There is the sound of echoing water. It is everywhere. Ripples against stone, sloshing against sides of boats, drifting in and out of man-made waterways. Silking. Slinking. Slopping. The ripples of a passing taxi, having past hours ago, finally brushing up against the fondamenta leading to the Rialto Bridge.
     It is late...
     Venice is in bed...
     But there is no rest for the gondolier. Though the tourist traffic has been maddening -- it is Carnivale, anyone who is going to come to Venice is in Venice it seems, dreamers and revelers and travelers all -- at this late hour, at midnight, it dwindles to next to nothing. All entertainments have been taken inside.
     And yet, there is no rest for the gondolier...
     O Venezia...
     The lifting of voices starts in the Cannareggio Sestieri, rolling, echoing, displaced like the sound of the water everywhere -- the singing is everywhere...
     O Venezia...
     The song of the gondoliers...
     For over a thousand years, no one on this earth but they can claim to have heard it all. Lord Byron, only snippets. Wagner, only the haunting refrain that is further echoed in his Tristan. Love. Death...
     O Venezia...
     It is the magic that has borne this city since 800AD. The power of the song handed down in generations, father to son to father to son to son. But as the numbers of gondoliers has dwindled, the song's power too has started to fade. And Venice, not surprisingly, began to sink...
     O Venezia...
     A slender black vessel, silver winged lions at bow and stern, is guided by the expert hands of The Gondolier. The, capitalized. The one they call the Guardian of the City. Paolo. His vessel is empty -- no passengers tonight. Nothing guided by the very waters that seem to live at his bow. "L'acqua e l'anima della vita di questa citta," he sings, his baritone voice lifting to answer the rounds of the song. "L'oceano della O, si ricorda dei vostri bambini..."

     He spent the day in a small shop off a smaller side street. A narrow walkway, really, rather than a street. It is a place he is learning to know well, in the months Nathaniel has been in the city. The store sells one thing, and only one thing: masks. To Nathaniel, masks have deep meaning, and so, over Time, he has become something of a patron of this small store. It has become a Tuesday ritual: a light breakfast at a nearby cafe, and then an hour browser the masks and talking with the owner.
     He has bought so many. Nathaniel doesn't have much in the way of furniture, where he lives, but his walls are gathering masks. They watch his home while he is away. It is a nice arrangement, really.
     It is white, like porcelain, with gold around the eyes. It is exactly what he had been looking for, to complete tonight's costume.
     It is Carnivale: those who walked the streets, earlier, wore costumes of extravagant style. Plumes and lengths of silk to wrap a nation. There are yet some few on their way home; stragglers hunting rest or other merriment. Some look weary, others seem like they are just beginning. It is the insanity of this time of year.
      And of Nathaniel? He is dressed in White, sitting on the step of a bridge, watching a singing gondolier glide gently past. Nate's perfect mask rests in his lap, removed some time ago, as the merriment came to an end. His white and gold jester's costume gleaming in the moonlight, his cape draped along the stair. He is up late -- but, then, he rarely sleeps.

     I am but one, and yet am I many...
     All of the stories I have collected, they become a part of me, though not of who I am...
     But in the end - who am I?
     There is always time to sit and listen to music, even if the nature of the music is not always clear. And of late, Valmiki's mind has run increasingly to unanswerable questions, fragmented notions drifting upon humid currents of air and restless energy. Carnivale is a time of restless energy - dancers and revelers and musicians and tourists flock to the city of splendors. As they have for centuries, as they will until Venice has finally succumbed to the deathly kiss of the sea.
     He's seated on a ledge of stone rising above the water, a number of feet away from the nearest other ledge - once, perhaps, it was part of a dock, ornamented on either end with cherubic statues. The statues have remained, their sightless eyes cast up to the heavens, one hand each raised, palm up, as if feeling for rain. Valmiki is seated in the middle, perhaps six or seven feet from either end. One leg dangles, the other knee drawn up to his chest, and one arm wraps around a calf, flute held in tightly closed fist.
     His self-absorbed gaze is as aquamarine as the sunlight upon Mediterranean waters, suddenly startled into rippling upwards to seek out the source of song, as by some silver-glinting fish entering his proximity. The full lips quirk into a smile, the thick fringe of dark lashes lifting. Tannic skin and ebony ponytail, ivory tunic embroidered and hemmed with burgundy thread, charcoal trousers - a long way from home, little poet.
     But then, where is home?
     He climbs to his feet, shading his eyes from the unrisen sun, then lifts his flute in a salute of sorts to the gondolier.

     After so many years, so many passengers, he has become attuned to small motions, particularly from hands, moments of movement in the periphery. Quiet calls for assistance, guidance, travel. The gondola that was toward the center of the Canale Grande, heading for the bridge, to pass beneath it and head to San Marco's, suddenly veers and slides upon the water toward the loitering revelers. The last stragglers of the evening, perhaps.
     "Buona sera," Paolo announces to both in eyeshot. A look to one and then a look to the other. A musician and a jester. He's a stately thing, The Gondolier. Dressed all in black, his ribboned and brimmed hat resting cocked upon the dark-haired head. His eyes are blue-green, Adriatic blue -- not that such can be seen in such a dark time. Even with the lights of the city and the light of a waning moon.
     The gondola slides along the dark waters and the gondola is turned again, with all the grace of a natural swimmer it moves and the pilot with it. It is merely an extension of the Self.
     And the song of the gondoliers echoes off in the distance, surrounding on all sides. Quietly. But constantly. Moving from one sestieri to the next.
     "Signori.... do you need transport?" That is called out to both men as the gondolier steers toward the landing of the Rialto Bridge.

     Nate's eyes -- one like the moon, the other like the sun -- come focused from his reverie. His mind had been replaying past times in the reflections off the water. The gondolier's words bring him back to the Present, and so also comes a smile to his face. He loves people, he cannot help but smile when he speaks with someone new.
     "I have no where to go." A glance goes to the piper "But, so long as I do not steal transport from another, you could simply guide me through the canals. It has been too long since I saw Venice for Venice." He likes Venice -- water has always called to him, and the buildings are stark and beautiful. They are like people, to Nate; Each willing to chatter endlessly about themselves if given the Time. And he does have the Time.

     "Buona sera," comes a husky reply from the ledge, accompanied by a smile which reveals neat, even white teeth in a slanting flash in the available treble-light. "I could use a ride, I confess, though I apologise for the difficulty of my position. Here - I will attempt to extract myself."
     He is as he is seen, with all the buoyancy of his youthful spirits - but of late, there has been a heaviness, a burgeoning pregnancy which impinges upon his unconscious... The birth of self-awareness, changing his animal grace into something more difficult.
     Uneasy am I, in all my complications...
     Valmiki smiles nonetheless, with the parting of his lips and a quick glance around. That there is good will in him, paired with that extrovert cheer - it has not changed, but neither has it birthed its fruit.
     He backs up a few paces to the side, the mingled colours of his gaze flavoured with rue. Ah, it's a tricky thing - getting to where he is now, between the little angels, that was easy enough. He had space to run and leap. But here...
     It is not impossible...
     But it will be tricky...
     And if he misses, he'll be in for a swim, won't he? But he is lithe, and he is young - tucking the flute more firmly into his belt, he somersaults forward along the ledge, then twists, springing sideways with both feet. The gap is cleared easily, with the dramatic flair of the marketplace performer, and the dark head tips back for a soundless laugh to the night sky.
     Do you see me, Venice? Do you see me, you old gods in the sky? I am still here ...
     The laugh fades, the smile turns into a perplexed frown.
     But why?
     And Valmiki turns to offer a gracious bow to Nate, then to Paolo. "My apologies," the husky voice murmurs, "for the delay. I am not urgently expected anywhere, but there is somewhere I must go. If you are available for such, I will pay as I am able."

     "Buona sera, Nathaniel," Paolo says to the sun-eyed, moon-eyed man as he stops his vessel at the fondamenta. Overhead, the grand arch of the Rialto Bridge, with its built-in booths and shops. It is a masterpiece. Both bridge and gallery.
     "Another late night's wandering. Get in... I will take you on tour with me..." And to the acrobat? There was the slight lifting of an eyebrow, a quirk, a partial expression that blended at last into something of bemusement. His expressions are subtle, like the motion of water against the sides of the gondola.
     "Wherever you are going," he says to Valmiki, "...it will be on the way. Please." The Gondolier gestures to the vessel, the red-leather seats in the black-swan boat. "There are two seats."
     The round of the song comes again, stronger, louder, moving from a side canal not far from the bridge, perhaps the Rio Verona. Paolo turns his head, his baritone leaving him again:
     "O, Venezia...
     "....Guardiano di queste acque, denomino a voi. L'Adriatico, si ricorda dei vostri discendenti..."
     The phrase spoken comes with a ripple of power. The waters shift and trickle from the bow of the waiting vessel. Paolo turns to you both again, dark eyes looking at you expectantly, watching over your anticipated embarkment.

     "Just pacing my gilded cage, Paolo. As always." Nathaniel smiles, and rises gracefully to his feet. Left hand catches his cape with one finger, bringing the light fabric with him. And he stops, to watch the acrobat. There was a Time he could do that, but that Time is passed. Hopefully it will come again soon.
     "If your needs are farther than your means, Acrobat, I have enough Lire for the both of us." His voice comes between the beats of the gondolier's song, never interrupting; loud enough to be heard, but never so loud it disrupts the flow of the music.
     His feet carry him silently across the flagstones of the dock, cape rustling the wind of its own passage. And he steps from dock to Gondola without thought, without care for the shifting of the water. He is sure footed, and is as comfortable on the water as on land. Perhaps more comfortable, really.
     There was a time that his friends said he was born to the water. They might still, if he still knew them. But that was long ago.
     "When your other guest is ready, Paolo, lead on so that I might watch the stars in the sky beneath us." He is in an odd mood tonight.

     "I thank you, though I believe such funds as are mine should suffice to my needs," Valmiki answers courteously, one hand lifting to brush back a shining wing of hair from in front of his lurking gaze. He moves carefully to the edge of the boat, preparing to enter.
     There is a smile offered to Paolo, and a nod which seems a substitute for a bow. "I apologise for coming between old friends," as the two seem to be such, "and will endeavor to take no longer than I must..." There is a widening of the aquamarine eyes - curiosity. He senses the power, it seems...

     Ah yes, the gilded cage. So it is for many. Paolo steadies the gondola, it barely bobs with the added weight, two by two, and he watches both come aboard, the one after the other. "Restless tonight, Nathaniel. It is a night for it. I argued with both of my wives tonight. It has been a long night for Paolo." Two wives? They allow that in Italy? "You know how Cosimina can be," he exhales. "You will tell me some Time why I married a Fate Witch of the Roma Family. We will have chianti...but Rosalie is fine. A baby on each teat, like the mother of Romulus and Remus..."
     Thus Paolo makes an appointment for the Past. Or the Future. Whichever shows up first.
     Fingers lift to touch the brim of his ribbon-brimmed hat, black...the ribbon itself red. He tips the hat to the other traveler, smiling. "Ah, it is no trouble. I see this one every day. Where can I take you, sir?"

     "I could tell you of Cosimina, yes. She is beautiful; though you already know that." Nathaniel takes his place one of the red leather seats, and reclines as much as he is able without inconveniencing the other guest. "But, I am sure, we see people differently -- you and I."
     "I would like to visit soon, it has been some Time since I spoke with either of your lovely wives. I do enjoy conversation with Cosimina." One hand slips from the edge of the gondola, to let fingers dance atop the surface of the water. He looks so much like a man high on one substance or another, draped in the corner of the boat as he is -- eyes fixed on the heavens.
     "I will bring the wine."

     Multiple wives? Well, that in and of itself is not shocking to Valmiki - though the conjunction of time and place with that notion is surprising enough for the dark brows to arch upwards sharply for a moment as he settles upon the red cushions. His knees settle against his thighs, and he sets his sight upon the floor of the boat, listening in silence until it is time again to speak.
     Time comes round, and he's caught almost short, blinking upwards at Paolo with one hand thrusting into his shirt collar. "I ... one moment, please," he answers quietly. Oh, you fickle fates, that you blow a poor poet adrift - some answer had best be waiting...
     It's with an element of relief that he finds a piece of paper in the collar, one which had not been there when he put the shirt on this morning. It's thick parchment, folded in on itself several times; Valmiki unfolds it to reveal a spidery handwriting in thin ink that is almost but not precisely the colour of Rose d'Anjou wine of twenty years past. "Here," he offers it to the gondolier with a slightly abashed smile. "These, these are the directions."
     He glances sidelong to Nathaniel, in something akin to embarrassment, gaze dropping and then lifting again, shoulders lifting in a small shrug. What is there, after all, to say? So he says nothing, leaving it to Paolo to make sense of the instructions upon the parchment.
     To the intersection where ends meet...
     Where the shadow of the half-moon sits opposite the crescent...
     Across from the carved stone roses upon the wall...

     "She is beautiful. And beautiful things are always dear. Dear to the heart. Dear to the wallet and dear to the ego," Paolo smirks to Nathaniel and to the other passenger, as he leans forward to take the paper. "I will tell her you said hello. She will likely want you to pay a personal visit, of the sort that requires my absence." Apparently, the open arrangement works both ways. "You know how fond she is of... debate..."
     To the intersection where ends meet. Where the shadow of the half-moon sits opposite the crescent. Across from the carved stone roses upon the wall. Dark eyes settle on the strange young man. "This is quite the journey. Are you prepared to go on the river of all rivers?" What a strange statement. Paolo folds the parchment and places it in his pocket. Saying nothing else, he pushes away from the fondamenta, turning the gondola back toward Ca'Pesaro... away from the Rialto Bridge, rather than beneath it...
     "La terra degli imperatori grandi, il fiume dei fiumi fluisce..." Paolo's voice fills the surrounding night, "Tutte le acque e tutti i fiumi sono uno..." The gondola gracefully glides, and in concert Paolo moves, the motions made for well over a thousand such iterations. It is so effortless, it is as natural for him as blinking. Side canals sparkle with lamplight and porchlights, glimmering, and voices slide along the brick and mortar of ancient structures.

     Nathaniel smiles at the sky, left eye catching starlight and glittering. "It is safer for all that absences are called for." Does he mention what he and Cosimina do while Paolo is away? Never. He just likes to hint.
     His fingers drag across the surface of the water, a the gondola moves, leaving streamers of ripples -- though his fingers never break the surface and never become wet. The water is as a hard surface to his touch.
     "It is a beautiful night for drifting through the canals, and down the river." Two-toned glance goes to the acrobat "Don't you think?"

     The aquamarine gaze lifts from its intent focus upon the floor of the gondola, moving between the two men with frank curiosity but without surprise. It is the gaze of the child, cusping upon adolescence in many ways; the frank assumption that adults do many strange things which seem to make little sense.
     "I go where I must," Valmiki answers courteously, voice still low, without any edge to its roundness despite the husk. "I will experience what it is given me to experience, and what I find will alter me, or I it. I thank you for your query - I will take any advice which is offered." Though he does not promise to follow it.
     His hands remain in his lap, not dangling over, posture relaxed but not slouched. "All nights are beautiful for travel, even the most terrible," Valmiki answers Nathaniel promptly. "It is only by journeying that the world continues."

     Paolo looks to the passengers in glances timed with the stroke of the oar, in rhythm of the motions that make the gondola sail forward. "Ah... so you, too, are bound by a destiny, a fata," Paolo says. "Destined to journey... an Everyman. You are on heroic quest," the Gondolier says, telling the story even if it is not his story, telling it as if he has heard it... or perhaps has lived it in his own way. Or one like it. "...you go where Fate has you go. What advice could I give? There are some rivers I do not control..."
     The palazzo are a multi-colored spectacle, like revelers are they not? They wear their own masks, paint and decoration of empires, republics and kingdoms, of Ages gilded, traces of history seen everywhere. In a multi-colored, illuminated blur as both of you are propelled. The rounds of the gondoliers seem distant now, as if the song itself were fading...
     Paolo guides the gondola toward a smaller canal, often called rio, rivers. The Rio of San Salvador one of a thousand such. The buildings crowd against one another and loom over the much more narrow way. Ahead, a series of bridges. "Cosimina, too, though she is a weaver of webs, linking lives to lives, stories to stories and fates to fates... so she came upon us both," he smirks to Nathaniel. "I will be sure to be away from the house on Tuesday," he murmurs to Nathaniel, eyes peering ahead as the canalway narrows, the backside of buildings now the predominant view. "I will visit Rosalie," his other wife, "... and perhaps attempt to woo Albizzina..." The one woman he has wanted, and the very one who has eluded his grasp.
     Or perhaps that is Cosimina's doing...
     It would stand to reason....

     The canalway is quite narrow and you are bordered on both sides by the close embrace of ancient buildings. The noise of the Grand Canal is behind you. There settles a sudden serenity.
     There are many doorways, each one with a separate and unique design, each one with a set of stairs. To your right, a silver dragon hangs swirling above an arched red doorway. Before you, a succession of bridges, leading on and on and on.
     Clothing hangs from lines between the buildings and voices echo here from window to window and stone to stone...

     "How right you are, Acrobat. If only people realized how important travel and change were, this world would be so much more interesting." Idly, Nathaniel's other hand lifts the white and gold mask and holds it before his face so he can peer through it at the passing buildings. Ironic that Nate places so much weight on travel, and yet he cannot leave this city -- for now. He must hate it so.
     On the topic of fata, Nathaniel has no words. He knows his place in the scheme, and the fate he has chosen. No matter how he would change it, at this point, he really doesn't have the power or the choice.
     "Cosimina is wise when it comes to her craft. I doubt she would play with your skein." The mask is put back down, so that a finger can trace his eyebrow. "Unless there was a purpose behind all of it." Truism. Nathaniel can state the obvious like the best of them.

     "A heroic quest? I ... suppose that it may be," Valmiki answers, expression turning bemused. "There have been heros in my line before - though I am not a hero, myself. I am a traveler; I compile that which others give me. But I go where I am led, yes..."
     And I pay the price accordingly...
     One hand disappears into his belt, reaching for something small and rounded. He rolls it between his palms, suddenly alert, alive with nervous energy.
      The windows, they are all empty, but there are ghosts. I do not entirely like this place, right now. I do not know why.
     He glances to Nathaniel for a moment, then looks away again. "The world itself travels. If it were to stop, our lives would be cut short - there need be no more evident a reminder than that, yes?"

     For this time of narrowing waterways, Paolo says no more. No more of Cosimina, the woman who drives him crazy -- odi et amo, hatred and love both combined. No more of journeys, heroes or their stories.
     Especially not fate...
     His smooth face is placid in meditation perhaps. At the approach of the bridges, one after another in succession, Paolo crouches in the vessel. The waters run swift here...
     Extending like rapids before the prow of the gondola, winged seahorse leading the way, the herald of What Shall Be...
     Above, the stars disappear in a narrow sky, crowded out by the posterior sides of theaters, palazzi and church steeples...

     You pass beneath one of the succession of bridges over this narrow canal. The water is swift here, as if heading toward a fall. As your gondolier crouches, you hear laughing voices...
     Marco Polo!
     Marco... Polo...!
     The gondola moves swiftly and now under its own power as you move beneath the second of successive bridges that span the narrow canal. Your gondolier bows his head. Is that the whisper of a prayer?
     And still you hear the voices, laughing. Voices of children and women singing...
     Marco Polo!
     You are now surrounded by a fog. Are you sailing or are you flying? It is now impossible to tell! Do you grip the sides of the gondola? Do you try to lift your head or stand?
     But wait! What about the other bridges? Do you want to lose your legs? Your gondolier peeks up at you from beneath his hat, his brown eyes sparkling. Ah, maybe it was no prayer. Maybe it was an incantation...

     There is the sound of chimes, they ring in your ears. The fog clears and you glide smoothly, slowly upon the water again...
     But it is different water, belonging to a very different river...
     The Yellow River, or Huanghe, is the second longest river in China. The longest being the Yangtze. From this endlessly ochre colored, silt ridden river, Chinese civilization emerged millennia ago. The river itself is divided into three stages. The Upper Reaches. The Middle Reaches. And The Lower Reaches.
     As you travel along this river's length, guided by the adept and experience hands of Chow Mai-Lui, the vast erosion of the countryside is barely outweighed by the incredible, ancient beauty of the landscape. Along the river's banks, civilization seems to take turns between thriving and being practically non-existent.

     "Your destination," says Paolo. But he no longer looks like Paolo is accustomed to appearing. Instead, he is an ancient Chinese man, just this side of one-hundred, it appears, the gondola a dragon-faced junk, crowded with knick-knacks...

     "The world does stop, from Time to Time, though few notice it. And in those moments, everything does stop with it." Almost everything, at least. "Luckily for us, the world has always decided to get up from its rests and start moving again."
     The bridges pass overhead, and Nathaniel watches them with curiousity. He can feel something intensely wrong about them.
     No, Nathaniel! Not that way voices in the back of his mind clamber forward. But he has no choice, for he is already but a leaf upon this river.
     And in the fog, a transition takes place, and he is taken outside his gilded cage. A cage he could not leave on his own power -- and, in truth, cannot leave wholly behind.
      The world stops, and Nathaniel watches the fog grow still, and the water go silent, and his companions turn to statues. And then the world starts again, and they are elsewhere.
     There is shimmering upon his skin. A lucent glow that swirls along the weave of his costume, and shines within his eyes. There is the song of the gondoliers faintly coming with the ripple and flow of this light. Venice has him trapped, and he remains there, despite where he may be now.
     Stunned, he looks up at this new sky. Mask forgotten in the bottom of the boat, he sees through a veil of light that tinges everything golden. To him, everything shines with the light that others see him with.

     Everything is unexpected, and when nothing is expected, then nothing is ever truly astonishing. Valmiki's eyes widen, as distances lengthen and contract (it is a very masculine thing, this method of travel), and he stands up carefully.
     "Where I go, no man can follow, or so it is sometimes said," the poet reincarnated declares; he bows, ponytail docking in his collar a moment before he straightens. "It was fate which led me to you, and it is with fate that I leave you. Here, take these. I will have no further use of them, I see, and you will require your repayment."
     He opens his fist, whereupon there are laid three small stones, each slightly oblong and rounded, like hummingbird eggs, but glowing with internal milky fire : small though they are, they are exquisite. Opals...
     "You have not been unpleasant company, sir," Valmiki adds courteously to Nathaniel, with a quarter-bow in the man's direction. "Forgive me. I have far to go before I again see a familiar face..."
     Already, he is shifting tongues, however unconsciously, from Italian to Mandarin...

     The stones are accepted with a grateful bow, a grateful smile, the face wrinkling in upon itself it seems. An ancient hand pulls a cord, and a rickety ramp leads from the junk to the marshy shore. "Go well, stranger, and may Fortune bless you as you make your way," the Mandarin comes as easy in this form as Italian in his other.
     Paolo pockets the opals and begins to make sign of heading off again. "I have led you astray, Nathaniel..." the old man says, the smile now a grin. "I will return you to your cage, to be the emperor's prized bird," so legends go. "The way back is the same..."
     Water to water, the old man sings...
     River to river...
     Over all the earth...

     "It is alright, though I need to return before too much Time passes -- I cannot lengthen this sojourn through my hand." His eyes are drawn to his hands, turning them over and over, watching the light which is his own Resonance -- his own mystic call-sign.
     "Perhaps we will meet again, Acrobat, if Fate allows." He smiles, though he can already feel the tug and pull of the cage upon him. Not yet painful, it is still not altogether pleasant.
     Venice calls to him, wanting a return of its property.

     "Until then," Valmiki answers both men equally, evenly, striding down the ramp as resolutely as if marching to his wedding - or execution. "Gods be with you both, good sirs..."
     As they are with me, ever and always, and never...
     Perhaps this time he will die, and some new poet be reborn. Or perhaps not. Who knows? Certainly not he...
     And either way - it will be an interesting story, will it not?

     The junk pushes off from the shore...
     The wooden and bamboo plank retracting, rolling up and returning to the vessel, the boat heads slowly into the center waters, to be swallowed by the swirling mist and fog...
     And beneath a series of bridges in a side canal, a gondola reappears, the Gondolier standing tall once more. Paolo glances back to his lone passenger. "How about a drink, amice..."

Posted by rowan at March 22, 2004 01:10 AM