The Foundling's Tale, Part Three: Factotum

by D M Cornish

  D

  demijohn bottle with a thin, fluted neck, its base enclosed in a wicker-work basket.

  Dere Reader, the ~ translation of an ancient book full of horrors and foul and recondite learning, said to be the major source book for transmogrifers, massacars and graphnolagnians alike.

  Dew of Imnot a slake or calming draft of fine parts suitable for even the most sensitive of stomach.

  dexter fulgar and wit in one, typically either wits who want some measure of protection from their foes—the fulgars—by taking on their power too and thereby nullifying it, or fulgars who desire to be able to find their prey without reliance upon other staff or hirelings to help them. Aside from possessing the puissance of both an astrapecrith and a neuroticrith, a once quite unforeseen combination of these has brought about a new “power,” petrusion, whereby a dexter can smite someone with a barely seen static blast without the need of touching them, though a foe still needs to be near at hand (say half a dozen yards at most away). Of course, a dexter’s “range” with petrusion will increase with practice. As they become more proficient, they can begin to choose to hit something farther away, or hit them hard when close.

  Didodumese part of the Antique Sanguines, the direct and widespread heirs and descendants of Dido, the original Empress of the Tutins. Their claim to heritage gives them a powerful stake in the Empire, often courted by the Haacobin Emperors (whose great sire Menangës wrested Imperial power from the Sceptic dynasty, the legitimate heirs of Dido’s legacy) seeking still to secure their own dynasty’s legitimacy. See Dido in Book One.

  digitals sets of small, cylindrical, felt- or velvet-padded chambers typically made of enameled pewter and hung from a belt, baldric, pocket or sash and in which potive castes are kept safe yet ready for use. A caste is slotted into the top of each cylinder, which is then secured shut by a fastening lid. Each potive is released by a quick flick of an independently clasped cover at the base of each cylinder, allowing the caste to slip out easily into the user’s hand.

  Dogget & Block, the ~ one of the more interesting but little known histories surrounding this very old hostelry is that its name is derived from an incident in Brandenbrass’ early history. “Dogget” is an obsolete term for a monster, especially one of the more bestial form, and the forgotten incident was quite simply the execution by beheading of a monster near the hostel in the square now known as Tight Penny Circle.

  dolly-mops daughters of the lower lectry and commonality, who walk in safety in crowds to mills and workhouses and low-end files; dressed as mere maids despite their higher situation, they are hardened and prematurely aged by the harsh rigors of their labor.

  dote(s) scripts used on vents and fascins to make them retardant to other draughts and fumes.

  Droid second-brightest star in the Signal of Lots, the constellation presiding over choices and chances; it is the superlative (Signal Star) most sought when testing fate and taking knowing risks, its position in the heavens relative to other lights telling on your future, should you care to heed such stuff—though such scrying is said to be the province of scoundrels, mendicants and the weak-headed.

  duffers constabulary, thief takers and carriage-pointers of Brandenbrass. Faithful employees of the Duke and his metropolitans, they also enforce such civic laws as the one ensuring that the pistols men carry about as fashion, and that teratologists bear as tools, are loaded with sack rather than deadly lead shot.

  Duke of Rabbits, the see the Lapinduce.

  Duke of Sparrows, the ~ lord of sparrows, finches and all such small wing-ed critters who has watch over Rossamünd and all the small, weak or and misunderstood who wander in the reaches of his realm. As with all nimuines—all monster-lords, the most mighty of the urchins, wretchins or petchinins—the Duke of Sparrows tends to remain at the heart of his domain, venturing out seldom but sending agents and “spies” instead to keep watch and perform necessary deeds. Only such terrible events as the rising of a false-god from the deeps would induce a monster-lord to shift itself from its seat of power and rise up with all the might that is its own. Otherwise they remain sedentary, lost in melancholic contemplations or bitter plottings or blissful reverie, their sway—their “influence”—over the land seeping out from them and deepening with the passing of the centuries.

  dulcifer concoction of chemicals in which sea-caught fish and the like are soaked (usually for a day), leeching out dangerous salts to make them edible. Without such treatment, an unsweetened fish (if a person could endure the foul taste) would make a person sick, and persisting over many meals might eventually kill the eater.There are many naturally occurring dulcifers in the wild: plants and barks and roots, often forming the basis for more refined recipes. These usually include some kind of seasoning, without which the soaked seafood would be bland.

  dulcify to soak in a dulcifer.

  Dzïk wild land on the southernmost edges of Heilgoland of partly subjugated people with a long proud history (and now current secret practice) of servitude to the wretchin ice-lords Lod and Panebog (or just Pan) of ice-bound Magog (the very bottom of the world where, as you pass through, down on the map becomes up again). Such service has been the only way they have been able to endure against the wild, wide-faring Tung and the empire-desiring Heil. Nevertheless, their northern tribes live under the auspices of the Heil Empress, serving her, and in such service they have discovered the rest of the world, venturing far to advance many dark causes in the name of their secret monstrous masters.

  E

  earwig listener for gossip, rumor and damning hints to then spread with expert subtlety.

  eclatics skill-set or puissance of a fulgar. See also fulgar(s) in Book One.

  elephantine(s) named for their great corpulence, these folk are the highest rank of magnate in central Soutland society. Much of the Half-Continent pivots on the idea that certain folk are better than others, that some are worthy and most of all should lead and succeed, whereas others are not worthy and ought to suffer at their betters’ expense. This is very much the stated position of the peers, lords and princes—an inherited notion fundamental to their understanding of themselves and their place in relation to other lesser folk, the wellspring of their callousness and arrogance abetted by all levels of society and the source of their social power. Magnates also aspire to such a position, the assumption of status and natural superiority sought through great material consequence and generous sponsorship of often far poorer betters. Born of inferior station, they are resented by the peers (often deeply), yet are granted a kind of borrowed rank in return for their support and investment. Elephantine is the highest position such a monied “upstart” can reach. Though dukes, marches, counts and barons may in their heart of hearts look down upon the elephantines, vulgarines and other magnates, the raw power that money affords induces the former to concede and treat them as equal.

  emperorflies what we would call dragonflies.

  emunic reborate strengthening draught taken particularly by fulgars and especially thermistors, to fortify their health and strength and allow them to dare great exertions of puissance. Unlike Cathar’s Treacle it keeps for many days before spoiling.

  enginry collection of mechanical devices, especially the various gastrine- or water-driven machines used in mills.

  ephemerides tables showing seasonal planetary positions.

  erreption correct physical name for an amputation, including the proper sealing of the gory stump and its major vessels.

  Etaine language spoken by most of the peoples of the Patricine states and very much like French in our own world.

  etiolated sickly and pale.

  Euclasia mining colony in the resource-rich lands of the Verid Litus governed by Boschenberg.

  eurinië, eurinin(s) original name given to patrons of all things moving on and in the earth. In the time after the treachery of the alosudnë and then of the everymen, they fractured in their purposes to become the urchins, the petchinins or the wretchins.

  eu
riphim all monsters together; derived from eurinië, it is a name they give themselves as of old.

  “Ex munster vackery!” vulgar corruption of the warding phrase “Ex monstrum vacarè,” that is, “of monsters be free!” Such warding phrases are part of a dialect known properly as grammar or cantrics most commonly spoken among the fictlers.

  expurgatory or lahzar’s list; handmade books containing excerpts of the Vadè Chemica and the Dere Reader and consequently a forbidden thing within the Empire. Of course it is well known that lahzars possess them, but such folk are needed too much for such a proscription to be enforced.

  F

  fabercadavery also known asnecrology or necromancy, the making of revers and other gudgeons, including jackstraws. The practitioners of such vile research swear that their main intent is not to make something worse than monsters but to discover the very functions of life and seek to bring the boon of such discovery to everymen. Regardless, excesses in such endeavors are said to have been part of the downfall of the Phlegms. Therefore, in nearly every realm of the Half-Continent, fabercadavery is illegal (even the liberal surgeons of Sinster regard it with caution), and its practitioners are often hunted down and gaoled or even slain.

  false-god(s) or pseudobaths; also known as amathabrins (“foolisharrogants”), basbathonids (“deep-lords”), catabrathins (“great deep ones,” a name used for any big sea-monster, including kraulschwimmen), demiurges, falacitines, fichtärs, pseudomaurins (“false-fools”), pseustis (“liars”) and nausithoë (though this is a more general term for any sea-monster). False-gods were once the equals of the eurinines, back in the Aforetime when all things that are were being made and known first as the alosudnë (“the sea-born”). The antiquated, fragmentary catalogs say many things, but most hold that they were the lords and agents of life in the seas, as the secretive eurinines were of the lands, and the gossamer naeroë were of the air.Yet as rulers over the most fiercesome creatures in all the realms the alosudnë grew proud; as caretakers of the middle portion—the portion air being greatest (in size) and land least—they grew jealous and rose up against the naeroë. Surprised, the “sky-lords” and their servants were defeated and the survivors fled the deuter (the world), leaving the skies empty of all but clouds and wind (the birds actually belonging to the land, for they need to perch). It is said that Providence, seeing this arrogance, roused the eurinines, who threw the alosudnë back into the deeps; then Providence caused the deep-lords to become idiot and, renaming them the amathabrins, set the kraulschwimmen as watch over them. It is held that false-gods are sources of prognosis (the original, secret knowledge of the world’s founding) and those that are known are actually worshipped by some everymen (as stated in Book One). These worshippers are known to other right-thinking folk simply as fantaisists (“dream-believers”) or fictlers (also thralls, dullards) and consider them the most blighted outramorines—to be rooted out and obliterated. This is often a great consternation to the fantaisists, who typically reckon the eurinines to be foul usurpers, and are as much haters of bogles and nickers as the most inveterate invidist. Among themselves fantaisists are variously called helots or gnosists (“knowers of special knowledge”; also achätastars [said “ak-KAR-tast-tarz” = “the fickle ones”]—often shortened to tastards; goests, goestës or goestins—basically “user of powerful [harmful] knowledge”; or therapards, “god-servers”). Fantaisists refuse to use such terms as “fichtär” or “false-god,” calling them instead the basbathonids, bathonions or “our bathic lords.” Gathering themselves into groups called septs, each will revere a single fichtär above all others, the most terrible sept being the Saccour or Sucärines—the bloodthirsty, cannibalistic worshippers of Sucoth the Decayed, the Swallower of Men. Each sept holds to strange and erroneous doctrines they collectively name mutebaths—Tellings of the Deep Things—and right-thinking folk call falsagoes or falsities. The mutos or mutes (dogma) of a particular sept’s mutebath will declare their own fichtär as ultimate lord, and will contain fragmentary prescriptions of the manner in which one might raise a chosen false-god for an unending period of glory. Fantaisists tend to be vague on what it actually is they are seeking (except the servants of Sucoth, who seek annihilation and oblivion). Antiquarians and learned habilists are much clearer on what the advent of a false-god will mean: much suffering and ruination—at least in the region in which one is called up. Regardless, each sept will argue even violently with the others that their own basbathonid is the greatest, producing their mutebaths and the apparently original ancient texts and relics to reinforce their claims, though many of these items are fakes—even old, obscure fakes, believed real by their sept. Despite the discrepancies, vagaries and disagreements, most septs agree that Lobe, a famuli—or lesser fichtär—is the chief medium by which one gains the “ears” of the others, and you will find him occurring frequently in fantaisist litanies and mutes. None of recent times can confirm whether their false-god responds at all to summons and commands.Worshippers take dogged encouragement from the rumors of Phlegm’s destruction and more recently an apparently successful raising of Inchyitutyll, the Shrunken, by an unknown people once living in what is now called the Slough of Despond near the Flintmeer. This unknown people (probably one of the wild tribes of the Erzgebirge) left no evidence of their success but were instead wiped out by Inchyitutyll, who in turn was roundly beaten back into the waters by the Duke of Sparrows and two other urchin-lords, never to rise again. As terrible as all this fichtär-worship might appear, fantaisists are very much seen as an idiot fringe whose own infighting does as much to weaken and suppress as any subversive work by the Emperor’s special, dedicated agents. More disturbing, and little known, is that massacars go to the septs to inquire of their chosen lord in the hope of gaining insight into the spark of life and its manipulation. The advent of gudgeons is said to be the result of one such successful “conversation” many centuries ago between an unknown black habilist and Ode, the Sweet Death, Sister of Lobe. The surgical and mimetic knowledge required to transmogrify lahzars is said to have come from a similar source: a historied communion of Cathartic scholars and the servants of the bathic lords—though lahzars themselves utterly refute such an assertion and transmogrifers remain silent. Over the centuries many false-gods have gained names, though it is unclear whether all those named truly exist, slumbering and drooling undiscoverable at the very bottom of the crushing mares.

  fancies fancy-dress, elaborate “party costume.”

  fantaisist(s) also phantastes, fictlers, helots (“the bound” or “owned”), legiters or categists—an uncommon name gained from their practice of cater legite or cantrics, the superstitious practice of concentrating the will by calling or singing as a group into the deep places—whether land or sea—trying to rouse and summon the false-gods and/or their beastly servants.

  fantastico painting of an imagined scene, either a real event of old, or some figment of imagination or ancient myth.

  faraday vulgar corruption of “fare-a-day,” meaning laborers who work for daily hire, possessing many varied skills and traveling the lands to find employment in right season.

  farced pounding similar to meat loaf; though prepared in a more fancy manner and strongly seasoned, it is still humble fare. It is a current fashion among rural peers to eat it, signifying simplicity and self-conscious connection with the lowly folk upon whose labor the landed gentry depend.

  Fayelillian northern neighbor of Brandenbrass and ancestral home of the disgraced Lamplighter-Marshal contending for his honor in the Considine. See Book Two.

  fête night of eating and dancing, a term used especially out in the parishes but losing fashion in the city.

  fictler(s) worshippers and followers of false-gods, the name coming from the notion that these folk honor fictions, that is, false notions of the false-gods. They are typically regarded as a type of sedorner, yet they hold themselves as entirely distinct from sedorners and outramorines—opposites in fact, seeking the false-gods to rise up to ri
d the world of the landed monsters, the true foes of everymen. They prefer to call themselves gnosists, that is, “the knowers,” for the higher knowledge they believe they possess, yet are not above the use of human sacrifice in their fervor to summon forth their chosen false-god. See fantaisists.

  Finance, Baron Idias ~ the Baron of Sainte (a wealthy region in Naimes proper), Captain-Secretary (the seniormost clerk) and Chief Emissary of Naimes’ diplomatic mission to Brandenbrass, is under permanent charge from the Duchess of Naimes to keep an eye on that state’s wayward daughter, Europe, the Branden Rose. He discharges this duty happily, as much for his deep regard for the Duchess-in-waiting as from obedience to his proper mistress. As much as Europe might deny her connection to her mother, she still holds a level of authority over the Baron.

  fistduke(s) common corruption of the Heil word viskiekduzär—pronounced “viss-KYK-doud-saar” and meaning “vicious souls”—troubardierlike soldiery who will happily turn sell-sword and often serve the darkest causes. Braving the crossing of the Gurgis Main, they are hardened fellows and a favorite among the black habilists of the Soutlands, serving as spurns and bravoes or in whatever capacity money’s hand might prompt them.Though they are not regarded as true lesquins, neither are they of the mercenary federmen rabble, but have their own ghastly and well-earned reputation.

  fitch usually referring to a proofed-feathered collar, it is also a broad term for any gaulded neck-and-shoulder wrapping.

  fits carriages, coaches and carts collectively.

  five graces, the ~ also called the Pendecora, the ancient time-honored accomplishments thought worthy of a lady of good blood or fine beginning: conversation, elegance, femininity, meekness and posture.

  flammagon stubby, large-bore firelock used to fire flares high into the air. In a pinch it can double as a weapon, but it is best suited as a launcher of bright signals.