The Gardeners are an extinct group of guides, aiding visitors and travellers in their navigation through the Tower and in between the four Realms, Heled, Raquia, Arqua and Sheol.
Raphael is the last of the guides of the Tower, the last of its Gardeners. According to him, some of the creatures that Adam and Rebecca encounter while travelling through the Tower were once Gardeners. He also says that the Ire has transformed them into these hideous monsters and that they now function as its eyes and ears.
Florentine relates one of his acolyte's experience with a gardener in his journal, precisely in the entry of January 15, 1330. Said acolyte, Thomas, ostensibly encountered within the Tower someone who called himself the Gardener. Apparently, the Gardener aided Thomas "in his escape only moments before the gibbering madness of the Ire fell upon him". Florentine is sceptical about Thomas' account as his then-confidant Belial claims that "the last of the Gardeners perished at the Fall of the Stone."[1] In his entry of March 15, 1330, Florentine talks about a manuscript which he has had sent from France and which constitutes French magician's account on his travels through the Tower during the 13th century. There is no mention of any Gardeners in this document. It is, however, just a fragment of a much larger body. In the entry of April 15, 1895, then, Florentine writes that Belial regrettably informed him that "the Gardeners had in fact returned to their precious Tower despite his promise that they had all perished at the Fall of the Stone."[2]