Vlinderstrat Hergott for “butterfly street”; Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls is an address upon its crumbling walks.
Voorwind, Clerk’s Sergeant ~ revenue officer in charge of one of the many gates of the Axle. His pay does not stretch far enough to properly provide for the needs of his twelve children (aged between four months and eight years old—one set of triplets and two sets of twins), and so he has taken to receiving bribes as additional income.
W
watches there are 7 watches in a day, the day starting at 12 noon. Each watch is 4 hours long, except the two dogwatches, which are only 2 hours each and were devised to make sure that people working by the watches do not have to do the same ones over and over. A bell is often rung or a drum beaten or a bugle sounded every half hour of a watch; 1 bell (or rataplans or blasts) for the first half hour, 2 bells for the second half hour, 3 bells for the third and so on; 8 bells signals the beginning of the next watch, even for the dogwatches.
♦ Afternoon Watch from 12 noon till 4 P.M.
♦ First Dogwatch from 4 P.M. till 6 P.M.
♦ Second Dogwatch from 6 P.M. till 8 P.M.
♦ First (Night) Watch from 8 P.M. till midnight
♦ Middle (Night) Watch from midnight till 4 A.M.
♦ Morning Watch from 4 A.M. till 8 A.M.
♦ Forenoon Watch from 8 A.M. till midday.
See bells of the watch.
Way, the ~ a rather poetic term for roads and a life lived wandering them.
waybill piece of paper granting the bearer access to any of the states or cities marked on it.You are allowed to enter a state not marked on it provided your other documents are in order and you get permission from the appropriate bureaucracy of the new state and the correct entry on your waybill as soon as possible.The best kind is an Imperial waybill, which declares you a “Citizen of the Empire,” and gives the right to cross from one state to another within the Empire, without needing particular permission from that state’s regents or representatives.
wayfarers also hucilluctors (said “hyoo-sil-luk-tor,” meaning “one that goes hither and thither”); frequent travelers of highroads and byroads. A rugged and tough lot, hardy and knowledgeable in outdoor survival and thrival; usually good at running away—from the authorities and monsters. Too much skulking about can become irksome, and many a wayfarer, in country that demands constant tiresome wariness, longs to be able to stroll down the road in the broad day with happy pace and an easy whistle. The term can also mean any traveler on the road. See Appendix 5.
wayfoods foods prized for their lightness, nutrition and long life, and therefore by wayfarers (travelers), vinegaroons (sailors) and pediteers (soldiers). Fortified sack cheese, portable soup and red must are all common wayfoods; the whortleberry is among the most expensive and the most remarkable.
wayhouse what we might call an “inn,” a small fortress in which travelers can find rest for their soles and safety from the monsters that threaten in the wilds about. The most basic wayhouse is just a large common room with an attached kitchen and dwelling for the owner and staff, all surrounded by a high wall. Indeed, the common room still forms the center of a wayhouse, where the stink of dust, sweat and repellents mingles with wood-smoke and the aromas of the pot. The Harefoot Dig is large as wayhouses go, with stables and carriage sheds, a carvery as well as a common room, a reading room, many kinds of bedrooms to suit different purses, a large staff and full-time guards.
Weegbrug Hergott for “weighbridge”; a busy street in Boschenberg, being the address of many warehouse and store yards.
Weems fellow foundling living at Madam Opera’s.Taller than Rossamünd even though he is younger, and apt to pick on our boy.
weskit proofed vest. See harness.
whortleberry one of the best and most expensive of wayfoods. They are prized because one small berry can give an adult enough energy to last much of a day and even revive the spirits like a good restorative. Whortleberries come from (not surprisingly) the whortleberry bush, small with dark thorny leaves; it is found only on the western side of the Half-Continent. The semi-independent farming region of the Patter Moil has grown wealthy and powerful cultivating them, as have the kingdoms of Wenceslaus and Stanislaus (the Lausid states). Yet these “cultivated” plants do not produce nearly as powerful a fruit as those found in wild and threwdish places. Brave pickers still venture into the wilds to collect this better harvest.Those who survive can make twice as much for the same amount as the orchard-grown variety. They are best picked when pink and fresh; typically they are dried to increase their keeping. Another method of preserving them is to make whortleberry jam, carried in clay jars and eaten with one of the many hard-breads available as wayfood. Their amazing properties work just as well in any preparation of the berry and all keep for a very long time. They apparently work for monsters just as well, and the orchards in Patter Moil and the Lausids are heavily guarded.
wilds, the ~ places beyond the civilizing influence of humankind; places where monsters abound and threwd is strong, and plants grow fecund and free. People do not live in the wilds, and pass along quickly if traveling through them, normally in groups with a solid guard or powerful potives. Acquisitive everymen ogle the wilds greedily, desiring more land, more room, more wealth, and so they periodically send expeditions to tame some part of it, fighting with monsters, building fortresses and outposts. If all this goes well, they then invite settlers to make a home, the desperate seeking a better life, to try to make the wilds into a ditchland. These expeditions fail as much as they succeed. See ditchlands and marches.
wind the soul or spirit of a person; feelings of well-being and other emotional states, the psyche; associated with one’s milt.
Winstermill modern fortress built shortly after the Battle of the Gates to declare the new Emperor’s firm grip on things. It now serves as the manse (headquarters) of the battalion of lamplighters serving on the Wormway.
Winstreslewe ancient name of a fortress built by the Tutins to guard what were once the southeastern borders of their realm. Winstermill was erected upon its foundations, which already included the tunnel through which the Gainway and the Conduit Vermis pass and meet.
wit also called neuroticrith (“holder of a distorted mind”) or strivener; a kind of lahzar, a wit’s potencies (skills or powers) cannot be seen like the sparks and flashes of a fulgar, but are rather felt. Collectively called antics, these potencies are subtle and more sinister, affecting the victim’s mind, brain and nervous system. They are all variations on an invisible bioelectrical field, a “pulse” of energy called frission, that wits make with their surgically introduced organs. The use of frission is called witting or strivening:♦ sending or witting—the most basic and best-known antic, involving a “sending” and a “returning” of frission all about the wit. With the returning a wit can get an internal, mental idea or feeling of where all sources of electricity are about them, whether an animal or a person or a monster or even a biologue (“living machine”) like a gastrine. It takes practice for wits to understand and interpret the returning. With experience they can actually recognize the distinct electrical flutterings of a particular person, and so sending is often used to track people down. Beyond the cities this antic is used to warn early of a monster’s approach, well before even a leer can tell. As a side effect of this, any living creature caught in the frission will feel sick or dizzy and even faint for a moment, throwing off concentration or causing a misstep or fumble. Those who might suffer from travel sickness will be worse affected, vomiting and staggering. The very best wits can send with only the slightest disturbance to those around them.
♦ scathing or striving—probably the most notorious of the antics, scathing is a raw pouring forth of power that twists and agonizes the mind. With it an experienced wit can lay flat a whole room of foes, while the most skilled can use it to permanently break or even kill with frightening accuracy. Sometimes referred to as “the eye (or
glare) of death.”
♦ writhing—with this antic a neuroticrith can cause aches and pains in victims’ limbs, causing them to twitch with the ache of it; conversely, it can be used to temporarily paralyze people and leave them without feeling. Worse yet, writhing is used to momentarily blind, or stop ears or render a person mute. It requires a goodly amount of experience and a modicum of talent to use this potency with any use or effect.
♦ faking—this is a very difficult potency, with the wit requiring a view of his or her victim. With delicate, subtle and precisely “aimed” probings of their frission, the wit can make a person think that he or she has heard or felt something, when in reality there is nothing. The best wits can even make people believe they have seen something that is not there. People can be driven barmy with such unseen pestering, or have their attention diverted at just the wrong moment.
A wit who is “green” has little control over the direction of the frission and it tends to radiate all about. With practice wits gain control over the area and direction of their frission till they can send it to a particular point. Most wits need to see what they are aiming at, but the most talented need only gently send (wit), find the target and afflict it from afar. Wits must be careful with all their potencies; if they overreach themselves and push too hard, they risk a violent bout of spasming. Excessive use of any of the antics will leave them exhausted and prone to illness. Along with this, after only a few months’ strivening, wits will begin to lose their hair until they become completely bald. Some then show their baldness with pride; others cover it with often brightly colored and jauntily styled wigs. Either is a telltale mark of a wit. They also mark themselves with the spoor of an arrow on the arch of an eyebrow, between the eyes or the corner or lower lid of one or both eyes; this is the universally recognized sign of their kind. Wits are trusted even less than fulgars, and their surly demeanor (due in some part to the constant pain they suffer) does little to help their grim reputation. See lahzars.
Witherscrawl, Mister ~ sour indexer of Winstermill; punctilious, fastidious, intelligent and rude to those he deems of less worth than himself. Clever enough to write with both hands without having to look. As an indexer, Witherscrawl is a type of mathematician, and therefore a rival to Inkwill.
wordialogue collection of words; a lexicon, normally upon a particular subject or set of subjects.
work docket small cardboard book marked with the Empire’s or your own city-state’s seal, in which your work history is recorded: the date you started your job, the date you left it and any outstanding points good or bad your employer feels beholden to mention. A “good” work docket can get you almost any job you wish; a “bad” one relegates you to the meanest of labors. The seal they bear makes them hard to forge.
Wörms ancient city in the east, beyond the Ichormeer, situated on the western flanks of the mighty Wormwood forest; made mostly of black stone, with its walls topped with spikes and gallows, and built right in the midst of land that is still threwdish even after centuries of effort, Wörms is a grim place full of serious, intense people and renowned for the quality of its skolds, especially its scourges, and for the proofing made there. It was the second city founded by the Skylds—an ancient people who fled over the Mare Periculum to the Half-Continent (which they call Westelünd) many thousand years ago. The people of Wörms still proudly call themselves Skylds, and their oldest and most powerful houses reckon their descent from those early times.
Wormway, the ~ the Conduit Vermis, the Imperial Highroad that runs from High Vesting to Wörms; it runs through the Smallish Fells, along the top of Hurdling Migh and right into the red horror of the Ichormeer. The region immediately surrounding the Wormway is a ditchland known as the Idlewilds: a collection of colony towns, fortresses and cothouses (the homes of the lamplighters) each founded and sponsored by different powers, including the Empire, Boschenberg and Brandenbrass.
wurtembottles lazy, fat black flies living as maggots in the putrid bogs of the Wurtemburg Foulness beyond the Imperial boundaries and flying south when transformed from a pupa. Some see them as carriers of foul diseases.
X
xthylistic curd said “zy-lihss-tik” curd; one of the ingredients for Cathar’s Treacle, being made from the glandular secretions of certain sea-monsters combined with the dried marrow and a powder of well-seasoned bones. See Cathar’s Treacle.
Y
yardsman one of a number of people responsible for the protection and order of a driveway and accompanying yard outside a wayhouse or manor-house or palace or any other such place. Your average yardsman earns from between twenty-five to thirty-five sous a year depending on his or her abilities.
Z
Oh, my bursting knees! There is no entry for z at all.
APPENDIX 1(A)
THE 16-MONTH CALENDAR Of THE HALF-CONTINENT
APPENDIX 1(B)
DAYS OF THE WEEK (7)
N - NEWICH first day of the week
L-LOONDAY
M - MEERDAY
M - MIDWICH
D - DOMESDAY a day of rest
C - CALUMNDAY
S-SOLEMNDAY
VIGILS - DAYS OF OBSERVANCE
(THESE NUMBERS CAN BE FOUND IN THE CALENDAR)
1. - DIRGETIDE
2. - HALFMERRY DAY
3. - MALBELLTIDE
4. - MANNER
5. - MELLOWTIDE
6. - NYCHTHOLD
7. - PLOUGHMONDAY
8. - EIGHT-MONTH’S EVE (CLERK’S VIGIL)
9. - THISGIVINGDAY
10. - GALLOWS NIGHT
11. - VERTIIMNUS
12. - MIDTIDE
THE DATE UPON WHICH THE SOLSTICE & EQUINOX OCCUR IS VARIABLE, HENCE THE TWO POSSIBLE TIMES SHOWN FOR EACH EVENT.
* SAID TO BE THE COLDEST MONTHS,
UNFRIENDLY TO TRAVELERS.
%IN THE OLD CALENDARS THIS WAS
ONCE THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR
+THESE TWO MONTHS WERE ONCE IN THE REVERSE ORDER. THEY CAME TO BE SWAPPED WHEN THE EXCEEDINGLY TALL AND EXCESSIVELY SPOILED DAUGHTER OF MORIBUND SCEPTIC III COMPLAINED SO BITTERLY THAT SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BORN IN THE BEAUTIFUL-SOUNDING MONTH OF LIRIUM RATHER THAN THE UGLY-SOUNDING (AS SHE THOUGHT IT) MONTH OF CACHRYS. SHE MADE COURT LIFE IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL HER MUCH-HARASSED FATHER DECREED THE SWAP BY IMPERIAL EDICT. THE CHANGE HAS REMAINED EVER SINCE, EVEN AFTER A WAR WAS FOUGHT OVER IT.
APPENDIX 2
A haubardier in the general pattern of uniform. The name is derived from the haubardine worn beneath the coat, making for very effective protection, enough even for it to be worthy of the encumbrance. Fusiliers and the like wear only the coat, adequate armor‘tis sure, but rarely as good protection as a coat and haubardine.
APPENDIX 3
THE KORNCHENFLECTER
OR PARTS-WHEEL OR PRINCIPIA CIRCUM
A DIAGRAM OF THE REACTIONS
BETWEEN THE FOUR ELEMENTS WHERE
A= FIRE;= EARTH; W = WATER; M = AIR
Fire reacts with earth, earth reacts with fire.
Earth reacts with water, water reacts with earth.
Water reacts with air, air reacts with water.
Water retards fire.
Earth retards air.
APPENDIX 4
A navigator
The black-and-white checkers upon his baldric (the mottle of the concometrists) can just be seen through the open part of the maincoat. By the maincoat and the shaved hair, it is clear this fellow works as a consultant for the Empire’s navies.
APPENDIX 5
A wayfarer of the Soutlands heavily armed and well provisioned, this individual is equipped for existence in the ditchlands and even the wilds. His clothing provides fine protection from harm and foul weather. Under the jackcoat (which, of course, is gaulded) would be some kind of proofed vest, and longshanks have gaulded “plates” sewn into their lining. This person is so accoutred that he could easily be employed as an ambuscadier (light infantry skirmisher) should there be an opportunity. Indeed, the f
ellow may well have been occupied in such manner at one time or another.
APPENDIX 6
APPENDIX 7
APPENDIX 8
HAROLD FACES THE SLOTHOG
ALONE BEFORE THE GATES OF CLEMENTINE
This is the engraving found in the pamphlet Rossamünd reads after his beating from Gosling; the one he stares at for a moment when he is talking to Fransitart. You can just make out the cylinders and satchels - so famously empty - hanging about Harold’s waist, while the “beast-handlers” struggle to keep the Slothog under control. The picture is a romantic view of the event. In truth Harold was one of over a hundred who tackled the Slothog, though he was certainly the only teratologist among them. Still propagandists tell of him as standing alone, and that is how popular history chooses to remember him.
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