Mobrik pushed Janner through the doors and into a world of nightmares.
38
Bright Eyes in a Dark Place
Fire raged.
Flames sputtered from pipes and smokestacks, roared in black ovens, and curled from vats of molten iron. Janner’s nose stung with the stench of sweat and smoke. In the center of the enormous room squatted an enormous black furnace. Red-hot pipes rose from it and snaked through the room in a senseless knot. Some of the pipes spewed smoke from ruptured joints, and others dripped black, steamy liquid. Smoke gathered at the ceiling like a storm cloud.
Beside the furnace stood a contraption that shuddered and clanked like nothing Janner had ever known. Glipwood had seen its share of oddities but nothing like this—this was a machine, something Janner had only ever read about. It wasn’t clear what the machine did besides make an awful racket, but the turn of its gears and the steadiness of its chugging made it clear it was doing something.
In front of the mouth of the furnace were three piles of coal. After Janner’s eyes adjusted, he saw figures with shovels trudging the distance between the coal and the furnace. At first he thought they were more ridgerunners. Then he realized they were children.
On the left of the great room were seven aisles divided by long narrow tables. Trenches cut in the center of the tables caught the glowing liquid that poured from spouts hanging from the ceiling. Children tended to the molten steel with pikes and tongs. Janner saw even more children, hundreds of them, gathered around tables and anvils and large stone bowls, hammering, carrying buckets of water to and fro, and stirring the burning liquid with iron poles. Everywhere he looked there was movement.
He considered running back down the long hallway. Maybe if he surprised them with a sudden escape, he could find a way out near the portcullis—for that matter, maybe he could get the two children to open it again. He might even take them with him—but then what? He wouldn’t make it far through the streets of Dugtown with two tired children in tow, especially at night when only the Fangs and trolls were about.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Janner blinked. Mobrik had removed his little top hat and looked at him cockeyed, a hint of a smile on his lips.
“Kids try it all the time when they first arrive. Truth is, the Overseer hopes you’ll try to escape. It gives him a chance for some target practice with his whip. Trust me. You’re better off at the paring station, boy.”
“W-what’s the paring station?”
Mobrik the ridgerunner replaced his hat and descended the steps. He stood at the bottom and waited.
“Run if you like. You’ll end up here either way. But if you come now, you’ll not be bleeding and sore from the boss’s whip.”
Janner took one last look at the door. With a sigh, he walked down the steps and followed the ridgerunner. As he approached the machinery, the temperature increased. Janner’s eyes watered, and he found himself unable to keep from blinking constantly. Mobrik seemed to have no trouble with the heat.
They passed black iron barrels as tall as a house. All around them, flames spurted from pipes and chimneys, and iron wheels clanked. Everywhere Janner looked, he saw children. Some were old enough to pass for young adults, but most were older than Janner. A few glanced at him as he passed, the whites of their eyes the only clean spots in the factory, but most kept their heads down, either shoveling coal, hammering a hot sheet of metal, scraping fragments of debris into a wheeled barrel, or pushing carts piled heavy with lengths of steel—
Swords, Janner thought. He recognized the graceless curve of a Fang blade, though the hilt hadn’t yet been attached. He had never wondered where the Fangs got their weapons. Someone had to make them, after all. But children? That explained why the Overseer was allowed to move through the city after curfew and why there were so few children in Dugtown. Whatever children weren’t stolen probably lived out their days indoors, under the watchful eyes of their parents. Then Janner remembered the picture on Ronchy McHiggins’s wall. They had stolen his child too.
As Janner took the next turn through the maze of the factory, he glanced to his right and saw a set of bright eyes looking straight at him. They were beautiful, round windows of blue sky. Though he could see little of the child’s face, covered in soot as it was, a memory tingled in the back of his mind.
“Come on!” Mobrik kicked Janner in the shin. Janner resisted the urge to wrestle the little ridgerunner to the ground and thump him. When Janner looked again, the child with the blue eyes was gone.
Mobrik led him through several more turns before he stopped at a long table. A girl stood in front of the table, holding a pair of giant rusty scissors. On the table before her lay what looked like a Fang sword, but it was shaped wrong.
“She’s paring the sword, see?” Mobrik said. “Cutting away the bit of metal that isn’t supposed to be there. The machine gets it right most of the time, but now and then there’s a bad cut. So it takes tools like this one to fix what isn’t right.”
Mobrik pointed a thumb at the girl. Her face was covered with streaks of dirt. She wore an apron and had her hair tied in a bun on top of her head. She cut another inch of the metal with every grunt. Her teeth were bared, and though she looked as tired as anyone Janner had ever seen, she was making progress. When they approached, she stopped and straightened without a word. Janner smiled at her. She stared back, expressionless.
“Knubis! The Overseer says you’re either to be moved to the coal piles or it’s the Black Carriage for you. Do you think you can keep up at the coal piles, girl?”
At the mention of the Black Carriage, the Knubis girl’s eyes widened and she redoubled her efforts with the scissors.
“Too late for that, girl. It’s the coal piles or the Carriage.” Mobrik was enjoying himself.
Janner’s insides boiled. His fingers curled into fists, and he took a deep breath, ready to pounce on Mobrik, grab the poor girl, and run for it. Then common sense once again interrupted his anger. Where would he go? He caught the Knubis girl’s eyes, and she shook her head.
“Don’t,” she said, looking at Mobrik, but Janner could tell she was talking to him. She didn’t want him to do anything rash.
“What?” Mobrik said.
“Don’t…call the Black Carriage. I’ll go to the coal piles, and I’ll work faster. It’s just, my hands…” She held out her hands. They were covered with oozing blisters.
“More gloves coming tomorrow.” Mobrik shrugged. “It’s a shame you should be abused so. Hard to work if your hands are worn through. The Overseer should take better care of his tools.”
“She’s not a tool,” Janner said, unable to contain himself.
“Don’t!” she said, this time looking at Janner.
Janner ignored her, reared his fist back, and let it fly straight at Mobrik’s face.
The punch never landed.
Figures burst from the shadows and corners and from under the tables. They dropped from chains that hung from the ceiling and rushed at Janner. They shoved him to the floor and punched and kicked and struck him with all manner of blunt weapons. Janner curled into a ball, clenched his teeth, and waited for the torment to stop. Stars swam in his vision, white pain sizzled through his spine and neck. Finally the blows subsided.
Janner lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, the chains above swaying to and fro like the pendulum on a clock. His nose and mouth were bleeding, a tooth was loose, and his ribs hurt with every ragged breath he took.
A face appeared above him. He expected it to be the Overseer again, grinning his yellow-toothed grin beneath the silly top hat, but it was a boy. With the mean look in his eyes, the dirty face, and the smirk on his lips, he looked so much like a Strander that Janner half expected to see a dagger in one hand and a hunk of toothy cow meat in the other. But instead of a dagger, the boy held a length of chain.
“We’re always watching, tool,” the boy said. “So do as you’re told, leave Master Mobrik here alone, and get
to the paring. Understand?”
“I’m not a tool,” Janner said.
The boy let fly with the chain. It struck the ground beside Janner’s head so hard that sparks stung his cheeks.
“You’re a tool,” the boy said. He gestured to the other boys and girls standing about, all of them looking at Janner with hatred. “We all are. Now get up and get to work.”
Mobrik stood behind the children with his arms folded. “The Overseer said this new boy is to work until morning with no rest.”
The children smiled.
“Come on, Knubis,” Mobrik said to the paring girl, and she followed him to the coal piles.
“Get up, boy. What’s your name?”
Janner stood slowly, the bones in his back and shoulders cracking in protest. He wiped his bloody lip with a shirt sleeve. “My name’s…Esben.”
The boy with the chain stepped forward until he stood nose to nose with Janner.
“Your name is Tool. Remember that. My name, in case you’re wondering, is Maintenance Manager. That’s all our names.” He waved his chain at the others as they slunk away into the shadows. “We maintain the machine and the tools that run it. If you work hard enough, you might get to be a Maintenance Manager too. The food’s better, the bunks are better, and you get to greet the new tools when they arrive.”
Janner stared at the boy with steady eyes, though he could feel one of them swelling shut with every throb. He chose to say nothing. It wouldn’t be long before he found a way out of this place, and this tool could go on maintaining his machine for the rest of his life if he wanted.
But right now, he had paring to do.
39
Esben Flavogle, the Factory Tool
All night, Janner stood at the long table and cut metal. Whenever he glanced up, he caught sight of shapes swinging from chains, from rafter to rafter like bugs. The Maintenance Managers were everywhere, supervising the “tools” as they worked.
Sometimes, an actual fork made it to the paring station, which reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in hours, nor had he had anything to drink. The hot air of the factory floor sucked the liquid from every pore and left his tongue dry as a dead leaf.
Janner’s hands ached. He had done his share of work with rakes and shovels and knew well the feeling of a blister forming beneath the skin. If his hands hadn’t been covered in soot, he would’ve seen the red spots that would soon swell and fill with fluid. He was glad Tink had been spared this fate.
Whenever his eyes drooped, he shook his head and pinched himself to keep awake. As he struggled to close the scissors on a sliver of stubborn metal, he thought of his sweet mother, her strong, easy way of giving him affection and comfort. While he ground the handle of a blade, he thought of Podo’s booming voice, of Oskar’s flop of hair. When he tossed the reworked pieces into a barrel, he thought of Leeli’s curious calm and the magic in her songs. And when he bent forks, he thought of Tink’s insatiable appetite. Even as the memories of his family kept him company, they made his heart heavy and lonesome.
It was a miserable night.
At dawn, Mobrik appeared. Janner looked down at the little creature blankly, realizing that in a few short hours, he already looked and acted like the other exhausted children of the factory. He had to escape, and soon, but for now, all he wanted was a bed and something to eat.
“Follow me, child. The Overseer needs to ask you a few questions.”
Mobrik led Janner back down the long hallway and into the big, empty room. They crossed to the door in the far wall, and Mobrik knocked. They entered an office with a large desk, where the Overseer sat, still wearing his black top hat. He smiled, yawned, and patted the whip that lay coiled on the desk.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I just woke from a delightful night’s sleep. My bed is so soft, you see, and large. I trust you found your work enjoyable? The paring station affords much movement and variety, I believe.”
Janner was now fully awake. He wanted to leap across the table and knock the silly hat from the Overseer’s head. He wanted to haul the man downstairs and make him pare the bad blades for an hour. But most of all, he wanted the man to open the portcullis and let him go. Let them all go.
“Now,” said the Overseer, dipping a quill into a bottle of ink, “I need your full name. In case your parents ever find replacements for you.” Janner paused, remembering the punch in the stomach the last time he spoke to the Overseer. “Oh, it’s all right,” said the man. “You’re allowed to tell me your name.”
Janner cleared his throat. “My name is Esben…Esben Flavogle.”
The Overseer scratched it into his ledger without bothering to ask how it was spelled. “There. Mobrik, show the tool to his bunk.”
Below the main factory floor where the furnaces roared lay a dormitory. Bunk beds lined the walls. Janner saw hundreds of children, either snoring in a deep sleep or climbing wearily out of bed to face another day in the factory. No one spoke or laughed or even made eye contact. Mobrik allowed Janner a drink of water from a cistern, then pointed him to an empty bunk and left.
The mattress was lumpy but far more comfortable than the sandy floor of the burrow. Janner realized as he drifted away that he hadn’t slept in a proper bed since the day the Fangs had ransacked the Igiby cottage. In Peet’s castle he had been quite comfortable on the pile of blankets and animal skins spread on the floor, but it hadn’t been a bed. Since then he had slept on the hard ground every night. As he drifted to sleep, he felt the inside of his swollen lip with his tongue and wondered if his tooth would still wiggle in the morning.
When he woke, he smelled food.
But it wasn’t the smell that woke him. A bell clanged and clanged and clanged, and it was several moments before Janner was awake enough to realize that a boy beside his bed was making all the racket. The boy had pudgy cheeks and wore a tattered red cap that seemed about to slide off the back of his head.
“All right, all right!” Janner snapped, pushing the bell away from his ear and sitting up.
“Time for breakfast, tool,” said the boy, and he marched off to annoy someone else.
The dorm room was busier than it had been that morning when Janner collapsed into bed. Children pulled on boots, washed their faces with water from a trough, and sat at a long wooden table, spooning a watery broth into their mouths. The bell-clanger made his rounds, but otherwise there was very little speaking. These children’s spirits had been broken. Who knew how long they had toiled in the factory? Some were old enough to have whiskery fuzz on their chins, and others were barely as old as Leeli. Janner couldn’t understand why the Overseer used only children for the labor. Couldn’t an adult work longer and faster?
Janner sat at the table, and a boy placed a bowl and spoon before him, along with a cup of water. No one looked at him. No one spoke. The only sound was the chorus of hungry slurps from the twenty or so children at the table.
Janner cleared his throat. “Hello.” He waited for an answer. A few of the children glanced at him but kept eating without a word. “My name’s Esben. Esben, uh, Flavogle. Just got here.”
“We can see that,” said the boy directly across from him. The boy raised his bowl to his mouth and sucked up the last drops of soup. “You’ll find there’s not much to talk about after a while.”
“What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m a tool, just like you.”
Janner rolled his eyes. “I’m not a tool.”
The boy shrugged and left the table.
Janner turned his attention to his soup. It didn’t look very appetizing, but his mouth watered. He picked up his spoon, but fiery pain shot through his hand, and he sucked air through his teeth. Blisters. They cracked and oozed on every finger and all across his palms. Gingerly he picked up the spoon again and ate his soup in silence, surprised to find that it was quite delicious. He was also surprised that when he finished his soup, the serving boy appeared with a fresh bowl and removed his empty one. Janner devoured th
e second bowl, and then a third, so famished that he forgot the pain in his hands. When he was finished, he got up from the table, not sure what to do or where to go.
“Back to the paring station, tool,” said a voice from behind him. Mobrik the ridgerunner stood at his elbow. Janner was strangely glad to see him. “It’s my job to make sure the new implements learn the system. You eat soup, then you wash your face, then you head back to the factory floor to do your job. Understand?”
“I guess so.”
“Then go,” Mobrik said, turning away. Then he stopped and said, “I nearly forgot. These should fit you.” He reached into a pocket of his suit coat and tossed a pair of thick leather gloves to Janner.
“Mobrik—wait. Thank you. I need to ask you something.”
“Do you have any fruit?” Mobrik asked.
“No.”
The ridgerunner walked away.
Janner saw several Maintenance Managers leaning against the wall, watching him, and took a deep breath. He would escape. He just had to wait until they weren’t watching him so closely. Maybe later that day, once they saw that he could work fast, they would forget him long enough that he could break away and get out.
“The paring station, then,” Janner said to himself. “I hope Tink is faring better than I am.”
Another hot, miserable night passed on the factory floor. Another night of blasting heat, roaring flames, creaking wheels, and painful hands.
Janner spent the first several hours thinking of his family, but that proved too saddening. Then he thought about his T.H.A.G.S. and about the books he had recently read. He recalled the characters from the stories, the settings, the themes of the books. But his mind kept slowing to a thoughtless sludge, a world where all that mattered was the hiss of the machines and the cutting of metal. Whenever his table of misshapen blades and forks was close to empty—but never completely empty, to his great frustration—a child appeared with another full wheelbarrow. Whenever Janner attempted conversation with the children, they never answered or met his eyes. He wanted to grab their faces and force them to look at him, to acknowledge his presence, to act as if they were still human.
North! Or Be Eaten Page 22
