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  Epos (Maltia)

  1 December 2355

  Ethan’s 41st day on Tersain

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  Come evening, Ethan had been transferred to a room in the iatreion just for him. The fever had continued to rise, while the infection seems to be shifting from the wound to the rest of his body.

  “I haven’t seen many cases like this,” states Ehliana, when Archeos asks her to give him an update on the situation. “Usually the infection meets greater resistance.”

  The philosopher fixes his gaze on Ethan, lying in bed with his eyes closed. The young man is calm for now, but at times he is struck by delirium. It is difficult to catch him in a moment of lucid wakefulness, and even then he struggles to connect.

  “Tried the antibiotic?” asks the elder.

  Ehliana nods.

  “Changed anything?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “It could be a resistant ravdos,” Hoping interjects. “Ethan said that penicillin doesn’t work on some.”

  “In any case, his fever is rising too much,” affirms Archeos. “We absolutely have to bring it down. If it rises any further, he might not recover.”

  “The… bacteria…”

  Everyone turns to look at Ethan. His eyes are closed, and he seems asleep. Yet those words were doubtless spoken by him.

  “Ethan?” calls Archeos. “Can you hear me?”

  “Bacteria… of this world…” continues the boy, who seems to be rambling. “Different… I… am not protected…”

  “Another delirium,” pronounces Hoping.

  “No,” replies Ehliana. “It sounds as though he is communicating his problem to us.”

  “It is still a delirium,” insists the doctor.

  “He says he comes from another world,” asserts the philosopher. “Is that correct, master?”

  “Yes,” Archeos confirms. “He calls it Earth.”

  “I believe he hears what we are saying,” supposes Ehliana. “He is trying to explain something to us.”

  “Bacteria…” repeats Ethan. “Different… from those of Earth. My body… to deal with them… is not prepared…”

  “The bacteria… so, the ravdos,” understands the woman. “He means that those of Tersain are not like those of his world. Is that it?”

  “It would seem so,” Archeos nods.

  “And then?” says Hoping.

  “What he means, perhaps, is that since the ravdos of the two worlds are different, his body is used to fighting those of Earth and not those of Tersain,” supposes Ehliana. “He is suggesting to us why he suffers the illness with such intensity compared to the norm.”

  “Interesting material for abstract philosophising, but it doesn’t help us given the premises,” comments Hoping. “We need an explanation that doesn’t drag in absurdities like other worlds.”

  “Master, what do you think?” asks Ehliana, turning to Archeos.

  He remains silent, staring at an Ethan who has fallen quiet again. Then…

  “Whether it is true or false doesn’t change the outcome,” he says. “Let’s have him immersed in cold water, and let us hope we manage to contain the fever.”

  The philosopher nods. For an instant, her gaze goes to the boy, and her mind lingers on his words. Within herself, she entertains the mad notion that what Ethan affirmed might be true.

  She shakes her head. She cannot afford to follow that flow of thoughts. Not now. Even though… she wouldn’t dislike it, if it didn’t mean posing an even greater risk to the young man’s life.

  Now she must put into practice what is more sensible in circumstances like this.

  ???

  However much they try to halt the rise in Ethan’s temperature, all the systems used by the philosophers have only temporary effects. The situation keeps worsening, and when convulsive seizures begin to appear as well, the boy’s case is soon classified as desperate.

  “Shall we attempt ilectronic shock?” proposes Hoping at a certain point. “A discharge at hypothalamic level could…”

  “Do you want to kill him?” exclaims Ehliana.

  “The fever will kill him then,” retorts the doctor.

  Archeos leaves the two to argue and abandons the room. The man’s knowledge ranges across many fields, medicine included, thus he can allow himself to teach the subject and to take part in the treatments. But he is not specialised in that discipline, and he is beginning to struggle a little to keep up with the growing competence of Ehliana and Hoping.

  Thanks to his experience, he can still help them not to lose themselves in the meanders of possibilities. However… in a case such as this, in which familiar philosophy does not work, perhaps he cannot do anything but let them wander among hypotheses, in the faint hope that they might find an unexpected solution.

  Hoping is pragmatic… too much, at times. But he is useful for overcoming moments in which a tender heart might do more harm than good. Ehliana, instead… she sees what he, and many others, do not even bother to consider, yet she still manages to remain anchored to reality.

  The man can only hope that this suffices. On the Epos there are no philosophers specialised in medicine who are better than they are.

  Thoughtful, he heads out of the iatreion. There, at the edge of the corridor… he finds Dawn.

  “How is Ethan?” the girl asks him as soon as he is beside her.

  She is anxious: earlier they refused to let her visit the young man, since he is in no condition to see anyone. Archeos wonders whether it is better to sweeten the pill, omitting how grave the situation is.

  He decides that it is better not to.

  “At this rate, he might not endure for long,” he thus states, without preamble. “Moreover, people who reach his current temperature and who survive often manifest brain damage.”

  At first Dawn seems to take in that news without reactions. Then her lips tremble.

  “The mayea?” she asks. “Have you not tried? Cooling him, perhaps, or…”

  “Dawn, in his current condition we risk killing him if we force the lowering of his temperature,” asserts Archeos. “The mayea is too rough. Perhaps only a mayeutic doctor of great skill could do something. But aboard there are none so expert, and not even on the island nearby.”

  “But…”

  Dawn lowers her head. Archeos places a hand on her shoulder.

  “Courage,” he says. “We can still pray. Perhaps…”

  Suddenly, sleep falls upon him. As his vision blurs, he sees the girl’s right hand pointed at his chest. Some symbols are floating between her fingers.

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  Dawn… what have you in mind?

  The elder collapses against a wall, yielding to sleep.

  ???

  Dawn slips into the iatreion without anyone stopping her. A patient points out to her the room where Ethan has been moved, and the rebel heads there. When she crosses the threshold she finds Ehliana and Hoping arguing. On seeing her, the two stop at once.

  “You cannot enter,” asserts the doctor. “There is a risk of infection.”

  Dawn approaches him without saying a word. Hoping is perplexed, and remains so even when the girl reaches him and points a hand at his chest. Then the man begins to sway, as sleep conquers his mind.

  The young woman turns towards Ehliana and does the same thing. The woman seems to have understood what is happening, but does not react in time, and both she and the philosopher collapse seated on the nearby chairs. Thus, both fall asleep.

  Dawn draws near to Ethan’s bed. The boy is flushed and his skin is covered in patches. The rebel extends a hand to touch his face. At that, she inhales sharply: she has never felt such a high temperature in a person.

  The young woman closes her eyes and raises her right hand. On her fingers form some luminous, bluish symbols. She lifts her left palm too, and there some circles come into being. She brings her arms closer, and the figures mingle, joining to create a new combination of symbols of the universe. The girl brings her hands close to Ethan.

  She is about to touch him when a hand seizes her wrist. She turns: Ehliana has stopped her.

  “But you…?” Dawn says, surprised.

  “I am a mage, and I know how to counter the mayea,” declares the philosopher, fully awake. “Come on. Stop everything.”

  There was no need to say it. Once the concentration of the one who created them is broken, the symbols go out one after another.

  “What were you trying to do to him?” asks Ehliana.

  Dawn averts her gaze without answering.

  “If you use mayea to force his temperature down, you risk shattering his physiological balance,” affirms the woman, showing that she has in fact understood perfectly well what the girl’s intentions were. “The human body is not that simple: there are many processes connected to one another, and touching them without knowledge is dangerous.”

  “If there is no other way…” Dawn replies. “Better to risk the worst rather than…”

  “It is not worth it,” counters Ehliana. “And besides, I have already tried to use some gentle mayea, but they did not help.”

  “Then what can be done?”

  Ehliana fixes her gaze on Dawn. The girl has a distressed expression.

  “Have faith in him,” the philosopher urges her. “I am not saying it lightly. You felt how hot he is, didn’t you?”

  “Yes…”

  “He passed some time ago the temperature at which fever kills. And yet he is still alive.”

  Dawn looks at the young man.

  “Ethan is not weak,” maintains Ehliana. “Let him fight. We are doing what we can to help him… the rest depends on his mettle.”

  Dawn lowers her head.

  “Come on,” the philosopher encourages her. “Sit down.”

  And she indicates a chair. The girl looks at her, surprised.

  “For this once, we shall make an exception,” declares Ehliana. “If you want to stay by his side, do so. Hoping says that staying here carries a risk of infection, but I do not think it is true.”

  Dawn accepts the invitation and sits. Ehliana does the same, placing herself a few metres from her.

  “Do you care about him?” she asks.

  “I… yes,” the young woman nods. “I feel responsible for him.”

  “How so?”

  “Ethan fell onto the fragment where I lived,” Dawn recounts. “He was confused: he believed he came from a different world, he didn’t recognise Tersain, and he was astonished by the most normal things. He probably comes from another nation, but he doesn’t remember it. Archeos told me that he might consider me a point of reference… because, of the people on the Epos, I was the first he met since arriving in Maltia.”

  “And that is why you feel responsible?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Without doubt he seemed lost the first times I met him,” agrees Ehliana. “But you could see that he was fighting not to let himself be overwhelmed by the situation. And so far he has managed it.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know where he got his knowledge from. Certainly at the beginning he… ‘intrigued’ me precisely because of what he knew,” affirms the philosopher, hesitating for a moment halfway through the sentence. “But then I found him an interesting person. I would like to get to know him better.”

  Dawn stares at the woman, perplexed before that candid remark.

  “Well,” adds Ehliana, her gaze drifting, as though she were thinking aloud. “I reckon there are a couple of years between us. I hope I don’t frighten him with my way of doing things. He seems quite shy.”

  And she laughs. Dawn arches her eyebrows.

  “Indeed,” she confirms. “He is very shy.”

  “That makes him cuter,” comments Ehliana.

  Dawn senses the philosopher’s pupils darting to observe her face. Before their gazes meet, however, the girl turns her eyes away from the woman’s. Without answering her, she looks at Ethan, who continues to lie motionless apart from his laboured breathing.

  Quietly, quietly, but you’re having quite some success, aren’t you?

  Against her will, the rebel finds herself annoyed. If at the beginning she had been driven to take care of the young man by a sense of responsibility, now the thing has become… pleasant.

  Not that I wasn’t happy about it at first, but now it’s much clearer to me.

  For this reason, in fact, all those attentions towards the boy from the others give her the sensation that they are taking away her “protégé”.

  Silence falls over the room, and slowly both Dawn and Ehliana slip into sleep. Neither of them knows whether, upon waking, they will find the young man still alive.

  ???

  Ethan floats in a sea of mist. He does not feel the ground beneath his feet: that greyish shroud envelops him from every side, preventing him from seeing anything of the surrounding environment. At times he catches familiar voices, gleaning fragments of sentences. He feels dazed, but every now and then a bit of clarity surfaces to make him reason. He knows he is in a sort of delirium, which mixes reality with dreams, preventing him from settling in either one.

  As time continues to pass in an indefinite way, at a certain point the boy feels a hand rest upon his shoulder. He would like to turn, but he does not. He senses, in some way, that it would serve no purpose.

  “No, Ethan,” he hears said by an unfamiliar voice. “No one wishes you harm. Not yet.”

  The mist swirls around him, while the howl of the wind invades the Englishman’s ears. Even so, he manages to catch one last sentence from the person behind him:

  “Have faith in yourself. I have faith in you.”

  Then his view turns black.

  ???

  Dawn wakes with a start. She is not sure what has disturbed her, but she loses every trace of drowsiness when she looks in front of her. Sitting on the edge of the bed is Ethan. For an instant the rebel is overwhelmed by joy, an emotion that is almost immediately replaced by bewilderment. The sick boy’s eyes are wide, fixed ahead. His gaze is lucid and lost in who knows what vision.

  “Ehliana,” calls Dawn.

  The philosopher wakes, and immediately leaps to her feet.

  “Ethan!” she exclaims. “What are you doing? Lie down!”

  The boy does not react to those words. Rather, he places his feet on the floor and stands. He staggers and continues to stare into the void like a sleepwalker.

  Dawn reaches him.

  “Ethan?” she addresses him, grasping his arm.

  Through the clothing she feels the exceedingly high heat of the young man’s body, so high that it even forces her to let him go after a few seconds. Ignoring her, he begins to walk towards the door.

  “Stop!” says Ehliana. “Dawn, help me…”

  They grasp the boy, trying to endure the high temperature. They try to hold him back, but he keeps forcing their grip. Dawn is bewildered: he is proving himself stronger than she is. And yet, Ethan has never won in a test of strength with the rebel.

  “Hoping!” the philosopher shouts. “Wake up!”

  On the chair where he collapsed, the physician stirs, looking around as he tries to understand what is happening. When he realises, he gets up and runs to assist the two women.

  “No, Ethan,” he says. “You cannot go outside… but what is wrong with him?”

  “Still delirium, I think,” answers Ehliana.

  The sick boy continues to insist on going out, putting in even more force. Remarkably, he manages to advance even though the three of them are holding him. Soon, they have to let go because of the temperature of his body.

  “Let’s follow him,” decides Ehliana.

  “But it’s insane! How is he still alive?” exclaims Hoping.

  Dawn reaches Ethan, who, having arrived in the main hall of the iatreion, heads towards the corridor. The other patients watch them in the dark, and some of the less ill begin to get up to help.

  “Calm,” reassures them Ehliana, gesturing for them to stay in bed.

  “Ethan,” calls Dawn, stepping in front of the boy. “Wake up, come on! You have to stay in bed!”

  The young man moves his lips as though to answer her.

  “What?” says the rebel.

  “It burns,” he murmurs. “The gift.”

  And he passes her, leaving the iatreion. He heads towards the stairs, and through them begins to climb in the direction of the upper levels of the ship. Behind him come Dawn, Ehliana and Hoping.

  “What do we do?” asks the male doctor. “Do we stun him?”

  “Only if necessary,” the female philosopher delays.

  Ethan reaches a door that opens onto the upper deck. He opens it and steps out of the airship.

  The three follow him there as well. It is bitterly cold.

  “He cannot stay outside with this temperature,” says Dawn.

  “I don’t think it’s a problem, with the fever he has,” replies Hoping.

  “Hey!” shouts one of the guards outside. “What are you doing here?”

  Ehliana reaches the sentry to explain the situation. Meanwhile, Ethan heads towards the centre of the deck. There he stops, lifting his gaze to the sky.

  “The stars,” he speaks in a slurred voice. “They are different.”

  Dawn remains a few metres behind him, without uttering a word.

  “It will split,” the boy continues. “Just as this world also split.”

  “Tersain?” asks the young woman.

  “The gift is returned,” declares Ethan, lowering his head again.

  He turns, thus finding himself facing Dawn. He looks towards her, but his eyes say that he does not truly see her.

  “What gift?” the rebel asks again.

  “… eventually the day will come,” the boy continues, “and you shall become my champion.”

  He raises his arms, bringing his palms almost to shoulder height.

  “And you shall become…”

  It is then that Dawn realises it… how the young man’s body is lit by a light that does not come from the stars. Rather, it seems to radiate from within.

  “It comes…”

  “Ethan?”

  “Wake up…”

  “Ethan…!”

  “ENERGHEIA!”

  That scream hits her like a wall of wind. It resounds against the walls of the structures of the deck, spreading through the air with frightening force. A sort of flash explodes for an instant from the boy… and immediately after, darkness falls. Every light in the vicinity goes out, even those on the nearby fragment.

  Dawn staggers backwards, feeling dazed. All of a sudden, the cold night air has warmed.

  – – – – – – – – – –

  Amathia (Maltia)

  At the same instant

  – – – – – – – – – –

  At a very great distance from where the Epos is moored, the island on which the central part of Amathia stands floats. There is where Admiral Pandromio is, who at this moment is sleeping in his own home.

  Suddenly the man opens his eyes. He has felt an abrupt explosion of the forces he has perceived ever since he came into contact with an artefact of the Star Prophets.

  He sits up in bed, looking around. He still senses that incredible energy echoing in the distance. A shiver shakes him for a moment: somewhere something extraordinary has happened, even though he does not know exactly what.

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