Mael was hungry. The very highest of the city high flyers, she often went hungry, as food could be difficult to find on her lonely, lofty Perch.
       But this high place suited Mael; she told herself that. She would wake, well before morning song, the early sun pleasant on her skin as she clung. By the time that sun reached the lower Perchants, the city would be baking, shimmering with thermals, so not even a stinking Ternazine would creep from shade.
       At this great height, there was less chance of a rock, falling from above to scour her from her Perch, less yet of missiles dropped by Ternazines, hoping for an easy meal. Few of the brutes ventured this high.
       She stretched her long limbs and licked moisture from a rusted outcrop. She had eaten some fruiting bodies the night before, tiny fungal growths found on the face of the Perch.
       But they weren't well tasting, and they weren't enough. This Perch was more stone-like than most, but its huge rusted skeleton showed, and exterior fruits would be leached with the taste of ancient steel.
       The Perches had died a long, long time ago, she knew. Some had crumbled to dust and rubble and others were precarious, ready to crash to the ground so that no Perchant would risk a hand there.
       Her Perch stood tall yet, its convoluted faces soaring high into the sky. Other Perchants lived on its lower parts, but only Mael would claim the top, the tallest of the city.
       But even she would not risk the South face, the hanging garden it was known as. The highest parts of this face curved into the sky, like the petal of a rose about to drop. It was dangerous and beautiful, covered in hanging plants, bright flowers and trailing fronds that swayed in the breeze.
       Her Perch, she thought, must have been magnificent when it was still alive. Countless empty eyes dotted its ancient flanks, letting light into decaying internals. Those eyes were an invitation to creep out of the punishing heat of the day and forage for rot. Where a Perchant could be caught, and eaten.
       The sunrise glowed red behind the jagged skyline of ruinous Perches whilst across the canyon, and much lower, clusters of Perchants hung, still companionably asleep. Searching, she found Nial and Anty, watching them for a while. Anty's stomach was just beginning to round. Mael touched her own flat belly, cupping it in her long black fingers.
       Anty's Perch had reduced to its rooted steel skeleton, and a few faces of silvery glass, but Ternazines could be spotted inside, rummaging on the hunt. Nial claimed there were still rich pickings in there and didn't understand why Mael preferred her lonely heights.
       Anty, the only other survivor of their journey, three years ago now, said nothing to that, but she and Mael would exchange a glance.
       Mael swung across the face of her Perch, long arms stretching, finding handholds with ease. She knew what lay behind some of the eyes, but it would take many years to look inside them all. She paused at the edge of a temptingly odorous one, listening.
       Ternazines were dumb as bone, but they were sly. They would find a damp chamber with well tasting food and lie in wait.
       Upside down, long black hair dangling, Mael lowered her head below the top corner of the eye, where an edge of glass still held, dangerously sharp. As always, she had to wait a few tense moments to adjust to the gloom of the Perch's internals, but then she made out a moldering mass in the middle of a large chamber. It was wonderfully rotted, large fruiting bodies protruding temptingly from sides that must surely have been wood.
       She waited, listening. The cicadas had started, but the city did not yet throb to their racket. This was higher than most Ternazines would wish to go, but she had seen one poking around lately, not even trying to hide how he watched her. A strangely colored male, chalky white and powerfully built. There had been those strange occasions when she would feel herself watched and turn and see it at an eye, and they would stop and stare at each other.
       She and the strange white Ternazine had been living near each other for months now, and, despite the mild expression of curiosity it wore, she had no doubt that the monster was fixed on eating her. She could imagine its heavy jaws, closing over her thigh, and would run her fingers over the old scar on her leg.
       Ternazines were clumsy. Their faces weren't dissimilar to a Perchant, but they were squat and light colored, like dust or stone, and their stubby limbs, though terrifyingly strong, were unable to bear their lumpen weight on the exteriors of Perches. So, they were creatures of the inner worlds, or scavengers of the forest or the bone fields far below, where they would catch rats and dogs. Perhaps even a foolishly intrepid Perchant girl, leading her friends on what seemed like the adventure of their lives.
       Mael had occasionally, dangerously and, in Anty's words, showing she had learned nothing, ventured deep into the innards of her Perch. Those deeper internals were frightening and mysterious, with strange openings leading into darkness, chambers filled with delights and terrors. The dead creature's deep spaces were strewn with the bones of Builders and filled with sharp shards and areas where the very stuff of the Perch might tumble into its belly. She had found curious internal wells that even a Ternazine might climb.
       Now, she leaned carefully into the eye. It smelled succulently moldy, the central mass surely well-rotted wood. She crept further inside, sniffing, searching, extending an arm to touch the base. It was nicely spongy, good to eat. A step and she was fully inside.
       She stood, her head brushing the top of the chamber, sniffing and listening, before heading for the fruiting bodies. She lifted one, having to pry it from a Builder skull.
       A noise behind her then, and she froze. The white Ternazine was standing near the eye. He smiled and spoke, his voice a deep, rumble. "At last, Mael."
       Mael wondering if she could reach the outside before the creature was on her. Ternazines, on flat ground, were very fast. The alternative was to run deeper into darkness, the natural realm of the Ternazine. She whirled, took two long steps and threw herself into space, snaking a hand at the last to catch the edge of the eye and spin herself towards the face of the Perch.
       She hit hard, scrabbling, falling, scraping the crumbly surface, terrified of bouncing into the empty. She fell all the way to the next layer of eyes, but caught herself. She held tight, winded, the bare skin of her hips and belly scraped, nerves jangling.
       Still puffing hard, she looked up. The Ternazine's head was hanging out of the eye.
       "I was scared you had fallen."
       She didn't answer, and, after a while, the head disappeared. Still too shaken to move, she clung, letting her heart slow.
       "Hey!"
       He was back again, calling in that deep Ternazine voice.
       "You hungry?"
       He was holding the fruiting body she had pried from the Builder skull. Then, after a moment, he dropped it and she caught it easily. A huge fungus, with a wonderful smell. When she looked back up, the Ternazine had gone.
       She closed her eyes and made herself relax, but soon the heat was building, and the first voices were being raised. Morning song; her favorite time of the day, when sweet Perchant voices all over the city threaded together, high and pure. Putting the fall and the strange white Ternazine from her mind, she climbed to a favorite shady spot and interweaved her own long notes into the complex harmony. She could always find Anty's voice, and they would follow each other, like children playing once more.

       The next day, she found herself looking into that same eye, all the lovely food in there. That Ternazine had trapped her. Why didn't he grapple her to the floor and break her bones with his huge teeth?
       She leaned carefully in, letting her eyes adjust, and there he was.
       He said, "Hello again."
       He was leaning against the massy bulk of wood, holding another fruit. He held it out, as if he expected her to come and get it.
       "Do you think I'm crazy?"
       "Everybody thinks you're crazy."
       She blinked. "What?"
       "That's what the other Perchants say. I like to listen to them. They think you're weird and crazy. Didn't you know?"
       She glared. "Yes, I knew."
       "Don't worry. Everybody thinks I'm crazy too, lonely, beautiful Mael. You want this? I don't know how you can eat this shit."
       He pushed off, not moving fast, but she swung away, up the face of her Perch. He looked out of the eye, finally spotting her above him.
       "There you are!"
       He carefully placed two large fungal fruits on the edge, before disappearing again.
       Mael came down slowly. This wasn't unheard of; Ternazines using bait, talking. But this white creature was exceptional in his weirdness. What was it he called her? Lonely Mael. Beautiful Mael.
       She was used enough to young men, Perchants, calling her beautiful, but there was something deeply disturbing hearing that word from a stinking Ternazine's mouth.
       When the Ternazine appeared next, he was two eyes further along. "It's perfectly safe. I'm way over here."
       They stared at each other for a while, then she stretched out, keeping her eyes on him as she picked up a fruit and bit into it.
       "You know my name."
       "You're quite the talking point, a rare beauty, living way up here. On your own."
       She wondered how much he had heard, the sneaking beast. Did Perchants still talk about her idiotic journey to the forest? Blaming her for the death of her friends. She said, "I like it that way."
       "Would you like to know my name?"
       "No."
       "I'm Simon Wilson."
       She couldn't help it. She laughed. "That's a funny name!"
       "No funnier than Mael."
       Then he said, "I would never harm you."
       She stared at him for a long time. "I've seen what Ternazines do. With my own eyes."
       "Not me. Surely you can see that?"
       "What do you mean?"
       He put his hands out, indicating himself. "Isn't it obvious?"
       "No."
       He did something strange with his eyes, swiveling them in their sockets. "And you are meant to be the cleverest of Perchants! I'm a whitey, see?"
       "So what?"
       That stopped him. "Perchants don't know this stuff? Why some of us are pure white?"
       "No."
       "Wow, you are spectacularly ignorant."
       She frowned, but didn't reply.
       "Ok, I'll tell you, as you are clearly fascinated. Ternazines can live on ancient Builder bones, with just a few rats or a dog sometimes. But we go white. We're whiteys."
       Mael was beginning to understand. "You are saying, you don't eat Perchants?"
       "I did a long time ago, I admit."
       She pointed at him, her eyes narrowing. "Did you ever live in the forest? When you were murdering us?"
       If he caught anything in her tone, it wasn't obvious. "The park? That's no forest. The true forests are outside of the city and they go on forever."
       Mael could see far, but not to the edge of the city. The forest had fascinated her once, an obsession, but her journey to what this Ternazine called the park cured her of that.
       "So, why don't you eat us now?"
       "Like many others, I don't think it's right to eat something that speaks. Calls for help."
       Mael had to turn away, wincing from the memory of Melly crying for help even as they tore her, wondering if this creature was playing a nasty game.
       "You're very convincing. Clever, for a Ternazine."
       "I am."
       "Which is why I'd be a pure fool to believe you."
       He pointed to the fungus. "You know where you get the best of those things?"
       "Where?"
       He smiled. "The middle of the Perch."
       Mael looked at him for a long time before smiling herself. "You're sneaky." She scooped the fruit into her bag and was gone.
       For the next weeks, it seemed there was always food, left at one eye or another. Mael and Simon Wilson talked, sometimes for hours, but always with him well inside and her at the eye. She had to remind herself what it had been like when the Ternazines fell on them in the trees. The horror of what they did to Melly and Cal. Those jaws, clamping her own leg.
       She had never spoken to one of these creatures before, nor looked so closely. But, when the sun sank, she found herself paying attention to the Ternazine song of nightfall, their deep mournful harmonies, and wondered which voice belonged to Simon Wilson.

       The hottest part of the day, and Mael was in shade, idly watching fibers rising on thermals. Anty surprised her, calling as she climbed towards her. She couldn't remember a time when Anty had crossed to this Perch, yet here she was.
       "Welcome! But what are you doing climbing thus in the heat of the day? And you pregnant."
       She slid down to where her friend hung and hugged her tight.
       "I needed to talk, dear. Suddenly it couldn't wait another moment."
       "Well, at least rest and eat. Here."
       Mael handed over a large section of fungus, only half eaten.
       "This is from the Ternazine?"
       Mael looked away for a moment before nodding.
       Anty stared at her friend as she let the fruit drop, spiraling as it fell to the bone fields. "Mael, what are you doing? What are you thinking?"
       "What?"
       "Don't act foolish! It's one thing to live up here all on your crazy own, but taking to do with a Ternazine! Are you gone mad?"
       "Anty…"
       Her friend cupped her swollen stomach. "Please, Mael! There was a time when the young men vied for your attention. No longer! Do you care so little for those that love you, that you put us through this?"
       Mael struggled to answer, but found tears in her eyes when her friend hugged her and spoke more gently.
       "Don't take his gifts. I shudder to think what is in his tiny Ternazine mind."
       When Mael didn't answer, Anty hissed, "Have you forgotten?"
       "You think I could?"
       Anty put her hand on her friend's arm. "It wasn't your fault."
       "The Elder said..."
       "We were fools! All of us. But think well on what they did to us, Mael."
       When Anty left, Mael climbed to the very top of her Perch, finally gaining a spot shaded by bushes and stunted trees. Across the ragged skyline, she could see the river, steaming in the heat, and the shimmering haze of distance.
       The following day, she saw where a fruit was left but did not go near. Did the same the next day, and the next.

       Mael woke with a feeling that something was terribly wrong. It was not dark, as a huge yellow moon hung above the jagged city, but it was cool, and the insects were quiet.
       There, on the edge of hearing, the voice of Simon Wilson, something in his tone making her move fast, slithering downwards. She paused listening. The call came again, unmistakably from the hanging garden.
       She crossed to its edge, but then hesitated, unwilling to trust that wilting petal of stone. Another shout and she moved carefully across. It sank under her weight and she froze, not breathing again until it steadied. This was madness.
       "Mael!"
       Telling herself she was a fool, coming just because he called, Mael stretched a long leg into the crazily tilted chamber. She cast around in the gloom, searching for Ternazines, then crept to the opening at the other side. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, and she found herself looking at a teetering confusion of broken Perch.
       Simon Wilson somewhere in there, said, "Don't come any further."
       She edged forward, feeling with her hands and feet before trusting her weight on anything. Small avalanches of debris dribbled with every move, but she could see Simon Wilson now, lying pinned by a fallen member.
       "No! Don't come near."
       She stalled, then stepped again, and this time his call sounded panicky. "I was wrong to shout. Stay back, Mael."
       She edged closer, feeling everything wobble and tilt, and hunkered slowly down beside him. He was staring into her eyes, plainly terrified, looking more like a Perchant than he ever had. He whispered. "I can't move. I think I must die here."
       "Are you hurt?"
       "Hard to tell. I can't breathe very well."
       Then he said, "Go now, quickly. I shouldn't have called."
       "Why did you?"
       "I wanted to see your face, one last time. Please, Mael, go."
       A rusty member lay partly across his chest, and Mael didn't see how it could be moved without bringing all down. A crazy notion, a Perchant risking herself to save a Ternazine.
       Still, she put her hands on the crumbling steel. "Be ready."
       She put her shoulder to the steel, feeling how precariously it teetered. Then she pushed, and Simon Wilson was wriggling and everything was shifting and dropping. She was moving fast, Simon Wilson scrambling beside her. The noise was enormous, the dust choking as she dived for firmer ground, heading away from the hanging garden.
       She gained an outside chamber, and there too was Simon Wilson. Between her and the eye. They stood like that, looking at one another, getting their breath back, Simon Wilson massaging his side. She stepped to the side and he moved with her.
       "Is this where you eat me?"
       He looked stunned. "Eat you? Don't you know yet? I love you."
       Mael tried to hide her shock as she skirted him.
       "You don't have to. . ."
       But she was gone.

       Many days passed without fruit appearing and she had to admit to herself that it was making her edgy, thinking she might not see him again. But she thought too of what Anty had said, and often looked down to find Perchants watching. Sometimes she waved and usually they returned her greeting. But not always.
       Then one day, not food, but Simon Wilson himself, sitting in an eye. She swung down, halting just outside his reach.
       "Why were you gone?"
       He smiled. "Did you miss me?"
       She was about to deny it, but the words would not form.
       He was looking closely at her. He said, "You know, I've been watching you since before winter. You are truly beautiful."
       That took her breath away. "How can you say such a thing?"
       "It's true."
       "But I'm Perchant. You're Ternazine."
       "We don't call ourselves Ternazines."
       "What, then?"
       "People. Perchants are people too. We are the same."
       "We are by no means the same."
       "You have over-long arms and narrow frames, but we are all descended from the Builders."
       "Those are fairy stories."
       But her attention wasn't on what he was saying. She pointed to a livid mark across his chest. "Was that from when you were trapped?"
       He shook his head and it seemed he wouldn't answer. Then he said, "It does not sit well with all my kin, the time I spend with you."
       She shook her head, at a loss for words.
       "They know that I love you, Mael. I've told them."
       She had somehow managed not to think of him saying those words, when he was staring at his death.
       "The leader of the local tribe, Trevor Simms, has threatened to banish me."
       "Banish?"
       "Send me out of the city."
       When she just looked at him, he stretched his arm to touch her, but she moved further from his reach.
       He said, "If it didn't mean leaving you, I would go tomorrow."

       All through the winter, Mael and Simon Wilson continued their strange, arms-length conversations. Slowly, the length of those arms shrunk from a Perchant's to a Ternazine's, to them sitting together, not quite touching. Each time he moved to put a hand on her, she would jerk back and glare.
       Then came a day when he asked her outright, could he not kiss her?
       She shook her head. "Never."
       She had never spoken of it, but now she told the tale of the idiot girl and her foolish ideas, how she led her small group of friends to death and horror. She told how she had seen two of them, eaten even as they screamed for help. Showed the bite mark, still visible on her own leg.
       "Now you understand why I can never suffer myself to be touched by a Ternazine."
       She had not cried over what had happened, but now she curled up and wept. When he put his arm round her shoulder, she fell into him, clutching him as she sobbed.
       As winter heated into spring, they spent their days together and, when he raised his deep voice in song, she heard the beauty in it. She intertwined her falsetto with his and together, they would sing.

       Word of Anty's baby was brought by a handsome young man who only a year ago had been working hard to make Mael his mate. Now he showed his climbing skill casually, flying up the Perch to stop near her, but leaving a distance.
       "Greetings, Yohan. It's good to see you."
       Yohan did not return her smile. He looked into the distance. "Anty and Nial have had their child. A boy"
       "I'm so pleased!"
       Still, he did not glance her way. "Anty invites you to her celebration, tomorrow at morning song, on the escarpment."
       Mael noticed that the invitation was from Anty only, but did not query it.
       "I will be there, with all my heart."
       Now, he did look at her. First at her face, then dropping his eyes to her swelling belly. "Perhaps you should not."
       She felt her face redden, her lips quiver. He asked, "Do you need to ask why?"
       "Anty has invited me."
       "And you will embarrass her by your presence. And the Elder. But you will do as you will, as ever."
       The next morning, Mael was one of hundreds making the journey to the escarpment. Perchants swarmed across Perches and ran swiftly across the bone and rubble of canyon floors.
       She recognized many, but they did not acknowledge her. Instead, they turned their faces. Eventually, she joined the throng on the escarpment. It felt, as she walked forward, as though Perchants shrank from her. She almost turned and fled in shame, but instead raised her head and the parting crowd led her straight to the front circle. Anty was there, she and Nial in the very act of passing their baby to The Elder. Both their eyes went wide when they saw her, and Nial's face pinched.
       The Elder was grinning widely as he took the baby.
       "Welcome friends." He lifted his eyes and drew a breath, catching sight of Mael. He glared and then shook himself, to look around and smile. "And welcome to this newest member of the great Perchant family."
       His eyes were on Mael's again, "There is no greater gift, than a new baby, a gift from the Gods of old, the wondrous Perches. A pure Perchant child."
       Now he was taking a handful of precious water from the bowl, and pouring it on the baby's head. "I anoint this baby, Nial the New. A true born Perchant."
       Mael tried, but could not help herself cupping her own stomach. Then the morning song began, and she joined, closing her eyes to sing, a song of welcome and celebration today. As always, her voice sought Anty's, but this time her friend's voice slid away and would not twine.
       When it finished, the morning heat was building, and she went quickly forward to wish Nial and Anty joy of their new baby, but standing in front was The Elder, his expression forbidding. She paused, aware of the attention on her.
       She bowed. "Give you joy of the new child, Elder."
       "You should not have come."
       There were intakes of breath at that.
       "You despoil this ceremony." He pointed, disgusted, at her stomach. "You and the abomination inside you."
       Mael fled.

       Two mornings later, Mael swooped down towards the huge fruit Simon had left, picking it up as she hopped into the room, the smile she had for him already in place. There was always a moment, entering the gloom, where it was difficult to see.
       So, she didn't react when her wrist was encircled by a hand, beyond turning to beam. Then, another hand grabbed her, and she was bundled to the ground, rough, fierce voices in her ears. She tried to pull away, too late, and something hit her in the side of the head. Another blow to the ribs.
       Laughter now, and she looked up at the Ternazines. Two of them. She tried to call out, but was kicked in the side and dragged towards the inside of the Perch.
       "We're going to eat you, Mae-yell. Simon's stringy Perchant girl. We're going to bring him your black head."
       The Ternazine nipped her shoulder, ran his tongue up and down her arm as the other one laughed. They tied her, then danced and capered, bending to clack their big teeth at her, nipping but not biting. Not yet.
       Finally, the bigger one stood above her, showing his teeth. "Where will I start? Do you want to choose, Mae-yell? The first bite."
       She closed her eyes against the horror of it, determined to keep them closed, but opened them at a scrambling racket, to see Simon striking the smaller Ternazine with a long piece of metal and then spinning as the other one leapt at him.
       The larger Ternazine knocked him to his knees and they fell together, twisting and punching and biting.
       Mael had never seen a battle, but it was clear that Simon was not winning this one. She pulled desperately at her bonds and at first it seemed that she could not move, then she could move her wrists a little. Finally, one long arm came free.
       The monster was astride Simon, hammering him, as Mael picked up a chunk of rock. Simon Wilson must have looked at her, because his assailant stopped, turning his head.
       Mael had never struck another creature, could hardly imagine doing it. But she swung the chunk of Perch and saw his surprise in the moment before it connected with his face. Simon was suddenly on his feet again, snatching up the club. When the hitting started, Mael turned away.
       Simon stopped and stood panting over what was clearly a dead thing now.
       The other Ternazine pulled himself to his feet, pointing as he backed away. "You're finished, you murdering Perchant lover!"
       Simon came to her then, took her in his arms and stroked and kissed her and searched for hurts. When she had satisfied him that she was no more than bruised, he spoke urgently. "I have to leave the city."
       She was suddenly panicked, thinking of him leaving. "Why?"
       "I'll be killed if I stay." He took her hands. "So will you. They won't rest ‘til they've caught you."
       She looked out over her city, the magnificent Perches, their ruined faces, crumbling even as they soared. "Then we must leave."

       Mael dropped into the bone field to where Simon Wilson stood waiting. He smiled before taking her hand and she looked up, seeing Perches that usually dropped beneath her soar into the sky. A dizzying sight.
       Other Ternazines were appearing, a horde of them hurrying from the shadows to surround them. Mael cried out, but Simon squeezed her hand. He pointed to the Ternazines, who were all carrying clubs. "They are pure white."
       Other, ruddier, Ternazines were emerging, angry and whispering, but the whiteys formed around Simon and Mael, and the strange group started to move, hurrying along the canyon floor. The sound around them became a grumble, and a roar, drums adding to the noise. Rocks began to sail across, one hitting a whitey in front of Mael, but then glass and rocks were falling from above, and the Ternazines were scattered and forced into shelter. Mael looked up as she was hurried along, to see Perchants in their hundreds, holding missiles.
       No Nial, that she could see, but there was Anty, her baby clinging to her back.
       Anty waved, then cupped her mouth to call, "You're crazy."
       Then she called, "Go fast, Mael. There will be a place somewhere, for people such as you."
       Mael raised an arm to her friend. Then she took Simon Wilson's hand, and together, they ran.