The 49th Mystic Read online

  The world around me was spinning, but I pushed myself to my knees. The book! Get to the book!

  “Rachelle!” My father, feet pounding.

  Fearful for him, I twisted, clicking. He was veering toward Vlad.

  “Leave her alone!”

  Barth was yelling orders; his guards were sprinting toward the sound of the roaring fire.

  Lunging like a sprinter out of the blocks, I shot toward that jacket. Five long strides and I was there.

  A terrible thud sounded behind me. My father had unwittingly given me a brief window and would pay a price, but I had singular focus now.

  I dropped over the jacket. Dug my hand into the breast pocket. Jerked out the book, fumbling.

  With shaking fingers, I flipped it open. The blank page before me glowed. The book had opened to a page with a pen folded into the spine. I grabbed it and scribbled the words as quickly as I could.

  My father David into Other Earth.

  Vlad reached me and snatched the book from my grasp. He looked at the words I’d written and slowly turned his eyes down to me.

  “Welcome to my world,” he snarled through a twisted grin.

  His fist slammed into my temple and the world winked out.

  VLAD SMITH closed his eyes, groaning with satisfaction. She’d succumbed to his manipulations as planned. And her father, lying on his side, oblivious.

  He crossed to the man, ignoring the chaos. None of it mattered now. None but Barth, who had his gun drawn, intent on finishing what he’d started.

  “If you even touch him, I will rip your guts out and feed them to the pigs.”

  Barth stepped back, confused.

  “Leave!”

  He left. Like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

  Vlad grabbed David by his collar, dragged him over to the fountain, and plunged his head into the water. Then jerked him out.

  The man sputtered and stared as consciousness found him. Blinked, searching for meaning. But that would come later. The 49th clearly knew that David would awaken in the other world the next time he slept here, but did she also know that the book would follow anyone written into that world? It no longer mattered.

  Vlad shoved the Book of History into the man’s armpit, held him steady for a beat, and hammered the top of his head. Like a bull hit by an iron wedge, the man sagged, unconscious in this world, alive in another.

  The book under his arm shimmered for a brief moment, then vanished.

  “Sweet dreams, Tissue-top.”

  32

  DARKNESS. The kind of darkness that one could call a reduction of black itself. But only for a breath before David’s mind entered the state called dreaming. Not just any dream, but a lucid dream in which he knew he was dreaming.

  In reality, he’d just made the mistake of crossing Vlad Smith, who’d crushed him with a single blow. Note to self: never cross Vlad. But he was slowly waking now, knowing he would make it right by doing what needed to be done.

  David opened his eyes, expecting to see the courtyard and the fountain. A synthetic black sky overhead. Instead, the sky above him was made of stone.

  He sat up and looked around a room, perhaps twenty by twenty, lit by flaming sconces, two to a wall. Between two of the torches, a large blackened sculpture of a winged cobra with red rubies for eyes stared at him.

  He shivered. The serpent was not unlike the one Rachelle had described from her nightmares.

  To his right: a golden bowl, filled with a foul-smelling liquid. Daggers with jeweled handles and other medieval utensils that looked good only for prying and cutting hung on the wall to his left.

  His heart hammered. Where was he?

  In a dream. A nightmare, but it didn’t need to be a nightmare. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt true fear in his dreams, in part because he rarely remembered his dreams, in part because he’d studied them at great length for Rachelle’s benefit and in doing so learned how to disassociate himself from those fabrications of the mind.

  I’ve made a mistake with Vlad, and as a result, I’m terrified. Now my mind is creating a scenario that will allow me to work through that fear of him safely. Dream researchers had long ago argued that nightmares provided the mind with this remarkable gift.

  I don’t have to feel fear, but if I do, that’s okay too. Same thing he’d told Rachelle a hundred times.

  He lowered his eyes to the cold surface on which he’d awakened. A gray stone table. One darkened by stains. Bloodstains. He was naked except for a loincloth.

  He knew he was dreaming, but this particular dream was so lifelike that he was having a hard time distinguishing it from reality. Only logic told him as much. It was precisely these kinds of dreams that had afflicted Rachelle for so many years.

  He twisted, saw a velvet curtain in a doorway, and was sweeping his feet off the table when his hand bumped an object on the stone surface at his side.

  The book. Vlad’s book. He’d brought the journal with him. Naturally. His mind was dipping itself into this fabricated reality through the power of both Rachelle’s and Smith’s persuasions. Even awake, the mind could sink deep into hypnotic suggestion.

  Something Rachelle had said at the tunnel tripped through his thoughts. What if the whole human race was seeing the material world through distorted perception? Just like he was now, in this dream. It was the teaching of ancient mystics. And of quantum physics. Though it made no sense to any scientist, one hundred years of experiments had shown over and over, without fail, that in some impossible way the world was being created in its current state by the consciousness of the observer.

  They called it the observer problem, because it conflicted with all logic. Nearly all of modern electronics were soundly based on quantum principles, even though no one knew why they worked. There would be no cell phones without quantum physics. In this way, cutting-edge science was perhaps even more mystical than religion. In fact, it supported what many religions denied, namely, that humans had the power to change the world through thought and belief alone. He’d drilled these ideas into Rachelle her whole life.

  But this . . . this was a dream. He had to hold on to that simple truth.

  Motion to his right caught his attention and he turned. A scrawny man in a white robe stood in front of the doorway, staring at him. His skin was light gray and his hair long, knitted in dreadlocks. Around his neck hung a medallion of the same winged serpent that seemed to be the focus of this room.

  This was a priest. David was in a room reserved for sacrifices of some kind.

  It’s a nightmare, David. Only a nightmare. A good part of his mind seemed to know that, but his heart was pounding, oblivious to logic.

  The man snapped his fingers without taking his eyes off David. Two others much larger than the priest stepped through the curtain and took up positions on either side of the table. They were dressed in black with sheathed swords slung on their waists.

  “How did an Albino find its way into our holy place?” the thin priest asked.

  David cleared his throat. “I—”

  “I wasn’t asking you!” the priest snapped. “But since you seem so eager to tell me, answer.”

  David wasn’t sure how to answer the man. He had no memory of being anywhere but here, at least in this dream. “I’m dreaming,” he finally said.

  The priest slowly stepped around the table and was halfway around when his eyes fell on the book. He studied David with renewed interest.

  “So you are an Albino, but one who dreams of another world.”

  David’s mind was fabricating a world taken from Rachelle’s descriptions of her own dream world. In that dream world, she too was an Albino. And these must be the Horde. This one in particular was called Ba’al.

  David knew it was all a fabrication, but his mind was quickly being swallowed by its own illusions. The fear he felt was undeniable.

  “This is the dream. I’m dreaming you because my daughter, Rachelle, is having nightmares, and now my mind’
s re-creating those nightmares. None of this even exists.”

  The priest’s fascination grew. “I see. And this daughter, who is she?”

  “My daughter.”

  “Who is your daughter? In her nightmares, I mean. Who does she claim to be?”

  “She’s haunted by the Shadow Man. But like I said—”

  “And tell me, do you know where your daughter is in this dream of hers?”

  A pinprick of concern for Rachelle nipped at his mind. But none of it was real. He, if not Rachelle, had to remain tethered to reality.

  He shrugged, aware of the sweat snaking past his temples. “That I can’t tell you, except to say that she’s dreaming she was taken captive with one of your own. I can’t remember the name.”

  “Perhaps I can help you. My name—”

  “Is Ba’al,” David said. “I do remember that. Servant of Teeleh. So you see, I can name these fears of hers. But I have no intention of making them my own.”

  The priest had gone rigid. When he spoke again his voice came slow and low, barely above a whisper.

  “No, of course you don’t. And the name of the one who took her captive—was it by chance Jacob, son of Qurong?”

  “Jacob. Yes. They were taken together.”

  The priest blinked. “By the Elyonites?”

  “Yes. Yes, Elyonites. But this—”

  “Send for Qurong!” the priest snapped.

  “Yes, my lord.” The voice came from a third man who’d entered without David’s awareness.

  “Tell him I have urgent news of the 49th!”

  “Yes, my lord.” The guard dipped past the curtain and was gone.

  A dream, David. A dream, a dream. All illusion is as powerful in its effect on the mind as the truth. The mind can’t distinguish truth from illusion using the five senses.

  But he was in a lucid dream, knowing it was only that—a dream. He had to cling to that knowledge. If he could work through this nightmare, maybe he could better help Rachelle work through hers.

  The priest approached him, long robe swaying about his ankles, deeply attentive. “You are correct in saying that this is only a dream. So tell me . . . what exists in reality?”

  “A world gone mad that you’d know nothing about.”

  “Mad how? By whose hand?”

  “Our own hand. Nuclear fallout. DARPA.”

  Ba’al reached for the book, took it in his long, crooked fingers, and set it down on a long bench next to a line of four daggers.

  “Tell me, in these dreams of yours, is this Shadow Man who haunts your daughter one named Vlad van Valerik?”

  David hesitated. “Vlad Smith, you mean. But that’s not the dream. This is.”

  “Bind him to the table,” Ba’al ordered. “Do not harm him yet.” He walked for the exit.

  Without hesitation the two warriors in black robes strode toward him.

  “Hold on . . .”

  The guard on the right slugged his temple and David grunted. They muscled him back down onto the table despite his frantic objections.

  In short order, they clasped his wrists and ankles in chains attached to iron rings at each corner of the stone table. Then they returned to their former positions.

  He now lay on his back, spread-eagle, iron clasps digging into his wrists and ankles. Chained to a stone table used for sacrifice. His body was shaking.

  A nightmare, David. It’s a dream, just a dream.

  He closed his eyes and lay as still as he could, begging himself to wake up.

  33

  I WOKE in the Elyonites’ dungeon with a start, my confrontation with Vlad in the courtyard still crashing through my mind. The face-off left me with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I’d successfully written my father into Other Earth so he could see through Vlad’s lies. Or at least I assumed I had successfully written him in—I’d never actually seen it work before.

  On the other hand, my father had been attacked by Vlad, and I didn’t know how he fared.

  Was he here?

  I jerked up and clicked, searching the cell. A form, Jacob by his shape, lay beside me, soundly sleeping. I twisted around, half expecting to see my father. But there was only Jacob.

  Where was my father then? I’d awakened in the desert, where the Roush had found me . . . I wondered if they were talking to him now. The thought that he might have ended up with the Horde crossed my mind, but I let it go with a shiver. Surely not. I was the one who’d written him in, after all.

  Me, the 49th, who was bringing a sword to divide and searching for the five seals so I could lead them all from blindness.

  I looked down at my arm, where I could see the two circles in full color. I still had to find the Third Seal, but I had no clue how. No finger to point the way. Would all five seals be preceded by a finger? I hadn’t thought to ask Talya while I had the chance.

  I lay back down and stared into the darkness. The previous day had been filled with the wonder of finding the Second Seal. Jacob had been as deeply affected as I was, questioning nonstop like a child on the cusp of finding a great treasure in the forest. But now, what good would it do me if I couldn’t find the third? I needed the first three to save Eden, Talya had said.

  I could still hear the thud of my father being struck by Vlad. Imagined him falling in a heap. What if he’d been killed by that blow? No. If Vlad wanted him dead, he would have done it long ago.

  I swallowed and turned on my side, lost in a sea of concern. And it was then, as I stared at the dark cell, that I saw the faint glow on the wall. At first I thought I was imagining it, because I was blind.

  Blind to all but the circles on my . . .

  I shoved myself up on one arm, straining for view.

  Behind me, Jacob grunted and jerked awake. “What is it?”

  His concern hardly registered. I was fixated on the wall because I was now certain that the luminescence was real. Thin markings were etched into the stone.

  Scrambling to my feet, I rushed to the wall, pulse pounding.

  “What is it?” Jacob demanded. “It’s pitch-dark.”

  You can’t see it? I meant to say, but the words didn’t come out. I could make out the faint marks, and as I reached my hand toward them, they glowed brighter.

  I withdrew, stunned.

  Jacob was at my back, breathing over my shoulder. “Words . . .” He stepped up, seeing what I saw. “Does it never end with you?”

  I blinked and stepped closer. There, etched into the stone surface, words that had somehow manifested as we slept.

  What is Lost

  That can never be Lost?

  For the moment, concerns over what had happened to my father vanished. Thoughts of my encounter with the green seal the previous night flooded my mind. Wonder filled me, as it would a child first seeing the ocean.

  “It’s the third finger,” I whispered.

  “Pointing to the Third Seal.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is always how it happens? You find one seal and the finger pointing to the next simply manifests?”

  “I don’t find the seals,” I murmured. “They find me when I’m ready, as do the fingers.”

  What is lost that can never be lost?

  I heard Jacob reach for the wall and push it with his hand, as if expecting it to give way.

  “It’s a clue,” I said. “Not a doorway.”

  “So it seems. But nothing that seems to be true is true with you.” He paused. “It’s like there are two of you—the 49th Mystic and Rachelle. So ask her what this means. Ask her if this is a lost doorway or just a riddle.”

  He was referring to our first encounter in the canyons, when he’d communicated to me through his man.

  “This isn’t a game.”

  “No, not a game.” I heard him cross his arms. “Still, put your hand on the wall and ask the 49th what she should do now.”

  “The wall isn’t the 49th. I am.”

  “Understood. But you are far beyond the comings and goin
gs of any mortal I know. What do you have to lose? What if we have been given a way out of this dungeon?”

  “I can’t just speak to a rock,” I said. “It feels . . . I don’t know . . . flippant.”

  “True. Far too flippant. Still . . .”

  If only to amuse him, I lifted my hand and pressed my palm flat against the words, thinking to ask it his question, but I didn’t get that far. The moment my palm touched that cold stone surface, the words brightened, shimmering with light.

  I gasped and jerked my hand away as power flowed into my arm. Jacob stepped back.

  “By the fangs of Teeleh . . . Is there no end to your power?”

  “It’s not my power.”

  And with that acknowledgment, the writing on the wall faded and winked out.

  “It’s gone.”

  “It’s not gone,” I said. “I have it. I have the third finger. What is lost that can never be lost?”

  “So when you have the answer to this riddle, you will find the Third Seal.”

  “Not quite. When I know it, when I experience the truth this finger points to, the Third Seal will come to me.”

  We stood in the darkness, silent for several long beats.

  “How long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “We don’t have that long. Aaron will try to break you. We have to get you out before he can do that.” He sighed. “I’ve been thinking . . . If Talya knew I would be with you, perhaps he also knew that I would save you.”

  “Save me how?”

  “The Albinos are clever and skilled, I’ll give them that much. But they aren’t as powerful as Horde. I know I could take down three, maybe four, before—”

  “No!” I spun in his direction, clicked, and grabbed his arm. “No, Jacob. Not that way, it’s way too dangerous! We have to trust the seals.”

  “The seals are for your mind! It doesn’t mean there’s no place for the sword.”

  “I’m the sword!” I snapped.

  “So you’ve said. And you’ve cut them deep. If Talya led you here, into this hell—if he knew I’d be with you—he must have also known that I could help you. And not with my mind! What’s lost but never lost? You. You’re lost, but with your power and my strength, you can be found where you belong.”