Several weeks had passed and Zigler had received word that both Suihaden and Berrok had made it to the Kyuden.
"The stress between the Jovians and non-humans has increased exponentially," he tells the shinobi as both men meet underneath the dead limbs of a dead tree. "The non-humans still in Mittelmarch are worried. It seems as if the ones who remain are losing faith..."
"All this will be relayed," replies the young man,"but your information has become increasingly vague as of late."
"Not much has happened since we spoke last. Go and tell Kotaro what I've said," Zigler says. His frustration evident in his speech.
"That will not happen. He's off on a mission." The shinobi smiled at his ability to get his own back.
"For how long. And for what?"
"Rescuing your kin...." he begins, "I don't know," he quickly states.
Zigler's smile overpowers that of this shinobi. "Perhaps you should be going now," Zigler says slyly.
"Indeed." With that the shinobi fades into the Forest's shadows. Zigler points his nose to the Mittelmarch gates and starts walking.
********
Back in the Inn, Zigler is entertaining the few remaining Jovians. His audience are all men who lost their loved ones when they came into the land. Each one has spent the past few weeks at the Inn drinking their sorrows away. Zigler plucks at the strings of a mandolin as he softly sings:
"........
On the islet in the river.
The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady:
For our prince a good mate she.
Here long, there short, is the duckweed,
To the left, to the right, borne about by the current.
The modest, retiring, virtuous , young lady:
Waking and sleeping, he sought her.
He sought her and found her not,
And waking and sleeping he thought about her.
Long he thought; oh! long and anxiously;
On his side, on his back, he turned, and back again
Here long, there short, is the duckweed;
On the left, on the right, we gather it.
The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady:
With lutes, small and large, let us give her friendly welcome.
Here long, there short, is the duckweed;
On the left, on the right, we cook and present it.
The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady:
With bells and drums let us show our delight in her. "
Tears are in a few of the Jovians eyes. Though if this is accolade for Zigler's performance or for the fact that Cedric yelled last call is unknown.
Up in his room Zigler blacks out the only window against the soon to be rising sun. He then whispers, "illuminieren" into the crystal at the center of his table. A flickering green light streams out of the crystals core and quickly works itself up to a more permanent brilliance as the Bard sits in his scarred wooden chair.
Staring into the crystal Zigler sees without seeing.
A dark enclosed space, with an old friend at his side. And a voice coming to him from outside the room. The Bard closes his eyes as he sends out the call to deepen his connection.
"I am the heart that you call home. And I've written pages upon pages. Trying to rid you from my bones."
Suddenly light floods the room and a bearded face appears above. Zigler recognizes Beathor as the dwarf reaches down into the trunk and removes his own book. Zigler feels the distance between 'himself' and Beathor's book increasing as his fellow Bard closes the trunks lid, plunging Zigler, and Zigler's book, into darkness.
Back in his room at the Inn the crystal's green light suddenly goes out, but even in the dark Zigler's smile is wide and bright.
(OCC: poem exerts taken from The Book of Odes, LESSONS FROM THE STATES: THE ODES OF ZHOU AND THE SOUTH)