CHAPTER 53 – Illusory Progression

On the fifth morning of her introductory lessons, Saphienne was surprised to find her mother awake, bathed, and dressed when she descended the stairs. Pausing halfway down, hand on the railing, she eyed her mother with suspicion; the elf sat on the couch, clutching a glass in her right hand, while her left held a sheet of paper — trembling.

Her mother’s coat was spread across the cushion next to her.

“Going for supplies?” Saphienne asked as she entered the living room, already knowing the answer.

Her question nearly startled her mother into spilling the wine. “…Yes,” she answered, eyes wide with fright. “Do you want anything?”

“I can fetch whatever I need.” Saphienne kept her voice civil as she went into the kitchen, though her resentment was as keen as ever. Mercifully, her mother said nothing else to her as she made herself breakfast, and she ate while standing, eager to be out of the house.

Yet the discussion of supplies reminded her: she had a backpack to return. Curiously, it was not where she had left it next to the counter, but was hung, empty, upon the back of the kitchen door. “Where are the ingredients I brought home?”

Her mother’s voice was distracted as she called back. “I put what’s left of the salt, flour and yeast in the cupboard, and the butter and syrup in the pantry. There’ll be more later, when you’re home.”

Mindful that the spirits were judging, Saphienne nevertheless rolled her eyes as she shouldered the pack. “I told you: I can fetch what I need.” She fought herself so as not to stalk past her mother as she went to the front door. There, she took a deep and steeling breath. “…Good morning, mother.”

Who was startled for the second time, and turned to face her across the back of the couch with a bright smile. “Good morning, Saphienne!”

For all her effort at self-control, Saphienne still slammed the door as she left.

 

* * *

 

Celaena was waiting for her – as agreed with Iolas the day before – at the bottom of the hill, and the two set out for their classroom after exchanging greetings. Little was said for the first part of their journey, Celaena recognising that Saphienne was in a bad mood, but when they neared the outskirts of the village the older girl spotted a tawny owl asleep overhead, insisting they stop for a moment. The calm contemplation of the dreaming bird brightened Saphienne’s eyes, and when they resumed walking, she made an effort at conversation, practising being engaging while saying nothing important.

Yet as they reached the wizard’s tree the pair found Iolas loitering on the doorstep, defeating the entire purpose of Celaena walking with Saphienne. He raised his hands when he saw the girls’ expressions. “I was told to wait! He said we’re to enter together.”

“Another indoor lesson?” Celaena couldn’t hide her disappointment. “Yesterday was interesting, but I hoped we’d be doing something more practical.”

Saphienne let go of her hand as she offered Iolas a hug — which he accepted. “Did our master tell you what we’re studying today?”

“No.” He released her, answering as he equitably embraced Celaena. “He seemed distracted — and Peacock was quiet.”

“Well then.” Saphienne was eager for more, her hand already on the door. “Let’s see how abstract today’s lesson is.”

 

* * *

 

“You’re all here — good!” Almon was grinning broadly, dressed in a resplendent enchanted robe that shimmered in shifting shades of blue. “Help yourselves to your tea, but do not sit: the lesson has already begun.”

As she stepped aside to make way for her friends, Saphienne studied the parlour with growing interest. She knew at once – going by his ostentatious garment – that the wizard was introducing them more formally to his favoured discipline of Hallucination, and the sight of two, identical copies of his chair set side-by-side dryly indicated his good cheer. As promised, he had left drinks for them hovering a little way into the parlour — the tray on which they waited much like Celaena’s, though warm gold in hue.

“Hallucination?” Iolas asked, just as quick to read their master.

“Indeed.” Almon closed the book he had been reading, slipping it under his arm. “Thanks to Saphienne’s churlish behaviour, you have already been introduced to the key principle of the discipline — the necessity of belief. And thanks to that same rudeness, she knows a little more than you.” For once, his anger toward her was transparently performative. “Saphienne: explain what I told you.”

Collecting her cup from the tray, Saphienne took her time sipping before she answered. “The art of Hallucination lies in sustaining a waking dream, which requires a fertile imagination, and the suspension, but not the annihilation, of disbelief.” She offered a self-aware smile. “With a strong force of will, a hallucination can be disbelieved, and an act which spreads that disbelief to the wizard can collapse the spell. My conjecture is that Hallucination spells which aren’t figments either stand or fall for everyone, with no middle ground.”

“Largely correct.” Almon moved beside one of the chairs, resting his hand upon it. “Though we will not cover the particulars for some time, I will clarify that a wizard well-versed in Hallucination can cause a spell of the discipline to fade for only them, without collapsing it for everyone else, but this is delicately achieved, and overt acts which would disprove the hallucination will still collapse it.”

Warming her hands around her tea, Celaena cast her eyes across the room. “Apart from one of the chairs, there are other hallucinations here, aren’t there?”

“There are.” He waited.

“…You’re challenging us to identify them?”

Saphienne smirked. “And collapse them. This is revenge.”

So in his element was the wizard that he allowed himself a deep, throaty laugh, and he dramatically threw his arm up to the ceiling. “And I will not be denied! Yes, Saphienne, this is revenge for our first meeting. I told you that you wouldn’t have succeeded, had I anticipated your disbelief, and now you will discover the truth behind my words.” He paced away from the chairs as he explained the game. “There are several Hallucination spells alive in this room, all different, and all maintained through varying force of will. Some,” he glanced to the chairs, “are intentionally obvious. But will you find the others? And will you muster the ingenuity of disbelief necessary to collapse the few you find?”

Iolas took off his outer robes, folding them. “Master, are any of these hallucinations a danger to us?”

“No.” Amused, Almon gave him a small bow. “No, the hallucinations in this room threaten nothing but your pride. However, what you do while trying to overcome them is entirely your choice.”

“Then,” the apprentice added, grinning as he got into the spirit of the lesson, “surely there are rules? I can’t imagine you want us to wreck your parlour.”

“Indeed.” He ended his walk by the window, next to where Peacock was roosting — eyes closed in concentration. Almon brushed the green feathers of the bird’s tail as he began. “First, my familiar is key to this exercise, and you will not disturb him. Second, do nothing that would endanger your lives should you be wrong. Third, the bookshelves are excluded from this test — leave my tomes well alone. Fourth, you are free to confer, and are not in competition with each other.” His happiness dimmed. “Finally, owing to the actions of your predecessors, I must insist that fire is not a permissible means to test your surroundings.”

His students chuckled.

“Otherwise?” He left the window, leaning against the wall as he returned his attention to his book. “Have at it. You have until you find them all, or admit defeat.”

Saphienne was aware of Celaena and Iolas nervously turning toward her. “…Two hours. Let’s say two hours.”

“As you choose, Saphienne.”

 

* * *

 

Iolas set his outer robes down where he was standing, then moved with purpose toward the chairs. “Let’s get the easy one out of the way first.”

“Famous last words,” Saphienne murmured, watching as he sat in the leftmost chair.

When the chair resolutely remained, Iolas relaxed and nodded. “So it’s the other one.” With boyish bravado, he rose and gave the rightmost a casual kick–

And yelped, stubbing his toe on the wood as the heavy chair ground across the floor.

Celaena frowned as she moved across to it. “…Misdirection?” She gingerly tried sitting on the chair, perturbed as she felt it was quite solid. “Yes, this is a misdirection — there really are two chairs.”

Saphienne folded her arms, swinging her half-full teacup from her fingers. “I’m not so sure. The flowers felt very real, when we first touched them.”

“That one,” Iolas flexed his foot at the chair he’d kicked, “definitely feels real. But both the chairs took our weight.”

Rising, Celaena pushed the chair he’d sat on, moving it closer to Iolas. “Give this one a kick as well.”

“You do it,” he replied, irritated. “There’s no reason I should be the one–”

Saphienne interrupted. “There is: we need a direct comparison. Do they both hurt in the same way?”

Although he was obviously unhappy, to his credit as an apprentice wizard, Iolas accepted the point with a lingering sigh; he took a moment to study the ceiling as he readied himself. With his best approximation of the same cavalier attitude, he drew back his other foot and kicked the chair — swearing loudly as he obtained the same result.

Almon quietly laughed, eyes on his reading material.

“Having fun?” Iolas asked, voice dripping with venom.

“You were warned.” His master was unmoved by his plight. “The fault for your pain lies with yourself; and, whether or not you can admit it now, I expect you will find this quite amusing one day.”

Saphienne smothered her own amusement out of loyalty to Iolas, and instead approached the pair of chairs, setting down her drink to try and fail to lift them. “Same weight,” she grunted, barely able to tilt them. “They look the same, sound the same, smell the same, feel the same–”

“Why not have Celaena taste them?” Iolas asked, facetious.

Saphienne shrugged. “Good point.” Before either of the pair could stop her, she leant over to the leftmost chair and licked the varnish of its wooden back.

“Saphienne.” Celaena’s face contorted in disgust. “That’s awful.”

“It’s just wood,” she answered, moving to the next. “If Iolas can drink water we’ve put our hands in, this is hardly any worse.”

Yet as her tongue touched the second chair, she paused, another smile spreading on her lips as she reclaimed her tea and straightened back up.

Iolas gave her an incredulous look. “You’re joking… really? That worked?”

Closing her eyes, she waved her free hand–

Which thumped against the wood, bouncing off.

“…Right.” She stared meditatively at the hallucination of a chair. “I see now. Intellectually, I know this isn’t really a chair: it doesn’t taste of anything. But that doesn’t matter, not when the Hallucination spell is maintained by powerful belief.”

“You’re sure?” Celaena asked, joining her beside it and then – with visceral displeasure – leaning in to lick the wood. Her relief when she confirmed Saphienne’s conclusion was just as conspicuous. She duly reddened. “I thought you might be teasing us…”

Pain forgotten in his curiosity, Iolas walked over and sat on the false chair, then stood and paced around it. “I don’t understand how this is possible.” He shook his head as he glanced between Saphienne and Celaena, seeking an answer that wasn’t forthcoming. “Feeling real, I get that. But how can a hallucination serve a physical function?”

Considering the puzzle, Celaena mirrored his test by sitting on the other chair. “I don’t know,” she said, relaxing as she drank more of her green tea. “Could it be that we’re not actually sitting on it? Could the hallucination make us think we’re sitting on the chair?”

Saphienne reflected on what they’d learned about the disciplines. “…I don’t expect so. We know that figments weave in elements of Fascination, and I believe that’s the discipline which affects thoughts. If I were to propose a distinction,” she said, looking to Almon for confirmation, “Hallucination affects the senses, while Fascination influences the mind?”

His eyes flicked up. “An important distinction. There are significant differences between the disciplines, but functionally, you are superficially correct.”

“Superficially?” Iolas mulled over the word. “That implies it’s not so clear. Can Hallucination affect the mind? No, don’t answer: it must affect the mind, or my foot wouldn’t be hurting.”

Inhaling, Saphienne seized on his insight. “That’s the difference. Hallucination convinces us that something is real.” When neither of the others responded, she faced them with growing insistence. “Think about it! You perceive a chair, you believe it’s real, and you give it a kick — what do you know should happen?”

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Celaena was unconvinced. “If that were right, then if we know the chair should taste like a chair…” She snorted at her own words, rolling her eyes. “…Listen to what we’re saying. But you get my point, don’t you?”

Yet Iolas knew why. “The Hallucination spell doesn’t incorporate the sensation of taste, so it doesn’t fool our senses. And why should it?” He nudged Saphienne. “Who licks a chair?”

“As for Fascination,” Saphienne concluded, “it doesn’t try to persuade us through our senses, I imagine, but directly changes our minds… which might even make us see what isn’t there. They work from opposite directions.”

Now Celaena got her logic. “Hallucination works from the outside in, while Fascination works from the inside-out. I could see that.” She turned to Almon. “Is she correct, Master?”

His lips were pursed. “Correct enough for the moment. Today’s lesson does not concern Fascination.”

“So it’s convincing us,” Iolas affirmed, “not deluding us. We’re all seeing this, we’re all experiencing it together, but it depends on our perceptions. Then how is it able to function as a chair?”

Saphienne had been turning the problem over, and she downed the remainder of her tea as she gestured to her fellow students. “I’ve got it. Celaena, sit on the hallucination; Iolas, sit on the real chair.”

Keen to learn what she’d discovered, they both took their places. Saphienne cast her gaze over Iolas as he lounged, then focused her attention on Celaena. “Your posture looks a little stiff.”

“Father says a wizard should comport herself with dignity,” Celaena replied, rising as she spoke. “What did that–”

“Sit back down,” Saphienne told her. “Keep sitting.”

Scowling, Celaena clenched her fists as she sat on the chair’s edge. “You don’t need to speak to me like that. You could ask, you know.”

Iolas had turned fully toward them, drawing one leg up to fold it underneath himself as he became enthralled by the spectacle. “…I’m seeing it too, Saphienne.”

Celaena grimaced at him. “Seeing what?” Indignant, she stood back up, wiping her brow as she wheeled around to face him. “Stop talking around me like I’m–”

“Why did you stand up?”

“Because I’m not going to play along if you–”

Saphienne gently moved her aside, then sat down on the hallucination as heavily as she could. She stared at her own legs, concentrating hard. “This is… very strange… and very difficult…”

Calming down, Celaena was still baffled. “What’s difficult?”

Iolas lifted his other leg off the floor. “She can’t move her legs.”

Saphienne closed her eyes. Absently, she heard Celaena gasp as the girl made sense of what was in front of her, but she kept focusing on the physical sensations she wanted to ignore as she felt for the coin pouch.

Celaena was talking to Iolas. “How long can she hold herself up? Do we have to wait for her legs to give out?”

Through a tremendous effort of will, Saphienne raised one foot off the floor–

And promptly fell over, straight through the hallucination, which collapsed about her in a sapphire haze.

 

* * *

 

As Saphienne lay panting on the floor, Iolas happily announced that one of his feet had stopped throbbing. Celaena belatedly realised that her annoyance was misdirected stress from holding herself upright while convinced she was sitting, and she gave a stilted but sincere apology, helping Saphienne back to her feet.