" There was a curse. It lay on all of us, though we didn’t know it. Anyway Lacau didn’t. Standing there, reading the tomb seal out loud to me in my cage, he didn’t have a clue who the warning was meant for. And the Sandalman, standing on the black ridge watching the bodies burn, had no idea he had already fallen victim to it. "

― Connie Willis , The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories