From the peak of the ridge, the valley lay insignificant. A thousand feet from his foot to the mountains. The sight was dizzying, hypnotic. A mere dent to the heights still at his back.

  It was a greed that the mountain range possessed. An insatiable hunger from one jutting monolith to the next to be better, to reach higher, to stand more magnificent under the eyes of their gods whilst mere mortals like Selluss Farlief flitted about their heights like dewflies on the Yarner Falls.

  This is the right of it, Selluss thought proudly as he loaded the last of the bags into the hold.

  The sixth. The last he knew he could safely transfer down. Mars holds her true power here. Where juc might think to walk, and dance, and flit about the rest of her surface, here she says no. These lands are my own.

  And so most dared never offend, for who was a juc to dispute a mother’s claim? Only those with purpose enough to try. Selluss breathed, secured the hold, and bent down to ensure said power that he most certainly presented no challenge.

  “I thank you, your gifts,” he whispered to her. “And I shall be once more on my way.” Selluss scanned down the slope below it. It was steep, and it was smooth. It was the perfect runway to push off. So long as his peddlecraft agreed.

  He thought back again to that sixth bag of sourgrain adding its weight to his trunk. He could leave it, he knew. Remove the added kilos from his craft and bring the weight instead into his odds of successfully launching from the mountainside.

  The grains, though, would not wait kindly for his return. It could be weeks again before he could traverse to such reaches. His torvet would be tired, still descending back down the gentle slopes some hundred feet below. He too would ache again after all of this was through once he lay down to rest and his muscles set about repairing themselves from the strain.

  Selluss breathed. No, he required every bag in that hold to settle his quota. And as he climbed into the cockpit of the very craft he alone had assembled from the pieces he had hauled by grit and rope up the face of the cliff sides to reach this specific locale, he knew he must place his faith that this flight would bring him home to the peace and the ale that he so deserved.

  The brakes released, and gravity grasped for control, a slow roll making way for a rushed and bounding plummet down that bank toward that drop of no forgiveness.

  Selluss fingered the yoke.

  The craft tilted, the left wing coming perilously close to colliding with the hard rock surface; the slightest lean of his hand correcting her back on course. And just in time. The cliffside dropped beneath him, and Selluss Farlief and his peddlecraft were airborne. The front and side propellers, kicked into life by the descent, now answered to the rotation of his feet.

  He could still feel gravity tugging away at her, desperate to not have its power frustrated by the four wings and nine blades that resisted its pull.

  “Not this day,” he thought to apologise. “There is too much work to be done.” And he kept to his word and denied gravity its prize as he soared his craft through the shards of this mountain range they named Verilia’s Crown. It was a wicked creature, this crown. And only where one crack from north to south split her reach that encircled the world could juc life manage to thrive.

  Jyckson’s Slit was life in these wilds, and it was the home that this one airborne juc sailed with his hold toward.

  Home. Where peace awaited.

  The drunken old fool, spilling the sweet heavenly contents of his jug, ruined that homecoming. He rambled in his madness as the wastes of ale pooled within the crevices of the yinder tabletop of his perch.

  Such a poor waste of fine ale and wood. That was hard work dripping to the inn’s clean floor. And yet Selluss would not have it said that he paid the fool any further account of his attention than need be accounted for. As he would be most comfortable in saying, any true juc should look the other way, ignore the drunken old fool, and gull down upon the beverages of their own in celebration of their own sacrifice and grit.

  “I tell you this!” The garbled words fell on all, and no one, from the curled back snout of the drunken old fool. Not so much as a single juc ear could be seen to be twitching, a fact completely lost on the speaker of said banality. “That old dog gave that one young pup a choice; stand to the fires or kneel to the ki’fur. Bah! Both ways to the grave, and poor choices at that! Me? I would have spat back in that old mutt’s snout and told him to kiss my hairy scarlet hide. Bah! The likes of it! Sick forms of justice, if you asked me. Whatever happened to the good sense of jury? Huh?! Bah! Gone to the waysides with all your youngin’ ideals.”

  He could be heard to unleash the contents of his mouth down upon the innocence of the recently polished yinder floorboards. “All the lot of ya as equal in the old dog’s crimes, as sure as the whip in my tail. Even as stubbed as it’s become in the presence of this sorry generation of stone hearts and culture rapists.”

  The thud of his vessel back down upon his lonely table echoed louder than it should have. It was no question to any other, more dignified patron, that the innkeep would be short one jug this evening’s count.

  “The young pup done no more than any in his same would not have done; he tried to live! Curse you all! He tried fending for himself in a land as blind to an honest juc in need as a lump of cold steel. For that, the old dog gave him his bloody choices. Fire or ki’fur? Bah! Any juc given same said choice had never had any choice at all. The dear lad took the bloody blade, and the old dog took his bloody head! Bah!

  I only wish you all could have been there. Every Phantagale, Farlief, Clober, and Rian! Every one of you shorn toothed sons of families too bloody stupid to care for your own fellow juc. I wish you’d been there to hear those last words out of the young pup’s snout. ‘Beware,’ he had shouted proudly, ‘beware the juc with the mane of black fire!’”

  It was all that Selluss could bear to hear. “Excuse me, good sir,” he stated, not turning. “The laws you speak of are our hard-fought prices of peace. Now I for one, do not know of any juc with fire for hair; an absurd notion to be sure. Black fire, queerer still. I would have you know this, though: we are the citizens and hard workers of Teir Grove, and we do not appreciate the ramblings of strangers in our parts.”

  “Hear, hear.” A round of applause by way of table patting and tail tapping chorused behind his words. Evidently, it would seem more juc ears were open than had previously been clear. “If you would be most kind to leave our tavern, I would gladly point you north of the slit, up towards Waterstone and the forests beyond. I have no qualms in helping a stranger, so long as you, as the stranger in question, have no issue with the cessation of this jibber jabber — the likes of which have gone on far long enough.”

  The drunk rose.

  Selluss swallowed  and lifted his snout expectantly as the drunk stumbled between tables, swaying like a tree in storm winds, nearing closer, one rough step at time before laying a cold, heavy hand upon Selluss’ shoulder and growling, “You’re the one I’ll be coming to see.”

As though the message had been delivered and sealed, he spent the following nights avoiding Selluss’ gaze with a deliberate, unnerving precision. Never speaking to him, never directly.

  He was simply there, unwavering in his dedication to nuisance.

  That was until the sun’s end of the fifth day dipped down into the sharp fangs of the crown and Selluss sat in the comfortable confines of his homely djarrar, fixed to his chair, crafted with his own two hands, as it rocked beneath his weight at its exact angle between bed and hearth. The pages of his current novel of interest fluttering open before him.

  A thunderous knock pounded through his door.

  Once.

  Then again, harder than before, rattling the entire djarrar, as if someone, or something, intended to split it clean in two.

  “Ahhh!” he groaned, rising from his chair. “What is this?” Down his stairwell he marched as a secondary beat struck the drum of his djarrar. “I heard you!” he shouted, though dread already coiled inside him.

  “I am thirsty and in need of a drink,” the drunken old fool declared to the opening of the door. “Bah! These introductions only dry my throat further. Fetch me an ale now, or I’ll tear this abode apart with my teeth!”

  His eyes were wild, red-rimmed, and unfocused, yet beneath the haze lay something sharp and watchful. He shoved past Selluss without waiting for permission.

  Selluss turned just in time to see him disappear up the steps.

  “No! Absolutely not!” Selluss barked, chasing after him. “You will leave. Immediate...”

  But the intruder was already crouched at the hearth, stealing the fire’s warmth like a creature born of smoke and ash. “Drink.” The demand struck harder than the knocking did.

  “Oh no, no. This cannot be. I have no space, nor the patience for the likes of you, strange traveller. You will leave here now. Right this instance!”

  Another animalistic hiss. “‘Strange Traveller’ is not my name, nor is ‘Sir’, nor are whatever other wicked titles you have bubbling beneath that thin mane of yours. I am Codd Silver, your guest, and I demand a drink!”

  Selluss was sure it was by no accident that it was at that time when the intruder chose to reveal the gleaming visage of a shining blade within the pouch of his belt.

  He gasped. The air itself felt thinner suddenly; the shadows deeper, the firelight more menacing as it played across the steel. “Mr Codd Silver, you must know that I am Selluss Farlief, cousin to Count Wilfur Farlief of Sandstone.” Even as he spoke, he scuttled to his small generator powered cooler.

  “You’re a nosey bastard, Selluss. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Never,” he frowned. “I assure you.” The cool blast touched his face as he reached inside. “Would you care for a treights or issonol?”

  “You diddling with me, Farlief? That issonol’s pure torvet piss.”

  “No, I’m not diddling with you, Mr Silver. I would have you know that this particular issonol is made right here in this very grove’s brewery. I should know; I am the town peddler, after all.”

  “Well!” the drunk mocked with his smile as he refused to take the issonol and greedily snatched the treights. “By this decree we’re brothers now, Selluss. Now take a bloody seat, would you? I came ’ere to talk.”

  Selluss huffed, ignored the blade, and spoke what he knew he should say. “I have no interest whatsoever in that which you ramble.”

  “Liar.” He took a deep swig.

  “I am not!”

  “Watch the tone, pup, or I’ll bury this here blade so deep in your belly it’ll nip your tail right off. Bah! If it wasn’t for my need to find your kind here, I would too.”

  “Oh, I am most assured it is not my type you seek, good sir.”

  The crimson surrounding his eye creased over sharply. “Back to anointing me an old mutt? Bah! To Col with it, you’re the exact little manger I’m after! Farlief. Ever seen a knight before, this far down the slit?”

  It was a simple thing to shake his mane to such a poor question.

  “Bah! I’d wager too that they’ve already infested this arse crack of a town?” He inverted the bottle and dragged an arm across his snout after. “Tell me if I look like a knight?”

  “By every essence of the word, no!”

  “I told you, you couldn’t spot one to save your own dick.” He polished off the contents of the beverage and swirled the bottle about encouragingly. “Get me another.”

  Selluss reeled… Of all the madness… He believes he’s a…

  Codd Silver leaned forth, the air thick with something dangerous and deranged. “You, like the last pup I visited since my escape from Darkwood, have been sentenced to death.”

  Sentenced to death? “Mr Silver?”

  As a juc, Selluss held very little need for blinking, but still the drunk’s stare held long enough as to be chilling.

  “My ale?” An open palm waited in the air.

  Selluss blinked long and hard and returned to his cooler. Hand hovering over the treights, his pulse hammering beneath his fur. The drunk’s claim: that he had been sentenced, unsettled him in a way he struggled to hide. The weight of it pressed on his shoulders like the gaze of unseen watchers in the rafters.

  And behind him, Codd Silver waited… still as a coiled predator.

  Selluss tried to regain control of his breath. “You are welcome to stay here now, sir,” he managed. “Long enough, at least, that I may arrange for the inspector to hear your words.” The words felt brittle in his mouth, but he could think of no other way to keep the situation from sliding toward disaster.

  He heard nothing from Codd in reply. Only the low hum of the generator, the soft whine of chilled air spilling into the room.

  Then came the sound.

  A thud. Sharp, heavy, final.

  Not the stumbling of an unsteady drunk… but the collapse of something with its strings cut.

  It froze Selluss where he stood, spine prickling from neck to tail.

  He forced himself to turn.

  Codd Silver lay facedown before the hearth, limbs sprawled at unnatural angles, the firelight casting trembling shadows across his back. For a breath. Perhaps two. Selluss did not move. It was as if the room itself held still, listening.

  “Mr Silver…?” His voice came out thin.

  Silence.

  No grumbling, no swearing, no threats, no drunken laughter.

  Not even the rough snore of a man collapsed in stupor.

  Just stillness.

  Selluss’ heartbeat quickened until it pounded in his ears.

  He stepped forward slowly, each footfall measured, cautious. As though disturbing the air might trigger something terrible.

  “Mr Silver… are you…?”

  He couldn’t finish it.

  Codd’s fingers were inches from the blade he had brandished earlier. The metal glimmered faintly, untouched by his fall. And there was something unnerving in the way the drunk’s hand hung limp above it. As if reaching for the weapon when something stopped him.

  Stopped him instantly.

  Stopped him completely.

  But what?

  Selluss swallowed hard, then forced himself to kneel. He nudged Codd’s shoulder.

  The body did not respond.

  “No… no, no. This is…” His voice shook. “This cannot be.”

  His eyes drifted to the firelight.

  Something about the way the flames bent. Not parted but bent. Suggested a draft that wasn’t there.

  A presence that wasn’t visible.

  Selluss’ fur bristled.

  The realisation struck him then.

  Not the reality of death, but the reality of implication.

  A dead stranger in his home.

  A stranger who had sought him out.

  A stranger who had declared him “sentenced.”

  Selluss staggered back, breath catching, and before he knew it, his legs were carrying him down the stairs and out into the night air.

  Behind him, the djarrar door swung half-shut on its hinges, creaking softly. The fire inside flickered again. Once, as though something unseen had shifted in the room.

  Selluss did not look back.

“Oh, this is not good! Not good at all!” 

  Down the streets he marched, past Miguel’s workshop and the brewery. Over Greenhill Bridge and along past the Tier Tavern Inn to the fountains of his namesake.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” He muttered. “I knew it. Oh yes, I sure did. No true juc should deal in any other affairs outside his own or his work. But no, no, I am Selluss Farlief and I am addicted to trouble. Oh, I most definitely am a fool!”

  With Deimos and Phobos watching down upon the awkward juc with their bright moonlight, he could only but say, “What was I thinking? Deimos the Brave; it is you that I blame. For what need does a juc have for courage, I ask you? And Phobos the Wise; where were you to show me your path? If I had half the good sense that Codd Silver seemed to have; I would offer you both my most ungrateful of ‘Bah’s’! Oh, a delightful word I am growing to find!”

  “Ah Selluss? Who are you spouting off at?” a fresh voice floated in on his delirium.

   He sighed and turned to this niggardly interruption. “Bandor Rian! Please, away with you. Can you not see my state of affair?”

  The son of the baker beamed joyfully. “Yeah, pal, I see. I see a madjuc bellowing insults to the moon gods.” There was far too much laughter in the dark eyes of that orange and green striped juc for Selluss’ taste, far too much indeed. “Last I heard; this wasn’t the wisest of things to do. The tales say the more you swear to them, the harder they curse you back.”

  The words assaulted him. “Tales? You think I have the patience for tales?”

  Why is this pest even here?

  Could he not see… 

  “This may not be the sort of thing the scion of a baker may understand, but there is little more tonight the gods can accurse me with. Bandor, there is the body of a dead juc on my living room floor!”

  Unbelievably, the juc laughed. “Will you allow me three guesses as to who?”

  “I make no jokes! Nor do I have any idea what now to do. Ohhhhh…If you only saw…” His hands grappled for his tips of ears, knowing the dark ash of his fur was likely to drastically reduce in coverage over this dilemma. “Tell me, Bandor; what does one do with a dead body? I must see the inspector at once!” His own answers streamed forth. “That’s what I must do! He has reports to write up. And, and the doctor, oh yes Dr Rian, your own uncle, he must get on to his autopsies right away, while cause of death still stands so fresh.”

  The clarity would sort all of this out. He just knew it.

  “Hush, dear sweet Selluss.” The juc in question twitched his surprise as the baker’s boy slipped an arm under his mane and across his shoulders. “Simmer down before somebody hears you. Reports will be filed, and autopsies will be… well, sliced as need be. But you will want to be far away from here when they are. You are in a lot of trouble, my friend.”

  “Me!” Selluss huffed. “I have no need to fear the law. Codd Silver was a drunkard! His life sworn to the bottle and ended by the same, staining my humble abode as he did so, mind you.”

  “Walk with me, Selluss.”

  It seemed likely Bandor was not listening at all.

  “Only if it is in the direction of the inspector’s office you wander.”

  “Believe me, by the time we reach his doors you’ll be having far different ideas on which way you’d like to be heading. Unless it is your goal to be in chains and forced to face your choices?”

  “Face my choices?! Dear Bandor, but I have done nothing wrong!”

  “You keep a dead juc to your djarrar. Now more often than less, juc don’t happen to die for lack of a cause. In cases like these, one’s first thought could only lead to suspect the helping hand of the juc most near.”

  “No!” Selluss roared. “Something was there!”

  “You are most probably right.” Back over Greenhill Bridge the two paced, side by side in queer conversation. “Perhaps you should go see Mr Inspector. I only ask first that you allow this humble son of a baker to lock you in irons first so as I am not mistaken as conspiring with you.”

  Selluss knew not what to say.

Another voice, though, caught in before his own, “Fire!” A cry echoing off the mountains around. “Fire! Fire in the grove!”

  “Fire?!” Selluss could barely feel his legs. “Can this night possibly get any worse?”

  It became imperative to ignore the sensation of jelly in his legs and to run, nay sprint, as fast as a juc could sprint. There was a fear the young juc felt seeping into his heart, of an unreal possibility that only his lack of luck could see come true.

  Bandor kept pace at his heel. “What a ruthless juc you turned out to be, our sweet, quiet Selluss.” His laughter drowning out the ringing of bells rather than the other way around as emergency engulfed the grove. “Burning down your own homestead to hide your mischiefs.”

  “I’ve done nothing of the sort! Nor do we know it is my djarrar, it could be…” While comfort could come with the whim of words, the evident evidence dropped Selluss to his knees. The smoke billowed out from his bedside window as the thick shell popped and blistered, the heat inside all too intense for the precious material to endure.

  He would not cry. He swore to himself he would not allow the tears to descend his snout. He was a true juc and true juc were not criers.

  “I wonder what the inspector will make of this?” The baker’s boy squatted. “Come away with me, Selluss, you’re to your neck in conspiracy. But I know a way to keep you from drowning.”

  Selluss Farlief wept.