Mordew

by Alex Pheby

  (The) Perpetuum Mobile

  A toy of slopes, steps and marbles that allows for an endless progression of the balls from the top to the bottom and back again. The pleasure in it is in watching pretty things move, and also in puzzling over how it works. Generally, things must be acted on by force if they are to move, and this force must be regularly replenished or they cease moving. These marbles, though, never need to be induced to move and never stop, so how is it done? The answer, obviously, is that it is done by magic, but magic is, for some, a wonderful thing to see in and of itself and so this still makes for a good toy for children.

  Pharmacist

  A person whose job it is to sell medicines to those who can afford them, and to prevent those who cannot afford them from gaining access. A pharmacist’s premises will often have a counter for exchanging goods for coins at the front and a locked safe house at the rear for protecting valuables. Since it is hard to see poor people dying for want of the medicines they need, but also hard to fake concern for those who can afford to be cured, a certain duality of personality is a useful quality in a pharmacist. An indifference to the suffering of the poor married to an excess of feeling for the rich seems like a difficult mix to find, but there are rarely shortages of candidates for any new pharmacist in Mordew, so this difficulty must be illusory.

  Pharmacist’s wife

  To find two people with the psychological make-up necessary to excel at pharmacy (see: Pharmacist) is more unlikely than to find one, so often the wife of a pharmacist will be entirely indifferent to the suffering of anyone, rich or poor, and will concentrate their efforts on sympathising only for themself.

  Philosophy

  Though in the material realm philosophy is an occupation confined to pedants and persons delighted by the sound of their own voice (often as it echoes in a room sparsely occupied by people indifferent to what it is saying), in the immaterial realm it is very much the materia prima of conceptual exchange. Unfortunately for the philosopher, no man can exist in the immaterial realm unless he dies first, and then he will only be extant in the form of an idea.

  (The) Playroom

  When a person reaches adulthood they are enjoined by popular wisdom to put away childish things, and this is precisely what they do. They will, if they do not have the space, discard those things they loved as a child. These things they may sell, or trash, or give away to children of their acquaintance.

  If a person has more space than they need, they may store the things of their childhood infatuation in a place that otherwise has no function. If a person is very rich in redundant resources, they may instead make a room dedicated to their playful objects and put those objects in there. Then, since a person who has abundant resources of space will have the leeway to make resources for themself of time, they might visit that room.

  Here is where the problems begin, since if a person who has made of themself, from a child, a person capable of accumulating wealth and redundant resources, it is because they have eschewed in their adult life those things they found pleasure in as a child. But they have also become accustomed to having their desires met, and now, because they have put these desires aside at some cost to their happiness, the things of their childhood, stored because they have made the resources available for them, appear to them as wonderful things worthy of much attention, while the mundane business that has made them wealthy seems dull in comparison.

  This is why you will find so many rich people who are also childish at heart, since they pine for the things they have lost and have found a way to obviate that pining.

  The traditional solution to this problem is to have children and live one’s life vicariously through them, allowing both the struggle for resources and the expenditure of those resources by one’s descendants space in one’s life. But what if, through fate or circumstance, one cannot have children? Then one must find children, have them enjoy what one once enjoyed, and correct the flaw in that way.

  This is entirely not what the Master of Mordew has done with his playroom. Instead he uses it as a means of educating boys (see: education) in his care whom he wishes to use in ways in which they do not wish to be used, though he relies on the pattern established above to give his actions legitimacy in the minds of those so indoctrinated.

  (The) Pleasaunce

  That area of Mordew in which wealthy Merchants situate themselves and associate there with others like them. It is similar to the Merchant City but prettier, with more trees than buildings. In it may be found places of leisure – such as the Zoological Gardens – since it is a rule that the wealthier one becomes, the more time one has at one’s disposal (though we must all pretend the opposite is the case or raise the jealousy and censure of our subordinates).

  (The) Port

  All cities that border the sea must have a port, and that port in Mordew is called the Port, it being particular to the city, rather than general, and so it thereby gains a capital letter and the definite article.

  (The) Port Watch

  A contingent of gill-men charged with the opening and closing of the Sea Wall Gate. Their clothes, unlike the other gill-men, are white, which serves to identify them at a distance.

  Prism powder

  A dust capable of diverting light around a chosen object so that the object is invisible to someone whom the user does not to wish to see it. Invented in her captivity by Dashini, daughter of the Mistress of Malarkoi.

  Prissy

  A girl of the Southern Slums. Girls of her provenance often have a difficult life, since juggling the needs of oneself and one’s associates is scarcely an easy business in places where people fight for resources. Much could be said of her actions and obligations, but the fact remains that, in the long run, Prissy is destined to become the greatest woman of her generation, barring only those who inherit their power from the weft, though exceeding many of these.

  Prissy’s brother

  A boy, dead now, destroyed in the service of the Master, but who bore similarities to Nathan Treeves in some respects.

  Prissy’s sister

  Unlike Prissy not destined for great things, but in her life unable to see the discrepancy in quality between her and her sister. Indeed, because she understands value in the world to be related to short-term and medium-term successes in the field expected of her – in this case the provision and procurement of sexual services for a brothel – she sees her sister’s failure to address the world on its own terms as a weakness. But which valorised person has ever taken the world to be as it was presented to them? None of them, since it is a sign of greatness that a person forces the world to become what they wish it to be, and not the other way around.

  Prissy’s sister’s madam

  The woman who owns Prissy’s sister, and whom Prissy’s sister seeks to supplant.

  Pseudo-demigod(s)

  A distinction can be drawn between a true demigod and a pseudo-demigod in that a true demigod, on evolution to the most godlike state a man can achieve, remains there by virtue of the correctness of his nature and his being in concert with the weft, whereas a pseudo-demigod must work magic endlessly to retain his godliness and should he cease, then he will return to manliness and the material realm. He may, it is true, work to return himself again to his godly state, but this is what he must always do, since he is insufficiently in concert with the weft for it to accept him, and it will always work to reduce him to his original manly state.

  (The) Promenade

  A place in the slums. Slum-dwellers walk down it, cowed and crouched, and, in irony, it has been given a name opposite to its appearance since, whatever else they lack, slum-dwellers have an advanced sense of the ironic.

  Pyrolysis

  The process of drying something out in a fire so that it will catch alight easily. It can be done in a natural way – this is how charcoal is often made – and it can be done in a magical way. The magical way can make weft-stuff of a Spark inheritor.

  (The) Golden Pyramid

  Where
the Mistress of Malarkoi resides. Its shape catalyses magic, which is important since it reduces the number of children she must sacrifice to create the firebirds she uses to keep up her endless assault against the Sea Wall of Mordew.

  Inside is labyrinthine, and after many twists and turns a man can find himself permanently lost. While there, disorientated, he will see many strange things, but not all of them are of the material realm.

  Quarantine

  The thing the Master does to Dashini, daughter of his enemy the Mistress of Malarkoi, by enclosing her living quarters in a magical glass sphere. It is unbreakable, this sphere, by anyone made of the material realm, since it is primarily Spark energy made solid. But what of denizens of the intermediate realms? The question is moot, because no such creature is permitted within the Manse.

  Quincunque vult

  The motto of the Temple of the Athanasians, who believe what whomsoever wishes may come. There is a distasteful pun inherent in its usage in that establishment that only the kind of people who use its facilities would find amusing.

  Rain

  A constant presence in Mordew, seemingly, but only for slum-dwellers, since the higher one climbs, the less of it one finds.

  Rats

  Bête noire of the slum-dweller, one of the lowest forms of life in the evolutionary system. They bite, they crawl, they repulse, but also they dispose of rot and corpses, so the wise know that even the vile have their uses.

  (The) Rebuttal in Ice

  A spell contained in a knife that only the inheritor of the Spark can use. Almost infinitely effective in turning unfrozen things frozen in defence of the bearer’s life, but, as with all puissant objects, hard to urge to its full ability.

  Red concentrate

  A light that removes from the people it touches the benefits of the Spark, and which will kill a person unenhanced by magic. If magically enhanced, the person that enjoys contact with this light will return to their natural state if the exactly appropriate amount of Spark energy is consumed by it. More, and the person will die, less, and they will remain a little magical.

  The strength of the red concentrate is modulated by the violent feeling the user has for their target, the rationale being that the more angry one is with a person at whom the tube is directed, the more likely one is to wish them dead. Similarly, the range is broadened to take account of lesser reactions to multiple foes. A tube of this concentrate was given to Bellows for emergencies. Liable to reflection by magic mirrors, since it is made of light (which all mirrors reflect).

  Rekka

  The name given to an ur-demon of an intermediate realm. Like all demons, its form is variable, but it is not one of the ur-demons that is arguable with. It will do absolutely nothing but attempt the death of its summoner(s) and is well placed to succeed in its task since it is physically indestructible by weft-congruent means. That is not to say that one could not pervert the weft and destroy it that way, but that would cause more problems than it solved, and it is best not to summon it at all, except in extreme need.

  Summoned by Dashini as a means of breaking her quarantine and then banished to the centre of the world. Eventually it will find its way to the surface, preparing its magical defences against future spatial translation as it comes, and then what?

  repetitio est pater studiorum

  Words that say ‘practice makes perfect’ in a dead language found in old books. Probably true, in sentiment, but tedious in practice.

  Resurrection

  The process by which God may be returned to life. The central problem is that God’s body and his will have been separated and thereby the connection made between the material and immaterial realms has been undone. To correct this, the Spark has found another host and, since this host’s body is of the material realm, and its concept is of the immaterial realm, and the weft communicates between the two realms, then the minimum that must be is.

  But there is only one weftling, and the host does not bear its pattern and so cannot ever be in concert with the weft. So, the Spark leaches back to the weft; the immaterial and material realms diverge. Also, the weftling is familiar with the nature of the weft whereas the new host is familiar only with the material realm and so all things done by the Spark tend towards the material, which is base and ugly, at the expense of the immaterial, which is of thought and beauty.

  A resurrection would see the rejoining of the body of the weftling and his will, through the weft, combining the realms and bringing all things back into concert. But how is this to be achieved? If the weftling were alive, he could do it. If the host was willing and capable of returning the will to the body then he could do it, but the other ways are very difficult to do indeed.

  Which is not to say that a resurrection is impossible. On the contrary, it is very likely, since this is the proper way of things and the Spark works towards it endlessly, it feeling the separation from its proper place in the same way that a demon feels its separation from its intermediate realm – as pain – but it is in the interests of weft-manipulators that no resurrection is achieved, since the weftling will enact his revenge on the people who wrongly used his proper powers.

  The weftling is prone to anger, as is noted in the surviving scriptures, and he has been known to scour the world with plagues and floods, killing everything (unless they are in an ark), so should one wish for the resurrection of God? Probably not (unless one has an ark and is prepared to live in it).

  (The) Retrospective Odeum

  It comes from the dark times, before the Master made Mordew, when all things were in chaos and flux. It is a powerful but vicious thing, from a powerful but vicious time. It is primal, linking in with the weft in a way few can understand. Perhaps even the Master does not understand it.

  Regardless, it will show you what happened at a place and time represented on its stage, providing you give it blood. Should one believe what it says? Perhaps, and perhaps not – since we know not its origins, we know not its intentions, and it is hard to be unpartisan when one lives in the material realm. There is always an interest to be served, and who knows what interests its makers had? Probably none relevant to today, but no-one knows that for certain.

  (Le) Roi de L’Ombre

  A regal and shadowy figure who, while not a god himself, has powers that even gods fear. Worshipped on the Island of the White Hills and a competitor for supremacy of that place with the White Stag.

  Sabatons

  Part of a suit of armour – specifically the bit at the top of the foot.

  Sacrifice

  Every life, since it is an act of creation, contains from the weft a residue of the Spark. Indeed, the natural longevity of a person is directly determined by the amount of Spark energy contained within them, since, from birth, the Spark leaches back into the weft and when it is all gone that person dies (which is why gods are immortal – they are mostly in concert with the weft, and not only contain enormous quantities of the Spark but can replenish it as it is spent).

  It is possible to extend life by the addition of Spark energy (though care must be taken not to evolve or burn out the subject) and thus familiars and beloved servants can be induced to live for centuries and be prevented from dying.

  In the case of an unnaturally truncated life (by accident, for example) what remains of the Spark leaves in a rush. Most people are insensitive to this Spark egress, but users of magic cannot only see but can also capture and use this energy for their spells.

  Sacrifice is the deliberate truncation of a life to release this energy, and even the closest to death contain sufficient Spark to initiate spells (providing a spell book is at hand). The sacrifice of a recently fertilised egg would provide the most energy (though it would be difficult to procure since an egg is a fragile thing, and once broken its Spark will return to the weft before it can be used) and the effect is cumulative – sacrifice one hundred and the Spark energy released is enormous. A human child is more than sufficient for most spells (and lower animals can be used in the
ir stead if less energy is required), and it is known that firebirds are created from the sacrifice of a single child (though the Mistress’s environs have a catalytic magical effect of their own).

  Saoirse

  The name given to a sailor on the ship the Muirchú. Red-haired, after the habit of her people.

  (The) Scratch

  As a man scratches a physical itch with his fingers, a weft-manipulator Scratches a Spark Itch with his mind. Otherwise the two things are exactly similar.

  Scroll(s)

  While there is no law, as such, in Mordew, there are those who adopt customs very similar to laws. Merchants of the Merchant City draw up agreements between each other saying they will do this thing or that, and wealthy families dictate to whom wealth should pass on death. Into these agreements they instil authority by writing them on valuable paper and using valuable inks, calligraphy and seals, thereby indicating that they are not things to be lightly put aside, if ever. A scroll is a valuable piece of paper, inscribed with an agreement, sealed with wax, which acts as a binding contract between relevant parties who agree to be bound by it.