Dagger Through the Moon

My passionate cries awakened Umar, as I knew they would—as I had planned for them to do. He stirred in his sleep, alone in his bed, distraught into impotence since I had escaped him that the first lover to ever fully satisfy his needs had flown from him and had insulted him by stealing his white stallion as well. I summoned up for him a vision of my youthful, naked body, well-muscled legs in wide stance on the stone roof atop the highest tower of Belvoir, arms lifted up and out to the heavens, muscles rolling and rippling, and young, strong cock and balls swinging heavily below that brand on my belly. His member stirred for the first time since I had left him, and he could hardly contain it with his hands in its rising at the vision of me. I disassembled in the smoke from his braziers, and he moaned at the loss of me. He looked up, without opening his eyes, and found that his tent had dissolved and that his field of vision was dominated by a full, brilliant, yellow moon, a moon that seemed to be moving closer to him.

Knowing that I had captured Umar's attention from across the crumbling walls of Belvoir, and the empty valley between the warring factions, and the endless tent city of the Saracen forces, I waved my arms and was taken up into the air. As I floated toward the all-encompassing moon, my body was changing into that of a magnificent white stallion—Umar's white stallion.

Umar saw his white stallion racing across the moon, and he raised his arm and tried to grasp his beloved steed with his clawing fists. It was almost as if he could touch the apparition, but that it hovered just outside his grasp, its sweat glistening in the moonlight. He stretched out his arm, and his arm moved toward the moon steed, his naked body floating behind.

He was astride me now, his strong naked thighs encasing my white silky flanks. I could feel his giant tool thicken and lengthen and slide back and forth on my trembling back as we rode the moonbeams across the scuttling clouds. Umar was groaning and moaning for me, wanting to take me, crying of his need to be inside me, to fuck me. I was revealed to him now; I was both white stallion and Darien, the lover, to him now—and he needed me in both my forms. He cried of his need to ride the white stallion and to ride his lover simultaneously, together.

But I would give him nothing until and unless he promised, upon pain of being denied paradise, to give safe passage to boats on the sea to the defenders of Belvoir, every man, woman, and child of them. He tried to overpower me, but I remained the white stallion, beyond reach of his insistent cock until he promised. He wheedled and tried to seduce me with the retelling of how masterfully he had fucked me and how much he knew I genuinely had enjoyed him. I could not deny to myself that what he said was true, but I remained strong against his entreaties by touching the raw edges of the dagger through the moon brand on my belly, the symbol of his arrogance and cruelty. But in the end, he kept some of his own; he offered to let all go except one. And the feel of his strong thighs encasing my flanks and the sliding of that monster cock of his on my back as we dashed across the sky tore at my defenses and I agreed to that condition, knowing I was at my limits of resisting my lust for him.

The deal struck, I turned from white stallion fully into young lover Darien and rolled onto my back under him as we glided across the sky. I spread my legs wide for him, and, with a shout of victory and joy, he thrust his mighty sword up into my encasing and welcoming passage and thrust and thrust and thrust. I met him thrust for thrust, and we entwined and writhed against each other as we became a piercing dagger careening toward the surface of the moon. We both came in a shower of semen that watered the fertile valley between the Horns of Hattin and the Saracen camp, giving new life to the denuded cedar forests there, just as we pierced the moon and sent it shattering in pieces across the sky, dispelling night into day.

When Umar awoke, he knew what he had to do. He summoned Hugh d'Ibelin to another parley, and to the astonishment of Hugh and his retinue, announced that the holders of Belvoir need not surrender or give up their arms as long as they were prepared to march down to the sea under safe passage through the Saracen ranks and embark on boats and leave the Levant forever. The only conditions were that they had to return Umar's prized white stallion to him and that the magician, Darien, had to remain in Belvoir.

Before Hugh could even consider refusing, I nuzzled the white stallion over to his side and whispered in his ear that I was willing to accept this fate but to trust me that all would be well. Then I told him what he needed to offer.

Hugh then agreed to Umar's terms, saying that I would be locked in the high tower of Belvoir and was to remain there until all of his people had been put to sea.

I was duly locked in the tower, under guard by the Saracens' strongest set of eunuchs, Umar no longer trusting me to the care of any man with balls and a seeking cock. And then the defenders of Belvoir started to straggle out of the stronghold gates and down the Horns and Hattin and to the sea. The Saracens honored their pledge of safe conduct, if only because I had declared that I would be watching and would take my own life if Umar showed any sign of treachery. I had charmed Umar so fully that he almost burst into tears at the thought of losing me.

And I didn't dishonor any pledge, either, as I hadn't personally made any in this regard. What I did do, however, was to slip out of the secret passage in the high tower, dressed as an old hag, and merge with the last of the refugees leaving Belvoir. When we were all on boats, I turned my eyes on Umar, sitting with his strong thighs pressing firmly into the flanks of his beloved white stallion, and made sure that he made eye contact with me. When he did so, he let loose with a strangled cry of fury and loss and raced the white stallion down to the sand. But the white stallion would not enter the water and reared up and unseated the great Umar, who fell back on the ground and hit his head on the rocks. As our boats plowed into the waves of the Mediterranean, I watched the great chieftain's retainers gently lift his body and carry him toward the tents.

That night, when we had gained the safety of the Cypriot shores and found Guy de Lusignan comfortably ensconced in his harbor castle at Larnaka rather than leading a relief force across the Levant toward the Horns of Hattin, I separated myself from those celebrating their deliverance by forces they did not know or fully appreciate and stole to the top of the castle's highest tower.

There I once more rendered myself naked and summoned the full, yellow moon to my bidding. As before I rose in the air and floated over the tent of the semiconscious and barely breathing Saracen chieftain, laid out uncovered on the silks and furs of his enormous bed, luxury that he no longer was able to appreciate. He opened his eyes to me without opening his eyes, and his body floated up to mine. I encased his broken body in my arms, and we soared up toward the yellow moon. I took his hand in mine and made him trace the ragged outline of the dagger through the moon brand on my belly.

And then I whispered in his ear. "Remember me. When you mourn the loss of your paradise, remember me."

As we careened up toward the surface of the moon, I pulled his back to me and thrust my cock up inside him, showing him a virility, vigor, and filling possession that no man had dared attempt with him before. Once, twice, three times I buried my cock deep inside him. And he screamed in pain and passion with each gut-depth thrust. With a cry of ecstasy, our arms and legs intertwined and, me holding deep inside him, we pierced the moon, which, as in the previous night, shattered in a million pieces to mark the advent of a new day. This time, however, I pushed the bucking body of the great Umar away from me and he plunged, alone, crying of being held short of releasing ejaculation and clutching for me with his fists, back to earth.

All of the attendants at his bedside heard his death rattle and were perplexed, as they could swear that he had clearly screamed the name of Darien with his last gasping breath. And then with a cry of sheer joy, he shot off a shower of ejaculate at the point of death that covered all in the room and that was the source of many legends of the extraordinarily virile Umar ibn al-Hakam for generations to come.

But I, Darien, was no longer there, nor did I return to the castle in Larnaka or to the side of my now-unwelcoming master-lover. When I released Umar to his fate for his multitude of sins, I once more reformed into the guise of a great white stallion and rode the rays of the sun beyond the moon. And I am still racing across the night skies today in the form of a constellation spied as the form of a galloping stallion with a dagger through a crescent on its belly and named many centuries ago as St. Darien for no reason that anyone but me can now recall.