Claddings of Light : Book 12 of Painting the Mists

by Patrick Laplante

  Cease struggling, the mirror told him. Nothing you do ever matters. It was a devil on his shoulder, taunting him, wearing him thin. It had been so long since he’d felt this way—so long since he’d ever been so depressed. He sat there, numbly aware of what was happening, and definitely questioning his reasoning behind choosing helplessness first. Could he even act anymore? Could he even take the next step?

  “Disappointment,” Cha Ming finally said after many long minutes of struggling. The words came slowly and uncertainly. A new story emerged, this time from inside the light-gold mirror. It showed his failure of a first life before his reincarnation. It reminded him of the consequences of his risky escape from a core-formation cultivator, and his time in Crystal Falls. There, he not only failed in hiding the village from the bandits, but he also failed in allowing himself to fall into slavery.

  The disappointments heaped up like piles of stinking manure. With each one, he became more disgusted with himself. It culminated in his failure to save Yu Wen, and after that, he could no longer bear it. The others were just frosting on a terrible cake, like his failure in creating the pill to heal his core. What did that matter, when he’d failed to safe the one person who mattered?

  He saw himself outsmarted by Zhou Li in the Sea God Trials. Failure. Failure. Failure. How could he ever hope to succeed? Cha Ming wasn’t a genius alchemist like Iridescent Virtue. He wasn’t an all-seeing seer. He saw himself fail in his sabotage of the Wang Clan, where his failure led to the death of millions. He saw the World Tree die when he’d lost to Zhou Li’s clever, but in hindsight obvious, scheme.

  Then there was the huge mess he’d made on the Inkwell Plane. He’d failed to protect Candle Flame and the others. Out of all his first friends, only Silver Fish remained. Then there was the situation in the Burning Lake Prefecture. He’d tried to prevent a war, only to start another. Now, the demon cities were doomed, and even the universe had confirmed it.

  The crippling, repetitive nature of what he saw weighed him down like leaden weights. He felt like a child who’d grown up in a discouraging environment. He could never hope to succeed like others could—he was a failure. He was worthless. Everything was pointless.

  If that were all, Cha Ming might have been fine. But the raw intensity was overwhelming. These mirrors amplified the negative emotions he’d chosen. The feeling of disappointment combined with the feeling of helplessness, forming something even greater, even more unbearable. Could he even do this? What came next? Frailty?

  No, another piece of his mind said. That will break you. Keep it for last. He listened to the voice and clung to it like a drowned man would driftwood from a shipwreck.

  “Pain,” Cha Ming said. “I can still do pain.” The green mirror shone, and as he saw what it showed him, he felt every pain he’d ever encountered magnified ten times over.

  He felt his qi pathways burn out and the slow death that accompanied it. He felt shackles burning into his mind. He felt fright as he was tortured and cornered into submission.

  He felt the pain of every breakthrough in body cultivation. He felt the hurt of his unstable core. As for wounds, he’d suffered many. Now, he suffered them ten times over. Every hack and slash he’d regenerated, and every time his nervous system was destroyed and rebuilt anew. He felt the horror of every Dao scar. He felt the burning in his soul from breaking his limits.

  And then came the searing madness of the pill he’d concocted. Cha Ming shivered then. He was weak and incapable. He was a crippled failure that could barely stand himself. Existing hurt.

  “Give me sorrow,” he whispered, and tears began to flow. The red mirror shone, and every wound on his heart surfaced. The regret he felt at Hong Xin’s disappearance. The tears he’d shed when the people of Crystal Falls were enslaved. He remembered the anguish of every devilish act he’d ever witnessed, and in that moment, he cursed his empathy for the dead.

  But that was nothing compared to the sorrow he’d felt when he lost Yu Wen. It broke him, and he curled up into a ball that scorned its very existence. The gaping wound in his heart, the one he’d tried to ignore, was brought up to the surface. He’d lost the love of his life. He would never meet her again. Not in the truest sense. Not unchanged. Everything that came after that deepened his gloom, but the damage was already done. Hong Xin’s temporary death? Meaningless. Gong Lan and Wang Jun’s permanent ones? Equally dull.

  The deaths of millions of innocents in Bastion City couldn’t compare. The loss and regret he felt when Candle Flame and the others died was just a drop in a bucket. The only thing that came close was his realization that Yu Wen was now Mi Fei, and the fact that she didn’t even remember him.

  It hurt. It hurt more than any other pain he’d ever felt. It was an all-encompassing darkness that sucked every bit of joy out of his life. It made him question why he was even doing this, why he’d been so foolish to accept this suffering. It was all meaningless in the end, wasn’t it? He would fail. Like he always had. Like he always did.

  Cha Ming struggled with the last emotion. He knew the risks. He’d suffered this emotion many times before. It was the most vividly crippling emotion, surpassing even sorrow. But he would need to suffer it, for without it, there could be no balance. There could be no passing semblance of success.

  “Frailty,” he said hoarsely. “Give it to me.”

  Cha Ming broke then. The light-brown mirror glowed, showing him every time in his life he’d broken down, however slight.

  He’d been broken back on Earth, reshaped into a convenient tool for society. He’d lost his cultivation in Crystal Falls and been forced to adapt. He’d shattered his core. He’d been battered back again and again, cracking his composure with every attempt he made at fixing his cultivation.

  Then there was Yu Wen. There was the grief in losing her, but also the realization that it had nearly destroyed him. Every mention of her was hurtful and widened the fissures in his armor. The images of Mi Fei and his interactions with her broke the shields he’d erected. They shattered his defenses.

  He began to see every friend as a vulnerability. Every ally as a weakness. Then he lay there, and the feelings only grew worse. The fissures widened, and every negative feeling he’d ever felt assaulted him again and again. He felt no hope at ever escaping.

  So he lay there in his cocoon of darkness, with only the mirrors to give him light. The stories they showed were repulsive—he wanted to look away, but they wouldn’t let him. And when he closed his eyes, he dreamed what they showed all the same. He wanted nothing more than to end this cursed existence.

  All was dark. Cha Ming knew only cold and desperation with no hope of escape, no hope of comfort. How long had it been? Hours? Days? Years? All was lost. All was pain.

  And then suddenly, there was a fire. A tiny flame the size of a candle. He huddled close to it, and it warmed him. It mended him, if just a little, and gave him the energy to sit up and observe it and wonder at what it could be. The mirrors were there, but they no longer shone. The formation was glowing, but only softly. The only reliable light in the room was the light of his candle. It tempted him. Coaxed him.

  What’s the point? he thought. Why look around?

  Why not look around? the candle said. It doesn’t matter what you do. So why not do it?

  There was truth to what it said, so he picked up the flame and walked around. There was one entrance in the room and five exits. Each exit had a torch. He made a circle around the place, and in so doing, he felt a hint of contentment at the small bit of exploration.

  It was all meaningless, obviously. It would do nothing to improve his situation. But it was something, and it had cost him nothing. Moreover, he’d managed to get up when everything in his mind told him that he shouldn’t. Because why wouldn’t he? If everything hurt so much, what was one more cut on his wounded heart? The realization was just meaningless as his actions, but it, too, was something. A start. A beginning.

  No, Cha Ming thought. Not a beginning. He looked aroun
d and saw the images in the dull mirrors. After being exposed to them for so long, they weren’t nearly so overwhelming. Those are my beginnings. Plural. He’d had more than one beginning, he realized. That was odd.

  He looked at each one curiously, wondering if they would show them something he didn’t already know. These five stories represented five emotions. Five unbearable emotions that had understandably forced him to his knees. They were overwhelming. He knew he could never overcome them. But then again… he was here, wasn’t he? A steadily growing fire lit up the center of the room between the mirrors. The more he looked at them, the more he could see not only their pictures, but the stories they represented. He could read them.

  He focused on the words. If the mirrors were going to force him to focus on his mirrors, he might as well do it in more ways than one. And what failures they were. He picked them apart, piece by piece, astounding even himself by how terribly he’d botched his life and how often. Then he frowned when he saw one of the stories that didn’t quite add up.

  Yes, my cultivation was crippled then, wasn’t it? I failed in properly escaping. But I did escape, didn’t I? How else would I have botched the next part? For that matter, he’d also subsequently healed his core. Seven hells, he couldn’t even get his stories straight. What load of rubbish was this?

  So, he began to do what was easiest in this situation: He picked apart his life even further. Heavens, if he’d failed so miserably, he might as well document it properly. It was bad enough that he’d failed in the first place. Now he was going lie about it? That was both unacceptable and wrong.

  There was no point to this, obviously. He was helpless to change the situation. He would never escape this place alive. But he took comfort in that small amount of meaningless freedom he’d found. Yes, it might be no use getting up and about, but he could at least be honest with himself in how terrible his situation was.

  Each mirror had a story. They were simple, yet so conflicted. He couldn’t alter what was in the mirror, so he rewrote it the old-fashioned way. On paper, with a brush that he didn’t deserve.

  His writing was atrocious—nothing near the calligraphy he’d once been capable of. Which, of course, made him realize another inaccuracy. Damn it all. He could do calligraphy. What was all this about being terrible at physical writing? Maybe a hundred fifty years ago, yes, but he was fine now. He corrected this mistake, and he corrected the original story.

  So many mistakes. So many failures.

  It took time. He wasn’t sure how long. It was difficult to keep an accurate accounting of how incompetent he was. A lot of it had to do with skill, but much had to do with his lethargy. Then again, he had time. He wasn’t doing anything else—certainly not preparing to fight prefecture lords—in that situation he was well and truly doomed. But then again, he didn’t really need to eat or sleep. He was a cultivator. I am a cultivator. In that sense, anything involving failed cultivation, he must have overcome to reach his current realm. Otherwise, how could he even be here? The thought irked him.

  He shook his head and got correcting, energized by his triumph via reasoning. Yet another mistake, but oh, how wonderful it was to rewrite it. Because by extension, if he’d failed in his storytelling, didn’t that mean that his failures were a bit exaggerated? Moreover, he was currently functioning. The pain and sorrow weren’t nearly so overwhelming as before. Didn’t that mean that he’d just overcome both of them to some extent? In fact, he remembered doing so before. Another failure in storytelling on his part.

  The speed at which he wrote increased with every passing moment. The flame grew as he did, and with every word, he felt less terrible about himself. In fact, he felt the chains on his heart loosen just a bit, and he felt more comfortable in his skin.

  Seven hells, he felt downright productive. Every correction to his terrible story was like removing a chink in his armor, replacing it piece by piece. Sure, there were gaping holes everywhere, but they had always been there, hadn’t they? Might as well be truthful about where they were and why they were there in the first place.

  Bit by bit, he amended the story. His disappointment only mounted. Yet telling himself off had never felt so satisfying. It was empowering, and the more he worked, the faster he went.

  Eventually, he even managed to finish his correction. Yes, he hadn’t failed in that. He’d finished. It was only then that he realized that he hadn’t been here for an eternity like he’d thought. It had been five days. Five very long days.

  The small fire lighting the room had grown to the size of a campfire. It was a small success in the grand scheme of things, especially now that he’d properly documented them. In fact, he questioned his general feeling of disappointment. Wasn’t every roadblock a way to something greater? Something that led to a greater success? In fact, now that he looked at his life, he could hardly say that he was a failure. He’d even go so far as to say that he was succeeding. The feeling of satisfaction accompanying this realization was downright empowering.

  Cha Ming’s mind began to mend. His weakened armor began to take shape once again. Not enough for him to escape the confines of his obviously self-made mental prison, but enough to make him question his initial judgments. Was he too weak to escape? Perhaps now he was. But he’d overcome those other obstacles. Why not this one?

  And then there was the pain, which was still rampaging in his mind, his body, and his soul. It was there, but he found comfort in having managed to hold out all these days. Yes, he still felt it all. He could remember each wound clearly, but for every wound, there was comfort. There was healing. That cycle of pain and healing had allowed him to grow.

  He’d shattered his core, yes, but that made recovering his cultivation so much sweeter. In fact, the feeling was akin to what he’d felt when he’d pieced together that nameless pill after shattering his mind. Speaking of which, Cha Ming thought. He summoned the pill. No, not quite yet. It would be useful to take it, but for now, he needed a little more emotional support before trying something drastic like that.

  The pain was overwhelming, so Cha Ming chose to focus on his opposite. The joy in everything he’d experienced. The loss of Yu Wen had been terrible, and knowing she’d been replaced by Mi Fei had been nearly as bad. But he took comfort in her presence. There was hope. Not just in future lifetimes, but in this one. He or Huxian could free her from her family. They would get her out of the prefecture. Where she would go after that was up to her, of course, but there were possibilities. That last thought melted away the last of his sorrow and brought his feelings of empowerment, grit, comfort, joy, and satisfaction into balance. The fire in the room grew, fighting off the encroaching darkness in the hallways.

  But it’s still not enough, he realized. The darkness was still there, dampening it all. It was there, waiting for a moment when he let his guard slip. There was no balance in this room. He needed a stronger fire for that. He realized then that it wasn’t the five emotions he needed to balance, but this light and this darkness.

  Here goes nothing, Cha Ming thought, popping the nameless pill. His mind shattered again, and his heart rampaged. All the feelings he’d felt in the past five days came crushing back down on him. They wore away at him and broke him, but this time, he was ready. He’d already gone through this before.

  He got to work almost immediately. He knew where to begin. His multiple minds pieced together the story of his life. Those images in the mirrors weren’t stories—they were statements. Every story had a beginning, a middle, and an end.

  So he lived each story a third time. The first he’d lived, and the second he’d seen in the mirrors. This time, it only took him a single day to piece everything together. Moreover, the stories he made were more vivid in comparison. He’d worked his struggles into these stories, but also his victories. And what stories they were. They reflected his sorrows, his joys, and his triumphs. The raw emotions they encompassed made them more worthy. And with every word, his flame grew, until it was the size of the central formati
on in the room.

  It beat away at the darkness. It magnified his emotions. And then it found him—the rage, the anger, and why he was here in the first place. The injustices he’d suffered and the indignities he’d endured resurfaced, threatening to consume him with their newfound intensity.

  Pull back, he urged himself. He reined in the fire. He couldn’t let it burn too brightly. Moreover, he realized something when the last pieces of his mind fell into place and the fire in his heart dimmed. He needed the pain. He needed the sorrow. He needed that disappointment and that helplessness. He needed his frailty, for without it, he would lose perspective. His feelings would control him instead of the other way around.

  The fire in the room wriggled with joy then, and now he saw its true appearance. It was a shimmering flame filled with the purest iridescence. It included all colors separately, but at the same time, in harmony. He wept at its beauty. He’d done it. He’d finally done it.

  As he knelt there, overwhelmed, the gray fire in the Clear Sky Brush floated out from the Clear Sky World. It wasn’t aggressive like it usually was but reassuring. Understanding. It grew to the size of the large iridescent fire and moved onto it, merging with it. It became a new flame altogether. It was still gray. Its essence was still Grandmist. Yet at its edges flickered many colors. Like the iridescent flame before, it kept the darkness at bay, banishing it with the power of emotions.

  Cha Ming looked at it then. The darkness. The hopelessness. He was as familiar with it as it was with him. It was an old friend that had accompanied him all this time, guiding him every step of the way. “I need the darkness,” he told the Clear Sky Brush. “Let’s take it with us.”