The Foundling's Tale, Part Three: Factotum

by D M Cornish

  strupleskin pronounced “STROO-pull-skin,” the word is a corruption of the Lausland term “struplescin” (said “stroop-LESS-chin”), meaning “a woven scab.” It is given to one of the most superior siccustrumn known to skolds, one that will do its healing work without the need for bandages, forming a porous plug over a wound that allows for fittest healing. High quantities of silver in the script—which exists in small traces in even moderately efficacious oppilatives—greatly improves its healing properties but raises the price.

  Stumphelhose eminent composer of the previous century whose lively melodies are still very popular among the lower stations.

  Sucoth said “SOO-koth,” known also as Sucathës, Sucoth the Decayed, the Seven-mouthed Lord, the Swallower of Men, the Great and Terrible Maw, Pseustës (“Liar” or “Slanderer”), the Koprocatës (the “Dung-lord”), said to be the most terrible of all the false-gods, reputed to slumber in the deepest depths of the Gurgis Mange (or Gurgis Magna) and whose rising is held to spell the end of civilization. It was the summoning of Sucoth by the goestes of Phlegm that is said to have brought that once near-almighty race to its ruin. Sucoth is also the least sapient or active of all the false-gods; indeed, it is comatose, and could be roused only by greater learning than any person currently possesses.The Saccour (the Servants of the Most Low Sucoth) and the Seven Seven, both feared and opposed even by the other septs, relentlessly seek this obscure knowledge, desirous to bring an end to all things and the sweet oblivion of Sucoth’s reign.

  summerscale, summerscale vigil what we would call summer vacation. See congress.

  sunderhallow any monster—either wretchin or lesser beast—that has set itself most earnestly against everymen and any other monster that supports or defends them.

  Sunt Veil, the ~ low sea wall that runs before Fishguarde, Little Beachey and Hard Mile. It continues for miles south and north, following every promontory and inlet, gaining different names at different parts, yet is all the same long wall.

  Swarty Hobnag, the ~ very old bogle warped by his loathing of everymen to desire to eat their rotting flesh.

  sweeten to soak in a dulcifer, to dulcify.

  swink(s) city laborer, one who works the mills and foundries of the city magnates.

  swordist more common name for a sabrine adept or sabrine magist.

  T

  taffies and glairs what we might call lollies or candy or sweets, taffies being the harder sort and glairs the softer. Some of the more common include sugar-purses, triple boilers, syrup-marrows, rose-marrows, clementine glairs and honeyed persimmons—even boschenbread (see Book Two) is considered a taffie.

  talbot breed of seekhound, a dog bred to track all manner of living thing but not to fight with them. Similar to our beagles, though perhaps a little sleeker and a little taller.

  tandem comfortable seat made to fit two or more bottoms, hence the name, for a tandem is intended to give ease to more than one person. Imported at first from exotic northern lands such as Turkemantium and Dhaghestahn, such original items of furniture are not common even among the middling classes, yet more local artisans have made themselves very rich indeed imitating the style. It is fashionable among the fluffs to sleep sitting upon one of these. Exitious or broken-faced leers (those with sthenicons grown into their faces) also prefer such sleeping arrangements, as the permanently attached sthenicon does not allow for lying down comfortably without the requirement of a specially fashioned pillow to keep the head from lolling during the night.

  telltale’s gaze, beneath a ~ to be subject to the scrutiny of a false-man so as to determine if you are lying or speaking the truth.

  Temburly Hall hereditary manor house of the Counts Plume and their ancestors, a grand spreading structure now maintained by a mere skeleton of staff in the grieving absence of their grieving lord, Philemon Plume, elder brother to Gaspard Plume.

  testudoe(s) heavy-ended bludgeon, five to seven feet long, knobbled with metal studs or wooden knots and giving a powerful and nasty blow. A very old pattern of weapon finding its way into Soutland culture from the Lauslands—who took it from the passionate folk of Ing—testudoes are traditionally made of wood and as such provide some protection from the arcs of a fulgar if you should ever choose to take on such a foe.

  tetter-faced covered with tetters, that is, acne.

  thanatocrith technical name for a sciomane, a controller of gudgeons and rever-men, though jackstraws are held to be the most pliant of all the tribe. Using a variety of puissance called striction—and somewhat similar to a wit’s frission—they can achieve control or obligation over a single gudgeon, or two or three or four or even more gudgeons as they increase in skill and experience. Through this control they can obligate the gudgeons, dictating to some extent their actions, their intent, though if left without an obligation a rever will do as it determines according to its nature. This capacity to obligate rever-men is gained through transmogrifying surgery that takes some tiny fraction of the head-matter of the person and swaps it for some of the head-matter of the gudgeon. Combining this with select memes (mimetic organs) from the patibilic system (the pinguis patibila) more typically found in a wit gives the desired control through the employment of the frissionlike striction. The more gudgeons in your fold the more head-matter required, and the farther they get from you, the weaker your obligation.The term “thanatocrith” comes from the Attic root “thanatis” for the moment of transition from life to death, from Phenomena to Tharma. They are rare in the Half-Continent and will usually be found only at rousing-pits or in the hidden employ of some black habilist or dark trading magnate. In places with lesser moral nicety (such as Heilgoland), however, they are common enough and perform with particular distinction as percusors.

  thatigated sterilized. Brought in by the transmogrifying surgeons of Sinster nearly two hundred years ago, thatigation is a relative newcomer to more common physical learning; such cleaning of all surgical implements has markedly reduced deaths on the table and, even more so, after surgery.

  thaumacra technical term for script “recipes.”

  thennelever tube, usually of wood, used for safely containing the more dangerous kind of powdered potive. As thick as two fingers and as long as a hand, it has a wax-leather cap fastened to one end and fixed down by a metal ring. Within the tube is an upper segment in which a dose resides, shaken in from the main receptis beneath.You remove the top, fling the opening away from you into the air, releasing the potive several yards in the desired direction, return the top, tip it up, shake in another portion and repeat.

  therimoir(s) terrible toxic weapons, mostly of historied manufacture. See Book Two.

  thorn-withies species of box-thorn called the sentis magna, lance-leaf or leuce thorn (leuce prickle), which provides thorns of a foot or more in length with a basal diameter of three inches or even more. These thorns are “harvested” and used along the tops of walls and the upper margins of their face as a scaling deterrent; those on the upper wall-face pointing down at an acute angle to needle a climbing foe make the placing of scaling ladders difficult.

  three-bell scoundrels late-night, closing-time troublemakers.

  Three Brothers Hob, the ~ nonsense poetica—or performed poem—about three hungry nickers. In its entirety it goes something like this:

  Frair Clog, Log and Nog

  Three hobs in a bog;

  One turns to the others to say,

  “Brother Clog! Brother Log!

  We wallow like hog

  While yon tasty morsels do play!”

  So these hobs from bog

  Step out of the sog

  To snatch neighbor eekers away.

  These eekers did cog

  This maraude from fog

  And bent o’er in prim fancies to pray.

  Yet Clog, Log and Nog

  Still came from the sog

  And took off those daft eekers as prey.

  Three hobs from the bog

  Heft meals still agog,

 
To return on their swamperling way.

  Yet back in the bog

  Nog turned to hob Clog,

  Said,“Already I’ve eaten today!”

  Then frowning to cog

  Clog figured for Nog

  An answer to his brother’s dismay.

  Spake he,“Brother Nog,

  You’ll do like the hog

  And sink your food down in the brey.”

  “Why, my brother Clog,

  You’re clever to flog

  such nouse from a head full of clay!”

  So hob Clog and hob Log

  Ate quick at the jog,

  While Nog and his meal strayed to play.

  The eeker of Nog

  Sunk squealing in sog

  was forgot and remains so this day.

  A less commonly known variation also includes these two additional didactic verses:

  Avoid hobs from bog

  Keep clear of the sog

  Daren’t follow the eekerly way.

  Walk safe with a dog

  Take spurns on a slog,

  Though behind walls ’tis best you should stay.

  threwd watchful memory of the vitality and purity of the first days, dwelling in both untamed lands and—in varying degrees—in monsters themselves. Though it is rarely, if ever, officially acknowledged, land can return to threwd if left alone, this being known to happen even in neglected parkland copses right in the middle of some little-used city green or garden. See Book One and Book Two.

  thrisdina also called tree-hair, an edible moss that grows happily from the very bark of trees, preferring threwdish environments. If water is available, thrisdina alone is able to sustain a person for a fair time, though you might get fed up with the dirty taste rather quickly.

  thurifers large conical brass censers with a many-holed base and open at the top to allow the flow of air, stoked with coals and various burning repellents, typically hung above gates to add olfactory protection to the more physical barrier of the gates themselves.

  ticket-of-leave men vinegaroons granted shore leave with a chit that states precisely the period of freedom granted to them and the vessel from which they come. This chit also gives permission to appropriate authorities to return said bearer to his vessel should he still be at liberty beyond the stipulated time.

  tidal millwheels once a major source of enginry motivation for the mills using the action of wave and tide, although now their motions are a mere assistance to the labors of the gastrine works. Half obscured in their wooden housings and tall sea-paddle towers and jutting like great pegs from the water, each is connected to the land by an umbilicus of wooden chutes held aloft on trestled beams.

  tocsin watchtower hung with warning bell common to many rural townships, the lookouts on watch for enemies both monstrous and human.

  tortue among some dandidawdlers is the southern fashion of wearing neckerchiefs of excessive volume and “height,” reaching up even under the jaw and ears.

  transmogrificate to transmogrify, that is, to make a person into a lahzar.

  trefoiled heart heart-shape with a reversed lobed leaf within it and meaning “stoutness” or “courage”; most commonly seen in the sigil of Naimes.

  trestle stepladder made of two beams fixed in an A-frame with horizontal rungs set at intervals up it.

  troubardiers most heavily proofed of all the pediteers, troubardiers don proof-steel armor and wield heavy, bludgeoning weapons to crack open their foe. In battle they walk at a measured pace, weathering all shots and blows until they close with the enemy ranks and wreak great harm. See Book One and Book Two.

  tumblehome billet and infirmary for old, fully retired or infirm vinegaroons; paid for by annual subscription from every sailor’s pocket, his pay and prize-money docked automatically. Such a fund is actually rather large, and you can be sure that the more dishonorable bureaucrats frequently siphon sums of the funds for their own ends.

  Tüngid viskiekduzär proper Heilgolundian name for fistdukes.

  twenty sous just for the record, 20 sous is worth 320 sequins or 6,400 guise. This is all pure arithmetic, however, for in practice having 320 sequins is not quite the same as having 20 sous—though technically these are an identical amount. Folks consider the higher-denomination currencies as having greater value in themselves, so having sous is better than having sequins and far better than having guise, even by the bagful. Should you turn up, say, at your favorite wayhouse, perhaps the Frantic Mile on the way to Proud Sulking, where best board for a week is 1, 2, 0 (1 sou, 2 sequins, 0 guise), it might end up costing 400 guise or more if that is all you had, though the arithmetically proper amount is only 360 guise. Such practice is disallowed by law but is not strictly policed and, as it is founded in such old concepts of money in its various parts, some lofty modern edict is unlikely to alter it.

  Two Sisters, the ~ • also the Twin Sisters, and among the more learned known as the Beladice; Radica and Dudica, twin girls and ancient citizens of a younger Brandenbrass, they are famed for defending a stile of the city’s outer defenses from a theroscading horde come to steal and eat the goats and cows and herders in pasture there. The name given to gates reputedly built on the very spot where they conducted their glorious defense, their statues above the gates of Brandenbrass are sometimes referred to as the Beladice or the Sorori. This latter name comes from twin girls, Io and Ix, who are reputed to have helped the Attics mightily in an occasion of need, their names now given to the twin planets that circle closest to Eudops, the sun. • the western gate in the Broadwall, Brandenbrass’ outer curtain wall, possessing two lancet-arched tunnels each a hundred feet long that burrow right through the foundations of the fortress, with ironbound draws at both ends and a system of four portcullis to block and trap unwanteds within.

  U

  undercrofts secret cellars and hidden buried places.

  unperspicuous not possessing the heightened senses of a leer, or not being able to interpret the sensations that come through a sthenicon or olfactologue.

  unsweetened refers to the fact that an edible sea-caught creature has not been previously dulcified; seafood brought straight from the water.

  urchin(s) historied sources cite that urchins are specifically the more benevolent of the monster-lords, seeking to protect and aid everymen, with the wretchins being the more malevolent and the petchinins seeking to be left in peace to achieve their own ends. See Book One.

  urticant(s) technical name for any stinging script such as the vast collection of repellents.

  V

  vaingloria also called a fanfaronade or boasting-book; a collection of documents stating a teratologist’s merit. Much of the most glowing documentation is written by panegyrists, pens skilled at turning, with a few clever twists of phrase, small courage into great feats and a little action into conquest. As an added glory, more successful teratologists will have illustrations of themselves in action, or a study of the beast they slew, or both, drawn either from their own description or by an eager imagineer hired to sketch the drama after the event. Written papers commonly included in a vaingloria are as follows:

  • vaunts—private letters of satisfaction made out by pleased individuals seeking, in their enthusiasm, to enhance a teratologist’s worthiness. If necessary these can act as proxy for a teratoid’s head, when getting such an object back to the knavery is not possible or practicable;

  • panegyrics—boasts of feats commissioned by the teratologists themselves upon the slaughter of a particular beast and written by professional panegyrists. These are trained in penning the best-sounding boasts: not too much blustering, yet enough showing away to impress. Panegyrists are often asked to accompany a teratologist to see the victory for themselves so that they might write of it fully. If this is not possible, a panegyrist will want to see the head of the slain beast as proof at least and then pen a description of the chase from the teratologist’s own account;

  • advocations—official certificates of merit, usually give
n upon the happy completion of a writ or singular.

  vauqueline restorative draught for righting an imbalance of sanguine humours, given to those who have suffered the loss of much blood.

  vent(s) in its most basic form, a cloth soaked in neutralizing potives typically called dotes and fastened about the neck to be pulled over the face as needed as protection against the poisonous gases of a skold, scourge, fume-exhaling monster or even the reek of the sea. Thin-worked leathers and other hides are also used in such a way and are called loup mielles; they make for better protection yet are more restrictive of breathing.

  vin cheap, readily available wine.

  vinaigrette tin, pewter or silver case often elaborately decorated or inlaid with precious items and used for carrying scented powders or ground perfumes to be sniffed or otherwise inhaled whenever any mephitic odor is encountered. Although in part such a practice is a missish distaste of bad smells, it has a genuine purpose, for ever since the advent of lahzars and the processes of surgery that make them, a common awareness of bad and contagious airs has proliferated. Therefore the sweetening of any foul stink is held to protect you from the contraction of many ailments frequent in squalid places.

  vin-compte wine list and bill-of-fare combined, offered only at the best eateries and listing only the most expensive dishes.

  vinegar pie pie made from the less useful bits of fish and eels and other edible sea animals, seasoned and spiced and cooked down into a stew and placed in pastry.

  vinothe hard-water—strong drink—made of raisins fermented in a honey spirit, smooth in the mouth, sweet yet clear, like a breath of raisin-perfumed air. Originally from Turkmantine or some other Foul-side region up north, it was brought back to the Soutlands by wide-faring vinegaroons and happily accepted into their culture.

  Violette Lune scourge teratologist of wide and violent notoriety, coming once from Tunes and given to wearing purple fascins and spectacles of the same hue.