All the Power

Tetenia choked loudly on His Likeness, and her head shot off the phallus. She breathed heavily, quickly, deep, heaving, almost panicked breaths. She held her stomach and then rubbed her temples, gazing up at the life-size, golden statue of Him.

Ellesa, her Blessed Servant, handed her a glass of water. Tetenia took small sips, not wanting overwhelm herself. When Tetenia finally was able to speak she said "How long was that today? Fourteen hours? Fifteen? I don't think any I can do any more right now."

"Fourteen and a half hours, about," Ellesa replied. Tetenia took another sip of water, and Ellesa helped her up. Together, they walked out of the shrine and into the living room of Tetenia's living quarters. Tetenia sat down on the couch. Her back, knees and neck were achingly sore.

"Do you want something to eat?" Ellesa asked her.

Tetenia thought for a moment. "Maybe," she said. "You might as well bring over a plate." Ellesa walked off to the kitchen.

Months had passed. Every day, for fourteen, sometimes sixteen, hours a day (plus the hour for the actual Ceremony of Full Worship), Tetenia kneeled down before His Likeness, the Likeness's ten-inch golden phallus shoved down her throat. She had barely even seen His Supremacy since they day of her punishment. Once, He summoned her, and she went to Him, bowed down for a few hours, then was dismissed. Aside from that, she only saw Him from a great distance, on the Sacred Throne, during the handful of Changing of the Term ceremonies that had occurred since then.

Instead, Tetenia saw His Likeness. Every day, gagging, choking, sometimes vomiting in a bucket, head pounding, eyes watering, muscles sore. Nearly every day she considered going to Him to request absolvance of penance, but she refrained, remembering Ellesa's advice all those months ago: until she could get through an hour of Full Worship, absolvance was all for naught. And she couldn't get through an hour, she wasn't even remotely close. She wasn't even sure that she had made any progress at all.

Ellesa came back, and set a plate of fruit and cheese on the table in front of Tetenia. "Thanks, Ellesa," Tetenia said quietly. Ellesa sat down in a chair beside the table, as Tetenia nibbled at the food.

"Do you want some?" Tetenia asked, pushing the plate towards Ellesa.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Ellesa took a piece of fruit.

Tetenia cracked her neck and rubbed her shoulders. "Can I ask you something?" she said to Ellesa.

"Sure, of course. Anything you want."

"How much penance do I owe now?"

Ellesa paused for a moment. "You know you still haven't completed your latest round of penance, right? And you don't need to know until then."

"I want to know."

"Are you going to ask Him for absolvance? You know...you're still really far from getting through an hour."

"I don't know if I'm going to ask Him. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't. I just want to know." Tetenia paused, and looked up at the ceiling. "I just want to know if I've made any progress at all."

"Do you feel like you have?"

"Not really."

"It comes on fast." Ellesa thought for a second. "Really fast. Like, you break through a wall, and suddenly, you can do it. But you don't know when it's going to happen. Sadly, you're not there yet."

"I just want to know what's a head of you."

"It might not even be ahead of you," Ellesa said, emphatically. "I'd advise against it."

Tetenia stared straight ahead, and ate a small piece of cheese. "I'm telling you to tell me. You're my servant. I want to know."

"OK," Ellesa replied, getting up. She returned with a small notebook, and thumbed through the pages for a minute or two. "You've committed 116,865 abrogations. If you perform 14 hours of penance per day, it's about 1,391 days, or 3 years, nine months, three weeks and one day on your knees." Ellesa looked at Tetenia sympathetically.

Tetenia stared straight ahead as Ellesa told her this. Nearly four years on her knees? And that's on top of the month or two she had left in this round, so it was really more like four. She knew there was a very good chance it would not happen, but it could. This was her life. Kneeling before a statue. Suffering - and not even for His Supremacy's pleasure, at least not directly.

Tetenia stood up suddenly. "I need to go out," she said.

***

Outside, daylight was waning into night. Though it was a pleasant evening, there was a very slight chill in the air, which Tetenia felt as she was - as she had to most of the time - wearing nothing but a two-piece set of silk and lace underwear. She walked through the leafy courtyard between the four buildings which house the His concubines, towards the shore of the lake. She turned when she got to the lake, and sat on a bench looking out at the water. She could still make out the contours of the buildings on the water: some of the Queen Priestesses' palaces, and His Sacred Palace, a vast hulk spanning the northern shore of the lake, far off to the left. Tetenia gazed at the water, the moonlight glimmering off the gentle waves. The slight chill was actually kind of refreshing, she thought. It was good to be out of her quarter, not on her knees.

This isn't exactly what she thought concubinage would be like. She didn't really have any conception of it, although she knew orally pleasuring His Supremacy would play a big role. But she didn't think it would be like this. She didn't think it would be such an enormous, almost incomprehensible, challenge.

But even more than that, she was lonely. She liked Ellesa, and Dacia, her other female Blessed Servant, but they barely had time to talk, and they were her servants, after all. (Her two male common servants kept a polite distance, which was probably for the best.) Some of the other concubines seemed friendly with each other, but Tetenia had no time to socialize, what with her days being totally devoted to choking on a golden phallus.

Tetenia missed Nordland. She had written her parents once, but she kept things vague; they responded quickly, but equally vaguely. She didn't particularly want to see anyone from home - certainly not now - and she didn't particularly want to go back. She just missed it. Everything seemed cold and distant now, despite perpetually pleasant weather. The other concubines she saw around the quarters, and around the Estate, looked happy and healthy. She figured their days of penance were over; she wondered when she'd get there. She hoped it would be soon. She hoped it would actually be.

Just then, someone tapped Tetenia on the shoulder, startling her. "Hi, Tetenia," she said with a smile. "How are you?"

It was Jyushka - one of the concubines who had accompanied His Supremacy to Nordland, what felt like a lifetime ago. They had seen each other around a couple of times since then, and always exchanged pleasantries, but had not really talked much.

"I'm OK. Good," Tetenia replied. She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry...you startled me."

"It's alright," Jyushka said. "Mind if I sit?"

"Not at all." Jyushka sat on the bench next to Tetenia.

"So you're doing well?" Jyushka asked. The early months of concubinage, Jyushka knew, were usually very difficult.

Tetenia was still gazing at the water. "I'm fine...I think." It was a nice view, or what was left of it with night falling.

Jyushka smiled at Tetenia. The two girls at staring out at the water in silence for a few minutes.

"Can I ask you a question, Jyushka?" Tetenia said.

"Sure."

"How much time did you spend...on your knees?"

Jyushka had a feeling this would come up. "A little over a year," she said.

Tetenia was taken aback. "That long?"

"Yes. I broke through, was able to do the hour, mostly, in a little under a year, but it took me a month or so to get absolvance. Once you know it'll matter, you go back every week or two until He says yes." Jyushka chuckled. "It was...I did get a little afraid I was displeasing Him, towards the end there."

"Does it usually take that long? To break through, I mean."

"It depends. I think that's a little on the long side, but really...it varies. It's almost always at least a few months. How long has been for you?"

"Five, five and half months."

Jyushka put her hand on Tetenia's shoulder. "You'll get there."

Tetenia was silent again for a minute. "That's what everyone says. But what if I don't?" She had heard of one concubine, Collasa, who didn't break through after years, had accumulated decades of penance, and was still serving it. She knew that wasn't the norm, but it was still a scary thought. "It's been five months and I don't think I've made any progress at all."

"It comes quick. It's sudden," Jyushka said.

"Yeah...that's what they tell me." Tetenia took a deep breath. "It's just...it's not just that I haven't made progress, in terms of abrogations. It's everything. I thought it would at least get easier after a while. Like, in terms of the gagging and stuff. It's still really, really painful and uncomfortable, as bad as ever." She was a little uncomfortable talking about this.

Jyushka sighed. "It doesn't get easier. Not ever...not really."

"What do you mean? Are you really...are you still spending all day on your knees? Is everyone?" Tetenia suddenly became nerve-wracked.

"Oh, no, no...heavens, no," Jyushka said. "I can make it through the hour with at most one or two abrogations, sometimes none. Most of us can, more or less. Like I said, you'll get there." She paused, and looked at Tetenia. "But...the act of doing it doesn't really get easier. It hardly gets easier, if at all."

Tetenia looked at her quizzically.

"It's just..." Jyushka trailed off, and was quiet for a moment. "It's about taking the pain, taking the discomfort, the gags, the chokes, the times your mind feels like it's slipping away, the times your back and neck and knees feel like they're about to shatter." She paused. "It's not about less pain. It's about more pain. It's about accepting the pain, letting it happen, because it doesn't matter." She paused again. "You don't matter." She said those last words in a breathy voice, and turned to look at the water.

"I'm...I kind of understand...but I kind of don't," Tetenia said.

"The point of penance isn't to make worshipping Him less painful. I thought that too, once, but it's not. The point is that worshipping him is painful, it's a privilege, a gift, it should be painful." Jyushka turned back to Tetenia. "The pain doesn't go away. You just experience it and keep going."

Tetenia tried to wrap her mind around this. It reminded her of when His Supremacy had punished her for not thanking Him while serving Him. He commanded her to crawl home to punish her for not thanking Him for the punishment (among other things), even though part of that punishment was that she couldn't speak, so she couldn't thank Him immediately. She had a moment of clarity then, but was grasping for one now.

As Tetenia was thinking about this, a term servant appeared with one of Jyushka's Blessed Servants. "The concubine Jyushka," the term servant said. "His Supremacy commands your presence."

Jyushka stood, removed her bra and panties, and handed them to her Blessed Servant. She looked back at Tetenia and smiled. "I'm sorry, I have to go." She put her hand on Tetenia's shoulder. "You'll be fine...really."

Tetenia gazed at the water for a little while longer, and then went home and went to sleep.

***

Considering the time of day, there was an unusually large number of officials bowing down before His Supremacy, along with the usual term servants, guardians and concubines. He was seated in a room with the front doors open to the outside, and two marble platforms on either side of His seat. He was, as usual, naked, and the concubines Anesse and Bettany were fellating Him. When Jyushka was granted entrance to His Sacred Presence, she bowed down to Him towards the front of the gaggle of people, beside a delegation of foreign-looking dignitaries.

"Ahh, fuck," His Supremacy said to Bettany. "Fuck, that's nice." He turned to the delegation next to Jyushka. It looked like they had been there for some time. "I summoned you months ago," He said. "Why are you just here now?"

A black haired man with a strange tattoo on his arm spoke up - the king of Siem. "Thank you, Your Supremacy. I will forever be grateful for the honor of bowing down before you. We have negotiated a peace for our dispute. It took some time. Thank you, Your Supremacy."

"What are the terms of the peace?"

"Thank you, Your Supremacy." The king cleared his throat. "The island of Pachek will go to Siem. The island of Las will go to Venarane. In the delta, the border will follow the second-northernmost tributary. The Sacred Order of Arms will, of course, patrol the river itself, which will be neutral territory."

"And the Sacred Order of Arms things this is a good arrangement?" His Supremacy asked the regional charge, who was bowing down with the delegation.

"Thank you, Your Supremacy," the regional charge replied. "I will always serve you in any way that I can, for that is the purpose of all that exists. Yes, we are okay with the arrangement. It is essentially the solution that you willed last year, Your Supremacy. Thank you, Your Supremacy."

"Then why did it take you so long to come here?"

"Thank you, Your Supremacy. We had to get the who were fighting along the border to stop. Thank you, Your Supremacy," the regional charge said.

His Supremacy let out a pleasured moan. His massive, erect cock was forming a bulge in Bettany's throat. He reached down and rubbed Bettany's and Anesse's tits simultaneously, and they both squirmed. Anesse moaned shockingly loudly for what He was doing. His Supremacy grabbed her tit harder, and she moaned louder. Then, suddenly, he pulled his hand away, and sat back. "Fuck that's good, Bettany," He said. "Stay all the way down."

He looked at the charge from the Sacred Orders. "I reclaim all of your monetary holdings, gold tracens, full tracens, and otherwise. I reclaim all of your land holdings, and all of the possessions that you hold, including any houses or buildings."

The charge looked like he had just seen a ghost. He thought about asking for permission to respond, but he wasn't sure what he would say. He bowed down silently.

"Are you going to thank me for reclaiming what's mine?" His Supremacy asked.

"Yes, Your Supremacy," the charge replied, nervously. "Thank you, Your Supremacy. I am humbled that you have seen fit to reclaim my holdings, to use them for your purposes, as they are truly intended. Thank you, Your Supremacy." He said this with little fervor. He was the picture of dejection.

The kings of Siem and Venarane were growing visibly nervous. "Jyushka, come before me," His Supremacy said.

Jyushka crawled to Him. "Do you want to worship me?" He said.

"Of course, Your Supremacy," Jyushka exclaimed. "I live to worship you, I exist to worship you. I am less than nothing without worshipping you, though I am nothing in comparison to your greatness even with it. Worshipping you and pleasing you are the only things of any importance that exist, or have ever existed it, or ever could exist. It is my only purpose. It is the only purpose. Thank you, Your Supremacy."

Bettany's mouth moved off His Supremacy's cock, and she thanked Him. He dismissed Anesse, and Bettany began licking His balls .Jyushka swallowed His cock whole without prompting. He rubbed Jyushka's breasts as she did so, making her dizzy. He then sat back again, and looked at the king of Siem.

"Ohh yeah, Jyushka," He said, still looking at the king. Jyushka was an excellent deepthroater, even for one of His concubines. Tingles of pleasure moved through His body. Jyushka's mouth existed to please Him. Jyushka's being, and everything else, existed for Him.

He addressed the kings of Siem and Venarane as Jyushka's lips enveloped the base of His cock. "You are both no longer kings...ohh yeah...Siem will be divided between the Subject Kingdoms of Mongrensa, Ceytar and Noiru. Venarane...will be divided between Sassaland and Eldrus..."He trailed off, thrusting His cock into Jyushka's throat and moaning. "Siem and Venarane...will cease to exist...fuck Jyushka, that's good...the Sacred Order of Servants...ahhh...will work with the Sacred Order of Arms to propose two new Subject Kingdoms...to make up the difference."

The difference needed to be made up due to the Term of Sacred Service. Each month, four Subject Kingdoms and one Imperial Province performed the term, sending twelve servants each, drawn from their elite denizens, for a total of sixty servants. Every night, two term servants stayed up all night, kneeling, to wait on His Supremacy. Each servant did this once during their term, and it formed the basis for their rotations. Therefore, the total number of Subject Kingdoms and Imperial Provinces needed to add up to sixty. The borders of the world were created to cater to His whims.

"Thank you, Your Supremacy," the king of Siem said, obviously shaken by what His Supremacy had just said. "I humbly request permission to respond, Your Supremacy. Thank you, Your Supremacy."

Jyushka's eyes began to water. As she had told Tetenia earlier, the pain didn't go away. Experiencing it was the point. She remained fully focused on His pleasure, the only thing that really mattered, despite the pain. His Supremacy relaxed His body and looked at Anesse. "Prepare Jyushka for me," He said to her. Anesse got some lube from a corner, dipped her fingers in it, and gently stuck her fingers into Jyushka's asshole. Jyushka choked on His Supremacy's cock. Her head started to hurt.

His Supremacy turned his attention to another official-looking man, who was bowing down to the side of the delegation from Siem and Venarane. He was the chief estate servant, who coordinated the thousands of servants, common and Blessed, who worked on the Sacred Estate. "What is your business?" His Supremacy asked him.

"Thank you, Your Supremacy. No one and nothing is worthy of serving you and every day I am humbled by the awesome privilege," the chief estate servant said. "I was simply wondering if you had any instructions for next months Term of Sacred Service. The Subject Kingdoms of Kalinn, Nordland, Mehistra, and Agnush, and the Imperial Province of Lanceen, are performing next month's term. Nordland has a new king, who will obviously be here. If you have any other instructions, I would be honored to hear them. Thank you, Your Supremacy." The chief estate servant sounded tired and hoarse, he had been bowing down all day, and for no particular reason.

His Supremacy moved His cock up into Jyushka's throat and sighed in contentment and pleasure. "Tell the Nordish that Lord Daymon is to perform the term next month, in addition to the new king." He paused, and sighed again in pleasure. "You may go," He said to the chief estate servant.

After several more minutes of simply enjoying Jyushka's throat, His Supremacy turned back to the king of Siem. "Permission granted," His Supremacy in response to the king's request.

"Thank you, Your Supremacy. Your greatness is beyond anything conceivable, beyond all kingdoms and all imaginations. Siem..." He was disoriented and took a moment to regroup. "Siem is thousands of years old. It is one of the oldest kingdoms in the world, one of the oldest civilizations, even older than Tras. It has existed for centuries upon centuries." The king felt like he was holding back tears, and he stopped speaking again for a moment. "Please, I know...I know I am no one and nothing to question your will. I will gladly step down as king. I will become a pauper if it pleases you. My family will become paupers, or peasant farmers. My house, my name, my title, I'll throw it all away. But don't...don't destroy Siem. Please, Your Supremacy. I'm begging you. We will stop fighting with Venarane. We will give you ten times the tribute. We will put our entire population to work building you the grandest palace, the grandest temple, a thing which can only be matched by your sublime, wondrous greatness. But please...our civilization, our people, are old. Let us continue in our ways. All I can do is beg, so I'm begging. We don't have much to give you, no one does...just please. Let Siem remain a Subject Kingdom. We will be...so grateful...so very, very, very grateful. We'll do anything. Please, Your Supremacy." The king paused, again holding back tears. "Thank you, Your Supremacy."