Read Online The Fourth Circle by Zoran Zivkovic, Mary Popović - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Zoran Zivkovic, Mary Popović
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fantasy fiction, Fantasy, Comics & Graphic Novels, Visionary & Metaphysical
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evanesce into the nonexistence from which they had emerged for a brief spell, leaving behind only a faint crackling and a deceptive smell of burning, which soon vanished. The pack would remain for a long time yet, sitting in a circle, keeping up the slow chanting, until the color of the Big Water changed once more, this time to light green. Then they would begin the slow return trek to the settlements in the Highlands, across the swampy bottoms and steep mountain-sides with their many perilous rockslides.
The birth of the first young one to bear the mark passed unnoticed. If anyone in his clan observed the regular band of white color above the fifth paw, he saw it only as a distinctive marking, nothing out of the ordinary among the multicolored
pelts of the members. Its special properties only became evident the next time the pack formed a circle by the shore and sat down, singing the song of invitation, to wait for the apparitions. A few moments before the ephemeral forms began to coalesce from nothing into the air, the white band on the young one's paw started to glow brightly.
And then a new event occurred. Although the wraiths, as before, passed ef-fortlessly through the solid bodies of the pack and through the rocks along the shore, evidently oblivious of them, they began to gather closely around the young one with the mark and then extended their high-placed forelimbs toward him, cautiously and tentatively. The cub did not shrink back. The clawless hands of the apparitions could not go through him; his fur resisted them with a shower of sparks. The hands slid down to the white band, which seemed to attract them.
Guided by a vague impulse, the young one then rose and walked into the center of the circle formed by the sitting pack. The wraiths followed him without hesitation and soon formed another, smaller circle around him. This would have hidden him from view if they were opaque, but being transparent, the pack could still see him, although not so clearly, as if through a layer of water that allowed a wavering glimpse of the bottom.
The crackling and smell of burning that accompanied the arrival of the presences suddenly increased, making the bristling fur of the pack members sparkle and glow. The cub, whom they saw through the bodies of the wraiths, now reared up on the hindmost of his three pairs of legs, making him almost half as tall as the ephemeral forms around him. If an adult member of the pack had reared up in the same manner, he would have been as tall as the presences.
The cub spoke to the apparitions, and they responded. The language spoken was neither the language of the tribe nor the thin squealing of the hamshees, but a speech never heard in the Highlands—a choppy, jagged language full of strange utterances and sharp intakes of breath, to which the throats of the mountain tribe were unaccustomed. Yet the cub, who hardly knew the basics of his mother tongue, spoke this one distinctly, communicating easily with the wraiths, sounding as though his mouth were full of sharp gravel from the slopes below the Highlands.
There was not much time for this rough, sharp-edged talk that resembled the echo of a rockslide down the cliffs. Tule was already setting and the Big Water, which had never known waves, was becoming suffused with a different color.
Although clearly unwilling to go so soon, the apparitions began to dissolve around the upright cub, accelerating their brittle speech in a feverish attempt to tell him as much as possible. When the last wraith dissolved, talking without
pause to the last, rasping breath, the marked cub suddenly collapsed onto the wet sand. The band over his fifth paw lost its brightness, but also its previous white color, turning dark and apparently singed from too much exposure to the sparks and the tentative touches of the presences.
He fell into a fitful, troubled sleep and they had to carry him back to the Highlands. Along the way they listened to his sharp-edged ravings
The birth of the first young one to bear the mark passed unnoticed. If anyone in his clan observed the regular band of white color above the fifth paw, he saw it only as a distinctive marking, nothing out of the ordinary among the multicolored
pelts of the members. Its special properties only became evident the next time the pack formed a circle by the shore and sat down, singing the song of invitation, to wait for the apparitions. A few moments before the ephemeral forms began to coalesce from nothing into the air, the white band on the young one's paw started to glow brightly.
And then a new event occurred. Although the wraiths, as before, passed ef-fortlessly through the solid bodies of the pack and through the rocks along the shore, evidently oblivious of them, they began to gather closely around the young one with the mark and then extended their high-placed forelimbs toward him, cautiously and tentatively. The cub did not shrink back. The clawless hands of the apparitions could not go through him; his fur resisted them with a shower of sparks. The hands slid down to the white band, which seemed to attract them.
Guided by a vague impulse, the young one then rose and walked into the center of the circle formed by the sitting pack. The wraiths followed him without hesitation and soon formed another, smaller circle around him. This would have hidden him from view if they were opaque, but being transparent, the pack could still see him, although not so clearly, as if through a layer of water that allowed a wavering glimpse of the bottom.
The crackling and smell of burning that accompanied the arrival of the presences suddenly increased, making the bristling fur of the pack members sparkle and glow. The cub, whom they saw through the bodies of the wraiths, now reared up on the hindmost of his three pairs of legs, making him almost half as tall as the ephemeral forms around him. If an adult member of the pack had reared up in the same manner, he would have been as tall as the presences.
The cub spoke to the apparitions, and they responded. The language spoken was neither the language of the tribe nor the thin squealing of the hamshees, but a speech never heard in the Highlands—a choppy, jagged language full of strange utterances and sharp intakes of breath, to which the throats of the mountain tribe were unaccustomed. Yet the cub, who hardly knew the basics of his mother tongue, spoke this one distinctly, communicating easily with the wraiths, sounding as though his mouth were full of sharp gravel from the slopes below the Highlands.
There was not much time for this rough, sharp-edged talk that resembled the echo of a rockslide down the cliffs. Tule was already setting and the Big Water, which had never known waves, was becoming suffused with a different color.
Although clearly unwilling to go so soon, the apparitions began to dissolve around the upright cub, accelerating their brittle speech in a feverish attempt to tell him as much as possible. When the last wraith dissolved, talking without
pause to the last, rasping breath, the marked cub suddenly collapsed onto the wet sand. The band over his fifth paw lost its brightness, but also its previous white color, turning dark and apparently singed from too much exposure to the sparks and the tentative touches of the presences.
He fell into a fitful, troubled sleep and they had to carry him back to the Highlands. Along the way they listened to his sharp-edged ravings
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