The Photo Booth: The Golden Throne
by Otaru_grower
Ancient Persia, 540 BC, ancient capital city of Pasargadae
In the great, sprawling paradise of a city known as Pasargadae, in the years following the great defeat of the Lydian and Medean empires at the feet of the God on Earth, the King of Kings, Cyrus the Great, son of Tiespes, whose blessed name was spoken in every corner of the world, speaker for Ahura Mahzda, for Baal, for Zeus and Hera, for Innana, for Marduk, for Mithra, and now the singular God of the Israelites, whose holy temple he saved and restored from barbarians (who most in Persia believed to be a mere mirror version of their own Ahura Mahzda and therefore the people of Judea were seen as kindred), and the pantheonic many armed gods of the Indus peoples, life was truly a blessing. Merchants crowded the streets with dates, cedar, rare metallic swords from the Eastern Kingdoms beyond the mountains, silks from a place known only as Zhou, dyes from Egypt, spices from the Vedas-lands, and of course scripted papyri and scrolls from all parts of the world. Great Achaemenes, the Land of Gold, the Land of Learning, the Land of True Civilization, had usurped the former glory of rival Mesopotamia, to become the greatest empire the world had known yet, stretching from the stores of the Great Sea of Islands to the Highest Mountains of White Snows, and everyone who was anyone came to bask in awe at its remarkable cities. Its towers! Its gardens! Its magic…
For one boy whose name was Jishti, life was not glorious. He had just escaped from a slave caravan in the far north, where his tribe had been subjected to less than fair treatment by the dread warrior Mazares. Mazares had been helped by his erstwhile and equally dread compatriot Harpagus, whose schemes to lay siege to the walls of the Greeks surprised them and all who witnessed the ingenuity of Persian skill, and with their walls rubble, their cities sacked and nobles properly married to Persian royalty, true peace had come at last to the region as a whole.
But Jishti remembered a great deal. The barbarism had clenched the fate of both sides, as men ran at each other on the battlefield crying out for bloodlust. Jishti had been spared because he was small and well hid, but his parents had suffered the fate of an eternity on the Black River.
Jishti had traveled as a slave after being captured, but was clever enough to escape. He had pleaded with several boat captains on the river Tigris for work, eventually finding a drunken lout of a captain who required a young boy to entertain him with song and dance, and who could fetch things, and tie knots, and likewise entertain the crew and do their bidding of all small minutae in exchange for passage. So he had finally come to the mouth of the new Sea of Changes, which had swallowed the ancient cities of yore, where gods had charged across the sky slaughtering each other in mighty battles. He had begged passage on another ship to the empire of the Persians, and traveled by foot inland. He had found himself in Persepolis for a year, working in a tavern watching men fight for sport in a ring, sometimes fought with trident or sometimes with wooden swords or strange metal dual blade swords that whirred and sung through the air.
One of those strangers had brought Jishti to Pasargadae as a servant. The brothel and tavern owner had sold him, even though he had no right to. Now he merely wandered the streets doing the bidding of a soldier in the same army that had captured his homeland. Such was the mysterious way of Ahura Mahzda, the All Knowing. The man was tall, large and plain, with no hair on his head and treated his new son, who he now referred to Jishti as (his own infants and wife had died young) and adoption was the way of most peoples. The man’s name was Khavar, which, appropriately meant “creator of all favors” and he showed it by being interested in Jishti’s well being and happiness and fed him well. It was an irritation to the boy, who had vowed revenge and now felt himself happy and content.
On this particular day, he was on an assignment to procure flatbread and olives for his master father, and instead, happened to see the Queen of All Persia. He had been haggling with the trader, for he was shrewd for a nine year old boy, when the Queen’s entourage arrived. She commanded to taste honey from the stall across the way and a servant brought her a piece of comb on a silver plate, with bread. Behind the stall was a very large doorframe, gilt in gold, with a large and impressive throne behind it. Jishti looked back at the Queen’s caravan and back again and it had suddenly vanished. Perhaps the dreamlike waftings of sleep had occurred while he was unawares, he thought.
He told Khavar, who was unimpressed, but made sure that Jishti described the throne and gold doorframe before dismissing his entire account. The Queen was everywhere in Pasargadae, the city belongs to her, Blessed She-Who-Speaks-Only-Truth. “Now her husband, he is a good looking man. An amazing king, Cyrus is. Tall and bold. Perfection of power in godly form.” Jishti asked if Khavar had a desire for his king beyond being a soldier. He was then told to mind his own business and sent to the gardens for water.
The great gardens of Pasargadae bloomed in absolute splendor. Marble bordered the squares of green filled with water diverted from the lake nearby to create a wonderland of channels, all neatly built up to form moats of sizeable beauty for the Queen. One of the canals from the garden to the lake was nearby his master’s house, and as Jishti dipped his copper vase into the water (so much more convenient than a heavy ceramic one, which would require a donkey to pull), he saw the Queen on her special boat, the second time in one day.
“Didn’t I see that boy earlier? There’s something about him I find familiar.” Queen Asabana inquired her senior courtier, as she was fanned by a gold encrusted peacock feather fan.
“I believe he’s one of the general’s. General Khavar’s, if I’m not mistaken. He has a new son that he acquired. He tested the boy, and he knows a few moves from watching tavern fighters.”
“That’s what I like to hear. You must be discerning when you adopt. I insisted just last year that my sister adopt a Greek girl. She can recite poems for hours. That’s what you need, not like the nobles in the Babylonian riverlands. Effete and useless. It’s why we’re going to win when we conquer them later this year. They shouldn’t even be able to put up a fight. Oh, maybe a thousand years ago but what are they now? We have their empire surrounded. Oh, let’s do inquire for that boy to visit. I like the look of him, and he can meet my adopted niece, Io.”
“Yes, my Great-Lady-Who-Always-Speaks-Truth”.
The next evening, Jishti was brought on board the shaded boat of the lovely Queen, and he shook a little with nervousness at the large muscled guards and sheepish servants but who still exuded knowledge with every look.
The cavernous gardens swallowed both sides of the artificial river channel. As the glamorous boat sailed through, delightfully colored birds cheeped from the branches of delicately tended trees, and simple statues or simple shrines with large lamp flames glowed in the waning light of evening, and the Queen took a special interest in asking Jishti about his upbringing and delighted in his travels, until something she saw out of the corner of her eye.
“Do you see that?”
They turned to each other, boy and queen. “It was there the day in the marketplace. I was there. You asked to taste some honey.” The Queen’s eyes widened. “Yes, and then…stop the boat. Pull to the side! At once!”
The Queen ran with the child along a side of the garden that was thick with bushes. She had seen it. She knew she had! A large gilded doorframe with a large, impressive throne! It had glinted, as if to call to them.
“Is it a sign from the gods?” the young boy asked, forgetting to address her by any of her many splendid titles.
“I think it may be.” She made him recount what he saw in all seriousness. “Tell your general father to meet me tomorrow. We have something to discuss.” The Queen raised her hands to her minions to not lift her as she proceeded back to the boat. Jishti was brought to the tall griffin statued gates with blocks as big as a shop-stall and left to wander the ochre-buildinged, sunset-drenched filled streets until he arrived home.
“It should be of no interest to anyone. Perhaps the gods did send a sign, but it was meant for the Queen, not you.” Khavar said flippantly. “Now stoke the fire and make some wheat porridge. And use the red spice powder this time. I pay for it for a reason.”
Khavar returned the next day after counsel with the king and queen, extolling their virtues. “We talked strategy, mainly. Now go to this shop. It’s in the heart of the most twisted labyrinth near the southern wall.” He drew a map in the dirt until Jishti had it memorized and then sent him off.
In the hushed, highly shadowed alcoves of the thin corridors he found himself in, there was a passageway that ended in what looked like a dead end. It was hard to notice. But there was an alcove to the right that one couldn’t see unless you were yourself at the end. Otherwise, one might assume that nothing was there. It was very cramped and he had to fit around carefully and slowly. Inside the strange, dimly lit new alcove, filled with candles and incense holders and shaded from the light of day by a series of tarps, he could barely see. There was a house with a small door. It creaked open.
He slowly, oh so slowly proceeded inside. He inched forward. It was quiet and he didn’t like it. What he thought was a voice but actually just a draft moaned just to his side. He had come here to procure a scroll for Khavar. But there was only darkness, and…wait, the flickering of a candlelight. This corridor couldn’t possibly be this long! He thought. This house could not possibly be this big! He looked behind him in shock to find a wall was there. He quickly banged his fists against it. It was solid stone. There was no way back!
He entered a room draped in curtains and had a large, familiar doorframe, gilded in gold. The candles flickered and its surface flickered ominously. The throne…and the scroll on its seat.
“This is a joke…is anyone here? Hello! Can you hear me?” But only his echoes were found. The room had a high ceiling, like that of a tower or palace. The windows near the top provided very little daylight. It was in this dark room that the incense began to make a cloud. He could almost hear his thoughts clamoring for escape.
But the scroll was right there. On the throne. He crept up cautiously to it, afraid that at any moment some guard would leap out and execute him for sacrilege, when suddenly he felt the desire to place himself on its seat. He grabbed the scroll and sat down. Gilded griffins on either side of the arms, and a pad of silk to cushion him, and designs of strange beasts on the back of the seat, that swirled and commingled and began to move, silver and gold on black, forming clouds as they formed snakes and dragons and armies and great gods coming down from the skies to gift a few humans with immeasurable strength.
He sat on the throne, and remembered when he was orphaned. Or…wait. No. That was wrong. He wasn’t orphaned. What an insane thought. He was raised in Susa. Among the best horsemen in the land. Ancient city. Stood up to Mesopotamia plenty of times. He had learned to ride when he was only three. He was born to ride. One of the best riders. A flash fell across him like a screen falling over his being. There, his father, a noble born man with great strength, teaching him the secrets of iron. How to smelt. He learned swords from an early age, too. And boy could he fight! He could wrestle! He was bigger than other boys his age early on and surprised a number of older boys with besting them and that was just the beginning of his adventures! He had accompanied his father on his first battle campaign when he was only 9! He had watched them seize a rebel city, and did it quickly, smart, without anyone getting hurt. Kidnapped the royal princess and held her to knifepoint, and that was smart. Surrender happened quickly. The locals agreed to send 2,000 of their best boys and men to join the Great Persian Army. And then they celebrated. His father did not partake but Jishti, who found that name fading…no of course that wasn’t his name. That was some servant boy’s name. His name was a great name of a great family. His name was Nabonidus! Of course and the inspiration of it. Of a mere boy growing so tall so quickly. When he was 12 he was as tall as most men, and by the time he was 13 he had hair on his chest, and armpits, and was starting to show muscle from all his days riding. Just a few months later he had his first beard! Everyone remarked how quickly he rode, and how well he fought! He worked hard and bedded his first woman at a village in the north as he marched with his father to ensure their safety against marauders. She came to his bedchambers and he fucked her, and she guided him and he felt somewhat good about it, because it meant he was a man now. But it didn’t entirely feel right. His first real battle armor came after that. His leather shield replaced by a real one. His spear, his many instruments to use while whirling his arms, some of them exotic. His father invested in new ways for him to prove his agility. He grew. And grew. His friends always spoke in jealous but well meaning whispers about his height. He grew past his father by over a head, spanning what would later become known as six and a half feet, which back then gave him the ability to TOWER above other men, who averaged only five feet. By this time he was a comely seventeen years old, and swaggered about town. He grew larger as he lifted heavy rocks for sport. He had been doing that even as a child, and others laughed at him for attempting to do too much for someone so small. But he told himself repeatedly “I am a warrior. I am a warrior!”
Back when he had been a slave, it had been so different. Wait, slave? When had he been a slave? Never! Such a joke to even think of such a thing! When he learned to fight by watching taverngoers…no. Wait. That was wrong. He learned to fight from royal trainers. He was a lethal walking weapon of the Holy Word on Earth King Cyrus the Great, praise be to He-Who-Always-Speaks-Truth!
But seventeen was the year he discovered his true penchant was for fucking soldiers he took a liking to. Or who followed him around like great puppy dogs. Many of them years older than him, and of course they looked up to him. He was a better fighter than most, his voice was deep like cracks in the earth. He was a man-bull incarnate, he often said. They tattooed him with holy bulls and griffins and twining scripts around his now massive arms for sacred protection. He chose a few select warriors to fuck by the fires of his camp. It became an inside joke that to sleep with the great new warrior Nabonidus was to be protected, that his seed was holy like Marduk’s. In fact many called him Marduk’s Favored, for his height and strength in wrestling and competition dwarfed much older men than himself.
And then his manhood became apparent to the King, the Great King. Who took notice of him and called for him to come with Cyrus to Judea, where they saved Jerusalem from hordes of barbarians. Oh, how the people cheered! They cheered for him! Men and women brought him wreaths! He was a monster demon on the battlefield. He fought men off like they were rats to be swept aside and the Hebrews (who normally saw outsiders as dangerous to their hereditary status lines) begged him to impregnate as many women as he could! How could he refuse such requests? Even husbands asked him to take their wives so they could raise godlike sons! It was against their normal codes, but they made an exception for him. Him, the Good Goliath, they called him!
In battle, he had learned just how superior to other men he could be. He was bigger. He was stronger. He was fiercer. He was smarter. He devised strategies to root out the enemy and even got a few to abscond. He talked reason into their leaders for surrender. He drove off the rest. Cyrus had led the charge but Cyrus thanked him personally one night as they were alone and the Great King sank to his knees and begged that he might see the greatest cock in the kingdom, and before he knew it the mighty king was sucking his dick, hoping that the holy seed would fill him with strength as well. They sweated from the grime and heat and anointed oils, and Nabonidus was more than a foot taller and glorious. The king panted and looked up and hugged his giant, rubbing his hands around his warrior’s torso, his firm muscle ass, firm as rock, firm as a tiger! His arms! His arms were the size of the king’s head and he made the king aware of this as he made Cyrus kiss them, bringing his king’s head just to the point of licking and worshiping his size, his power, and then before either of them knew what they were doing he tossed his king on a bearskin rug, and slowly pinned him down. Cyrus was a beautiful man, with mature features and a widow’s peak that he found especially alluring. Nabonidus made his own pecs danced, oiled and golden and covered with curls of hair in a mat. The king dug his hands into the fur and brought his head up to roll his tongue through it, to rub his entire face in this mat of humungous Giant-muscle. Cyrus moaned and called him Hercules and Gilgamesh and Nabonidus said he could do better than either of them. His legs were the size of of a lions! As for the king, his beard was just beginning to gray and Nabonidus slapped him around for fun, his ass and chest, and they brayed like animals when Nabonidus dragged his king down and forced his cock into the Most Sacred Asshole of the World. They screamed and men came in to make sure the two were not injured but instead the king made them watch. Nabonidus rode his king to the delight of the soldiers, who had never seen a man this size bucking anything alive!
After he was spent on the king, the king ordered each other soldiers who had witnessed his own acts promise to let Nabonidus use them for the remainder of the campaign, whether they liked it or not. Two of them didn’t. One did. Nabonidus didn’t care. He was now a general and he fucked them every night, forced them to slurp his horse sized cock until they could swallow no more of his seed. He made them slaves to him, even dressing them up in harnesses he devised. It was all in good fun, he said. Eventually the two that were at first ill-humored about their new positions warmed up to him. There was something about Nabonidus that was just magical, that was irresistible to the point where even though they desired most women, they desired their leader more and would do anything to make him happy, would suck him off at a heartbeat, and he began to command them around just so they would feel the pleasure of serving him. Sometimes he would have them attend to his dick while he was eating and drinking mead. He would bring in women just to watch and cover their mouths in awe and then beg to take part in the debauchery. He would sometimes give in and let them suck the soldier’s off so they could have proper orgies.
What was he doing in this strange room? Hadn’t he come because his servant general Khavar, who he loved like a brother, had sent him here for a magic talisman for protection in battle? Suddenly, his hands felt the talisman. Hadn’t it been a scroll? That was preposterous.
Nabonidus left the throne behind. It was strange, he thought. That a throne was here. Why would someone simply leave it here? But wait, it was only a simple wooden chair with a canopy of simple linen someone had left to dry. He walked home to his compound, with his many servants and harem of fuck-slaves, and ordered a feast of wild pheasant bird to dine on.
Back in the palace, the Queen felt something was amiss. She consulted her magicians, and her wise men of learning. They followed her to whatever capital city she lived in at any given time.
“I keep having a dream where I am with a boy, a son of a general, who in real life has no son.”
“You should order him to adopt,” one rather strong old grey bearded man with a long dark silk robe imported from afar insisted.
“Already done,” she waved a hand. “I need answers. Bring me the girl from Greece. Io. My sister’s child. She was brought at once.
“My niece, you were servant to the oracle at Sardis in Phrygia, before the Lydian campaign.”
“Yes. My people were long oppressed by the Lydians before the Persians came to unite us. I was happy there but many of my people were treated poorly.”
“Yes, I know. What I have brought you here for is this. My dream. Listen.”
The girl nodded and her eyes widened.
“Have you any experience in your lore that could tell me what I’m seeing?”
“You say there was a door in your garden? With a throne?”
“And it came several times and I remember it, but it’s as though I do not remember it. As if, I do not know the words. As if it became a dream but it was once real.”
“I have heard of such a thing, yes,” the girl replied seriously. “This is the work of gods although which one I am not sure. There are many that are not powerful enough to make such a device. But I have heard accounts of this…throne. This throne that moves. In each account it visits young men of varying ages.”
“Then why did it visit me?”
“Perhaps it seeks to reward you. But this is a serious matter, your majesty, oh She-Who-Only-Speaks-Truth. You must not share your experience with anyone but your wise men and the king. It is a great thing that has happened. I remember my teacher bringing me to Delphi one time. I was thought to perhaps be an initiate there, you see. The Pythia disagreed. She is the most powerful woman in the world,” the girl said, awed. “Yes, even more than you, my beautiful queen.” The girl would not speak a lie of this significance and the Queen was more than aware of the power the Pythia of Delphi held.
“Continue.”
“It is said that the Great Throne is for future kings or warriors only. For great men with great hearts. That it takes those who misfortune had laid waste to or who need another purpose and…it is like if you take the road to Susa from here. Can you not get there by another road?”
“Yes of course, what a question,” the Queen asked, annoyed.
“By majesty, what if you were to travel both roads at the same time, for that is what the Great Throne does.”
Silence enveloped them and the Queen considered these words for quite some time.
The conquest of the far west had brought prosperity to Persia but not everyone was convinced of the merit that surrounded its victors. Over time the Queen became busy with reports that Mazares and Harpagus had been disloyal and were planning a coup. Queen Asabana was very smart. She knew who to trust and who to reward and who could lie well for her, for she must never utter a lie herself, her words were too holy and sacred.
So she told her husband as they played chess, as she did whenever she had something to report to him.
“They have expanded my empire.”
“And they wish to expand it even further, from you and me alike. I am sure of it.”
“Bring me all my generals then, we’ll have it out like men and we’ll have the truth!”
But the Queen was not the only one with spies. One of the courtiers was a lonely older woman who was easy to ply with gifts and before long became a trusted consort to Mazares. He had long known she despised him and that his betrayal and plans for assassination were well known. And now that he knew of a doorway which could change fate, he prayed to his god, the secret god of fire and destruction and vengeance, for a way to rise to power. He sacrificed animals and let open his own blood onto the altar. He uttered ancient magic words to change his fate, for the doorway to find him. He brought in a priestess from an ancient cult of unnameable gods. She performed rituals and took slime covered creatures he had never seen and bashed their heads on the stone, herbs, dead insects, and shrunken heads, vials of foul liquid that she claimed came from the bottom of the sea, as impossible as that was. Smoke belched from the fire and voices whispered throughout the air. The doorway will come. It is only for the chosen for the strong for the good for the defenders.
“There!” he screamed. “You see! I am to be victorious! The doorway will come for me!”
An assembly had been called of all the major military families and Persian nobles, along with all palace servants until they were crowded along one side of the great hall. Cyrus the Great began by thanking his most trusted generals, battle commanders, and all of the soldiers who had participated in the freeing of Judea and Lydia, and brought true peace to those countries so they could share in the wealth of his own Persia. Blood had been spilled, and would be spilled again, so that the enemies of their country would know freedom and not be led by cowards and thieves. Applause exploded.
“And now we have a disturbing tale to reveal. Of traitors in our midst!” Nibonidus looked shocked. Who would dare to move against his king!
“I will kill them for you, majesty!” the giant drew his giant sword, a blade known as Throne-bidder, with a blade as big as some men. He kneeled in front of Cyrus so all would know his loyalty.
“Rise, my friend. My great Nibonidus. No, not yet. Bring forth the witnesses!”
The witnesses were brought to the throne and panicked, several of the traitors tried to leave the hall. One had his arm chopped off. The other was held and the soldiers looked to their king for approval.
“Hold Harpagus for now. We’ll deal with him in a moment.” Cyrus said cooly. Several more conspirators were named and held with swords at their throats. Only Mazares, when his name was called, seemed nonplussed. He swung a dagger behind him as a guard came to hold him. He ducked so it only wounded his shoulder and the man cried out, dug out the knife and Mazares swung around.
“Not so fast! You all think you can bring me here without my planning it? You fools don’t have any idea who I am. What I am about to become?”
“And what is that, food for the camels?” the giant Nibonidus shouted.
“No,” the Queen whispered. The courtiers gasped. A doorway had appeared in the hall with a throne, without anyone seeming to have noticed.
“Get back all of you, you scum! I am taking my rightful throne!”
“Stop him!” cried the Queen.
“No, let him!” Io shouted. “My Queen, remember what I told you. He is not a young man and the Great Throne is for great men with great hearts.”
Mazares planted himself on the seat He held his sword in front of him.
“I can feel it. I can feel it coursing through me!”
“Don’t, everyone stay away from it!” Cyrus commanded.
The few men who had moved forward with swords backed away and the audience looked on, with silence heavy anticipation.
Mazares felt the Great Throne coursing through his very being. The essence of who he was. He hadn’t felt such power since his father’s lash hit him for the first time. What? His father had never dared to beat him. He was raised by the best of the best, by fighters from the East, by Scythian horse riders! But no, that was always just his fantasy, the one he had when all the other boys got to learn to fight and ride.
“Look!” someone shouted. Mazares, whose great frame scared many a man, was…it wasn’t possible! The sword clanged on the ground.
Back when I first became strong, as a boy, I’d bullied other boys who were poor by grinding their faces into dust to get what I wanted, making them promise to be my slaves, but…no…that wasn’t right. They did that…to me and I always dreamed of getting back. Everyone always was bigger than me. But no, I was the bully! I was the strongest! Conflicting thoughts flickered through Mazares’ head.
The crowd gasped. The tattoos on the great warrior uncurled and faded. His great jerkin and leather breeches began to look big on him. His legs were thinner now and less hairy. It was as if his body hair had fallen off but it was simply…disappearing. Would he disappear entirely?
They laughed and jeered because he couldn’t speak properly. No wait, I was the best spoken! I was the smartest! But only in my head. Only told myself that. Only imagined it…
His beard was now gone, only leaving a hint of stubble. He looked like a young man again but not a strong one. Women gasped. A few of the men began to laugh and chuckle.
Mazares never even lost his virginity. What woman would have such a little weakling? Couldn’t ride a horse. Couldn’t do much of anything except fetch things. Men would constantly shove him with their boots for a laugh. He was always saying and doing the most nonsense, stupid things…no wait! No I was brilliant! They all adored me! They adored me alright, they adored making me the butt of all their jokes, of rubbing pig shit in my hair!
His chest was now sunken and where his armor had gone was a mystery, he wore only rags now. He had no beard. He wasn’t older than most of the youngest soldiers. Just a stupid, simple boy. Well, almost. He was technically a man in age, but he had the appearance of a boy. The magicians had said was a curse a long time ago…one they didn’t understand but everyone was clear on its implication. He was touched and abhorred, a dirty filthy creature. His arms were like poles of wood only a few inches across.
He was encrusted with dirt everywhere, and stunk of pig shit. He tried to make words come out to express his pain but none would come.
“Please help!”
“Help yourself you dumb animal!” someone added.
As the spell wore off, the room turned to the traitors. The King ordered them sold into slavery, all ten of them. All to different lands. Including the Queen’s servant, who was found out to be a spy for Mazares.
“Mazares who?” some asked. The King sent everyone off, but for the wretch in front of them. The doorway had long vanished and none knew what the King and Queen spoke of.
“I do know words! I do! I was going to be King!” Mazares stumbled forward, flapping his thin arms around. He was limping now. He still had quite a few of his wits. He wasn’t an idiot. But he was horribly ugly.
Cyrus punched him square in the face and he landed with a thud.
“Sell him to a salt mine.” The king declared.
“The Golden Throne giveth and it taketh away. The gods have rewarded your traitorousness and cruelty, Mazares.” The Queen told him.
As they were left to themselves, the queen told Nabonidus to take a week of rest and fucking to himself, and he gladly accepted, going home to his greatest warrior friends for a huge orgy, in which he reveled in his giant body and fate. He knew that something had happened but he couldn’t quite remember the Other Life he had had, and didn’t quite care much, either.
Khavar, his trusted friend and ally, met him at one of the great Griffin statue gates around the palace.
“Well the traitors are all taken care of. Not bad for a day’s work. Not that we did much.”
“I think we’ve done enough,” Nibonidus said, and bent far down. “I don’t know how to say this, but you are the most generous man in the world. I feel as though you’ve done more for me than anyone. Thank you.”
“Oh don’t thank me. I am merely the agent. It’s the Great Golden Throne you should thank.”
“I don’t understand…” The great warrior said, forgetting already.
“I will see you in a bit, my tall delicious friend.”
“Yes, you will, and I intend on riding you as my steed tonight. I even bought a saddle,” Nibonidus smiled and walked home. His servants saw what everyone else saw. An incredibly handsome man with silken dark hair, soft eyes, and more muscle than anyone could bare to look at. He walked through the town as a demigod, and people everywhere wanted to reach out and stroke his giant, sinewy thighs, his rock hard bull cock, which bulged out from his leather strip shorts with metallic bolts. He watched his reflection in the water of the garden canal, felt his melon sized biceps. He was divine sex. He was constant arousal. He was the gift the gods had given to the world, Pleasurer of the King of the World, confidante to the Queen, and cuckold to countless awe inspired men. There was not a being alive who did not lust after him. He felt his mat of bearish hair, his pecs that were bigger than any man alive. He stood at what later would be known in terms of 290 pounds of muscle, heavily hairy, and that muscle would last him the rest of his life, surrounded always by dozens of male and female concubines begging for him to fuck them. A man who used to ride horses who would later find an elephant suited him better. Who ran on the battlefield as a giant and who made men quake in their boots and piss themselves and wish to god they could see him in all his glory at the same time.
Khavar, in another part of the city, stopped and posed with a hand on his hips. The Golden Throne sat unresponsive and silent in a tiny little alcove , just behind a house with a large chicken coop. He walked around the dotting birds and looked up at his old friend.
“Don’t you think it was laying it on a little bit thick?”
Nothing but sensory thoughts filled him with pure emotion.
“Oh but of course he did. I jest. But what? Oh, old friend, it would be my pleasure…”
Nibonidus waited for Khavar, creator of all favors, in their own miniature palace. The floor was made of a giant mural of Gilgamesh embroiled in battle, his mighty muscles taught and strong, as Enkidu lay naked, jerking his seed to the pose of his mighty lover strangling a giant python.
“Hello, lover boy!” a booming deep voice broke out.
“Khavar!” Nibonidus’ brow furrowed. Didn’t his lover of lovers used to be much shorter? He towered above everyone…well except Khavar of course. Khavar, with his shining bald head and pale skin, only slightly golden sun as his origin from the far, far north where snow came furiously left him with a different complexion than most. But Nibonidus liked it. He liked the bulging biceps, covered with ink and smeared with expensive oils. His deeply masculine shape, his carved pecs. He didn’t have much hair there, so Nibonidus used his hands to glisten the incredible muscle, oh the hardness of it, the impenetrable hardness of it. He punched him playfully on the pecs and the two began to wrestle. The only one who could ever give him a real challenge. Khavar, who stood only a few inches shorter than him, who made men equally cower and covet. The two of them were rare pearls in a land of short, comely little men and only the two of them and possibly the king could compare in terms of sheer beauty and cock size.
They threw each other over the floor and in front of the fire, struggling against each others warrior senses, fierce and contagiously powerful. The power! But finally after an hour Khavar finally resisted and Nibonidus took his foot long cock and placed it over his friend’s head. Khavar struggled to angle himself to take in more and more and Nibonidus inched up and up until he was standing and his friend was choking on his godlike dick. The firelight played over their biceps, their lats, their forearms, their muscular abs, which no other warrior could even begin to emulate, their legs that were like those of beasts.
“Fuck me,” he told Khavar, for Khavar was the only one that could hope to enter the ass of the great giant.
He felt the cold prick, the gentle push. The giant bellowed. He was so strong! And his friend was now inside him, looking at his glistening, enormous back, the golden enveloping girth of it, big as a shield! Every inch of him able to snap men in half like twigs.
He came and screamed a primal cry. He wiped his hands clean on his own beard and Nibonidus then lifted him up by his armpits to kiss him. The two entranced each other with their muscles, how they could make their giant pecs dance, one two three four five six, boom boom boom! Their feet walked on bare earth until they were in the harness room. Nibonidus harnessed his friend, leashed him and proceeded to fuck him while chaining the man and making him scream that he was Nibonidus’ slave, and begging for more fucking, begging to be his bitch in heat, his Innana, his seed overflowed out of the man’s ass like honey and milk. Nibonidus wiped off the seed out of his friends ass and made him lick it off his fingers, making him say it was better than honey. He made him wear the saddle after that. He rode on top as his friend screamed how much of a god he was.
Then they brought in other men to wrestle with, other servants for them to beat playfully into submission, all of them knowing that no man alive could hope to take down either of the giants, and they pummeled their cocks into two men virgins apiece until they were satiated. Then the men were forced to lose their male virginity for committing various thefts around the city but became like women when in the presence of the giant warriors, and before long were begging for more, for kisses but told instead to suck each other off, and only then were they allowed to kiss either Nibonidus or Khavar. The giants picked them up as a grown man would pick up a five year olds, their cocks still engorged, and the virgins who were now no longer virgins promised to become servants in the house of their new gods, whose seed made men lust after them as if were poppy smoke.
The course of history continues to sail forward and doorways open and close…
New York City, present day, Natural History Museum
“And here you can see the amazing new find from Iran. As part of a very special cultural exchange, we can now see some examples from the beginning of one of the greatest empires the ancient world had ever known,” the guide explained, a curt woman with an excited gleam in her eye for history.
“Here we see a bust of Cyrus the Great…”
Little Jack Sullivan was listening intently to the guard at the side of the exhibit, an absolutely large behemoth of a bald man. He knew he should try to concentrate but the man was so huge. He wished he could be huge like him. Or like one of those warrior guys. They were probably capable of fighting off all the bullies in the world. Probably helped there weren’t junior high schools back then. With gifted children skipping a grade and getting shoved around like a sack of potatoes. Like, not even a lot of potatoes, he thought glumly. Ricky and Jonah gave him the stink eye from not to far away.
“Faggot,” one of them mouthed silently and they both laughed, with a look that said, “we are gonna fuck you up tomorrow when we get the chance.”
“…of course the campaigns of Cyrus stand out as the first unification of the Near East in the proportion that we see. As for Mazares, we don’t exactly know how he died, but the Greek histories tell us he didn’t make it back from Turkey alive. As for Nibonidus, who we can see here in this new small relief, he went on to win over all of Mesopotamia for his king. Another man by the same name was captured there and only recently did we discover that the original Nibonidus was a warrior soldier. We think now that the impostor was trying to claim legitimacy through changing his name to that of a more famous warrior. It was actually very common in the ancient world, except that you normally waited until after someone died to do so. Here we see Nibonidus and Cyrus the Great embracing each other's arms."
"That looks gay!" someone said loudly.
The guide ignored the outburst. "Entire chronicles were written about his adventures, which for back then was a pretty good deal. People would listen to his story the same way we would go see…”
“The Hobbit?” someone asked. The security guard stifled a laugh.
“Well maybe, they did like to add a lot of monsters to pretty much any historical yarn,” the guide laughed off. Now, over here we have a really interesting spear fragment from the time of Xerxes…an incredible find…”
Jack lingered in the area behind the rest of his classmates.
“Better hurry, before the others leave you behind,” the guard offered.
“Thanks. I just wanted to see this up close. It’s kind of cool.”
“Yeah, he was a popular fellow, that Nibonidus. Very popular indeed.”
“Wish I knew what that felt like,” the kid responded.
“Well there are always ways,” the guard said.
“Yeah if you’re big and strong. I mean, you must be pretty popular. Big guys always are,” the kid said matter of factly.
“It’s hard to argue with logic like that, my young friend. Tell you what. Back when my family lived in Russia and that was…a very VERY long time ago, we used to say, you’re only as popular as the next mammoth that you kill.”
“Mammoths don’t exist anymore. They’re extinct.”
“Yeah, it kind of loses something in translation. It’s an idiom. It means…well, if you’re looking for something big, you will find it eventually. Okay?”
“I guess…”
“Now hey, buck up…look over there. See that?”
A black curtained door with a “Do not Enter” sign was right before Jack. Funny…he didn’t notice it before.
“Just go through there, you’ll see a, well, something that will help. Just trust me, it’s okay for you to go in. I’ll make sure people stay away.”
“Uh, thanks, Mr…”
“Oh, Khavar. Robert Khavar. “
“I’m Jack Sullivan.”
“I know. I mean, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll make sure you catch up with your classmates. VERY sure.”
As Jack entered the room, Khavar went back to doing what he did best, guarding and watching.
“Oh, Mr. Khavar...please come right away. Some of the boys from the school group are fighting,” a museum employee said, her frantic expression obviously frantic.
“Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll straighten them right out.”
“Thank you so much,” she gushed, as she often did around him. She turned to the part of the wall where she could have sworn she saw a curtained door just a moment before…
To be continued