Secret Art

The Secret Art is effectively "magic" in Ian Irvine's fictional cycle of series of books: The Three Worlds Cycle. It is sometimes referred to as the Art.

Use in the View From the Mirror

In "The View from the Mirror", mancers (practitioners of the Secret Art) instinctively draw power from an unknown source, into themselves and are met with extraordinary results, though it was not uncommon for these results to vary from what the mancer had in mind or to fail all together. Such things depended on the strength of power each mancer possessed.

Though mancers could feel and draw on a source of power, they had no idea what this source of power was or how to draw greater amounts of power from it. Mancers had however, discovered that some places were better for practicing the Art than others, Carcharon or Katazza for example.

Some of the most powerful mancers of all time lived during this period.

Use in the Well of Echoes

In The Well of Echoes, 207 years after the final chapter of "The View from the Mirror", mancers have made great advances in the use of the Secret Art. Many helped greatly in the war against the Lyrinx.

Around 100 years prior to Geomancer a mancer by the name of Nunar discovered that the sources of power, now known as nodes, could power special controllers. These controllers could be used to power armoured war carts known as clankers. Clankers would go on to be the main reason humanity was able to fight back against the lyrinx for such a long time.

Mancers now know that the power (or the field) that they channel through themselves to use the Art is generated off the naturally occurring nodes. Mancers soon learn to channel the field through other objects so as to create weapons capable of fighting the lyrinx.