The Night Moors

The lands of the Night lie west of the Twilight Line, in three strips running to the sea. The High Moor is rolling, dry ground of heather and gorse with basalt outcrops the shepherds call teeth; the Vale of Echoes opens in its south. Below it come the Peatlands, a waterlogged strip of moss, rushes and black pools, whose peat heats the houses of the moors and is sold in Nocturna. Along the sea lie the Saltmarshes, mud and tall reeds and herons, which breathe twice a day now that there are tides.

In the everlasting night the moors were grey, the colour of wet ash; the heather did not flower. In the first week of sun it flowered all at once, and the moors turned violet from horizon to horizon, while the gorse put out a yellow the shepherds still have no word for. They say “yolk-coloured”.

Since the wind reversed, the mist blows from the sea toward the land, and the moors are mistier than they have ever been.