The hours leading to mid-night were fraught with restless tumbling.
—When Dr A'Rec awoke, he woke to find my distressed form still seated in the settee where he had bid me good-night, with my clothes in a tussled state, and the electrolier that overhung the sitting-room unlit.
"My good man," the doctor complained in his Darmecian accent while dialing on the electrolier, "You simply cannot abuse your body in such a fashion. Tell me, did you recieve any rest in all the while?"
I nodded nervously. "Some," said I, "but it was awfully brief and deeply uncomfortable: I had the most terrible of nightmares, doctor, I dreamt I had built a great red fire, and I had jumped into it, burning myself alive." I shook at the memory. "I'm not a man with nerves, you see, -I consider myself a rather staid and sober-minded gentleman, but the vividness and sheer horror of this figment has kept me unsettled for nearly an hour."
A look of, strangely, guilt, came upon the doctor's features as he heard my recount.
"Oh, doctor, if you have any regret in informing me of my maladious health, please, dispense with any such considerations immediately, you've done me a heavy service."
For some time the thin doctor struggled to school his face, eventually he clasped my shoulder and suggested we walk to the nearest cafetorium for a meal.
I hastily brushed my clothing into a presentable status while the doctor politely rapped the door to his servant's bed-room.
"Doctor," said I, "I believe I saw young Azar depart his chambers during one of the waking moments of my fitful sleep. He must have made his way out of the cabin. I was quite disoriented at the time, so I cannot precisely tell you whether he returned at any point." I paused, as a thought occurred to me. "Oh dear me, you don't believe that I could have woken him, do you?"
"Of course not," said the doctor absent-mindely in thought, after which, he called out Azar's name.
After several moments of no reply the doctor dis-engaged and turned to me, "Come along, Mr. Feraman, I believe he's not yet returned to the cabin, perhaps we'll meet with him in the luncheon bar."
We left the cabin and wandered for nearly a quarter-hour searching for the tea-room.
The internal spaces of all the Four Locomotives were famous for being larger than they appeared from the outside, with distance and direction often having convoluted interpretations in the labyrinthine halls and passage-ways inheld.
This combination of factors had led to the Four Locomotives gaining notoriety for their unnavigability, and, if memory serves me well, led to several well-received novels and plays, all centered around the confusion of navigating through their spacious corridors.
Fortunately, I did not find myself becoming one such protagonist of these maze-themed horrors, for Dr. A'Rec exhibited some familiarity with the environment and that, paired with my constant referencing of the directories, led to our success in finding the nearest large cafetorium, which, even in the late hour we arrived upon, was filled with noise and babble.
We found a table and supped. Dr. A'Rec made sure to recommend foods and drinks that were leniently spiced but were also rich and heavy, all the while craning his neck for sight of his truant servant.
After our meal we wandered back to our cabin, this time with remarkably improved perception.
In the return I further detailed my restless state and the doctor quickly issued a diagnosis of insomnia, something, he claimed, he too occasionally suffered from. He offered to share with me some of the medication he used for the purposes of attaining respite from the stresses of waking life.
He offered the tablets with a caveat: "I must insist, Mr. Feraman, on offering you only one pill per night; the medication is deathly strong, as such it opens itself to abuse. I caution, that in the state you will soon find yourself in, you must be deprived any access to dangerous substances, no matter how small."
I agreed with the doctor's suggestion and we amicably entered the cabin. The servant Azar had already returned and was pacing across the sitting room.
I started to find him dressed in a full suit made in the Darmecian style. The black and navy affair made the young servant cut quite the striking figure. The fine tailoring and fabric were even better than in the suit worn by Dr. A'Rec beside me. A strange whimsy came to my mind, but was interrupted by Azar's rumbling voice.
He began speaking and did not stop for quite some time. He was obviously distressed, pointing frantically to his own bed-room.
In his tirade I could hear incomprehensible clicks and fricatives that I had not heard in his speech before. I only later realised that he had, in his passion, switched to speaking another language, one that, some-how, seemed more natural to him.
The doctor did not seem as confused as I. He listened to his 'servant' calmly that is, until Azar pointed to his bed-room, at which point the doctor immediately seemed to panic.
For the first time, I heard the doctor reply in that same sing-song click language, his voice growing in volume as he gestured both to myself and the roomette he had conspicuously moved away from. I followed his example and stepped towards the sitting room.
The doctor turned to me. "Mr. Feraman, I will fetch your medication, you must take it immediately." Dr. D'Arec then entered his bed-room, casting nervous glances to his servant's own room all the while.
I was temporarily left alone with the dapperly dressed Azar, who, after the doctor's departure, had resumed his frantic pacing.
I silently observed him move from one wall to the other with more than ample curiosity.
The idea that he was the good doctor's servant had long been dispelled from my mind. My twenty-odd years in service had taught me the many mannerisms of a servant, and I truthfully saw none of them in the pie-bald young man before me, in fact, I saw more of them on the good doctor than on the boy.
I thought, as I shamelessly ogled young Azar in his back-and-forth loping, that this straight-backed young man had all the bearing of a prince. His gaze, unfocused as it was, expressed a forcefully imperious air, and his lips, which muttered in that semi-gutteral way, uttered each word with all the refinement of a well-bred man, much accustomed to the obeisances of his lessers.
Why he and the doctor had ever hoped to deceive any-one by suggesting Azar was of any-thing but high birth, I could not then fathom.
I discarded the string of guesses I formed to answer that mystery and instead I noted that his well-made suit had small tears, burns, and rips at the sleeves which all appeared very recent. Another recent fixture were the two dark, steel bracelets that loosely wrapped around each of his sinewy wrists.
They were artfully wrought twinnings, with images of roiling flames and curling infernos carved into their circumferances. Delicate lines of gold and bronze added colour, while gracefully chiselled crevices and nooks provided tasteful shadow to the burning depictions.
All of this culminated in two masterful pieces that radiated an almost physical sense of heat and danger in equal measure; so much so that even from the healthy distance at which I stood away from their holder I could feel it.
Unbidden, the two words most invoked by the bracelets tumbled, in a barely audible whisper, from my parted lips; "Scorching Destruction." said I, reverently.
Azar froze.
His head, very deliberately, turned towards me. His dark eyes narrowed, and, in that moment, the light from the overhead electrolier must have reflected through them, for an orange flicker flitted through his pupils. It had already passed, however, when his eyes traced my gaze to his two bracelets.
He slowly raised both of his hands and spoke, "Rotella." followed by a short pause.
"Vuta," as he shook his left hand.
"Shaza," as he shook his right.
I was puzzled by the Darmecian sounding word that preceded the two obviously foreign ones. My brow was furrowed when I asked, "I believe... rotella is the style of wristlet, yes? Yes, I thought it sounded familiar. Vuta and Shaza... are those their names?"
He nodded just as a creak and a thud announced the return of the doctor. Azar turned his body away from me and huffily sat upon the settee.
Dr. A'rec cocked an eyebrow at the sight. "Mr. Feraman, here is your tablet. I'm afraid you'll have to swallow it dry, that is, unless you don't mind fetching some water from the wash-room sink."
He gestured to the door opposite Azar's bed-room, a room I had yet to explore, and, curiously enough, I had yet to see the doctor explore. I credited this to perhaps his greater experiences in utilising the shared cabins of the Western Locomotive: it was an experience I did not share as my travels had so far been limited to the South, East, and North; even then I had been far more liberal and had wastefully spent for single cabins.
I shook my head and took the small white tablet into hand. I swallowed it then and there.
"Good, very good," affirmed the doctor. "Now please make your way to bed, the tablet's effects are quite powerful and all the more sudden."
After a short couple of "good-nights," I made my way to the unchosen room that had been left me, on the left of the hall, opposite the good doctor's and separated from the main door by what I now knew to be the rest-room.
Before I entered the chamber, the good doctor loudly began to harangue young Azar in that guttural language they had now defaulted to. Azar gave him no mind and instead steadily leveled his gaze at me.
I found his intense gaze discomforting, and, I confess, it led me to quickly enter my bed-room and lock it hysterically.
Immediately after the door shut, I heard Azar boom.
His voice started loud and quickly lowered to a burbling timbre that nonetheless remained harsh and scathing, even to one who did not know the language being spoken.
The boy, who was not even peer to my own son, managed to do what no man save my father and the taskmasters of my early education have ever accomplished; he made me fear to incur a lashing of his tongue.
I quietly leaned against the door and then, in an act that until then I strongly deplored; I listened into their conversation.
I listened until Azar tired and I could hear the doctor speak in a supplicating tone. He begged in a way that needed no translation, and when I heard two closely separated muffled thuds, I knew he had dropped to his knees.
Suddenly, a loud fizzle sounded and culminated in a metallic click.
The volume of the doctor's begging increased and I could hear pathetic sobbing through the wooden door. My curiosity nearly led me to unlocking the door and peaking out, but sense and propriety succeeded in pulling me from this course of action.
A short silence followed and I heard the doctor shuffle to his feet. The two men began speaking calmly. They must have reached some sort of accord because soon after their footsteps began thudding on the wooden flooring; I could hear the doctor's heavy footsteps leading Azar's gentler tappings. The same light footsteps that drew to a pause before my door.
I heard Azar speak and the doctor respond, Azar spoke again, and then, after a pregnant pause, the doctor shouted, "Mr. Feraman, how is the medicine treating you? Mr. Feraman, are you still awake?"
I kept my mouth firmly shut and heard the doctor revert to that language of theirs. The two moved onwards. After another short while I heard the clicking and clacking of keys in a door. The sound, I inferred, came from Azar's roomette.
I heard his door creak open and then... silence.
I had thought their dispute finally settled when in the next second I heard violent ripping, and tearing, and howling.
Animalistic snarls and growls echoed through the short hall-way and to my door. Another hissing fizzle and a metallic click were followed by a loud bang! The sort of bang that accompanied the discharge of a firearm; yes, as unlikely as that was, the sound of the firing of a firearm was too distinctive to mishear, and I had previously had the fortune to hear this rare sound during my employ under Oirid Herminger.
I hastily slid away from the door and scrambled onto my narrow bunk. Like a frightened child, I slunk into my covers and cowered under them, fully dressed.
I managed to scrounge together enough religiosity to pray, though I cannot, for the life of me, recall to which God I directed my prayers to.
I prayed even as the roars and the bangs grew more frequent and energetic. At times I could hear the sharp, padded paws of an animal pace the hall-way and claw at my door. At those times, my prayers grew nonsensical and were coloured by my inconsolate sobbing.
Somehow, in the midst of all this distress, the good doctor's tablet found the strength to calm my mind. As sudden as a lightning strike, sleep came over me, providing much needed rest to my scattered nerves.
×××××
I was awoken the next morning by Dr. A'Rec's polite knocks. I hesitantly opened the door to find him already dressed and holding two of my suitcases.
"Good morning, Mr. Feraman. You had forgotten these in the sitting-room" he softly said.
I peaked my head out of the roomette and saw much of the hall-way in the same condition as yesternoon. What I could see of the sitting-room remained as pristine as when I had first arrived; no claw marks marred the wooden floors and no bullet-holes peppered the walls.
Mad laughter escaped from my lips, causing Dr. A'Rec's to frown in concern. "Why, good man, are you well?"
"Quite," said I.
I began detailing my latest fanciful dream, at the end of my retelling, he too began to laugh. He handed me my suitcases with small tears of mirth in his eyes. "Mr. Feraman, if you please get prepared, we must meet Azar at the luncheon bar, he simply has to hear this tale."
He made way back to his room, half hunched in laughter.
Before closing his door, he spoke to me, "Be watchful when using the laver, my good-fellow, I fear the raving wolf might still be hunkered within." He chuckled and slid the door shut.
I watched him enter with a wry smile.
I quickly completed my ablutions and wore a muted brown suit. Once appropriately dressed I called on the doctor, who answered immediately, and the two of us were soon away.