"Why does the sun set?" The Warlock asked his mentor. The old man stifled a groan as he was startled by his apprentice's voice. This was the third interruption in only twenty minutes and Gaius was growing irascible. He nabbed a pair of wire spectacles by his elbow and raised them to his face.
"It doesn't," Gaius said as he held a squirming fire ant under in nose with a pair of tongs. It's little legs fought viciously, but to no prevail. Gaius had him in a firm grip and the ant would be going nowhere. The hot sun streaming in through the window illuminated the little bug perfectly for his old eyes.
"Not technically. I hear in Asia it is light there while it's dark here, and vise versa. Impossible it seems, but the travelers all claim it to be true."
"Is it magic?" The Warlock asked from his seat on the bench, swinging his legs with a spark of childish zeal in his eyes. He was so young for such magnificent abilities, his mentor mourned.
"Sure." Gaius motioned for the boy to pass him a glass jar that sat on the cluttered table. The Warlock jumped up and almost sent several vials crashing to the ground as he reached for the glass. It seemed that no matter the age, Merlin would never grow out of his clumsiness. The old man sighed and shook his head as his apprentice mumbled an embarrassed apology.
Gaius dropped the ant into the jar with the rest of its colony and slapped on the lid with tiny holes for air. He ambled across his chambers to place the jar upon a shelf, his long physician robes dusting the ground.
"Magic, science. Whatever you want to call it," Gaius shrugged. "Doesn't mean man will walk hand in hand with the mysteries of the world any sooner."