The area also had a bad name because of certain artefacts it housed. These were scattered about the moor in an apparently senseless jumble, though there were those who thought they saw a pattern. The ruins were called monuments, temples, shrines and moot-places, but nobody really knew their true function. Certainly none could guess at the purpose of some of the more perplexing and bizarre structures.

The artefacts were fashioned in stone brought somehow from a distant quarry, and they were immensely ancient. No one knew who had built them.

One particular stone formation, by no means the most extraordinary, stood at the bleak heart of the moor. It was an arrangement of columns and lintels, standing stones and ramparts, that made a whole yet seemed strangely at odds with geometry. Not in a way that could be seen, so much as it could be felt. Through design or decay sections of the edifice were open to the elements — notably a ring of stone pillars the colour of decaying teeth.

Inside the circle, a light burned.

A block of polished stone, chest-high and weighing several tons, was set in the centre. It was worn smooth by age, but the smothering of arcane symbols it bore were carved deeply enough that they were still visible. And now a copious quantity of blood, seeping from a pair of eviscerated corpses, made the markings even more distinct. The sacrifices, one male, one female, were human, opportunely provided by a summary judgement of felony.

A lone figure stood by the altar. Those who favour the night and the creatures that walk it would have called her beautiful. She had waist-length, jet-black hair framing a face dominated by dark, unpitying eyes. The face was a mite too wide, particularly at the temples, and the chin tapered almost to a point. Her well-formed mouth was marred only by being more than usually broad. But her skin was perhaps the most startling feature. It had a faint silver-green sheen resembling that of tiny fish scales.