The archon turned away but most of its limbs remained splayed across the road like columns of an ancient structure, Parthenon or Pantheon, long sloped trunks of solid grief rising to an incorrigible spinal column. A long, coiled tail dragged behind it, scraping whole neighborhoods off the earth in pendulous swishes. At the end of the tail skittered a tremendous hooked barb.

(Chapter 27)