Lamplighter (76 page)

Skyldic
coming from or of the Skylds. In modern parlance it is used in reference to the people of Wörms or Frissia.

slot and drag
a slot is a trail of smells and a drag is a trail of prints and other visible
signifers
of passing.These two trails are much more acute to a
leer’s
augmented senses.

slug(s)
truly insulting invective against profound dim-wittedness and tardiness.

Smellgrove, Eugus
wastrel from
Brandenbrass
and fellow
prentice
with Rossamünd who loves his sleep. Smellgrove started out promisingly as a journeyman rat-catcher before being enticed by the romance of Imperial Service and the immediate glory of a whole Imperial billion.

Snooks, the
culinaire of the
Winstermill
kitchens, who rules her boiling, bubbling, savory domain from the head of a long scarred bench—a scale and weights always handy—attended on either side by a row of hanging carcasses glistening in the heat—mutton, bully beef, coney, pullet, venison for the officers. She reads from recipes and writes lists of comestibles required while kitchen hands chop and carve before her and the harried bustle spins about her. She rarely moves; certainly she never lifts a limb to help her henpecked staff, tyrannizing all with her wheezing, penetrating voice. A near-mythic fear of her makes pots-and-pans an excellent punishment for defaulting
prentices.

snuftkin
what we might call a muff, a “tube” of fur worn over the hands, wrists and lower arms, for the warming of the same.

sobersides
one who does not drink or get drunk.

soe
gaulded silk; already a strong material, silk made into soe is an expensive but highly sought material for proofing. See
lour.

Soratchë
said “Saw’
rat
’kee”; a small but widely spread and well-known
calendar clave
consisting almost entirely of
caladines,
those wandering loner
calendars.
The Soratchë’s stated mission is not so much to fend for the poor and helpless, but to eradicate the
dark trades,
especially the abominable practices of the
massacars.
Strangely, they have not been granted an
Imperial Prerogative
(an official commission from the Emperor). Notwithstanding, they are infamous for the vigor and violence with which they pursue their self-appointed mandate.

sot-headed
drunk or acting as if you are drunk; to be slow-witted and stupid.

soutaine
long coat with dead straight hems reaching to the knees or even ankles. A foreign style imported from Heilgoland and worn by those seeking to look serious and unaffected by fashion.

Soutland(s), the ~
the large southern part of the
Haacobin Empire,
requiring two secondary capitals—the
alternats—
to govern properly and keep under the Imperial thumb. See entry in Book One.

sovereign lime
thickened lime juice mixed with lemon juice and other fortifying traces. Often mixed with cheaper alcohols to add flavor and encourage people to ingest some kind of antiscorbutic.

spangled whelp-hound(s)
smaller kind of
tykehound
but still big as dogs go, white with black spots on the rump and flanks and black points. Probably one of the more people-friendly of the
tykehound
family, and very similar to our own Dalmatians, yet a little larger and bulkier.

Sparrow Downs, the ~
range of hills between Small and the
Idlewild
that acts as a boundary between the two. It is the reputed home of the
Duke of Sparrows,
an urchin-lord said to lurk and hide within. There are no official reports of a sighting of this mythical monster, and many doubt the truth of the tale. The deeps of the forest (the Nigflutenwald—“the Wood of Little Wings”) are held to be a tykewood—a woodland haunted by
monsters,
impenetrably threwdish and thickly grown.Those few
peltrymen
who dare to venture there report skulking threats and an inordinate number of sparrows and other small fowl.

Sparrows, the Duke of ~
see
Duke of Sparrows.

spatterdash(es)
also known as spats—which are usually a shorter version of the same—these are leather-and-buckle coverings for the shins and reaching over the top of the foot. Often proofed, they provide excellent protection for the lower leg.

spendonette
the term used among
calendars
for a
pistoleer.

spittende(s)
a kind of
fend,
spittendes are very long pikes used especially to fend away
monsters
and sometimes large game, with barbed points and strong flukes to prevent a skewered beastie from pushing down the pole and harming the wielder. Also known as a durckshlägen.

splasher, splasher boy
most junior member of the
lentermen
crew, sitting at the back of the carriage ready to open doors, haul luggage, run messages, carry the post when necessary and otherwise serve the needs of the passengers, the driver and his side-armsman. It is a dangerous job, but a good one for a lad of between twelve and eighteen, paying pretty well, near as much as the
prentices
of
Winstermill
earn in a year, and without quite the same constrictions on their lives.When a carriage is in port and the splasher’s chores are done his time is his own.

Splinteazle, Seltzerman 2nd Class ~
bosun to
House-Major Grystle
when he was a ram captain, following him from vessel to vessel and so loyal he went with the man when he was ejected from the navy. As the best fit for his previous skills he has taken up the role of
seltzerman,
and though in the ranks of
Winstermill
he no longer has quite the same authority, he is known as the old servant of the
house-major’s
and is respected accordingly.

sprither
said “spr
ih
-ther,” with a short
i;
the common name for the tubelike needle used to extract
ichor
(
monster
blood) from a slain
monster;
also known as a bludspritz, its technical name being a cruorclyst. It comprises a long, thick, needle-pointed, steel tube known as a clystron; a round pewter or tin receptacle known as a curbit is fixed to the clystron’s blunt end. Usually, a preserved gut tube—the intestin—is attached to the other side of the curbit, upon which the user draws with the mouth, sucking the
ichor
out of the
monster
and into the curbit.The more advanced cruorclysts will have a small preserved bladder instead of the intestin, which is squeezed rapidly to achieve the same outcome.
Ichor,
once taken out of the
monster,
is known as
cruor—
“spilled blood.” If the curbit becomes full, the
cruor
is siphoned into a
bruicle.
See
graille(s).

spurn(s)
lahzar
or other
teratologist
who faithfully serves one master or organization. The word is used more generally to mean someone acting as personal bodyguard to an individual, the non-teratologist kind sometimes known as harnessgarde.

Squarmis
a
costerman
who dares the long stretch of the
Frugal
Way (see entry on the
Wormway
) to make occasional deliveries to
Haltmire
with an old boneshaker of a cart harnessed to a crotchety she-mule, Assanina, hiring out his services as a kind of wayfaring porter; a native of
Brandenbrass,
come to the
Idlewild
to escape some unpleasant business back home.

“Stand While You Can”
rousing military tune with an up-tempo beat despite the grim turn of its content, showing typical bravado in the face of a violent end. Sung by soldiers throughout the
Haacobin Empire,
it goes something like this:

And so on like this for a whole twenty verses. Its history is obscure, though the tune is of some antiquity and was around in other songs well before these words were put to it.

Stander Lates, the ~
Brandenard
rendering of Stendrlaeti (“shores of fiendish howling”), the
Hagenard
name for the southwestern coast of the Hagenlands, where
Ingébiargë
is said to dwell, devising her wicked brews and waiting for sailors to eat.

sthenicon
these sensory-enhancing
biologues
are worn by nonleers as well; such folk are called
lurksmen.
For both
lurksmen
and
leers
the sensation of removing a sthenicon is, for a very brief moment, powerfully disorienting as the wearer’s senses adjust back to normal input: the world seems dull and colorless, sounds oddly muted, the air too still and bland.This confusion is properly known as accosmia or more commonly as the dulldrins or dimmings. In a few this can continue on for several days, characterized by the squints—or strabismic droop—with squinting eyes and disorientation.The squints is almost guaranteed if you wear a sthenicon for more than a week without respite.

stingo(s)
a common term for pints of beer.

storm-bird(s)
cuckoo-shrikes, whose appearance is said to precede and therefore announce the arrival of rain, especially heavy, storming rains.

stouche
• (noun) a fight, a battle. • (verb) to fight.

stoup
also called a fistulum, a cylindrical case of (usually) leather-covered wood or just layers of stiffened leathers, in which
scripts
are carried for easy access. The interior of a stoup is well padded and so arranged with removable platelike layers that allow the most needful
potives
to be got to first, with others arranged by priority beneath. Most stoups have about 4 or 5 layers, but some are double-ended and can be up to 12 layers long. See Appendix 7.

stovepipe hat
vernacular for a copstain or capstin, a tall cylindrical hat with a flat crown and a somewhat narrow brim. Some varieties are a little more conical.

strig(s)
shortened form of
strigaturpis;
not considered a very polite word.

strigaturpis
originally the wild
heldin
fighting women of the Phlegms and then the
Attics
during the Heldinsage.The term is used now to refer to any combative female, especially a
teratologist.
Such women are also known as beldames. See
calendar(s).

stuff
• (noun) clumps of thread or frayings from rope or cloth. • (noun) synonym for
bloom.
• (noun) flesh—though this is not a common use except in the phrase “
stuff and bits
.”

“stuff and bits”
flesh and bones.

sturdy rough(s)
hired muscle, as they say; your “heavies” used to do dirty work and intimidate opponents.

Sulk End
south-westernmost part of Sulk of which the
Harrowmath
is considered a part. See entry in Book One.

Sundergird
the Half-Continent, including all the lands outside the
Haacobin Empire:
Escatoris, the Gottskylds, the Herelands, the Netherlands and beyond, and the southern reaches of the Witherlends.

surgeon(s)
considered the lesser counterpart of
physicians.
See entry in Book One.

swab
• (noun) small child. • (verb) the action of washing a floor with a mop, which is also called a swab.

swaggerer
knave
or hack or other hired tough; those who put themselves forward as monster-hunters or
spurns;
a mercenary.

Swash, the ~
the great bay east of Needle Greening, south of the
Frugelle
and northwest of
Flint,
the source of thick
fleermares
that are blown inland by strong southerlies to saturate and water the parched
Frugelle.

Swill, Honorius Ludius Grotius
named after an empress-dowager of old, Honoria Ludia Grotinia—said to be a revered distant relative of Swill’s line—Grotius is the young and gifted
surgeon
and
physician’s
ward at
Winstermill,
gaining the position through the influence of the
Master-of-Clerks.
A true Imperial subject, being born and raised in the
Considine,
his original poverty did not prevent him setting up shop as a talented carver. He soon got the attention of the
surgeons
of
Sinster
and became an articled man there under the tutelage of Flaccus Fusander, a sectifactor of great and irregular vision.There is a strange, suspicious cloud over Swill’s departure from
Sinster,
a departure he says was due to the near-violent jealousies of his rivals. A voracious reader with a large personal library, Swill is ambitious for knowledge—the more obscure the better—and with this the power it might bring.

Syntychë
see
Vey, the Lady;
forename of the
august
of the
Right of the Pacific Dove,
and
Threnody’s
mother. A peer of middling rank, she possesses the hereditary title of marchess and, like most peers, claims a blood-link to Dido’s race. It is said she was transmogrified when in her twenties, though none beyond the intimacy of the
Dovecote
have ever seen her perform a lahzarine act, and her true nature remains a mystery.