After many feverish nights, as my body steadily accumulated strength from my most recent bout with a local Ail, I finally decided to bid farewell to the excitement of the continent, and intended to purchase a ticket, leading all the way east-and-south to Britterly.

When I chose to return home, I wasted no time in my preparations. Disregarding the badly translated protestations and theatrically communicated pleas of my golden-skinned caretakers, I endeavoured to leave the Continent as soon as possible.

I departed their temple at dusk as they burnt incenses and wept at my departure. I spent little time attempting to decipher their religious babble and what they I took to be unseemly solicitation.

Instead I procured a quaint mule cart to carry me from the temple, and less than a hundred kilometres, to the nearby coastal station town where the Western Locomotive would arrive to begin my journey home.

It was a journey that spanned half a day, and one that at the end saw me well acquainted with the mules and their toothless driver, Sagu.

At my destination, my convalescing body alighted the cart with a haze of confusion surrounding it, one I sullenly attributed to the rocking caused by the uneven paths Sagu saw fit to take us over.

I was far to the west, north in the City of Augiers by the Blade Sea.

I spent much of my first moments there awed by the thousand metre tall, heaven-piercing slivers of metal jutting from land and sea; slivers that the Iron-Men had carved, settled, and called Home-Towers, -and that the rest of civilisation, with one tongue or another, decided to aptly call the Great Blades.

The wonder at the great Majesty had not disappeared when I found my way through the bustling masses of humanity to the station-house to purchase a ticket for a shared cabin.

Perhaps it was the prospect of leaving all the wonders of the continent for the dull drudgery of Landerly, or perhaps it was the sight of that Majesty of Man, that so loudly proclaimed that once we were giants, or gods, or more.

Whatever the cause, the truth is that a heavy melancholy had befallen me, and it was in that fugue that I redeemed my ticket and boarded the titanic Western Locomotive.

The Western Moving City chugged onwards some time before sunset. No great upheaval came as it transported hundreds of thousands of human bodies in its ceaseless trudge across its quadrant of glorious and expansive Auratica.

In my melancholic state, I slipped into my shared cabin and watched the city of Augiers roll into the distance.

Half of the city was firmly upon solid ground, -as any proper city should be. The other half trailed around and within the Great Blades at sea; and took much of my window's view as the Western Locomotive gained traction.

It was the fog of my breath on the glass that finally took away the sight as I leaned against the large pane to cool my still feverish forehead.

My mind was on many things, far too many in fact, because I nearly missed the entrance of my soon-to-be cabin companions.

"Sorry to bother, is this cabin 3205?" A reedy and thickly accented voice inquired in the familiar Einnish tongue of my homeland.

I peeled my forehead from the window and removed my feet from the settee I had lounged upon. "Why yes it is, good man," said I, rising to my feet. "Willard Feraman, at your service," said I, extending my hand after a short walk to the entry-corridor attached to the sitting-room.

From his pale under-toning and features, I could see the fellow at the door was a Southerner, like myself, but his clipped accent and manner of dress betrayed that he was not one of my countrymen.

His face, neck, and hands were deeply tanned, almost brown, and his dark, half-grey hair appeared bleached by the Northern sun.

He had a pinched face, and rounded spectacles rested on the bridge of his rather long nose.

His thin body ticced nervously before he hurriedly wiped the sweat from his palm and clasped my hand in his.

"Dr. Luis A'rec, good man." he moved to the side and gestured to the more exotic young man behind him. My mouth steadily slackened when I saw the young man was totally bare above the waist! "This is my manservant, Azar."

The young man behind Luis was coloured a dark brown, uncommonly tall, and as thin as a lath besides, but these features were secondary.

Most obvious to me at the time were the multi-toned stripes of dark colouring that ran over his exposed torso -and the interspersed splotches of pallid white flesh that speckled his arms and face.

For a brief moment, I considered the boy stricken by the most horrid case of alphos I had ever observed, but as he moved closer to shake his hand with mine, I saw the pale spots were completely natural, -as natural as the dark stripes that marked his whole form.

His hand firmly gripped mine, and though his grip was strong, I found myself puzzled at the suppleness of his hand. I could only feel isolated calluses at the base and tips of his fingers.

They were, I recall deducing, hardly the hands of a servant of any kind, -and I considered myself quite an expert in such matters as a former servant of near three decades.

Nonetheless, I retained an expression of friendsome welcome and spoke: "It is quite the pleasure, young Azar."

The young servant remained mute.

"My manservant is a young man of slow wit," interjected the good doctor. "He understands well enough, but my attempts to get him to speak my own native tongue and the much, much more simple tongue of you Bemmi-Saxins, have been to no avail. Were he not capable of mumbling responses in that thickly garbled language of his birth, I would consider him both deaf and dumb."

Another man, more common and prideful than I, would have taken some offense at the doctor's politely delivered tort, but before I could muster a reaction of any kind, the young manservant began babbling incomprehensibly in his own mother-tongue.

The doctor, nut-brown as he was, visibly blanched and nervously ticced.

"H-he expresses his modest gratitude at your welcome and-Yes... yes, of course-. He also hopes our journey southwards will be comfortable and companionable."

The odd interaction did not go unnoticed by myself, however, I chose to keep my silence. In my many years of service, I had learned to wholeheartedly appreciate one truth of life; men were entitled to their secrets, and ill-took to any attempt at their dispulsion.

In a haste I steered the conversation to the four doors that appended the short hall that preceded the shared sitting-room we had slowly moved into. "Would we make a short tour, I've not yet had the strength to explore our accommodations, I have been quite under-the-weather, you see."

Dr. A'Rec nodded deeply, "Azar will take my part in the tour, I'm terribly exhausted."

The young servants spared his master a small glance I could not then decipher until ultimately acquiescing and lugging two leather suitcases.

The doctor paused, watching Azar busy himself with exploring the adjoining apartments with the large suitcases under either spotted arm, before continuing, "As for your illness, I did feel a slight clam to your palm and an excited tempo to your heart, coupled with your green-ish complexion and dry lips, I would wager you've recently convalesced from the Yakud Ail? Yes? And you've recently found yourself in despairing moods?"

Slowly, I nodded and the doctor clapped his hands. "You are a very lucky man Mr. Feraman, whoever nursed you to health must have been very negligent, or worse, uneducated on the sequelae of the Ails of the Western Desert on different peoples. For a foreigner, the local Ails are very much more virulent than they are on our dear notherly cousins. Please, please, sit."

I shakily re-covered my seat on the wide settee placed below the even wider window. Dr. A'Rec took his seat besides me and gently requested my wrist. He quietly observed my heart-rate with his fingers on my wrist, produced a stethoscope from his coat and pressed it to my chest and back. Finally, he inspected my tongue and eyes. He tutted loudly as he re-placed his stethoscope.

"What have you gleaned, doctor?" I asked, my concern growing.

"A very lucky man indeed." he muttered, "Mr Feraman, what do you know of the Northern Ails, or of Ails in general?"

"Far too little, I'm afraid, good doctor. They're common illnesses, like fevers, and in fact I don't quite know the reason why they aren't thought of as such. Of course they appear differently from region to region, peoples to peoples and... well I suppose I have never seen the need to learn more than that."

Dr A'Rec nodded. "For most people that is enough, yes." He paused, seemingly considering his following words. "Mr. Feraman, the third Yakud Ail is a most particularly nefarious Ail for men of our southern descent, while it's recovery is even more insidious. It is characterised by two stages: the first is the one you are tentatively approaching, the stage of dejection."

Another pause ensued, this one longer than the last, "I am saddened to alarm you, Mr Feraman, but suicide is not an uncommon end for men at this first stage."

"By Salo!" I exclaimed, nearly rising to my feet. The good doctor gently patted my hand while his servant curiously entered the sitting-room and leaned against the open door-way of the room he had just quitted. The servant made a mumbling statement in his burbling language, and the good doctor simply nodded before turning back to me.

"Calm yourself, Mr. Feraman," spoke Dr. A'Rec, "this stage is the shorter of the pair, and unlike those unfortunate fellows, you will have the assurance of my expert ministrations."

"Truly," said I, "would you be so kind as to care for a complete stranger? I must confess that my pocket-book is in a very sorry state at the moment, but if you require it, I will compensate you as best as I can and as soon as possible!"

"Why, good man, I require absolutely no compensation!" said he, seeming offended, "My very vocation compels me to offer what little assistance I may! Not mentioning my conscience and compatriotship; we might not be exactly countrymen, but this far from the south, whether a man calls Darmecia or Britterly his homeland, it makes little difference."

I took his right hand in both of mine and vigorously shook it. "You would have truly become my saviour, doctor. I can scarcely think on how to thank you."

The doctor smiled amiably. "Mr. Feraman, verily, your companionship in our long journey home is enough repayment. Besides, I have not yet detailed the second stage, the one which is the longest and the one with which my ministrations will have the littlest of impacts."

The doctor patted my hand before calmly extricating his from my panicked grip. "My experience is not too deep in this second stage, in fact my servant has seen more men live through it than I have."

The servant, Azar, darkly spoke in his rumbling language.

"Yes, quite right," averred the doctor, "the stage of delirium."

My mood further plummeted. The tone with which both men had spoken left me in no way uncertain of the unlikelihood of my continued wellbeing.

I waved my hand dismissively. "I need no further explanation on what this stage entails. Doctor, pray tell, how long will it last?"

"Commonly, it should last a ten days, " the doctor spoke, before his servant interjected a few short words that caused the doctor's face to darken and his head to nod very slowly.

"Good doctor, I entreat you, please convey his words to me," I pleaded.

"He says that for some men he has witnessed, nearly a Darmecian fortnight, that is, twenty-two days, have passed under this ill cloud, at which point it may escalate, from seeing and hearing illusory shadows and flickers, to haunting sights of demons, ghosts, and dark things that cause grown men to weep like children."

The scenario that the doctor described chilled my very soul. "And you claim there is nothing you can do for me, doctor?"

"Precious little I'm afraid, Mr. Feraman, but these cases are awfully unlikely..." He meekly glanced at his servant who nodded tersely. "Yes, very very unlikely. All we have to do is pass through the eight or so days of dejection, and the worst of it will be through. For delirium you need only the tender attentions of sunshine, and, at times, to cloister in your chambers, and it will all promptly pass."

The servant spoke a few more words and the doctor turned to me quizzically.

"Truly, I wonder how you survived the violent passage of the Ail itself, Mr Feraman, without being informed its consequences would be so dire. I must commend your fortitude."

As he said these words, the incomprehensible pleas of the priestesses of Algheroma came to my mind. A deep flush of red came to my face and was not unnoticed by the doctor, who asked, "Mr Feraman, are you well?"

Nodding, I felt embarrassed as I said, "I was tended to in the temple at Algheroma, but I left as soon as my body felt well enough to travel. I suppose the Priestesses might have attempted to convince me to stay, but we could not quite understand one another. If I must be terribly honest, I half believed them attempting to either seduce me or trying to swindle more money out of my pockets that that I had already offered."

A small smile was quietly buried beneath the thin doctor's professional expression. "Mr. Feraman, disregarding the words of your caretakers is bad form, it is the most dangerous thing for a patient to do. I hope that, as unsolicited as my ministrations are, you will not disregard them?"

"No, no absolutely not" I assured him. I re-took his hand into mine and clasped it firmly. "In fact, I wish to thank you pre-emptively, good doctor, and my great fortune besides! I understand your reasons for neglecting what little compensation I can offer, but should you see me through these trying times, I would, by my own conscience, be compelled to insist upon it."

Dr. A'Rec's answering smile was filled with patronly feeling. "Then we shall discuss it at that point and no sooner." He once more extricated his hand from mine and energetically rose to his feet.

"Now, my day has been exhausting, and this very sudden issue has made me find in me the need to well acquaint myself with my mattress, I suggest you do the same, Mr. Feraman, we must needs wake at mid-night for a hearty meal. Your ticket does account for board, yes? Good. Have a good night. "

The good doctor shut the door after entering the nearest roomette, one in which his servant had stowed one of the larger suitcases he had carted into the cabin. His hasty departure left a swollen silence.

"I see you've already chosen your bed-room, young Azar," I wryly remarked to the servant who continued to lean against the door-way of the room closest to the main door of the cabin.

In answer, the servant gravely nodded his head and dipped into his roomette, after which, he too, gently, closed the door.

The distant sun, setting to my back, tinted the sitting-room and entry-hall an unnaturally blood-like red, –It did little to steady my shaken nerves.

"I'll see you at mid-night," said I, to no one in particular, attempting to calm my stunned nerves at the sudden and abrupt turn of events.