Product Description
In an epic journey across the mystical lands of Ancor, a lone warrior confronts a sinister power from beyond the stars -- forced to stake his very survival on the aid of his companions: a soaring eagle, a fearsome tiger, and two cunning, quick ferrets.
Blessed with an extraordinary gift to commune with animals, yet haunted by his own legacy and tragic past, Dar has become champion of his world and its natural riches. But when an unyielding force of evil and carnage descends upon his gentle existence, he must emerge from a spiritual journey and embark upon a dreadful voyage. Will Dar become the savior Ancor so desperately needs, or will his world be subjected to an evil that leaves no innocent unharmed -- human or beast? And when a striking figure from Dar's past reappears, can she help him salvage his broken spirit?
About the Author
SYLVIO TABET has directed nearly 400 commercials, documentaries, and the American feature Beastmaster II. He has realized many films and television episodes as a producer, bringing to reality such acclaimed films as Cotton Club, Dead Ringers, and the Beastmaster franchise. He lives in Los Angeles.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
It was a way storytellers from the very fi rst began their tales, whether true or of their own imagining. It was always some version of those words.
Once upon a time...
Yet, to a sage such as Baraji, time did not happen once, but always. There were as many moments of the same bit of time as there were sands in a desert. More even, for, in truth, time was endless in all directions.
But that did not mean that a single moment might not affect all the rest and that such moments might indeed determine not only the fates of men, but worlds and more.
The bald, skeletal fi gure muttered under his breath, breath that came out in thick clouds, for the icy cave in which Baraji meditated was situated high upon a snowcapped peak of dank Harrath, north of even chill Andereas. Baraji himself did not, of course, notice such a mundane thing as the cold, for he had long ago progressed past such human frailty. His mind, his soul, was focused instead on the many realities beyond perceived reality, and the nature of all that, which was imminent to the future.
The tiny fire before him was surrounded by perfectly circular black stones that themselves formed a perfect circle. The power of the mandala shone in the pattern of the stones and even the flames within. Baraji leaned forward to examine the center of the fire not with his weaker mortal eyes, but with the invisible third one that could see beyond this one plane of existence.
It was as he had thought. Nodding satisfaction, he gathered snow from the icy cave floor and tossed it onto the flames.
The fire erupted with a squeal. A shape suddenly burst from the center -- tendrils, like grass, blossomed into red, inquisitive orbs lacking pupils, fearsome orbs that stared in all directions for the space of a breath...and then turned into a crimson-tinged mist that swiftly dissipated.
"It is the moment," rasped Baraji. "But is it?"
In truth, that was not for him to decide; that was for another. And so, Baraji reached into the snow again and removed a single brown and black feather buried within it. Released with a flick from his cadaverous hand, the feather bobbed on the heaving halo of fire before being swept into the flames. A plume of thick, acrid smoke burst forth from the now bloodred blaze.
Baraji inhaled deeply, inviting the mystic powers of the smoke to flow into him. As he did, a faint, familiar voice emerged from within the fire, a voice that cried the same question over and over.
Who am I? it asked. Who am I? repeated the voice, and though it was strong of timbre, it was rife with uncertainty.
And from the smoke arose a ghostly visage that continued to mouth the question. The face took on the semblance of a lithe man in his prime -- square jaw, angular features, and bright, guileless blue eyes set under a brooding brow. For a moment, the ghostly vision confronted Baraji...then flung forward, enveloping the sage's own face.
In that instant, Baraji's countenance became that of the man in the smoke. His bald pate was suddenly crowned by thick, brown locks that framed the sturdy, clean-shaven face. Yet, where once there had been a haunted, questioning look, now was an expression of self-knowledge.
"I am," Baraji mustered through the magical mask. "I am..."
But no sooner did he answer than the other face sloughed off, plunging into the fire. The voice dissolved into ash as it implored once more the same earnest question.
With a toothless smile that held no humor, the sage drew a small mandala in the frozen ground between him and the fire -- circles within circles surrounding triangles and, in their very midst, a rounded mouth. Baraji muttered under his breath once more and, in the center of the mandala, saw simultaneously many things, many places, and many times.
Lastly he saw a great glacier...and on it, a tiny figure. The young man from the smoke.
Baraji let himself become the vision. The harsh, swirling landscape surrounded him. The winds roared with abandon, whipping across the barren glacier and over the naked figure seated cross-legged in meditation. Snow and ice draped the man as if he had been there for a great period...which was truer than even the figure knew himself. His body was lean and well-muscled and so very pale that most would have thought -- rightly so under the circumstances -- that he had long ago lost his battle against the ferocious elements.
But Baraji peered close and saw the faint, telltale puff of breath every few minutes. The man was deep in a trance, journeying through the worlds within him as the sage had taught him.
His teacher was much pleased by the dedication, much pleased by the effort. Back in the cave, the physical Baraji nodded at his student. He opened his mouth -- and unleashed a deafening roar like that of a great jungle cat.
Dar's body flinched ever so slightly. Deep within, he stirred from the contemplations that had consumed him during his trance. His subconscious felt the echo of an animal call...and yet not. He tried to return to the relative serenity of his meditation and the search for answers to his constant question...Who am I? What am I? Am I a man? An animal? Both? Neither? What is my purpose in this world?
Those who had met him in the real world called him not by his name, but most often by how legend had marked him. They called him the Beastmaster, for Dar had the ability to become one with any animal, the ability to speak with them and see through their eyes. The creatures of the jungle would even stand with him in battle against sorcerers and other evils he encountered during his endless journeys throughout Ancor. In the space of his twenty-plus summers, Dar had become a mythic figure, his epithet woven into countless fantastic stories, both real and embellished by those who recited them.
Dar had not asked for such abilities; they had been thrust upon him before he had even been born. Dark sorcery had ripped him from his mother's womb -- brutally slaying her in the process -- and had implanted his fetus into the womb of a cow. After his birth into the arms of his wicked captors, Dar was marked for murder -- a ritual of fire that would keep him from fulfilling his epic prophecy. But the fates intervened, and instead Dar was rescued and raised by a simple villager, a farmer with no knowledge of the infant's royal blood or of his natal link to animal kind.
Dar's incredible abilities manifested themselves while he was but a child...a fortunate turn of events that enabled him at the time to rescue his adoptive father from the clutches of a hungry bear by facing the ursine giant and silently commanding it to leave. As the boy came of age, there were more and more incidents -- most of them minor in event, yet still astounding for simply being what they were.
And so began the legend of the Beastmaster...
It had taken many summers for Dar to discover the truth of his origins -- summers in which he became known far and wide for his abilities and deeds, and one particular summer in which he not only lost his adoptive father but most of his village to a bloodthirsty barbarian horde. He helped the survivors to resettle, but, haunted by his failure to save his father and his village, he left shortly thereafter out of personal shame.
What had been intended as only a short journey became an endless one with only intermittent visits to what remained of his home. Some of the people he met during his distant wanderings accepted his existence with gratitude, others with fear. Many of the former even offered him friendship or a place to stay, but ever the Beastmaster moved on from village to village, realm to realm. Like the many creatures he encountered, Dar could never tame the restlessness within himself, a restlessness that he finally understood had come not just from the loss of the only human family he had ever had, but -- in some ways yet more significant -- not knowing where he belonged among the men and animals of his world.
Thus, in search of answers, the Beastmaster -- a "legend" that believed little in his own tale -- had journeyed up to the mountains of Harrath, northernmost of all realms, to see the sage of whom many wise men had spoken. Baraji would be the one to help him, they had said. Baraji is enlightenment, they had insisted. From him, Dar would find the answers. And he had begun to...
But his meditations now struck a desperate and frightening impasse. Vivid dreams assailed his mind. Like an enemy army waiting, ready to spring, eager to catch its target unaware -- in one fell swoop the visions overpowered Dar. He struggled to regain the peace and composure for which he had so long earnestly fought, but the dreams -- nay, nightmares -- would not let him. Dar was bombarded by horrific vision after horrific vision, most of them filled with things that seemed impossible for his imagination to create.
He saw his beloved world, his Ancor, shrouded in black, monstrous smoke billowing from vast, jagged wounds in the earth. The gust of thick plumes covered more than a mile and filled the heavens with a dread eagerness. It was a wonder there was light at all, for the sun could surely not shine through. The only source of light in his nightmares radiated from the holes themselves, where red and gold flames and flashes of what appeared to be blue lightning illuminated the permament night.
And in the wicked glow Dar saw fiends and demons of myriad shapes and evils. Giant metal golems -- each a three-legged cyclops whose lone eye was a blazing, azure orb that spit lightning -- strode over burnt trees, seeking movement. Helmeted and armored demons short of stature but broad of build scurried along the ground, bursting fire from weapons held within their clawed hands. In the manic strobes of illumination, their bulbous-eyed helmets with protruding elephantine hoses gave the impression of some grotesque giant insect.
Shadows moved that might have been spiders -- had they not been tenfold the size of a man. More fearsome creatures followed in the w...
