Time tombs.
I am a fan of Dan Simmonds - especially of Drood, and the Hyperion Cantos. They paused at the head of the valley. Soft dunes gave way to rock and ink-black shadows at the swale which led down to the glowing Tombs. No one led the way. No one spoke. The Consul felt his heart beating wildly against his ribs. Worse than fear or knowledge of what lay below was the blackness of spirit which seemed to have come into him on the wind, chilling him and making him want to run screaming toward the hills from which they had come... But the Cantos only provide half of the metaphor I'm looking for, as my way into the feelings of this post. Another book by Dan Simmonds is Drood. Here, Wilkie Collins is the fallible and deeply flawed protagonist, narrator and cause of some wicked going's on; obsessivly observing and commenting upon the less than noble behavior of his equally talented and flawed friend, Mr Charles Dickens, Inspector Field stopped. I stopped. After a moment, he said, “Your poi