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bladesparkDare To Go A Hunting.
Prince Byriam is the heir to a pleasant, quiet little kingdom, but while he's pleasant enough, he's far from quiet. While seeking what little adventure he can find by riding to the hunt, adventure finds him in the form of a wild golden stallion, actually a disguised elven prince. When Byriam climbs on the horse's back, he'll end up very far indeed from his pleasant little kingdom. And he won't mind that, nor the elven prince Safayid's romantic attentions, one bit.
I started this series (there are two more finished stories, and quite a few more ideas) with the thought that I was going to put these stories up on Amazon, since many people assured me that there was a market for interesting M/M porn on Amazon. There is, but it's so incredibly saturated now that new authors can't break in. At least not without an amount of work I can't keep up. Instead, I'm putting these stories up for my patrons. You fine folks here get most of the "story" part, but not the really fun bits at the end. (Hence my not putting an 18+ rating on this post. The full story is definitely "adult" content.)
To get the full story, you need to give me $1 over on Patreon.
If you want to just drop a buck, get the story, and leave, that's fine! It's the same price you'd pay for it as a Kindle short. I do post something or other most weeks, though, so supporting me monthly on Patreon gets you multiple stories for your dollar, since you only pay once a month. Many of them are fanfiction, some are original, some are clean, some are smutty, it's a bit of everything, but I'm told most of it is quite good!
Or just enjoy this free fairy tale fragment as-is, that's fine too.
A very long time ago, and a very long ways away, there was a young prince named Byriam. His kingdom was a small, pleasant little place, taking up all of a lush, fertile, valley, whose river wound in an out among the barren desert hills that cupped it for miles before coming to the coast, where a small, pleasant city sat beside the harbor, with a small, pleasant palace on a hill overlooking it. Its people were by and large small, pleasant people also, and its history was mostly small and pleasant as well, for though it was prosperous enough in its own way, it had nothing to make anyone want to conquer it, and so it had escaped many of the wars that embroiled larger or richer kingdoms.
The king and queen were pleasant people as one might expect, but their eldest son Prince Byriam, was bright and quick, and full of both laughter and fire. He was also beautiful, in the way that young men can sometimes be beautiful, with soft, dark hair and soft, dark eyes in a fine-boned face with a strong, fierce nose and arched brows like raven's wings. His skin was flawless, bronzed by the sun, for he loved to hunt and be out and about in hill and valley, and his tall frame was made strong by that same love of action. All the unwed women in the kingdom swooned after him whenever he passed by, even sometimes the ones who were betrothed. Even sometimes ones who were wed after all, though they usually had the sense to swoon silently and discretely.
He laughed often, and shouted often, and lived his life far larger than someone in such a small, pleasant sort of place ought, so it was hardly any wonder that something far larger found him one day.
Prince Byriam was riding to the hunt, with his hunt-master and his hounds and a half-dozen young noblemen from the city who called themselves his friends, though none of them knew his true heart at all. Few did, the prince was not one for confiding in others.
He wore his fine hunting jacket of jade green doeskin and his fine riding boots of the same, with his sword at his side, his bow at his back, and a smile on his lips. He spurred his fine dapple-gray mare on over field and hill and up out of the valley, hunting wild boar but truly hunting nothing more than the chance to be out, riding, with the wind in his face.
The other young men rode at his side, joking and laughing with each other, and all in all it was a merry party as they rode past a great massif of golden sandstone that stood upon a hill near the nebulous borders of the little kingdom, out in the desert where nothing much was and nobody much went.
Such stones are in between places, for their roots grow down to the bedrock and their tops reach up to the sky, so they bridge earth and air. As everyone knows, in between places can also bridge worlds, letting creatures from the otherlands, the places where fairies and djins and other, stranger creatures dwell reach into our own world.
It happened that just as Prince Byriam and his party were riding by the stone, Prince Safayid of the fair folk—who are sometimes called fairies and sometimes called elves—was riding by the other side of the stone, the side that existed in his own otherworldly kingdom, and heard the prince's laughter and the barking of the hounds. Curious about what the humans might be up to, he cast a spell to peer through the stone.
His eyes fell immediately on Prince Byriam and he was caught.
The fair folk can be flighty creatures—unsteady, unstable, and untrustworthy—but sometimes something sinks deep into the heart of a elven lad or lass and sets roots there, and when that happens they will never be entirely free of it. So it was that Prince Byriam's beauty, and his laughter, and the fire that flashed in his dark eyes sank deep into the heart of Prince Safayid, and the roots of it began to twine all through him.
He knew in that instant that he must find a way to make this human his own.
The fair folk can also be greedy and possessive, and they are not always kind or thoughtful about it. Yet what was twined about Safayid's heart in that instant was not only greed for the beautiful human boy, but love for the sound of his laughter and the fire in his eyes, and so the plan he laid in that moment was perhaps not entirely good, but it was not entirely cruel, either.
After the hunting party had passed, Safayid dismounted from his own steed, which was not exactly a horse, and sent it back to his stables. Then he invoked his magic, of change and illusion, and a moment later a creature that looked like a horse—though of course it was even less of one than his mount had been—stood on the otherworld side of the stone. Another flare of magic and he leaped through, his feet landing in the human world for the first time in more than a hundred years. He threw back his head and whinnied loudly, the sound carrying across the hills.
Prince Byriam's party were surprised when they heard the sound, and saw the wild stallion, but the horse was so beautiful, so perfect, that they all immediately set out in pursuit of it, without even needing to consult and decide to do so. The elf-turned-horse had a coat like molten gold, bright and smooth and shining, with a mane and tail of pure white and hooves like bronze, while his eyes were obsidian dark and striking. It was beautifully formed, like the fine horses of Arabia, with a compact, muscular body, almost dainty hooves, a wedge-shaped head, a narrow muzzle and delicate ears, but taller than most of those. It reared and danced and ran like the wind, while the other horses, laden with their riders, tried their best to keep up. Prince Byriam knew that none of his horses could hope to catch the magnificent golden stallion.
Something in his heart sorrowed at that, for the horse was utterly wonderful, and seemed like a piece of the strange, adventurous life he found little of in his small, pleasant home.
Yet to his surprise, after a hard but short chase the stallion ran down a dry wash that ended in an impassible wall, and was easily cornered there. Byriam got out a rope, making a lasso of it, preparing for a fight. The stallion reared again, dancing on its hind hooves. Byriam whirled the rope over his head and let it fly, and it flew true, dropping over the stallion's head.
As if aware that it was caught, the stallion instantly sank back to all four hooves and stood, calm, not even winded, despite the chase it had led them on. Startled, Byriam tugged on the rope, and the stallion came along calmly as if the rope was a bridle and the stallion a lady's palfrey, and not a wild creature held merely by a strand around its neck that it could likely shrug out of with hardly any effort.
Byriam was still somewhat in shock about having actually caught the fine stallion when he reached the palace, yet there it was, following docilely behind his dapple-gray mare. A servant came and took the mare, but he held to the stallion's rope and led it into a stall himself, half afraid that if he let go if it, it would turn into a mirage and vanish.
He set about caring for it himself as well. The servants were mildly astonished, but then Byriam astonished everyone in the kingdom from time to time, so they soon adjusted to this new shock, and let him fetch the stallion a measure of oats, and get a curry comb to groom it with.
Standing in the spacious stall, amid the fresh hay laid down there, Byriam began to groom the stallion, working the curry comb over every taut muscle and every bit of shining, supple hide. The horse hardly needed grooming, it hadn't worked up the least bit of sweat, and the only dirt on it was a trace of dust from the road. Even its mane and tail were soft, as if it were groomed every day by an army of attentive stablehands.
"Is that why you were suddenly so tame, do you belong to somebody?" he mused as he cleaned dust and a few loose hairs from the horse's coat. "I suppose that wouldn't be surprising. Such a wonderful horse probably does have an owner. I hope they never miss you, or never find you, though. I want you all for my own. You're a fine stallion, and if I do keep you, I'll breed you to all my best mares. I'm sure they'd be pleased to be serviced by such a fine stud as you, and then I will get a whole crop of lovely foals."
The horse tossed its head and whinnied as if it was laughing, and something in the look it gave Byriam then seemed almost knowing. He left the stable feeling very strange about his new acquisition. It was a fine horse, but also a somewhat uncanny creature, and he was starting to wonder if it was exactly what it seemed.
-----
The next day was a St. Magnus' Day, and as he was the patron saint of the kingdom, there was always a great festival to celebrate. The king himself would ride in a procession, with all his children, and his lords and ladies would ride as well. So the palace was all a-bustle with preparations for the grand parade that morning.
Prince Byriam went to the stables right away and put a saddle and bridle on the magnificent golden stallion, which the horse accepted tamely. Byriam braided its mane and tail too, and the stable-boys gave him ribbons and flowers, which they had for all the horses, to be worked in among the braids. The prince himself was of course wearing his best coat, the long garment dyed with precious indigo dye and heavy with bright embroidery, over a fine silk shirt and pants of soft calfskin, with his very best black riding boots polished to a high shine. He looked a fine sight on the golden stallion as he rode it out into the stableyard to prepare for the parade.
Perhaps too fine a sight.
"What is this, son?" said his father as he came out into the stableyard. He was in his finery as well, and his embroidery was all of golden thread, even finer than the prince's. He was a bit like the prince, but his middle had gone to fat and if there had ever been any fire in his dark eyes, it had long since died. Instead a petty little gleam was there. He was a small man in mind, if not in body, and though Byriam loved him, he did not like him very much at all.
"This is the fine stallion I was telling you about at dinner," he said, reaching down to pat the horse's shoulder.
"He's fine indeed," said the king with a nod, but there was a look in his eye that Byriam didn't like one bit. "Finer than any other horse here, which means that he should be a king's mount, not a prince's."
Byriam tried not to scowl, he knew the expression only made him look like a child. He tried not to sigh, too, but only gave in to the inevitable and swung down out of the saddle. "I'll go have my gray mare saddled up then," he said, his voice resigned. A prince might usually get whatever he wanted, but not when the king wanted it instead.
"Good lad," said his father, and he put a foot in the stirrup. The stallion immediately shied away from him, tossing its head and whinnying.
"Woah there!" said the king, and he held tight to the reins until the stallion calmed. Keeping that grip, he got his foot in the stirrup this time and swung up, but he hadn't even settled in his seat when the stallion twisted and bucked, turning his swinging mount into a tumbling dismount off the other side of the horse, nearly head-first. His fall was broken by a hapless servant, so he came up unharmed and spitting mad. The servant soon was holding the reins tight and the king once again swung up red-faced and angry into the saddle, this time getting his seat properly. He nodded triumphant approval and told the servant to hand over the reins, at which point the stallion immediately started bucking like a demon, tearing them from the startled servant's hands. He bounced on all four hooves, then kicked out with his hind hooves, and then reared up, twisting and dancing, and the king came unseated despite his best attempts, and ended up on his rump on the hard flagstones. It was a well-padded rump, but his dignity was badly bruised, as was his backside.
"That horse of yours has a demon in him," snapped the king at Byriam.
Byriam tried not to laugh. "I'm sorry, father." The horse did laugh, tossing its head and whinnying.
"Never mind that. I'll ride my white charger. And if you've any sense you'll ride your gray mare after all."
Byriam nodded. He knew perfectly well that the king was right. Yet he couldn't resist the temptation. He went over to the stallion, who was standing still again, looking as calm and serene as if he hadn't just thrown a spectacular fit. Byriam took the reins, put a foot in the stirrup, and mounted up. The horse stayed rock steady beneath him. It didn't so much as flick an ear.
It was definitely an uncanny animal.
One with a particular fondness for him, it seemed. Byriam knew perfectly well that it was an absolutely terrible idea to ride the stallion. It was probably a terrible idea to even have it in the kingdom, he should no doubt be arranging to let it go or send it very far away. Yet he couldn't bring himself to do it. "I have no sense whatsoever," he murmured, and patted the stallion's shoulder again with a smile.
The stallion flicked its ears back towards him and whinnied another laugh.
It wasn't long before the parade was underway. Young men carried bright banners at the forefront, followed by a bevy of maidens who danced with scarves and strewed flowers in the parade's path, singing as they went. Their songs were sometimes hymns and sometimes traditional songs of the kingdom, and were all bright and cheerful, for this was a cheerful occasion, not a solemn one.
The king rode next, on a massive white gelding with heavy hooves, a horse that was trained in battle, though it had never been used in one. On a fine white palfrey beside him came the queen, in a dress even heavier with embroidery than the king's coat, sitting side saddle and letting her trail fall over the horse's hindquarters. It trailed almost to the ground, trimmed with lace and little pearls.
The royal children came next. Byriam, the eldest, rode his magnificent stallion, and waved cheerfully to all as he passed. His younger siblings, three brothers and two sisters, rode beside him, most on sturdy ponies lead by servants, though the eldest sister was less than two years younger than Byriam, and she rode a fine palfrey of her own, with a coat of jet black, that made a handsome contrast to Byriam's golden stallion.
Then all the lords and ladies of the kingdom came, most on horseback, though the eldest were in open carriages decked with flowers. Behind them marched a fine showing of the royal guard, with pennons on their spears that flew gaily in the breeze off the harbor.
Behind them the city's children frolicked and laughed and darted out to pick up the flowers that had been strewn in the street, for it was held to be good luck to find a flower that hadn't been crushed by all the horses passing.
The procession wound its way from the palace down through the city streets and out towards the road that ran along the river, up the valley, and to lands beyond. A fair was set up just on the edge of town, and there would be games and jousting and many other amusements for commoner and noble alike there.
Just as the procession neared the fair, the golden stallion tossed its head and took off like a loosed arrow. Byriam nearly lost his seat in surprise. He didn't lose his grip on the reins, and he immediately hauled back as hard as he could, but that was when he discovered that the little head-toss had been the stallion settling the bit between its teeth, and there was no halting it now. In a flash it had raced paced the king and queen, past the girls strewing their flowers and twirling their scarves, past the boys carrying their banners, and into the open road ahead. And then it really started to run.
Byriam yelped in surprise and bent over the horse's neck as the wind began to make his eyes water. It was all he could do now to stay low and keep his seat. The horse was going where it was going and there was no stopping it.
It rocketed down the road at an impossible pace, the fields and farms alongside it going by in a blur. Then it swerved abruptly and left the road. Byriam yelped in alarm and clung even more desperately to the saddle. Fortunately the horse slowed just a bit as it galloped through a field of newly planted wheat, but the ride didn't get any less alarming, for it was now having to leap over fences and hedges as it raced through the countryside.
Byriam soon recognized where the creature was headed. It was making a path towards the hills near where he'd found it in the first place. It left the well-watered farmland behind and galloped through the dry hills, until it came to one particular spot, where a game trail ran along the base of a huge massif of golden sandstone. Byriam knew the spot well. But the horse wasn't following the game trail around the huge standing stone. It was running on a trail of its own devising, straight as an arrow towards the stone's flat face. As it drew nearer it didn't slow, in fact it ran faster, and then its hooves left the ground in a leap directly at the massif.
The horse was going to break its neck, and Byriam's too, he knew, and yet somehow an instant later they weren't slamming into unyielding rock, they were landing, the horse's hooves thudding down in a carpet of rich green grass. It skidded to a halt and stood, breathing hard and a little bit lathered at last, though no wonder after such a run.
Then it gave a little hop and the stunned Byriam, who'd been so relieved at not dying that he'd let go his death-grip on the saddle, fell right out of it and tumbled into the grass below.
He lay there blinking, trying to calm his racing pulse and gather his scattered wits. The world had just turned topsy-turvey, and it seemed it wasn't finished turning yet, for he heard a voice laughing, and looked up to see the horse vanished, and a young man standing in its place. "Ah, Prince Byriam. If you could see your own face just now! It is quite a sight. Hello and welcome to my kingdom. I'm Prince Safayid." The man held out his hand, and Byriam took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
Prince Safayid had fair skin with a hint of a golden tint to it, as if he might be a bronzed as Byriam if only he saw more of the sun. His eyes were jet black, deep and hard to read. His hair was as white as the horse's had been, and his face was as narrow, with a pointed chin and broad forehead, marked with arching eyebrows as white as his hair. His ears came to a point, if Byriam had needed to see further evidence that he was something other than merely human. A light coat of sweat sheened his brow, as if he had just been running very hard.
"You seem to have kidnapped me," said Byriam as he stood.
"It was not done in malice, I assure you," said Safayid, and something in his expression was hesitant, uncertain as he said it. Byriam felt somewhat puzzled at this. It was he who should be uncertain here, and not the uncanny prince whose uncanny land this was. But he nodded acceptance and looked around him. The sandstone massif stood behind him, much the same as in his world, but ahead of him was not a dry desert, but a lush land of rolling green hills. One nearby was topped with a magnificent palace, that had walled gardens and tended grounds spilling down all the hillside below it and into the lower land around as well. A river wound around the hill, and a bridge arched over it, leading to a path paved in white marble, that climbed up the hill to the palace's grand front gates.
"But come, you are my guest. Allow me to show you a proper welcome." The elven prince snapped his fingers, and suddenly a group of burly men with skin the color of old jade appeared, carrying a litter between them. They knelt, and Safayid climbed up to seat himself on the cushions strewn within the open-sided construction there. He beckoned, and Byriam joined him a little hesitantly. The cushions were comfortable indeed, but the space was very small, and he found himself sitting with Safayid's leg touching his, no matter how he settled himself.
The thought crossed his mind that the touch was not an unpleasant one. Byriam was one of those inclined as much towards men as women, and the elven prince was certainly handsome enough. He had been told that such things were a sin, but then riding too hard and laughing too loud were apparently also sins, so he'd had a great deal of difficulty believing very firmly in the notion of his own guilt on any such matters.
He knew someday he'd likely wed some nearby princess or other, but in the meantime he'd seen no reason to not take what joy he could, from man or woman. He took what joy he could from life in all things, whether it was good drink, or good food, or riding to the hunt, or bedding a pleasing partner.
He wondered if the elves believed in sin.
Safayid's hand touched his arm lightly, and Byriam felt it as a shock, which went through his whole body, and seemed to set both his cheeks and certain parts of him much lower down aflame. He should not have let his mind wander to such things while so close to a handsome man. "Here, we are almost to my palace. You may consider everything within it yours, without question."
"That is generous treatment for a guest," said Byriam, trying to dismiss his blush.
Safayid only smiled, and the litter continued on, through the gates and into the gardens within, where fountains played and the paving stones seemed to be gemstones, for they were brightly colored and shone with hints of sparkling light beneath the sunlight. The litter halted before the palace proper, its bearers kneeling. Safayid alighted from it, and Byriam did as well. Three broad marble steps led up to the palace door, which was wide enough to drive a chariot through. It swung open as they mounted the stairs, though there was no servant manning it.
Inside was as grand and baroque as outside, everything lavishly decorated in rich materials, wood and ivory and stone. There were murals and mosaics and tapestries everywhere Byriam looked, and the floors were of perfectly fitting marble tiles, with hardly a seam between them, that sparkled in the light of a thousand candles in ornate candelabras and a thousand more laps fitted everywhere on the walls. The whole place was impossibly sybaritic, and if he hadn't already known that he was no longer in the real world before this, he would have known it to see such things.
The high-arched hallway led to an even higher-arched dining room, with a long table that ran down the center, already laden with every possible kind of food. Byriam's stomach immediately growled, reminding him that he had been expecting a feast at the fair and thus had not even had his luncheon yet. He licked his lips and looked at the heavily-laden table, then glanced over at Safayid. "No offense to you, but I recall being told once that eating fairy food will doom you to never return home. I suppose I wouldn't miss the place immediately, but I don't want to be trapped here forever."
He was afraid that Safayid would be angry, but the elven prince only nodded. "I will swear whatever oath you ask that the food here is safe for you to eat. You are my guest, and I wish you to stay, but if you truly desire to leave, you may. I would not see you unhappy for all the world."
Byriam hesitated a moment, then decided that he might as well. This was the kind of grand adventure he'd thought never to have, and he wasn't going to starve himself when he could be eating every possible good thing under the sun. In any case, if Safayid wasn't trustworthy, then he was probably doomed anyway.
So he went to the table and dug in with a will, and Safayid sat beside him and ate also.
The food was good and the wine was even better, yet when Byriam was finally sated, he found that he felt only a little merry, not nearly as drunk, nor nearly as stuffed he he probably should be. Well, it was fairy food, and probably not to be trusted after all, but it was much too late for that.
"Does dinner meet with your satisfaction, Prince Byriam?"
"It does," said Byriam with a replete sigh.
"The come, let me show you to where you may stay the night, if you wish."
Byriam nodded and rose, and once again followed his host through the baroque and lavish hallways, and up a grand flight of stairs, to a massive bedroom. It was as luxurious as everything else here, and the bed looked large enough to sleep half an army. It took up nearly half the enormous room.
"That is a very large bed," Byriam remarked, wondering if he was meant to actually sleep in it, or if it was something else entirely and merely covered in blankets and pillows so that it looked like a bed.
"It needs to be large enough so that all four of my wives can join me, when they are in residence," said Prince Safayid, and there was some of that strange uncertainty in his voice again as he spoke.
Blinking, Byriam looked over at him. "This is your bedchamber, then?"
"Yes."
"And you are married."
"Yes. Though the fair folk regard marriage differently from the way humans treat it. We live forever, or near enough to it. To spend forever tightly bound to only one person is...less than practical for most. So we take lovers often, and may marry more than one as well, and sometimes spend years, even centuries apart. I have seen my wives a few times of late, they get along well and often visit together, even, but they are not here tonight, nor are they likely to be here for some time."
"I see. And you have taken me to your bedchamber." Byriam felt absurd as soon as he said it. Of course Safayid had, they both knew that. He felt his cheeks flushing again.
"Yes," said Safayid softly. His cheeks seemed to bear a hint of pink as well. "As I said, only if you wish. There are other bedchambers here. I will show you to one, if you prefer it."
Byriam hesitated, looking at the elven prince. There was very little doubt what sort of invitation he was being offered. There was every possibility that accepting it was unwise. It probably was a sin, as well. Yet like riding the golden stallion in the procession, like eating the fairy food, like so many other things he'd done that were louder and larger and more reckless than those around him, Byriam couldn't shy away from this opportunity. So he smiled, and reached out to brush his fingers against the elven prince's arm, finding his skin warm and pleasant to the touch. "I would be honored to stay here," he said.
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Prince Byriam is the heir to a pleasant, quiet little kingdom, but while he's pleasant enough, he's far from quiet. While seeking what little adventure he can find by riding to the hunt, adventure finds him in the form of a wild golden stallion, actually a disguised elven prince. When Byriam climbs on the horse's back, he'll end up very far indeed from his pleasant little kingdom. And he won't mind that, nor the elven prince Safayid's romantic attentions, one bit.
I started this series (there are two more finished stories, and quite a few more ideas) with the thought that I was going to put these stories up on Amazon, since many people assured me that there was a market for interesting M/M porn on Amazon. There is, but it's so incredibly saturated now that new authors can't break in. At least not without an amount of work I can't keep up. Instead, I'm putting these stories up for my patrons. You fine folks here get most of the "story" part, but not the really fun bits at the end. (Hence my not putting an 18+ rating on this post. The full story is definitely "adult" content.)
To get the full story, you need to give me $1 over on Patreon.
If you want to just drop a buck, get the story, and leave, that's fine! It's the same price you'd pay for it as a Kindle short. I do post something or other most weeks, though, so supporting me monthly on Patreon gets you multiple stories for your dollar, since you only pay once a month. Many of them are fanfiction, some are original, some are clean, some are smutty, it's a bit of everything, but I'm told most of it is quite good!
Or just enjoy this free fairy tale fragment as-is, that's fine too.
A very long time ago, and a very long ways away, there was a young prince named Byriam. His kingdom was a small, pleasant little place, taking up all of a lush, fertile, valley, whose river wound in an out among the barren desert hills that cupped it for miles before coming to the coast, where a small, pleasant city sat beside the harbor, with a small, pleasant palace on a hill overlooking it. Its people were by and large small, pleasant people also, and its history was mostly small and pleasant as well, for though it was prosperous enough in its own way, it had nothing to make anyone want to conquer it, and so it had escaped many of the wars that embroiled larger or richer kingdoms.
The king and queen were pleasant people as one might expect, but their eldest son Prince Byriam, was bright and quick, and full of both laughter and fire. He was also beautiful, in the way that young men can sometimes be beautiful, with soft, dark hair and soft, dark eyes in a fine-boned face with a strong, fierce nose and arched brows like raven's wings. His skin was flawless, bronzed by the sun, for he loved to hunt and be out and about in hill and valley, and his tall frame was made strong by that same love of action. All the unwed women in the kingdom swooned after him whenever he passed by, even sometimes the ones who were betrothed. Even sometimes ones who were wed after all, though they usually had the sense to swoon silently and discretely.
He laughed often, and shouted often, and lived his life far larger than someone in such a small, pleasant sort of place ought, so it was hardly any wonder that something far larger found him one day.
Prince Byriam was riding to the hunt, with his hunt-master and his hounds and a half-dozen young noblemen from the city who called themselves his friends, though none of them knew his true heart at all. Few did, the prince was not one for confiding in others.
He wore his fine hunting jacket of jade green doeskin and his fine riding boots of the same, with his sword at his side, his bow at his back, and a smile on his lips. He spurred his fine dapple-gray mare on over field and hill and up out of the valley, hunting wild boar but truly hunting nothing more than the chance to be out, riding, with the wind in his face.
The other young men rode at his side, joking and laughing with each other, and all in all it was a merry party as they rode past a great massif of golden sandstone that stood upon a hill near the nebulous borders of the little kingdom, out in the desert where nothing much was and nobody much went.
Such stones are in between places, for their roots grow down to the bedrock and their tops reach up to the sky, so they bridge earth and air. As everyone knows, in between places can also bridge worlds, letting creatures from the otherlands, the places where fairies and djins and other, stranger creatures dwell reach into our own world.
It happened that just as Prince Byriam and his party were riding by the stone, Prince Safayid of the fair folk—who are sometimes called fairies and sometimes called elves—was riding by the other side of the stone, the side that existed in his own otherworldly kingdom, and heard the prince's laughter and the barking of the hounds. Curious about what the humans might be up to, he cast a spell to peer through the stone.
His eyes fell immediately on Prince Byriam and he was caught.
The fair folk can be flighty creatures—unsteady, unstable, and untrustworthy—but sometimes something sinks deep into the heart of a elven lad or lass and sets roots there, and when that happens they will never be entirely free of it. So it was that Prince Byriam's beauty, and his laughter, and the fire that flashed in his dark eyes sank deep into the heart of Prince Safayid, and the roots of it began to twine all through him.
He knew in that instant that he must find a way to make this human his own.
The fair folk can also be greedy and possessive, and they are not always kind or thoughtful about it. Yet what was twined about Safayid's heart in that instant was not only greed for the beautiful human boy, but love for the sound of his laughter and the fire in his eyes, and so the plan he laid in that moment was perhaps not entirely good, but it was not entirely cruel, either.
After the hunting party had passed, Safayid dismounted from his own steed, which was not exactly a horse, and sent it back to his stables. Then he invoked his magic, of change and illusion, and a moment later a creature that looked like a horse—though of course it was even less of one than his mount had been—stood on the otherworld side of the stone. Another flare of magic and he leaped through, his feet landing in the human world for the first time in more than a hundred years. He threw back his head and whinnied loudly, the sound carrying across the hills.
Prince Byriam's party were surprised when they heard the sound, and saw the wild stallion, but the horse was so beautiful, so perfect, that they all immediately set out in pursuit of it, without even needing to consult and decide to do so. The elf-turned-horse had a coat like molten gold, bright and smooth and shining, with a mane and tail of pure white and hooves like bronze, while his eyes were obsidian dark and striking. It was beautifully formed, like the fine horses of Arabia, with a compact, muscular body, almost dainty hooves, a wedge-shaped head, a narrow muzzle and delicate ears, but taller than most of those. It reared and danced and ran like the wind, while the other horses, laden with their riders, tried their best to keep up. Prince Byriam knew that none of his horses could hope to catch the magnificent golden stallion.
Something in his heart sorrowed at that, for the horse was utterly wonderful, and seemed like a piece of the strange, adventurous life he found little of in his small, pleasant home.
Yet to his surprise, after a hard but short chase the stallion ran down a dry wash that ended in an impassible wall, and was easily cornered there. Byriam got out a rope, making a lasso of it, preparing for a fight. The stallion reared again, dancing on its hind hooves. Byriam whirled the rope over his head and let it fly, and it flew true, dropping over the stallion's head.
As if aware that it was caught, the stallion instantly sank back to all four hooves and stood, calm, not even winded, despite the chase it had led them on. Startled, Byriam tugged on the rope, and the stallion came along calmly as if the rope was a bridle and the stallion a lady's palfrey, and not a wild creature held merely by a strand around its neck that it could likely shrug out of with hardly any effort.
Byriam was still somewhat in shock about having actually caught the fine stallion when he reached the palace, yet there it was, following docilely behind his dapple-gray mare. A servant came and took the mare, but he held to the stallion's rope and led it into a stall himself, half afraid that if he let go if it, it would turn into a mirage and vanish.
He set about caring for it himself as well. The servants were mildly astonished, but then Byriam astonished everyone in the kingdom from time to time, so they soon adjusted to this new shock, and let him fetch the stallion a measure of oats, and get a curry comb to groom it with.
Standing in the spacious stall, amid the fresh hay laid down there, Byriam began to groom the stallion, working the curry comb over every taut muscle and every bit of shining, supple hide. The horse hardly needed grooming, it hadn't worked up the least bit of sweat, and the only dirt on it was a trace of dust from the road. Even its mane and tail were soft, as if it were groomed every day by an army of attentive stablehands.
"Is that why you were suddenly so tame, do you belong to somebody?" he mused as he cleaned dust and a few loose hairs from the horse's coat. "I suppose that wouldn't be surprising. Such a wonderful horse probably does have an owner. I hope they never miss you, or never find you, though. I want you all for my own. You're a fine stallion, and if I do keep you, I'll breed you to all my best mares. I'm sure they'd be pleased to be serviced by such a fine stud as you, and then I will get a whole crop of lovely foals."
The horse tossed its head and whinnied as if it was laughing, and something in the look it gave Byriam then seemed almost knowing. He left the stable feeling very strange about his new acquisition. It was a fine horse, but also a somewhat uncanny creature, and he was starting to wonder if it was exactly what it seemed.
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The next day was a St. Magnus' Day, and as he was the patron saint of the kingdom, there was always a great festival to celebrate. The king himself would ride in a procession, with all his children, and his lords and ladies would ride as well. So the palace was all a-bustle with preparations for the grand parade that morning.
Prince Byriam went to the stables right away and put a saddle and bridle on the magnificent golden stallion, which the horse accepted tamely. Byriam braided its mane and tail too, and the stable-boys gave him ribbons and flowers, which they had for all the horses, to be worked in among the braids. The prince himself was of course wearing his best coat, the long garment dyed with precious indigo dye and heavy with bright embroidery, over a fine silk shirt and pants of soft calfskin, with his very best black riding boots polished to a high shine. He looked a fine sight on the golden stallion as he rode it out into the stableyard to prepare for the parade.
Perhaps too fine a sight.
"What is this, son?" said his father as he came out into the stableyard. He was in his finery as well, and his embroidery was all of golden thread, even finer than the prince's. He was a bit like the prince, but his middle had gone to fat and if there had ever been any fire in his dark eyes, it had long since died. Instead a petty little gleam was there. He was a small man in mind, if not in body, and though Byriam loved him, he did not like him very much at all.
"This is the fine stallion I was telling you about at dinner," he said, reaching down to pat the horse's shoulder.
"He's fine indeed," said the king with a nod, but there was a look in his eye that Byriam didn't like one bit. "Finer than any other horse here, which means that he should be a king's mount, not a prince's."
Byriam tried not to scowl, he knew the expression only made him look like a child. He tried not to sigh, too, but only gave in to the inevitable and swung down out of the saddle. "I'll go have my gray mare saddled up then," he said, his voice resigned. A prince might usually get whatever he wanted, but not when the king wanted it instead.
"Good lad," said his father, and he put a foot in the stirrup. The stallion immediately shied away from him, tossing its head and whinnying.
"Woah there!" said the king, and he held tight to the reins until the stallion calmed. Keeping that grip, he got his foot in the stirrup this time and swung up, but he hadn't even settled in his seat when the stallion twisted and bucked, turning his swinging mount into a tumbling dismount off the other side of the horse, nearly head-first. His fall was broken by a hapless servant, so he came up unharmed and spitting mad. The servant soon was holding the reins tight and the king once again swung up red-faced and angry into the saddle, this time getting his seat properly. He nodded triumphant approval and told the servant to hand over the reins, at which point the stallion immediately started bucking like a demon, tearing them from the startled servant's hands. He bounced on all four hooves, then kicked out with his hind hooves, and then reared up, twisting and dancing, and the king came unseated despite his best attempts, and ended up on his rump on the hard flagstones. It was a well-padded rump, but his dignity was badly bruised, as was his backside.
"That horse of yours has a demon in him," snapped the king at Byriam.
Byriam tried not to laugh. "I'm sorry, father." The horse did laugh, tossing its head and whinnying.
"Never mind that. I'll ride my white charger. And if you've any sense you'll ride your gray mare after all."
Byriam nodded. He knew perfectly well that the king was right. Yet he couldn't resist the temptation. He went over to the stallion, who was standing still again, looking as calm and serene as if he hadn't just thrown a spectacular fit. Byriam took the reins, put a foot in the stirrup, and mounted up. The horse stayed rock steady beneath him. It didn't so much as flick an ear.
It was definitely an uncanny animal.
One with a particular fondness for him, it seemed. Byriam knew perfectly well that it was an absolutely terrible idea to ride the stallion. It was probably a terrible idea to even have it in the kingdom, he should no doubt be arranging to let it go or send it very far away. Yet he couldn't bring himself to do it. "I have no sense whatsoever," he murmured, and patted the stallion's shoulder again with a smile.
The stallion flicked its ears back towards him and whinnied another laugh.
It wasn't long before the parade was underway. Young men carried bright banners at the forefront, followed by a bevy of maidens who danced with scarves and strewed flowers in the parade's path, singing as they went. Their songs were sometimes hymns and sometimes traditional songs of the kingdom, and were all bright and cheerful, for this was a cheerful occasion, not a solemn one.
The king rode next, on a massive white gelding with heavy hooves, a horse that was trained in battle, though it had never been used in one. On a fine white palfrey beside him came the queen, in a dress even heavier with embroidery than the king's coat, sitting side saddle and letting her trail fall over the horse's hindquarters. It trailed almost to the ground, trimmed with lace and little pearls.
The royal children came next. Byriam, the eldest, rode his magnificent stallion, and waved cheerfully to all as he passed. His younger siblings, three brothers and two sisters, rode beside him, most on sturdy ponies lead by servants, though the eldest sister was less than two years younger than Byriam, and she rode a fine palfrey of her own, with a coat of jet black, that made a handsome contrast to Byriam's golden stallion.
Then all the lords and ladies of the kingdom came, most on horseback, though the eldest were in open carriages decked with flowers. Behind them marched a fine showing of the royal guard, with pennons on their spears that flew gaily in the breeze off the harbor.
Behind them the city's children frolicked and laughed and darted out to pick up the flowers that had been strewn in the street, for it was held to be good luck to find a flower that hadn't been crushed by all the horses passing.
The procession wound its way from the palace down through the city streets and out towards the road that ran along the river, up the valley, and to lands beyond. A fair was set up just on the edge of town, and there would be games and jousting and many other amusements for commoner and noble alike there.
Just as the procession neared the fair, the golden stallion tossed its head and took off like a loosed arrow. Byriam nearly lost his seat in surprise. He didn't lose his grip on the reins, and he immediately hauled back as hard as he could, but that was when he discovered that the little head-toss had been the stallion settling the bit between its teeth, and there was no halting it now. In a flash it had raced paced the king and queen, past the girls strewing their flowers and twirling their scarves, past the boys carrying their banners, and into the open road ahead. And then it really started to run.
Byriam yelped in surprise and bent over the horse's neck as the wind began to make his eyes water. It was all he could do now to stay low and keep his seat. The horse was going where it was going and there was no stopping it.
It rocketed down the road at an impossible pace, the fields and farms alongside it going by in a blur. Then it swerved abruptly and left the road. Byriam yelped in alarm and clung even more desperately to the saddle. Fortunately the horse slowed just a bit as it galloped through a field of newly planted wheat, but the ride didn't get any less alarming, for it was now having to leap over fences and hedges as it raced through the countryside.
Byriam soon recognized where the creature was headed. It was making a path towards the hills near where he'd found it in the first place. It left the well-watered farmland behind and galloped through the dry hills, until it came to one particular spot, where a game trail ran along the base of a huge massif of golden sandstone. Byriam knew the spot well. But the horse wasn't following the game trail around the huge standing stone. It was running on a trail of its own devising, straight as an arrow towards the stone's flat face. As it drew nearer it didn't slow, in fact it ran faster, and then its hooves left the ground in a leap directly at the massif.
The horse was going to break its neck, and Byriam's too, he knew, and yet somehow an instant later they weren't slamming into unyielding rock, they were landing, the horse's hooves thudding down in a carpet of rich green grass. It skidded to a halt and stood, breathing hard and a little bit lathered at last, though no wonder after such a run.
Then it gave a little hop and the stunned Byriam, who'd been so relieved at not dying that he'd let go his death-grip on the saddle, fell right out of it and tumbled into the grass below.
He lay there blinking, trying to calm his racing pulse and gather his scattered wits. The world had just turned topsy-turvey, and it seemed it wasn't finished turning yet, for he heard a voice laughing, and looked up to see the horse vanished, and a young man standing in its place. "Ah, Prince Byriam. If you could see your own face just now! It is quite a sight. Hello and welcome to my kingdom. I'm Prince Safayid." The man held out his hand, and Byriam took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
Prince Safayid had fair skin with a hint of a golden tint to it, as if he might be a bronzed as Byriam if only he saw more of the sun. His eyes were jet black, deep and hard to read. His hair was as white as the horse's had been, and his face was as narrow, with a pointed chin and broad forehead, marked with arching eyebrows as white as his hair. His ears came to a point, if Byriam had needed to see further evidence that he was something other than merely human. A light coat of sweat sheened his brow, as if he had just been running very hard.
"You seem to have kidnapped me," said Byriam as he stood.
"It was not done in malice, I assure you," said Safayid, and something in his expression was hesitant, uncertain as he said it. Byriam felt somewhat puzzled at this. It was he who should be uncertain here, and not the uncanny prince whose uncanny land this was. But he nodded acceptance and looked around him. The sandstone massif stood behind him, much the same as in his world, but ahead of him was not a dry desert, but a lush land of rolling green hills. One nearby was topped with a magnificent palace, that had walled gardens and tended grounds spilling down all the hillside below it and into the lower land around as well. A river wound around the hill, and a bridge arched over it, leading to a path paved in white marble, that climbed up the hill to the palace's grand front gates.
"But come, you are my guest. Allow me to show you a proper welcome." The elven prince snapped his fingers, and suddenly a group of burly men with skin the color of old jade appeared, carrying a litter between them. They knelt, and Safayid climbed up to seat himself on the cushions strewn within the open-sided construction there. He beckoned, and Byriam joined him a little hesitantly. The cushions were comfortable indeed, but the space was very small, and he found himself sitting with Safayid's leg touching his, no matter how he settled himself.
The thought crossed his mind that the touch was not an unpleasant one. Byriam was one of those inclined as much towards men as women, and the elven prince was certainly handsome enough. He had been told that such things were a sin, but then riding too hard and laughing too loud were apparently also sins, so he'd had a great deal of difficulty believing very firmly in the notion of his own guilt on any such matters.
He knew someday he'd likely wed some nearby princess or other, but in the meantime he'd seen no reason to not take what joy he could, from man or woman. He took what joy he could from life in all things, whether it was good drink, or good food, or riding to the hunt, or bedding a pleasing partner.
He wondered if the elves believed in sin.
Safayid's hand touched his arm lightly, and Byriam felt it as a shock, which went through his whole body, and seemed to set both his cheeks and certain parts of him much lower down aflame. He should not have let his mind wander to such things while so close to a handsome man. "Here, we are almost to my palace. You may consider everything within it yours, without question."
"That is generous treatment for a guest," said Byriam, trying to dismiss his blush.
Safayid only smiled, and the litter continued on, through the gates and into the gardens within, where fountains played and the paving stones seemed to be gemstones, for they were brightly colored and shone with hints of sparkling light beneath the sunlight. The litter halted before the palace proper, its bearers kneeling. Safayid alighted from it, and Byriam did as well. Three broad marble steps led up to the palace door, which was wide enough to drive a chariot through. It swung open as they mounted the stairs, though there was no servant manning it.
Inside was as grand and baroque as outside, everything lavishly decorated in rich materials, wood and ivory and stone. There were murals and mosaics and tapestries everywhere Byriam looked, and the floors were of perfectly fitting marble tiles, with hardly a seam between them, that sparkled in the light of a thousand candles in ornate candelabras and a thousand more laps fitted everywhere on the walls. The whole place was impossibly sybaritic, and if he hadn't already known that he was no longer in the real world before this, he would have known it to see such things.
The high-arched hallway led to an even higher-arched dining room, with a long table that ran down the center, already laden with every possible kind of food. Byriam's stomach immediately growled, reminding him that he had been expecting a feast at the fair and thus had not even had his luncheon yet. He licked his lips and looked at the heavily-laden table, then glanced over at Safayid. "No offense to you, but I recall being told once that eating fairy food will doom you to never return home. I suppose I wouldn't miss the place immediately, but I don't want to be trapped here forever."
He was afraid that Safayid would be angry, but the elven prince only nodded. "I will swear whatever oath you ask that the food here is safe for you to eat. You are my guest, and I wish you to stay, but if you truly desire to leave, you may. I would not see you unhappy for all the world."
Byriam hesitated a moment, then decided that he might as well. This was the kind of grand adventure he'd thought never to have, and he wasn't going to starve himself when he could be eating every possible good thing under the sun. In any case, if Safayid wasn't trustworthy, then he was probably doomed anyway.
So he went to the table and dug in with a will, and Safayid sat beside him and ate also.
The food was good and the wine was even better, yet when Byriam was finally sated, he found that he felt only a little merry, not nearly as drunk, nor nearly as stuffed he he probably should be. Well, it was fairy food, and probably not to be trusted after all, but it was much too late for that.
"Does dinner meet with your satisfaction, Prince Byriam?"
"It does," said Byriam with a replete sigh.
"The come, let me show you to where you may stay the night, if you wish."
Byriam nodded and rose, and once again followed his host through the baroque and lavish hallways, and up a grand flight of stairs, to a massive bedroom. It was as luxurious as everything else here, and the bed looked large enough to sleep half an army. It took up nearly half the enormous room.
"That is a very large bed," Byriam remarked, wondering if he was meant to actually sleep in it, or if it was something else entirely and merely covered in blankets and pillows so that it looked like a bed.
"It needs to be large enough so that all four of my wives can join me, when they are in residence," said Prince Safayid, and there was some of that strange uncertainty in his voice again as he spoke.
Blinking, Byriam looked over at him. "This is your bedchamber, then?"
"Yes."
"And you are married."
"Yes. Though the fair folk regard marriage differently from the way humans treat it. We live forever, or near enough to it. To spend forever tightly bound to only one person is...less than practical for most. So we take lovers often, and may marry more than one as well, and sometimes spend years, even centuries apart. I have seen my wives a few times of late, they get along well and often visit together, even, but they are not here tonight, nor are they likely to be here for some time."
"I see. And you have taken me to your bedchamber." Byriam felt absurd as soon as he said it. Of course Safayid had, they both knew that. He felt his cheeks flushing again.
"Yes," said Safayid softly. His cheeks seemed to bear a hint of pink as well. "As I said, only if you wish. There are other bedchambers here. I will show you to one, if you prefer it."
Byriam hesitated, looking at the elven prince. There was very little doubt what sort of invitation he was being offered. There was every possibility that accepting it was unwise. It probably was a sin, as well. Yet like riding the golden stallion in the procession, like eating the fairy food, like so many other things he'd done that were louder and larger and more reckless than those around him, Byriam couldn't shy away from this opportunity. So he smiled, and reached out to brush his fingers against the elven prince's arm, finding his skin warm and pleasant to the touch. "I would be honored to stay here," he said.
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