Book One – Chapter 3

Some of these entities gained contours in the strange ashen light. Others were so nearly transparent that they dissolved into the space around them. Yves could distinguish them only through disturbance, when they moved and a neighbouring return of light altered around them, or when they passed close enough to obstruct a certainty of light that should otherwise continue. With most, he could not hold them in focus for long, even when they passed directly before him.

    Here and now, Yves saw one.
                           Perhaps two.

Both were much smaller than himself. He recognised them just vaguely, at the edge of awareness, at that threshold where perception faltered and doubt began to seep in.

The nearer shape moved beside a ridge. Its flattened front inclined towards what Yves conceptualised as the ground. Four faint extensions contracted beneath it without quite lifting. For several moments, the configuration seemed almost comprehensible.
Then the creature’s angles changed
                                and   i t     _{disa p p e  a  r  e   d  .}

Not behind or into anything. Its relation to the surrounding light simply ceased to produce enough difference for Yves to distinguish it. He continued to focus on where it had slipped into alignment. The thing had offered him neither menace nor meaning, and somehow that absence made it harder to dismiss.