Professor Ivan Sevastyanovich Yavorov (1 May 833–3 March 905)
Yavorov, Prince of Zembla, came from an unremarkable, second-rank family of bonded Stavrian nobles. In 866 he graduated with honours from the Vasilissian Imperial Institute of Forces and Properties, Department of the Subtlest Bodies, specialising in Ambiguous Qualities. At the same time he completed a correspondence course in ancient writings at the Sevir School of General Poetry, and brilliantly defended a minor thesis on the hymns of the holy elders in the late postdiluvian period.
After completing his studies, Yavorov joined Professor Kornev’s workshop, where he worked on methods of oxidising bog iron. In the 870s, at the height of the Shameful Rebellions, he left the capital and returned to Zembla with his fiancée, the orataya Ada, and their two-year-old daughter Marina. In 878 he made the first of his two great discoveries. By combining, in a single operation, the rite of the basilisk bride’s rebirth with the oxidation of bog iron by the shadows of ash acids, he obtained the basis of balsamin: a substance possessing the properties of the legendary water of life, whose secret had been lost in the days of the first tsars.
62 Balsamin
From this substance Yavorov developed the medicine of the same name. It was administered to gravely wounded soldiers on the battlefield itself, sending them into balsamin sleep: life fell still within them, and death was arrested. The wounded could now be carried away from the front without fear that they would bleed out or die of pain-induced shock. At field hospitals they were wrapped in balsamin shrouds, sewn into dark sacks and sent to the rear, where there were better doctors, well-equipped operating theatres and proper nursing care. A few days after their shrouds were removed, the wounded began to regain consciousness and generally recovered soon afterwards.
For creating balsamin, Yavorov received a princely title and the highest honours. Licensing his medicine also made him wealthy. Yet he spent all his fortune, together with the Great Tsar’s grants, on restoring the abandoned Bezdez Institute. Within ten years he had established his own school of spirit chemistry there, gathering the most promising young natural philosophers within its walls.
The first war against Solo broke out in 881. Many wounded men arrived from across the sea under balsamin, but not all awoke from their balsamin comas. Over the course of a year of war, forty-six out of several hundred treated men failed to regain consciousness. Every one had been involved in a classified incident at the Bo-Zog camp. The doctors nicknamed them the Sleepless. All were officers of the Median Corps, rescued from Solo captivity. Many belonged to the great houses of Varvarossa. Among these unfortunates was Lefty’s uncle, Premon.
