The only sort of tasks worth being set were impossible ones. - Brian Aldiss

I think I'm undergoing a Lyra-2-type paranoia onslaught, but I'll be okay again in a minute.

They would tear the wiltmilt to living pieces until nothing of it remained — and if they happened on a human at the same time … well, it was the way.

The night was alive. So thickly was the snow falling that, brushing against a human face in its descent, it resembled the fur of a great beast. The fur was less cold than suffocating: it occupied space normally taken up by air and sound. But when the sledge stopped, the staid brazen tongue of a bell could be distantly heard.