The Heart-Zither
The river flowed like icy glass.
Artienbu dismounted to the ground; the boundless expanse of water seemed to stretch into another world.
The banks were carpeted with pale flowers that seemed one with the river, like a universe of tiny white blossoms, almost entirely obscuring the pale yellow path.
Artienbu gazed across the river. Save for the pale clouds silently wheeling, save for the startled birds suddenly skimming past, save for the fishing boats lost decades ago now drifting astray in a distant, dreamlike realm, Artienbu could see nothing at all.
He saw only a vastness of pale white, a vastness of pale white, a vastness of pale white.
Downstream towered two white mountains facing each other, with clouds coiling around them like white silk ribbons. Nestled between the peaks was a tiny wooden cabin—the only yellow in a sea of cold hues, the only touch of warmth.
Artienbu turned back in silence. The path behind him led from a colossal green forest that stretched to distant emerald mountains. That was whence he came, having forsaken his homeland and cast aside his noble status as a prince, all in search of that instrument at the end of the world, spoken of in books and by the aged magician on his deathbed—the Heart-Zither (Heart of Piano). The melodies she played were beyond compare, far surpassing even Lüqi, the prized zither of the East immortalized in the verses of bards. Setting aside poetic hyperbole, the Heart-Zither was the one true instrument capable of healing all maladies. When the Heart-Zither is struck by a musician of pure white, the sun and the moon shall rise together in the East.
Artienbu sank into his memories.
Since the deaths of his sister and mother, his solitude had endured to this very day.
His mother died upon that vast, golden wheat field, where she had been standing with her people, counting the bountiful harvest in the autumn wind. Then the daylight faded, and on a gloomy, moonless night, she vanished without a trace from the royal carriage built expressly for her. Had the two coachmen not sworn time and again that they truly did not see how the Queen disappeared into that gust of wind, they would both have been beheaded.
His sister’s favorite place was the royal library. Amidst the dim aisles flanked by mountains of books, one could spot the little girl in her resplendent gown. Her figure and braids cast ever-swaying shadows in the lamplight, and her eyes gleamed like a cat’s in the dark. On the cover of the book cradled in her arms, the expression of the long-dead historian seemed to shift gradually from calm, to astonishment, to madness.
His sister would find a wine cask somewhere in the library, sit atop it, and begin to read by the dancing lamplight mounted upon the marble walls engraved with royal crests.
Artienbu would occasionally play hide-and-seek with his sister in the library.
Until one day, when Artienbu went to the library at dawn as usual to find his sister, who had stayed there through the night to rest, she had vanished without a trace.
The God of Strength carved upon the marble door swore that he could still feel her breath lingering within the library, and the candles bowed their heads uneasily to Artienbu to profess their loyalty, yet none of this could undo the truth that his sister was gone.
What manner of power could it possibly be?
Artienbu breathed a long sigh toward the East; his eyes caused the very sun to summon thick clouds and mist to veil itself.
The soul doth hide within the due East, the soul is ever fond of the Sun, the soul is wrought of malted gold, for only thus may it endure the Sun’s resplendent light
The soul doth hide within the West, the soul chants of autumn leaves that wither and fade to gold, the soul stands at the broken end of time, counting with care the solitude and sorrow of the years untold
The soul doth hide within the North, the soul melds with the drifting snow and wind across the sky, the soul becomes the vast expanse of peak and stream, the soul delights in all the world’s cold frost, the soul admires all life’s pale, bewildered sigh
The soul doth hide within the South, that it might draw more nigh the blazing Sun, that it might rove the boundless Southern heaven and earth, that the deep wishes of the land be done
The soul doth slumber in the central place.