Magic Girls of Multiverse Inn 4: A Reverse Portal Fantasy, page 26
Her blonde eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes were still hazy and distant.
“What is it, Prinna?” I asked softly. “Did you sense something?”
“I don’t…” Prinna shook her head. “It can’t be.”
Before I could ask any more, the beast appeared in the open doorway in front of Izzie.
The thing towered over the five-eight woman at probably close to ten feet. It had the head of a bison, with a large bovine muzzle in the middle of a furry head. His eyes were brown and there was a look of intelligence in them. A large gold ring hung between his two nostrils, and short horns curled back from the beast’s temples. The creature had the chest of a very hairy man with thick arms, though, and instead of humanoid hands, he had three thick fingers and no thumbs. He stood upright on thickly muscled legs with cow hooves at the end.
“It’s a fucking minotaur,” I muttered to myself.
The creature’s nostrils flared as he roared, and there was a spark of something unsettling in the beast’s brown eyes.
“Aaaah!” Izzie roared back, and she fired three quick shots.
The first two missed as the beast ducked much faster than I would have expected. The third caught just the edge of the minotaur’s ear, and the beast screamed in pain.
I felt more than saw Prinna’s body tense at the minotaur’s scream, and I’d heard it, too. The minotaur’s roars had sounded pained this entire time.
Action exploded in front of me before Prinna or I could say anything.
Izzie rolled out of the way as the minotaur stomped forward, and Kaz came up from behind the beast. My Enchanted lover swung her sword at the back of the beast’s thickly muscled chest, but he must have heard or felt her movement. The minotaur lurched out of the way, and just a bit of Kaz’s blade sliced a shallow cut across the back of his body.
It all happened in just a few milliseconds, and I was still reeling from the sense that the minotaur’s roars this whole time had been soaked in pain.
“Stop!” Prinna screamed.
Only five full seconds had passed since the minotaur had appeared in the doorway, and I was amazed at how quickly my whole perception of the creature had shifted.
“Don’t hurt it!” Prinna screamed again.
As her voice echoed off the stone walls, I darted forward. My body moved on pure trust in Prinna’s abilities, and I knew faith alone was driving my action. If she was wrong, we were probably going to be very hurt, but I had to believe her.
Izzie hadn’t had any intention of stopping, and I knew she assumed this beast was out for blood. The brunette pirate would do whatever was necessary to kill the creature before it hurt any of us.
Izzie bared her teeth at the minotaur, and he roared in response. I caught Izzie’s bicep just as her muscle tensed to swing her butterfly blade around, and I squeezed.
“Wait!” I shouted with urgency.
Izzie’s arm still tried to swing her weapon, and only my grip on her kept her from wounding the minotaur. From my vantage point, I could see the brief flash of fear in the minotaur’s brown eyes, and I knew Prinna had been right.
“Stop!” I said in a commanding voice.
“What are you doing?” Izzie demanded.
“It’s hurting!” Prinna shouted as she raced forward.
My white-blonde witch threw herself between the minotaur and Izzie and me. Prinna faced toward the beast, and she stared up four feet above herself to gaze at the creature’s intelligent eyes.
“You’re hurting,” Prinna repeated the words, but her tone had shifted from urgency to compassion. “I can feel your pain.”
“What?” Izzie hissed in confusion.
“Come on,” I whispered to Izzie, and I pulled her back.
Kaz slid along the wall behind the minotaur until she was closer to Izzie and me. The whole time Prinna stared up at the minotaur and spoke in a soft voice.
“You’re not going to hurt us, are you?” Prinna murmured like she might do to a frightened rabbit.
The minotaur snorted roughly through his nostrils, and the bull ring rocked with the force of the breath. The beast took a half-step back, and his shoulders seemed to relax just a tiny bit.
“There’s…” Prinna hummed, and she tilted her head slightly like she was listening with more than her ears again. “There’s something… There’s a desire for it to stop…”
“What is happening?” Izzie hissed to me.
“Let her try,” I advised. “I think it’s working. This is a Test of Excellence, right? That might include wisdom… I don’t think we’re supposed to kill this thing.”
“Neither do I,” Kaz whispered.
“You’re in pain,” Prinna said with clarity. “Where? What’s hurting you? Can you show me?”
The minotaur snorted again, and he crouched slowly until it was in a seated position on the stone floor. Prinna crouched down in front of him, and she waited with all the patience of a saint.
The beast stared at Prinna with lingering fear and a hint of suspicion, and she just waited. Her body language spoke of tolerance and acceptance for whatever the minotaur was going to show her.
Finally, the beast shifted his left hoof off the ground, and he offered Prinna a view of the soft tissue underneath the hard exterior wall. I inched closer, and I saw a bit of something that didn’t look like it belonged wedged into the underside of the minotaur’s hoof.
“Oh, that must feel terrible,” Prinna breathed with sympathy. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes,” the minotaur said in a deep voice that surprised us all.
“It talks!” Izzie gasped.
“Shh,” I hushed her softly.
“May I look closer?” Prinna asked, and she reached out tentatively.
The minotaur scowled slightly as he flinched away from her hands.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Prinna said. “I want to help.”
The minotaur’s brown eyes darted over Prinna’s head to glare at Kaz, Izzie, and me.
“We won’t come any closer,” I said, and I forced Izzie to take a step back with me. “We’ll stay right here, if that’s what you want.”
The minotaur snorted again. “Yes.”
I gave the beast a slow and calm nod, and I placed myself just in front of Izzie to try and give him more confidence in my promise.
“There’s an arrowhead jammed into your hoof,” Prinna diagnosed. “It looks infected.”
“Can you help?” the minotaur asked.
“I think so,” Prinna said, and she turned back to look at me. “I need the first aid kit.”
“Yeah.” I started to pull it from the rucksack, but before I stepped forward, I looked at the beast. “Can I bring this to her?”
The minotaur narrowed his eyes at me, and I realized that, despite the square pupils, the overall shape was almost human. Finally, after a few seconds, the minotaur gave me a curt nod of his massive, furry head.
I walked forward slowly, and I kept my hands visible the whole time. Once the first aid kit was passed off to Prinna, I left my rucksack nearby in case she needed anything else, and I backed up in the same way.
“This needs healing,” Prinna explained as she sorted through the contents of our first aid kit. “Or the infection will spread to your blood.”
“Can you heal it?” the minotaur asked, but the whole time, he kept his eyes on the three of us.
“I can help a lot,” Prinna said. “But I need to take the arrowhead out first, and that’s probably going to hurt.”
The minotaur flinched so hard that fear and worry for Prinna’s safety crashed through me. I fought the instinct to pull her away, and I watched the beast’s body for signs of attack.
“It’s the only way to help it heal,” Prinna assured him. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.”
The minotaur stared at her for a very tense moment, and my heart pounded in my ears the whole time. At any second, this beast could have changed his mind and ripped Prinna to pieces. Time ticked by painfully, and I started to assess the risk of trying to fire a bullet right into his brain from my position.
But that might cause us to fail this test.
Test of Excellence.
It was so ambiguous, and I felt like my gut instinct to slay the beast was probably exactly what Potorn, Obin, and Hool would be testing here. No, it made for a more interesting challenge for success to come through this dangerous and unobvious path of helping the beast.
“I think this is part of the test,” I whispered to Kaz and Izzie.
“What?” Izzie asked in a sharp tone.
“I think we’re supposed to help him,” I said.
“Caring for others, no matter who they are, in their time of need could be considered a form of excellence,” Kaz pointed out.
“But so could the prowess to slay such an enormous beast,” Izzie countered.
“But we already showed our strength,” I argued. “And this beast is intelligent.”
“Okay…” Prinna’s voice drew our attention. “I’m going to pull the arrowhead out now. Are you ready?”
The minotaur’s face contorted with what I guessed was trepidation, but he nodded.
“Okay, I’m going to give you a count to three, like one, two, three,” Prinna explained. “Then I’ll pull it out on three.”
The minotaur nodded again, and he took a deep breath.
I already knew Prinna was going to take Izzie’s advice from earlier, and she wasn’t going to wait for three to pull the arrowhead. I only hoped it would work for the minotaur, too.
Prinna used a pair of pliers from my rucksack to grip the arrowhead, and then she started her count of three.
“One…” Prinna pulled the arrowhead out with a single rough tug.
“Aaaaaaahhhh!” the minotaur roared with pain.
The minotaur slammed both his fisted hands into the stone floor beside him hard enough that the tiles cracked like spiderwebs. Fear speared through my brain and chest, and I lurched forward before I could stop myself.
My body clenched from my teeth to my toes, and I fought every natural urge in my being that screamed for me to get to Prinna.
The beast hadn’t moved toward her at all. In fact, he had leaned back when he’d slammed his fists into the stone tiles.
“Okay! Okay!” Prinna called in a comforting tone that was laced with fear. “That was the hard part! The hard part’s done!”
“Aaaarrrrrggg,” the minotaur growled.
But then he took a deep breath, and his massive shoulders relaxed.
“I’m going to put this healing cream on the wound now,” Prinna explained, and she held up a tube of antibacterial cream. “This will help stop the infection.”
“It will help ease the pain, too,” I added in a helpful tone.
The minotaur grumbled, but he remained still and allowed Prinna to dab a huge glob of antibacterial cream on the underside of his hoof. A few seconds later, his body relaxed even more, and he sighed with relief.
“I’d like to bandage this,” Prinna said with a small hint of frustration. “But I don’t think there’s any way to do it…”
“Give him the cream,” I said. “He can keep it.”
“That’s a good idea.” Prinna smiled. “Thank you, Sam.”
I nodded and watched with awe as Prinna spoke to the minotaur.
“Do you have a way to keep this clean?” Prinna asked, and when he nodded, she went on. “Clean it once a day, and then add another layer of this cream until it’s healed. Can you do that?”
“I’m a beast,” the minotaur said in a surprisingly sarcastic tone. “Not an idiot.”
“Yes,” Prinna laughed softly. “I can see that.”
“Thank you,” the minotaur said. “For your care, and I have some news for you.”
Prinna stood up and brushed the sand from her butt. “What’s that?”
The minotaur stood up slowly, and he tested his injured hoof before he spoke with a much lighter tone than before.
“You have passed the Test of Excellence,” the minotaur declared in an almost kind voice.
Kaz breathed out harshly as Izzie chuckled wryly, and my shoulders sagged with relief. Prinna glanced over her shoulder at us with a joyful smile on her face before she looked back at the minotaur.
“Helping you was part of the test,” I said. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Victor of Excellence,” the minotaur replied.
“Shouldn’t it be ‘Champion’ now?” Izzie teased.
“You will earn the title of Champion when you reach the center of the labyrinth to collect your ultimate prize,” the minotaur explained. “But there will be no more creatures to stand in your path, and the plants will be docile as you pass.”
“Can you tell us which way the center is?” Prinna asked.
“Or how far it is?” I added.
“It is near,” the minotaur answered. “I am not permitted to share more than this.”
“Thank you,” Kaz spoke up.
“Thank you,” the minotaur replied.
Then, without another word, he turned and left the way he’d come. My lovers and I stood there in a thick cloud of confusion for several moments before any of us could speak.
“Holy shit,” Izzie breathed. “Sam, you were right.”
“Nah.” I shook my head and smiled at Prinna. “Prin was right. She figured it out, and we couldn’t have done it without her magical intuition.”
“I’m just glad we could help him,” Prinna said bashfully.
“Don’t downplay this, Prin,” Kaz said with a big smile. “We would have failed the test if not for you.”
“It’s true,” I chuckled. “Who knows what would have happened to us then.”
“Nothing pleasant.” Kaz shuddered. “That’s for sure.”
“We would have fought our way out,” Izzie said confidently.
“Well, thankfully, we don’t have to,” I murmured. “Let’s find our prize.”
“Eeee!” Kaz squealed softly.
Prinna clapped her hands together lightly, and Izzie had a giddy smirk on her face.
We started walking in the direction we thought was the center and the violent plants actually moved away from us as we passed. Another burst of the freakish chittering sound hit my ears, and then it faded as the creatures retreated from our location.
About ten minutes after the minotaur left us, Prinna started to get that far-off distracted haze in her hazel eyes again. Her footsteps slowed, and we all paused beside her.
“What is it?” Kaz asked.
“You’re sensing something,” I said.
“Hang on…” Prinna raised a hand to silence us.
She tilted her head to the side, and the last bits of sunlight glistened on her white-blonde braids. Her expression went from concentration to confusion to disbelief over the span of ten seconds.
“No…” Prinna breathed. “What?”
“What is it?” Izzie asked.
“Something that doesn’t make sense,” Prinna answered, and she started to walk away.
Kaz, Izzie, and I stood there staring at each other with baffled expressions for a second before we hurried after our witch.
“Prin!” Kaz hissed.
But as we followed Prinna around the next corner, we got our answer and a fuck-ton more questions.
We’d come around the corner to a huge open courtyard covered in beautiful flowering plants. A long, rectangular water fountain and reflecting pool occupied the middle of the space, and the water was crystal clear. The stone walls were topped with small decorative globes, and an elegant geometric pattern had been carved into the top foot of the fifteen-foot-tall walls. It was similar to the patterns that had been carved into the stone slab we’d first used to enter the labyrinth.
But the weirdest part of this place wasn’t how beautiful, serene, or quiet it was.
It was the gorgeous woman lounging in the last rays of orange sunlight on a stone bench beside the fountain.
“Who the fuck is she?” Kaz breathed.
Chapter 17
The woman had thick, curly brown hair covered lightly by a sheer scarf in a shade of eggplant purple. She had strong features and sharp cheekbones with warm brown eyes under bold eyebrows. Her nose was strong and straight, and her skin was a beautiful shade of golden brown.
She wore similar clothes to the serving women in the oasis, but her deep purple outfit was somehow elevated compared to them. Her gold jewelry was dainty and accentuated her strong features. Her abdomen was bare in the sunlight, and I could see the subtle lines of muscle under her warm brown skin. Her skirts hung lower around her hips like the belly dancers’ outfits, and her toes were bare other than several small gold rings.
She was bathed in a circle of warm light, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. It seemed to accentuate her features in the most beautiful way, and I was amazed at how much the scene looked like a masterful painting.
She looked like an Arabian princess brought to life before me, and I had to internally slap myself to get my mouth to close.
“She was expecting us,” Prinna whispered emphatically.
“Who is she?” Kaz hissed.
“I don’t like this.” Izzie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
My mind raced. Who was she? Was she some sort of final boss monster we had to defeat? Like a succubus or the ancient Greek sirens who’d lured sailors to their deaths with their beautiful singing?
No, she couldn’t be. The minotaur said there wouldn’t be any more monsters for us to encounter, and I believed the beast.
Was she a contender who’d gotten lost in here, or a traveler who’d stumbled in by accident?
Doubtful.
Prinna was right, this woman didn’t look surprised at all as she finally opened her eyes and sat up from her lounging position.
“Heroes,” the woman breathed in an ethereal way. “You have reached victory. Welcome.”
“Um…” I mumbled in confusion. “Hello?”
“My champion,” the woman said, and she stood up with an excessive flourish. She swooshed her long scarves and all the extra material of her clothes around her like a dancer. The bright circle of light seemed to follow her like a staged spotlight despite the sun sinking lower beyond the horizon. “Long have I awaited the savior who would free me from this eternal imprisonment.”
