Memoranda

The Story

Once Cley held a position of respect and fear in Master Drachton Below's cruel autocracy. As physiognomist, Cley practiced a sanctioned, twisted science that condemned men and women to death for the size of their foreheads or thrust of their chins. Yet Cley emerged from the ruins of the Well-Built City a better man, dedicated to healing the physical ills of the simpler agrarian society he has chosen to join. Below's great evil, however, has never abated-and he was not destroyed when his dark social experiment exploded. For his own senseless reasons, he has unleashed a plague of sleep upon Cley's friends and neighbors-a disease that, ironically, has felled the Master as well. And the only antidote lies in a terrible place the former physiognomist fears to enter but knows he must: in the illusory house of a madman's dreams, imagination, and remembrances; in the intricate palace of memories Drachton Below has scrupulously constructed in the Stygian depths of his mind.