The Humanarium.

Chapter 19 Make ready.

They are subsisting on our foodstuffs, but as with any creature taken from its natural environment, its nutritional needs will be at an imbalance. There have been loses.

'The plan?' Harl asked as he dragged a coil of rope from the cart.

They had reached home without further incident and parked the cart just outside the front door. He had been constantly checking behind them on the way back from town, but neither Felmar or his men had followed.

Harl could feel the cycle drawing near to the dark switch. Most of the supplies they had returned with were unloaded and stacked inside, but he wanted to get everything done before dark. He had no wish to be outside if anyone came creeping around. Better to shut the world - and Felmar - away and let the light bring fresh hope. He frowned. Hope seemed in short supply at the moment.

Gorman wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and turned ready to take the next piece of equipment.

'And why so much rope?' Harl asked as he handed him a second and third coil.

'I'd hoped there would be more time to explain,' Gorman said, stacking the rope in a pile. 'But you need to make haste. There are some items I have kept safe that you will need. Come, I will show you.'

He walked inside and led them both into his room.

It was the first time Harl seen inside Gorman's bedroom and he felt like an intruder in the old man's private quarters. Neatly stacked sets of identical clothing lay on top of an ornate dresser to one side of a four-poster bed. Pinned to the wall opposite the only window was a large piece of tattered parchment with a crude circular diagram in its centre. The majority was coloured blue, but there were green and brown splotches all over it, as if drawn with no apparent design in mind. They looked like nothing more than splatters of thick mud against the Sight.

A row of chest-high shelves supported a neat collection of rocks and small stones. Harl had seen most of them from his time in the quarry, but a single large piece caught his eye. It was the size of his fist and completely see-through, like glass or a diamond. Surely it couldn't be an actual diamond? There was nothing he could think of that could be that size and transparent except... Could it be a piece of the barrier, the one which Gorman had cut as a boy?

He looked out the window hoping to see the Sight, but saw only the thick woodland beyond. He lowered his eyes, disappointed, but then smiled in surprise. Perched on the windowsill was a tiny tree. Minute leaves clung to the gnarled branches and delicate white flowers shone like diamonds against the dark foliage. It was rooted in a shallow clay pot that was mottled and worn with age. A small selection of tiny garden implements stood in a rack next to it just waiting for Gorman's gentle hands to set to work. Harl reached out to pick up the micro-tree, but Gorman's insistent voice stayed his hand.

'Under there,' Gorman said, tapping his foot on a woven mat spread across the hardwood floor. 'We'll need to lift it up.'

Harl thought it was odd, but when they moved the mat it was obvious that Gorman had meant the wooden trapdoor that lay hidden beneath.

Gorman bent over and pulled up the flattened iron hoops set into the trapdoor. He took a firm grip on both and lifted. The trapdoor slid to one side on the floor.

'If you could move it back some more, Harl,' he asked, breathing hard.

Harl clasped the hoops and slid it further away from them. It was surprisingly heavy and it took his entire strength just to manoeuvre the thick door aside.