Chapter 6 - Allgeminel

The Murky Prospector slipped into the cloud of ships around Herestay. The ships' brightly painted hulls saturated its shallow skyline. Gleaming military vessels remained parked alongside repurposed cargo haulers in this city's relatively small aeroina. The people here spoke a dozen different languages of trade, but the population was largely Argentian.

Alanea, determined, guided the ship into a discreet spot far off the tail end of one of the two endmost platforms. The fee, which was exorbitant, she paid the Port Authority without a word of protest. She considered registering the ship again under another name, but that wouldn't help, as its entrance to the port was being logged.

Cowel's senses buzzed due to his prolonged proximity to the gemin. He felt the gem's relief as the ship's engines were powered down. Silent communication with it continued even during his sleep in dream form. He had grown accustomed to its presence and its mirroring of his own emotions. He still didn't fully understand it yet, but he was beginning to accept it.

He opened the cargo hold and took the cloth-wrapped gemstone and tied it down to his chest. Over this, he wore a thick leather aeromarine jacket and a coat over that. Today, he would be looking quite cold.

Already on deck, Edven assessed the engine, looking over the rail. "The portside propeller got a chip out of it!" He called out in frustration. "We'll need more than just a few beats to get her windborne again."

The captain nodded as she eyed the port's crowd. "We can't afford to linger, and those rumors have probably reached here by now."

Discretion was a luxury they could not afford, and their arrival had not gone unnoticed. A pair of cloaked figures, with their faces obscured by their hoods, had been observing them since they let down their gangplank. Cowel had felt their eyes on him. A cruel, prickling sensation that had nothing to do with the gemin. He tapped Alanea's rapier, and she simply nodded, resting her hand on its hilt.

"We need to find out where this guy is." The captain stated with urgency. "I was told he can grade and cut the finest gems and is trustworthy. We can get answers from him without getting our throats slit... apparently."

Cowel knew who she was talking about. His name had been whispered in hushed tones among seedy groups. A name that was often shared during discussions of rare finds. Shrew and mystical, Kuthe was a merchant, scholar, gemer, and gemite.

Finding him was a bit challenging, but they knew he had set up shop in Herestay. It was temporary and mobile, and moved around when requested to by his clan. Kuthe was shady and secretive, and his shop existed as ephemerally as he did. Usually, he held up in the basements of other shops. They spent the better part of the day navigating the crowded alleyways, shaded overhead by drying laundry. Their inquiries were met with suspicion, fear, and hostility. The name Kuthe, it seemed, was not well respected there.

As the sourcelight shut into darkness, distorted shadows were cast through dark corridors. The two of them spent a lot of time in dimly lit alleys, so their eyes adjusted quickly. A single unadorned wooden door stood before and below them with a pulsating gemin light that emitted from around its frame. Cowel could feel the energy resonating from the gemin he carried. The gemin revealing its presence would be detrimental to their future.

Alanea, with her hand still on her rapier, pushed the door open. The room beyond was a trove of small artifacts and curios. These were boxes and chests of drawers which could be closed and moved at a moment's notice. A shelf at waist height overflowed with ancient tomes whose leather bindings were dry and cracked. Intricate devices whose purpose was a mystery hung from the ceiling by wire. In the center of the room, seated on a pile of stuffed silk cushions, was a small reptilian figure. Its scales were the color of burnished gold, and its eyes were the color of thin obsidian.

The kobald mystic looked up from the gemin he was examining. A faint knowing smile crossed his lizard lips. "I have been expecting you, Captain Sulhoat." His voice was dry and sizzled with the inflection of a snake. "You, must be young Mr. Dorne. You'll find, Cowel, that gossip has preceded you."

Cowel was truly, unabashedly caught off guard. How could this creature know their names, or of their arrival? Alanea, however, was unfazed. Unlike Cowel, she knew of the mystic's capabilities. Remaining on the information she'd already obtained, knew he was also trustworthy.

"You have the advantage over us, son of Eliprast." She hinted that she knew of him and his clan. "We have a... unique item we wish to have appraised, but... you know that."

Kuthe's smile widened, revealing a row of sharp, needle-like teeth. "An expert is what you need, yes? My expertise comes at a price-a price I suspect you are not prepared to pay." He raised one hand. With its claws open to the air, he mimed a purse full of gema that was missing from it.

"We are prepared to be reasonable." Alanea replied, resting her weight on her rapier, without threat, only tired.

"Reasonable?" Kuthe chuckled dryly and made a rattling sound from his throat. "Reasonable is not something you can buy from those hunting you out of the sky. Your possession could shift the balance of any power and bring any leader to their knees. You speak of being reasonable?" His teeth clicked three times.

He pointed directly toward Cowel's chest. "Bring it. I need to see this unique gem." His teeth clicked twice more.

Cowel's heart pounded in his chest. He knew it was there the entire time, and he said nothing. He carefully disrobed his coat and aeromarine jacket, untying it from his chest. Placing the gem on the floor in front of the kobald, Kuthe's obsidian eyes fixed on the strange and intense light flickering within the cloth.

Kuthe reached out a long, slender hand and tapped his claws gingerly against the wood of his floor. He did not open the cloth, but instead closed his eyes. This head tilted as if listening to distant music.

"It is... magnificent." He whispered in a voice of reverence. "Symphonious energy. A chorus of all of the aspects of nature. An orchestra of all things. You have found an Allgeminel."

Cowel and Alanea exchanged a look of confusion. "An Allgeminel?" Cowel repeated.

"What's that?" Alanea was equally loopless.

Kuthe opened his eyes. "It is the rarest of all gemin. A young one. This gemin embodies all aspects, all colors, and all possibilities. It is a sentient being. It is a consciousness of immense power and wisdom, knowing more than any of us can possibly understand. It and you are in grave danger."

He leaned forward as his already deep voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. "Argentis will want to turn this into a weapon, Radeph will want to study it, the Umbra Cult will want to corrupt it, and the pirates will want to sell it to whichever of those three will pay the most for it."

He sat back in a cross-legged pose. "You are no longer scavengers, Captain Sulhoat. You are guardians, and you are woefully out of your depth."

Alanea's hand tightened on her rapier. "We can protect it, right? Move it somewhere else?" Her voice remained defiant of the information.

Kuthe chucked his voice a little louder. "Protect it? With a single-engine aeroship, and a crew of three. As if you can hold back rain with a bucket. You need my help."

"What would your help cost us?" Alanea's eyes narrowed toward the negotiation she expected.

"I ask for a share when you sell." Kuthe's eyes gleamed as bright as the gema he'd be earning. "Also, you pay me in the knowledge I gain from being on this trip. I would learn more from this journey than from any book." He looked down toward the stone on the floor.

"We're not selling it!" Cowel practically yelled at him, surprised by his own zeal.

Kuthe calmly turned and tilted his scaled head toward Cowel. "I did not mean to imply we sell the Allgeminel. You have another gemin you intend to sell? Yes? This stone here is not a pet or a conversation piece. Allgeminel are not meant to be possessed or become familiars. You need more than a guide. A mentor, you need. Me."

He gestured to himself. "You see, I can be that guide. I teach you to communicate with it and understand its needs. Help it reach its potential. I help navigate the currents you will face, literal and metaphorical."

Alanea remained silent as she thought about her crew. She knew that Kuthe was right, and it could all go poorly in many ways. They were out of their depth, but she would have to put her full trust into a strange kobald merchant. She could only afford to take this offer.

"I will consider your offer." She summed up finally, as her voice remained neutral in tone.

Kuthe smiled his toothy reptilian smile. "Take your time, Captain, but you have not much. Imagine how I heard what you have. They close fast." He turned his attention back to the cloth folded around the stone. "The gem is afraid. It senses your potential, young Cowel, more than its own. Its connection to you is a powerful bond. With you, it is familiar."

Kuthe looked up, locking eyes with Cowel's. "The choice is yours, but choose wisely. The fate of this gem is the same as your own. You will depend on it, just as it depends on you." He pointed to Cowel's chest, almost touching it.

Alanea looked at Cowel for a long moment with concern on her face again. There was something different about Cowel now, a rapid change in him over these few days.

"Alright." Her voice contained a new resolve. "We'll have to do it. We really have no choice. We will accept your offer." She pointed directly at Kuthe, who was still cross-legged on the ground. "...but we do it on our terms. I am the captain, and we will not be pawns to anyone's game."

The bargain was then struck. Kuthe, the kobald mystic, would become a temporary member of their crew. His vast knowledge was a welcome, albeit unsettling, addition to their band. They quickly collapsed his meager, extremely valuable belongings into their chests. Kuthe had made many moves of this kind across his long life. The three of them handled the twelve chests among them guardedly, in three trips. The heaviest of which was a gem grinding stone, and his many tomes of ancient knowledge.

The presence of these items completely transformed the interior of the ship, and he spent no time turning half of the cargo hold into his own space. The ancient tomes in his possession were rowed across the tops of crates that carried dry supplies filled from the days before.

Their first order of business was to exit the port. Kuthe's knowledge of this skyland's underbelly had them depart the skyland and plan a descent below. They vacated the aeroina and took a normal trajectory toward the nearby city of Flightfair. After being out of sight of a majority of the ships around them, they throttled the ship's three nacelle shutters to descend. Now with a fourth member on board, the captain could man the helm during the descent rather than force the ship to coast.

They dropped to a level completely underneath the skyland. Kuthe directed them through a series of passages and channels used by his clan. This would get them through the skyland of Two Tones that the cities of Herestay and Flightfair were perched upon. These cities were a quarter-day flight apart, but underneath it would be a much longer trip.

The underside of every skyland in Una was rough and jagged. Pointed, hard stone spanned vast chasms, valleys, and ravines. Rocks would occasionally fall, and resonances from geodes deep within the skyland were sometimes exposed on its underside. Creatures lived in these crevasses, clear and albino, bleached by a lack of sourcelight. Many of the flying creatures were aggressive.

Above all, it was pitch black, often below freezing, and the terrain created extreme gusts that required them to be below deck. The sails were rather useless in this state. If their propeller gave out, they would have to descend lower. A current would hopefully have taken them away for a half day's travel instead of pulling them toward the torrent of storms in the void below.

Thankfully, Edven had the chipped propeller replaced with the last of their funds. They emerged into the open sky on the outmost part of the skyland under the cloak of the dim allnight. The source, black in the sky, was welcome. They made sure all of their lights were off, and disabled their red gemin engine that produced its own light. They unfurled the sails and guided the ship by only wind power.

A tense silence filled the closed galley, lit by a single candle. Kuthe, who was still occupying his hold, was away from them. Edven listened to their account of him with disbelief and alarm. "An allgeminel? I thought they were a myth?" He whispered. "...He knew your name and that you had it with you?"

"Edven." The captain cued him not to raise his voice. "It is the truth, and we are not prepared to face it."

"It is intelligent, a being? Are Keygemin not? People sell them all the time." Edven poised.

"We can't just sell this one, or abandon it." Cowel proclaimed as much as a whisper could.

"I know." Alanea peered toward the smuggling hold where the stones were kept. "Kuthe is a fine gemer. He knows gemin. That's what he's done his entire life." She opened one hand out flatly. "We also need his connections, and he knows that." She uttered this at full volume and hoped he could hear, as to flatter him.

Cowel gave an agreeing nod. "We need him, and the stone seems to trust him." Alanea and Edven turned toward him.

"So you can feel what it wants?" Alanea asked with her voice no longer whispering.

Cowel nodded again. "I believe I do."

Kuthe was a constant source of fascination. He spent beats poring over the ancient texts that had been written in his clan's own script. Information that was passed down orally, someone had managed to transcribe centuries ago. His raspy voice would break the silence of the inside of the ship with a cryptic proclamation or announcement to himself. Insightful observations and what he thought were epiphanies. The pages were filled with diagrams of gemstone cut patterns.

Cowel found himself spending even more time near the allgeminel. He would sit by the smuggling hold's cover that matched the pattern of the ship's floorboards and simply listen. Cowel didn't have to use his ears to hear it, but took its sense within him.

The ship drifted through a particularly calm stretch of sky. Cowel felt a strong, sudden urge, a call to hold the stone. He opened the smuggling hold and viewed its cold wrapping cloth, and unveiled it. Reaching out, he touched its surface, and vivid images penetrated into his mind. A sprawling city long dead, carved into the side of a skyland with its buildings glowing with thousands of internal lights. A palace of immense beauty, and a sanctuary hidden from the world.

Cowel's body was shot backward toward the wall behind him at high speed. This was hard enough to crack one of the staves of an empty barrel. Kuthe, already in the room reading, was entirely unruffled by this.

"It seems its whispers grow stronger. You are seeing a place known as the Chancel. A haven for the gemin who seek refuge from the dreamers." Kuthe looked at him, his obsidian eyes reflected the dot of a single, small gemin light.

"That has a whisper?" Cowel had the wind knocked out of him.

Kuth smiled, blunted by his tough skin. "You have many trials you will face, and you must be prepared. The forces that hunt the stone will cause you more harm than that."