Read Online The Fourth Circle by Zoran Zivkovic, Mary Popović - Free Book Online

and the shroud for my Master also gave me a cracked bowl with a slice of yesterday's dry bread and a piece of cheese, very salty, which they got from the peasants in these hills. But I had no wish to eat, and so the food remained in a corner, untouched.
Sitting thus by the gently resting body of my Master, I gave myself up to the sluggish passing of the hours. I listened to the familiar, monotonous sounds of the monastery, muffled, and watched the slow crawling of the dusty beam over the earthen floor of the cell, closer and closer to the window, until it slipped away at noon, when the sun shone on the other, western side of the iguman's residence.
    Several times I slipped into sleep, but I could not remember afterwards what I dreamed. I only remember that twice I woke with a cry and looked fearfully around in the growing darkness of the cellar. My calm returned, both times, only when I saw the peaceful form of the Master, his face still radiant in that stiff smile of death. Once, to make sure I was not alone in that forlorn place, I even caught him by the hand, cold but not so cold as I had expected.
    The bell clanged for vespers, and soon after, as dusk was gathering outside—inside the cellar it was already dark as night in a dense forest—the hasp on the door scraped harshly again and lifted. A, tall faceless form in a long monkish robe, its hood pulled down covering the head, appeared in the doorway and silently entered. A diakon peered out from behind the figure only long enough to inform me that this was a new brother, just arrived, who would of his own free will spend the night in vigil over the Master with me, but that I must not start any conversation with him since he was bound by a solemn vow of silence.
    The diakon, still unused to the monastic rituals of death, said this all in one breath and in a single motion closed the door and slammed the bolt home, as if one of us meant to escape, or as if that silly bar of iron could keep death out.
    As soon as the sound of the diakon's timid, hurried steps had faded away, the monach sworn to silence humbly approached the Master's wooden bier and bent down to see, by the light of a small candle that I had lit a moment before, the face of the deceased. As if that look brought recognition, the monach turned to me, came a step or two closer, and in one short, resolute move flung back the hood.
    And I saw....
     
    12. STAR SONG
     
    FOR GENERATIONS, THE pack had been coming to the shore.
    This would always occur in the fifth month, Tule, when the young ones were strong enough for the long trek down from the mountains and when the small, white, soft-furred hamshees were most numerous and easiest to catch. The pack reached the coast of the Big Water when Tule was at its zenith because it was only then, and only there, that the presences appeared.
    The wraith-like forms, composed of the sparkling of the bluish air laden with the scents of evaporating waters, could be seen by all the members of the pack, but communication with them could only be established by the marked ones. For many generations, before the cubs who bore the mark discovered their talent, ordinary inhabitants of the distant Highlands used to make these pilgrimages to the coast. Seated in a great circle on the rough grains of black crystal, they would begin to howl a monotonous refrain, waiting for the presences to materialize out of nothing before them.
    The wraiths would wander about in apparently aimless fashion, passing through the bodies of the members of the pack, whose fur would bristle, and through large rocks along the shore as though they had no substance and were unaware of them. Their broad, clumsy feet reached down to the black sand, almost but not quite touching it, remaining just a few hairbreadths above and leaving no impression.
    This spectacle would not last long. As soon as Tule began to set above the bay, changing the wrinkled Big Water from dark blue to turquoise, the presences would