Perfect Harvest Year

The sun was in half stride to the top of the sky, And Xulatiki stood proudly, his purple cloak billowing around his perfect body in his first year of full manhood. His eyes, and, indeed, the eyes of all those about him, all of the woman of the empire who were able to walk or find someone to carry them to this place, were focused at the top of the smoking sacred mountain and the swirl of color that could be seen there. Xulatiki's flawless body, tallowed and glistening in the rays of the god sun, whose full presence had emphasized the perfection of this year's ritual, was taut and trembling slightly with anticipation. Other than the purple cape attached at golden bands around his biceps, wrists, just above his knees, and at his ankles, the young prince was proudly naked.

The full appearance of the sun on this propitious day was only a further favorable sign for this year. Xulatiki was starting his kingship today by right of the ritual; he had been judged to be the most magnificently formed of all the young men in the empire who had come into full manhood this season. But he also was becoming king by right of position, which would mean there would be no maneuvering for power among the elite this year, maneuvering that could only detract from the purpose of this ritual. Eighteen years before this ritual day, his own father and mother had been the chosen ones, and thus he was doubling chosen, something that not even the oldest croon now staring intently at the stone platform built on the rim of the smoking mountain top above their heads could remember to have happened.

The women spread across the mountainside were the first to notice the change in the activity on the platform above. The cessation of the swirling dancing of the many colors, the raising of arms that brought up a curtain of purple, brown, deep blue, green, aquamarine, yellow, and orange capes surrounding the altar at the center of the platform, and the slinking into a cower to below the lip of the platform of the figures in the black, gray, and red capes. And when the women saw the change, their murmurings and chants changed to loud ululation. They were trilling loudly, clicking their teeth together rhythmically, and raising and swaying their arms in praise and joy.

Xulatiki saw the reclining figure of Queen Norinana, naked but streaked with red, being bundled away from the surface of the altar by white-robed elder woman, and the figures in the brown and deep blue capes rose up above the raised curtain and capes, onto the surface of the altar. They each had a large earthenware jar in their arms, which they tipped over in unison, washing the blood of the queen from the altar. And then, as they receded downward, rising up between them to stand fully erect and majestically, his arms opened wide to those on the hillside, was elevated the most magnificent figure of all, robed in gleaming gold. The highest priest of the sun god, chosen when the previous highest priest lost his virility, chosen by right of having the straightest, most robust body in the empire combined with a phallus of the longest and thickest dimensions.

The highest priest rose tall on top of the altar and raised an object over his head in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, and the woman spread across the hillside cried out in unison but then went immediately silent. The highest priest of the sun god handed the object and the knife to the last of the white-robed ancients and they scurried down the hillside in the wake of the departing figure of the reclining queen. In response, the crowd of women lathering the mountainside slunk away into the surrounding jungle at the based of the coned peak, which was spewing its puffs of smoke into the air. As the women faded away, they were replaced by a great army of men, naked and tallowed, each with his own color of bicep, wrist, knee, and ankle bands. These were their passports for traveling beyond their villages. The color of the bands designated the village origins of their wearer in the broad empire running around the sacred mountain and to the sea in every direction except the border of the forbidden land of the man crunchers.

The highest priest of the sun god raised his arms and his face toward the sun and let out a bellow that was joined with the deep-voiced yells of joy and anticipation of the men who had replaced the women on the side of the mountain.

This was Xulatiki's cue. the sea of men between him and the top of the smoking mountain parted, and Xulatiki slowly ascended this path, proud and welcoming, his head held high, his bulging breasts rock hard and nipples taut, his comely cock swinging against newly manned thighs, his eyes locked on those of the waiting highest priest of the sun god. He would be king. And kings must suffer for their people.

The colorfully caped men on the platform were moving fluidly about again in their slow-motion swirling dance. They could not be clearly seen because of the smoke coming out of the cauldron the mountain possessed instead of a peak, but as Xulatiki came closer, he could see that they each held a spear in one hand—all except for the three undulating around below the rim of the platform. These three were moving in circles that had a pattern to it. They were moving as if to intercept Xulatiki before he reached the summit. But now the other caped figures—all save the golden-caped one who remained standing astride the altar, legs out wide, cock proudly at full erection—were circling to come between Xulatiki and the other three, and as Xulatiki reached the platform, they had driven the three—the black-caped fury representing pestilence, the gray-caped fury representing the human enemies of the empire, and the red-caped one representing devastating fire—back behind the platform and under the lip of the smoking cauldron.

Xulatiki stood at the edge of the platform now. Everyone, priests, furies, and men on the mountainside alike, held their breath for the longest time and looked to the skies to mark the ascension of the sun. It was almost exactly overhead now, and as the sun moved into that position, the minor priests—the yellow-caped one representing the grain, the orange-caped one representing the fruit of the land, the green-caped one representing the game of the forests, and the aquamarine one represented the bounty of the ocean—encircled Xulatiki. As they lifted him straight up in the air, two with strong hands on his arms and above his rib cage and two with hands on his thighs and under his round and firm buttocks, the highest priest of the sun stretched himself out on the surface of the cruciform-shaped altar, his arms spread wide on the cross arms of the altar and his prodigious cock standing straight up in the air. The two high priests, that of the earth, caped in brown, and that of the sky, caped in deep blue, were at the lip of the cauldron, ensuring that the three furies were keeping their distance.

The men on the mountainside started to chant as the minor priests lifted Xulatiki high in the air, suspended over the altar and that monster spike of the highest priest. Benetiki, the purple-caped king, stood at the head of the altar, arms outstretched, his eyes plastered firmly on Xulatiki's eyes, as the ritual of the passing of the kinghead began. Xulatiki was returning the king's gaze, and he was chanting the chant he had been taught to use at this time, a chant that was meant to divert his attention, steel his resolve, and clothe his fears as much as possible to the ritual that had begun.

The sun hit its zenith and the two minor priests who were holding Xulatiki's legs spread them wide and all four of the minor priests brought Xulatiki's virginal passage down onto the erect manhood of the highest priest of the sun. Although both the phallus and the passage were slathered with tallow, the entry was not an easy one. Xulatiki's initial cry of pain was covered by the scream of possession and victory let loose by the reclined highest priest of the sun. This signal of the beginning of the year's seeding cycle released an exaltation of joy across the mountainside, and as the minor priests raised and lowered Xulatiki on the sacred seeding spike and Xulatiki raised his face to the sun to howl the chant he had been taught to use at this time, the women, now as naked as the men, flooded back onto the hillside and mingled with the men. The tension in the air was palpable as the highest priest's flow began to rise for the ritual seeding of the year's crop through the symbolic breeding of the new king.

The highest priest's pelvis lifted off the surface of the altar in rhythm with the downward thrustings of Xulatiki's torso, and at the triumph scream from the highest priest's lips of release and flow of the seed, the multitudes across the hillside fell on each other in an orgy of symbolic-and in many cases actual-seeding—man on woman and man on man and woman on woman, as they pleased. There would be many a new baby to comfort and challenge the men and women of the empire in the coming cool season.

The start of the ritual precisely when the sun had reached its zenith was yet another propitious sign of a good harvest year. But even more significant was the dark cloud that blotted out the sun and began to release its life-giving nourishment to the empire at the precise second the highest priest had ritualistic spouted his seed inside the new king, marking the precise moment Xulatiki had become the new king of the empire. Miracles of miracles, yet another sign simultaneously came from beneath their feet. The mountain began to laugh, to rumble and move, showing its approval of the new king and giving its blessing on the new growing season.

The old king, Benetiki, not yet a year older than Xulatiki but already a defunct king, was dispatched exactly as the ritual called for. The opening of the sky had brought a deluge of water that hissed loudly when it hit the burning embers inside the mountain's cauldron. In the cloud of smoke that ensued, the three furies, pestilence, human enemies, and fire, crept up out of the cauldron and snatched Benetiki. They stripped him of his purple cape, pulled him below the lip of the cauldron, and, in succession, seeded him deeply and roughly in their fury of not having been able to reach the new king.

It was the time in the ritual now for the high priests of the earth and sky to give their seed blessings to the new king. The highest king of the sun came off the altar and moved to the front of the platform, facing the sexual feast of people of the empire. He stood there, legs spread wide and arms crossed and blessed the seeding of the nation going on before his eyes. The high priest of the earth stood on a ledge running on either side of the altar, the altar between his thighs, and the four minor priests turned the new king so that he hovered over the altar, his back toward its surface. And they brought the new king's pelvis in toward the groin of the high priest of the earth, and he entered the king's passage with his phallus and bred him. The high priest of the sky straddled the altar over the new king's head and entered the new king's mouth with his phallus and bred him there.

When earth and sky had seeded the new king with their blessings, the king was laid flat on the lower arm of the altar table. His wrists were bound to rings on the cross beams of the altar, and one after another, the priests of the grain, the fruits of the land, the game of the forests, and the bounty of the sea straddled the altar below the king and blessed him deeply with their seed. As they did so, the favored maiden Tianana appeared beside King Xulatiki and poured mother's milk on her plump breasts and suckled the new king. This marked the validation of her selection as the new queen.

All of the favorable signs rang true. The crops were bountiful that growing season and the game of the forests and bounty of the sea were plentiful. The winds blew strong across the peninsula, not giving pestilence a chance to place its claw on crop, or animal, or human. The rain was plentiful and no fires of destruction flared. The coastal villages of the empire did see a great armada of war ships on the sea, but it floated past the empire's lands. Smoke was seen rising soon thereafter above the land of the man crunchers. And for the first time in many years, no enemy force appeared to try to deprived the empire of its crops or bring grieving to the hearths of its people. The year's harvest was the most abundant the empire had ever known.

The sun god having been ascendant for the ritual of the blessing of the crops, the moon goddess was given her due for the ritual of the blessing of the harvest.

On a night of the first full moon following the harvest, King Xulatiki met and coupled with his new queen, Tianana, on the altar of the sacred mountain. The white-clad select virgins of the empire danced around the platform in the moonlight as Xulatiki met with Tianana on the great altar. Xulatiki stretched his bride out on the altar and hovered over her, touching her here and there and running his hands here and there as the moon ascended the sky. And when the moon reached its zenith, he thrust his phallus inside her. She sang to the moon as he thrust and thrust and thrust. The two perfectly formed favored children of the empire merged and coupled and twisted and entangled and sighed and moaned, pleasing the moon goddess greatly in their breedings. The king masterfully seeded his new queen repeatedly through the night, passing on in great flowings of golden seed the blessing of all the gods of earth, sea, and sky that he had received at the beginning of the growing season.

Peace and plenty reigned over the land through its fallow season and there was only joy and nurturing of the human fruits of the growing season ritual orgy throughout the empire.

The new growing season was upon the empire once more. The ritual had begun again at the altar on the sacred mountain in keeping with a never-ending rhythm. The high and minor priests were swirling around the altar, the women of the empire were spread across the mountainside below, their ululations wakening the gods in the heaven to the empire's supplications. The furies were at the edges of the platform, being held at bay by spears of the priests. King Xulatiki had taken up his position at the head of the altar. He looked briefly down the mountainside at the new king expectant standing nervously, trying his best not to appear nervous, in his purple cape at the base of the mountain. Xulatiki looked back to the altar spreading before him. His beloved queen, Tianana was stretched out on the surface of the altar. She was groaning and moaning. The highest priest of the sun was straddling the altar and her, standing on the ledge running down each side of the altar. He had a long sharp knife in one hand. He was gently rocking his pelvis back and forth, entering the queen with his phallus and pulling back out and then entering her again.

He was playing the part of the sun god, welcoming the fruit of the queen's womb into the world, the empire's most sacred baby of that year. His phallus was entering the queen and reaching to the new baby, coaxing it to appear precisely at dawn, as would be a perfect sign to cap a perfect year and to bring promise of continued good fortune in the harvest. The queen's attendants, a bevy of old women in white, were moving about her, kneading her belly and doing this and that to either prolong or shorten the childbirth, doing everything they could to have the baby appear exactly at dawn.

At a signal from the attendants, King Xulatiki leaned over his naked wife and started suckling her breasts, causing her milk to flow. And the highest priest of the sun god increased his rhythmic beckoning of the child with his stroking phallus.

There was a gush of blood and fluids and the high priest of the sun god pulled his phallus out of the queen and stepped down from the altar, just in time for dawn to strike and for the head of the new baby, a strong son, to appear. The highest priest of the sun god announced the arrival, exactly at the most propitious moment, of the new prince. As he cut the umbilical cord with his knife, an exultation of joy went up from the throng of women gathered on the hillside.

But then the greatest of miracles. A cloud drifted across the rising sun, and it became night again. But as soon as the cloud had come, it was gone, and there was a second dawn. And there was a second child coming out of the womb of the queen. This one was a girl child, with very healthy lungs. In a trembling voice, the highest priest of the sun god, who in all his years had never thought he'd see the empire blessed as it had been in this year's harvest cycle, announced the arrival of a princess, and the women on the hillside went wild.

The queen and the babies were rushed away and the women were flooding away from the hillside and the men were flowing onto the hillside in a ritual pattern that basically never changed no matter how blessed or cursed a particular year was.

Still, King Xulatiki, king for only a few more moments, couldn't help but look down on the young purple-caped man standing nervously at the base of the mountain and to pity him. This had been the perfect harvest year, more propitious than any of the past and probably more so than any of the future. That could not help but be a disappointment to the short rule of the young man standing below. Xulatiki's breast puffed up with pride and self-congratulations.

Yes, the perfect harvest year, the fading King Xulatiki was thinking, not yet aware of the fingers of the furies of pestilence, human enemies, fire that already were seeking purchase on the hem of his purple cape from the rim of the volcano's cauldron.