The old grief came and went, like a wave, as I thought of the little squirrel-like creature that had bonded itself to me. I was his ticket to the magic realm. All he had to do was serve as my familiar until I eventually died, then he would be free to exist in a realm saturated with magic, no longer trapped in the magic desert that was the mundane.
He never thought that I would outlive him.
This school was just as much a trap for familiars as it was for their mundanes.
I had another three weeks before I had to power the spell again, like I did every month, meditating and using the power I gathered within me to pour it into the shape, like liquid metal being poured into a mold. That was how spells were cast. Order magic was a written language, drawn in geometric forms with runes that spelled out the instructions. Spell shapes could be cast from memory, drawn in the air with the focused intent of the caster, and then infused with power, or they could be permanent, put down into material, and cast that way. The stateof mind that one had to be in to cast spells was similar to meditation, an empty-minded, flow-like state.
Those who could cast spells during combat were both impressive and deadly.
I wasn't deadly.
I was a pack mule.
I pulled my sleeve back down.
I took another round of slow breaths. Pack mules were tough. Pack mules could hike for days and forage for food.
I was in a situation, but it wasn't one that I couldn't handle. All I had to do was stay calm and find ways to survive this, just like I had survived everything else at this school. First goal was that I needed to get out of this labyrinth and find a safe room, one of the places that the Dungeon provided to encourage groups to stay inside of it longer and give it more opportunities to kill them. There might be food and water there. Second goal was to find weapons and armor, so that if I had to fight, I would be in a better state for it.
My current main obstacle was that I had no map and was stuck in a maze.
My current blessings were that I didn't have a group of murderous magical jackasses telling me what to do. I was in an area that was relatively calm. I didn't have to carry a heavy load. There was a very good chance that I could sneak my way to safety if I was quiet enough and saw the monsters before they saw me.
I picked up a loose rock from the ground and scratched an X on the wall, right around shoulder height. Then I put my hand on the wall. A breeze blew in from behind me, rippling the fabric of my jacket, cooling the sweat that had formed on my back from carrying the pack, and urging me forward into the unknown.
Something bellowed, deep and low, the tone vibrating through the stones of the maze with subsonic force, a warning that something else resided here.
Shit.
Chapter
Two
Durom
Someone smelled good.
I lifted my nose and took a deep inhale. The scent drifted on the breeze, carried through the twisting corners of the labyrinth, thin but persistent, catching in the back of my throat. I rose from my place by the fire, the soft simmer of the stew in my worn cast-iron pot forgotten. Heat coiled deep in me, stirring my primal instinct as I reached down to my belt and took out the cloth-wrapped bundle I'd tucked away in my hip pouch. I went to the single entrance to the campsite, where the death vines hung down, limp and motionless as they waited for prey to wander into their deadly grasp.
I held up the bundle, and the vines recoiled, spreading wide to reveal the doorway that led into this well-protected dead end, one of the many that my kind used for campsites in the maze. This campsite was deeper and higher up in the labyrinth, closer to where it spilled out onto the surface before the Dungeon had been sealed, contained so it couldn't spread out any further. Now that this particular seal was broken, I had come back to restorethe old sites, to use coarse salt and dry cloth to scrub the rust from the surface of the cast iron cookware, and restock. There was no telling where the future would take us, but Chaos favored those who planned ahead for any eventuality.
I didn't expect to catch the scent of my mate.
None of the other minotaurs I had met had the mate scent for me. I had gone to the tribe gatherings, had endured the flirtations of males and females alike, but there had been no spark within me, no fire like I'd been raised to expect. I'd chased and mounted, even going so far as to attend the Orc gatherings to see if I was one of the ones who would find my mate in another species, but the weak spark of those dalliances paled in comparison to this.
As the vines parted, the thin scent thickened and swirled around me, letting me know in no uncertain terms that this was something special.
This was the mate scent.
The urge to find, to chase, to mount, rushed through me with dizzying need, primal urges that wouldn't be denied.
I let out a deep bellow, letting the sound carry through the rocks so that my mate would hear me, would hear my need, my desire, and know that I was coming. The chase would begin. I took another deep breath in, letting the scent invigorate me, tasting the details of my mate and finding... something... strange. I focused on it, opening my mouth to let the scent roll over my broad tongue, tasting it with my mouth as I tried to work out the missing piece. Along with their unique flavor, an individual's scent carried information about them. It spoke of what they ate, what soap they used to bathe, the plants they had touched or used to cook, if they were lost in a breeding rut, or where they were in their fertility cycle.
My mate's scent was missing something, and I couldn't quite place it.
I tilted my head to acknowledge the stone.
"I greet the rocks who carry the blessing of Chaos," I said.
