Foundling (46 page)

There are four recognized physical states these
realms
can come in:

scrutineers
another name for
revenue officers,
sometimes used to especially mean those who have the power of search and seizure.

Sebastipole, Mister ~
leer
and agent for the
Lamplighter-Marshal
of
Winstermill;
has served there for over half of his life. His mother coming from Pollux and his father from Sebastian, Sebastipole was raised in the small southeastern kingdom of Burgundia. He is sharp-minded, efficient and fiercely loyal to the
Lamplighter-Marshal
. About ten years ago, Sebastipole became a
leer
at the request of his superiors. He appreciates the power of his augmented sight but finds the wearing of a
sthenicon
repulsive. Therefore, although he possesses one, he uses it only seldom, when duty calls for it. His eyes give him away as a
falseman
. See
leers
.

sedonition
the state of being a
sedorner
; loving
monsters
, or at least not hating them, as most folks do.

sedorner
official and most insulting and incriminating name for a
monster-lover
. Anyone having any sense of friendship or understanding with
monsters
is said to be under the influence of outramour—the “dark love.” Those worse affected by this outramour are apparently meant to run off into the
wilds
to spend the rest of their short lives with the
bogles
they so admire. To be heard even trying to understand
monsters
from a sympathetic point of view can bring the charge upon you. Different communities and
realms
deal with
sedonition
to different degrees of severity, but it is not uncommon for those found guilty to be exposed on a Catherine wheel or even hanged on a gallows.

Senior Service, the ~
the name the
navy
gives itself; service in the
navy
is considered superior to service in the
army
, as a
lamplighter
, in an Imperial post or anything else. See
navy
.

sequin
second-highest value coin of the
Soutlands
, made of a silver alloy.Worth one sixteenth of a
sou
or twenty
guise
or one twenty-fourth of an
oscadril
, it is represented by the letter
q
. See
money
.

she-oak
medium to tall tree with a single straight trunk and possessing long needles instead of leaves that droop to the ground and hiss musically in even the lightest breeze; tough trees that grow in almost any environment.

Shunt, Mister ~
gastrineer
of the
Hogshead
and probably one of the nastiest fellows you are ever likely to meet. He speaks little and uses his knife a lot.

Signal Stars, the ~
also called the Superlatives. The nightly glowing orbs that are said to show one’s way through life and the land. They include the Signals of Paths (also known as the Atrapës), which aid navigation (probably the most important and genuinely useful); the Signals of Ardence, meant to aid those in love; the Signals of Lots, apparently watching over those making important choices or testing their fate, and so on. The stars that do not have these mystic or informative qualities are called the Luminaries.

Silvernook
large town between
High Vesting
and
Winstermill
made rich and bustling by the silver mine nearby opened over a century before and still proving to be a plentiful source of the precious metal.

Sinster
city where
lahzars
are made; remote, built on the fork of two
threwdish
rivers in the region known as Burgundis. It is divided into two parts: Sinster Major and Later Sinster. Sinster Major is the original city founded before the beginnings of the
Empire
by a community of Burgundians. When, centuries later, the survivors of the fall of Caathis (the Cathars) arrived, they were welcomed, and expanded the city, building Later Sinster. It is from here that they perform their blasphemous surgeries to turn people into
lahzars
. Ironically, the notorious surgeons of Sinster are also the best, and despite their reputation as black
habilists
, have secretly saved the life of many of the
Empire’s
loftiest
peers
.

Sitt
footman and bootblack—or shoe polisher—working at the
Harefoot Dig
. As it was once so excellently said, “A scuff, madam, is a terrible thing!”

skold(s)
also
habilist
or zaumabalist (“soup-thrower”) or fumomath, the term for a
teratologist
who does the work of fighting
monsters
using chemicals and potions known as
potives
. They throw these
potives
by hand, pour them from bottles, fling them with a sling or fustibal (a sling on a stick), fire them from pistols know as salinumbus (“salt-cellars”), set traps, make smoke and whatever else it takes to defeat and destroy a
monster
. We might call them “combat chemists.” They typically wear flowing robes and some kind of conical hat to signify their trade. The most common hat is the overtap, which folds back slightly over the wearer’s head (see page 201). More serious and aggressive skolds will mark themselves with distinctive
spoors
, a vertical bar running over the eye (or both eyes) and down the face from hairline to the jaw; or a horizontal bar from one earlobe across the mouth to the other earlobe. Skolds learn their arcarnum (“secret knowledge”) and the skills peculiar to their trade at one of many organized “colleges” throughout the
Empire
called a
rhombus
. It takes at least two years to properly prepare a person as a skold, and any more years spent after that hone their knowledge and some skills still further. Entry into a
rhombus
is expensive and difficult, and places are limited.The best have waiting lists over twenty years long. The forerunners of the skolds were the self-taught rhubezhals (said “roo-beh-zaal”), the
monster-hunters
of the ancient people know as the Skylds. In fact the word “skold” is a corruption of “Skyld,” a name given to those rhubezhals who ventured beyond their lands to serve ancient foreign kings. These expatriate rhubezhals learned new skills and
scripts
in those foreign lands, and began formalizing their knowledge, writing it in books. Finally they formed guilds with each other—the
rhombuses
—and began to train recruits. And so the skolds as they are recognized today were founded. Skolds earn a good portion of their living also making
potives
to sell to everyday folk, so that they might also protect themselves from and even fight the
monsters
. S
cripts
made for this common use are called vulgum;
scripts
that skolds keep secret to themselves are known as
nostrum
. Your basic vulgum
potive
like
bothersalts
sells for about 1
guise
for one dose. The average skold will earn about 180
sous
a year in
prize money
,
monster
-ridding contract fees and sales of their vulgum. Used broadly, the name skold can mean one of five different trades:

Small groups of skolds might gather themselves into a tight group known as a school, sharing recipes and developing their own special
nostrum
.

Slothog, the
~ a famous bolbogis or dog-of-war used by the
Turkemen
; it was one of the largest ever made and met its end at the
Battle of the Gates.
Its back and shoulders were covered in four- to six-foot spines which it could burst out just once in a battle to do terrible execution. Like most of the best quality made-
monsters,
when it died it dissolved into a useless puddle, preventing the enemy from learning the secrets of its creation. Most bolbogis live for only a dozen years or more. The Slothog, at the time of its demise, had been alive for an unprecedented forty-three years, causing misery and destruction for forty-one of them. Bolbogis are more common north of the
Marrow
, that is, outside of the
Empire
, especially ones of the Slothog’s size. In the
Empire
smaller kinds like
rever-men
and the schtackleschwien (“shta-kell-shween”) can be found, usually employed as “guard dogs” or for hunting criminals. In the
Empire,
making such creatures is illegal but owning them is not. Other general names for bolbogis include bollumbogs, teratobellum and carnivolpës. See
gudgeon
and
monsters
.

smugglers
also called bog-trotters, along with
brigands
. Many goods are illegal in one
city-state
or another, banned in the
Empire
or some other
realm
, and the smugglers see it as their task to provide relief from the tyrannies of such policies. There is nothing a half-decent smuggler will not secret across borders, carry from one city to the next. They lubricate the
dark trades
, trafficking all those blasphemous bits about. A smuggler may even turn to piracy if the rewards are high enough. Their main foes are weather,
monsters
and
revenue officers,
whose major task is to catch them. Even
lamplighters
play their part in bringing smugglers to justice. As with most things illegal, the promise of a lot of
money
makes the danger well worth it.

Snarl
once one of Rossamünd’s fellow
foundlings
, Snarl was employed a year ago by the
Boschenberg navy
and considers himself to have reached the acme of all that there is to wish for as a once-rejected
foundling
. His time at
Madam Opera’s
was spent bullying and teasing those smaller than himself (almost every other child), but not with anywhere near the vigor or cruelty of
Gosling
.

social status
comprising ten recognized positions or “situations,” the first two being known as the
Peers
, the next two the Quality, then the Lectry, the Commonality and lowest of all, the Varletry.