The Halfyn Heir is very familiar with a form of hand magic that is eerily similar to the hand magic that became the standard in the Fonlands for users of the technique; there is no grimoire in the Fonlands for hand magic and the formations were largely discovered through intuition and intention. Over time, the Fonlanders using hand magic just realized that certain formations of the hands and the digits of the hand produced certain effects, and some paid more attention than others and became better at it, but there have never been firm rules about hand magic.
Curiously, the magic wielders of universe Prime 5 also have a system of hand magic that almost perfect aligns with the system that originated in the Fonlands, though historians assume that it must have developed from the influence of the Fonlands. This is likely not true, though, because hand magic developed on planets like Rycoia that had no interaction with the Fonlands or Fonlanders but a strong connection to the Arcana of universe Prime 5. The establishment of formations and the proliferation of hand magic through universe Prime 5 can be attributed to the Mystics of Fytor, the most powerful wielders of Arcana on the planet, and the subject of a very popular serialized broadcast developed on Rycoia about the history of the mystics. Beings all around Prime 5 learned something of ancient Arcana as well as hand magic from the broadcast and users of arcane knowledge the universe over used those techniques to refine their knowledge.
It should also be mentioned that the Fonlanders of the planet Earth who made their home in the southeast US, namely the umbatia, developed a system of hand magic completely ignorant of the Rycoian broadcasts, but they share many of the same formations, though there are formations in each of the systems that do not appear in the other.
All that is to say that hand magic is firmly established across many realities and there is uncanny consistency in the formations. The home universe of the Halfyn Heir is very familiar with hand magic. In that reality, hand magic is widely taught and utilized, so much so that normal beings who have no particular proclivity to wielding magic, casually use formations in lieu of things like flashlights or leaf blowers. It is for this reason that when he saw Ahdis maintaining an extremely sophisticated formation in the Shifting Planes as Alia went into Talj to assist Maxx the Superguardian and the Supreme Mmoatia Pultine, the Heir sat on the platform where he had been fuming mad before Ali was recovered and cured of the Pito infection, and he began to do what he saw Ahdis doing but producing a golden yellow construction instead of the green, and those near him knelt to lend their magic to the construction that was funneled into Alia in Talj.
Alia feels an infusion of energy as she enters Talj and soon she locates Pultine after Maxx sends her to find her and make sure that she is not in danger. Pultine is not in danger, she is deep inside the wall of black that was threatening to consume all of Talj and she had left it very noticeably hollow in the wake of her movement. Alia recognizes Pultine when she sees her and the two acknowledge one another and converse telepathically. Alia knows what it is like to unleash so much power while also carefully maintaining it so that she doesn’t obliterate herself in the process. It takes immense control to do what Pultine has done and Alia has done similar things to save reality. She is happy to do it again and she joins hands with Pultine.
There is a spark, a crackle of bright golden and green light around them and then Alia and Pultine are no longer floating and glowing in space. When the light subsides around them, they are no longer inside of the existence known as Talj. They are standing on the surface of a world foreign to both of them. The ground at their feet looks like the surface of a planet-sized ball of yarn, fields of what seems to be hairy ropes that stretch as far as the eye can see. There is a dim, green and purple and yellow light from the far horizon, but Alia and Pultine are glowing constructs of themselves that cast light in a considerable circumference around them. The ground seemed to be very subtly moving underneath their feet.
“What is happening?” Pultine asks. She is disoriented from the sudden change in scenery. “Is this real?”
“It is and it isn’t,” Alia struggles to explain. She has had a lot of experience with spirit projection in her history and she recognizes it immediately, though she is not entirely sure where she and Pultine have been transported.
“I did not think that this was possible,” the two hear from a direction that they both turn to quickly. “How did you two come to be here like this and force me to make a mental construct?”
Alia and Pultine see what looks like a plant sprouting from the surface. It is thick like an old tree trunk, but it is made of the same hairy ropes of the surface and a branch extends, then bears what looks to be a fruit, until the figure of a female unfurls and sets feet on the ground.
“This is very interesting,” she says, looking around herself. She proceeds very cautiously as though she expects something to attack her from anywhere. She is tall like Alia and when she is close enough to see Pultine’s wings, she reveals wings of her own that look like aged parchment. Her skin is tan with large spots of a darker brown, and her hair is like a mushroom cap on top of her head, but two long braids of micelium hang down from the sides of her round and curious face.
“Who are you?” Pultine asks.
“Une, of course. I am everything. You must be from a place that we have not reached yet, but that makes it even more curious that you are here. Who are you? I presume that one of you is a medium of some kind, probably not the one with the wings. You have forced this meeting. What are you doing here?”
“We are in a place called Talj,” Alia explains, “and I guess we are here because the clash between us is so esoteric and difficult to describe in words that we are here to have a clash that will serve as a fulfilling enough metaphor for that. You have destroyed so many lives. But you don’t seem like a monster. Why are you doing this?”
The features of Une’s face become a ball of anger in Alia’s direction. Pultine lifts a hand that is inundated with light aimed at Une like a loaded gun.
“If I do not take, then I will waste away. I will be too weak to defend myself against those who think that I am not worthy of existence. They have always tried to kill me, to obliterate any trace of me, but I persisted and showed them for the pest they were. Do either of you know what that is like? To be told that your existence is an affront to others and that alone is enough to justify your eradication?”
“Maybe that happened to you here,” Alia says, “but that is not what happened to you in Talj. You forced your way into it and you are killing things that don’t even understand what is happening to them.”
“Of course,” Une says with a scoff, “that is the easiest way to destabilize an existence, to take it by surprise. My Pito, my Descendant have perfected it. But don’t you see, that this Talj you speak of, was full of things that would try to eradicate me once they realized what I was forced to do here. So I have been proactive. And I do not know hunger, I have not known it in a long time, if only that was enough to bring me security. But I will never die because the things that disrespect me will not have a chance to end me. Are you among the things that mean to eradicate me?”
“Yes we are,” Pultine says firmly.
“You must know that what you are doing is horrific,” Alia says sincerely. “So many have died needlessly.”
“Isn’t all death needless? Isn’t the same true for life?” Une laughs a little as she talks. “Isn’t all of this ultimately meaningless? We live just to die and that is the end? No thank you. I have given everything under my influence an immortal life. If you were infected you would understand, but you’ve encountered the Pito? They have their personalities, their histories intact, I have just given them a way to preserve those things in the present forever. We all benefit from this. And everything that I reach won’t have to just be a memory of something new, they can persist in the new world of my making.”
“Life cannot exist without death,” Pultine says. “Life means nothing without death. You must stop or nothing, not even you, will be able to live.”
“I guess there is no talking with either of you, you have labeled me your enemy and you mean to destroy me.” Une stops for a moment like she is listening for something very far away. “I see, you two are already killing me. I will welcome you both as Pito. Your powers are immense. I have never been burnt out of an existence before and, oh, you have both done it. I need your powers. I recognize you, Pulatas…”
“I am Pultine!” she says angrily and blasts light at Une’s construct that Une dodges without even realizing.
“No matter, you will be Pulatas before all is said and done. Now, away with the both of you. You may consider what you have done a triumph, but it is only temporary. I will have this existence that the two of you have worked so hard to liberate. I will descend on you and everyone you love and you will be my vanguard from then on because you are bold and I need you both to complete my vision. I see you both, and I have seen your home. I will return with a force that neither of you can comprehend.”
Une speaks in a very measured voice, in a tone that feels reassuring, but her words are threats laced with all of the hatred that the planet-sized ball of yarn that was actually Une could muster.
There is another spark of light and when it subsides, Alia and Pultine are floating in wide open space. There are no black bounds around them and they both know that the enemy is gone, though they are not sure if they eliminated Une’s Pito and their devastating black wall, or if Une retreated.
“Well done,” they hear telepathically and they both look to see Maxx, the Superguardian wielding the great weapon known as Blight Maker flying toward them. He has an aura of dark violet that trails him and he looks extremely powerful with the thin layer of the yellow Superconsciousness around his body and then the violet that pours off of him. He is the violet equivalent of Pultine in green and Alia in gold. “Everyone freed of the Pito infection has been sent to the Fonlands for observation. Talj is the same and intact. We are clear to return to the Shifting Planes.”
Soon, they are transported back to the Fonlands.
PRL Serials 