Ideworld Chronicles: The Art Mage

Day in the story: 5th October (Sunday)

"Yeah, I spoke to him yesterday, told him you guys were planning a girls' night in the city. Why?" Peter replied as I asked about Jason and his mysterious appearance at the club. Sophie was nursing a coffee and a brutal hangover. Zoe was still asleep in Peter's room, she'd come back with Sophie to our apartment late last night.

"Did you tell him which club exactly?"

"No, of course not. I didn't even know which one you were going to. It wasn't like that. I didn't snitch or anything. He just called, asked what was up and I mentioned it casually. How he found you is beyond me, but doesn't that prove Sophie's point? Maybe give the guy a chance?"

Oh, Peter.

"I'm pretty sure she already did," Sophie chimed in, her voice half-coffee, half-smirk.

"What? Really?" Peter blinked.

"Yeah, I did," I admitted. "We danced. We talked. We kissed. Then we watched a movie at his place."

Sophie raised her eyebrows, impressed. Peter looked stunned.

"Apparently you all were right. I decided to give him a shot, he's not entirely bad. And I guess… we're kind of a thing now."

"You could not have been more vague, girl," Sophie muttered, then winced and reached for her coffee again. "How was it? I heard some guy punched him before you two left."

"Oh, that. Yeah, some jerk took a swing at him, but it didn't matter. Jason handled it. He's different from what I expected, but I'm withholding my final verdict. So far, more pluses than minuses."

"Peter," Sophie groaned, "get the hell out. I want kiss details."

"Jesus, Soph. I bet Lex doesn't mind."

"Doesn't mind what?" Zoe asked, appearing from Peter's room like a comedic vision of chaos, hair in full rebellion, Peter's oversized pajamas swallowing her whole. She looked like she'd just fought a pillow war and lost.

"I do mind, Peter. It's girl talk, for girly ears only," I said.

He sighed, grabbed his oatmeal and water and patted Zoe's head on the way out. "Have fun," he muttered, shutting the door behind him.

"What's going on?" Zoe asked as she flopped onto the sofa.

"I'm considering kicking Peter out and letting you live with us instead," Sophie replied. "Girl, you are a force of nature."

Zoe grinned. "You're not so bad yourself. But what were you three talking about that required a boy-exit?"

"Well," Sophie said, turning toward her with a mischievous look, "because of the very similar talk we had yesterday and Peter's loose lips that led Jason to find us at the club, Lex and Jason are now officially a thing."

"No way!" Zoe squealed, pulling her knees up on the couch in excitement.

"Why 'no way'? You were the one saying he was eyeing me all the time."

"I meant no way in the best possible sense."

"So…" Sophie leaned forward with a sly smile, "how was the kiss?"

Zoe squealed again and I couldn't help but laugh. It was good, really good, to just have this simple, warm moment. No assassins. No magic. Just three girls talking about boys.

**********

After Zoe and Peter left around midday, I walked to Sophie's room and knocked.

She opened it almost instantly. "What's up? You wanna talk boys again?"

"No, Sophie. I want to show you something. Something I've kept hidden from you for over a week, but it's important to me. And it's starting to complicate things. I don't want to keep it a secret anymore."

"You sound ominous. I hope it's not, like, cancer or something. Is it?"

"No." I smiled softly. "I think it's a good thing, actually. But time will tell."

Sophie exhaled in relief. She cared so much it almost hurt to witness it. She also really needed to brush her teeth again, I could still smell last night's alcohol.

"I can show and tell, or tell and show. Which do you prefer?"

"Obviously, show and tell," she said, smiling.

I placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Take me to my Domain, I thought to my Lifeline Talisman.

The world bent sideways and in a moment we were somewhere else entirely. A whole dimension away and yet only a few feet in space. We were back in the other version of my room.

"This," I said, spreading my arms, "is the show."

The rainbow-hued light of my crystal soul core, the heart of my Domain, bathed everything in soft, pulsing color, syncing with my own heartbeat. Sophie dropped to the floor, overwhelmed.

She stared first at the crystal, then at the ceiling above us: a painted illusion of a blue sky, warm and endless. Her eyes moved to the statues, each one a version of me and then to the murals on the walls, each depicting one of my anchor points in vivid detail.

"Do tell," she said at last, her eyes returning to me.

So I told her. Everything.

My passion for art. My fight with Shiroi. The test of my powers with Peter. The adventure with Zoe in Ideworld. I knew it would sting, that she'd been the only one excluded, but that was exactly why I had to tell her now. I didn't want to keep hurting her by hiding more.

She listened closely, only occasionally asking questions. I ended with the story of the dress and heels for Peaches.

"So it was literal magic. Shit." Her voice was dazed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Are you?"

"A little bummed to be the last to know, especially that Zoe's a magical fairy too, but I'm glad you told me, Lex. No hard feelings."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"So, will I forget all this?" I'd told her about that too.

"No. I prepared something for you, like I did for Peter. A reminder to keep reality from rewriting your memories. This one's special though."

"Why is that?"

"It's a necklace. It has a fragment of my soul core, this crystal you're looking at, embedded in silver, hanging on a chain. Since you've seen my Domain now, I figured this would be the best anchor for your mind."

"Is it — safe? For you to chip it?"

"I asked it this morning. I can talk to it. It said a small fragment won't hurt, it'll just slow my growth a little while it regrows the chipped part."

I pulled the necklace out and held it up to her.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, then put it on and hugged me tightly. "Thank you."

"I need to place the will of my soul inside now, okay?"

"Sure."

"Be the reminder for Sophie, about magic and everything she learned today from me," I whispered.

The light didn't come from me, it came from the soul core itself. It rushed toward the necklace, swirling in ribbons of color before coalescing inside the crystal at her throat. Inside, a small, rainbow-hued star began to pulse with my Authority.

"The light, Lex, it's swirling inside."

"Honestly? I didn't know it would do that. Is it okay to wear?"

"If it keeps me from forgetting? Then I'll wear it forever." She held the glowing charm in her palm, smiling. "So, can we randomly teleport to Paris for a shopping spree now?"

I laughed. "Not yet. I've never been there. I need memories and art, to tie me to a place. But we can fly there someday, make an anchor and then return whenever we like."

"Sounds like a plan," she said, her smile wide and full of wonder. "But you for sure have a portal at Uni, right? I might be able to sleep more if you take me with you?" Sophie asked, hopefully.

"I'm not your interdimensional Uber, Sophie," I said, half-smiling. "But… I can take you from time to time." Better to set boundaries now before she expects me to portal her between shops, Uni, our place and her parents' house on demand.

"Sure. I'll take what I can get. So… we're really in another world right now? Do you go there through the ceiling?"

"Yes and no. We're in another world, yes. But I can create a door out with just a thought. Still, it's better not to. We're safe here, but out there?" I glanced upward. "Lots of nasty monsters."

"They can come into our world?"

"Apparently. I haven't seen any, though. Fortunately."

"For real? So there might be a vampire out there waiting to sweep me off my feet?"

"I know you're kidding," I said with a faint laugh, "but honestly, I don't know. There could be. If I ever find out, I'll let you know."

She wandered toward the murals on the wall.

"This is your room. Those trees, that's the Uni, right?"

I nodded.

She kept looking. "The rest I don't recognize."

"One's the office of my boss. And de facto? The man who taught me how to be a criminal."

Her head turned sharply toward me. "The one who took you out of the orphanage? The one who took the choice of who you'd become out of your hands?"

I nodded again, slower this time. It was hard to see it that way, I valued what he taught me, but she wasn't wrong. He hadn't offered a real choice. Just one path, paved by his will. And that wasn't even close to the worst thing he did.

"Did he do that to other kids too?"

"Never heard of any," I said.

It was a good question, one I'd never really thought about.

"Do you think he was satisfied with only you? Or maybe there was some hidden reason he chose you?"

"I don't know, Soph. I haven't thought about it like that. But he's never satisfied. He casts a wide net, lots of people in it. I'm just one cog. Still… he lost a child, around the time he started showing up at the orphanage. Could be I was a replacement."

"That's… kind of sick. Was it a daughter?"

"No, a son. Around eighteen when he died. I don't know how."

She looked like she was about to say something more but let it go, turning back to the murals. "What about the others?"

"They're from a covert op I was pulled into. One's the inside of a camper that Thomas, yeah, the guy you saw leaving my room, owns. And no, we didn't sleep together. I portaled him out of danger."

"Oh. That explains a lot."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"The other murals are from the mission. That one's the overlook above the target house. These two are rooms inside it."

"This one with the books is strange… are they valuable?"

"To that family, yes. They protected them with actual magic. I think they contain knowledge about their shared soul core, among other things."

"Wait, you can share that crystal?" she pointed at my core, still glowing softly behind us.

"Yes, but only with those who are… compatible. Who share the core's values."

"And what are yours?"

"Creativity. Artistic instinct. The need to see truth behind the mask and the value of the mask itself. The desire to capture the fleeting and make it permanent."

"That's beautiful," she whispered. "Could I… touch it?"

She stopped a few steps away, hand half-raised. I had to ask.

Anansi, what would happen if she touched the soul core?

[At this stage, she would be granted only a glimpse into your soul, nothing more.]

"If you touch it," I said softly, "you'll feel what's in my soul."

She hesitated, then slowly withdrew her hand. "I don't know what that means. I wasn't even sure souls existed an hour ago."

"I get it, Soph. No offense taken."

"Really?"

"Yes." I smiled. "Would you like to go home now?"

She nodded. I took her hand and led her toward the mural depicting my room. I reached out, touched it and wished us home.

"That movement between worlds…" Sophie began, blinking as we landed back in familiar space, "it's different from what I expected teleportation to feel like. It's like we stayed still, but the world moved around us. Disorienting for a second, not because we moved, but because the view changed."

"That's true, Soph. Good observation."

"Will you tell Jason about all of this?"

"No. I think I'm done telling people. Peter and you know and you two are the closest things to family I have. Zoe knows, through Peter and her own powers. My boss knows and Thomas does too, because I need their trust to survive doing what I do. And there's one family that recently learned part of the truth, because they're teaching me more about these powers. The man, he's the head of the family, owes a life-debt to my boss. But I still don't trust them enough to share everything, even if they seem nice."

"That might be a problem if you and Jason get close."

"I don't know if we will. Like I said, it was nice being with him. He's easy on the eyes and deeper than I expected. I thought it'd be a fling and maybe it still will be… or something longer. But right now, I only feel attraction. Nothing more."

"Well, I fell in love with a guy and got stabbed in the back. So maybe your approach is better."

"I don't know, Sophie. It takes two to make a couple and just three to break it. And knowing Jason, that third person could show up at any moment. I've already made a rule: if he cheats, it's over. No debate."

"Yeah… I should've set that rule too."

"Do you think it would've stopped him?"

"You're right," she sighed. "It probably wouldn't."

"Do you want to talk about it some more? I'll just listen, no judging or anything."

"I know, Alexa," Sophie said quietly. "But no, I've said enough. I just need time now."

"Okay then. If you don't mind, I'd like to work on a project."

"Sure, go ahead," she said and wandered toward the kitchen.

I, on the other hand went straight to my drawer. I rummaged through the contents until I found what I was looking for: a simple, worn deck of playing cards. Today, they would become something more. Something magical.

I laid the deck out across my desk and began preparing my paints. First, I painted each face white, blanking them out, giving them a clean slate. As they dried, I took the ones already set and began coating the backs in a smooth, gray-silver tone. These were to become metal, thin and sharp, like the edge of a finely honed knife. Ideal for slicing through entities that required magic to harm. Bullets and blunt weapons wouldn't cut it; authority would stop those cold. These cards, though, these would cut.

One by one, I went through all fifty-two. By the time I returned to the first, it had dried enough for details. I layered in subtle textures, scratches, screws, metallic seams. Each card's edge gleamed with a faint polish, a quiet warning of danger. I wanted them to feel lethal. To look like they were made for slicing through more than flesh, through magic itself.

When the backs were complete, I turned the cards over. Now it was time to differentiate them, to give each group its own purpose.

Thirteen were painted with bright, concentrated rings of white and yellow light, like the glint of a lens catching the sun. These would blind. Momentary radiance meant more than pain; sometimes, light was sharper than a blade.

Another thirteen I filled with layers of white-hot yellows and searing blues, all carefully bound within the card's borders. These were fire. The hottest I could imagine. But it had to be contained, harnessed so it did not burn the card itself. I spent the most time here, refining every gradient, ensuring no flame escaped its frame.

The next thirteen became wind. I painted small rotors, sleek and precise, each fitted with painted cables running to a drawn power core. These weren't just fans; they were accelerators, designed to whip up thin, focused gusts of air, capable of slicing and deflecting with uncanny precision.

The last thirteen cards were different. They weren't meant for destruction, but for disruption. Distraction.

I painted looping wire coils, miniature speakers and tiny microphones feeding into each other in an endless cycle, drawn with jagged, unstable arcs that shimmered like distorted soundwaves. These would emit a high-pitched screech, the kind that cuts through thought like a blade through silence. Not loud in volume, but sharp in pitch, like an amp shorting out, or feedback from a broken mic, unbearable and disorienting. Enough to make an enemy flinch, misstep, or lose focus for just a second.

The last thing I painted was the box for the deck itself. I mimicked the metallic silver from the backs of the cards, minus the sharp cutting edges. Durable yet lightweight, I wanted it to protect the cards but still be easy to open and draw from quickly. In infused it immediately telling it to become durable metallic box.

When everything was finished, I took a moment to care for myself. It was that dreaded part of my 28-day cycle, the one every mature, non-pregnant woman hated. Pain wasn't my biggest enemy, just the constant, nagging discomfort. Lately, though, it felt less intense than before. Maybe my authority was dulling the pain, a small blessing. If that was true, then each cycle could get easier as my power grew.

Once I was done, I dressed in something warm and headed upstairs to the roof. It was time to put the cards to the test.

**********

The roof of our apartment building could be accessed through a hatch on the top floor. It was usually shut tightly and locked, Reality only knows who had the key, but I'd made a faux one a long time ago, back when Soph, Peter and I wanted to stargaze on a particularly warm summer night. Our folded sunbeds were still there, tucked beside a bricked chimney and covered with a tarp.

A waist-high brick wall ran around the edge of the rooftop. I stepped closer and looked out across our neighborhood, a patchwork of similarly blocky buildings just outside the riverside district. Beyond the bridge, the city proper stretched skyward in glass and steel. Here, it was busy, yes, but over there, the chaos never slept.

A few industrial pallets, scattered and in various stages of decomposition, sat near the center. I dragged one over to the chimney, I didn't want any stray cards wandering off and hurting some poor passerby on the street below.

I took out the deck. I'd shuffled it before sealing it into the painted box, so the first draw was random. It turned out to be one of the light-casting cards. Good.

I was excellent with card tricks. It was something I'd practiced obsessively, first because Penrose insisted it would develop my dexterity and later because it gave me something to master even inside the orphanage, without drawing suspicion. I wove the card between my fingers like a ribbon of air before catching it cleanly between my thumb and middle finger. Then I flicked it toward the pallet.

Just before I let go, I pushed a thought into it: become a slicing metallic sheet.

A spark jumped from my wrist to the card like a whip of lightning. It gleamed silver in the sun, cut cleanly through the air and embedded into the pallet with a quiet sweesh. Satisfying. I felt like a ninja flinging enchanted shuriken.

My authority responds to intent. I can speak it, think it, but I'd need to learn to just feel it. Like muscle memory. Then I wouldn't always need to be conscious of the command. That's the goal: for some of these changes to become reflexive. Automatic.

I spent the next five hours throwing cards, dislodging them from the wood, wiping the authority clean and starting again.

In the final stretch, I began experimenting, trying to fuse both enchantments at once. Always starting with the metallic edge, always failing to add the second effect. Once the card left my hand the link was cut. It was already in the air, too late for another layer of will.

I tried a slower approach, infusing the metal edge before throwing and layering the secondary effect just as it left my fingers. It worked, technically. The light flared across the rooftop. But it wasn't elegant. It wasn't something I could rely on in combat. Conscious thought was too slow.

Between throwing sessions, I tested each enchantment individually. The sound card emitted a screeching feedback loop, horrible, effective. The light card dazzled, painfully bright even in broad daylight. In an enclosed space, it would be blinding.

The air rotors? Brutal. The gusts they created stung the skin, slicing wind like a whip.

As for fire, I only tested it briefly. I flicked it on, then off. Even in that heartbeat, the heat it produced was staggering. Another second and I might've burned my hand. It was powerful. Dangerous.

I was good at throwing the cards where I wanted them to land that part came easy. Years of practice had seen to that. But channeling authority? That was the constraint. It was new. Difficult. But I knew it could be done. It had to be like everything else in life, when you're mastering the basics, you focus until your body learns to do it without thought. Then you layer more. One skill at a time until it becomes second nature.

I'd asked Anansi about it, but he didn't know anything. So I called Dam.

"I didn't expect a call so soon. You already miss the food?" His voice rumbled through the speaker as I lay back on the sunbed I had just unfolded.

"I was training with, well, fireballs, sort of. But I'm hitting a wall with authority control."

"What kind of wall?"

"Will I always need to consciously think my intent? Or can my soul eventually learn to respond on instinct, like muscle memory, but for magic?"

He laughed so loud I had to move the phone away from my face. "You are truly remarkable. Most mages never even consider that question. The ones that do usually find the answer only much later. But yes, what you're describing? It's real. I told you before that some people can manipulate pure authority, right?"

"You did."

"Well, it's a process. Like mastering your body. You learn how it responds to different commands until the responses become automatic. Your soul can be trained the same way."

"I knew it. Do you know how?"

"I know enough to point you in the right direction. I'm no master of it, but I've learned how to make myself stronger and more durable with authority, because I had to learn how to trigger those reactions unconsciously. That's what you're after, right?"

"Exactly. I want to touch my painting and have my soul know what to do without waiting for my thoughts to catch up. It can be done?"

"Yes. But it takes serious training. And the right exercises."

"I'm not afraid of training. So give me the first one."

"Let me think — what did I do first?" He went silent for a while. I watched pigeons circle above me in lazy spirals. "Ah. I remember now. Something my father taught me. Though — it was tied to my domain, so you might need to adapt it. Also, this is important, it's much easier to learn this kind of thing inside your Domain. If you can find a portal nearby, use it. Soul core work responds better in Ideworld."

That made sense. It felt right.

"I bet you saw the light of your authority even before your soul core fully manifested. When did it first happen? It wasn't conscious, was it?"

"No. It came when I was painting. When I was seeing, really seeing, the truth of the thing I wanted to capture."

"Exactly. Same with me. When I was cooking, really focused on blending flavors to get the result I envisioned, I saw it around my hands. My authority. It responded to emotion and will. So, when my father wanted me to train that instinctual response, he told me to stop trying to force the effect. Instead, he made me focus on the truth of what I wanted. Not the magic, just the intent."

"What did that look like?"

"I meditated on the goal. Just thought about what I wanted to do to the food he gave me. No touching it. No magic. Just thinking. For hours. Then I spent even more hours engaging with food, smelling it, touching it, even throwing it into walls in frustration. I listened to the way it reacted, the sound of impact. And eventually — it clicked. Authority started to manifest around me, unprompted. And when it did, I just acted, I ran forward and touched the exercise food I'd been thinking about for hours. That's it. Just touched it. My intent had become embedded deep enough that the authority responded instantly."

"That's brilliant."

"After that moment, something changed. Like a dam had broken. From then on, I could call the same effect without thinking. Not always, not perfectly, but — it got easier. Like when we fought, remember? My body turned rubbery to resist your lightning. I didn't think that, it just happened. My soul knew."

"I get it now. Thanks, Dam. That helps a lot."

"No problem. It's fun sharing family secrets with someone talented who might actually use them."

"We'll see about that talent, but thanks anyway."

I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

As I lay back, I realized: I had already done the first part of what Dam described. I'd spent hours thinking about intent, working it into the cards. What I needed now was a moment of pure, uncontrolled authority manifestation. The kind that bypasses thought. And for that—

—I needed to paint.

I packed the cards and returned to my room. I grabbed an easel, a few canvases and a whole mess of paints and brushes, stuffing everything either inside or on top of the desk. Then I touched the desk and wished to go to my Domain.

Inside, I set up my new workstation. From now on, this would be where I painted, whenever I could. With that decision in place, I portaled back to my room and gathered everything related to armor-making, laying it tightly on the floor before transferring it into the Domain as well. There was no longer any reason to do this work on Earth. According to Dam, here, everything responded better. Stronger. More real.

One final trip. I returned to bring my sewing station, complete with the machine. Once in the Domain, I arranged everything neatly, clearly separating the space for painting from the one for material work. I returned to the first space and set up my easel with the first canvas.

"What do you think, Anansi? Do you like it better here now? More artsy?"

[I have no knowledge in relation to that question.]

"Of course you don't. But it requires no knowledge, just a feeling. Focus on that, when I focus on you instead."

I began with a dark background, deep purples and cool blues, like space or the ocean at night. A void. A quiet in-between space where something ancient could exist, untouched by time.

At the center, I painted the figure, a spider-like being, tall and multi-limbed, crouched but still reaching. Her body was part human, part arachnid: long limbs, jointed in alien places, fingers tapering like wires. She wasn't scary, not exactly. But she wasn't human, either. I wanted her to feel old, wise. Maybe dangerous. But not cruel.

Around her, I painted a crystal cage. Massive and faceted, like a prism of diamond or quartz grown too large. I built it up in translucent glazes, layers of jagged light, so it felt like it was catching the illumination from somewhere. Each facet held a memory: a child painting, a woman dancing, someone carving wood. Fleeting images. Human creativity, caught and suspended like moths in amber.

But the spider-being wasn't passive.

From her many limbs stretched golden threads, impossibly fine, passing through the crystal as if it were no barrier at all. They drifted across the canvas, connecting to people on the outside, each lost in their own acts of creation. One thread touched a poet mid-thought. Another reached an ancient cave wall. Another brushed the hands of a sculptor mid-strike.

As I painted the threads, delicate as spider silk, sacred as gold, my authority began to move again. It lit up around my hands like tiny stars. I did not react. I let it be. I stayed inside the act of painting, of seeing. The threads were thin and luminous. They seemed to glow when light caught them just right. They were what held the painting together.

Even though she was enclosed, the spider-being wasn't trapped. Not really. It wasn't a prison. It felt more like a choice, like she had chosen to stay there, guiding the artists on the other side of the crystal. Guiding me.

When I painted the last thread, when I placed the final stroke, I set my brush down and stepped back.

I looked at the painting.

And then I looked at the crystal core floating at the center of my Domain.

My authority still clung to my skin in its light form, shimmering like a skyful of stars caught in my pores. I turned and walked to the desk where I had left the cards. I picked one up and without thinking, I threw it toward the wall.

I held my breath.

It flew. And I already knew.

It faltered, fluttered and fell to the floor with the soft sound of paper. No change. No spark.

Not yet.

But I would try again.

And again.

Until it did.