Casmeer is the only living soul left in Thermidore, high atop the mountains of Overhang. So it has been for hundred of years. Immortal historian and chronicler, Casmeer is the self-appointed keeper of the city's remains and its crystalline inhabitants. Finnigin is a young terranaut, whose people collect the crystal fragments from Thermidore that wash down from the mountains to use as pilot stones to guide the floating cities across the Flatlands. Finnigin is forced to leave his people on an initiation of manhood, to journey across the plains and confront the mystery of the pilot stones.

Ays is a Priest of Hands, a consoler to the dying, in the floating city of Min. His faith shaken by the words of a dying man, he undertakes a journey of his own, and leaves his floating city to face the unknown on the Flatlands. But as both Ays and Finnigin travel throughout their world, they are huanted by a mysterious figure who seems to know more about them than they do themselves. And as Ays and Finnigin cross paths, they find their lives linked in ways they could not have imagined. While in Thermidore, Casmeer, the last immortal, has one last chronicle to write.

First time in print in the US, with a new introduction by the author.