a sidebar about the weave
(context: they have captured a ghost and are looking at it through a sort of magnifying glass)
They saw the ghost, depicted and projected: the flowing robe, the haggard visage. The face grew large, flattened; a segment under the vacant eye became a scabrous white place. It separated into pustules, and a single pustule swelled to fill the pane. The crater of the pustule was an intricate stippled surface, a mesh as of fabric, knit in a lacy pattern. “Behold!” said Shierl. “He is a thing woven as if by thread.”
...
The rotor whirled to a blur; the bobbin (as long as Guyal’s arm) became spun with ghost-thread, at first glowing pastel polychrome, then nacre, then fine milk-ivory.
- Jack Vance, Mazirian the Magician
They discover that an evil ghost (summoned by a demon) is thread, and indeed the demon is thread as well. They unravel it, and it is undone -- defeated, powerless.
...
I can't find it right now, but there's another story where someone (Cugel?) descends into a dungeon and speaks with an imprisoned demon or some such magical creature. I think it also uses thread imagery, but I can't remember really. I suppose if I find it I'll make another post. It is in The Skybreak Spatterlight, and it has nothing about thread in it at all. Whoops!