The burning reached down deep in Talver's skin and made him itch. His bleeding wounds healed up to his surprised, but he could not help but scratch and feel new stubble sprouting from his arms. His nails got longer, too, which helped the itch but burned his fingertips. A braver man, who'd used the amulet on purpose with knowledge of its function, might have endured the pain much better. Talver, in his complete ignorance and his fear of his forgotten victim's vengeful brother, was in horror.
"The antidote," he said, still panting, thinking it was poison, "the ANTIDOTE! (Pant, pant!) I'll give tell (huff) anything you want (pant) to know! (Pant, pant!) Just give me (huff) the ANTIDOTE!"
"The antidote is time, you fool. You're not going to be yourself again this year, or the next, or even the next. And besides, you already told me everything."
Talver was barely listening any more, no matter how loud and clear the words were in his drooping ears. He was just desperately trying to expel this heat from his body and scratch away the itching. The stubble was getting longer, grayer, tanner. Then he flinched. The heat attacked his tailbone, and then the heat began to spread, as though the thing were swelling. And then he felt a tightness up against it. And then he felt a stretching in his boxers, the only clothing he had not removed.
"Ah, ah, ah! There's something in my pants! There's something in my pants!" Well, really they were his underpants, but no matter. Sereth grinned to watch him scream. Talver felt the thing that was stretching his boxers backwards shift and then get funneled down one leg of them against his thigh. The hair grew on it even faster than on the rest of him.
"What the hell is that? What the hell is that? There's something HAIRY in my pants! Ah! It's moving down my leg!" It was longer than his boxer's now, and reaching past his knees.
"What, you mean this?" mocked Sereth, yanking down the boxers and grabbing Telver's new appendage. Talver gasped. He could feel a hand around the hairy thing was no longer in his boxer's or against his leg. And somehow he could sense that it was out between his butt. He whipped his head around and saw Sereth holding long from just above the changing man's own ass. Telver reached out with both hands, but before he could grab it, Sereth yanked it back, hard, and Telver screamed. Sereth laughed and pulled again, Talver screamed again and pleaded with him:
"STOP! Whatever your doing, stop it, PLEASE! Just please, you gotta let go of that thing, I beg you--"
"Hah!" said Sereth. "Good job begging! You'll get the hang of it in no time. Wouldabeen nice to see you beg for my forgiveness like you're begging for your tail. But here ya go. Knock yourself out, mutt." Sereth let go of the thing, and Talver felt a strange new reflex tuck the thing against him through the space between his knees. He grabbed it for himself, trying to soothe the ache he could still feel in it, and most of all trying to keep it away from his captor. He urgently examined the thing he was protecting, and then he recognized it. It was the tail from that stray dog outside! But Sereth had called it HIS tail! Did that mean...
"YOU'RE TURNING ME INTO A DOG?!"
"Bravo!" said Sereth with sarcastic clapping, noticing that Sereth's floppy ears jerked back from every hand clap. "Man, you are a coward. I doubt my sister screamed and flinched this much."
Talver felt his hands begin to cramp. Through his tail, he felt them getting longer. The darkened claws his nails had become grew closer together as his fingers shortened, thickened, and stopped separating so easily. His tail fell out of his grasp and tucked itself tighter toward his belly. His thumbs shortened until their own claws were as big as they were. The underside of his fingertips and part of his palm grew dark and rough, until nothing remained of his hands except the fore paws of a canine. He dropped to his knees in confusion and despair, hardly even relieved to be alive. He still thought this transformation might kill him and assumed he'd never be himself again. Sereth was happy to let him think that. If he survived five years as a dog, then his reverse transformation would be a second surprise that might create a truly changed man.