The Fourth Circle
ZORAN ŽIVKOVIC
The Ministry of Whimsy Press Tallahassee, Florida 2.004
MINISTRY OF WHIMSY PRESS www.ministryofwhimsy.com
Ministry Editorial Offices: POB 4248
Tallahassee, FL 32.315 USA ministryofwhimsy@yahoo.com
Ministry of Whimsy Press is an imprint of: Night Shade Books: 3623 SWBaird Street Portland, OR 97219 www.nightshadebooks.com
Copyright © 2004 Zoran Zivkovic Translated from the Serbian by Mary Popovic
Cover Art Copyright © 2004 K. J. Bishop Cover Design by Garry Nurrish Interior Design by Juha Lindroos
Editor: John Klima (spiltmilkpress@aol.com)
Set in Sabon
ABOUT THE MINISTRY OF WHIMSY
Founded in 1984 by Jeff VanderMeer, the Ministry of Whimsy takes its name from the ironic double-speak of Orwell's novel. The Ministry is committed to promoting high quality fantastical, surreal, and experimental literature. In 1997, the Ministry published the Philip K. Dick Award-winning The Troika. In more recent years, its flagship anthology series, Leviathan, has won the World Fantasy Award, and been a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, and the British Fantasy Award.
Trade Hardcover ISBN: 1-892389-65-7 Limited Edition ISBN: 1-892389-66-5
Contents
Prologue 5
CIRCLE THE FIRST
1. Temple and Time 9
2. The Haunted Ceiling 12
3. Sunflowers and Decimals 16
4. Turtles and Rama 20
5. A Pact with Hell 23
6. The Great Journey 25
7. The Sun in the House 30
8. The Finger of God 33
9. Descendant of the Ring 37
10. Computer Dreams 41
11. The Radiance of Death 45
12. Star Song 49
CIRCLE THE SECOND
1. The Game of Associations 55
2. Heavenly Ascension 62
3. Noli Tangere. .. 66
4. Unwanted Pregnancy 71
5. Nudity Divine 75
6. The Purchase of a Soul 79
7. Nightmare 84
8. Delight Entrancing 89
9. Breaking on the Wheel 93
10. Birth 98
11. A Dream Astonishing 103
12. Casablanca 106
CIRCLE THE THIRD
121 1. A Guest in the Temple
127 2. Into the Kingdom of the Underworld
131 3. Sherlock Holmes's Last Case (i): The Letter
137 4. Cheese and a Toga
142 5. Executioner
146 6. Sherlock Holmes's Last Case (2): Ghost
152 7. Mattress and Fear
156 8. Black Crucifixion
163 9. Sherlock Holmes's Last Case (3): Morphine
169 10. Gambler and Rake
176 11. The Fruit of Sin
180 12. Sherlock Holmes's Last Case (4): Flames
188 Epilogue
CIRCLE THE FOURTH
192 1. Visitor
197 2. The Book
294 3. Vanished
211 4. The Last Chapter
216 5. Light
235 Afterword
Despite some superficial resemblances, the universe of the Circles is not the universe we know. By analogy, none of its inhabitants should ever be confused with those of our own, even when they happen to bear names we may find familiar. In particular, those known to their contemporaries as Archimedes of Syracuse, Ludolf van Ceulen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking are in no way to be confused with such of their analogues as may be known to us, for they are different in motivation and cast of mind: analogues, not avatars.
THE CIRCLE.
He is here because of the Circle. The Circle is the only thing that matters, the only thing that makes sense. Other questions, which flash occasionally into his mind, fail to even make him wonder.
They should, though, for nothing is as it ought to be.
Not this ground he walks on...dry, dusty, sterile, yet yielding underfoot like a thick carpet of grass, responding with unexpected and inexplicable elasticity to his strangely altered weight, although he cannot make out whether he is now heavier or lighter. No matter, he will get the answers upon reaching the Circle, if the questions retain any importance by then.
In the background, the night sky creates alien arabesques. Wrong stars form wrong constellations. Strangely, this does not unsettle him, nor does his vague awareness that for some reason he ought to be unsettled before this vista of irregularly spangled, arching blackness. He has an inkling that his sangfroid is connected to things he used to do, in some other place, in a different time, but the necessity of the Circle has almost severed him from his own past.
Almost, though not quite.
His memories reach back to the moment when he started to walk toward the Circle. Two suns were lying low in an orange sky: one large, the color of dying coals; the other very small, but fiercely bright. The little sun stood very close above the great one, so that at the moment of sunset, they looked like two connected spheres plunging into an ocean of dust.
He knew, though he could not explain how, that the system had a third member also, one he had not yet seen. (The Circle relies on a minimum of three bases, does it not?) The massive body of the planet hid all three suns now, but the third one would soon emerge from the opposite side, behind his back, and he had to get to the Circle by then.
He turned around once, while the horizon was still awash in the pink after-glow, but saw no footprints behind him in the pliant dust, though one segment of his mind told him they had to be there. This obvious necessity was overtaken by another, older one—the necessity of the Circle, the necessity that said that everybody must arrive at the Circle in his or her own way, without following any previous trail.
He did not know what the Circle looked like, but that did not worry him unduly. He would recognize it as soon as he saw it. Nor did he know whether he would be the first there, or whether the others had already arrived. It did not matter. First or last, it was all the same—only together could they close the Circle.
Whenever he started to think about this, in the darkness softened by the monotonous glow of alien constellations, new abysses of ignorance yawned around him. But this did not deter him from his forced march forward, nor did it disturb him much.
How many of them would there be? Three, like the number of suns in this system? A reasonable assumption, but the Circle could be based on seven points too. Or on nine. Which number stood above all others, creating the basis and a sufficient condition for the Circle? Perhaps One? No, nobody could close the Circle alone. In any case, he would soon learn.
Since the ground was perfectly flat all the way to the distant range of hills rising somewhere behind the horizon, darkness did not slow his pace. He could not see it, but he knew the range was there, just as he knew about the third sun. There were no rocks to trip him up, nor crevasses to fall into. He might have thought that the ground had been deliberately cleared for him, had he not known that no path leads to the Circle. And yet, he could not dispel the feeling that the terrain was just so, to make this walk easier for him. He sensed the influence of a purpose behind it but could not fathom it.
...
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