The 49th Mystic Read online

  “How long have I been out?”

  “The day and half the night. It will be light soon, though we’ll never know it in this coffin. They came.”

  “Who?”

  “One of their overlords, a pompous old croon in a black robe. They called him the prosecutor. It seems they mean to put us on trial at daybreak.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Certainly heresy, and he was utterly curious of you.” He waved a hand in disgust. “I’ll never understand the way of the Albino, so wrapped up in particular beliefs with which you bless or condemn. It’s a wonder any sane soul would want to follow a deity bent upon such punishment.”

  “And yet you follow Teeleh.”

  “Teeleh? He’s a monster who makes no claim to be good, not a deity who loves with his lips and slays with his hands.” He paused. “We should decide on a defense or I’ll be dead, and you, worse.”

  “What could be worse?” His statement alarmed me. “Why do you say that?”

  “Terrible suffering in life is worse than death.” He looked at me with gentle eyes and lowered his voice. “As the 49th you must know that your enemies do not mean to kill you, but force you into a betrayal of all mysticism. All Mystics. Me, they would kill unless they see a way to leverage my life. But you . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “You say this to encourage me?” I demanded.

  “Forgive me, I only mean to help.”

  “So that what? Your Ba’al can torture me again?”

  “No.” He was quick to respond, and I found surprising comfort in the confidence of his tone. “Never.” His eyes shifted to my leg. “Your wound?”

  This too gave me comfort. “It’s healed,” I said. “Completely.”

  We remained in silence for a few breaths, considering the wonder of it.

  Jacob lowered himself to his seat, legs crossed, forearms resting on his knees. “They saw your leg. Your recovery will only support their fear of you as a witch.”

  “What about the fruit?”

  “The guard picked it up with tongs and took it in a box. But I managed to keep this from them.” He reached under his shirt and pulled out the page, which he’d folded. “If a piece of fruit shows such power, what can paper do in your hands?”

  I took the page from his hand and held it gingerly, half expecting something to happen. Nothing did. I whispered the First Seal. “Origin is Infinite.” Nothing. So I repeated it. Still nothing.

  “An incantation?”

  “No, nothing like that. The First Seal.” I recited the finger I’d heard on the cliff. “What is known that cannot be named?”

  “How could I know?” he asked. “If it can’t be named?”

  “I wasn’t asking you.”

  “You’re asking the paper?”

  “No.” Was I? I repeated the question, but to no avail.

  “That went well,” Jacob said.

  “We have to hide it,” I said, scrambling to my knees. “It can’t fall into their hands.”

  “Then it has to be on your person. But even so, they might take our clothing to be burned.”

  “So where?” I looked him over and knew. My hair was too fine to hide a rolled page, but his dreadlocks . . .

  It took me ten minutes to tightly roll the page and weave it into the thickets of his locks. Jacob directed me, telling me to be gentle when I jerked too hard.

  I learned that hair was a source of great pride for the Horde, nearly sacred in some ways. He recalled the first time he’d allowed a woman to weave his hair—a display of trust and affection.

  Despite their traditions in the matters of intimacy, I reminded myself that handling his hair and feeling his head weren’t much different from handling my own. Both of our bodies were simply earthen vessels. Even the stench of his skin was a relative preference, noticed by one of five senses—the nose—and interpreted based on cultural programming.

  I only had to practice metanoia. New thinking. And the first step in new thinking was to practice letting go of old thinking. Reinterpreting what my senses told me. Envisioning him in the brightest light, if for no reason than to see something in a new way. Had Talya known I would be in a cell with Jacob?

  I was nearly finished hiding the page before I realized how profoundly the experience had shifted my perception of him. What was once appalling now knelt with his back to me, a powerful warrior who was like a boy when he set his bravado aside.

  And me? What did he think of the woman behind him whose stench was equally offensive to his programming?

  Satisfied with my handiwork, I put my hand on his shoulder. For a moment I knelt beside him in silence. This was his earthen vessel. His costume. Could I love this costume?

  The thought frightened me and I pulled my hand away. “All done.”

  He lifted his hand to the back of his hair. “I didn’t know Albinos were so adept at weaving hair.” He turned and sat facing me.

  “Whatever you do, don’t leave me,” I said.

  His brow arched. “So now you trust me?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You always have a choice. But I have no intention of leaving you, even if I could. It seems our fate is intertwined, like it or not.”

  I could just barely see his eyes in the darkness.

  “Can I ask you a question, Jacob?”

  “Any woman can ask me any question she likes. Even an Albino.” He caught himself. “Not that I agree with Ba’al that Albinos are diseased demons, mind you. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “And yet you serve Ba’al as commander of all Throaters.”

  “Only because I am son of Qurong. And because it wins me favor among the fairer of the sexes.”

  “What are Albinos to you, then?”

  “Another race who’ve slaughtered my brothers. This was your question?”

  “No. My question is why don’t you believe in Elyon, who created this world?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing I’ve heard of Elyon is any different from what I’ve heard of Teeleh. Both demand to be honored on pain of great suffering. Any deity who manipulates with such a threat is best ignored. Thus, I serve neither.”

  I found his explanation both insightful and hopeful. His only problem was that he didn’t know the same Elyon I knew.

  “Now I would ask you a question,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “What are these seals you speak of?”

  I thought about it for second. “They’re like markers of my own journey beyond fear,” I said. “To understand, you would need to know the whole story. At least to the extent I know it.”

  “Then tell me. Tell me everything. I must know.”

  I took a deep breath, leaned back on the bars, and told him everything. Not only about the seals, but about my dreams of Eden, Utah. All of it, more than I had told anyone, including my father and Peter.

  He listened with rapt attention, asking questions, often so many that I lost track of where I was. Jacob, son of Qurong, might be a celebrated warrior among his people, but to me he quickly became a curious and insightful seeker.

  “My, my,” he said quietly when I’d finished. “Your mind makes me dizzy. I can see that I have much to learn.”

  “That would be me. Only I would say unlearn.”

  He nodded absently. “Yes, I can see that. Unlearn, then. I have so much to unlearn from you.” A pause. “This son of Thomas of Hunter who took you from me—”

  “Samuel,” I said.

  “Yes, Samuel. If your old man—”

  “Talya,” I interrupted.

  “Yes, Talya. If he was right in this mysterious knowing he seems to throw about—”

  “With stunning accuracy.”

  “If he’s right, the boy is likely dead by now. You do realize this?”

  “Samuel’s a man, and I doubt very much he’s easy to kill, as you yourself discovered. Even so, he’s Albino, neither Mystic nor Gnostic. Why would the Elyonites see any threat from him?”

&
nbsp; “He’s impetuous and a stranger to Elyonites. Their guard is the kind that kills first and asks later.”

  The gate to the dungeon squealed.

  “They’re here,” Jacob said, eyes on me. “Be strong. Show no fear. Tell them you know nothing of being the 49th. I said this to save my own life. Blame it on me. You’ve made no confession yet.”

  I hadn’t considered the option, but I saw his reasoning.

  “Tell them nothing of being the 49th,” Jacob repeated, putting his hand on mine. “I beg you.”

  “If I must.”

  “You must.”

  I nodded and we rose as four Court Guards approached, boots clacking on the stone floor in cadence. They unlocked the cell and pulled the door wide.

  We couldn’t see their faces because they were wrapped like the ninjas of ancient Earth. The harsh tone of the leader’s voice communicated their demeanor well enough.

  “Dress!” He flung two white robes at us. Then a jar of something at Jacob. “Use all of it. The judge will not abide your stench in the courtroom.”

  We glanced at each other, then retreated to the corners to do as they asked. The scent of a strong perfume filled the room as Jacob wiped their salve over his skin. I could only imagine his humiliation.

  I stripped out of my tunic and donned the long white robe without a thought of those who stared at my back.

  “This way.”

  We were led down the corridor, up a flight of stairs, down a very long hallway, and into a vast, ornately appointed chamber with a golden dome. The room was no fewer than a hundred paces across, at least half of which was occupied by a large red pool directly beneath the high ceiling.

  Thick velvet ropes ran along the perimeter of the pool, which featured a fountain flowing with blood-red water. A large white statue of a rider on a horse stood at the head of the pool—I immediately recognized Justin.

  The walls of the round hall were layered in gold, trimmed with wide silver bands that were inset with rubies and emeralds. Red and purple drapes—silk, I thought—hung in great swaths from the trim.

  The chamber was so stunning that I stopped walking. As did Jacob.

  “Move.”

  We moved. Over a polished floor made of emerald marble. Then up one of two sweeping flights of steps that rose to a second level. Across a foyer to a pair of double doors, which were opened by two guards at our approach.

  If the hall behind us was lavish, the main courtroom in Mosseum City was extravagant. There were numerous stained-glass images of Justin and red-pool baptisms, thick red carpets, marble benches, exotic black wooden pews, and a throne at the center of the platform.

  But none of the room’s appointments impressed me. My eyes were glued to the four men on the platform and the seven who sat in what appeared to be a jury box.

  The throne was occupied by an older man in white who wore a pointed silk crown. The judge, I thought. To his right by several paces was a second seated man dressed in what I guessed to be ceremonial battle dress—a black jacket with silver buttons, a red collar, and golden arm bands. He was a handsome man with loose curls, his bright eyes trained on Jacob.

  “Aaron, son of their ruler,” Jacob whispered.

  “Which?”

  “The one with gold bands.”

  The guard behind Jacob struck his head. “Silence!”

  The son of Qurong didn’t take the slightest notice, eyes fixed on the son of Mosseum, archenemy of all Horde. History was being made on account of me.

  Two others on the platform were dressed in black robes and stood behind the bench in front of the throne. Their hair was black and slicked back into ponytails. Both had pointed beards and wore heavy chains with the red-pool medallions.

  A circular wood floor lay before the raised platform, and on that floor stood Cirrus, the Gnostic heretic from the cart, now dressed in a white robe like ours.

  A man I assumed to be the court clerk stood from a desk next to the jurors. “The accused may approach and stand before Mosseum, right arm of Elyon.”

  Mosseum. The supreme ruler.

  Shoves from behind pushed us down the center aisle past empty pews, where we joined Cirrus on the circular floor.

  “I present to this court the three accused of heresy for just judgment on this day of reckoning in the purview of Elyon and his son, Justin,” the clerk said.

  Mosseum flipped a nonchalant hand. “Another day, another heretic. Are we to be overrun by these imbeciles until the sun itself freezes?”

  “Your Grace . . .” The clerk seemed surprised. “This is a Gnostic and a beast. And the Mystic of which you were informed.”

  We stood three abreast in our white robes, facing the judge now fully fixated on us. “So my son tells me.” Mosseum, bushy eyebrow cocked, stared at me. “A young Mystic at that. Anyone might claim to be the 49th. She refuses to change her confession?”

  “She’s made no confession as of yet, Your Grace. It’s why we’re here. No one has yet spoken to her.”

  “No? And why not?”

  “It is your law, Your Grace. Passed only last week after your third nephew was mistakenly tortured. No one but you may oversee the conviction of heretics.”

  Mosseum glanced at the court officer. “Yes. Yes, that. A good law.”

  The clerk bowed. “The truth is for you and you alone to judge, Your Grace.”

  The ruler slowly pushed himself out of his throne, approached the bench, and peered down at me. I wondered if he might be senile. Either way, he didn’t for a moment believe I was the 49th.

  “I was under the assumption that the Mystic taken was badly wounded. I see no sign of a wound on this woman.”

  The court officer had no answer.

  “Well, are you wounded?” the ruler asked me.

  “No, Your Grace.”

  One of the men in black to Mosseum’s right gave a slight blow. “If it pleases Your Grace, this is part of the evidence I will present in my arguments.” He was the prosecutor, then.

  “She’s lying to me? She hides her wounds?”

  “No, Your Grace. But as I said—”

  “Yes, yes, evidence. I heard you.” The ruler frowned. “She doesn’t look all that threatening to me.”

  “It is her diabolical philosophy, not her stature, that threatens our way, Your Grace.”

  Mosseum returned to his throne, sat heavily, and motioned to the man who was to present arguments. “Very well, Jacob. Present the case and be quick about it. What is that ghastly smell, anyway?”

  They looked at each other.

  “It’s the awful perfume you gave Jacob to wear,” I said.

  One of the jurors gasped. Evidently I was out of order, but the whole scene struck me as deeply offensive. Not that I wasn’t sweating under my robe. I was as nervous as I was offended.

  “You will not speak until your defense is to be given,” the prosecutor snapped. “And to suggest that I wear foul-smelling perfume is a defamation of this court.”

  “Not you.” I nodded at Jacob. “This Jacob. Did you not know that the Horde have names as well? Your men made him wear the perfume because they didn’t like the way he smelled.”

  The Gnostic Cirrus gave a short, soft chuckle.

  “Silence!”

  “Forgive her,” Jacob began.

  “I said silence. Silence! Do heretics not know the meaning of this word?” The prosecutor named Jacob glared at us in turn. “You will obey the law of the church’s court or find yourselves in hell. Your appointed defender stands to my right. He will offer all known evidence to save you from judgment. I will present and argue the charges. His Grace will render a verdict and sentence that will be embraced by the jury. The only time you may speak is if asked to speak. Do you understand?”

  None of us replied. He accepted our silence as an acknowledgment. Aaron, son of Mosseum, sat still, watching the proceedings with measured curiosity. Of them all, he was the most dangerous, I thought.

  It wasn’t lost on me that the Elyoni
tes had borrowed some names and traditions from ancient biblical history. Talya said they based much of their doctrine on ancient holy texts found in the Books of History.

  “Please, Jacob,” Mosseum rasped. “On with it.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The prosecutor looked down at an open book. “We have here the rare opportunity to please the court by denouncing the heresies of our three great enemies. We begin with the deluded one who calls himself Gnostic. Step forward.”

  Cirrus took one pace forward, arms clasped behind his back.

  “It is said Gnostics claim that the material world of flesh and substance is evil and of no consequence. Is this your belief?”

  Cirrus cleared his throat. “That it is evil, yes.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  The prosecutor looked at our appointed defender. “Need I say more?”

  “I would say so, yes.” Our nameless defender had a soft, high-pitched voice for a man.

  “If you insist. It is also said that Gnostics, believing all flesh is evil, claim Justin did not live among us in the flesh. Is this your contention?”

  “It is.”

  “There it is, then,” the prosecutor said, waving a hand of dismissal.

  “Yes, I would say that is enough,” our defender said. “Unless he would say something in his own defense.”

  “Can the word of a heretic be trusted?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then . . .”

  “Still, I think his words would be in order, if only for the record. He hasn’t been found guilty yet.”

  The prosecutor glared at his counterpart, then looked back at the Elyonite ruler, who sighed and dipped his head in agreement.

  “Very well. Speak, old man.”

  Again Cirrus cleared his throat. “In your rush to dismiss knowing Elyon beyond the flesh, you deny that the kingdom of heaven is already here, as taught by Justin. Thus you worship the flesh, not Elyon.”

  “Heresy!” the prosecutor cried. “Anyone with two eyes can see that there is no kingdom of heaven here on earth, you fool. We, Justin’s chosen bride, are here to usher it in, and when it comes it will do so with unmistakable signs in the flesh—among those signs, swords dripping with blood. How dare you suggest this is worship of the flesh?”