Andromeades heQueen of Kor (part five)
by Sasha Steele
One day about a month ago as technical crews put the finishing touches on the construction of the K-1 station, before the arrival of Brogyn and the science teams, the workers had no idea of what was happening in the Ankorian monastery. In six hours night would fall, a double full moon would rise and the wolf-men of the forest would feast on yet another sacrifice as they had every night of the double full moon for the past two hundred years. The victim then as always was an effigy of the heQueen Andromeades.
Young Ankorian males who showed a tendency toward homosexuality were taken by the clergy to be used as manservants. Of these, the special ones who showed further signs of sin, especially femininity, gluttony and sloth were selected and prepared for sacrifice. The preparatory period would last three years during which the victims had no idea of their true fate.
"Oh Kendal, Im so afraid," Jardan said to his most favoured manservant as the manservant did Jardan's hair, which during the three years of his preparation had been grown extremely long and rendered a platinum blond to resemble the heQueen Andromeades's own hair.
Jardan was in a silken white wedding gown. The coach was waiting to transport him to his doom. With the aid of Kendal and another manservant Jardan struggled against his oppressive weight to gain his feet and took a final look at his beautiful corpulent self in the mirror. For three years Jardan had been gorged with food and pampered in readiness for this night. He was trembling.
"But what if he doesn't like me?" Jardan said referring to the fictitious nobleman he thought, though had never met, he was to wed on this night of the double full moons.
On the long bumpy coach ride Jardan's anxiety gave way to drowsiness and drowsiness to a deep sleep brought on by the drug he had been administered. The dreaded night was falling and the coachmen wanted to be well away from the forest by then. So they hurried the horses making the coach ride all the more bumpy for the sleeping obese he bride inside it.
Jardan gradually awoke. The coach had stopped and gone. He was momentarily disorientated lounging, half sitting, on a soft cushioned day bed. The curtains where drawn. He cried out for Kendal but there was no response. Jardan struggled to a full sitting position and tentatively opened the curtains.
Jardan was alone in a ruined monastery surrounded by dark forests. Jardan cried out again for Kendal but there was no answere. It was nearing nightfall. The double full moons would soon rise. Jardan saw fluttering movements in the shadows. Heard the terrifying shrieks of the half man half wolf creatures that dwelt there. The beasts that all Ankorians dreaded. Night fell. The moons rose. His bladder lost, trembling with fear, Jardan's screams echoed in the darkness as the wolf-men came out to take him.
Back in the present Brogyn still chained to the torture table set his feet firmly to the ground, put a strong grip on the chain and gathered all his considerable strength for one last ditch effort to free himself as Artarius's broad axe began its downward journey. Brogyn gave a mighty heave. The chain broke and Brogyn lurched backward. The axe missed him by a fraction of an inch.
The axe struck the metal surface of the torture table with such force that it was wrenched out of Artarious's hands. He felt the impact all the way to his shoulders and shrieked in pain. Meanwhile Brogyn swung the chain with one arm in a backhand sweep that struck Artarious across the eyes. Artarius pressed his hands to his eyes and staggered backward tripping over a stone block.
Brogyn dragged the chain through the cuff loops freeing himself as the Lizardian giant recovered to his feet and clenched his fists in a fit of rage. Too late. Brogyn had swung the chain a second time with both hands. The chain wrapped around Artarius's throat again stunning the giant. Brogyn moved quickly. He ran at Artarius and flipped himself over the giant's head grabbing hold of the other end of the chain as he did so.
Brogyn brought himself down in a hunkered position while pulling down hard on the chains. That brought the giant Lizardian crashing down back-to-back upon him. Artarius grasped hold of the chain and struggled mightily as he choked to death.
"Struggle more Lizardian," Brogyn said, mocking Artarius with the words he had used when it was Brogyn who struggled against the chains. "This pleases me."
With the Lizardian still drapped on his back Brogyn straightened up a bit then came down hard as he yanked on the chains with all his might. The Lizardian's neck broke and all the fight went out of him. Brogyn dumped Artarios off him onto the floor in a heap. Retrieved the broad axe. Took a mighty swing and Artarios's head rolled free of its body.
Brogyn pulled up his tights. Put his tunic back on, holding it closed over his brassier as best he could with his utility belt and pack pack's straps. He holstered his side arm and strapped on his wrist com. Ulan's wrist com and back pack were on a table next to where Brogyn found his own property. "Ulan" Brogyn mouthed as he picked up the wrist com. He checked the location on it. Found the last stop point. Not far away. Brogyn clicked on his armor. Set the coordinates for Ulan's last location, engaged his flight pack and took off.
"Brogyn please help me," Ulan wept. His hands were tied behind his back to a pole in the center of a pyre. His head was bowed down, the curls of his shoulder length auburn color hair hung in his face. He heard a stir in the mob before him, a break in their 'burn the he bitch' chant.
Then he heard someone shout, "the demon Andromeades approaches."
Suddenly soldiers in white armor mounted on white horses broke through the mob followed by Andromeades's massive royal wheel house. The wheel house was heavily constructed of oak embedded with gold and clusters of precious stones. It was pulled by a team of six white horses. A hush came over the crowd as the heQueen's wheel house came to a stop.
A trumpet blared and a proclaimer announced, "His Royal Highness, Andromeades, heQueen of Kor."
Two wide doors, the entire side of the wheel house, opened. A hidden mechanism turned the seat inside ninety degrees into the opening, then forward through it and down to ground level. And there on a throne-like seat sat a gigantic monstrosity of a being, the size of which Ulan had never before encountered.
Ten thousand years ago, pursued by Star Command, the Lizarian Royal Fleet raced toward the edge of the universe in search of a safe haven. In a final battle, outnumbered and desperate, the Lizarians manage to destroy their pursuers at the cost of their own annihilation.
"You must go now Your Highness," the commander said to the Lizarian heQueen giantess.
"Very well," Andromeades replied.
The Lizardian heQueen was an imposing figure. Nearly seven feet tall, with his size and musculature, he would have weighed perhaps four hundred pounds. But Andromeades, due in part to his half Terrian cloning, was given to obesity and so weighed near double that amount. And though the heQueen was monstrous in size his seductive beauty was undeniable.
His radiant continence had an unexplainable allure and his exceptional green eyes where hypnotic should one dare to look directly into them. His pouty lips were wide and sultry. The he Queen's beautiful hair, this both his vainglory and a symbol Andromeades's combined Lizardian and Terian royal lineage, was a bright platinum-blond color with soft curls and extreme length.
Andromeades was placed in an escape pod, which in turn was loaded aboard a space craft. The escort fleet were just seconds into launch when a massive explosion took both the Royal carrier ship and all the escort vessels. At the very last moment the heQueen's escape pod was launched into space and accelerated toward a nearby planetary system.
Andromeades was alone in space, the pod that contained him speeding directly into a mid-size sun. Caught in a time warp around that sun the pod travelled forward in time and crash landed on the planet Kor two hundred years ago and ten thousand years after the royal carrier crashed on the same planet. The time warp lasted mere seconds for Andromeades, yet it had changed him.
Two hundred years ago on the night of the snake moons a meteor appeared in the sky over Kor and struck ground in the rolling foothills of the mountains near the capital of the Ankorian kingdom. The meteor seemed to have been expelled from the head of what the locals called the snake moons formed by Kor's double full moons at their furthest aspect against the backdrop of the long bright surpent galaxy. It was an omen. And so Reegan the brave Ankorian king set out in search of it.
What the king found was a pod. And within that pod was a sleeping giantess. Though racked with fear Reegan stood his ground even as the pod door opened and the giantess awoke. King Reegan dared to look upon the giantess. Captured by its hypnotic green eyes the king felt his mind change from repulsion to adoration. The king rescued the giantess. Conveyed him to his castle where in time they would wed and the giantess Andromeades would become the heQueen of Kor.
That the king had been smitten by and wed to a monstrous being from the sky was not easily acceptable to the simple Ankorian folk. That this being was a man was blasphemy in the eyes of the clergy. So began the long battle between monarchy and church that has lasted to the present day. The tide had slowly turned against Andromeades, and so he had become more and more reclusive, safe within the protective walls of his castle.
The clergy had used Ulan as bait to draw Andromeades out by making it known that on this, the night of the snake moons, the church would sacrifice one of the newcomers. And the plan had worked. Andromeades had been loured from his keep. Now the wolf-men would have the real heQueen to devour instead of just an effigy.
Over the past two hundred years while Andromeades reigned as the heQueen of Kor his weight and size had steadily increased to the point where he was truly monstrous. So enormous was Andromeades's backside that as he sat on the throne-like seat that had issued forth from the royal wheel house he remained just a bit above eye level with the Ankorians gathered before him, as they where smallish. The largest males were no more than five foot eight or nine. Even Ulan was big and tall compared to them.
Andromeades's gargantuan arms, melded with his hulking shoulders to form humongous mass with no discernible separation, sat heavily upon a torso that was three times as wide and three times as thick as a normal man's would be. Those elephantine arms were poised at nearly horizontal and bent slightly forward. Hands so swollen with fat they hardly resembled hands anymore issued from the flounced sleeves of his satiny-white dress. His fingers, thicker than sausages, were covered with so much diamond enclustered gold jewelry it near covered them entirely. Andromeades's two and a half inch long fingernails looked like a golden talon on each stubby finger.
The heQueen's outer gown fitted snug to his gigantic shoulders and arms and draped from his five foot wide girth almost to the ground when he stood. The gown was elaborately stitched with opulent ornamental embroidery and embellished with with diamonds and platinum studding and shimmering silver lace. The long sleeves terminated in wide silk cuffs. Gold bracelets formed into snakes encircled Andromeades's incredibly thick wrists. The fierce striking snake heads issued from the gown's sleeves and sat on the ballooning back of his hands.
In the open front of Andromeades's outer gown could be seen his glistening silk under dress with a tight fitting bodice that was sleeveless with a low cut rounded neck line. Upon the shelf of his massive upper chest, completely filling the gap between the bottom of the donut-like ring of fat that completely encircled his neck like some blubbery cervical collar, and the dress's low cut neck line was an elaborate bib-like necklace. The necklace was formed of rows of beaded gold chaining replete with diamonds in a cluster around a huge center stone.
The skirts of Andromeades's under dress consisted of separate front and back panels split to the waist. The front panel hung straight down from a gigantic belly that, while sitting, rested upon colossal thighs filling Andromeades's lap to his knees. Andromeades sat with his legs spread wide. His knees showed in the gap between the skirt panels, each of them two feet wide. His smooth knees looked like huge spheres covered in white nylon stockings.
On his feet were golden sandals with sturdy six inch high heels and a multitude of straps that crossed the bulging tops of his feet up to his incredibly thick tubular-like fat covered ankles. On the center portion of the sandal's strapping was a decorative golden snake similar in detail to his bracelets with its fierce head, poised to strike, near Andromeades's bulbous toes.
Andromeades's awe inspiring and exotic appearance was both wondrous and and frightening. Yet none of it more so than his striking and highly decorated facial features and the elaborate ornamental head dress he wore. Andromeades's big beautiful eyes were green with silver and gold flecks in them, and were heavily made up with black mascara, eye liner and silvery-gold eye shadow. His eyes were hypnotic. So much so that one felt naked and uncomfortable just looking into them. Dark eyebrows arched upward above his eyes. His broad pouted fish-like lips were painted gold. His perfect white teeth sparkled as if they were polished ivory.
His nose was not overly large, just the right size to balance his beautiful though extremely fat face with its puffed out cheeks and jowls and fat neck. On his nose there was a gold stud each side above the nostrils. Those were two of the nine gold studs on his face. There were two more, one above the other on his brow between his eyes, two more,one on each temple where his eyebrows leveled out, one each side his nose on the upper lip and one in the middle of the lower lip.
Those facial studs were a bit larger than the nine gold studs that rimmed each ear and smaller than the tenth gold stud on either fat ear lobe. Those puffy ear lobes looked like little balls of fat as they were pushed out by the bulging ring of blubber that encircled his neck. From that last gold stud on them dangled elaborate diamond earrings that matched Andromeades's necklace in their gaudy elegance.
Most elaborate of all was Andromeades's crowning headdress, which lent him the most frightening aspect of his regal yet demonic appearance. A gold tiara encircled his head from top of the forehead to the temples where it rounded into a termination point by the face stud there before continuing down and around the back of his head against the ring of neck fat where the gold band thinned. In front the tiara pointed down toward the two studs between Andromeades's eyes in a widow's peak. The top front of the tiara formed a low-rise crown embedded with clusters of diamonds. And above the crown, as though peering over it and poised to strike,was a large golden cobra-like snake. The cobra's neck flared in large round double humps. Its head was turned downward with mouth agape. Its large fangs and fierce eyes were cut diamonds. Its tongue gold.
The snakes body was a three and a half foot long jadas that was four inches wide on top of Andromeades's head and gradually tapered to two inches in width where it terminated in a double heart shaped ball of smooth diamond on the shelf of his enormous backside. The long jadas was made of interlocking sections that allowed it to sway freely with the movements of his head. Viewed side on the jadas looked rather flat snake at just an inch thick.
But, when viewed from the back, the jadas looked more like a three and a half foot long cock laid belly up than a snake. It laid upon the drape of of Andromeades's loosely curled platinum-blood hair that covered the middle portion of his broad back and also hung to the top of his massive ass. The two round globes that appeared to be the cobra's flared neck in front, in back looked like two large balls in a scrotum. And the heart shaped diamond tip was unmistakably a cock head. The cock-snake jadas was attached in back to the tiara with gold chaining. Andromeades's hair issued from beneath the four inch wide flat section on the top of his head and hung in loose curls framing his fat beautiful face.
With the aid of a hidden mechanism in the throne-like bench seat that had descended from the royal wheel house, and the aid of attendants at each humongous arm, the gigantic seductress heQeen rose to his feet.
"Stop this now!" Andromeades thundered in a powerful voice that caused the gathered thong to cringe.
The torch bearers who surrounded Ulan stayed their torches.
Andromeades raised an incredibly huge arm and pointed at Ulan with a finger so swollen with fat as to be rendered useless for practicable purposes. "Release him at once," he thundered.
"Monster!" the priest standing next to Ulan shouted back.
Murmurs could be heard from the crowd. The word monster battered hear and there within it. More voices joined in and it built into a chant.
"Monster. Monster. Monster"
"You will obey me!" Andromeades shouted over the chant.
Then form a height arrows rained down and the demonic heQueen's soldiers fell. Horses reared, confusion set in.
"Get me away," Andromeades, now frightened, told his attendances.
More soldiers fell. Then the mob attacked and the giant heQueen was overrun. The mob grabbed at Adromeades. Pulled him by his huge arms, by his sleeves, his dress, by the golden cock-snake jadas and by his long platinum-blond hair. There were too many of them for Andromeades to control. More joined in. Andromeades took a staggering step to the left. His balance lost the chanting mob brought the monster down. As Andromeades fell his headdress, hair and all came off exposing the shiny totally bald head that had been hidden beneath it.
Andromeades lamented the dreadful changes the had befallen him during the brief trip through time and space that had brought him to Kor. The loss of his beautiful hair. The changes to his metabolism that made him suffer horrific hunger pans of an insatiable appetite and caused him to steadily gain weight. The loss of his psychic abilities, his psychokinesis power gone, ability to control the minds of others weakened to the point where this mindless rabble had brought him down.
Andomeades fell to the side onto his hip then rolled. Had he rolled onto his belly he may have been able, with help, to regain his feet. But alas, he rolled onto his back and though, in an attempt to roll over, he pushed with left leg while he rocked his upper body to the right his great width and his weight pinned him down. Then, as if to make an end to the affair a monk covered Andromeades's nose and mouth with a fowl smelling rag.
Almost immediately Andromeades stopped his fight.and fell into a deep sleep brought on by the drug he had been administered. It took twenty men to roll the fifteen hundred pound behemoth heQueen onto a tarp, wrestle him onto the bench and then dump him into the royal wheel house in no dignified manor. The final insult came when a monk threw Andromeades's head piece, hair and all, in there on top of him. Ulan cried as he watched the horrid scene unfold.
"The snake moons will arise tonight," the head priest said. "Take the monster to the place of the sacrifice."
"You're the fucking monster!" Ulan sreamed at him.
"Awe, you," said the priest turning his attention back to Ulan. "You he bitch shall burn. Burn the he bitch!" He shouted raising his arms. "Burn the he bitch."
The torch bearers again took up their torches then brought them down to alight the fire with Ulan tied hands behind his back to a pole in the center of it. Then suddenly, just as the fire became alive and the crowd picked up the 'burn the he bitch' chant, the priest's head exploded. Brogyn's cruiser's engine made no sound and so his fast approach had gone unnoticed. The cruiser thrashed through the crowd with its guns blazing. Those in the crowd not mowed down fled in panic.
The cruiser rose to twenty feet. Brogyn with his armor deployed jumped from it leaving the cruiser on auto pilot. The cruiser targeted all those at an elevation and those few who had not fled. Brogyn landed in the pyre, cut Ulan's bindings and took him into his arms. The jet pack engaged and they flew up to the platform at the top of the steps where the head priest had stripped off Ulan's tunic. Brogyn clicked off his armor and embraced his ex man-wife.
"About time," Ulan said.
"I love you too," said Brogyn.
He picked up Ulan's tunic, helped him slip into it and did up the front buttons while the cruiser twenty feet above turned this way and that like a sentinel picking off the odd one or two Ankorians who had dared to linger.
"Andromeades," Ulan said, suddenly remembering the heQueen's plight. "They took him. We have to go get him."
"WE aren't doing anything. YOU are going back to K-1. I'm pulling all the science teams out of the field for the time being."
"But Brogyn, they mean to kill him. You have to save him. He tried to save me. And Andromeades is a true heQueen."
A Lizardian heQueen."
"Yes. But he is also of Terrian royal bloodline and having married the last Ankorian king he is their true heQueen.
"A triple crown wearer then," Brogyn mocked.
He brought the cruiser down. They climbed aboard and speed away.
"How do you know they plan to kill him?"
"This is the night of the snake moons. The first one in two hundred years since the night when Andromeades's escape pod crashed on Kor. The two moons rise in a horizontal aspect at their furthest distance from the planet. That diminishes their size dulling the magnitude so the bright serpent galaxy in the background becomes visible. The galaxy's long line of stars look like the tail of a snake with the moons its eyes. The back hand joke is that it also looks like an upside down cock.
Andromeades used the Ankorian's superstition and fear to control them. But by all accounts they have prospered under his rule. It was only the clergy who kept up the traditions of sacrifice to the snake moons. Andromeades banned them. You have to save him."
"Okay, okay, I'll go save your pressious heQueen"
End of part five