It was a romantic walk in the morning sun.

It was Rutt’s orientation tour of the village.

It was Tatiana’s morning circuit of grocery deliveries and sex work. 

It was many things and, as they neared the tavern that was their final destination, it was nearly at an end. 

“I’ve been thinking about your cock…” mentioned the Milkmaid.

“Yeah. Get used to that. Here on out you ain't gonna be thinking about much else. ”

Tatiana gave a girlish little peal of snickers. It was simply Rutt’s genitals that she’d fallen in love with in the kitchen that morning, but she was starting to find the whole package appealing. He was unpredictable and dangerous and exciting. And so naughty! He’d been so kind to Mrs Mulberry and so cruel to Mrs Ivermectin. Tatiana couldn’t guess what he was gonna do next and that thrilled her gash.

As they walked, she lightly brushed the back of her hand against his penis through the fabric of his toga.

“Yeah...so about this bad boy…I’ve been wondering…”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it actually for?” asked Tatiana.

“The fuck? The fuck you mean what’s it for? It’s my fucking dick. It’s for fucking bitches.”

“Okay…” said Tatiana, “Only it isn’t, is it? It’s too big to use on a human girlie without killing her, or on a lady cow without seriously injuring her. So, like… what’s it’s biological purpose? Why do you even have one like that? What’re you supposed to use it for?”

Rutt tutted.

“Right now slut, I’m thinking I’m supposed to use it to smash your insides apart until you’re just powdered bones and trashy blonde hair floating in a soup of pureed whore. How about that?” 

“I guess what I’m asking is what’s designed to take a wanger like that inside them and live? What is a female minotaur like?”

“Ain't no such thing as a female minotaur,” said Rutt.

“No such...? Then what…?”

“You don’t ever wanna find out, girlie girl. You don’t ever wanna find out.”

FIFTY YEARS EARLIER

Francis Crackerjack was dying. The mightiest minotaur of his day, bleeding out on the floor.

Around him stood the many luscious she-elves, forest nymphs and dryads who loved him. Crackerjack the Minotaur had preferred a woodland theme to his harem. All their pussies were pine-scented.

“We can’t help him now,” said a she-elf, “His thoughts are leaving for the Heavens to be with the Godfolk. Or probably just stopping.”

A forest nymph shook her leafy head.

“No. That is not how it goes when a minotaur passes from this world. Watch.”

And so the beautiful bitches of the forest-themed harem looked on in awe and wonder as Crackerjack the Minotaur began to die.

One horn folded and flickered and fluxed, squares of colour pixellating around it as it glitched between shapes before settling on a two-dimensional version of the horn it had been. It then began to roll in on itself  like a rewound fruit loop.

The other horn became fractal, branching off from itself into antlers upon antlers. Splitting and branching without apparent end or finitude.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?” screamed a dryad, who quickly realised she could hear her dying lover screaming too.

She looked towards where his mouth should be. There was no mouth to see there now. The scream was coming from his besthole.

His eyes were cosmic. One the birth of nebulae and one the death of stars.  

“He’s being torn out of space-time,” explained the nymph, “This is how it is when Minotaurs die. They do not die among us. They are extracted from this world.”

“Okay, but what the fuck?”

“This is what it looks like when a body is dragged forcibly from linear time. Matter does not leave the Material without a struggle.” 

“Dragged from linear time?” the she-elf thought that sounded familiar. “Is he… is he being taken to fight in the Idea Wars?” 

“Are you even following one single bloody thing that’s happening?” The nymph was frustrated. “No, he’s not being taken to fight in the fucking Idea Wars. He’s fucking dying. I loved him. I loved him more than any of you whores. And he’s fucking dying, okay.”

The dryad put a hand on the nymph’s shoulder.

“Where’s he going, Jenny?” she said softly. “Where’s he being taken?”

The fractal antlers had clawed a hole in the air. The rest of his body was rolling up and folding up. The stars in his eyes were pouring energy into the aperture to light his way. His penis had split down the middle to reveal hundreds of crab legs, which were trying to drag his weight into this strange tear in the world.

“The Tauriarch is bringing him home. Our best friend, best lover and best daddy dies now and passes to the Last Labyrinth.”

THE LAST LABYRINTH

In a chamber of white marble, Crackerjack the Minotaur awoke. His body whole and integral. Its morphic field had survived the transition.

Not that it would survive long.

Crackerjack the Minotaur was dying. And so he had been brought to the marble maze without the material, to the deathtrap dungeon from whose bourn no adventurer returns, to the Last Labyrinth.

He took to his feet and selected one of the paths before him. Time for that final dungeon crawl. The final grim duty in any minotaur’s life.

To brave the horrors of the Last Labyrinth and reach its centre.

To reach its centre and the Labyrinth’s greatest horror that waited there.

The Tauriarch.

Crackerjack the Minotaur was dying. And so like all dying Minotaurs he had been brought here to do what he must. Reach the centre of the Last Labyrinth. Face the Tauriarch. And impregnate it.