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"It doesn’t matter," the High Priest rasped. "It’s only a little while longer anyway."

"So what happens now?" the demon asked. "Is there something you do, some invocation?"

"No, nothing," the colourless woman said. Her eyes were squeezed to tiny slits against the glare. "Do you want us to throw you in or will you jump in yourself?"

The demon opened her mouth to answer and then, suddenly, she felt it, through the ground, the rising force of the final eruption, building and rising. "Get out," she said. "Get out now."

"What?" the High Priest blinked. "What did you say?"

"Get down as quickly as you can," the demon shouted, her voice cracking through the rising thunder of the volcano. "It’s about to blow. Can’t you feel it?"

"The god will not allow..." the High Priest began, and then he felt it too. The demon saw him glance down at the crater and shake his head. "We can’t go without witnessing the sacrifice."

"All right," the demon managed. "You’ll have your sacrifice." The effort to keep her disguise together was getting too great, the heat and the light burning away the shadow, and as she spread her arms and let herself topple over backwards into the crater, she felt the clothes and sandals melt away, her own face and form coming through, but then she hit the molten rock. It was around her now, closing around her face and limbs, and then the incandescent light and heat were all around her, through her, she was part of it, and it of her.

And the mountain swallowed her down.

When the knight stepped out from under the shelf of rock, dawn was just breaking through the smoke and clouds of ash. He looked around, still astonished that the mountain hadn’t blown apart the previous night. There had been a while when, crouched under the rock shelf with his arms round the beast, he’d thought it was a matter of moments, when the rock overhead had creaked and shifted and the ground underneath shuddered and quivered.

For a moment then, he’d considered leaving the shelter of the rock. He’d considered going back up the slope, to find the demon, and, if he could, to bring her down with him or share her fate. It was only because he’d no idea where she might be that he’d hesitated.

And then, the mountain seemed to have taken a deep, long breath, and quietened down. The rumblings had reduced, the earth ceased to shake so much, and though the sky overhead was still thick with smoke, the ash that had been raining down for days had thinned to a drizzle.

Looking up the slope towards the summit, still shrouded in smoke as black as night, the knight saw a tiny, fluttering reddish shape. It eddied back and forth, like a leaf caught in a wind, but surely no leaf could have survived the heat of the lava and gas up above. The knight squinted, peering, as the thing twisted and turned and finally caught on a boulder which stuck out of the grey ash like a broken tree stump. He watched it try and free itself, and then subside, defeated.

Then he called the beast to him and led it up the slope to where the thing lay, and overhead the clouds of smoke dissipated, slowly, one by one.

The sun had finally emerged, almost overhead, when he reached her. She lay caught in the boulder, one charred wing still weakly fluttering, the other an incinerated ruin. She turned her head slowly towards him.

"Man," she whispered, as faintly as a grain of dust falling. "Beast. You came."

The knight knelt by her. "Demon," he said, helplessly. "Demon."

"It’s good to see you," she said. "Good to know you cared enough to come. I wanted to see you, at least once more." She reached out a twisted, burned claw. "Take my hand," she said. "Just hold me."

The knight took her hand. His mouth moved, forming useless words.

"I fought the mountain," the demon whispered. "I fought the god of the mountain. I met it face to face. fought as I’ve never fought before, fought to drive it down back from where it had come. And I won. I won."

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