Jihn looked up at the pillars of pockmarked stone that towered over him and gulped. Legend said that this was once a great house of some sort and that the winds of time had filed away roof and walls. He didn’t think so. The pillars were clumped too close together to act as supports for a roof and near the cone-shaped tips, thin branches spread like fingers to the sky looking more like living trees than dead stone.

All sorts of fearsome dangers were ascribed to this place, from two legged scavengers and bandits to more the more fantastic—dog-men, ghuls, mad wizards and even the hungry dead. He shivered and drew a line of protection from forehead to heart. He wasn’t a witchman but he knew how to ward off bad luck.

Reaching into his vest’s inner pocket, he retrieved the folded piece of paper. He spread it out and studied the picture that had been drawn on it- a simple jewel that had been cut into three interlocking crescent moons. Finding it would free him from his family’s curse and give him back his life.