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of blood that she slowly gained on it.
    A spirit could not be destroyed utterly: not even the spirits of little things like mice and frogs, let alone a strong spirit older than mankind. But if she could get over the wyvern again and crash it into the rocks below, then she could do harm to the Liar—oh yes, real, satisfying harm.
    With the prize so near, Saara’s own weariness dropped away. She saw the wyvern disappear behind the shoulder of a gaunt gray peak, but she found it again in moments. Once more she lost the creature and once more found it.
    Now purplish blood spattered the bare stone shelves below as the wyvern snaked its way deeper into the cracks of the mountains. It was heading for one high, solitary cone shape on the horizon. Perhaps there to make a stand.
    Saara pressed still harder, for she did not want to encounter this thing on the ground, where even a bear of the north would be no match for the half-dragon. She wanted to drop it from the sky—to smash it to jelly. She was almost upon it.
    But the wyvern, with all the appearance of terror, put on a burst of speed and together they approached the face of the mountain, tiny beak to writhing great tail. Saara cried in fury, and the wyvern bellowed back its wrath.
    There was a window in the sheer cliff of the mountain: a perfect, tall, arched window, larger than the doors of men. The dove gave one astounded blink and cry, watching the wyvern disappear into it. She beat her wings wildly to the front, but it was far too late to stop her own progress, and Saara fluttered rolling into Satan’s watchtower.
    Lucifer, seated in his tall chair, caught the bird easily as it skidded across the table. He prisoned her within the compass of his fingers and lifted her, feet upward, into the light for better viewing.
    In neither his appearance nor demeanor was there any trace of the wyvern he had been: no scales, no blood. He was in his most usual and comfortable form, that of a king in red (red showed off his golden hair to good advantage), and the family features rested agreeably on his face. He regarded the rumpled dove with a certain curiosity.
    But none of this is to say he was in a good mood, or that he had forgotten the jaws of the white bear on the wyvern’s neck. Pink flesh showed between the rutched feathers and down of the dove’s breast and belly. The little legs kicked, and the head which protruded from between his finger and thumb squirmed right and left. Lucifer felt the tremor of her heart, quick and nervous as a tree of leaves in the wind.
    He discovered that when he squeezed the creature, her tiny twiglike beak opened, and when he released the pressure of his hand, it closed again. He amused himself in this fashion for a minute or so, and then he said calmly, “You have a sadly inflated idea of your own abilities, little hen.”
    Suddenly the dove writhed in his hand, and at the expense of a few feathers, twisted around enough to deliver a sound peck on the skin between his thumb and forefinger.
    Lucifer cursed and shifted his grip. He called Kadjebeen, and before many seconds had passed, the small raspberry-shaped demon had erupted through the door in the floor.
    â€œBring me string,” said Satan very quietly. Kadjebeen disappeared once more through the door.
    After the demon’s disappearance, Lucifer’s complacent smile returned. Kadjebeen was his current favorite among the palace staff, being quite handy and even more afraid of him than most. Very soon he returned with a spool of red twine, which he carefully tied around one of the dove’s legs.
    The other end of the length of twine was attached to one of the barbed turrets of the image of the palace on the table. Kadjebeen bit his lips anxiously as this was done, for he feared damage to his handiwork.
    Lucifer was aware of his servant’s trepidation, and it gave him a good deal of satisfaction. Throwing the spool of red twine at Kadjebeen’s head, he