Sorry about the poor quality scan. I received the picture already framed and couldn't fit it on the flatbed properly, resulting in poor and irregular lighting, and some loss of detail. The illo is better than this.

I tried flipping it so that I could use it as a background image on LJ, but that completely destroyed the image dynamics, interestingly.

I'm a little late on this, but before I forget: the new issue of Shadows of Saturn is up (edited by Peter Burtis, who was in my Clarion posse), with stories by yhlee and Greg Beatty, and a backgrounder on Tolkien and Norse myth by another fellow Clarion cenobite, Trent Hergenrader, who is magisterial on the subject.

KEN noki meaning: eves, house counter 軒並み (also spelled 軒並) == nokinami == (noun, adverbial noun) row of houses 軒先 == nokisaki ==  (noun) edge of the eves, house frontage

Left radical is 'vehicle' (車). Right radical is 'dry/forked weapon' (干), used here phonetically to express 'high/raised' This character originally referred to a canopy over a vehicle. In Japan it became associated with the roof of a house, and especially its eves. Henshall suggests as a mnemonic: 'Vehicle kept dry under eaves.' Info from Taka Kanji Database List of compounds including this character from Risu Dictionary