The 49th Mystic Page 12

  The more he talked, the less I liked him.

  “So how did you do it?” my father asked.

  “Yes, of course.” He spread his arms wide. “How on earth did I manage to give Rachelle her sight back?”

  “Yes, how?” I asked, daring to be heard.

  He flipped his jacket back and shoved a hand into his pants pocket. “It’s quite simple, really, when you understand polarity. You do understand polarity, David?”

  “Of course.”

  “Plus and minus, what goes up must come down, electrons and protons, good and evil, angels and demons, all of it. Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. The world of expression we all love and hate so much. All romance, all war, all religion, all life, all existence . . .” He swept his free hand wide. “The entire universe is built upon and depends on polarity. Fair statement?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “True statement?”

  My father nodded once. “True.”

  “Cause and effect. In both scientific and religious terms we call it the law.” He stopped, as if he’d given us a complete answer for my sight, though it was no answer at all.

  He took a deep breath and shifted his eyes over my head, looking into the distance. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

  “But what if there was a way beyond polarity? What if you could escape the matrix of cause and effect that holds us all hostage? Anything would be possible, right? In God-talk, we call it grace. The law says that if you step out of a boat at sea, you’ll sink. But grace says you’re not bound by those laws and you can actually walk on water. Yes?”

  We both stared at him, unsure what he was getting at. I’d never heard anyone describe the workings of the world in those terms.

  “You’re saying Rachelle’s recovery was miraculous?” my father said. “That’s your explanation?”

  Vlad wagged a finger. “Too much baggage, David. Let’s not use words smothered in centuries of muddy dogma. Let’s just stick with escaping polarity. All it takes is opening your mind to the belief in something other than polarity. Belief! Like a placebo, which is a very weak version of the kind of belief I’m talking about. If you truly, truly, truly believe that something has happened, it manifests. Whatever you ask, believing it has been done, it will be done, isn’t that what he taught?”

  “Who?” my father asked.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “That’s right, Rachelle. Bravo. As a man of God myself, it comforts me to know that even two thousand years ago, someone got it right. Of course, he was rather special.”

  But Smith wasn’t a man of God, I thought. He was a viper in God’s clothing.

  “The point is, the power of belief is far greater than what science has yet confirmed. They’re getting closer with all of their dabbling in quantum physics—entanglement, superposition, all of that basic stuff. But science still lags behind what the mystics have known for millennia. Either way, you’ll eventually figure out how consciousness works to change the physical world.”

  My ears burned at his mention of mystics.

  “So enlighten us,” my father said.

  “I’m trying, David. Give me a minute. The world is changing through thought and belief alone. This whole valley, for instance, exists as it does only because you believe it is the way it is.” He tapped his temple with a long finger. “Tissue-tops.”

  In some ways, my father had already taught me much of this using completely different terms. The body manifests what the mind believes to be true. Quantum physics went further, demonstrating that our consciousness directly affects all material manifestation, including the world around us. It was a law that somehow governed the entire universe, though no scientist knew why or how, only that it did.

  “Drop the God-talk and it will make more sense,” my father said.

  “But it makes sense to Rachelle, doesn’t it, 49th?”

  It’s him! This is Shadow Man, come in the flesh. The moment I thought it, the faint scent of dirty socks masked by vanilla seeped into my awareness, and I swallowed, fighting back a terrible fear.

  He was using his God-talk as a form of manipulation to gain my confidence, speaking truth, although I doubted he was any part of it himself.

  He paced, stroking his chin. “What if I could give you a demonstration, right here? Prove the power of belief right in front of your eyes.”

  Quicker than I could follow, Vlad took one step toward the counter, grabbed something I couldn’t see, spun around, and threw it at me.

  Everything in the room seemed to stall for a moment. I saw the object in flight as if we were in a movie and someone had hit the slow-motion button. And then the apple reached me, an inch from my mouth.

  It stopped there because my hand was already around it. I had reacted without thinking.

  My father took a step back, stunned. “How . . . What was that?”

  “That was your daughter knowing that she can do what cannot be done,” Vlad said. “Go on, take a bite.”

  Fingers trembling, I set the apple on the counter.

  Vlad looked at me, supremely satisfied. “I’ll get to the story of how your wife was a victim of the law in just a moment, David. But—”

  “My wife? What do you know about her?”

  Vlad lifted a finger. “But first, indulge me for just one more minute.”

  He pulled out a very old-looking book with a brittle leather cover and held it between his fingers. At first sight of that book, I felt my heart crash into my throat. A Book of History?

  “Now, let’s pretend that this book has magical power. I mean, really, really pretend. For just a few minutes let’s become like little children and really believe.”

  He stepped around the breakfast bar so he was facing us. “May I?” Without waiting for a response, he gingerly placed the book down in front of me.

  “Now, as children we will treat this book with reverence.” His voice was laced with gravity. “Very few people have ever laid eyes on, much less written in, such a book. The truth is, whatever you pen in this book actually happens.”

  His words pulled at me. Did he know that I knew what the book was? I doubted it.

  Vlad pulled a long black pen from his pocket and laid it down on the counter. “Let’s pretend that, by placing Rachelle’s blood in this book,” he said, pulling the cover open to a blank page, “I opened a gateway that allowed her to enter a dream world where she could see. A dream so powerful that it was real to her. With that power of belief, her mind self-corrected, and when she woke up here, she could see.”

  We didn’t need to pretend! That was exactly what had happened. Why he’d pricked my finger. He had a Book of History from the other world, but only my blood could activate it.

  Had activated it.

  “Today let’s try something new.” Vlad was speaking the words as if too much force would shatter them. “Today you will take the pen and write me into that same world. In our story, only you can do it, because only you have entered that gate. Do this, and we’ll see what happens.”

  Yes, that would be a good thing. If I don’t he’s going to blind me. I lifted my eyes and stared into his—pools of urgent mystery that drew me in a way I could not explain.

  He slid the open book closer to me. “Give it a try. I gave you my sight, now you give me yours.”

  I blinked.

  It took some effort to shift my eyes away from his and back down to the page, and the moment I did, my intention to write anything about him in the book collapsed.

  But I was still afraid, and I had to know if I had the kind of power everyone in the other world was saying I had. So I placed my hand on the page. A vibration like a current rode up my arm, and I jerked my hand away.

  “You okay, honey?” my father asked. He reached over and touched the book. Flipped the corners of a few pages with his thumb. “Seems harmless enough.”

  As the pages flipped, a dark smudge on one of them caught my eye.

  “Harmless,” I
said in a thin voice. But my fingers were shaking.

  Vlad had picked up the pen and was holding it out to me. “Go ahead. Use your own words. Just write me into that dream world. Who knows, maybe I’ll vanish right in front of your eyes.”

  My father cleared his throat. He wasn’t buying any of it.

  I peeled back the pages to the one with the marking. There at the top of the page was a smear of blood. My blood. I was right . . . He’d used my blood with the book to open the gate for me. I could now use it to send others through.

  But my eyes were immediately drawn to the thin, four-inch circle in the middle of the page—a circle like the one on my arm. Inside of that circle was a white band about a half inch wide.

  In the center of the circle were written these words: What begins as White that man has made Black? I was reading with my eyes. How was that possible?

  My heart skipped a beat. “It’s a riddle,” I whispered, thinking of Talya’s instruction to look for words that pointed to the First Seal.

  “A riddle? It looks like blood,” my father said. He looked at Vlad. “Rachelle’s blood?”

  Vlad ignored him. His breathing had thickened. “A riddle, you say? You see words?”

  Neither of them could see the circle or the words.

  What begins as White that man has made Black? This was it. A riddle that would lead me to the First Seal of Truth. I knew it in my bones.

  I touched the page, then ran my hand over the words, feeling for the slight indentation all writing made. All but this writing. The page was perfectly smooth.

  “I don’t think I will write in the book,” I said, removing my hand and looking up. “But can I keep it?”

  A momentary rage, blacker than midnight on a starless night, gripped Vlad’s face and was gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.

  He picked up the book and put it back into the inner pocket of his jacket. “It came from the mountains of Moldavia. A sentimental affair.”

  “I think you’ve made your point,” my father said.

  “No.” Vlad walked around the bar and faced us from the center of the kitchen. He showed no sign he’d hit a wall with me. “Not yet, I’m afraid. But I had to give the easy path a try. Sooner or later I’ll work the truth into your thick skulls. For your sakes, I vote for sooner. This is only a fore-shadow.” He headed for the door.

  If there was any doubt lingering in me, his last words sealed the truth of his identity. He probably knew more about the 49th than I did. And he needed me to write him into the book. To what end, I didn’t know. And why I was the 49th, I didn’t know either. In fact, most of what I knew right then was that I was terrified of being blinded again, subject to his ravaging nightmares.

  “And my wife?” my father asked.

  Vlad turned back, hand on the knob. “Your wife, David, was murdered because she, like the daughter she birthed, was special. Her mind wasn’t fit to cope with the laws of Eden. But I would walk very carefully with that fact. Barth isn’t one to mess around with.”

  And then Vlad Smith opened the door, stepped outside, straightened his jacket, and walked away, leaving the door wide open.

  11

  JACOB, SON of Qurong, supreme ruler of all Horde, stood in the Thrall overlooking Qurongi City, so named by his father when he crushed the Albinos who lived in this forest. The Horde had drained the red lake and cleared the trees to make room for the thousands of homes now spread out before them. On his right stood his father, Qurong. To his left, Ba’al, whom Jacob despised.

  His mother, Patricia, ever the fussing worrier, had suggested they ignore the high priest’s call for an immediate audience upon his return less than two hours earlier.

  “You know he will tear you apart with all his foul words!” she’d cried. “Does he rule here? Is the city named after him?”

  She paced in a long, flowing lavender robe. Her light gray skin was smoothed with morst, a perfumed paste the wealthy wore to ease the annoying pain of the cracking skin common to all Horde. Strange how the Albinos called them Scabs. To think the vision of beauty before him could be called a Scab was preposterous. Like the moon draped in regal linens, she floated over the polished stone floor.

  “No, Mother,” he said, slightly amused by her fear of Ba’al. “But I do have charge of the Throaters. Our charge is to Ba’al, no matter how absurd his antics. What kind of man would I be to cower from my duty?”

  “Refusing to go is not to cower. It’s to let that scoundrel know whose son you are.”

  “Which is why I will always go when Ba’al calls me. To let him know who I am.”

  She scowled. “If you would stop this ridiculous nonsense of chasing down phantoms who present no threat and spend more time accepting the advances of women, you too would have a son.”

  “Is that what you think of me? A warrior concerned only with Albinos? Do you forget my songs, my dancing late into the night with women hoping to be swept away by the son of Qurong?”

  “Then take one!” she cried, slapping the tabletop next to her. An apple toppled from the bowl, rolled off the table, and landed on the ground. So the truth of her fussing about had finally surfaced. As it always did.

  “Must you steer every conversation into this?”

  “Is it wrong for a queen to long for a grandson to love?” she demanded.

  He wondered if he would ever find a woman as spirited as she.

  “Never fear, Mother,” he said, finishing his meal and wiping his hands. He rose and kissed her on the cheek. “I only wait for one who knows true love. Until then, I will play my role as the finest warrior in all the land.”

  He started for the door, then turned back.

  “This Albino we seek . . . Ba’al sent me after her because she bears a mark on her shoulder. A mark never seen on any other Albino in his dungeons.”

  “And what should this mark mean to me?”

  “Did you know she claims to be the 49th Mystic?”

  His mother’s face froze like porcelain. “Nonsense,” she finally said. “Absurd.”

  “I don’t know. I found myself oddly affected by her.”

  “In what way? She casts spells?”

  “Nothing so superstitious. I just . . . She believes it. Somehow I do as well.”

  He watched her eyes as his conviction slowly overtook her doubts. She crossed to him, robes swishing. When she spoke, a terrible fear laced her every word. “Then you must go now! Your father must know!”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “If he did, I would know. You do know the prophecy . . .”

  “I’ve never paid much attention to fearmongering.”

  “Fearmongering?” she scolded. “And what if it is true? If the 49th succeeds, all Horde will be forced to drown and become Albino! Our way of life will be destroyed and your father reduced to nothing!”

  “It’s only legend, Mother. More of Ba’al’s ranting.”

  She grabbed his arm. “You must tell them. Tell Qurong. They must know!”

  Jacob left then, disturbed by his mother’s response to the 49th. There was something refreshing about the Albino he’d had in his grasp. Something innocent in her way of speaking that haunted him.

  Overlooking the city with Ba’al and Qurong, Jacob pushed his mother’s fear from his mind.

  “Look at it all,” Ba’al said. “All that you have built and called home. How many have died among the Horde for you to possess what you do?”

  His father frowned. “Not so many. Our enemy would rather run and hide than face us like men.” He turned to Ba’al. “Why do you suggest so many have died?”

  “Because I know what will happen to the Horde if we fail. Not a house you see will be left standing. The streets will be lined with the dead, bloating under the hot sun. Qurong will be known among those who survive as the one who failed to heed Teeleh’s warning and bowed to the lamb.”

  “Enough!” Qurong turned from the overlook and strode into the inner sanctum.

  Jacob suppre
ssed a smile and followed. He didn’t relish facing off with Ba’al, but his father leveraged his authority with pleasure. Jacob hadn’t mentioned the 49th. Perhaps Qurong’s demeanor would change when he learned the truth, assuming the girl really was this 49th Mystic they all feared.

  The high priest’s feet slapped the stone behind them. Ba’al might be the scrawniest Horde still living, but his power could not be doubted. His magic spells and rituals had left hundreds dead in the last year alone.

  Herein rested the precarious but effective balance of powers. On the one hand: his father, a good and kind man who ruled with authority. On the other: the priest of Teeleh, who’d spurred them to defeat their enemy many times and would surely do so again.

  Teeleh’s graven image glared at them at the head of the altar, a large winged serpent coiled like a dark, hooded cobra with red eyes, ready to strike.

  Qurong turned back at the altar used by Ba’al to slaughter his goats. Blood. It was all about blood for the high priest and his Shataiki. Jacob hated the altar almost as much as he hated Ba’al.

  “You will speak to me plainly,” Qurong said. “No embellishments. Your grand statements may work for your priests, but I am not a priest.”

  Ba’al eyed Jacob with accusing eyes. At times Jacob wondered if the reason the high priest was so pale was because his own blood had been drained by those he served.

  “As you say.” The old goat picked up one of the long, jeweled daggers they used to do their business. He held the knife in his spindly fingers. “Who holds this blade?”

  Qurong’s brow arched. “This is what you call plain speech?”

  “I do,” Ba’al said. He flipped his wrist with surprising speed and sent the dagger toward Jacob, who watched it fly, alarmed. He caught it in the air, inches from his throat.