Ulric and Anna

"As I said," Ulric repeated with a disapproving frown at those kneeling in the distance. "Nothing."

Anna relaxed a little when Ulric started to step slowly away from the Obelisk and surveyed it thoughtfully.

"They should have talked to masons," Ulric said.

"The masons?"

Ulric nodded.

"Very obvious, then."

"What's very obvious?" she asked. "Putting aside the fact that a philosopher is even less likely to ask the advice of a mason than a librarian."

Ulric scratched his head and looked around. It was rare to Ulric to take any care about his surroundings, but he gave a wary look to the philosophers at their prayers.

He opened his mouth to speak, but one of them approached, announcing that the evening meal would be served shortly.

"Later," Ulric mouthed to Anna, and took her hand as they went off to dinner.

-----------===================-------------

It was a minor inconvenience for the philosophers to allow two more people to dine around the table that the King's cooks and the King's servants had set for them. Ulric had a letter from the King anyway, if they really wanted to fight about it. As there was no need to fight, they sat with a handful of philosophers at a rather simple outdoor table and dined upon exquisitely spiced chicken and rice with seasonal vegetables that had been brought in from who knew where. The pens for the live chickens they could see – there was a booming business for lumberjacks and carpenters in addition to cooks – but the vegetables must have been carried in from elsewhere.

"Have you done any searching in the area around here?" Ulric asked, waving to the distant forests?

The philosophers glanced at each other before looking to their leader. His Wisdom Reginald stroked his long, iron grey beard in an irritatingly pompous fashion.

"Not particularly," he said, adjusting the collar of his indigo cloak. "The object is here, after all."

"But the lumberjacks," Ulric said. "They must go out to the forest?"

"Indeed."

"And they have seen nothing odd?"

"Nothing they have mentioned to us," he replied. "Should they have?"

Ulric shrugged.

"I wondered if the object might have some effects on things nearby."

"We have seen no sign of such things," Reginald answered. "Good or evil."

Ulric nodded and returned to his food. It was going to be a very awkward, quiet dinner.

"One wonders if you are aware of the dangers to your young lady friend," Reginald remarked after a bit of silence.

"Dangerous to me, Your Wisdom?" she asked. "But not you?"

"Such frail flesh," the leader of philosophers said, ignoring her comment and speaking only to Ulric. "Without the strength to resist the temptations."

"What - what do you mean?" Ulric stammered.

"Things in the night," Reginald said. "Demons, perhaps, invading their dreams. It's why I sent the women away. Too frail. Much too frail."

"Dreams?" Ulric gave a start. "They were having dreams?"

Reginald stroked his beard again, happy to lord this information over Ulric.

"Yes, most terrible," Reginald said, eyeing Anna. "Screaming in the night. Unable to waken. Most terrible. Most terrible."

Anna gulped.

-----------===================-------------

"Are they serious?" Anna asked after dinner.

"Philosophers, my dearest," he replied regretfully. "My Writ only goes so far. They can still throw us out of the camp for violating their rules. You knew this last night, did you not?"

Anna pursed her lips.

"I suppose I did," she surrendered.

The philosophers' disapproval of premarital companionship was so well known that Ulric and Anna had brought two tents with them in full expectation that they would be separated. Anna's tent, the philosophers had since decided, would be pitched at the farthest end of the encampment – and this only after she had refused the offer of living under the roof of the house constructed for His Wisdom.

"It would be a nicer bed than a camp roll," Ulric had pointed out.

"Not from his hand," she'd said.

Dinner had been enough to set her against them. She was determined that she would survive whatever night terrors had sent the other women away.

The rules of civilized society would be enforced as long as the philosophers were in charge. The punctuation of their authority was one of their number standing a polite distance away, well within earshot, waiting to escort Anna to her tent.

-----------===================-------------

It was the middle of the night when he was woken by a familiar body slipping alongside him.

"Is this wise?" he asked groggily.

Shivering, she curled up next to him.

"Tell me what you know," she demanded in a whisper.

"What?"

"What could you possibly know that a mason would know?" she asked.

"Oh," he yawned. "That."

"That what?"

"Well," Ulric said. "That it's broken."

"Broken?"

Ulric squinted at her and bobbed his head bob side to side.

"That's the thing about being a librarian," he explained. "You know a lot about language and a little bit about everything else."

"And you know about masonry?"

Ulric nodded again.

"Enough to see that the bottom tip of the Obelisk has been broken off. I mean, look -"

He sat up and began drawing on the dirt floor with his finger.

"Here's the top of obelisk." He poked a hole in the dirt.

"Here are the sides." He drew two lines that went downward from the tip, spreading out from each other and curving back together.

"And this is the spot where it stops."

He drew another line horizontally, stopping the paths of the other two lines before they met at a second point.

"But these two sides should meet at another point, right at the ground."

Anna raised her eyebrows.

"Right at the ground?" she asked.

"Well, look at it," he said, pointing out the gap in his tent's entrance at the actual Obelisk behind her.

She turned and parted the flaps of the tent just wide enough to look. From this distance, in the moonlight, it did look as if the thing were meant to taper to a point at the bottom.

"Okay, you're right," she said. "It looks like the bottom tip broke off. That doesn't tell us much, though."

"Doesn't it?" he asked and stood up beside her.

"Well, shouldn't it maybe – I don't know – fall to the ground?"

"Apparently not," Ulric said with a distant frown. "It's not that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Well," he said, "the sort of thing that falls down, I suppose."

Anna blew her breath up into her bangs.

"I mean," Ulric said, "that this is exactly the place the thing should be if the tip were there, holding if off the ground."

"But the tip's not there, so oughtn't it to fall?" Anna asked.

"Maybe we could get a mason out here to look at it," Ulric added.

"Ulric, the philosophers hope it's a sign from one of their gods," she explained to him patiently. "Since the King gave it to the philosophers to examine, they won't be letting a mason within sight of it."

Ulric's frown deepened.

"What could the masons tell you anyway?"

"I don't know," he said. "That's rather the point, though, isn't it? The philosophers should have consulted a mason and they didn't. Do I know everything that masons know? Of course not. What else could a mason tell me?"

"How to fix it, I suppose," Anna said, looking at the Obelisk.

"Doubtful, but you never know," Ulric replied.

They stared at it together for a while as various thoughts went through their heads.

"Do you think it could fall down?" Anna asked. "Eventually, I mean."

"It's been here for over a year without falling," Ulric said. "And it really shouldn't be here this long at all anyway."

There was a short silence in which Anna parsed his last sentence.

"Why shouldn't it be here?"

"The books I've read," he explained. "They describe things like this. Very old books, though, with faded drawings and faded words. But what they tell is that a thing like this arrives, stays for half of a year, and leaves. This visit has been near on a year longer than any other on record."

She let the flap of the tent close and curled up with him on his roll.

"Do the books say anything about nightmares?" she asked.

"You believed His Wisdom about that?" he replied.

"You did," she pointed out. "I saw the look on your face."

He paused and frowned.

"I've had some nightmares myself, but I've been very far from the Obelisk."

"His Wisdom says that they affect only women? Why?"

"I haven't a clue. But the philosophers have issues with women in general."

She hummed softly in his ear.

"Yes," she whispered as her hand slid down between their bodies. "Especially the ones who can read."

"Is this wise?" he asked. "They can kick us out of the camp just for being in the same tent. Writ or no Writ."

"Then we'll have to be quick," she said.

Ulric heaved a sigh, feeling his body reacting without paying any heed to the reluctance in his mind. Danger had always been a powerful aphrodisiac for Anna.

Under the heavy fur blankets, he wore nothing but a light pair of pants. It was nothing for Anna to slide her hand along the fabric, teasing the length of his growing manhood and curving under his testicles.

Feeling him harden, she sighed. "There's my Librarian."

She always managed to say the word with a degree of admiration that exceeded every other accolade he'd ever received.

Her lips met his and he embraced her. She still wore the thick robe she had covered herself with to reach his tent. Soft thing, it felt wonderful against the bare skin of his arms. Her hand found it's way to the ties of his pants and soon her fingers were tracing along the bare skin of stomach and down under his pants.

A sigh came from his mouth when she reached the shortest hairs under his testicles. She pushed there, at the base of his penis and he felt a surge of blood enhance his rigidity.

"Good," she murmured into his mouth as she stroked the length of his erection.

The coolness of her naked thigh slid over his legs as she straddled him. Apparently, Anna had come prepared for this encounter by wearing nothing under her cloak.

"Two nights in a row," he noted. "Unusual."

She acknowledged this with a nod. "Don't know what's come over me."

Her body fell down up his, her robe now parted so her naked chest could press against his. She bit his ear as his arms wrapped around her waist.

"Lying there alone in my tent", she murmured into his ear. Her hair was gently scratching at his penis as she rubbed herself against him. "Just had to come to see you."

He inhaled, breathing in the scent of jasmine and lilac that always permeated her hair. She must have doused herself in perfume just before coming

"Indeed," he breathed in to the sweet smelling hair around the nape of her neck.

She moaned her appreciation into his ear.

Ulric lamented the darkness. One of the best parts of making love to Anna was watching the expression on her face as she forced herself down on him. In the darkness, there was nothing to see and only things to feel.

He felt her moist, tender skin enveloping the head of his penis. He felt her teeth sinking into his ear lobe as she used his pillow to muffle the cry that forced its way up from her throat.

Deeper and deeper he plunged into the welcoming tunnel.

Startlingly, he stifled a yawn.

Goodness, it must be late. It wasn't normal for him to be tired when they were making love. His heart would always race and manage to find the energy somewhere. It must be very late in the night for him to actually feel lightheaded.

Nevertheless, he would hold on for her. There was nothing better than this.

He hoped that his dreams would be peaceful.

-----------===================-------------

"Odd, isn't it?" Anna asked, staring at the Obelisk.

"Which part?" Ulric replied.

"Such a quiet thing."

"Quiet?"

"Yes," she said, squinting her eyes downward as if her own words were confusing. "Very still."

Ulric gave the obelisk a once over.

"Look," he said, pointing to its top.

Against the dark sky, a faint blue glow could be seen shining up in to the sky. Anna took a few steps back for a better look.

"Jellyfish," she said.

"Jellyfish?"

"There was a book on aquatic animals I read once," she explained. "The tendrils of the jellyfish looked just like that, except here they're all bunched together like a rope."

The rope, as she called it, extended far up into the sky, beyond the limits of their vision.

"We should tell the philosophers," Ulric remarked. "Why aren't any of them awake yet?"

"Too early, I suppose," Anna said. "Still dark, after all."

Ulric mumbled acknowledgement and continued staring at the rope in the sky, trying to peer through the clouds to see where it went. It seemed like there had to be something up there ...

"Shouldn't they be up making breakfast, though?" Ulric asked.

He had a vague notion that cooks and bakers and the like rose before most other people.

"At least they didn't catch us," Anna noted, smiling at the sky.

Ulric thought about this for a moment.

"Did you get back to your tent?"

It was Anna's turn to think. She turned her eyes from the sky very slowly and looked at him.

"I don't remember," she said. "I don't even remember waking up."

"Me neither," Ulric agreed. "Also: you're naked."

This gave Anna a bit of a start. She looked down at her body: breasts, stomach, thighs with a little patch of hair between, shins, feet. Yes. Naked.

"Shouldn't I feel cold?"

Ulric eyed her nipples. "Apparently not," he said. "I don't feel cold."

Anna shrugged. She hadn't even noticed his body. His penis looked funny when it wasn't erect. She wasn't used to seeing it like that, like one of those diagrams in the medical textbooks.

My Librarian, she thought possessively of his thin body. How straight you stand.

The earth shook beneath their feet and a humming sound pervaded their ears, as if someone had struck a tremendously large drum.

They turned their attention from each other and back to the Obelisk.

The thrumming came at them again and the Obelisk seemed to pulse at them like a giant, beating heart.

[Help.]

It didn't seem odd that they could understand it.

"You need help?" Ulric asked it.

It thrummed again, at a higher pitch. It seemed almost joyful.

[Help. Old Friend. Know you. Help. Help.]

"What can we do?" Anna asked.

It thrummed at them again, this time it was a screeching horror that Ulric recognized from his dreams. He shrank away in a panic as an icy coldness enveloped him. Anna attached herself to him in an attempt to conserve their heat. There were goosebumps on her skin. He felt his testicles shrinking away and one of her nipples stiffening where it touched his shoulder.

A moment later and the coldness was gone.

[New Friend. Help.]

"How can we help?" Anna asked.

[Broken.]

Ulric took a breath, wondering if it was really a breath he was taking. This encounter seemed entirely fantastical.

"As we surmised."

[Cold,] it thrummed at them sadly.

"How can we fix you?" Anna pleaded. "Tell us."

[Broken,] it thrummed back. [Very sorry.]

"We're sorry, too," Anna said.

[No. We sorry.]

"Why are you sorry?" Ulric asked. "You have no need to apologize."

[Yours broken. Ours broken. Very sorry.]

Ulric thought about this for a moment.

"How long have you been trying to talk to people?"

It thrummed at them in a very weird way that put pictures in their heads.

Anna grunted in protest.

"What was that?"

"It was showing us a length of time in terms of the earth going around the sun ... or possibly the moon going around the earth."

"Oh."

"I think it meant it's been trying since it got stuck here."

[Open minds. Many tries.]

Another dizzying moment of cosmological time references.

"You needed open minds but couldn't find them?" Anna asked.

[Found some. Afraid. Gone]

"It managed to reach the women, but scared them away," Ulric concluded. "That screeching cold feeling is very frightening."

[Sorry. Broken.]

"You've been reaching me for a long time, though, haven't you?"

[Special. Far away talk. Very open. Old Friend.]

"You scared me, too."

[Sorry. Broken.]

"You couldn't talk to any of these people here?" Anna asked.

[Closed.]

"Yeah," Anna muttered. "I'm with you there."

Another blast of cold washed over them. They tried to curl up together whilst covering their ears against the screeching at the same time. Nothing was effective though. The screeching was inside their heads and the sense of being frozen permeated their bodies, even where their bodies touched.

When it was over at last, the Obelisk thrummed at them again.

[Broken. Dying. Hurry.]

Ulric gulped.

"How can we help?"

[Find broken. Fix.]

"Find what's broken?"

[Fix.]

Ulric shook his head. He was starting to lose the thread of what was going on around him. Anna clung to him desperately as her knees weakened..

"How?" she wondered aloud. "How do we fix you?"

[Find broken.]

"But -"

[Closing. Find broken. Fix]

"Closing? What's closing?" Ulric shouted, losing his balance and stumbling backwards with Anna falling on top of him.

[You. Mind closing. Nearing end.]

He closed his eyes as he fell, feeling Anna's weight as she crumbled on top of him.

[Old Friend. New Friend. Fix broken. Free us.]

-----------===================-------------

The transition back was not nearly as smooth. There was a violence of change as they both realized that they were still, in fact, having sex. She was grinding her hips around in circles and he was holding his hips up in the air to get the best penetration.

It was the same position they'd been when she'd first impaled herself on him. How long ago was that?

Ulric panicked. It wasn't just that they were having sex. The unsteadiness in his mind was caused by the fact that the Obelisk had released them from its imposed carefree state into the throes of orgasm.

The head of his erection had already swelled, locking it inside his lover's wet embrace. Mindless with her own passion and therefore heedless of the danger, Anna pushed down, dropping her weight on to him.

"No!" he grunted.

But it was too late. Anna wasn't even aware enough to notice his protests. Her own orgasm was pulsing at his manhood as he let loose inside her belly. He could picture it, as he had pictured it many times before: semen spilling out of his swollen erection, the pressure forcing it into every crevice inside her. It would slip up into her insides, the sperm swimming around, looking for an egg. Anna had been fascinated once to actually put his seed under a microscope and watch the little tails wiggling around.

Bad timing. Very bad timing.

But there was nothing for that now.

-----------===================-------------

"Are you leaving so soon?"

Sincerity was clearly absent in His Wisdom's lament.

"But you arrived so recently. Did the demons, perhaps, bother your lady last night?"

Ulric ignored this irritating probe.

"We should be back within a day or two."

"Oh, indeed?" the philosopher asked.

"Indeed," Ulric answered.

They hadn't even taken their tent down. Ulric had wolfed down his breakfast and packed his rucksack in haste.

"Why the hurry?" Anna had asked.

"I'll explain on the road."

The carriage had been waiting, its driver explaining that he wanted at least a day of rest for the horses. Ulric waved his Writ at the man.

"I need you to get me back up the hill."

"Back to the capital?" he asked.

"No," Ulric said. "Short trip."

"Aye," the man said.

-----------===================-------------

"Can you tell me now?" Anna asked when they were safely away and out of earshot of the philosophers.

"I think we can fix it," Ulric said.

"Fix it?"

"A piece of it is missing, right?"