Bull (Toro) is a name in Antiterra shared by a constellation that rules the companions, a line of bull creatures with conscious agency, and several places—a forum, a square and a fortress—named for having once housed a bull.
Constellation
The Constellation of the Bull stands over the companions, who are “under the constellation of the Bull”. Constellations can be reached from certain points of the world; one is a stream next to the bull-serpent (see below), through which people ascended for a while and received mythic power.
One of the Bulls carries a zodiacal sign not its own: Virgo («Ya no es más virgen», “no longer a virgin”). How a Bull under Virgo coexists with a Constellation of the Bull is disputed by astrologers.
Creatures
The bulls of Antiterra are not livestock. They appear singly or in pairs—“the two bulls”, “the yellow bull”, “a flying bull”—as encounter creatures, adversaries that understand what they do. A bull crossing a river was described as very furious, yet with a gleam, if not of intelligence, at least of wisdom.
In combat the Bull uses an ability called «trágalong», “which puts you where it wants”: control of position rather than brute force.
A compound variant, the bull-serpent, has the collated form Osfiotauro. It lies not far from the tree of petrified memory, beside the stream that connects to the constellations. It is unique in the records.
Places
- Forum of the Bull (Foro del Toro): in Constantinople.
- The bull of the square: a bull stood in “one of the main squares” of Byzantium, linked to the Hippodrome. It was hollow; a person could be shut inside and burned. A former emperor “who did not go by the good roads” burned a successor, or someone important, inside it, and the bull was removed. The square kept the name.
- Fortress of the Bull (also Fuerte del Toro, Fuerte Toro): its coordinates are passed on by “the creatures” as tactical information. It holds an artifact of synchronicity, and the defender of Paris was taken there. Its distance from the city, materials, size, garrison and condition are not recorded.
Bull, square, fortress and constellation share a pattern: each houses something inside and decides its position.
Open questions
- Whether the bull of the Byzantine square was a hollow statue, a built execution machine, or a dead, preserved creature is left undecided.
- Whether the Forum of the Bull, the main square of Byzantium and the Hippodrome square are one, two or three places—and whether Byzantium and Constantinople name the same site here—is unclear.
- A dossier note suggests the Fortress of the Bull is Osfiotauro itself; the records do not state it.
- Who “the creatures” passing on the fortress’s coordinates are, and to whom, is unknown.
- How the hippodrome bull, the imperial execution and “the clean bull that the queen offers” connect is not stated.
- Whether trágalong belongs to all bulls or one, and its limits, are unknown.