Ulric and Anna

"Yes."

"So we find the piece."

"Fix broken," Anna intoned softly.

"Yes. Fix the broken piece."

Anna paused a moment.

"Where do you expect to find it?"

"I think I know where," Ulric said. "The trick is getting back quickly. I don't think that there's much time left."

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

It was nightfall when they reached the mountain pass.

"The horses need rest now," the driver told him. "We're going no further until morning, Writ or no Writ."

"I understand," Ulric agreed. "And I'm sorry for your horses."

The driver grumbled as they pulled a meagre fraction of their belongings from the carriage.

"Is it obvious now?" Ulric asked, looking up at the tower.

"The tower was damaged in a storm just a short while before the Obelisk was discovered," Anna said with a nod.

"If the records are right," Ulric explained, "then the Obelisk has been doing this for hundreds of years, maybe longer."

"So it comes along this mountain pass and," Anna turned around to face the valley, "sticks itself in the ground down there."

"It worked every other time for who knows how long," Ulric said.

"Until we built a tower here, right in its path," Anna nodded in understanding. "Ours broken. Yours broken."

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

It had only taken an hour of searching in the morning light to find the black chunk of rock. It had been half buried in dirt, but the furrow it had dug upon crashing had been plain enough. With the help of both the carriage driver and the innkeeper, they managed to load it on to the back of the carriage.

"That was a steep ride up yesterday," the driver warned. "I'd be pleased to give the horses another day."

"That may be a day we don't have."

The driver frowned.

"It'd be nice to wait out the storm, too."

"Storm? I don't remember seeing storm clouds."

The driver nodded towards the valley. Ulric followed his gaze.

"Me, neither. But I've been seeing lightning all night."

Ulric peered down the winding road and, in a few moments, saw a faint bolt of lightning stretch from the ground to the sky.

He waited.

Another bolt at the exact same spot.

"I don't hear any thunder," he said.

The driver thought about that for a moment.

"No," he said. "No thunder all night long. Just the lightning."

Ulric took a breath.

"We need to go now. Discard anything you don't need. Just us and the rock."

Anna was standing by.

"Should I pack -?"

"No," Ulric said. "You're staying."

There was a firmness in his voice that he had never used with her before, an authority she didn't even recognize as belonging to him.

"No, my dear Librarian," she said, just as firmly. "You might need me."

Ulric took a breath and pointed down into the valley.

"We're going there," he said.

Anna stared.

"It looks like lightning," she said. "But it doesn't stop."

"What?"

Ulric turned to look now and, indeed, there was a solid, twitching bolt of lightning hitting the valley floor.

"We leave now," he told the driver.

He and Anna leaped aboard.

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

It was the least pleasant ride any of them had ever taken.

At least the driver understood the need for urgency. Through the small port in the front of the carriage, Ulric and Anna could see that the bolt of lightning had turned into multiple streams of some kind of vibrating, glowing, blue cable. It appeared to have torn a hole in the sky where black clouds were swirling around. The wind was at their backs, pulling them in towards the Obelisk, but travelling much faster than they were.

With the wind trying to whip his words away, the driver shouted back at Ulric, "Shouldn't we running away from this?"

"No," Ulric yelled back. "If we don't fix it, it will only get worse. There's no telling how many lives are at stake."

Bouncing around inside the carriage, Anna pulled on his arm.

"How do you know it will get worse?"

"Something I saw," he told her with a grimace. "When we were talking to it."

"The planet going around the sun?"

"Yes," he replied. "They've been here a year and a half."

Anna thought about it, recalling the images that had crowded her mind. Astronomy hadn't been a real draw for her, but she had picked up the basics. The image they had shown her had looked very much like one of the drawings of the solar system.

"Right. I saw the planet making one and a half trips around the sun. So?"

"Think back. Do you remember seeing the Obelisk in the images?"

"Not really," she said, trying to remember details of the planet. "Just a little blue line sticking out on one side."

Ulric pointed out the front window as the carriage gave another jolt.

"Blue line," he said. "I think it's like an anchor. There's a ship up there, one that can sail from planet to planet, or maybe star to star."

"Fantastical!" Anna accused. "There's no air up there. How could it sail? How would people breathe?"

"Maybe sailing is a bad word," he admitted. "But that's the image in my head. A ship made of metal all around, holding air inside it perhaps, anchored to that thing the philosophers have decided to call an Obelisk."

"Then what's going on now?"

"Every historical record I have," Ulric said, "tells of this Obelisk, this 'anchor' coming for six months and leaving. It comes by our planet, anchors itself to us, does whatever it does, and leaves when the planet is on the other side of the sun."

Ulric looked at Anna, waiting for her to understand. The carriage bounced over a hole in the road.

"On the other side of the sun," he emphasized. "When the planet is going the other way?"

Comprehension lit her eyes and she made a small half circle in the air with her finger.

"They use the anchor to tie themselves to the planet," she said with realization, "and use the planet to turn themselves around."

"I believe so," Ulric said. "It makes sense at least. Perhaps they do other things from up above the sky. Watch us. Study the planet. Maybe they can even take things."

He shrugged.

"But the anchor broke and now it's stuck – they're stuck," Anna said. "And we have to fix it."

"They've waited an entire year," Ulric said. "They've done an extra rotation and now they're pointing in the right direction again."

"And they're going to try to escape, rip their anchor out of the ground? And damn the consequences to us?" Anna asked.

"Possibly," Ulric said. "They are, apparently, dying. Perhaps keeping the air inside a metal ship is a difficult thing."

"They were cold," Anna remembered. "They said that."

"One imagines a quite impossible furnace."

Anna's eyes widened, thinking of that.

The driver's voice shouted back to them.

"We're close to the guard post!"

What would the guards think of this? Would they let the carriage by? What were the philosophers doing? What orders had been given?

"What do you see?" Ulric shouted back.

The small window he had to look out the front of the carriage didn't let him see the guard post.

"No one's coming out to meet us," the driver declared as the carriage slowed.

"What?"

Ulric leaped out through the small door as the carriage came to a halt at the simple gate that blocked the road.

"Where are they?" Ulric asked no one in particular. "If they all left in a panic, we ought to have passed some of them on the road."

"There are other roads -" the driver remarked, but was interrupted when a young soldier came running out the gatehouse.

"My lords," he called out. "You can not go this way."

"We need to reach the Obelisk," Ulric said. "Get the gate open."

"No, my lord," the soldier bowed. "His Wisdom has ordered an evacuation. Demons are haunting the Obelisk -"

"Stop bowing to me," Ulric chastised the boy. "I'm a librarian."

"My Lord Librarian," he replied. "I really can't -"

"There are no demons," Ulric told him with a roll of his eyes. "We're the only ones who can stop this nonsense. Now lift that gate or we'll lift it ourselves."

"Yes, my Lord," the terrified soldier said.

"I'm not a lord," Ulric said as he turned on his heel. "Get that gate open."

Anna had stepped out of the carriage and was looking at him in wide eyed surprise.

"Yes?" he asked her.

"Nothing," she said with a shake of her head. "I've just never – well, just so."

She stepped back into the carriage with Ulric jumping in after her.

"Let's move!" he shouted at the driver.

"Into the storm?"

"Into the storm," Ulric confirmed.

In a moment, they were away and through the gate.

"Honestly," Ulric eyed Anna in frustration. "Demons!"

Anna nodded, a surprised look still on her face.

"Ridiculous people," she agreed, and linked her arm around his elbow.

The carriage jostled sideways as a gust of wind hit it.

"It's getting worse," Anna remarked.

"But no rain yet," Ulric pointed out. "Imagine what this ride would be like if he couldn't see the road."

Her face flushed with what Ulric took for some kind of nausea, she nodded in agreement. She curled up next to him as the carriage bounced down the road and sloshed side to side in the buffeting winds.

Conversation became impossible and they were forced to bare out the rest of the ride in a terrified silence.

The carriage came to sudden and dangerous stop as the horses skidded to a halt.

"Almighty God!" the driver called in to the relative silence.

Glad to be done with riding for the time being, Ulric and Anna got out of the carriage as quickly as they could. They found themselves at the edge of the clearing where the philosophers had built their village.

In the centre of that clearing was a vision out of hell itself.

The Obelisk was still there, hovering in place as it had always been. But now it seemed to vibrate, tearing and shaking the earth around it. A rope that appeared to be made of twisting strands of blue lightning extended from the top of the Obelisk into the swirling black clouds that covered the sky from horizon to horizon.

Those clouds were crackling with red fire.

"The horses won't go no closer!" the driver warned them.

"We need to carry the rock there," Ulric said, pointing at the Obelisk.

"Grab a wheelbarrow!" the driver yelled at him while he tried to calm his horses.

Ulric had yet to spare a glance for the little village the philosophers had built. There seemed to be people scurrying everywhere. What were they doing? There were a few soldiers trying to gather people together, but no one seemed to be listening to them.

"Why have you returned!" someone shouted at him.

His Wisdom Reginald, his expensive, indigo cloak billowing out behind him in tatters, was stalking towards Ulric. The man seemed at first to be angry. But the closer he got, the more Ulric realized that the man had gone pale white with fear. The small amount of grey hair he had was in wind blown disarray.

"I ordered an evacuation!" Reginald screeched at him. "We must escape this demonic device."

Treat the man fairly, Ulric thought, the sight of fiery red clouds in the sky would have sent to his knees any man with the faintest tinge of religion in him.

"I'm here to make it stop," Ulric told him firmly. "I can get rid of -", he frowned a moment, " - the demons - if you let me."

Reginald's disciples, apparently having nothing else to do despite the situation, were beginning to gather around him. Terrified and obedient, they formed a disturbing wall behind their leader.

"What skill do you have -?" Reginald began his demand.

Anna, her blonde, lightning-lit hair blowing in front of her face, stepped up beside Ulric to interrupt the philosopher.

"We know what we're doing," she told him. "Get out of our way."

Reginald's eyes bulged.

"You're dead here," she pointed out. "Look at the bunch of you. You have no idea where to go and you know you couldn't get far enough way from whatever is about to happen."

"Get out of our way," she repeated.

Shaking, the old man turned away from them and wandered away.

"Wheelbarrow," Ulric said aloud, scanning his surroundings. It was a construction site, after all. There had to be – there!

It took only a moment for Ulric and Anna to dump the cone of rock into the wheelbarrow and haul it across to the circle of wooden debris where the altars and fences of the philosophers had once stood. The wind absolutely howled this close to the Obelisk, pulling at their clothes and causing Anna's hair to fly upward and swirl about her head.

"Now what?" Anna asked.

"Now we put it back in place."

The wheelbarrow could only do so much. They dumped the cone of rock on to the ground and began the laborious process of rotating it to find out how it fit. There was a moment, half way around, where it made a satisfying clicking sound and resisted further rotation.

"That's where it goes," Ulric said. "But it won't stay."

Tired, they dropped it to the ground and fell down next to each other.

"Any ideas?" he shouted in Anna's ear.

Anna shook her head.

"Are they saying anything to you?" she yelled back hopefully. "Remember? They said that you were the only one they could reach."

He closed his eyes and tried to relax, hoping that that would let them in. It wasn't working. The wind was pulsing at them and his heart was pounding. He leaned over to speak directly into Anna's ear.

"Only when I'm asleep," he told her. "I've only ever heard from them in my dreams. Unless you want to knock me out and hope I wake up in time to do something useful."

"There's only one thing to do, then," Anna said.

He pulled away far enough to look at her and found her averting her gaze with her lips pursed.

"What?"

"The only way we've been able to talk to them ... really talk to them ..."

"You're kidding. Here?" he asked. "I'm not even -"

"Well, I am."

"You are?"

"The carriage ride," she pointed out, "was very bumpy."

"But I -"

"You will never get another chance to make love in a place like this," she said as she pushed on his shoulders. "Now lie down."

The wind surged, pulling her hair up in to the sky as she undid the laces on his pants. At the very least, he could hope that his cloak would protect his backside from the rough ground underneath it.

"You really aren't ready," she remarked as she straddled him.

"No, I'm not," he admitted ruefully.

He felt the softness of her hair brushing against his flaccid member.

"No underwear?" he asked her?

"I saw this coming," she said. "Left some clothes back in the carriage."

"A gift for our driver?"

She stuck her chin out defiantly and smiled.

"He can keep it if he wants," she said as she threw her head back and laughed.

It put a picture in his mind that he would never forget. Anna in her very fine dress, her head thrown back, her hair backlit by lightning and framed by clouds burning with red and orange flames. He would carry that picture every day he lived. He would take up painting to try to commit the flailing blonde hair and the lightning bolts that lit it to canvas. He would hire an artist to try to capture the exact colour of the flames. But no sculptor, no painter, would ever do justice to the fine chin and nose, turned up to the fiery sky in ecstatic joy.

'There I was', he would later write, 'perhaps at the end of the world with the gates of heaven and the furnaces of hell all around and above us. And all I could think was that there was no place I would rather be.'

Anna, unsatisfied with the progression of her Librarian's arousal, began opening the front of her dress, tearing at the toggles that fortified her clothing. When she reached her navel, the layers of fabric folded back to reveal her breasts, squeezed and lifted by the clothing that remained.

Ulric, radiating in the aura of her enthusiasm and the sheer beauty of her body, reached up to cup those magnificent orbs in his hands.

"Oh!" she screamed as his wind chilled hands touched her flesh.

He caught her nipples between his middle and pointer fingers, feeling those little nubs extend sharply against his knuckles.

"There's my Librarian," she murmured in appreciation - of his hands or his growing erection he couldn't say for sure.

He began to feel a wetness over the length of his shaft as her gentle grinding pushed him between her lips and let slip the juices inside. She hadn't been kidding about the carriage ride – she really was ready to go.

"Close enough," she yelled at him.

He nodded.

"This had better work," he said, adding silently, 'or we'll look quite the fools ...'

She leaned her body forward, breasts hovering over his face, and shifted her hips. In a moment, she slid herself down, taking him inside her.

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

[Old friends. New friend.]

A cold calmness pervaded once more.

The storm had stopped. They were no longer being pelted by dust and small pieces of debris. They were standing, as before, in front of an Obelisk that was a quiet, humming chunk of rock with a peaceful blue rope of light ascending from its peak to the heavens.

Serene, but cold. It was much less pleasant than the last time.

"Yes, we're here," Ulric announced with a shiver.

Anna clung to him, trying to keep warm. He felt her naked thigh pressed against his, her breasts against his shoulder.

[Fix broken?]

"Yes, we found it," Anna explained. "But we can't fix it."

[No fix.]

"We don't know how," Ulric said. "It won't stay."

[Need this.]

"Need what?"

The Obelisk began thrumming very loudly. Pictures began forming in their heads – pictures that made no sense to Ulric.

"What was that?" Anna asked.

"I think it was trying to tell us what it needed," Ulric said thoughtfully.

"All I saw were some weird solar systems and then three balls stuck together at a weird angle," she said.

"It doesn't know how to name things," Ulric pointed out. "It's not really talking to us."

[Need. Everywhere.]

"What you need is everywhere?"

[Yes.]

Anna stumbled suddenly, falling to her knees. Ulric came to the ground to support her as she leaned into his embrace.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

Her eyes were bleary and her head began to roll around on her neck. A faint mewling sound escaped her lips and she collapsed in his arms.

"What happened to her!" Ulric shouted, cradling her motionless body.

Her bare chest showed no sign of breath.

[Closing. Old friend closed.]

"What are you talking about!"

[Help. Fix Broken.]

"What about her!"

With a sudden start, Anna drew a spasmodic breath. Her eyes fluttered open and she grabbed Ulric's arm.

"I'm okay," she gasped. "It's okay. I'm okay."

"What happened?"

She shook her head.

"It's not important."

"The hell it isn't -"

"It was just, um," she looked aside as she stood up.

"Um?"

"An orgasm," she shrugged.

Ulric's eyebrows lowered. Anna shrugged again. Both turned to the Obelisk.

"How do we fix you?"

[Needed thing everywhere.]

"We've been over that," Ulric sighed. "What do you need?"

Thrumming again. It was trying to relate something to them that wasn't an abstract concept. "Broken" and "Fix" and "Friend" were easy concepts to shove into their heads. This was not.

A picture of the planet appeared in their heads.

[Everywhere thing.]

The planet spun dizzyingly to the far side where there were no continents.

[Everywhere thing.]

Ulric pulled at his hair.

"I don't understand," he begged.

[Dying. Cold. No Time.]

"Do you need food?" he asked. "Are you out of fuel for your furnace? Is that why you're dying."

[No Hunger.]

The thrumming increased suddenly, vibrating the ground all around them.

[Thirst!]

"You're thirsty?"

[Thirst,] it announced with what they could only deduce was a sense of triumph.

"Water!" Anna shouted. "They need water."