“Ever know any of them — uh — personally?”

“I have encountered a few — now and then,” he replied.

We rose higher. The castle had been doing the same. A fall of meteors burned its way, brightly, silently, behind it.

“They can inhabit a human body, take it over.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I know of one who has done this thing, several times. But an unusual problem has come up. It apparently took control of one on the human’s deathbed. The passing of the human seemed to lock the ty’iga in place. It cannot vacate the body now. Do you know of any way it might escape?”

Gryll chuckled.

“Jump off a cliff, I suppose. Or fall on a sword.”

“But what if it’s tied to its host so closely now that this doesn’t free it?”

He chuckled again.

“That’s the breaks of the game, in the body-stealing business.”

“I owe this one something,” I said. “I’d like to help her — it.”

He was silent for a time, then replied, “An older, wiser ty’iga might know something about these matters. And you know where they are.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry I can’t be more help. They’re an old breed, ty’iga.”

And now we bore down upon that tower. Our roadway under the shifting kaleidoscope that was the sky dwindled before us to but the tiniest of streaks. Gryll beat his way toward the light in the window and I peered past him.

I glanced downward. The prospect was dizzying. From some distant place a growling sound came up, as if portions of the earth itself were moving slowly against each other — a common enough occurrence in this vicinity. The winds beat at my garments. A strand of tangerine clouds beaded the sky to my left. I could make out detail work in the castle walls. I caught sight of a figure within the room of the light.

Then we were very near, and then through the window and inside. A large, stooped, gray and red demonic form, horned and half-scaled, regarded me with elliptically pupiled yellow eyes. Its fangs were bared in a smile.