The 49th Mystic Page 6

  She was referring to a law that restricted the population of children under the age of sixteen never to exceed more than twenty percent of the general population. With such limited space, the growth of the community had to be engineered and contained. In any case, no more than two children were allowed for even the most loyal and God-fearing families.

  Simon dipped his head. “Give us a few minutes, will you, David? I need a word with Linda.”

  “Now?”

  He indicated the door. “Have a cup of coffee with Hillary. She likes talking to you.”

  “I don’t need to stress how critical—”

  “Just a few minutes, David. Please.”

  David hesitated, then stood. “Of course.”

  5

  THE THOUGHT that I was lying on an examination table in Eden, Utah, didn’t even occur to me as I ran. Neither did the fact that I could see with stunning clarity for the first time in my life. Wherever I was, it was real, more real than any dream I’d ever had, and I could hear the thunder of hooves behind me. I kept my fists pumping and my feet churning. All I could think of was that narrow, twenty-foot-wide canyon directly ahead of me, jerking up and down in my view as I sprinted.

  If I could just reach it, they could only follow me two or three at a time. That would slow them down. That’s all I cared about. Never mind that I might be trapped inside.

  I nearly made it to the gap when I saw a smaller opening to my right. How deep? No idea, but it was only wide enough for one horse, so I altered my course without breaking stride.

  Someone with a deep, gruff voice was yelling. “Maco, to the back! See if there’s a way out!”

  And then I was there, through the narrow gap, sandwiched by vertical walls. The passage was maybe five feet wide, but it quickly opened up to twice that. Only then did it occur to me that I was in a fishbowl. If the bend ahead didn’t offer me options, they would catch me right here.

  None of this slowed me down. I rounded the bend in three breaths and saw that the canyon split into three smaller channels. I could hear the first horse snorting as it entered the gap behind me. But I was out of sight for the moment. I had to keep it that way.

  I angled for the break to my left, because my move would be hidden from their view for a few strides more.

  Of course, it didn’t matter where I went because my feet were leaving marks in the sand, deep enough for even a blind person to follow. My only hope was to find an opening that was too narrow for not only their horses but them as well. I was skinny; they were hulking warriors.

  A hoot and holler chased me. “No way out, Albino!”

  The canyon I found myself in was as wide as the one behind, but it too had several fissures. How deep did they go? What if these canyons ran only for a few hundred yards, like a giant rock that had been fractured over the years? They could just surround the whole thing and wait me out.

  I pushed the thought away, tore into the narrowest of the fissures I could quickly identify, and raced forward.

  Right into a huge sandy bowl, surrounded on all sides by sheer rising rock.

  I slid to a stop, panting, frantically searching the walls and boulders for an escape, a place to hide, any option at all. They were still coming—I could hear them talking in low tones—but they’d slowed their horses to a walk.

  They clearly knew something I didn’t. One way or the other, they’d soon catch their prey.

  If there was an exit or a place to hide in the bowl, I couldn’t see it. Maybe I was supposed to encounter them as a way of facing my fear. Or maybe I was just in another nightmare . . .

  A horizontal crack along the bottom of the wall to my left caught my eye. It was only ten feet away, and I reached it in three leaping strides.

  I threw myself to the sand and rolled under the cliff wall just as the first horse stepped into the opening.

  A low chuckle. “She hides under the wall like a mouse.”

  The gap was only a foot high, and I scooted deeper on my back, then deeper. Into the darkness.

  I stilled my breathing as best I could. To my left: blackness that could very well end in a few feet. Above me: a flat stone ceiling, inches from my nose. To my right: the thin gap under the cliff, glowing with light twenty feet away.

  I could see the hooves of several horses in that gap. Then boots, as one of the warriors dropped from his mount with a soft thud. He settled to one knee, bent over, and peered in, staring directly at me. The man was mostly backlit, but the light revealed the side of his face when he turned. His skin was cracked, dark gray.

  If I was an Albino Mystic, they were anything but. So then, these riders were what Gabil had called the Horde?

  The warrior sniffed the air, then spat to one side and stood. I watched wide-eyed as four or five horses grouped around the first.

  “How deep?” one of them asked.

  “We’ll need fire to see. But she can’t be too deep, her stench is strong.”

  “Maco, strike a fire.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to calm my frayed nerves. A panic attack now would get me killed. Only minutes earlier, I’d been stunned by new sight, but what good was that sight now?

  Though seeing, you do not see . . .

  But I did see. Right now I was trapped under a massive slab of granite. Or was I in Eden, lying on an examination table with CRISPR flowing through my veins?

  Okay, calm down, Rachelle. Take a deep breath. Think.

  My senses were far more acute than most humans’. Case in point: I already knew some things about the warriors that others would not.

  Their leader was probably the one who’d asked how deep—the authority in his voice compared to the others said so. There were fifteen or twenty of them in the bowl now—I could tell by the sound of hooves, the creaking of their saddles, the small talk and coughs.

  And in the dark . . . I could see in the dark where they would be blind, unless they too could use echolocation, which they couldn’t, or they would have used it already.

  Eyes still closed, I turned my head away from the opening and clicked a few times. Sonic waves showed the form of my tomb, up to a point. It ran deep before fading. To a dead end? Could be. But I doubted it, because now at rest, I could feel a hint of air flowing over my skin from that direction.

  Of course, this much air movement might come from a two-inch gap in the wall. That the air was flowing toward the horsemen meant they wouldn’t have any success smoking me out.

  Didn’t matter. I was still trapped.

  I grasped for ideas.

  Two options came to me: I could wait here, hoping they would tire of waiting for me to emerge, or I could venture deeper in to find that source of air, hoping it was large enough to crawl through.

  Neither felt very hopeful.

  But then a third course opened in my mind. They already knew I was here, right? Why not talk to them? The thought terrified me, but by talking to them, I might learn more of my predicament. If nothing else, why they were chasing me.

  A blazing torch filled the gap to my right. The warrior drew it back and forth, searching for me. I could see his eyes in the light, gray like his skin. In every other respect he looked like any other human.

  I was evidently too far in for him to see. He withdrew the torch and started to stand.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He bent down. Looked inside again. Then started to stand again.

  “Hey!”

  He jerked his head back down. “I can hear her!”

  “I need to talk to your leader,” I said, aware that my voice was shaking.

  “She’s talking to me!” the man said.

  “You can see her?”

  “No.” He lifted his head and twisted back. “But she says she wants to talk to Jacob.”

  “To me? She knows my name?”

  “No, she said leader.”

  “She wants to talk to the leader, then.”

  “Yes. That’s what she said.”
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br />   They went silent for a moment before the one I now knew to be Jacob spoke.

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she said she wanted to speak to the leader.”

  “Now you take orders from a runaway slave, Maco?”

  “She’s not a slave, sire. She’s one of Ba’al’s lab rats.”

  “That’s hardly the point. She’s an Albino. I, Jacob, son of Qurong, do not speak to Albinos. I will do my father’s bidding, return this piece of meat to its proper place, and get back to the arms of the women who wait for me.”

  Someone farther away chuckled. “And how many women would that be?”

  “More than you’ve had, Risin. Meaning at least one.”

  A soft chorus of laughter. They were clearly unconcerned about me escaping.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  That shut them up.

  “Jacob! Aren’t you man enough to speak to a woman? Or do Albinos frighten you?”

  A long pause.

  “Tell her of course not,” Jacob said.

  Maco bent down and spoke loudly into the crack. “He says of course not.”

  “I know what he said. I can hear him.”

  “She says she can hear you,” Maco told Jacob, turning back.

  “Ask him how I ended up in the desert,” I pressed. “Why I can’t remember.”

  “She says she doesn’t remember how she escaped.”

  “Of course she can’t remember. Ba’al has cleansed her mind with his poison. Tell her that if she would just come out, we could all get back to our lives.”

  “She can hear you, sire. I don’t think I need to—”

  “Just tell her!”

  So Maco did tell me. Some might think Jacob was dense, but I knew by his intonation that he was manipulating in his own way. His voice didn’t carry cruelty.

  “Remind Jacob that Ba’al will have his head on a platter if anything happens to me,” I said loudly so Jacob could hear. My claim was pure fabrication, but I had nothing to lose. “Remind him that I am the 49th! Tell him that.”

  Maco started to relay my words, but Jacob cut him off.

  “Ba’al said nothing of that.”

  “Perhaps Ba’al does not know.”

  “Perhaps she lies.”

  “I’m not lying!” I cried. “I am the 49th.”

  For a long moment, no one spoke. The 49th clearly meant something to them.

  “Does she think tales of prophecies will save her? Tell her—”

  “I’ll bring the lion to lie down with the lamb,” I said, remembering Justin’s words and desperate for some advantage. “If it wasn’t true, Justin wouldn’t have said so.”

  Another long pause.

  “Tell her that no harm will come to her if she comes out. She has my word. In either case, she’s trapped.”

  I had to buy myself some time, at least until nightfall. I could see in the dark; they could not.

  “Tell her!”

  Maco told me.

  “I may have run out of space,” I returned, “but I’m in too deep for you to smoke or dig out. Even if you did try to smoke me out, I might die from the smoke. So actually, I’m in charge of my surrender, not you. And I swear I’ll lie here and starve to death before I come out without certain assurances.”

  He considered this.

  “Ask her what assurances,” Jacob said.

  Maco waited for me to answer directly this time, clearly tired of Jacob’s games. But I didn’t answer, not right away, because the faint sound of hissing had diverted my attention. A snake . . . I despised snakes. But it wasn’t close.

  I turned my head back to the gap. “The first assurance is that I will ride with Jacob, on his horse.”

  Someone out there, several someones, thought that was funny. “At least she’s a woman.”

  “An Albino,” another said, then spat in disgust.

  “Please, Brack. Don’t tell me you’ve never—”

  “Silence!” Jacob snapped. To Maco: “Ask her what else.”

  “I want some water in here,” I answered without subjecting Maco to his absurd role.

  “Tell her she won’t need water in there because I’m going to grant her wish. She can come out now.”

  “Not now. I need to think about what other assurances I need. I need rest and water so I can clear my mind.”

  “Tell her no amount of thinking will help her. Her flight is over.”

  “It’s not negotiable. If you want to return me to Ba’al alive, these are my terms.”

  “Your terms are more time to think of other terms?” Jacob asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Fire!” a distant voice growled. “With arrows. Stick one in her leg, that will motivate her.”

  “Are you in command now, Risin?” Jacob said. “Tell me what happens if we wound her.”

  No response. Evidently I was to be returned unharmed. That gave me some hope.

  “How much time?” he finally asked, speaking directly to me for the first time.

  The more time the better. Darkness would be my only friend here.

  “Till morning.”

  “What? Absurd!”

  “No, that would be your high priest, for valuing me so highly. Otherwise you could just kill me and be done with it. After all, I’m just an Albino woman, right?”

  Silence.

  Except for that hiss again, now down past my feet. Suddenly I wasn’t so eager to lie there and think.

  “For the record,” Jacob said, speaking in a low but adamant tone. I twisted my head to see that he’d dismounted and was now speaking into the crevasse. “I’ve never killed a woman, Albino or otherwise, nor will I.”

  I could see his face, smoother than the others’ and covered with a gray powder or clay, which I thought might be the source of the flowery scent.

  “We planned on camping here tonight at any rate,” he said. “It’s a full day’s ride back.” He slung in a leather pouch of water and it landed halfway between us. “You have your night. But in the morning, we go. I swear none of my men will touch you. Say yes.”

  That hissing was growing louder and I began to panic. Because of my blindness, I’d never been claustrophobic, but snakes were the stuff of my nightmares.

  “Yes,” I said, mind racing. I had to move!

  And I did. I started to shift up and away from the sound. But with the first flinch of my foot, something hard and sharp struck my heel.

  Pain sliced up my calf, then my thigh. I have to get out now! I have to surrender to Jacob so he can save me. I’ve been bitten by a snake!

  I started to scoot toward the opening, but I had moved all of three feet when the snake’s venom reached my mind.

  The world faded and then went black.

  6

  I COULD hear my breathing in and out through my nose as I took quick, shallow draws of air. I was safe, I thought. The bite hadn’t killed me, just put me out for a little while.

  I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, expecting to see only the blackness of the cave. But it wasn’t black. It was white. White, marked by tiny holes. And two fluorescent lights.

  I sat halfway up and twisted my head. I was in the examination room! Alone, with a blanket pulled up to my chest.

  But of course I was. I had fallen asleep on the table and dreamed of another world. Earth, two thousand years in the future. I was . . .

  It struck me then, like a bowling ball to the chest.

  My eyes! I was seeing with my eyes! In Eden!

  There, on the wall, was a calendar with a brown dog catching a small blue ball in its mouth. I assumed it was a June calendar, but I couldn’t read—with my fingers, yes, but not with my eyes. The letters were clear enough, but they were completely foreign to me. Further proof that I could truly see. If my mind was making this up, it would probably ascribe some meaning to the words.

  There, on the counter, was a silver
tray with bandages and several drug vials. I picked up a large red syringe and recognized it by touch. Adrenaline—in the case of a sedative overdose, at my father’s insistence. I’d held them before. This was the first time I’d actually seen one.

  Stunned, I flung the blanket aside and slid off the table. Pain ripped up my arm and I saw I’d pulled an IV needle from my hand, leaving a small, bloody tear.

  At the same time, pain flashed up my leg from my heel. The snakebite . . .

  It seemed inconsequential to me now. I stood there beside the bed, staring around the room, overwhelmed with the sights, the colors, the shapes, the clarity of all that I saw.

  I blinked. What if this was a dream?

  The details of my experience spun through my mind, fixing me there on the floor for a few seconds. The white bats insisted I was only dreaming of Eden. Then Justin gave his charge to me: find the Five Seals of Truth.

  Then the Horde and the cave and Jacob.

  A dream.

  But how, if Justin had given me sight in that dream? Maybe my mind had finally surrendered to all of my father’s you create your own reality talk. Epigenetics in the now.

  “Dad?”

  My voice sounded hollow in the empty room. I hurried to the door, eager to show him. All the surfaces and objects that I’d known as dark shapes now lay before me in brilliant dimension and color, far more beautiful than I could have expected. The round silver doorknob, the smooth gray cabinets, the glass door . . . Just like in my dreams, only here and now.

  I pulled up in front of that glass door and stared at my reflection. Blue jeans, black T-shirt, long black hair . . . So this is what a sixteen-year-old girl looked like. How I looked.

  I turned to my right and saw a mirror on the wall above the sink, almost magically framing my image. I stepped up to it, amazed. Bright blue eyes above a small nose. Smooth, fair skin.

  I was here and I could see. My father had to know!

  The hall was empty when I stepped into it. I headed to the reception area, gazing at the dark green wallpaper and polished floor tiles, everything so amazing and clean.