The Fall of Valerian Sinchmoor

(I thought a little more about my taproot question and came up with this)

Excerpt from the memoirs of Braevarn Traire, Chapter Five: (The Convocation) Page 78 - The Fall of Valerian

Valerian Sinchmoor lay dying.

It wasn’t a surprise to us; his heart had been giving him problems for months at this point. It would beat fast and hard for all of ten minutes, leaving him exhausted. Another day it would hardly beat at all, and he would slip into a restless sleep. What he felt or saw there none may tell save for him, and he never told another living soul.

He lay on an altar prepared for him, should this day ever come. It was not made for him alone. but for any of our Convocation who felt themselves passing from this plane. It was merely fate that the creator of our experiment would be the one to undergo the test of it.

It was Valerian’s idea in the first place. He looked at the foul magics of our darker kin, the Witchmen of the Reach. Their crow-witches, the Hagravens, take the briar plant and perform rituals which even we, open minded and open hearted mages, whom make our home in the wilderness in order to avoid the stifling conventions of Guilds and Colleges, shudder to think of. Suffice it to say that those who undergo such implantations do not retain control of their own minds for very long. We thought we could be different. We were not evil, in any sense of the word.

I remember it so vividly, though it was long ago now. I, standing over the altar where Valerian lay lengthwise, a terrible scream coming from him which pierced all of us gathered there. There were six of us in total, not including him. The pain he felt was unbearable to think about, and we hadn’t even begun to cut yet. His heart hurt him, so we would make it right.

I took my ebony scalpel, with so much sharper an edge than any steel, and ran down from his chest to his navel. I cut him open and knew we had to act fast. If our plan worked, we would save his life and do much more besides. If we failed, he would die, and whether the blood or the heart would end him first was anybody’s guess, but the first drip of crimson was when we really became conscious that we were running out of time.

I know quite clearly that I muttered a prayer and an apology then, before I took a hammer and broke his ribs. It was the only way I could get to his heart, but I hated myself for hurting him. My friend, my mentor, the light among the dark, smothering ignorance I had known as a child. I removed them, placed them aside, for they would be needed later.

I sliced the flesh holding his heart in place and Valerian shuddered, lay still. I panicked, thinking we had failed, but I carried on. I handed the dead heart to a mage beside me; he coated it in a layer of frost. I took the final chance from the altar, placed it into his chest cavity, and replaced the ribs. I signalled the four mages and they began to cast their healing magics, his ribs melding together and his chest repairing itself with only a pale scar to show anything had ever happened. The taproot inside disappeared as the skin covered it.

Five anxious minutes we waited before he took another shuddering breath and opened his eyes.

For that entire Spring he pranced around like one half his age, filled with rapturous beauty for all the things he had never thought he would see again. When Summer came he got back to work and continued his research, overjoyed that this experiment had worked. It proved so many of his theories correct! This was the cutting edge of the arcane, and all he had to do was write it up properly for the College! We may have wanted to escape them, but we all knew that being published was true immortality, and the College’s library was the place for it above all else.

His mood changed with the leaves, and he began to go on long walks among the fallen sea of gold. He was lost deep in thought and never saw us as we watched over him. When he returned he was always full of ideas, and we knew that the Valerian we knew was still with us. But sometimes he sat there gazing into the distance at the sunset, or the moonlit sky, or into a pond at its denizens, and I wondered if a part of him had not gone to Kyne, he seemed so engrossed with nature’s beauty.

Months went by and Winter came. We saw little of him now as his walks spanned day and night. He rarely returned but for supplies and to communicate some new ideas to us. We would have barely written it down before he had vanished again into the wilderness.

Midwinter came and Valerian did not return. We spread out to search for our leader and teacher. Day after day we returned home, our search more fruitless than the trees in this cold season.

One day we found him, sitting and gazing into a frozen pond where a felled tree stump lay underwater, and growing on top of it, resting on top of the ice, was a beautiful blue flower. The look on his face was one of such content that we could not bear to move him. There we left him, for the waters that lapped at his feet to preserve his body, for he was preserved in our thoughts and that memory was all we needed.

As he grew with the Spring, reached his peak with the Summer, so he died with the Winter’s touch, but was evergreen in our memories.