The Last Gold of the Decayed Stars is a sewn hardcover, limited to 235 hand numbered copies, 60 pp with illustrated end papers, a full-color frontispiece, two-colour text, illustrated canvas boards.
Anna Rhulen has been bequeathed a journal and a small collection of photographs, by her grandmother, relating prewar adventures, in a strange town, on the hinterland of the old Kingdom of Illyria. The journal mentions a secret, kept hidden from the old woman's family, that only Anna can uncover. She visits the town, on the Adriatic coast, once a haven for exiles and runaways, with its mysterious river and places like The Street of Banished Time, where past, present and future, are blurred and intertwined. But she finds that memories of the old town have been deliberately buried, expunged or destroyed; reappearing only in visions or dreams that disturb and unsettle the modern inhabitants. Those who knew and loved the secrets of the town, exist only on its fringes. Anna is befriended by Francesca, a chambermaid at the hotel; a building that once hosted the passionate dances of Le Ballet des Fuyardes, those memories and echoes are now distorted and decayed. Francesca introduces Anna to The Keeper, who constructs maps and patterns of the old town, from rumours and dreams, and inhabits the Haven of the Golden Head; a numinous area of desolate marshland. He discloses the fate of the buried river, whilst Francesca reveals her boathouse home; the site of her own strange creations and where fragments of verse, are sent by her mystery lover. But the modern inhabitants, led by The Captain, a man haunted by visions of the ruins of The Chapel of the Saints' Tears, seek to obliterate finally, all memory of the old town. Instinctively drawn to the source of its mystery, his plans imperil both The Keeper and Francesca.
