Fantasy, man traveling across desert, prince maybe, journey part of religion?

I have only vague recollections of the book, no idea of the title or author. I read it approximately 10 - 12 years ago (1997-1999), I believe the book itself was probably from the late 70s or 80s, ie, the style strongly reminded me of other books I've read from those periods.

I can only remember a vague plot line, a man traveling across a desert, I believe that he was some sort of prince. I remember there being some form of priest involved in the story, though I can't remember if he was a good guy or a bad guy. The protagonist encounters various monsters while traveling across the desert, I seem to remember skeleton horses in connection with this, though it feels like that memory might be carryover from the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. And for some reason, I'm also getting a vague memory of a black pyramid along with it. This book is nagging at the back of my mind, I know the description is extremely vague, but I thought I'd throw it out and see what came up.

Thanks!

... tickles my memory as well, but the main thing that came to mind was:

in the desert, you can remember your name, cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain, na naa naa nana nana na ....

and now that's going thru my head. dammit.

anyway, is this by any chance a post-apocalyptic fantasy, a la Robert Adams? or is it some non-earth fantasy world?

Was it Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist?

It's a non-earth fantasy world. Definitely a cliche type fantasy book, where the names are all strange, etc. I'll probably have to go digging back through the library shelves to find it, although I wouldn't doubt that it's been sold off by now.

It really calls to mind the author Tanith Lee for me - maybe her Unicorn books? (Black Unicorn in particular I believe has desert crossings and princes of questionable alignment and skeletal unicorns and monsters and looming black buildings...) Or it could even be some of her other fantasy, like something from the series that starts with Night's Master, that I don't recall as well, but she had certain imagery she used a lot...

(Lee's fantasy has the unique ability to send me on an almost hallucinogenic journey, so I emerge with only a vague memory of foreboding and lushness, so I haven't any better details. Like Dunsany only more immersive. But it definitely *feels* like 1970s/1980s fantasy, even the stuff she wrote later.)

You might check out Clifford Simak's Fellowship of the Talisman. I don't remember skeleton horses or a black pyramid, but a prince-sort-of-person traveling across - well, a desolation (part of it is a desert) for a religious reason fits. Also the fact that the whole memory is very vague - I've read it at least three times and still couldn't tell you the plot. It starts with - there's a Great Darkness coming and the hero has to get to ? with ? to help stave it off - or just hide the whatever he's carrying...or something. Lots of monsters and adventures and stuff going on on the trip. And I think he goes the wrong way and ends up stopping the Great Darkness (I don't think that's what it's called in the book, that's just the feeling it gives), at least for a while.

Copyright 1978, btw.

Heh.
The Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett?

Couldn't resist. Sorry. But there is a lot of desert travel in it.

Jennifer Roberson's Tiger and Del series involves deserts, but no princes I can recall.

Perhaps the Prince of the Godborn series? I haven't read them in a while, but there is a prince on a journey collecting keys to save his country. Great books though I think they are out of print now...

Almost forgot I had posted this, too ;). Prince of the Godborn and Fellowship of the Talisman both sound quite familiar. I'll go digging through the library shelves and see if that's it.

>2 lquilter: LOL ;-) If I were ever to do Karaoke, that would be my tune.

>10 bmjaspers: If neither of them are the one I had a suggestion. Could it be The Dark Tower by Stephen King? It kind of reminds me of that.

This sounds very much like The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
From Amazon.com:
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.

> 11 Definitely not The Dark Tower. That's one of my favorite books of all time (so far).

Don't know about a skeleton horse and black pyramid, but in Raymond E. Feist's Prince of the Blood Prince Boric of Kronder travelled to Kesh. I think part of it was in the desert and that he was accompanied by an Isalani priest, Nakor.

I recently read The Little Prince and I don't think that's it. But it's well-worth the read!