The Lamp-Wick Man

Deep in Cloud-Dream Mountain stands the Nameless Light Temple, where an eternal lamp has burned unbroken for three hundred years.

The lamp-keeper was the old monk Hui Cheng. The lamp stood before the Buddha; a bronze cup held the tung oil, and the wick was twisted from a red grass that grew behind the temple, burning steady, never flickering out. Hui Cheng refilled the oil each pre-dawn for thirty years without fail, even on snowbound nights. When he refilled it the flame licked the back of his hand, warm; once he dozed and the boiling oil splashed, branding a scar, but he bore no grudge, only said, "What should burn, burns." In those thirty years the oil he poured in would fill half a vat, and with it half his own life — he had vowed to the Buddha that while the lamp burned he would not leave the mountain, a vigil owed for that slaughter long ago.

Temple lore said the eternal lamp, drinking its fill of incense and mortal breath, would now and then "burst a flower" at night — the flame condensing into a small man-shape three feet tall, wholly red, gone in a flash. They called him the lamp-wick man: a spirit the lamp had bred, harmless, only keeping watch, as if afraid that if the flame died, the Buddha's face would go dark. Hui Cheng kept the lamp thirty years, took no wife, took no disciple; he was the temple's only living soul, and could not even keep a cat — the wildcats pilgrims left behind always vanished on the first snowy night, as if the temple's stillness were too much, so still you could hear your own heartbeat. He liked the stillness, said the lamp kept him company, he was not alone. Sometimes at midnight, refilling the oil, he plainly felt in the red glow before the Buddha a small shadow just the height of the lamp-stand, standing quiet, saying nothing.

Hui Cheng was not always a monk. Young, he was a headsman below the mountain, his hands red with many executions. Once he put a whole village to the sword and, softened by a single swaddled infant, carried it back to the temple and begged the old abbot to keep it. They named the child Lantern. In the temple years Lantern was raised by Hui Cheng's own hand. He taught the boy to read, to sweep, to refill the lamp. Lantern was good; at night he would lie by the flame and say, "Master, this fire is alive." Hui Cheng would stroke his head, and the old debt in his heart sank one degree deeper. Lantern grew to sixteen, chanced upon the blood-stained register of that year, learned who he was, and that night burned himself before the eternal lamp — the flame leaping enormously, painting the whole hall red, while the old abbot chanted through the night and Hui Cheng knelt outside the door, not daring to enter. Lantern's soul entered the wick.

This Hui Cheng never dared tell a soul. He only took the little red man who now and then burst from the flame for the Buddha's pity, a companion granted a lonely lamp-keeper.

His old killings were heavy, and the avenger hunted thirty years before he found the way. That night it snowed; a black-clad man vaulted the wall into the meditation cell, blade reflecting the snow-light, bearing straight for the sleeping monk. He was the son of a survivor of that village, and had hunted half a life for this one stroke. Beyond the cell the wind drove snow against the window-paper, rustling, like someone walking the yard. The black-clad man stepped through the snow, probing each pace; the blade lingered at Hui Cheng's pillow, as if to study that sleeping face — thirty years hunting, and the enemy was a mild-browed old monk. He clenched his teeth and brought the blade down.

At the instant the blade fell, the eternal lamp before the Buddha burst open with a crack. From the wick leapt a three-foot man, wholly red, and flung himself on Hui Cheng, taking the stroke in his place. The flame died; the cell fell to ink-black. The black-clad man, thinking he had met a guardian, fled the temple in terror, leaving only a scattered trail of panicked prints in the snow.

Hui Cheng was roused by the burst. He opened his eyes to a pitch-black cell, only the ghastly white of snow-light at the window. Groping, he lit the oil-lamp and saw on his chest a fresh scorch-mark, as if a burning fingertip had pressed him. He suddenly understood: that blade had been taken by the man in the lamp.

At dawn Hui Cheng was unharmed, but the oil was spent and the wick charred beyond lighting. Trembling, he felt inside the bronze cup and drew out a pinch of ash like a tiny charred finger-bone, still warm, like a coal just gone out.

He suddenly remembered that the night Lantern burned himself was red and warm, just so.

The temple has known no eternal light since. Yet on snowy nights a small warm glow rises on the cell floor, as if someone held a lamp to light the old monk down the steps, and now and then from the glow comes a very faint sound, like a child calling "Master." Sometimes the glow stops at his feet and sways gently, as Lantern once lay by the flame and said, "Master, this fire is alive." And Hui Cheng knows the man in the lamp is still keeping watch over him.

The Midnight Record: the eternal lamp went dark, but the man within it lit up. The enemy he raised took the blade for him; the debt is not repaid, only burned by another fire.