Ideworld Chronicles: The Art Mage

Act 3, Chapter 39: Who art thou?

Day in the story: 15th January (Thursday), after midnightElle Erikson“If you ever need any help—”

“I will do fine, Elle,” Gertrude interrupted my offer, forcing herself to stand up with one of her hands still against the soul core, filling her with the Authority needed to function. Alexandra went to Earth to speak with Shiroi, leaving us alone to share our last physical words before our paths diverged. “Are you nervous?” she asked, eyeing me up and down in such a human gesture.

“A bit. It’s one thing to visit a place to enjoy it, and another to get to know it.”

“Same as with people, right?”

“Exactly. Same as us,” I replied, thinking of the nature of self.

“What do you mean by that, Elle? Isn’t it simple?”

“Is it though? When I ask you who you are, what answer would you give?” I looked at her as she got lost in thought—same as I and Alexa, even though our progenitor was mid-conversation with Shiroi. “Most people would offer their name,” I continued. “It is the most immediate response, the label we carry through the world. But is that truly who we are? Is the sound of a word—however cherished, however repeated—powerful enough to define a being?

“Our magic suggests otherwise.

“The universe seems to understand things on a deeper, conceptual level. It recognizes fire not because we call it fire, but because it is the thing that burns, consumes, transforms.” I told her, turning an imaginary fire card in my hand. “It understands what a frame is, not through language but through essence. It knows who Anansi is, who you—Gertrude Monkey—are, even when the names are never spoken aloud.”

“So if a name does not define us, what does?” she asked, helping me organize my thoughts.

“Perhaps the body. That seemed obvious enough not so long ago. Flesh and bone, nerve and thought. Am I my leg, my arm, my head—perhaps the brain that orchestrates it all?”

“Again, our magic argues fucking otherwise,” she replied.

“Yes. And Alexa remains herself with her leg replaced too. How many parts would have to be replaced for her to not feel like that? Is there even such a point? We exist in more than one body for a time now, however brief it is. More than one brain, more than one set of eyes observing the world from different angles. And yet I remain… myself.

“When I look at you, I do not see a torso attached to limbs. I would say they are your legs, your arms. The same is true for the rest. I would say it is your name, your intellect, your character. Even your virtues and flaws appear as attributes—things you carry, express, and develop.

“But if all those things belong to you, then they cannot be you.

“So who are you?”

“Who am I?” she repeated the question, her expression thoughtful.

“Are we the sum of these fragments—body, mind, memory, habit—or something that exists behind them, a blueprint that shapes them but is not bound by them? Are we fixed identities anchored in space, a specific configuration of matter and thought?

“Or are we creatures of time?”

“I lean toward the latter,” Gertrude answered, fully energized now. She opened her palms wide and then turned them into fists. “We never remain the same. We shift, adapt, shed old selves the way spiders molt old skin. The person we were years ago does not think as we think now, does not feel what we feel, does not inhabit the same body or spirit. And yet when I search my memories, I do not say Tuesday’s Alexa did that while ten-years-old Lex did the rest.

“I say she did it, therefore I did it. We did it.

“Even though the one who acted then no longer truly exists.” She voiced those thoughts of ours so well.

“So what am I?” I continued. “And perhaps the more unsettling question—if even we cannot fully answer that… why does the universe seem to know?”

“I’d like to know as well, Elle,” she responded, placing her warm hand on my shoulder and squeezing tightly, stopping me from spiraling any further into this. “For Alexa’s and our sake. But for all I know, we might never get a satisfying answer.”

“So should I stop asking questions like this?”

“No. Ask them and never stop. Just don’t expect any answers.” She reignited my drive in a healthier manner.

“So one day I might be positively surprised?”

“Ex-fucking-actly.” She said, reaching for the bag by her side. “I have to go get the rest of Penrose’s men across the border, but I’d love to return to that conversation when you figure this out, Elle. Both as me and as Alexa, and even as you, no matter how fucking delirious that sounds.”

“You are ready to go.”

“Yes, I am. Wish me luck. I will bloody need it, with Penrose fucking around.”

“Good luck to us,” I told her with a smile, correcting my glasses. “The offer you never let me propose still stands.”

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“I will let you know,” she said, and the world swallowed her whole, putting her elsewhere. One heartbeat she was in front of me with a shy smile directed back in my direction and the next one only the crystalline bark of the Weaver’s Tree remained with the Shadowlight swirling inside.

Something that would happen to me soon as well, when I would march into an unknown.

“Do you need help packing?” Anansi asked me, as she skittered to a position in front of me.

“I didn’t, and you know it, which is why you asked. But I changed my mind.”

“Oh,” she exhaled in an entirely human way, as her little jump spider-bunny body swayed from side to side. “Got tricked somehow. Maybe this stay in the physical world is affecting my ability to comprehend all of your thoughts, or maybe too many thought strands do.”

“Don’t you dare try to suck me into another philosophical conversation. I just had one, and now I really need to pack. So bring me as many folded spiders as you can carry. I will be in the Art Palace in the meantime.”

She hopped away in a few tall swoops, while I moved on foot toward the building. Beside some handy art supplies I had to pack some cash that would allow me to get myself a room somewhere in there. Most of that was waiting for me in a bag by one of the workstations, but I still required the anchor for the actual place.

I sat down on a chair, summoned the spellbook, and started recreating the first night of the year from Alexa’s memories, right as she appeared next to me.

“You raised a few good points,” she said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “In your conversation with Gertrude. Finding out who I am is a question that bothered me for so long, and yet it managed not only to remain unsolved but to grow bigger in scope over the years. I am sorry about that, Elle.”

“Why would you be?”

I started with simple colors. A navy blue sky, darker the closer it was to the edge of the page. An equally dark but more colorful bottom, where the vague figures of humans dancing would be placed.

“Whether Gert is a person that amplifies the rough-around-the-edges, straight-to-the-point aspects of my personality, you came into the world bearing something more sinister.”

“Your desire to know the truth, I know,” I replied, having placed the steely colors of the tower.

“You are my artistry in an organized manner. No chaos and my usual nonsense. And my desire to uncover what is hidden—you got that right. That’s why it has to be you that goes into Paris, but it is also why you will be the one that faces a task from the very start.”

“Yes. But apologies are unnecessary, Alexandra. I welcome the challenge.”

“I just wanted you to know that despite what you feel, I don’t expect you to get that answer.”

“Some questions will remain so till the very end. Although that is true in essence, it feels unsatisfying,” I replied, starting with small indicators of detail: human silhouettes mid-motion, the frame of the tower, and the clouds above it all.

“Welcome to my life!” she exclaimed with faux joy. “I hope you enjoy the stay.”

“I will try.”

I continued with the painting while Anansi came in with a horde of paper spiders behind her. They stopped skittering as soon as she paused—Shadowlight evaporated from within them in a puff of colorful mist, and they folded onto the ground, just paper once more.

“You are more than that,” Alexandra said, noticing the dread that overcame me. “Even if the light from within you that gives you the autonomy to move evaporates, you will still exist within me to be cast into a new body.”

“You don’t know that for sure. I know that you don’t, so please don’t pretend.”

She remained silent. She squeezed my shoulder once and moved away to do her own things, leaving me on my own—in a way that is available to beings like we are.

**********

Having moved through the world via the painting portraying a rave underneath the Eiffel Tower, in just a few short minutes I moved away from the steel colossus toward the city that should’ve slept.

The Seine was flowing underneath one of the thirty-seven bridges spanning the river. No one in the closest area was drowning, but it did nothing to stop a memory of Peter and Jason jumping into that cold abyss to save a child. And now one of them was missing, with his own child on the way. It was interesting how much life could change in just a little over two weeks.

I continued my slow walk, watching people move in small groups. Some of them laughed, and a loud clank of glass could be heard from their direction. One was a cluster of about five women, closely knit together like one cohesive unit, each in a long coat and warm scarf. And there was a single man a bit farther down, nearer the riverbank on the cobblestone, taking pictures with a flash on his camera.

It was then that Alexandra asked me for help. Gertrude was in dire need of another brain in her fight against a Watchdog. I promised I’d be there for her, so I ran to the closest bench, where the trees overhead—devoid of leaves—cast jagged shadows on the ground like the claws of the night surfacing through the warm yellow light of the lamppost. It was a place as good as any for what I was about to offer.

I sat down, put my back against the rest, and let them know I was prime for the taking.

Darkness and silence were immediate. So was the feeling of being cast adrift with no point of reference. I weighed nothing. I could not orient myself at all. I could not feel my own body, or anything around me. There was no smell, no sight, no hearing, no touch, no balance—not a single voice that wasn’t my mind—and yet I remained.

I had my own voice within the soul, the spirit, or whatever it was that let me be me.

Why was I still here in this place out of space and this moment out of time? And more importantly, in this identity apart from Alexandra?

I was her, she was me, and yet I apparently was something else too.

Something that defied my understanding of myself, and yet provided no clear answers to the questions that had bothered me since the moment I came to be.

Secret within secret, a weave upon a tapestry of unfinished tales and unspoken half-truths. And in this feeling of unbeing, a spark rose within me, a sensation of being watched.

I opened my eyes.

No, that was not true. They had been open the whole time, and I had just regained vision in them, along with all the other sensations. It wasn’t accompanied by frantic gasping for air, or twitching of the body, or any pain. My processes seemed to have continued while I wasn’t there—when my brain was used for something else.

I looked at my hands and outstretched palms, my fingers in front of me, pointing at the sky and each other in part.

“Ça va ? Vous allez bien ?”

A male voice, followed by a touch that landed on my shoulder from the side, forcing me to move my head to meet the source.

The man had short, dark brown hair styled neatly with a slightly natural, textured finish. His face was slim with defined cheekbones and a straight jawline, giving him a sharp and elegant appearance. His almost black eyes were medium-sized and focused, with an intense, thoughtful gaze directed at me. Well-shaped eyebrows and light stubble around the upper lip and chin added a subtle ruggedness to his otherwise polished look.

“I don’t speak French,” I replied, matching his eyes and not letting go.

This made him flinch and move back a bit, looking at me from a less intimate distance.

“Excuse me. I noticed you lose conscience.”

“Consciousness,” I corrected him. “Thank you for coming to check on me. I am feeling better now.”

“My name is Henri,” he said, extending his hand toward me. “Would you like to talk?”

“Yes,” I answered, thinking of the time when there was only me, and I was the whole world.