“Where’s Cang?” Fassn asks, blinking away the drops cascading through his stringy hair. He’s allowed himself to be pulled back into the smithy with Abia and Shyan.

Shyan stares at him in open disbelief. “You saw him transform, right? And walk out the door?”

“Yeah,” Fassn says, with a drawn-out aspect, as though he’s trying his best to remember.

“His skin turned grey. He got new teeth, just like you. He touched the purple fang.”

Fassn reaches around to gently dab at his shoulder blades. “I miss my wings.”

“Not relevant. We’re going to see Ulxurix, the witch.”

He brightens. “Oh yeah! She did my teeth. Did we ever pay her?”

Blushing, Shyan says, “Well, no, but we were working on it. Still are.”

Abia signals to Shyan to move things along.

“Right. Fassn, get ready. We’re going back into the rain.”

Lightning strikes, and in that flashing instant, written across the faces of the three is pure terror.

Fassn tears after Cang, explodes outdoors into the pouring rain. He widens his arms and turns his head up to face the drops, catches them upon his outstretched tongue.

Shyan and Abia watch from the doorway of the smithy as Cang disappears into the mist, walking toward the lich’s castle.

“Crap,” Shyan says.

Just then, Abia senses a tingling, a creeping awareness of the lighthouse behind them. She turns to find it in the fog, and though is top is occluded, a faint orange glow eminates from it.

“Visit witch,” Abia says.

“Shouldn’t we go after Cang?”

Abia shakes her head once, with sadness and finality. “Cannot alone.”

Shyan glances towards Ulxurix’s lighthouse and shudders. “Fine. Just let me grab water boy, here.” She marches into the storm to collect Fassn, happily swallowing the rain.

Abia smiles.

With a burst of thunder, lit dramatically from behind like an actor onstage, the door to the smithy slams open, and in stumbles the blacksmith himself, Horton Belwether. His eyes fall upon the dessicated, grinning Cang, and Horton falls down.

Cang laughs. “Horton, you fool. Could there be a worse eternal servant in this pissant town?”

“It’s just,” Horton says breathlessly from the floor, rolling like a turtle to regain his footing. “It’s just, I thought you didn’t want him.”

Sneering, Cang says, “You’re right on that account, Horton.” He wheels to face Abia, points an accusatory finger right at her. “I wanted her. Look at the power that courses through her!”

From the floor, Horton replies, “I see it.”

Shyan helps the portly blacksmith to his feet. “Look, I could see why you might want Abianarin, sure. But Cang? Come on, who needs him?”

The lich within Cang laughs again, a high, crackling sound accentuated by the lightning brewing outside. “You’re right, of course. But this form shall serve in the interim.” He makes for the door, which flies open with a bang, as though the wind invites him out. He says one word before departing in the tumultuous rain. “Ta.”