THE RIDDLE & THE RUNE

Book 2 of the complete 9-volume Gom series

Gom quits Windy Mountain to find Harga, his mother,  and give back the magic rune she left with him at birth. He doesn't go far before he is attacked by a fierce skull-bird. Dodging the bird and moving on, Gom is told a riddle. All he has to do to meet his mother is solve it. He soon finds out that this is not a word riddle but a life riddle - to be solved only by experience. As he struggles on in his quest to find Harga, he meets with good and kindly friends, human and otherwise, and also vicious enemies out to get the rune at whatever cost.

Katak: back cover inset

"The great grey bird was hovering over him, stretching out a neck as long and thick as Gom's arm. As the naked head came close, Gom saw quite clearly that its head was a bone-white skull, half-bird, half-human!"

Illustrated initial O for Chapter 8. If it seems that Gom is hanging upside down in a net suspended from a high tree, that's because he is.

The book includes a fold-out colored  map, graphics, illustrated letters, music and a pronunciation glossary. The tune you may hear is Gom's Quest song.

On the day my father died, / I raised up on high his cairn of stone; / And left behind my homely mountainside,/ For to roam about the world alone. // Now I must seek and I must find/ The riddle's hidden key: / The treasure locked within my mind, / To bring my mother to me.