Chapter 1

“You have a visitor, Doctor.”

Hsien Tam looked up from the scroll he was reading at the knock on his door. His apprentice Ho Tien knelt in the open doorway leading from the parlor to the darkness of the garden. The young man looked nervous, probably due to the tall muscular man standing behind him. The visitor’s sleeveless robe showing off the intricate dragon tattoos winding around his arms; Tam knew similar tattoos would be covering the Tong enforcer’s chest and back. The man’s nose had been broken at some point and healed poorly, which only added to his intimidating presence.

Tam closed his scroll and set it on the small table next to his chair, addressing the Tong.

“It is time, then?”

“Yes Doctor. The Lady requires your services, as discussed.”

“I’ll need a moment to collect my tools and instruct my household. Would you like some tea?” After the enforcer shook his head, Tam stood and addressed his apprentice. “Tien, find Lin Song and bring her to meet me in the clinic. Huu Shen, if you would follow me?”

The Tong stayed quiet as he followed Tam across the garden and into the wing of the manor that served as his clinic. He lounged against the wall of Tam’s laboratory as Tam pulled out a teak case and began double checking the contents. He’d had it packed since he got the letter two days ago, but it never hurt to make sure.

“I think I frightened your doorman.” The big enforcer sounded amused.

“He’s not my doorman, he’s my assistant. The boy’s a journeyman healer, only nineteen years old, probably never been around violence. It’s only natural that he’d be nervous around you.”

“But I don’t make you nervous, do I? You’ve been around violence before?”

“No, I’ve been lucky enough to avoid that. But I’ve worked with you before, and I’m fairly confident that you have no intention of harming me while I’m useful to your Lady. You don’t make me nervous. Your Lady, on the other hand...” Tam let the silence finish his sentence for him.

Huu Shen laughed. “Yes, she makes me nervous too. I’m a tough fighter, I’m loyal to her, and I have my pride, but I’m perfectly willing to admit that the Honored Lady terrifies me just a bit.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “If it’s any reassurance, Doctor, I think she likes you. Well, as much as she likes anybody. She’s mentioned that you have good manners.”

“Thank you. If I may say so, in our brief acquaintance you have also displayed good manners. I know you don’t have the polished speech of a courtier, but you are polite in your own blunt way. I believe intent matters more than display, and you understand the heart of etiquette better than many who wear the mask of manners more comfortably than you do.”

The big enforcer only grunted in response, but Tam thought he was pleased at the compliment. They passed the next minute in silence as Tam finished checking over his tools then closed and latched the case. As they stepped into the hallway, they met Ho Tien and Tam’s steward, Lin Song. The old woman was wearing her bed robe, but she still radiated dignity. Huu Shen unconsciously straightened his stance as she approached. Lin Song had that effect on everyone; even though she worked for him, Tam often felt like a child whose grandmother had just caught him stealing treats when she approached.

Ignoring Huu Shen for a moment, Tam conferred with Lin Song and made sure the household and clinic would function without him the next day. Ho Tien could handle most of the patients they were expecting; three would have to be rescheduled, and Lin Song would need to send them apologies. Minor household decisions would either be left to Lin Song or delayed until his return.

Tam kept the conversation brief then followed Huu Shen out to a waiting rickshaw; he had no desire to keep Huu Shen’s mistress waiting. Su Wen was one of the Silver Tigers, which meant she reported directly to the Master of the Silver Tong. No one climbed those ranks without having hands drenched in blood. Tam was reasonably sure that she valued his services highly, but he had no desire to make her impatient.

As they rode through the dark night, Tam felt his pulse quicken with excitement. There was a slight sense of fear of course; any reasonable citizen would be nervous visiting a den of the Tong and working on a difficult and sensitive task for one of the Silver Tigers. Tam felt that fear, but it was a small thing compared to the thrill he felt at the chance to practice his art. He turned to Huu Shen.

“Can you tell me anything about tonight’s subject?”

“You’ll have to wait and see, Doctor.” Huu Shen inclined his head in the direction of the man pulling the rickshaw.

Tam nodded and settled in to wait patiently for the rest of the ride. Huu Shen had the rickshaw stop in the slums then led Tam on foot through several winding alleys. Tam found himself quite lost; he wasn’t sure if that was Huu Shen’s intention, or if the thug had only meant to keep the rickshaw driver ignorant.

Nevertheless, when he followed Huu Shen into a two story building, he had to admit to himself he wasn’t sure he could find his way home without an escort. They passed through a large room with a pair of Tong playing dice, then down a hallway. Huu Shen led him through a door and down a staircase into the basement. He knocked at the door at the foot of the stairs in a particular rhythm. Tam heard a muffled curse on the other side of the door. Just as Huu Shen raised his hand to knock again, the door opened.

The man on the other side of the door reminded Tam of a rat. He had close-set, shifty eyes and a long nose, and he scowled at them as he opened the door. He nodded his head to Huu Shen then gave Tam a searching look.

“This is the wizard?”

“Doctor Hsien is the chi-worker the Lady has hired. Doctor Hsien, meet Chiang Lu. He will show you the patient and assist you in your preparation. I will inform the Lady that we have arrived.” Huu Shen bowed to Tam and then headed back up the stairs.

Tam bowed slightly to the shifty looking Tong. “Honored to meet you; please show me who I will be working on tonight.”

Chiang Lu grunted and stepped back, opening the door further. The basement was one large room with a dirt floor, brightly lit by four lanterns. The most prominent feature was a large wooden table with a naked woman on it. Tam walked over to the table and inspected the woman he would work on tonight.

The obvious thing to notice first was that the woman was one of the northern devils. Her skin was a pale white like fine porcelain, except for her nipples and lower lips, which were a delicate pink. Her hair was a pale corn-silk yellow, splaying out below her head like a halo on the rough dark wood of the table. The Tong had tied her spread eagle on the table, her wrists and ankles secured with ropes that ran to each of the table’s legs. They’d also gagged her, presumably for their own piece of mind, as the woman looked furious, her pale green eyes staring at him with hate.

He supposed she had reason to be angry; none of the subjects he’d cast this spell on for the Tong had been there by choice. There was an ugly purple bruise on her forehead and her lower lip was split and scabbed with dried blood below the cloth gag. Her pussy was reddened and gaping open, giving Tam an idea what Chiang Lu had been doing when they knocked. Based on the spatters of dried cum on her thighs, it wasn’t the first time the woman had been raped tonight. No real concern of his; as long as the specimen was physically whole and not seriously damaged, he could do the work he’d been hired for.

Tam glanced at Chiang Lu. “Should I wait outside until you are finished?”

The man looked tempted, but he shook his head. “I can fuck the bitch more another time. Better to not keep the boss waiting now that you’re here.”

“I agree.”

Turning away from the woman, Tam set his case on a shelf close the table. Opening it, he carefully examined his tools. The long rows of needles were there, set in a red silk backing. The small clay jar full of alchemical solution was still sealed and nestled in its compartment, next to the glazed bowl, set of calligraphy brushes and sealed jar of ink. Satisfied that everything was in readiness, he took out the ink and a medium brush.

“There are usually some supplies prepared for my visits?”

“Right, Shen told me. I’ve got them behind those boxes over there.”

“Please wash and dry the stomach.”

Chiang Lu brought over a bucket of water and some rags and quickly cleaned the woman’s stomach. Once he’d passed a dry rag over her, Tam stepped closer and painted a short spell between the woman’s navel and pelvis. He wiped the brush clean on a cloth and meticulously replaced his tools in their place then turned to study the woman.

Closing his eyes, he called up his own chi with a thought and opened his inner sight. Opening his eyes, he looked at the woman. The wet ink now glowed in his chi-enhanced vision, as did the chi lines beneath her pale skin. He studied her network carefully, reading the subtle ways her chi signature made her unique.

Carefully circling the table, he studied the way her interior map of chi matched her exterior. He placed his hands on either side of her head, lifting it from the table and tilting it, first to one side then to the other. Ignoring the curses she was spitting into the gag, he studied the fine tracery of chi that made up her mind, while also studying her face.

She was obviously not a classic beauty, but there was something fascinating in her exoticness. The strange rounded structure of her eyelids made those angry green eyes prominent and striking. The pale gold of her brows and lashes provided a soft, ethereal accent. Beneath high, sharp cheekbones her cheeks were flushed a bright red in a combination of humiliation and anger.

Moving down her body and studying her both within and without, Tam took in the details of her lean arms, her hands with long delicate artist’s fingers. Her torso was thin, her ribs coming into clear view as with each of her labored breaths. Her modest breasts were set high on her chest, capped with small pink areolae.

He slid his hand down the taut surface of her stomach, and traced the upper ridges of her pelvis where it pressed against the skin. Passing lower, he put his hand under her hip, cupping the firm muscle in her ass, tugging her up as he bent down to examine the central line of her chi in her spine. His inspection speeding, he covered first one leanly muscled leg, then the other, returning to pause and study the gap between her legs. The fine golden hairs rose in a light triangle above her abused pussy, matted down with sweat and spatters of dried cum.

The pool of chi between her hips indicated a strong natural reserve, but it eddied loosely, meaning she was not trained to control her own chi. His examination was finished, but for his own amusement he parted her outer lips, pulling them well apart with his fingers so that she was completely exposed. A slight smile touched his lips as she attempted to curse him through the gag.

At the sound of the door opening, he straightened and turned. Seeing Su Wen, he quickly bowed from the waist.

“Good evening, Doctor. I hope we haven’t brought you out here for nothing. If your spell won’t work on a foreign devil, we’ll take our risks questioning her the old fashioned way.”

Unlike the naked woman tied to the table, Su Wen was a classic beauty. Her face was highlighted with tasteful make-up, her ankle-length red cheongsam embroidered with golden dragons. If you met her on the street, you would think she was a rich official’s wife and be jealous of the man. Tam knew better, and carefully swallowed before replying.

“There will be no problem, Honored Lady. Beneath the skin, the foreign devils are the same as we are. I will have to make a few adjustments to the process you are familiar with because she is a woman, but I have already made the adjustments in my theories, and it will present no issues. Breaking her through torture presents the eternal problem of torture: the subject will say whatever stops the torture, which is not always the truth. My method leaves the subject unable to lie, as you know.”

“Yes, yes, Doctor, you do not need to persuade me of your worth again. Shen and Lu will assist you. Send one of them for me when you are done.”

As Su Wen turned and left the room Tam faced the two men. “Huu Shen, you have assisted me before; please make sure your compatriot knows what to expect. I will begin by immobilizing the subject. After that we will clean and shave her. We have a long night ahead of us; if there is tea available I would appreciate it.”

The two men left up the stairs to find tea, Huu Shen’s deep voice echoing down the stairs as he told the smaller thug what to expect. As the Tong vanished to their errand, Tam returned to his case and selected the acupuncture needles.

Returning to the woman, he began the process of immobilizing her by disrupting her chi. Needles were carefully inserted in the restrained woman – a pair inserted under the corners of her jaw, one in the back of her neck directly into the spine, a pair in her shoulders, a pair in the juncture where her thighs joined her torso. As he pushed each of the long needles fully into her body until only the amber head remained outside, he charged them with a fraction of his own chi gathered in his fingertips, the needles serving as mechanisms to deliver his chi into the woman’s network and break it at the key junctures.

The woman had been vainly struggling against her bonds as he began, but as her chi was disrupted she lost control of her body piece by piece. When Tam finished and stepped back to survey the results, the only part of her body she had control of was her eyes, which flickered back and forth in panic. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she began to hyperventilate. Tam quickly removed the gag and tilted her head back to broaden her airway. It was important that the specimen maintain consciousness so that he could monitor her mind.

“I assume you can speak Han. I will explain what has happened so that you can remain calm. You have been captured by the Tong. I am a humble scholar who has been brought in to acquire information from you. Blink if you understand what I have told you so far.”

The woman blinked. Amazing how cooperative someone became when they were terrified by the fact that they had no control over their own body.

“I am going to cast a spell on you which will compel you to give information. The spell will take some time to cast. You may attempt to resist it, but you cannot, so I advise you to not waste your energy. I would like to tell you it would not hurt, but that would be a lie. I can tell you that it will not cause you permanent harm, which is not a guarantee under the Tong’s usual methods of questioning. Blink if you understand.”

The truth of that depended on what you considered permanent harm. Tam had to admit to himself that any reasonable person would consider his spell permanent harm if they knew what it did. Still, his lie seemed to have served its purpose, as the woman’s breathing stabilized as she blinked. While she had no conscious ability to control anything beyond her eyes, the automatic processes of her body were handling themselves better as she calmed. Her pulse had steadied with her breathing, and after Tam closed her jaw she instinctively swallowed.

Satisfied, Tam dipped a rag in the bucket and began cleaning the woman. When the two Tong returned, he took a seat and sipped a cup of tea while they took over. Huu Shen cut the ropes off the paralyzed woman, then gathered a handful of hair in his hand and began chopping it off while Chiang Lu finished cleaning the woman and began shaving her arms with a razor.

Satisfied that they knew what to do, Tam settled back in his chair and began to lightly meditate as he sipped the tea, going over the intricate steps of his spell to make sure he held the entire work clearly in his mind.

When he finished his cup of tea and his meditation he returned his attention to the woman. She was currently positioned on her stomach, with her arms by her sides. Chiang Lu was running a razor down the back of her legs, removing a light coating of soap lather as he went. Huu Shen was on the final steps of shaving her scalp; there was a loose pile of golden hair in the dirt at his feet.

The woman’s head had been positioned on its side, facing towards him. Tam noted with interest that her eyes were shut and tears were slowly leaking from them. He wondered what had happened to turn the fiery hate that had survived her capture and rape into despair. The men he had cast this spell on before had not reacted to this stage in the same way. Perhaps it was losing her hair? A woman’s hair was considered one of her greatest points of pride. He filed the theory away to consider later.

Tam poured himself a second cup of tea and carried it with him to the shelf where his case rested. He took the ceramic bowl out and touched the metal character set into its base. The enchanted metal began to generate heat, and he carefully mixed ink and an alchemical solution together into the bowl, letting the mixture come to a light simmer.

When the Tong reported that the woman was fully prepared, Tam set down his tea and examined her one final time. She’d stopped crying, and her eyes were firmly shut. The Tong had been thorough; no hair remained on the woman’s body beyond her eyebrows and eyelashes. It was time to truly exercise his craft.

Tam’s profession was healing, and he ran a small practice. He also occasionally sold his calligraphy, or penned a particular piece on commission. He was not truly wealthy, but his work gave him a comfortable life, enough to support his manor, clinic, and servants. He considered his true calling to be scholarship. Since his apprenticeship he had studied the art of enchanting objects with chi. He was particularly fascinated by the chi connection between mind and body, and a year ago his research and experimentation had led to a breakthrough. Through a combination of acupuncture, alchemy, and chi manipulation, he had discovered how to manipulate the chi network of another living being and bend it to his own will, testing it on several different animals.

A careful man by nature, he realized that his technique had revolutionary possibilities, but the powerful would surely covet it. As a mere scholar and doctor, he had few resources that would protect him from a noble or some other powerful person deciding that his spell should belong to them. There was also the issue that the spell required several hours to cast on an immobile subject. If he was to extend his technique to human subjects, he would need someone who would not be missed if there were complications.

His first idea had involved drugging one of his patients, but he was still trying to plan for the possible difficulties of their families or friends becoming suspicious when the gods presented him with Su Wen. She had arrived at his clinic in the dead of night with a pair of enforcers and informed him that his services were required. He’d barely been given time to dress and collect his tools before he’d been hustled across town and taken into the back room of a brothel to save the life of a Silver Tong member critically injured in a battle with their rival Tong sect.

Fortunately, he’d been able to save the man’s life through a combination of medicine and spells, and Su Wen had been pleased. She had used his services again for lesser injuries to her men, paying a fair price each time, and while Tam wasn’t foolish enough to trust her, he came to believe that she would deal fairly with him if he dealt fairly with her.

Tam was sure the Tong would have no ethical issues with procuring a human test subject and disposing of it if necessary, but he had no wish for them to know what his spell was capable of. He decided to present the technique as a mere interrogation tool. Once the subject was bound to his will, commanding them to tell the truth was a trivial extension of the technique.

Su Wen had been interested enough to have her men secure a beggar for the first trial. The technique translated flawlessly from lesser animals to the wretched man. After completing it, Tam simply mentally ordered the man to give the true answer to any question posed to him. Su Wen had given the man a series of questions, and then surprised Tam by demonstrating her own brand of scholarly inquiry. She had the beggar tortured, telling him that the torture would end when he was able to tell her that her red dress was blue. The man died horribly, unable to lie despite the horrific damage the Tong’s interrogators inflicted on him.

Tam considered himself to be fairly ruthless, but he still had the occasional nightmare about that night.

Days later, Su Wen had hired Tam for an interrogation of a member of the rival Tong sect they’d captured. A few weeks later, she had hired him again to interrogate a suspected traitor. Both times, Su Wen had killed the subject as soon as she was done asking questions. The information from the first interrogation had been the crucial break that allowed the Silver Tong to wipe out the rival sect, and they now controlled the criminal underworld of three quarters of Nihai. After a month spent securing their power and weeding out the rest of the traitors the second interrogation had exposed they were hiring him again. Based on the woman before him, Tam guessed they had set their sights on the foreign quarter, where the northerners had their enclave and traded their exotic foreign goods for silk.

This was the situation that led to Tam standing next to a paralyzed and hairless foreign woman six weeks after he had first proved to himself that he could control another person.

Dipping one of his calligraphy brushes into the heated mixture, Tam began to paint lines of spells on the woman’s skin. The alchemically treated ink dried almost instantly as it was applied.

Tam painted small circles on the palms of her hands, the soles of her feet, over her heart, on top of her head, and in between her shoulder blades. The last, largest circle went on her stomach, around the spell that let him see her chi network. Once the circles were finished, he began to connect them with long lines of characters, each character the width of a finger.

Whenever Tam finished a section, he checked it for errors then infused the ink with his chi; this caused the ink to sink into the woman’s skin like a tattoo, with a burning sensation that caused her to whimper and moan in pain. Tam honestly wasn’t sure if his method hurt more or less than traditional tattooing.

As the hours passed, the ink spread across her body, long lines of characters following the path of her chi network, snaking and intersecting along the lines and contours of her body. Tam never stopped working throughout the process; brief pauses to clean sweat from the next piece of his canvas were the only time his brush stopped moving. Once all of the lines were finished, he cleaned the brush and bowl and then retrieved his needles again.

He had begun in the middle of the night with seven needles that immobilized her. Another eight needles went into the circles; each perfectly set at the center and infused with his chi. After that, twenty-five needles went into her body at all of the points where two lines of characters intersected, for a total of forty spikes of his own chi embedded in key points of her body. He finished by erasing the first spell he had painted on her, the one in normal ink that let him see her chi through her skin, leaving the large circle on her stomach over her chi reservoir empty. Now there was only one more step.

By this point, Tam was wracked with fatigue. The constant use of chi to enhance his vision and infuse the ink, the exacting care he had needed to use painting the characters had taxed his reserves. Permitting himself a long sigh, he nudged awake his Tong assistants, who had drifted off to sleep at some point while he worked.

“Sirs, I will need you to hold her down now. The final step of the spell will cause her to thrash violently with the pain. If she is not restrained, she might damage herself before the Honored Lady can question her. One of you must cradle her head while the other holds her arms down. Oh, and put something in her mouth so she doesn’t bite through her tongue.”

Rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, the Tong straightened and moved to hold the woman as instructed. Tam himself climbed on the table and knelt over her thighs, pinning her legs with the weight of his body. The woman had slipped into a trance sometime in the past few hours, her mind numbed by the constant pain of the characters burning into her skin.

Picking up one of the razors, Tam rolled up the sleeve of his robe and cut himself shallowly across the meaty part of his forearm. He tensed his arm a few times to encourage the blood to flow, and then wet a new brush in the blood. With his blood he painted his chop, his personal seal, in the center of the large circle on her stomach over her chi reservoir.

Blinking sweat out of his eyes, he took a deep breath and slammed his palm onto the bloody seal, pouring as much of his chi as he could into the seal. The wet blood under his hand crisped into ash and his chi roared into the intricate framework he had built, coursing through the woman’s body like tongues of lightning.

She came out of her trance screaming. Her spine bent, arching off the table. All of her muscles seized and spasmed, thrashing with panicked strength that tested the three full grown men pinning her down. Her jaw locked against the stick shoved into her mouth, the tendons in her neck standing out like cords, a high pitched keening wail penetrating through the cloth.

The power danced up and down the lines of characters, which slowly sank deeper into her skin until they disappeared. The circles were the last to go, slowing shrinking to smaller sizes as they were tugged inside her. After she finally passed out from the pain, the only external signs of Tam’s labor were the amber heads of the forty needles still embedded in her flesh. Tam collapsed forward, barely holding onto consciousness himself as he slumped limply over the woman.

After a few moments, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Doctor Hsien, was the spell successful? Should we summon the Honored Lady?”

Tam struggled off the table and leaned against it catching his breath. Huu Shen was waiting patiently by the woman’s head for his response; Chiang Lu had retreated to the wall and was quietly making the sign against evil. Tam guessed the man had never seen magic quite like this.

Taking a deep breath, he straightened up and felt within himself for his chi. His reservoir was almost completely empty, but he had just barely enough to enhance his vision again. Her chi illuminated for him, no need for the spell now. Hidden under her skin, he could see eight copies of his chop tangled into her network, softly glowing where the circles had been. A light mental touch caused them to brighten, and he quickly confirmed success.

He opened his eyes and bowed slightly. “You may send your friend to inform the Honored Lady that the spell was a success. If you would be so kind, please remove the needles and replace them in my case. There are forty of them this time, as the subject was a woman. I will bandage my arm and take a few moments to recover.”

Turning away from the Tong men, he stumbled to one of the cushioned chairs and collapsed into it. A few moments later, Huu Shen quietly handed him a clean cloth, which he gratefully accepted and knotted around the shallow cut in his arm.

By the time Chiang Lu returned with Su Wen, Tam had recovered enough to rise to his feet and assist with the clean-up, neatly packing his tools away and latching the teak case closed. The woman was still sprawled senseless on the table.

Tam straightened up and bowed to Su Wen. “Honored Lady, the spell is successful. The foreign devil will answer every question you put to her truthfully. As before, I recommend letting her drink some water before you question her.”

As he said the words, he made them true. It was simple enough to reach out to implant commands in her mind, the same ones he had used on the first three subjects. First, he made it impossible for her to lie. Then he compelled her to answer any question put to her fully and completely. As a last minute inspiration, he also commanded that she answer the questions in the same language in which they were asked. Su Wen would not want to bring in a translator if the woman answered in her own devil language.

As Tam poured himself a cup of cold tea, Su Wen had her men drag the woman’s limp body off the table and bind her to one of the chairs. Tam could have made the restraints unnecessary with a thought, but that would have revealed the true power of his spell.

In time he would determine a way to use his spell to give him control of influential people, but for now it was enough to see his success once more, even if his subject would have her throat slit within a few hours. Taking control of another mind was reward enough, even if he would not exercise that control beyond these commands. Not that he would complain about the five gold bars Su Wen would pay him after she questioned the woman. Perhaps he could have a small pool built in his garden? Nothing ostentatious, but it would be pleasant to gaze upon in the evenings. Of course rare herbs for his business and a trip to the scroll merchants would be necessary.