CHAPTER 51 – What Is and Isn’t

Rain was lightly falling when Saphienne emerged from her family home — and she nearly walked right into Iolas and Celaena, where they were huddled on the doorstep under his umbrella.

Before she could say anything, both of her friends sighed in relief; Iolas offered Saphienne a weary smile as his anxiety lifted. “So, he didn’t end your apprenticeship.”

With a glance down at her robes, she nodded. “I had to work hard to convince him… but even if I’d failed, our master wasn’t actually going to–”

But Celaena interrupted. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?!” Scowling, her indignance did little to hide her deep concern. “I could have gone with you–”

Iolas nudged Celaena. “You know why — She was keeping you out of it in case she failed.”

“That wasn’t her decision to make,” Celaena sniffed, but she stepped up beside Saphienne and took her arm. “How do you think I would have felt, if it had all gone wrong, and I’d been powerless? If you’d brought me into things, at least I’d have had a reason to feel guilty.”

Saphienne clasped her hand, squeezing her fingers. “I’m not sorry I did it — but I’m sorry for upsetting you, Celaena.”

The older girl narrowed her eyes performatively, no resentment in them. “I’ll remember that.”

Worried that her mother might overhear them, Saphienne pulled the door shut and started down through the grove with Celaena, Iolas hovering nearby as he angled the umbrella to shield the girls at his own expense. Sighing at him, she gestured for Iolas to switch to the other side, and he chuckled as he did so, letting the rain fall across her as it – and she – willed; he laughed more loudly when Saphienne tossed back her hood to feel the rain on her wavy tresses — tickled by Celaena’s confusion.

Rather than pretend she was irritated, Celaena leaned closer, and she squeezed Saphienne’s hand back firmly. “…Odd bird.”

* * *

They shared as they went. Neither Celaena nor Iolas had been sure whose turn it was to walk with Saphienne, so they had met while waiting for her; Iolas had already explained everything relevant from the past two days.

When Saphienne clarified that Almon hadn’t wanted to end her apprenticeship, only move her to another master, Celaena found it so funny that she had to stop walking to contain her guffaws. Iolas had the opposite reaction, frowning with silent yet fierce distaste for the wizard’s petulance. Saphienne didn’t tell them the real reason that their master had wanted to pass her apprenticeship over to another teacher — nor did she share that she had received a letter from the Luminary Vale. She had decided that both friends were better not knowing, though with a different reason for each of them.

So mild was the weather that Iolas folded his umbrella and shook it out long before they reached their master’s home, and he went ahead of both girls as they entered the classroom.

Almon stood with a cup of tea beside his chair, and his eyebrows raised as he watched Saphienne come in. “Saphienne — the last one through the door?”

Before she could reply, Iolas gave a cold retort. “We arrived as a group.”

She lay a hand on his shoulder. “Our master knows that, Iolas.” She studied Almon with grim amusement. “He’s testing me. He wants to see whether I have the presence of mind to remember that I arrived early for this lesson, and to use my answer to judge whether or not I’ve told you both about what happened that day, and about yesterday’s meeting. Does this satisfy you, Master?”

Chuckling, the wizard waved the three in with his cup. “Amply.”

Celaena sat on the right before the chair, leaving Saphienne and Iolas to take the left and middle respectively. The writing boards hadn’t been laid out, still stacked beside the bookcases, but as Saphienne sat she noticed the older girl nevertheless opened her calligraphy set and readied her pens and inks. Meanwhile, Iolas took the time to hang his damp outer robe by the door before joining them.

Her eyes settled on her master as the others prepared. He was ignoring them, finishing his drink as he paced back and forth behind his chair. The wizard studied the teacup in his hand contemplatively, and then reached a decision with a nod to himself, ascending the stairs without another word.

“Did he forget something?” Iolas whispered as he sat.

“No.” She couldn’t tell whether Almon was performing for them, or simply indulging one of his whims. “He’s always prepared for lessons.”

A few minutes later the wizard descended again, carrying two cups in each hand. With the ease of one well accustomed to doing so, he deftly deposited his own, now replenished teacup on the arm of his chair, then bent down to hand a drink to each of them, ending with Saphienne. “I expect you know the subject of today’s lesson, now.”

She glanced at the tea, smiling despite herself. She didn’t answer, but instead turned to her peers. “He gave you both your preferred drinks, didn’t he?”

Celaena sniffed her green tea. “Yes… a divination? Is that what we’re studying?”

Iolas was wary. “Why the sudden hospitality, Master? Or is this part of the lesson?”

“Not part of the lesson, no.” The wizard sat and sipped his own brew. “Today’s lecture will be longer and dryer than usual. We will be covering Divination, yes… but the astute among you three will remember that I said you would be introduced to each of the other disciplines of magic across the first week.”

Saphienne sipped her tea; to her annoyance, it was exactly how she liked it. “So we’re covering two disciplines today… the other being Hallucination?”

“Curious…” Almon’s eyes roamed across her face for a long moment. “Why do you believe those two would make a good combination?”

“They appear to be inversions of each other.” She knew she was guessing, but decided to hazard her thoughts regardless. “One discipline portrays what is not, while the other reveals what actually is. My unfounded speculation is that each discipline shows us what the other isn’t.”

Reminiscence softened his response. “Your conjecture is wrong… however, my master did introduce Hallucination alongside Divination, so your guess wasn’t completely meritless.”

Celaena leant forward. “Which are we studying, then? Transmutation, Translocation, or Fascination?”

Iolas spoke up. “Translocation would be my guess.”

His answer pleased his master. “Correct, Iolas — has your father shared knowledge with you ahead of time?” He smirked at the boy’s surprise. “Yes child, of course I know his chosen art.”

Vexed, Iolas folded his arms. “…Once I told him I was going to try for wizardry, he watched what he said around me. But before then, he did once mention that the two disciplines share a lot in common.”

“They do.” Almon swirled his tea in his cup, grinning. “But that isn’t the reason they’re being taught together.”

Enlivened, the wizard stood, setting his cup down as he clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace. “There are eight disciplines of magic. Every wizard worth the title is proficient with them all — and every wizard of any significant accomplishment specialises in a single discipline. Saphienne, what does this imply?”

She had been thinking about his past, and how it informed on the wizard she knew. “…Your skill with Translocation is lacklustre.”

Almon actually laughed. “Ah, and now you’re entirely correct. No wizard is equally talented in all disciplines.” He swept his hand across the books waiting on shelves and floor. “These texts will take you years to comprehend, and they are but an introduction to the Great Art. Most students of wizardry – once they have attained sufficient familiarity to know their strengths – select two disciplines to study more lightly, that they may pursue their chosen calling in greater depth. Can either of you two,” he addressed the others, “name my weakest discipline?”

“This is a trick question,” Celaena said, confident. “You want us to assume it’s Divination, since you’re teaching it together with Translocation, but you’ve stressed how important Divination is to wizardry — so it can’t be your worst. In fact, is Divination one of your strongest disciplines, Master?”

“Well remembered!” He awarded her a small bow. “No wizard who neglects Divination will be accepted into the Luminary Vale. My weakest discipline is Transmutation, which we will cover another day.”

“Why,” Saphienne wondered aloud, “do wizards always introduce one of their weaker disciplines alongside Divination?”

“They do?” Iolas asked, not following.

“They do,” Almon confirmed. “Saphienne has intuited it from my admission about my master — and what she has inferred about how I first learned the Great Art. But as for the reason,” he went on, “I cannot explain it to you fully, not so early on. Part of the answer is to do with the comparative difficulty in preparing spells of different disciplines, while another is because Divination is best illustrated alongside another discipline.” He set his teacup aside. “My motive for the choice is simply to get Translocation and Divination out of the way at the same time — since their principles are not taught through demonstration.”

“…Which is why this lesson is going to be duller than the others. I see.” Satisfied, Iolas tasted his tea at last. “Then, thank you: this is quite good.”

“I should clarify,” their master said, raising his hand in caution. “Sufficiently potent divinations and translocations are as astonishing as other feats of magic: just because their principles are abstract, do not mistake either discipline for boring.”

Celaena was defensive. “We know the difference, Master. We’ve all had to work at things that aren’t immediately rewarding.”

“Very well.” Rolling up his sleeves, Almon returned to his feet. “Warning given, let’s see what drama we might yet wring from today’s subjects, shall we?”

* * *

The discussion that followed was long and winding, more a philosophical interrogation of the concept of truth and the contingent nature of observable fact than a concrete lesson in the principles of magic. Despite what she had said, Celaena showed signs of frustration as the debate wore on, and even Iolas grew tired with the provocative way Almon asked simple questions and then dismantled their answers.

Saphienne said little, mostly listened and reflected. She knew what Almon was doing — he was using the irony of feigned ignorance to get at inconsistencies in how they thought about the world. Filaurel had taught her in a similar way, though with more gentleness. And the content under consideration was not too far from what Nelathiel had introduced during Saphienne’s visit to the woodland shrine, ultimately arriving at the same key insight.

“Faith,” Almon concluded, “is therefore the prerequisite of truth.” He abruptly rounded on Saphienne. “Let us see whether your reservedness was from confusion or prior understanding, child: explain what this means.”

“Truth doesn’t exist materially.” She rolled her shoulders as she answered, her mind on her earliest lessons in the library. “We can attempt to establish fact by repeated observations of the world around us, and so have varying degrees of confidence in our facts, but even supposedly objective facts might be disproven by further measurement and expanded understanding. Truth, in comparison, is a value we assign to information. Whether or not we consciously know it, when we say something is true, we’re saying that we believe it — that our understanding of the world and our place within it has made us believe. Yet,” she explained, “our understanding of the world and ourselves is always imperfect and incomplete. Even what we believe we understand could be completely wrong.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“I know I exist,” objected Iolas.

“Perhaps,” Saphienne allowed, “but what else do you know for sure? What’s to say you’ve not spent every moment trapped by a fa– trapped in a Hallucination spell, cast by an evil wizard?”

Celaena sighed heavily. “It seems unlikely… but judging it likely or unlikely is based on our observations up until now, which are hypothetically caused by the hallucination, and controlled by the evil wizard. Everything we think we know beyond the self-evident experience of our own existence could be wrong.”

“Practically,” Iolas countered, “we can’t live like that.”

“And we don’t,” Saphienne agreed. “We choose to believe that this isn’t all a Hallucination spell, that the world isn’t going to fall apart at any moment. But the fear of not really knowing is still there. And it also applies to how we understand ourselves — which is why we’re often panicked and angry when we’re shown we’re not quite who we believe we are, I think.”

Almon was standing behind his chair, and he leant against it as he quoted. “‘I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself; and there I found myself more truly and more strange.’” He let the verse sink in. “What does all of this imply?”

Uncomfortable, Iolas rolled his empty teacup in a circle on the floor. “…We can talk ourselves into believing anything…”

“No,” Saphienne countered, “that’s not it. We don’t choose all of what we believe. You don’t choose to have faith in yourself and the world — you grow up with it already made for you, along with everything else we pick up on as children. We all know ourselves as elves because we grew up as elves.”

Celaena folded her hands together. “Are some truths self-evident, then? Like our experience of our own existence?”