Dark Chant In A Crimson Key

early training, along with the fact that I had a certain natural talent, allowed me to excel very quickly. By the time I was seventeen, I was considered by Japanese cognoscenti to be among the top all-around martial artists in the world, and I was invited to enter certain very prestigious tournaments that are usually closed to non-Japanese. As a matter of fact, I never competed in any outside tournaments; they were considered vulgar and low-class by the sensei I trained with.

'I assume that you've all found out a good deal about me in the last few days. Perhaps you've heard that my father hired a man called Master Bai to give me advanced instruction in the martial arts. This is not true; a ganjin like my father would never have been in a position to even hear of Master Bai, much less to hire him. It was Master Bai, posing as a master teacher-which he was, incidentally, although not in the way that my father, or most Japanese, thought-who approached my father after observing me in a number of these closed competitions. He told my father that he wished to instruct me further, and that he would do it for nothing, in honor of this young ganjin who had already learned so much.

'It was, of course, a ruse. It was impossible for a man like my father to see through the deceptiveness of a man like Master Bai to the core of evil within. It was Master Bai's intent to make me a Black Flame acolyte, to erase my personality, and then create in me the mind and soul of an assassin who would do his bidding without question. I suspect he was amused by the idea and wasn't even sure what he would eventually do with me. My father, of course, couldn't have known any of this; virtually no ganjin had ever heard of Black Flame, a very old and very secret society dedicated to the amassing of wealth and power through the conscious pursuit of evil.'

'Veil had heard of it,' I said, nodding in my friend's direction.

If our host was surprised, he didn't show it. The man with the steel-gray hair and eyes merely nodded at Veil. 'Mr. Kendry is a most unusual man. Unusual men hear things that are often out of earshot to ordinary men.'

'But you did go with Master Bai,' Harper said. She was leaning forward on the table, listening very intently.

'Yes. I progressed rapidly through the initial phases of training, which consisted primarily of intense studies in natural pharmacology-toxic herbs and plants.'

I said, 'And that knowledge is what you used to beat Al's 'truth serum.''

Sinclair nodded. 'What you were given, in doses calibrated to your estimated weights, was a plant extract that causes extreme nausea. The effect of the extract is heightened by internal tension. In effect, if administered by someone who knows what he's doing and is good at estimating body weight, it works just like a polygraph. Most people become increasingly nervous when they lie, and this shows up as a blip on the polygraph; if you get nervous when you have the extract in you, you vomit. Simple, really.'

Harper shook her head. 'But that doesn't explain how you did what you did. You threw up at first, yes-but, obviously, you wanted that. . thing … to know you were lying. But then you lied continuously, and it had no effect on you. Why?'

Sinclair thought for a few moments, then said, 'Successful disguise requires the ability to act; acting, if it's good, is really nothing more than a successful lie. You are something other than what you appear to be. A great deal of Black Flame training centers on this sort of psychological disguise. It's not unlike method acting: you try to internalize your role to the point where you can at once believe you are the character you're portraying, even as you know you're only acting. With the proper training, you can use this technique to exert considerable control over your entire emotional landscape. Playing Carlo, I was Carlo, and thus allowed myself to react the way Carlo would react when he lied: he vomited. When Carlo told what was to him the truth, namely that he was a free-lance assassin under contract to the CIA, he didn't suffer the adverse reaction. If you want a simpler explanation, you can simply say that I'm a good liar. It's a talent sociopaths, psychopaths, and Black Flame trainees share in common.'

'It's incredible,' Harper said quietly.

Sinclair shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Not really, Harper. It's just the result of a lot of training and practice, but I appreciate what I take you to mean as a compliment.

'An enormous amount of Black Flame training involves not only poisons but means of deception and subterfuge, techniques for getting close to an unsuspecting enemy or target. As a matter of fact, Master Bai was quite pleased with me; after centuries, I was the only ganjin to ever become Black Flame, and he was sure he owned me.

'Of course, at no time during my training was I ever told what Black Flame was really all about. But I'd always had a pretty good bullshit antenna, even for a kid, and I had a good idea where Master Bai was coming from even before he told me I would eventually be expected to kill somebody he would select at random from a crowd-perhaps even a child. I went to my father and told him of my suspicions; I told him I wanted nothing more to do with Master Bai. His response was to tell me that studying with Master Bai was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; it was an honor that had never before been accorded a ganjin and might never be again. He told me I should lie to Master Bai, pretend to agree to anything he wanted until I had received all of my training, and then simply quit. He said I would be breaking no laws, and there was nothing Master Bai could do to me. My father indicated it was very important to him that I do this, because he was sure it would win both of us respect from the Japanese we could not otherwise get. To say that my father seriously underestimated Master Bai would, of course, be the height of understatement. I didn't underestimate Master Bai; I sensed there was going to be a great price to pay, but I assumed I would be the one to pay it. I continued my training up to the point of assassination as a gift to my father. I didn't want to displease him. I was a fool.'

'You were seventeen years old, Chant, and you worshipped your father,' Jan said in a tone that was at once firm and kind. 'It was your father who was the fool.'

Sinclair glanced sharply at the woman he loved, but did not disagree. 'Yes,' he said. 'That too. In any case, I did what he asked. I completed the training, with Master Bai assuming it was understood that I would undergo the final test, and I was given the Black Flame mark. But I refused to do the killing. I hail intended to run away, but found I couldn't. I went to Master Bai and told him I would not be a member of Black Flame. I fully expected to be killed on the spot, but I had failed to absorb one of Master Bai's most subtle and important teachings-death is rarely the greatest punishment that can be inflicted upon a human being. His response was to shrug, giggle like his grandson in the other room, and send me on my way. Before I arrived home, both my mother and father had been killed in a manner that made it clear Black Flame was responsible-which meant that I was responsible. They intended to let me live with my grief and guilt for a time, and then torture me to death at their leisure. But this I anticipated.

'My father had always fostered independence in me, and I had money. Because of his position, I was fairly sophisticated in the requirements of foreign travel and documentation. Because of my Black Flame training, I could forge documents. That's what I did. I managed to escape from Japan, made my way to the United States, and made sure Black Flame couldn't find me.'

'My God,' Harper said. 'And you were only seventeen?'

Sinclair smiled. 'Well, I was actually eighteen by this time. You do what you have to do, Harper. And you have to remember that I'd had some very specialized training in control and self-discipline from many fine sensei. When I felt I was safe, I resumed my own identity. I was able to access my inheritance and certain State Department benefits. I went to college and then on to do graduate work. Then I joined the army.'

'Why did you do that?' Insolers asked in a curiously flat tone.

'Because I was an American,' Sinclair replied simply. 'Living in Japan for so long had only heightened my identification as an American. The United States was my country. My father's death benefits had helped to pay for my education. I felt I had an obligation.'

Sinclair paused and stared at Insolers, as if waiting for the CIA operative to say something or ask another question. When the man with the rodent features and medicinal smell remained silent, eyes cast down as he sipped his sake, Sinclair continued, 'As a result of my education, I was made an officer, and in the course of events I was sent to Vietnam.' He paused, smiled distantly, as if at some private joke. 'While I was over there, I began to acquire somewhat of a reputation as an expert interrogator of enemy prisoners. Actually, I owed my skills to a rather unusual technique taught to me by Master Bai-not the plant extract. I'm thinking of trying it out on junior. I think he'll be surprised.