In the tunnels above the heart no ray of daylight penetrated; the dark stayed only by the faint gleam of withy mold and the glow flies languid dance. Skink and I lay exhausted and wordless, savoring the silence and the reprieve from hours of endless frantic, thoughtless flight. The lack of screaming, scratching, buzzing.

For the moment at least, we had out-climbed the swarm.

In my mind I replayed the rise of the cloud. How it had destroyed everything and everyone I had ever known. So sudden, so fast. Ma and Broc swept into the sky. How many, if any, of the others had survived? They hadn't looked like they were going to follow Ma's advice to climb. Perhaps they had found hidden crannies to shelter in. Maybe the razorbugs had passed them by. And Da's precious library, stowed in the weave around my nest, perhaps that had survived too. Maybe the swarm had dispersed already. Maybe it was safe to return now.

"Percher, we're too high."

I glanced at Skink's ill-defined silhouette; her matted hair; her pale, smudged face. Dark eyes alive with interest. Her useless legs folded beneath her. During the climb, Skink had hung like a human pendulum about my back, hindering every step, making progress through each passage more difficult. She had complained constantly that my grip on her arms was too tight, that I bumped her head, scratched her against the withies. I had taken no heed. 

Skink was our frailest, our last and least. Found abandoned in the weave years ago, limp and blue, her legs all twisted and wasted, she had been left to rot by some more ruthless (or perhaps more sensible) tribe. If it hadn't been for Ma and Da's mercy we too would have left her behind or sacrificed her to the mist for good fortune. When she first joined the tribe, I had felt sorry for her. Helped her out from time to time by offering a few precious flakes of dried heart-meat, or handfuls of freshly pinched-out withy grubs. Talked with her, even read to her a little, a few precious words from the Dictionary each day. When Ma grew tired, I helped carry her (at that time Skink was lighter than the library I bore upon my back). It was little enough, really, but more than most. Truth is, part of me only wanted to spite those other members of the tribe—Broc chief amongst them—who mocked and shunned her. Skink had become a proxy in his struggle for control; he made Ma out to be crazy for taking in a cripple, someone that slowed us down, drained our resources. It didn't seem fair to me, for Skink to be used like that.

"Percher. Are you listening? We're too high."

"We're safe now." My voice cracked a little, throat dusty and dry. There had been no time to gather supplies before we escaped: no food, no water.

"We shouldn't be so near the head," Skink repeated. "There's creatures up there worse than razorbugs."

"The clevers? Just stories."

Skink rocked back and forth on her haunches, staring at me. "Not stories. I seen 'em."

"Go back down, then. Ain't stopping you." 

She continued to stare at me.

"I'm thirsty," I said. "Going to find water."

I stood and staggered along the tunnel, leaving her alone in the gloom. Even as my anger rose, I regretted my harshness. Why so furious? None of this was her fault.

A dark form obstructed the passage ahead of me. I slowed, Skink's warning fresh in my mind. The clevers were supposed to dwell in the Motherman's skull, feasting on his brain and the victims they captured. Some said they were the original creators of the Motherman, others that they were another tribe just like us. I only knew I did not want to meet one; not here, not alone.

In the dim mold-glow, I glimpsed segmented armor, a cluster of eyes, frozen spinnerets. I relaxed. Only a weaver. This one not much bigger than me. It appeared dead, or at least motionless. Generally the giant spider-like weavers were too busy patching up the Motherman's structure to take notice of us. I leaned in close. Why wasn't it moving? Perhaps, like Skink, it hadn't been born right. I shivered. It seemed like a bad omen. But then the omen was too late, wasn't it? The worst had already happened. Ma falling into the mist. The screams of the tribe drowned out by the buzz of the razorbugs… 

I blinked back tears. No time. No time now for remembering or thinking.

I squeezed past the tangle of limbs, farther along the passage, to where moisture hung in the air. And something else, a dark tang that barely registered, too faint to identify but enough to disturb at some primal level. But I was too distracted by the sound of water to pay it more attention.

A stream spilled through the mossy crevices and withy channels; cloud-drift and ice-melt all the way from the snow-capped head. My re-awakened thirst raged. I cupped my hands in the cascade, gulping the icy water. Even as I did so, I felt a twinge of shame. What about Skink? She couldn't easily move without help; a sitting target for whatever she feared roamed above the heart. I braced myself for the anger that awaited me, for her crumpled despair—but as I turned to go back I found her dangling behind me. Like a shadow of my guilt, hanging from the weave of the tunnel roof by her arms, her face twisted with effort and determination. 

"What?" she demanded of my shocked expression. "You think I can't make my own way around?" She brushed past me, swinging from one ceiling withy to the next.

"Be careful," I warned, but she had already reached the stream and dunked her head into the cascade.

I turned away, my anger returning. Had she known she could lift herself, all the times I had carried her? Those arms. Tapestried with pale withy-cut scars, muscles strong and wiry; tone only achieved through long practice. Why hadn't I noticed? Had she deliberately hidden her strength, or had my presumption blinded me?

"Percher!"

I looked back at her, still annoyed. "What?"

Her hair glistened wet, plastered in tangled rivulets about her face and shoulders. She sniffed loudly. "Can you smell that?"

The fear that had filled me since I first saw the razorbug cloud returned like a physical blow. Of course I could smell it. I had for some time. Only now it was strong enough that the source was obvious. 

It was what had caused the razorbugs to flee their territory in such vast numbers. It was what made return to the tribe's home now impossible.

Somewhere deep below, in the Motherman's belly, a threat rising far worse than any razorbug swarm. 

Fire.

We spiraled into the head, into the vast, bird-infested cavern of the mouth. I had always wondered what the head's interior looked like, hoping that one day Ma or Da's foraging expeditions would divert toward it, but they had always avoided the higher regions. In the event, I was too busy keeping ahead of the flames below to pay any attention to the scenery. I was climbing so hard—concentrating on trying to outpace Skink, who kept surprising me with how much stronger, faster, tougher she was than I first thought—that I didn't notice the clevers standing in the weave above us until it was too late. 

Three big, brawny males, grunting and chittering. 

I immediately froze, heart pounding, but the clevers' grunting only grew louder. All around, stirrings in the web, dark eyes focusing on us with a new and fierce interest. The stories Ma used to tell, of the clevers and their gruesome deeds, flooded my mind. Just stories, tales to scare young climblings...

"We need to go," Skink said. "Now."

A face poked out of the web directly in front of me. I gave an involuntary cry. Button eyes glittered above a missing nose in a leathery mask of a face; a hairless scalp covered in intricate wormtrail patterns as if creviced by the evil thoughts harbored beneath. The gargoyle screamed; a high-pitched hiss, stinking of rotted flesh. A sinewy-strong arm reached out, nails curved like talons.

"Down!" I cried, but Skink was ahead of me, swift and sure as a weave-monkey, dropping down through the tunnel we had just climbed. I brushed past grabbing claws, chasing after her.

She shouted, it seemed half in fear and half in frustration. The way back to the mouth was blocked. Too many creatures. All around.

A great bellow came from below. What new threat was this, rising out of the cavern of the mouth? The direction we had come from. The direction we had hoped to flee.

Another bellow; an almost human roar. Along the huge molars a figure bounded into view. It hurled clevers out of the open mouth, into the sky, or else into the inescapable cavity of the throat. I cowered behind Skink's shoulder as the new arrival thrust a path through the fleeing creatures. Skink and I remained frozen, caught between fear of what awaited us in the upper reaches of the head and the approach of this new threat. We willed our breath to be silent, our hearts to be still. Perhaps we could remain unnoticed. 

"There you are," it cried, pointing at us huddled together, and began to climb. The muscular silhouette seemed familiar. The voice, too. 

Beside me, Skink gasped, "No!"

As the figure stepped closer, into the light, it became unmistakable. Unbelievable.

It was my sky-lost brother.

It was Broc.

"Bug grabbed me." 

He twisted to show us the ugly-looking pincer wounds on his arm and shoulder. Grinned at the looks of horror and disgust on our faces. 

"Another joined it, then another. Three of them, lifted me right up." 

He dangled his chunky fingers in imitation of his plight. Wriggled them.

"Thought they would drop me into the mist, but all they did was pass me between themselves. Like some sort of game. One missed and I landed on the Motherman's shoulder. Rolled away, hid deep. They burrowed after me but in the weave I was strong."

He clenched his big fists, grin widening. 

"One by one, I tore off their legs and squished them apart."

"Ma?" Skink asked, hopeful.

Broc shook his head. His grin did not falter. "She fell." 

"Are you sure? Did you see?"

"Sure I saw. She's dead." He stretched, and although it appeared casual the move emphasized his size and strength before us. "Tribe belongs to me now."

Skink and I exchanged glances. I knew Broc had coveted the leadership of the tribe, thought Ma too weak after Da's death...but this coldness, this celebration...I'd hoped the shock of our circumstances would give pause to his brutishness.

Skink said, "Tribe doesn't exist anymore."

"Today we start a new tribe. I saved you. You follow me now."

"Follow?" I said. "Follow where?"

"Follow where I lead. Do what I say."

Skink laughed. "The Motherman's burning. There's only one thing we can do now: climb. Even that isn't going to save us."

Broc stared at Skink with a dangerous new interest. "Little Ma, if we climb, it's only because I say so."

"Don't call me that."

"I'll call you what I like."

"Now wait." I stood to intervene. Before I could say another word, Broc planted his meaty hand upon my chest and pushed me down into the weave, hard. 

"I decide," he said. "Where we go, when we go. What we do. What you're called. I do. No one else."

"But that's—"

He planted his foot on my throat. His leg seemed as solid and immovable as the Motherman's. I could only gurgle, my arms flapping uselessly. He turned to Skink. "You do as I say, Little Ma. Everything. Without whining." He pressed his foot harder onto my windpipe. My vision darkened, and I barely heard his next words. 

"Or just like the other bugs, I will squish your friend."

"Keep climbing," Broc snarled. "Or do you want me to take your Little Ma away?"

"I'm not his," Skink said, but I just shook my head and bent my back, ploughing up the slope after him.

Pillars of fungus sprouted from the mineral decay. Broc stopped as we passed a column and broke off a fleshy, shelf-like outgrowth. Skink groaned in disgust.

Broc glanced at her, defiant. "It's just meat. Like heart-meat. Gift of the Motherman."

"It's gone bad," she said. "Can't you smell it?"

Broc lifted the dark meat to his mouth and took a bite. "It's good," he declared, chewing furiously. He thrust the wedge toward me. "You try."

I shook my head. The reek turned my stomach. 

Broc laughed. "Go hungry then."

We rested as Broc ate. I was utterly exhausted. My limbs ached from the ceaseless climbing; my lungs struggled to fill with the cold, thin, smoke-infested air. Through the gaps in the weave, the evening sky remained clear. No sign of approaching rain, just as the smoke pouring from below showed no signs of dissipating. Slowly, surely, the Motherman burned away beneath us. 

Skink huddled close, sharing a wordless moment of... companionship, I supposed. Sure knowledge of a shared fate. Her callused fingers squeezed my hand. Her touch felt good. I closed my eyes, and for a moment I allowed the fear and dread to fade.

Broc was squatting a little distance from us. He abruptly doubled over. Black fluid gushed from his mouth.

Against my better judgment, I lurched toward him. "Are you all right?" 

He paid no attention, shivering, repeatedly retching. No recognition in his eyes as I approached. Skink pulled me back. 

"Leave him."

How could I? Despite all his brutal flaws, Broc was the only family I had left. Skink didn't count. She wasn't even from our tribe, really. None of us had much longer to live, if the fire below raged unabated. Shouldn't I try to offer some comfort, even if I knew he would never do the same in return? 

"Please." Skink tugged my hand. "Let's go. While we can."

I hesitated. She was right. Broc wasn't safe to be around. Especially for her. Calling her "Little Ma". I knew exactly what he planned, should we survive. His single-minded desire to create a new tribe.

"Look." Skink pointed at a large column rising into the frontal cortex, the weave around it twisted into a stair. "There's a way up."

Broc broke into another wet heave. The sound, sight, and smell were terrible.

"I can't just leave him."

"He's gone bad. There's nothing you can do." Her face twisted in disgust and anger. She released my hand. "Stay, then. Go bad too."

Broc had become limp. I could feel the fever radiating from his slumped body.

I turned. Skink already stood at the foot of the column. "Wait!" I began to run. "Wait for me!"

In our world of grey-green weave, I'd never seen such brilliant color. Glinting reflections, refractions; red as the bloodiest sunset. A great crystal sphere, so large its curvature wasn't immediately obvious. As Skink urged me closer I could see the pattern of cracks, segments shattered and missing, the crow and bat nests, the centuries-thick patina of dirt and dust and shit. But none of it dimmed the great orb's beauty.

"The eyes of the Motherman," Skink whispered. "Do you remember Da's stories? How you were supposed to see the entire world through them?"

Despair returned despite our magnificent location. Home burned beneath us, and mention of the lost only stirred more dark thoughts.

Skink took my hand and drew me from the great eye, back toward the narrow galleries of the brain through which we had climbed. "Where are we going?" I asked, but she was already far ahead. She used mainly her hands, and I my feet, which suddenly felt awkward and cumbersome in the constricted space. 

She was following the crystal of the eye, as it tapered into a cable-like structure, winding deeper into the brain, were it combined with its twin and finally branched around the walls of a small chamber that shimmered with rainbow colors.

About to enter the glowing chamber, Skink gave a cry of surprise and halted. I peered over her shoulder and saw it already held an occupant. 

But no longer a living one. Sitting on the chamber floor, a body so withered its age or race was unguessable. I couldn't tell whether it was male or female, human or clever or something entirely else. Its yellowed teeth were bared in a grin; only wisps of hair remaining on its moonscape scalp. But although withered, half-mummified, there were few other signs of decay. Perhaps the thin, icy air had preserved it. Perhaps it had only just recently relinquished all grasp on life.

Skink crept into the chamber. She poked the body's skeletal arm. The limb was stiff, wax-like, hardly moving. 

"Don't touch it," I warned, refusing to enter the cavity.

Skink shoved the body and it clattered to the floor. "Look!" She waved at the chamber's veined, tightly woven walls.

At first I didn't see anything, my attention still on the crumpled body, fearing it would leap back into vengeful life. Then my eyes adjusted, and I began to notice the faint glimmer upon the chamber walls. A watery blue above, a murky darkness below. The more I looked the more the distinction grew solid. A horizon.

"It's the outside," I said.

I climbed in and stood beside Skink. She was nodding and pointing. "More than that. Look there."

At first an indistinct bump on the horizon. As I concentrated it became clearer. The Hunter. I easily recognized the giant's muscular silhouette, the pattern of his frozen, half-thrown net. And as I looked, it seemed suddenly that we were traveling, flying over the mist toward him. I cried out in fear. Skink's fingers tightened painfully on my arm, but she was laughing. "We're not moving, Percher. It's just making him look bigger."

She was right. The image of the Hunter was magnified, sharper and closer, as if viewed through one of the telescope devices I'd read about in Da's books.

Skink frowned, and the image wavered. I wondered if she was controlling it, somehow. Was this the power of this place, that you could truly look through the eyes of the Motherman? I glanced again at the chamber's previous occupant. At what cost, this ability? 

Soon Skink was able to turn and focus the scene at will: the Maiden, the Beast, all of them shown in amazing detail. Despite my fears I gawped at the images. How my young climbling self, perched on the edge of rents in the Motherman's skin, would have loved this power.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to just above the horizon. Farther than could easily be seen by the human eye, a sharp-edged dark line.

Skink gasped. "It's land!"

And as if in response to this revelation, the whole Motherman, our entire world, suddenly shuddered around us.

"Oh no! No!" In a sudden reversal, it was Skink rather than me who was screaming, "Stop! Stop!"

I couldn't believe my fear could increase, but it did now. "What? What is it?"

Skink didn't answer. Instead she cried, "Oh no!" again.

The Motherman's steps slowed. Thumpthumpthump thump…thump—

Too late.

A mighty crash. 

For the first time since I was a young climbling, I lost my grip upon the weave. Hurled from the chamber, through the loose web beneath the rotting brain. My outstretched hand caught a passing stem, but I was tumbling too fast. The withy tore, unable to hold me. 

For seconds, it seemed, I flew. Then pain exploded across my back. 

My body had stopped. But my mind kept falling.

"Shhh." Skink's hair caressed my face, her dark eyes luminous with concern. So pretty. Why hadn't I noticed before, how pretty she was? "Don't move. He's still raging."

I tried to respond. Only a hoarse groaning noise emerged. I lay half-buried in bird bone gravel. My back ached, but I could wriggle my toes. 

"Shhh." Skink frowned. "Lay still. Don't draw attention to yourself."

Other sounds began to register. Enraged shouting nearby: screams, weave being torn apart.

Not only I, it seemed, but Broc had awoken, too. I must have fallen back all the way into the nasal cavity below the Motherman's eyes. 

"It's not right!" Broc shouted. His voice seemed odd. Choked with anger. "The pattern isn't right!"

What pattern? Why was it wrong? Slowly, slowly, I levered myself onto my elbow to get a look at the commotion. 

Broc was staggering, aimlessly, not far away. His appearance shocked me. Black ooze still dribbled from his mouth, but more than that: his teeth had become yellowed, many fallen out. A tarry substance trickled from his ears. His face was wrong; all wrinkled, mask-like, as if it were about to slough off. Great clumps of hair had fallen or been pulled out from his scalp. His nose... his nose was a mess.

He bared stump-like teeth and hissed with a lustful fury. He had spotted us. "Little Ma, Little Ma! Start a new tribe, you and me!"

I staggered to my feet, my legs trembling. We were near the open gash of the nose, the sun setting over the dark, flat mass of land before us. The Motherman's arms were clamped upon the cliff walls, now become two huge bridges. A crooked, half-collapsed tower faced us—the lighthouse I had glimpsed earlier—and crows and gulls from the Motherman's skull now mingled with the winged natives of that ancient construct. 

"Come here," Broc rasped. He charged clumsily at Skink. She dodged easily away, swinging upon the loose web filling the cavity.

"Leave her alone!" I shouted. I picked up a fallen, mummified gull and threw it at him. Despite hitting him square in the face (more luck than skill on my part), it seemed only to enrage him. He stumbled toward me, face bulging, stretched fingers talon-like. 

I tripped as I back-pedaled. Suddenly he was upon me. He opened his foul, blackened mouth and shrieked. Far below, I heard the faint answering cries of the clevers that had so far been held at bay. Perhaps that was why they had fallen back before him? Not through fear, but in the knowledge that soon enough he would be one of them; the leader they had waited for. 

A blur of limbs. Broc staggered back. Skink swung around, hair billowing in the breeze. "Leave him alone," she snarled. "Leave us alone!"

Broc bellowed, wordless. He lumbered after Skink as she swung from withy to withy down the slope toward the nose cavity's edge. She somersaulted over the struts. This open area was perfect for her; her feet barely touched the weave as her wiry-muscled arms powered through it. 

Broc roared in frustration, accelerating as she slowed, arms outstretched like a razorbug's pincers. My heart skipped a beat. He was going to shove her over the edge. But Skink swung over a horizontal strut—and her twisted feet landed firmly on his back. He fell forward, arms pinwheeling, an expression of surprise upon his ruined face. 

I crawled over to the edge, to make sure he wasn't clinging below the lip of the opening, or that a swarm of razorbugs hadn't miraculously swooped in to save him a second time. But there was no sign of him. Only a sheer drop, directly above the mist that forever lapped the Motherman's feet.