Dr Ludwig’s effervescent famulus brought us some papers and what he remembered of the scholar’s investigations.
‘Essentially, he was convinced there was more than one Malamancher. The current location, though it’s inhabited it for a long period, is not its only attested home; and he found stories about similar creatures, with cognate names, in other parts of the Southern Continent.
‘He thought migration was manifestly absurd. And as none have ever observed more than one Malamancher together, he came to an amazing conclusion: that these creatures sort of pop up, as it were, from the primordial ooze, in certain places at certain times, and then after interminable periods of terror, they disappear.’
‘How do they disappear?’ we asked.
‘Who knows? Melts back into the ooze? Sublimes into its own stink or its own dreadful sound of stomp and roar.
‘But that was the other thing, the other inconsistency. The Malamancher of Shardic legend was known by its dread stomp. The Malamancher of the Busticetum is known principally by its indescribable smell. Each, though described visually as a similar kind of toothy monster, seems to have its own defining attribute, though the Doctor never figured out any sense to which having which.
‘As to why they keep popping up, the Doctor’s comments are out of the journals. But I can tell you he felt the Malamanchers appeared to keep dread in the hearts of Man where his advance might otherwise make them forever happy.’
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