches and reading or talking to each other. Malus stared in that direction, but his attention wasn’t on the students. He tapped his lips with two fingers and worked his chin forward and back as he thought.
“This…” the professor began, gesturing toward the watch “… would make a fine thesis. It pushes the bounds of what we know of corporeal magic- few enchantments are this small, this intricate. Heat exchange isn’t entirely novel, but none operate at such a small scale. The craftsmanship is excellent.” Malus picked up the watch again, turning it in his fingers.
“And a closed system like this is… very interesting. I can imagine a dozen ways that this or similar items could be used to build valuable enchantments and there is a clear path to profitability with such machines, especially if you can find a manufacturer in the city to work with. It would reflect well on the school, and whoever you face in your thesis defense would be predisposed to accept your work, given that.”
He set the watch down and leaned back in his chair, waving one hand toward the stack of notebooks and papers beside the watch.
“The research on ritual magic, however, is much less interesting. This idea has been investigated before, and nothing came of it. Have you read Rituals, Then And Now?”
Johan knew the book. It began with a vague overview of a number of rituals from various time periods and regions, then tried to draw trite parallels between those rituals and the evils of modern society. It was one of a class of books that Johan mentally categorized as “motivated storytelling”- books that were less interested in providing information to the reader, and more interested in condemning some aspects of present-day culture with ritualism as a prop to support the idea that people had once been more noble, or thoughtful, or what-have-you in the past.
He despised the damn thing.
“Yes, I did- it wasn’t particularly helpful. And it wasn’t what I would consider an ‘investigation’, really.” Johan said glumly, resisting the urge to rake his papers back into his arms and walk out of the room.
“Yes, well. Taggart was an exceptional wizard- before his time. Setting that aside, many other wizards have investigated similar ideas, and the idea that ritualism was some form of rudimentary aid to casting is an old one. It’s never gone anywhere. As your advisor, I would be doing you a disservice if I suggested you continue with ritualism as a thesis topic, even with a unique angle like this fascinating little watch.” Malus turned the watch on the table again, smiling, but in a particularly soothing way that Johan found to be grating.
“I understand this is a bit of a blow, but I think you’ll agree that delaying your graduation does no one any good, and once you have a position outside of the university, you’ll be free to follow whatever research catches your fancy.” He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and then back to Johan, nodding his head in that direction. “I have twenty or thirty minutes if you would like to spend some time revising your approach and building a rough outline?”
Johan sighed and nodded. He hated being forced to reduce the scope of his work, but Malus wasn’t wrong. The entire situation was infuriating, however. And, if he was being honest with himself, he would have been more comfortable with the idea if the professor had seemed to share his frustration.