Freeglader (33 page)

He paused, a haunted, despairing look in his eyes. Almost at once, the torrent of thoughts, pent up for so long, gushed forth once more.

I tried! Earth and Sky know, I tried, but to what avail? I was a traitor. A spy. A curse on all who came close to me and trusted me. Yet, I did try, you have to believe me
…

Cancaresse nodded again, slowly.

Back in the tower, I could see more clearly than ever how wicked the High Guardian of Night truly was. I did everything I could to stop the madness.

My heart was full of joy when Cowlquape was rescued from the Tower of Night – and how I wished I could go with him … Yet, I knew I could not. I had to stay and do everything I could to lessen the evil my master was doing.

That was my punishment.

I did what I could for those who fell into the Guardians' clutches. I tried so hard to rob the cages of their sacrifices – to find excuses in my interrogations to set them free. Yet Leddix, the executioner, would often whisk them away…

Oh, but how the loss of those I couldn't save sickens me to the very bottom of my heart
…

Cancaresse nodded. She could feel his pain clearly. The youth fell to his knees in the middle of the sunlit lawn and buried his face in his hands. Sobs racked his body and, from all corners of the garden, Freegladers gathered round. The moment of Reckoning had come at
last. All eyes fell on the tiny figure of Cancaresse the Silent, Keeper of the Garden of Thoughts.

Friends
, her soft voice sounded in a thousand minds.
I have looked deep within many minds, shared deep sorrows and terrible pain
…

She looked round at the faces in front of her; at the librarian knight with the terrible scar, the grieving under-librarian and the care-worn High Academe.

I have also felt loyalty, bravery and friendship
, the waif continued.

She noticed Rook and the slaughterer nodding, and Felix, the ghost, looking ashamed.

I have weighed the good and the evil Xanth Filatine has done, and though the scales are more finely balanced than at first I thought
… She looked down at Xanth, sorrow plain in her eyes.
I'm afraid, Xanth, that
…

The youth stared back at her, his face a stark white in the brilliant sunshine.

‘Stop! Wait!’ A voice broke the silence.

A gasp went round the Garden of Thoughts as a newcomer suddenly burst through the crowd of Freegladers.

‘But you were shot down!’ cried one.

‘We thought you were dead!’ called another.

Magda Burlix, her flight-suit torn and grimy, limped towards Xanth and the waif. ‘Forgive me, but I must speak with you,’ she said urgently.

Cancaresse stepped towards the young librarian knight, her great veined ears fluttering.
Tell me what you know
, she said.

The librarian knight knelt before her, and the waif placed her long thin hands on Magda's head.

He rescued you from the Tower of Night
, she said, her soft voice resonating in the heads of everyone present.
He risked his life guiding you through the sewers and back to the safety of the librarians even though he knew they hated him and would shun and despise him … He did this with no thought of reward – only that you might live
…

Cancaresse looked up.
The moment of Reckoning has come
, she said silently, and around the garden, every head nodded.

She turned to Xanth and raised her arms, the palms of her hands turned upwards. Her robes shimmered in the midday sunlight.

‘Welcome, Xanth Filatine,’ she said. ‘Welcome, Freeglader.’

• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN •
GLADE-EATER

‘A
aagh!
' the low-bellied goblin cried out in agony as he fell heavily to the filthy foundry floor. He curled up into a ball, but the blows kept coming.

‘Ignorant, clumsy, half-witted oaf!’ the flat-head guard bellowed, punctuating each word with lashes from his heavy whip.

‘Forgive me! Forgive me!’ the low-belly whimpered. The whip cracked louder than ever, tearing into the skin at his back and shoulders, drawing blood. ‘
Aaaagh!
' he howled. ‘Have mercy on this miserable wretch…’

The guard, a brawny flat-head with zigzag tattoos across half of his face and over both shoulders, sneered unpleasantly – though he did at last stay his arm.

‘Mercy?’ he snarled. ‘Another accident like that and I'll finish you off for good. I've got quotas to meet, and I'm not gonna meet them with no-good slackers like you. Y'understand me, huh?’

The low-belly remained curled up and motionless, too frightened to speak in case he incurred the goblin's
violent wrath once more. It wasn't his fault he'd stumbled. It was blisteringly hot in the metal foundry, and he was parched, and weary, and so weak with lack of food he could barely see. His head was swimming, his legs had turned to rubber. And when the moulds were full of the glowing molten metal, they were
so
unsteady…

‘
Understand?
' the flat-head guard roared.

‘Yes, yes, sir, he understands,’ said a second low-belly goblin, scurrying to his brother's side. Taking him by the arm, trying not to touch the raw, open wounds on his back, he helped him to his feet. ‘Sir, it won't happen again, sir. I give you my word.’

The flat-head spat with contempt. ‘The day I take the word of low-belly scum like you is the day I hang up my hood and whip,’ he sneered. ‘Get that mess cleared up!’ he roared, nodding down at the floor where the spilled molten metal had solidified into a huge, irregular lump. ‘And you lot,’ he added, cracking his whip at a small group of gnokgoblins over by the ore-belts. ‘Give 'em a hand.’

Warily eyeing the guard's whip, with its three tails, each one tipped with a hooked spike, the gnokgoblins approached. Then, together with the low-bellies, they tugged and heaved the huge lump of metal, grunting loudly as they did so, gradually shifting it over the floor through the smoke-filled foundry.

All round them, the place throbbed with ceaseless noise as the enslaved workforce toiled in their individual groups, stripped to their waists, their grimy, sweaty
bodies gleaming in the furnace-glow. There were hefters and stokers, smelt-lackeys and mould-navvies – each one of them cowed, half-starved and racked with foundry-croup – working at the feverish pace dictated by the slave-driving guards.

With military precision, logs were turned to heat in the main furnace, ore was turned to iron in the smelting-vats, and the long, heavy moulds – suspended on chains from ceiling-tracks high above – were filled with brightly glowing molten metal and steered towards the cooling-bays. It was raw materials to finished product in less than an hour.

And what a finished product! Huge, curved scythes which, once expertly hammered, honed and polished, were set aside in long racks, waiting to be taken off in hammel-horn-drawn carts to the assembly-yards.

Fighting against the intense, choking heat that was driving them back, the group of hapless goblins struggled on towards the smelting vat.

‘One – two – three …
Heave!
' cried one of the gnokgoblins.

Groaning with effort, they all clasped the huge lump of metal and pushed it up, up, over the lip of the potbellied vat, and down into the molten metal within. It
landed with a splash, a hiss and a puff of acrid smoke, before rolling over and melting like butter in a fire. The poor low-belly who had spilt the molten metal in the first place slumped to the ground.

‘Get up,’ the other urged him, glancing anxiously round to see whether the flat-head goblin guard was paying them any attention.

‘Can't, Heeb,’ came the reply, little more than a grunt.

‘But you must,’ his brother insisted. ‘Before he accuses you of slacking again.’ He shook his head grimly. ‘I can't lose you, too, Rumpel. Not after the others … Rudder, and Reel. You're all I've got left. You
must
get up…’

‘
Pfweeeep!
’

A shrill steam-whistle blasted loudly, cutting through the thick, noisy air of the foundry and signalling the end of the shift. The rhythmic hammering and teeth-jarring screech of the sharpening-rasps abruptly ceased, as the goblins downed tools and shuffled away, leaving their posts empty for the next shift. Soon, only the roar of the furnace remained.

‘Thank Earth and Sky,’ Heeb murmured. ‘Come, Rumpel,’ he said, taking his brother by the arm a second time. ‘Let's get out of here.’

Rumpel struggled to his feet and, without a word, let himself be led from the foundry, stumbling clumsily like a hobbled hammelhorn. His head was down, his ears were ringing, his back felt as though it was on fire.

Outside – as the line of exhausted goblins brushed past those arriving for work – the sky was the colour of congealed gruel and a soft, cold drizzle was falling. At
first, it soothed the vicious, blood-encrusted weals in the low-belly's flesh. It wasn't long though before what had started as cooling, after the blistering heat of the foundry, became bitterly cold as Rumpel's feverish body was chilled to the marrow.

‘C… c… c… can't t… t… take it no m… m… more,’ he stammered, his teeth chattering and body shaking. And as the caked smoke in his lungs began to loosen, so his frail, bony body was racked once more with the hacking cough that tormented every one of the Foundry Glades slave-workers.

Heeb looked round at his brother. The pair of them were making their way across the glade to the hovel that had become home to them and seventy others. He noted the deathly pallor to his skin, the dark charcoal-grey rings beneath his eyes, and the rheumy, unblinking stare – as if his gaze were already fixed on the world beyond the unceasing cruelty of this one. It was an expression he had seen before – in the faces of his other brothers, Reel and Rudder, shortly before they had died.

‘Hang on in there, little brother,’ Heeb said softly. ‘I'll get those wounds dressed, we'll have something to eat, and you can rest up.’ He smiled weakly. ‘It's going to be fine, you'll see,’ he added, only wishing that his words were as easy to believe as they were to say.