The Floating City

by Craig Cormick

  Then Romeo and Giulietta saw the lights fading. And then they saw nothing. Together.

  LXXXVII

  ELSEWHERE IN THE FLOATING CITY

  The Othmen envoy rose up above the Shadow Master, her hair billowing out like one hundred serpents and then she sank suddenly to the ground. She stumbled as her billowing torso started transforming back into that of a human. She looked confused.

  “What is happening?” she demanded.

  “Oh dear,” said the Shadow Master. “There goes all the enchantment.” He pointed with his sword. “What light through yon darkness breaks? Why that is the last of it. And that sound in the water, that’s your cousins dying.”

  She held a hand to her chest as if there was pain in the transformation.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I know this could have come at a better time for you.”

  She glared at him with naked hatred and said, “I will still kill you.”

  “You and what army?” he asked. “Oh, silly question.”

  She leapt at him with her sword drawn and he stepped back and blocked her with his two swords. The Janissaries unsheathed their own weapons and moved forward, surrounding him. “Did I mention my reinforcements?” he said as he stepped back again and again, as her blade flashed at him, sparks leaping where their swords struck.

  “The city does not have enough men to defeat one hundred Janissaries,” she cried. “And you cannot defeat us on your own.”

  Instead of replying, he spun around quickly, as if warding off the men surrounding him, and a dagger flew out from his cloak as he moved, striking her in the shoulder. She dropped her sword and gasped in surprise. He stood up and said, “That’s why I brought a friend.” All she said in response was, “Kill him!”

  The Shadow Master spun again to knock more arrows out of the air that were fired at him and then turned to chop the point off a spear that was thrust at him. He leapt in the air as another slashed at his feet and evaded a set of bolos aimed at his neck. “Now is a good time to help,” he called. And one of the masked figures lying on the ground stood up shakily. He seemingly plucked the three arrows out of his body, the tips blunted by his body armour, and took off his mask. It was Vincenzo the scribe.

  “Now you’re in trouble,” said the Shadow Master. The Othmen envoy ignored him and pulled a whip out of her belt. She cast it at him and he raised a sword to cut it, realizing as he did so that it was the wrong thing to do. The whip was woven through with strong metal threads and it wrapped around his sword tightly. He looked at the smile on her face as she looked beautiful again, smiling graciously to him. It was another weapon he seemed not prepared for. The instant distraction cost him his advantage as several other whips snapped out, catching his other sword and both arms.

  “Now, this time you will die,” she said, almost sounding sweet.

  “Now is a good time to remember the feel of a sword in your hands,” said the Shadow Master to Vincenzo. And the scribe drew his sword. He twirled it in the air once. Then again. Much faster. Then he looked up at the closest Janissaries and smiled. No longer Vincenzo the scribe. His battle memory returning. He knew how this was going to play out, as if he had written the scene in great detail already. Two Othmen warriors rushed at him, scimitars drawn. He dodged the first and cut down the second, then turned and cut the forearm clean off the first man at the wrist.

  “Cue fanfare,” called the Shadow Master as Vincenzo leapt at the next three men advancing on him. He ducked the first sword, came up on the attacker and hit him hard in the chin with his shoulder. He then snatched the sword from his attacker’s hand and pushed the man’s body at the two Janissaries who were slashing at him. As they tried to evade the body Vincenzo leapt high, jumping off the falling man’s body and coming down on top of the two men. He cut one at the neck and pierced the other in the face. The three bodies fell together.

  The Othmen envoy watched in disbelief as Vincenzo cut a path through her warriors towards her and she unclipped a small bronze device from her belt and cast it at his feet. He did not even see it spin like a top, and then it exploded, sending out a thick yellow gas. Vincenzo and the Janissaries who were enveloped by it all fell to the ground the instant they breathed just a trace of it, and started shaking uncontrollably.

  “And now you,” the Othmen envoy said, reaching for another brass device at her belt. The Shadow Master, held now by several whips and surrounded by sharp spear points, did not know what the Othmen device did, and had no particular interest in finding out. He said, “All right, play time is over.” Then with a seeming ease he pulled his arms free, his twin blades cutting through the whips and knocking away the spears. He moved so fast the Othmen envoy thought she must be suddenly drugged. He cut his way through the whole Janissary force like a reaper cutting his way through a wheat field. Men fell to the left and right of her as he whirled and slashed and leapt like nothing she had ever imagined possible.

  “No!” she screamed, and screamed until they were the only two left standing and he stood with his bloodied sword blades both crossed at her neck. One hundred Othmen warriors dead at his feet, and he just smiled at her as if it had all been a game to him. “Who are you?” she hissed.

  “Always, who are you?” he said. “Never, how did you do that?”

  She fumbled for the device in her hand, but then it fell to the ground harmlessly as her head was cut from her neck. Her headless body stood defiantly for some moments before falling, like a marionette with the strings slashed.

  LXXXVIII

  THE STORY OF THE SHADOW MASTER

  “I can’t believe you let me die!” Disdemona said, punching the Shadow Master hard on the shoulder. “You’re such a bastard.”

  “It all worked out well in the end,” the Shadow Master said. Vincenzo stood with one arm protectively around Disdemona. The three of them were in a small shaded courtyard, with Signora Montecchi. A reunion of sorts.

  “He promised me that if I wrote things anew then they would turn out like that,” said Vincenzo. “And I believed him. I really thought I was changing things – not that it was him doing it.”

  “I still don’t understand how he left you here as children, and then returns to claim you as adults, and then is somehow going to do it all over again,” she said. “It is against any laws of nature imaginable.”

  “You get used to it,” Vincenzo said.

  Disdemona gave him a look, and then said, “Well, no. You never really get used to it.”

  “How many times has he done this to you?” Signora Montecchi asked.

  But the Shadow Master cut in. “You looked after her well,” he said. “You certainly taught her to speak her own mind.”

  “As was my promise,” she said to him. “To let them choose their own futures because that was how it must be.”

  She looked back to the young couple and then said, “I imagine these are not even your real names, are they?”

  “What is in a name?” asked the Shadow Master.

  “Everything and nothing,” she said. “But surely you have used them enough. Stolen their memories and made them pawns in your game until you were ready to claim them again. Surely they have now paid enough for whatever penance they have due to you?”

  “We all have our penance to pay,” said the Shadow Master, and looked up at the distant sky.

  Signora Montecchi watched him for some moments and then said, “Tell me once more about the possible future that exist around us.”

  The Shadow Master looked back at her and said, “You need to believe that all possible futures can exist somewhere, and if you had the power to change the course of your world to that of a new possibility, you can effectively shape your destiny. Control your future.”

  She nodded her head slowly as if almost grasping what he was telling her, before feeling it slip away. She shook her head. “I can only see how life has played out behind me, not before me. I will grieve for Giulietta though. She was a spoiled brat at times, but I was immensely fond of her.�
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  “She saved the city,” the Shadow Master said.

  Her mother nodded. “At least I will still have one daughter when you’re all gone.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And grandchildren too before long.”

  She smiled. “That would be nice.” She turned to Vincenzo and Disdemona. “Do you two ever plan to settle down and have children?”

  They looked at each other and grinned awkwardly. “I don’t know, do we?” Disdemona asked the Shadow Master.

  “There are many futures that are not yet written,” he said. “But also many places to go and many futures to rewrite.” Disdemona and Vincenzo looked at each other and sighed.

  “He is going to do it to you again, isn’t he?” Signora Montecchi said. “Take you to a new place and leave you there as children again, through his enchantment or whatever it is. And you won’t even remember each other until it is all ended, and then you’ll have such small time together before he takes you away from each other once more.”

  “The bond of their love draws them together and enables greater changes to be made,” the Shadow Master said. “They are my power.”

  “No,” said Signora Montecchi. “I don’t think you ever reveal your power to anyone. Nor who you really are. That will always be kept from us, won’t it?”

  He bowed low to her, as if she had just succeeded in cornering him in a game of chess, and he was acknowledging the move. But he did not say if she was right or wrong.

  “This time I won’t forget you,” said Vincenzo to Disdemona.

  “No more than you will forget yourself,” said the Shadow Master.

  “I hate working for you,” said Disdemona.

  “I never promised you that you wouldn’t,” the Shadow Master said.

  They all looked at each other until Signora Montecchi asked, “So what happens next?”

  “Well, if I was writing the story, your husband would become Duca and bring a new era of prosperity to the city. Your golden age would be before you, not behind you. And he would be handed the great secret of the Floating City and would choose to destroy it.”

  “And that secret is?” she asked.

  “If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret,” he said.

  “I will just ask my husband then,” she said determinedly.

  “Well, I don’t suppose it really matters anymore,” he said. “The great secret of the Floating City was that the Seers were the ones causing the Djinn in the canals and the bringing of plague and turmoil. They believed they were saving the city, of course, but they were inadvertently creating these things out of the people’s fear.”

  Signora Montecchi looked at him in disbelief. “We were creating the monsters?” she asked.

  “Through your fear,” he said.

  “A fear that the monsters and plagues and so on increased,” said Vincenzo.

  “Exactly,” said the Shadow Master. “There is always a cost for the use of enchantment, and sometimes it can ultimately be such a great cost that it destroys those who wield it. But there are no more Seers now. No more enchantment.”

  “Giulietta would have been the greatest of them, wouldn’t she?” said her mother.

  “Yes,” he said. “And the most dangerous to the city.”

  “So,” said Vincenzo, “I was thinking we should stay on a few more days, just to make sure that everything is all right.” He squeezed Disdemona’s shoulder and she bent her head back and kissed him.

  “Light of my life,” she said.

  “Light of my heart,” he replied.

  “I didn’t say everything would be all right,” said the Shadow Master. “There is still going to be hardship and wars and diseases to battle. But the people of the city will rise to the occasion. Mostly.”

  “Let them stay a few days,” said Signora Montecchi. “This city is for lovers. They deserve some time together after the way you treat them.”

  “Well,” he said. “Normally I’d think it an indulgence. But Vincenzo does still have some work to do here.”

  “I do?” he asked.

  “Yes. You have to finish writing up the stories of the Montecchi sisters, and then leave them around for somebody to find and use in their own work.”

  Vincenzo laughed. “I think it will take me at least a fortnight,” he said, and kissed Disdemona again.

  The Shadow Master stood. “You can have a week.” Then he bowed and was gone.

  Signora Montecchi watched him go and then leaned close to Vincenzo and Disdemona and said in a soft voice, “We tend to like our stories very short here, it leaves more time for – well, other things.”

  A Note on Sources

  The three main story lines in the Floating City are taken from the Italian “origin stories” that Shakespeare adapted into the plays Othello, The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet, using the original names and spellings and major plot devices.

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  From Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatommithi, published in 1565 (1855 translation by JE Taylor):

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  There once lived in Venice a Moor, who was very valiant and of a handsome person; and having given proofs in war of great skill and prudence, he was highly esteemed by the Signoria of the Republic, who in rewarding deeds of valor advanced the interests of the state…

  It happened that a virtuous lady of marvelous beauty, named Disdemona, fell in love with the Moor, moved thereto by his valor; and he, vanquished by the beauty and the noble character of Disdemona, returned her love; and their affection was so mutual that, although the parents of the lady strove all they could to induce her to take another husband, she consented to marry the Moor; and they lived in such harmony and peace in Venice that no word ever passed between them that was not affectionate and kind…

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  From Luigi da Porto’s Giulietta e Romeo, 1530:

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  At the time of Bartolommeo della Scala, according to the narrative, two noble but hostile families resided in Verona – the Cappelletti and the Montecchi. Wearied with fighting and somewhat intimated by the threats of the rulers of the city, the quarrelsome factions had lately observed a kind of truce. One night Romeo Montecchi, disguised as a nymph, followed his indifferent lady to a masquerade ball given by Messer Antonio Cappelletti. When the desperate youth was finally obliged to unmask, all the guests were astonished not only at his beauty, which surpassed that of any of the ladies present, but also at his audacious entrance into his enemies’ house. As soon as Giulietta, the only and supernaturally beautiful daughter of Antonio Cappelletti, caught sight of Romeo, she realised she no longer belonged to herself…

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  From Ser Giovanni’s Il Pecorone (the Dunce), written in the 14th Century and printed in 1558:

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  There lived in Florence a merchant, called Bindo, of the Scali family, who had visited Tana and Alexandria several times and had been on all the long voyages which are made on business. This Bindo was very rich and had three fine, manly sons, and when he came close to death, he called the two eldest and made his will in their presence, bequeathing all he had in the world to these two heirs, and to the youngest he bequeathed nothing. When this will had been made, the youngest son, called Giannetto, heard of it and went to the bedside and said to him, “Father, I am amazed at what you have done — not mentioning me in the will.” The father replied, “Giannetto, there is no creature living to whom I wish better fortune than to you, and therefore I do not wish you to stay here after my death, but I want you to go to Venice to your godfather, Ansaldo, who has no child and has often written asking me to send you to him. Moreover, I may say that he is now the richest of the Christian merchants. Therefore, I want you to go, as soon as I am dead, and to take this letter to him – then, if you know how to behave, you will become a rich man…”

  …It happened early one morning that Giannetto saw a bay with a fine harbor and asked the captain what it was called; he replied, “Sir, that place belongs to a widowed lady who has ruined ma
ny gentlemen.” “In what way?” said Giannetto. “Sir,” he replied, “She is a fine and beautiful lady, and she has made a law: whoever arrives here must sleep with her, and if he can enjoy her, he must take her for wife and be lord of the seaport and all the surrounding country. But if he cannot enjoy her, he loses everything he has.” Giannetto thought for a moment, and said; “Do everything you can and make for that harbor…”

  …When Ansaldo saw that he was resolved, he began to sell all that he had in the world and to equip another ship for him: and so he did, he sold all he had and provided a fine ship with merchandise: and, because he lacked ten thousand ducats, he went to a Jew of Mestri and borrowed them on condition that if they were not repaid the next June on St John’s day, the Jew might take a pound of flesh from whatever part of his body he pleased…

  About the Author

  Craig Cormick is an award-winning author and science communicator who works for Australia’s premier science institution, the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). He is a regular speaker at science communication conferences and has appeared on television, radio, online and in print media.

  As an author he has published over a dozen works of fiction and non-fiction and over 100 short stories. His awards include an ACT Book of the Year Award and a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award.

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  craigcormick.com • twitter.com/CraigCormick

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