Lamplighter (65 page)

All kinds of
teratologists
form secret societies, but calendars are one of the few who generally seek the welfare of others. The calendar ranks in descending order are:

See Appendices 2 and 3.

calendine
of or pertaining to
calendars.

Callistia, Damsels of ~
fabled beauties from the Heldinsage, ever-living beauties dwelling in the autumn-lands of the urchin-lords. Many tales of love unrequited and rapacious appetites and much misery surround them. The salient lesson in the histories of not putting too much stock on physical beauty is lost, however, on modern folk. For the idea of these mythic ladies has given rise to parades known as Callistia or callic-shows, beauty galas with awards for the most poised, graceful, well-turned out and rational girl in the show.

cantebank(s)
peregrinating songsters and prosodists who also sell their talent for words to pen panegyrics for
teratologists
wishing to boast of their skills either to prospective employers or to be read out in a common room or other public place.

cantus
properly called the cantus-and-laude, this is the creed by which a
calendar clave
lives and dies. Often it is rendered in abbreviated verse form so that it stays in the mind.
Calendars
are continually indoctrinated with their cantus till obedience to it is reflexive.The
In Col umba Alat
is an excellent example of a cantus, and each clave will have its own variation of such a creed. See
In Columba Alat
.

carum, dust-of-~
pronounced “kar’
room,
” one of the parts that go into the making of
Craumpalin’s Exstinker.
It comes as a gray powder made from the dried and ground buds of a type of seaweed commonly found along the entire southern coast of the Half-Continent.The dust is a common base for many powdered
scripts.

caste
small, fragile flasks usually made of glass or delicate porcelains designed to fracture when dashed against a hard surface. These are used to hold liquid
potives
that burst and react violently when released. Castes have to be stored and carried in padded receptacles; a
salumanticum,
for example, will have a reinforced pocket as part of the inner linings, divided into softly cushioned slots in which individual
castes
can be kept. Another method of carrying them is in a digital, a small, sturdy, well-cushioned container, usually of tin or pewter or wood, worn handy on a belt or in a pocket, into which four or five castes can be kept for easy use. There are some different types of digital, and they are common accoutrements of a well-prepared
hucilluctor
.

castigation(s) •
(noun) severe punishments starting with time in the stocks and moving on to increasing strokes of the
lash
• (noun) period in the afternoon when defaulters are named and their punishments determined. These will typically be impositions; only very rarely will actual castigations be given, despite the grim name—only for larceny or brawling or some gross dereliction of duties.
Prentices
are often threatened with castigations, but these are empty threats (not that the
prentices
are usually aware of this) to keep them well in line.

cathared
to be made into a
lahzar,
to have undergone transmogrification.

Cathar’s Treacle
also called
plaudamentum
; draught imbibed by
lahzars
—both
wits
and
fulgars
—to keep their introduced organs from rebelling inside their bodies. See entry in Book One.

catillium, catillium-hat
round, broad-brimmed, squat-crowned hat, usually made of straw and lined with felt.

catlin
also called a catling; a long-bladed, long-handled surgical knife, sharply pointed and double-edged. The preferred tool in amputations and the making of major incisions.

Childebert
one of Rossamünd’s fellow
prentices;
a fairly quiet but capable lad who paid Rossamünd little mind as they shared their lives in
Winstermill.

Chill
often used as a synonym for winter, but more specifically referring to the coldest months in the year—Pulchrys, Brumis, Pulvis and Heimio, considered usually an ill time for travelers.

chymistarium
or
test-barrow;
cupboard or portable barrow where skolds and their ilk can make their
potives.
Very compact, with ingenious drawers and foldable sections, an entire miniature
test
crammed into as small a space as possible. Skolds may port the cupboard variety on a cart or carriage to take about with them or pull the barrow (or hire some sturdy rough to pull it for them) to make what they need when they need it. Not to be confused with a
test
itself, which is a whole room and its tools given to this purpose.

cicuration
said “
kick
-u-ray-shun”; determined process of bringing the wilds under control by farming and cultivation, by digging and cutting and landscaping, and by colonization to bring the land fully under
everyman
control. It is a slow form of taming, but its effects are deep and long lasting. Even so, some places refuse to be brought under heel—such as the
Harrowmath,
large parts of the Mold, the
Frugelle
and so on. See also the
Idlewild.

claustra
small booths used in the more fancy alehouses, coffeehouses, wayhouses, tomaculums and any other such public place, made to seat no more than four comfortably. Designed to provide a modicum of privacy to guests, they were originally used in the less salubrious establishments to allow nefarious conversation to happen somewhat publicly without being too public. As is so often the case, the fashions of the wealthy romanticize and ape the daily realities of the less well-heeled, who in turn copy things they like from those of higher station—and so it goes around.

clave(s)
group of
calendars,
particular and distinct, set to protect a defined area. A clave has its own unique mottle and spoors that its
phrantry
are expected to wear at all times with pride.
Calendars
in general hold to universal beliefs and rules, but a clave is free to emphasize or add bits as they see fit. The
augusts
of all the claves in a region may meet every so often to coordinate and bond. There is normally no real animosity between claves, and
caladines
tend to be the glue that keeps it all one big happy family.

Clementine
capital city of the whole Empire; some may use the name Clementine when referring to the Emperor and his ministers as a collective; a general term for all the powers that govern the
Empire
. See entry in Book One.

clerk(s)
at Winstermill these are essentially civilians with a military rank: few states have professional military staff. Given this, the most preferred clerks are concometrists, the combat-clerical graduates of athenaeums such as Inkwill, who are highly trained in both paper shuffling and the
stouche.

clerk-master
another rendering of the title
Master-of-Clerks,
slightly less formal and typically allowable in use only by those of higher rank.

coach-host
harbor for
post-lentums
and other public carriages situated at a convergence of routes, where a passenger can while away minutes and hours either eating and drinking in the refectory or sitting and waiting in the
parenthis.
Coach-hosts are not wayhouses: they have no facilities to accommodate travelers, though folk are allowed to sleep in the
parenthis
if they wish, at no charge, sitting on hard benches and locked in at night with limited access to the
jakes
or refreshments and no bedding. Still, for those short of money this is a better option than a night exposed on the streets or in the wilds.

color-party
small group bearing the colors before a body of soldiers. A typical color-party holds the colors—the flag that signifies the pride of its soldiers—and the pensills—the personal pendants of the officers in charge of that unit. A marshal’s color-party will also carry the spandarion. With the color-party will also go a drummer boy and a fyfesman beating time and encouraging their comrades with martial music.

Columbine(s)
calendars
belonging to the
Right of the Pacific Dove.

Columbris
calansery
and
sequestury
of the
Right of the Pacific Dove
who otherwise call themselves
Columbines,
from the
Tutin
for “dove.”

combinade(s)
hand arms that are a clever combination of melee weapon and firelock. The firing mechanism on most combinades is an improved wheel lock, being more sturdy than a flintlock, and able to take the jars that come when the weapon is used to strike at a foe. Added to this, the lock mechanism, trigger and hammer are usually protected by gathered bands of metal, a basket much like those protecting the hilts of many foreign swords.When edges and bullets are treated with
gringollsis,
combinades become very effective
therimoirs
(
monster-
killing tools).

commerce men
smugglers and other such illegal traffickers working in concert and with some kind of centralized leadership or organizer, an unduly respectable title for a very unrespectable lot. It is applied, a tad sarcastically, to all such folk whether they belong to an actual commerce society or not.

compeer
how one
peer
may refer to another.

compliment
what we would call a toast, when glasses are filled and touched together as things are declared and wished for.

Compter-of-Stores
chief accountant of
Winstermill,
apparently of equal rank to the
Master-of-Clerks,
though in practice very much under the latter’s sway.

Conduit Felix, the ~
reputed to be the longest highroad in the
Empire,
reaching from Clementine, the Imperial Capital far in the north, through the very midst of the Grassmeer and on to Andover in Hergoatenbosch. The Conduit Felix is used to mark the separation of the Grassmeer into the Ager Magnus on the eastern side and the Solum Magnus to the west.

Conduit Vermis, the ~
proper name of the
Wormway.
See entry in Book One.

confectioner
any seller of
potives,
whether skold,
hedgeman
or simple shopkeeper; also sometimes called fargitors (“makers of potpourri”), an ancient
Tutin
name for skolds given them when the first rhubezhals arrived from across the eastern mares.

confustication
confusion or fight, particularly a wild brawling fight or a fight that has turned out badly.

Considine, the ~
one of the
alternats
or subcapitals situated at strategic places within the
Haacobin Empire. Alternats
were founded to allow the
Empire
to keep greater control over its subject states, most of which lie beyond inveterately threwdish land, well past easy reach. Large armies and navies are kept at each
alternat,
ready to venture forth and chastise any overweening state or peer or defend the lands against the
monsters.
In the
Soutlands,
the Considine is the larger, older and therefore senior of two
alternats,
the other being the Serenine, farther south.

corser(s)
grave robbers and traffickers in dead bodies for the service of high-paying
massacars
and all the rest. Probably their best-known tool-of-trade is the corpse-fender, a long pointed pole driven into the mold to test the location of a possible grave. Apart from the dangers of
monsters
and the ever-vigilant
obstaculars
and revenue officers, you might also come into conflict with other corsers over a prize tomb. Edgar Shallow, a somewhat well-known corser, wrote a
book
on the subject; part treatise, part sage advice, part fictional license—
The Ashmongers’Almanac.
Other
books
on the subject include
Codex Necropoli
by Tichanus, an old catalog and guide to all the known cemeteries of the Old World (recent revisions by Tidswell include references to Turkeman grave sites); and
Fossae Magnum
(or “The Book of Graves”), a treatise on the trade of the corser with a cursory guide to the main cemeteries in the larger cities. See
corsers
in Book One.

costermen
small-time traders who travel about selling fruits and vegetables and any other foodstuffs they might have.

Cothallow
built between
Makepeace
and the Three Stile Junction, this is one of the best
cothouses
on the
Wormway,
with a reputation for smartness and punctuality and for the comforts of its cot-rent. The
lighters
serving there are a happy bunch (as
lighters
go), flourishing under an uninterrupted string of competent, good-natured
house-majors.

cothouse(s)
type of
fortalice,
the small, often houselike fortresses built along highroads to provide
billet
and protection to
lamplighters
and their
auxiliaries.
Cothouses are usually built no more than ten to twelve miles apart, so that the
lamplighters
will not be left lighting
lamps
and exposed in the unfriendly night for too long.Their size goes from a simple high-house with slit windows well off the ground, through the standard structure of a main house with small attendant buildings all surrounded by a wall, to the fortified
bastion-houses
like
Haltmire
on the
ConduitVermis
or Tungoom on the
Conduit Felix.
Sometimes called a little manse.