The Stargate of Lantyn

The fifth and final volume in the series Tales of Gom in the Legends of Ulm 

Conscience - and the sudden arrival of his friend Wycan - force Gom from the Dunderfosse to attend a tiresome event in Pen'langoth. A few days, Gom tells himself, and he'd get back to work on Harga's island, preparing obsessively for the arrival of the second Spohr. And that's all it would have been until an unexpected revelation propelled him and Wycan far from their planned route and into dangers which threaten not only them but all Ulm and beyond. . . .

The icon, or emblem on the cover and used as page break throughout the book, represents the T for Tamarith and suggests the shape of the tree itself. The radiance within it represents both the power emanating from the tree and the iridescence of the crystals.

The Tamarith of Lantyn:


"Tree" of living crystals possessing powerful, even mystical properties. This illustration, and the two below are printed on matte photo paper and affixed to the book pages.

frontispiece: Gom's vision of Harga trapped with a Spohr inside the Lantyn stargate.

quote for the back cover inset: 

"With a simple nod to Wycan then to Gom, the woman walked forward through the curtain of the Kithyweird and merged into the tree."

back cover inset: the kithyweird, a tree found growing in the center of a mysterious wood. The woman? A puzzle to both Gom and Wycan until they near the end of their journey. Kithyweird?  "Kithy" comes from the old English verb "cythan", pronounced "couthan"  meaning "to make known." "Weird"? In old English, "wyrd" meant "fate"; the three "weird" sisters in Macbeth, for instance,  had the power to tell the Scots king's future. To "dree one's weird" meant "to tell one's fate," or fortune. Here, on Ulm, the kithyweird foretells Gom's fate on two critical occasions and by so doing drastically changes the outcome.