human device for mastering nature without disturbing its power or destroying its beauty
Karroch was born a child of the stocks. His mother died in childbirth; his father, a farrier for the Last King of Slom, was trampled to death when Karroch was five. Afterward Karroch was indentured to the king’s menagerie, where he grew up among all the beasts of the royal court: lions, apes, fell-deer, and things less known, things barely believed in. When the lad was seven, an explorer brought in a beast like none before seen. Dragged before the King in chains, the beast spoke, though its mouth moved not. Its words: a plea for freedom. The King only laughed and ordered the beast perform for his amusement; and when it refused, struck it with the Mad Scepter and ordered it dragged to the stocks.
Over the coming months, the boy Karroch sneaked food and medicinal draughts to the wounded creature, but only managed to slow its deterioration. Wordlessly, the beast spoke to the boy, and over time their bond strengthened until the boy found he could hold up his end of a conversation—could in fact speak now to all the creatures of the King's menagerie. On the night the beast died, a rage came over the boy. He incited the animals of the court to rebel and threw open their cages to set them amok on the palace grounds. The Last King was mauled in the mayhem. In the chaos, one regal stag bowed to the boy who had freed him; and with Beastmaster astride him, leapt the high walls of the estate, and escaped. Now a man, Karroch the Beastmaster has not lost his ability to converse with wild creatures. He has grown into a warrior at one with nature’s savagery.
Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
— Sometimes it would stop raining long enough for the stars to come out. And then it was nice. It was like just before the sun goes to bed down on the bayou. There was always a million sparkles on the water. Like that mountain lake. It was so clear, Jenny, it looked like there were two skies, one on top of the other. And then, in the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It was so beautiful.
— I wish I could've been there with you.
— You were.
— You were bitten by a chuckwalla. That shouldn't have happened. It's a reptile of peace. I have a theory. This isn't the first time nature's lashed out at you like this. I believe it's because your life is fundamentally at odds with the natural world. Huh? Therefore, nature rejects you.
— You're insane. Can I have some water?
— Look, I've been all over the world. You're the only human to my knowledge who's been bitten by a dolphin, a chipmunk, and a vegetarian lizard in the same calendar year.
You see, Derrick? Bat's not always the answer. When it comes down to it, when it's you or them, as a species, it's in our DNA, our very nature, to choose self-preservation. I don't care if you're Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi or fuckin' Ned Flanders. When the chips are down, we choose life over loved ones, every time.