The Realms

Taishan Vol. 1

De: Anthony Harrington

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

A barrel-chested man, stripped to the waist, dragged a massive wooden door open at our approach. The door was set in a thirty-foot high wall that ran for several hundred yards. Inside we saw our first couple of wudra.

Sin and I stood with our jaws hanging open. They were exactly like Chinese dragons, with gold-coloured scales except where lines of emerald green made shimmering patterns against the gold. Three men with hoses were spraying the wudra, both of which had their great, golden eyes with the vertical slit pupils, half-closed in bliss. The hoses played up and down their thirty-foot bodies. Their wings were furled against their bodies. Each wudra had a steel ankle bracelet around one massive, clawed hindfoot, with a thick, linked chain that ran to a massive steel pillar embedded in the centre of the compound.

Stables as big as sheds ran in an L-shape against two of the compound walls. Each stall had a horizontally split stable-door, much as you would find in a stables back on Earth. The top halves were open. Big heads, each about a third bigger than me, appeared in the upper section as we approached. Big, bright yellow eyes, fixed on me. One head, itself around a third bigger than the rest, stretched out on a long neck. The big lips on the long, narrow jaws shaped to whistle, and a low, sweet sound filled the compound, while the eyes stared into mine.

“That is Querula, our lead wudra,” Clyde whispered to me. “She is intrigued by your power. Go to her. If she accepts you and allows you to stroke her muzzle, the others will obey you.”

I was half scared to death and wholly fascinated. I felt my power flow down my arms in green and blue ribbons of light as I closed the distance between me and Querula with what I hoped were steady strides. Those big yellow eyes with their vertical slits tracked me all the way. She whistle-sang again, and I let my power reach out to her. It was like a physical jolt for both of us as it flowed over her and her power flowed back to me, searching and probing. It was not so much a challenge as an exploration, as she sought to understand not just me, but the manifold possibilities that were contained in our meeting.

What I was chiefly conscious of was her sharp intelligence and my heart went out to her. Nothing that intelligent should have a chain around its ankle. If it were up to me, I would free her in an instant and ride on horseback to see my mother, however long it took.

I stopped close enough to her huge head to be within touching distance. She rolled her lips back from her long fangs and her nostrils dilated. She sniffed hard. She had perhaps four times as much power as Clyde, and as soon as I grasped that, I realised that she could flick the steel bracelet off her ankle whenever she chose.

There was more going on here than I understood. I stretched out my hand, slowly. The ribbons of light she was pouring all over me, tested and pulled at my core. I pulled harder at her core and she relaxed her power. I did the same. The lids on her huge eyes, which were each larger than one of my hands, half-closed and she whistled softly again. There was a language there, almost graspable. I knew she was trying to talk to me...