Esveldza: 'The Lonely Child of Fire'

Chapter XVI- Fever

Chapter XVI

Fever

Despite how Daarken beat Sarben up, he continued to put love spells on people. Daarken and I thought it was funny only when he aimed it at the people of the village rather than Daarken or I. Sarben hadn’t tried to put that spell on us since the first time and I was very grateful for that. Who knows what I could have said or done had it have been me being hit by the spell, but I didn’t want another episode of Daarken chasing me around the house either.

Within two weeks time Sarben had mastered the love spell. He received his first marking as a mage. A symbol scribbled itself into Sarben’s forearm, a pale pink-white sort of colour.

“Out of all the spells to first master, you chose a love spell.” Daarken sighed, shaking his head as we looked at Sarben’s arm.

He puffed his chest out defensively, “At least I have actually mastered a spell. I cannot say much about your rider dream, now can I?”

Daarken stuck his tongue out at him and Sarben only looked away from him, admiring his accomplishment.

“Are you finally going to leave the poor villagers alone with those love spells now?” Lianra asked with smile on her lips.

Sarben shrugged, “I will have to start learning other spells so I will leave that spell alone for a while, I suppose.”

Sarben spent hours searching through his new book; locking himself in his room, seemingly unable to decide what to learn next.  

Daarken and I sat on his bed playing a game of Dragon Fire. A game where you collected treasure to increase your dragons power to either attack the opponent or make resources with its fiery breath.

“Sarben has been in his room for almost three whole days, now he will not even leave his room for lunch.” Daarken said, distracted. I took this opportunity to burn down one of his villages.

I smirked as Daarken realized my move, “Do you want to go annoy him?” I asked.

He nodded. We got off his bed and walked around the stairs across to Sarben’s room. Daarken knocked on the door, there was no answer.

“Sarben, are you going to have lunch?” Daarken called from outside the door. Still no answer from him so Daarken knocked again, this time harder.

Sarben said nothing. Daarken looked at me anxiously, normally Sarben would at least give an annoyed remark to Daarken but he had remained silent. Daarken turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping inside. I followed behind him.

Sarben lay on the floor, the book out of his hands a few metres away from him with its pages ruffled. Daarken and I both dropped down next to Sarben and turned him over. He was unconscious and breathing heavily, his eyelids flickered as if he was experiencing a terrifying nightmare. His body temperature had long passed it’s normal heat and sweat covered his body.

“Dammit, I thought he was over this…” Daarken muttered angrily, jumping up and running to the door, “Lianra! Sarben’s got that fever again!” He shouted from upstairs.

“This is not the first time this has happened?” I questioned as Daarken went into the bathroom, wetting a face towel and putting it on Sarben’s forehead.

“No, he had it two years ago. It lasted a few months; he would just suddenly get really hot and nauseous before passing out. He stays like this for a few hours before he wakes up again. We took him to the medics after it had happened a few days in a row and we thought he was cured.” Daarken explained, “That idiot, not telling us it was back and letting himself suffer.”

We had all thought Sarben was just obsessing over his mage book for the past few days when in fact he must have been suffering from the fever. Probably throwing up all over his bathroom, sweating and hurting from severe headaches.

Lianra was soon in the room, helping us lift Sarben onto his bed. She had brought a syringe with a large needle. She jabbed it underneath his arm, near his ribs and injected the medicine in. “Luckily we still had this left from the last time but we will need to buy more if Sarben continues this.” Lianra’s eyebrows pressed together with concern, she held her breath as Sarben stopped shaking.

His breathing began to slow and he looked as if he was finally in a peaceful sleep before he slowly opened his eyes. Lianra was ready with a bucket as Sarben threw up into it; his fingers clutched to the bucket tightly.

Once he finished Lianra wiped his face with a cloth before taking a fresh one from Daarken and wiping the rest of his face down to cool off.

“Why did you not tell us this was happening again?” Lianra hissed, her tone was angry but I noted the worry in her voice.

Sarben’s eyes were tired and he dropped them from everyone’s gazes. “I… It cost us so much money last time… I thought I could handle it without us having to pay so much money again…” Sarben mumbled.

The Sarben who I had always called arrogant and selfish seemed like a completely different person, I could see that when it really came down to it, he was caring and selfless. Sarben had endured the pain because he didn’t want his family having to pay for him; it was a time like this through hardship where Sarben was strong and protected those he cared for.

Lianra wiped his curly hair off his face and kissed his forehead, “Your health is much more important than money, Sarben.”

Sarben looked up at her and apologised to us. Lianra told him that wasn’t necessary but a shower was. We left Sarben to clean himself and Daarken and I returned to his room.

“Will Sarben be better now?” I asked after a moment’s silence. We sat on Daarken’s bed, facing the door.

Daarken shrugged, “I doubt that medicine will last too long. Sarben had four injected into him before the fevers finally died down and because he got them again now I assume they will be back in a few years time too.”

“Can we not just inject him every so often to keep them from happening?” I questioned.

Daarken shook his head, “It has to be admitted into him when he is unconscious from the fever or else it will have a reverse affect and instead of killing the bacteria which is what it’s meant to, it can end up killing his cells.”

I sighed deeply, putting my chin on my hands, “What is this fever even called, I have never seen or heard of anything like it before.”

Daarken shrugged again, “The doctor did not even know. He just put together other medicines to stop the fever. That was another reason why it costed so much. Luckily it appears to not be contagious.”

We were silent as we waited for Sarben to finish. When he stepped out of his door we rushed over to him, Lianra brought up some food for him, refusing to let him walk downstairs before sending him off to bed.

+++

We had hoped that Sarben’s fever would not return but it did. A few days later Sarben got the fever again and much to his dislike Lianra had to buy more of the medicine. I put in as much money as I could but even then the doctor’s unfair charge left Lianra quite penniless after buying only a few.

After that Sarben was okay for a few weeks and he returned to normal. We thought it had finally stopped when suddenly he fell under the fever again. It happened again in the same week before giving him a few weeks to get back to normal before hitting him again. After the fifth time that year it finally seemed to stop.