The Fourth Circle

by Zoran Zivkovic

  Sir Arthur waited until the kitchen door was closed, then continued. "Moriarty's predicament was truly horrible: he simply could not abandon everything, but on the other hand, only one man existed who was in every respect able to help him complete the project: his sworn enemy, his eternal opponent, Holmes."

  He paused and glanced at the food. He must have decided to suppress for the moment his animal appetites and give priority to the story, which he too was obviously enjoying and which was nearing a climax, for he gently pushed the tray toward the middle of the table. It occurred to me that it was fortunate that Mrs.

  Simpson had gone out.

  "In the end, he decided, with the deepest reluctance, on the latter. He now had to win Holmes over to the idea. This was facilitated by one action which had initially been motivated by sheer malevolence. Moriarty meant for Holmes to follow in his steps and reach the same goal, but only as runner-up and not as an equal. Without that, Moriarty's sense of triumph and gloating would not be complete."

  Knowing Moriarty's nature well, I could easily believe that. I have long been puzzled by the conspicuous incongruence between Moriarty's extraordinary intelligence and his equally extraordinary baseness of character. Only after one of Holmes's casual remarks did I realize that in fact there was no contradiction at all.

  "It is just a common prejudice," Holmes had said, "that great intelligence must be accompanied by great goodness. All prominent criminals in history were very intelligent. The opposite case is much rarer."

  "This is why he arranged," continued Sir Arthur, "that after his 'death' Holmes should get a letter on Murratori's paper, with a circle drawn on it; he believed that this would be sufficient encouragement to Holmes to embark on the same course, but to hedge his bet, he also arranged that crucial pages, which he had torn out of the ancient books, arrive soon thereafter, under separate cover."

  "Holmes did not mention that other letter to me," I said. Even as I said this, I was aware that by these words I was finally confirming the veracity of Sir Arthur's story. There was, now, no return. There had been no return in fact for some time. The game of hide-and-seek was over.

  "Holmes did not have an opportunity. The second letter was delivered to him in your absence, after you had injected him with morphine and left him apparently resting. The postman gave the letter to Holmes personally, as instructed, while Mrs. Hud—Mrs. Simpson was making tea for him."

  "Apparently?"

  "Apparently, yes, because the morphine played a key role. Instead of helping him to sleep, as you had intended, it woke him up. It drove away the exhaustion and cleared his mind, enlightening it. Under that influence, but also with the help of the missing pages, everything began to fall into place. Voids were filled, blunders eliminated, falsities dispelled. Borne on an artificial tide of enthusiasm and delight, Holmes rushed up an ascending line towards the light, which was beginning to appear before him, toward the closing of the Circle."

  "But it did not go all that smoothly. There was a clash, a struggle. I heard Moriarty's savage yell, a madman's roar, in fact. And the destruction in the drawing room...."

  "Oh, yes. The union could not be accomplished painlessly, without strife, but that was just a marginal episode."

  "Union? You do not mean...."

  "Integration, yes. It could not have been done in any other way. Holmes alone would not have succeeded, nor would Moriarty alone. Only by a uniting of the forces of those two sworn enemies could the ultimate step be taken—the lifting of the barrier between the two worlds. Moriarty had tried alone and failed. This is why he took the union much harder. He felt like a loser, a man who had to share with somebody the spoils that he had almost grabbed for himself. Hence the rage that you could hear through the door of the drawing room. For Holmes, however, this joining was an exotic adventure, an exceptional new experience. It is not every day that your mind gets—quite literally—merged with the mind of someone who was your chief enemy during the course of your life." "But that means," I said, taken by a new, sudden, terrible thought, "that Holmes is also dead...at least in the sense that Moriarty is!"

  "I should rather say that he made a transit into...a new form...of existence, though in every practical, earthly sense you are, I think, right. Yes, technically he is dead, although of course his body, or corpse, is missing."

  "What happened to his body?" I said in a trembling voice. The concept of a

  "new form of existence" was certainly comforting, but nevertheless I felt as if I were standing in a morgue.

  Sir Arthur shrugged. "I don't know anything about that. In Holmes's chapter there is no mention of it. Perhaps it will turn up somewhere, as Moriarty's floated up in the lake."

  He said it as lightly as if we were discussing some misplaced trifle or wrapping. I shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

  "Is that the end of the chapter? I mean, is there any mention of events after Holmes and Moriarty broke through the...barrier, as you describe it?"

  "Well, there is a brief part remaining. Four, five pages at most, but I understand very little of it. The narration switches back to the third person, since it is clearly no longer Holmes. I thought perhaps that it might be a new being, created when Moriarty and Holmes were made into one, immediately before the break-through, but that is quite uncertain. Be that as it may, he is now on some...planet...if I understand correctly. The planet seems to be without any atmosphere, but that does not currently create any difficulties for him, totally unprotected though he is. He is steadily walking in the direction of a destination that he calls 'The Circle.' He is racing against the rising of a sun, one of three suns that shine in the sky of that world, but it is not clear even to him why he is there or what will be when he steps into that 'Circle.' He is dressed in a priestly robe with a hood. Occasionally he thinks he hears music. The story ends at the moment before he steps into the 'Circle,' so that the meaning of the whole business remains pretty unclear."

  He fell silent, clearly having nothing more to say, but I continued to stare at him; I had an odd sensation that the silence was gradually thickening around us, becoming almost palpable, substantial. From this silence, a tense foreboding seemed to grow, increasing the evil sense of anticipation created by the unfinished story. Naturally, in such circumstances my ability to think was totally paralyzed. And what could I have thought, faced with a history so fantastic, so unreal? Yet, one question did form slowly in my mind.

  "So we do not know if the contact was made. I mean, if the 'Circle' is the barrier that separates the two worlds—" "Oh, we do, we do. Have you forgotten?"

  My gaze told him eloquently that I had no idea what he was talking about.

  "The book, for God's sake! The first artifact that came from the other world into ours." I think this was the first moment in conversation with me that his patience failed him. Which was remarkable—Holmes's would have given out long since....

  "But you said nothing material...."

  "I did. I can only surmise how the book...got through. Perhaps the barrier is...impenetrable...for material objects only at first. Bear in mind the coinciding of the arrival of the book with the probable arrival of the united Holmes-Moriarty being in the 'Circle,' if that is what the last chapter speaks of. Perhaps the book did not pass through as an object."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It might have materialized here."

  "Materi—"

  "Holmes does mention the word, in his explanations of physics, remember?

  Particles which spin in opposite directions and all the rest? There is an analogy with a mirror there. You put some object before the barrier—an image is reflected here, an identical image. Not a mere reflection, however, but real, material.

  Though as I understand it, a vast expenditure of energy is involved. This might be the case, but of course I cannot be sure. My grasp of physics is, as I mentioned, fairly poor."

  "All right, let us suppose that something of the kind did happen and that the volume really was from another wo
rld. How do you interpret its vanishing? Why did it disappear? What is the purpose of an artifact, as you call it, if it is soon to, to...melt into thin air?"

  Sir Arthur did not immediately answer. For some time now he had been absently picking with his fork at Mrs. Simpson's scrambled eggs sitting in the center of the table. It was plain to see that he was not aware of this. I remembered at that moment how he had just as mechanically mixed the dregs of his tea in the cup.

  These absent, hypnotic movements probably soothed him, preparing him to say something that was gradually building up inside but could not find a suitable vent. So it was this time.

  "The purpose," said he, repeating my word. "Maybe the only purpose of the book was to warn us, to prepare us. To announce."

  "To announce what?" This sort of simple-minded question often made Holmes lose his temper. "Not what, whom." In Sir Arthur's voice this time there was no reproach; it was mild and subdued, prophetic, perhaps. "Our...envoys, Holmes and Moriarty, have arrived in the other world, but not suddenly and not unexpected. As I understand it, their transition was anticipated, there was a group of...a group of those who waited, knowing that they would arrive. There is no such welcoming committee on this side, or there was not, until recently, but now...."

  "Who would make up a welcoming party of that sort? Nobody knows of this, except us: you and I and, partly, Mrs. Simpson. You surely do not mean to say that...."

  He only shrugged his shoulders; I felt my hands tremble. After a moment or two, the tremor spread to my entire body and a few seconds later I realized that the vibration was not produced by my shaken psyche. Sir Arthur was shaking too, and all the objects around us in the dining room also: the crockery in the corner cupboard, the small ornaments in the glass cabinets, the tray with the now cold scrambled eggs in the middle of the table, the chairs, the lamp hanging from the ceiling.

  The pendulum in the wall clock was forced out of equilibrium; losing its rhythm, its swing reached a point previously unattainable—the side wall of its wooden casing. A hollow, crunching noise of ominous origin was coming from the upper floor and I thought I also heard the sounds of furniture moving in the drawing room. At the same time, from the kitchen erupted the crashing sound of pots and pans falling from their wall hooks to the floor, accompanied by Mrs.

  Simpson's scream.

  "An earthquake!" I exclaimed in panic, jumping to my feet and running for the door.

  "No, in God's name, not an earthquake, Watson!" Sir Arthur shouted after me.

  He was on his feet too, but standing still, his wild gaze riveted to the ceiling. "It is beginning! Don't you understand? This is exactly how it shook when the book disappeared! Now there will be light...."

  And, indeed, there was light.

  When in two strides I found myself in the corridor, I was blinded by a powerful white radiance streaming down from the upper floor. I remembered then that milky band that I had noticed in the darkness when Sir Arthur arrived and that had vanished when I lit the lamp. But now the feeble spark of the lamp in the corridor was entirely lost in the mighty blaze from above, a glare that engulfed and absorbed everything. Although of unimaginable intensity, it was in fact the very negation of light, because as in a dark night, everything was lost in it, invisible, flooded by the core of the noonday sun. Instinctively, I put my hands over my eyes, but the brilliance went right through the soft tissues, unobstructed even by the bones, which were noticeable only as stripes of slightly dimmed light. And so, with my eyes tightly closed and hands pressed firmly over them, I continued to see.

  I saw her first as an amorphous entity that materialized at the top of the staircase leading to the drawing room. As she moved down a step, limbs became visible in the elongated ovoid, limbs long and fragile—and I knew a woman was treading towards me.

  The second step down revealed her hair, long and wavy, falling in cascades behind her shoulders and out of sight. The third step in her slow, graceful descent brought a distinctness to her curves, soft and gentle, emphasizing breast and loins.

  When at the fourth step her face became visible—virginal, of amazing grace—the shock of recognition stopped my heart for a moment. Of course I had seen her before, innumerable times—and she had always smiled down on me from on high as now, serenely, chastely. On me—and all others who, as believers or just out of curiosity, visited cathedrals or the humblest little churches in the remotest places, wherein she dwelt, on walls or in icons, her child in her arms, or more rarely alone.

  Mary!

  I put my hands down and opened my eyes. The brilliance was still there, but it no longer distressed me. Now I was seeing with another, altered vision that reached beyond light, seeing deeply, through, all the way to the barrier and beyond.

  And there, across the rim, I finally saw them gathered in The Circle. All of them: Holmes/Moriarty, and the old man, Mary and the Master, and Sri, Buddha, the monkey, and the others, and Spider, the spheres, and the pack. All the builders were there together, creators of the link, contact makers, smiling and waving to me. I smiled too and waved a hand briefly at them. Then I stretched out my arms to Rama, helping her to descend the few remaining steps between us.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author would like to thank L. Timmel Duchamp for her close reading of The Fourth Circle and many precious suggestions.

  AFTERWORD

  A Brief History of The Fourth Circle

  I WAS 45 when I wrote The Fourth Circle, back in 1993. By that time, I was the author of several books dealing in various ways with science fiction, all of them non-fiction. My sole previous excursions into the realm of fiction writing were a play, "Project Lyre," and a short story—nothing worth mentioning, although

  "Project Lyre" was published in a Japanese magazine.

  Why would a scholar, with an MA and a PhD in science fiction, suddenly decide to turn to fiction writing, deep into middle age?

  When, in 1990, after an entire decade of truly hard labor, I published The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, a two-volume set so large and heavy it could almost have been used as a blunt instrument, I realized a simple fact: there were no more challenges for me in that direction. Indeed, what goal more ambitious could I have set for myself, as a writer of non-fiction, than an encyclopaedia?

  Yet I was intellectually far too young for retirement. The solution to the problem was to find a new challenge elsewhere, outside of non-fiction writing.

  One possibility was to embark on an academic career. I could have accepted an offer to deliver a course on the history and theory of SF genre for the Department of Comparative Literature, Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade. I declined the position, however, deciding that it wouldn't be very different from early retirement.

  The key factor which led me to try my skill at fiction writing was my editorial experience. In 1982 I founded "Polaris," one of the first privately owned publishing houses in the former communist countries. "Polaris" was basically a one-man show. I performed almost all the duties, from selecting titles to packaging copies to be sent to subscribers. I didn't mind this diversity, until one of the duties finally became a burden too heavy for my increasingly older shoulders.

  Editing translations and original texts was never a job I much likec. It's very time consuming and largely unrewarding. Maybe I wouldn't have found it so difficult to do, if the works I dealt with hadn't seemed to me of poorer and poorer literary quality. It was inevitable that I would eventually ask myself a fundamental question. Why was I wasting my two most precious commodities—time and a certain talent—to contribute to the promotion of other writers, when I could invest them in my own writing? I could surely write better than the majority of authors I published in "Polaris." There was a certain arrogance in this stance, I don't deny it, but without it I probably would never have dared to launch myself into the turbulent sea of fiction writing.

  Although rather voluminous, The Fourth Circle was written in less than four months in early 1993 while a civil war w
as in full swing all around me. It was a very peculiar experience, quite different from the writing of any of my non-fiction books, when I knew precisely what I wanted to do and how to do it. In the case of my first novel, there was no plan, no preconception whatsoever. Although it might sound incredible, when I typed on my monitor the simplest possible first sentence—The Circle.—I hadn't the slightest idea what would follow.

  But somewhere beneath my conscious level, quite unknown to my rational self, a critical mass was gathering. My knowledge of literature in general and science fiction in particular, accumulated over previous decades, gradually transformed into a new quality. As soon as it had a chance to be released, it erupted almost like a volcano. Actually, the eruption would probably have been even stronger, had it not faced an unexpected technical obstacle: the velocity of my typing. I type, namely, (mis)using only my right hand index finger, which, after many years of such abuse, has become rather thicker and more gnarled than its left hand counterpart.

  What I went through at that time was almost a personality-split. I was simultaneously a writer, mostly unconscious of what he was doing, and a reader more and more impatient due to the slowness of the writer's typing. It became particularly frustrating during the closing chapters of The Fourth Circle, the Sherlock Holmes pastiche, when I could hardly wait to see whether and how several seemingly unrelated structural threads would eventually merge to form a consistent tapestry.

  In the end, the reader was rather satisfied, although somewhat reluctant and embarrassed to state it openly, due to his very close ties with the writer. The writer, for his part, was also pleased, although he remained as blissfully ignorant of what was happening as he had been in the beginning. Yet, he learned maybe the most important lesson about the holy mystery of artistic creativity: one doesn't have to know exactly how something functions as long as it functions.