The world of the Well-Built City thrives on the study of the body shape to predict the outcome of a person's personality, deepest secrets, and future, and Physiognomist First Class Cley—a man who shapes generations—is plunged into a horrific world when he discovers the truth about himself and his profession. Reissue.

After beholding the destruction of the Well-Built City, physiognomist Cley is now a simple healer seeking peace and atonement in the happy village of survivors. When the town falls into a deadly sleeping sickness, Cley must make a dangerous trip to the ruins of City—now beset by mechanical birds and werewolves—to seek out an antidote. The evil Master Below is still alive, but an accidental exposure to the sickness that he created has put him into a coma. With the help of Below’s adopted demon son, found in the wreckage of the laboratory, Cley ventures into the mind and intricate memories of Below to search for a cure. Cley will encounter wonders and dangers undreamed of in the second installment of this classic trilogy.

"Jeffrey Ford's World Fantasy Award-winner The Physiognomy introduce Cley, master of a twisted and terming science in a nightmare city. In the brilliantly audacious Memoranda, the reformed physiognomist embarked on a surreal quest through the mind of the monster who imagined the dark metropolis. Now comes the third and final leg of Cley's bizarre life journey.Cley has witnessed miracles, and both he and his world have bee changed by them. But now the former Physiognomist First Class must travel to the inconceivable ends of his world—and into the perilous heart of a sentient wilderness. Only there, where demons and wraith feed on flesh and terror—where astonishing sights and circumstance are commonplace—can amends be made and the old Cley buried. But the Beyond has its needs and a living consciousness that encompasses all the wonders within its boundaries. And each step forward bring, Cley inescapable responsibilities as it carries him deeper into the core of legend and toward a mystery older than time.