** Author's note: is anyone still invested in this story? It's turning into quite an epic! Is it worth continuing? Leave a comment or an email.
*****
The minotaur sat at the edge of the circle of light. He snorted and sniffed the air, curious, his massive hands playing in the soft dirt.
Rom was eyeing him with an anxious curiosity. Val and her friends had just made it back to the Forest with their good news, only to be immediately pulled into a council meeting. They were a dozen of them, a mix of various species and types, sitting on cushions or on the ground, around a small fire at the base of an enormous tree.
Rom had sketched the troubles ahead, but seemed distracted by the sniffling brute sitting at the edge of the circle. Gracius was standing by the minotaur, ready to calm him with a touch.
"The Centaur tribes will join the Wild Ones and secure the edge of the forest," Rom was saying, his voice low and grave. "With some luck we can thin their numbers. Hit and run. Do not try to fight their armies. We need you alive. Dead and brave helps no one."
Rom turned to Bear, who was snuggled up against as close to Flower as was possible for a centaur. He tore himself away from gazing lovingly into her eyes when the old satyr called to him.
"You saw no trace of another of his kind? " Rom asked, pointing at the sitting minotaur.
"None. At least not where we fought." Replied Bear.
The old satyr played with his graying beard. Val felt anxious suddenly. She could see that he was troubled, scared even. To see this regal and powerful being so shaken was profoundly unsettling. She was sitting by herself, her arms wrapped around her knees.
She had wanted to give Bear and Flower some time to themselves, but she was regretting that decision now. She felt cold for the first time in a long time, alone. Rom's anxiety was like a cold fog around them. Unable to take it for much longer, Val finally blurted out a question.
"What troubles you so much about the minotaur? He's not going to hurt anyone," she said.
Rom snorted, hesitating. Finally he spoke.
"Minotaurs are special beings. There is no clan, no herd of them. They are not natural. They are made. I worry...I worry that our enemies have found a way to create them. To create many of them."
"How are they made?" Asked Val.
Rom chuckled and smiled wickedly, as if he was about to tell a dirty joke.
"Well, what you need is a horny god and a cow. Any god will do, even a minor one. Or even a powerful spirit. I heard of a cow that got lost and started grazing on the side of a sacred mountain. The mountain spirit was offended at first, but then found the cow so pretty it mated with her instead of killing her. She gave birth a few months later to a minotaur, though they say he took after his father and mostly sat still and stared at the sky. So, you see, making minotaurs is both easy, and very very hard. Spirits of that caliber are not found everywhere. Gods even less so."
"Are you saying that this guy," said Val, pointing at the minotaur, "is here because a god saw a cow and thought, I'd hit that. Do the gods here have really low standards or are they that horny?"
Gracius kneeled next to Val. He gave a quick glance at Rom before speaking.
"A bit of both. You see, to a god, the cows look like beautiful maidens. They are slow witted, but voluptuous, indolent, and generally happy for the attention. So a god passing by a herd of cows, if he's horny...and no one is looking.." Said Gracius.
"I don't get it," replied Val.
Rom made a discreet gesture, which Gracius saw. He pulled Val slightly aside so that the council could continue.
"A god is mostly in the spirit realm, so what they see is the spirit of the animals, and plants, and rivers and all that. That's why they can talk to them. To a god, a cow is a maiden. To the Master of Tigers, the cows are deer, because that is how he sees the world. All animals are prey, and his favorite prey is deer. So cows are deer."
"The Master of Tigers?"
"The god of tigers? The spiritual embodiment of tiger-ness? I'm not sure how best to describe it."
"Now I'm even more confused." Said Val.
"Consider the mosquito. It doesn't know you are human, or that I'm a satyr. All it knows, all it needs to know, is that you are a walking bag of blood," explained Gracius. He motioned to the diverse council members seated nearby, each as different from each other as can be, pointing at each one by one. "Bag of blood, bag of blood, bag of blood. The mosquito doesn't need to know what you are. It doesn't care. Some gods don't need to know the difference between a cow and a pig and a human. All it knows it that it can fuck it, or eat it, or do whatever."
"But not all the gods are like that I hope!" Said Val, middle horrified.
"It all depends. The Master of Tigers knows prey, and hunters. If you are prey, you are deer. If you are a hunter, you are a tiger. If you are lucky and you meet him, he might see you as a cute little tiger!" Said Gracius, smiling reassuringly.
This was too much for Val. She waved the whole idea away.
"okay, forget it. If gods are spirits, how come they make minotaurs?"
"Gods are not just spirits. What makes them gods is the fact that they can interact with the physical realm."
"And by interact you mean fuck a cow and make her pregnant." Said Val, thoroughly unimpressed by the gods.
"In short, yes."
"And why is this making Rom so nervous?"
Gracius paused for a moment, stroking his beard just as Rom had done a few moments ago.
"My guess...and I'm just guessing, is that what scares Rom is the thought that the Lizard Priests of Mu have a god, and a herd of cows, and they are putting them to good use."
"They have a god?" Gasped Val.
"Well, they either captured one, or convinced one to work with them. Gods are not exactly fond of working with earthly creatures, so my guess is they captured one"
"Is that even possible?"
"Well, if it's a minor one, yes." Said Gracius. "It's not easy, but possible."
