The 49th Mystic

by Ted Dekker

  What begins as White that man has made Black?

  I knew, didn’t I? It was plain to me. God. White wasn’t a color, but the light! Black wasn’t a color, but darkness. The answer to the riddle was God. We had made God—the Creator, our Origin—like us, subject to the knowledge of good and evil. Peace and disruption. Love and hate. Mercy and revenge.

  But that wasn’t who he was. God wasn’t white or black. He was infinite.

  Look to the light. Don’t be afraid of the shadow it creates. Vlad, the shadow, had unwittingly played a role in leading me to the light.

  Return to the truth of your origin.

  Vlad’s hot breath was in my ear, smelling of dirty socks. “One way or the other, you will write me into your dreams so I can finish what I was made to do, you sick little puke. The only question is how many bodies I’m going to have to step over.”

  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Vlad was that shadow, only a shadow. But suddenly I was afraid. What if I was wrong?

  Trembling, I reached for the pen with my left hand. But at the same time, I moved my right hand over the emblem. Then slowly lowered my palm to the circle.

  “Origin,” I breathed. “Origin is Infinite.”

  At first nothing happened, and I thought I’d been wrong. But I knew, deeper than my bones, that even if I had the words wrong, I was right.

  The white circle under my hand began to glow. Bright, like the sun. I could see it between my spread fingers!

  The glowing circle winked out, and a rush of power surged up my arm, then into my mind, where it exploded like a star.

  I gasped. My whole body shook, too frail to contain the staggering power flowing through me, even though that power was only a thimbleful in an endless ocean made of light.

  I knew that like I knew my Source, my God, my Father, my Origin, was infinite—uncompromised, unthreatened by anything ever.

  This was my Father. I had never upset him.

  My knowing of him in that way flooded me with a raw love for him that erupted from every cell in my body, defying all I had known of him up until that point. I could not breathe.

  The book was pulled out from under my hand and the light vanished, leaving me standing with my back to the audience and Vlad towering over me. The residents of Eden couldn’t possibly know what had just happened, or if anything had happened.

  But I was swimming in an infinite ocean of light, aware of my origin for the first time in my life. To me, everything had just happened.

  “So, then,” Vlad was saying, gently closing the book. “The battle begins.”

  I looked up and met his eyes. They weren’t filled with anger or bitterness. They were completely expressionless, like a dead man’s eyes, which was worse. I knew he hadn’t seen the glowing circle, but they’d all heard my gasp and seen me shake as the power rushed through me.

  Vlad faced his confused audience.

  “What sight I gave to her, I now take from you,” he said. “Your fate is now entirely in Rachelle’s hands.”

  The lights went out on cue. Cries of alarm filled the room. Shadow Man was casting his darkness over Eden, and that shadow was pitch-black.

  I moved then, spinning and clicking to find my way. People were shouting in the darkness, groping along the pews. I had to reach my father before they blocked the aisles and I lost sight of his form.

  “Rachelle?” It was him, calling in a panic.

  I sprinted down the center aisle, dodging three people, and got to my father just as he was stepping into the aisle, pulling Miranda with him.

  “Hurry!” I cried, grabbing his hand. “We have to get out.”

  I led him out the back, easily navigating my way through the door, across the foyer, and out into the moonless night. We hesitated at the top steps.

  Eden was dark. Not a light could be seen. Heavy clouds covered most of the sky, leaving only a few pinprick stars to the east.

  “We have to get you to safety,” my father said. “I don’t know exactly what happened in there, but I don’t think you won any friends.”

  I looked to my right and could just see the images of my father and Miranda beside me. It wasn’t the starlight that gave me that sight, or any clicking.

  It was the slight glow from my arm.

  I reached across with my left hand and pulled up my sleeve. A wide white ring had appeared on my right shoulder, just inside the black circle. Not a flat white ring on my skin, but one that had depth, set deep into my flesh, more like a brand than a tattoo.

  My heart was slamming against my rib cage. I touched the ring. Perfectly smooth. Other Earth was real. All of it. I had to sleep so that I could dream! Talya would know what I should do now. I had to show Talya!

  “What in the world is that?” Miranda asked.

  I quickly lowered my sleeve.

  “The First Seal,” I breathed, then hurried down the stairs, clicking for good measure.

  “Slow down,” my father said. But of course, they could hardly see. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” I said. “I have to dream.”

  14

  THE FIRST SEAL was on my arm and Vlad Smith had just made me enemy number one. Until I wrote him into the Book of History, Eden would be without the electrical power they treasured.

  By not writing in the book, I was causing a crisis, just as Justin had said. But he’d said it as if that crisis would extend far beyond Eden. I had to find out what to do. From Talya. Which meant I had to dream.

  Even with the seal on my arm, it had taken me an hour to convince my father and Miranda to give me a mild sedative so I could sleep and return to those dreams. And then another hour, lying on my bed in the darkness while listening to their quiet, urgent voices in the living room, waiting for the sedative to calm me.

  The last time I knew, it was just after nine thirty p.m. in Eden.

  And then I was waking on horseback, slumped over, staring at the sand. The horse had come to a stop. Birds chirped above me. My cheek rested on the mare’s mane.

  I jerked up, but leather tethers tied to my wrists prevented me from sitting straight.

  “Easy now.” The distinctive low rumble behind me was Talya. “You’ll forgive me for securing you so you wouldn’t fall off and crack your skull open on a rock. Just slip your wrists out.”

  I did so and looked around. We were at the edge of a small, clear lake with a forest to our rear, the first I’d seen since waking in the desert two days earlier. Mountains rose beyond the lake. Shafts of sunlight glanced off the mirrored surface. I had been sleeping all night and half the day?

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Time?” Talya slipped from his saddle and rubbed his stallion’s neck. “It is time to begin your training, I would say.” He looked up at me, eyes glinting with a mischievous light. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Had he slept? I couldn’t see how. He looked exactly as I’d last seen him, long white hair held off his face with two braids tied at the back. Bushy eyebrows and smooth skin—no sign of fatigue. And no sign of his lion, Judah.

  He winked at me. “Suffice it to say that I require less sleep than you. But yes . . .” He smoothed his beard. “I do sleep and I do eat, and right now I could use a good bath, but that will have to wait.”

  His comment made me think of where I was from, not only here in this world, but in my dreams.

  “I’m dreaming each night that I live in a place called Eden,” I said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  My pulse surged. He knew! A dozen questions bombarded me, but he spoke before I could form the first.

  “You’ve entered a gateway that bridges two worlds through the Books of History, which have been activated by your blood. Whatever you willingly write in it now will manifest.”

  “Vlad’s book.”

  His brow arched. “He calls himself Vlad there?”

  “Vlad Smith. Who is he?”

  “He’s from this world, sent to the
other to wait for you, the 49th Mystic. The gateway in the Books of History was closed and can only be opened by the blood of the 49th. He expects you to make a way.”

  “So I shouldn’t write him in.”

  “Inadvisable.”

  “Why didn’t he show himself sooner? He’s been stalking my dreams for a long time.”

  “Because you only became the 49th when you turned twenty-one, just three days ago.”

  “I’m only sixteen in my dreams.”

  “Regardless, twenty-one here. Three sevens. His efforts begin now.”

  “What efforts?”

  “As the 49th in fullness, now twenty-one years of age, you are chosen to represent all humanity in fullness. As such, you will once more bring the sword that divides fear from love in every human heart. If you succeed in awakening to love by finding the Five Seals of Truth, the lion will lie down with the lamb in a return to innocence.”

  He grinned and grunted softly.

  “Ironically, the Horde believes that if the lion lies down with the lamb, they will be forced to become Albino. Most Albinos believe it means they’ll be enslaved by the Horde. Thus, you are enemy to both. Please, step down, it’s time to begin.”

  “What about Vlad?”

  “If the shadow of death can thwart you in either reality, you will fail in both realities. What happens to you in one reality—death, say—also happens in the other. Vlad is the one sent by Teeleh to foil you in the other reality, thus vastly improving his chances of stopping you here. But he isn’t permitted to kill you by his own hand. His goal is to keep you from finding all five seals before the appointed time.”

  “What appointed time? When?”

  “Soon. Very soon. You will see.”

  He paused as my head spun.

  “You must understand, dear daughter: the seals are truth in both worlds. If you fail to find all five before that time, the prophecy of the 49th is vacated, and this world will be forever locked in blindness. Vlad will stop at nothing to keep you from finding all five seals. But your greatest antagonist is your own mind. My role is to help you. Only when you know all five seals can you possibly prevail in your mission to lead all from fear. Then and only then will the lion lie down with the lamb.”

  A beat.

  “Please, step down from your horse.”

  Hearing my mission so clearly laid out once again, I felt completely overwhelmed. I dismounted, muscles stiff, heart in my throat.

  “So the fate of all depends on me?”

  “You represent every human bound in polarity. We are one, symbolized by you, the 49th. The journey you take now will be the journey of all, sooner or later.”

  Polarity. Vlad had used the same term.

  “Yes, polarity,” Talya said, as if hearing my thoughts. “Like the poles, north and south. Opposites.” He picked up a pebble, walked to the edge of the lake, and casually flicked the stone with his thumb. It plopped into the water and vanished beneath the surface. “The world of plus and minus, up and down, good and evil, love and fear. The laws that govern all you think you know. If you toss a stone in the water, it will sink. Gravity and such. Yes?”

  I stood beside my horse watching him, ten paces away. “Yes.”

  “The dimension of polarity.” He clasped his hands behind his back and faced me. “And it is in this dimension that you journey to re-cognize yourself beyond all those laws once more. Re, meaning ‘once again,’ and cognize, meaning ‘to know.’ To know once more. To align or to awaken. This is the summary of the Five Seals of Truth. Believe me, awakening is an experience far too wondrous for the human mind to comprehend. It’s the journey of all. You will lead them.”

  My head swam with his words. They seemed to carry a power beyond their form.

  His eyes were on my shoulder. “I see that you have encountered the First Seal,” he said softly. “The light.”

  I glanced at my right arm. The bright white ring had joined the tattoo in this reality as well as in Eden. Wonder flooded me. The First Seal was now a part of me.

  “The light,” I heard myself say. “We think there is some darkness in the light, but we’re wrong. Origin is Infinite.”

  With my uttering of those words, a great peace settled over me. The birds were still chirping above me, but as if in another dimension. A perfect stillness alive with its own energy shut down all of my senses for a few seconds.

  Then I blinked and the world around me came back into its familiar form. But even then, the air seemed to have changed.

  I slowly faced Talya, who was staring directly at me. A tear slipped down his cheek.

  “You see how powerful the truth is, daughter of Elyon?” he said. “All fear is rooted in a failure to know Elyon as infinitely complete, experiencing no fear, only love, because there is no fear in love.”1

  “Beyond polarity,” I said.

  “In it, but not of it.” He dipped his head. “Well done. You will need the first three seals to save Eden. The fourth and fifth lead all beyond polarity. Against the Fifth Seal there is no defense. Until you have all five, you are vulnerable to being blinded once more.”

  His mention of blindness might have unnerved me, but I had the white seal on my arm and felt no fear in that moment.

  Talya stooped, plucked up another pebble, and tossed it into the lake.

  “I still remember the day long ago when you drowned and emerged, healed of the scabbing disease. A red pool, much smaller than this lake. Justin’s red waters saved you in the same way they save all who drown. Thus you were Albino, like all Albinos in the order of Justin.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “But Albinos, unlike Justin, still have a problem. And so we come to the crux of the matter, dear 49th. Our problems here in polarity.”

  I walked down the narrow shore and stared out at the water beside him, trying to remember my drowning.

  “Do you know what a water walker is?” he asked.

  “Should I?”

  “In Mystic-speak, a water walker is one who can overcome the laws that bind us to the world of polarity, both metaphorically—as in stepping beyond fear and walking on the troubled seas of this life—and at a higher level, materially. Overcoming the physical laws of polarity.” He wagged his chin at the lake. “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “Stepping beyond fear or actually walking on water?” I stared at the lake’s surface, perfectly calm.

  “In the end they are the same. Is it possible?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “The idea that you can’t is only a story you’ve been led to believe, no more real than any other tall tale you’ve bound yourself to, thus making it so in your experience. Try it.”

  “Walk on the water? It’s water.”

  “And so you are mastered by this story you believe about yourself—that you will be a victim of the water. All live in one story or another, a victim of this or that.” He looked down at me. “We can also change our story. Try it.”

  “But I . . .”

  Talya stepped off the shore and walked into the lake. But then I saw that his feet weren’t in the water. They were on it, as if the surface was made of soft glass. I blinked and looked closer, stunned by the slight bending of the water under his sandals.

  He turned, faced me with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and spread his arms. “This . . . is the story I believe.”

  I gawked at him. “How?”

  “Through a shift in perception, our entire lives change. It’s the basis for all that is miraculous—the shifting of our perception of the material world beyond time and space. When you look at what’s beneath me, what do you see?”

  “Water,” I said.

  “And can you walk on it?”

  I looked at the shimmering water under his feet. “No.”

  “And so you are bound by that belief. Instead, look with new eyes. Change your cognitive perception, your thinking. Yeshua called this practice metanoia as written in ancient Greek. Meta
, which means ‘change’ or ‘beyond,’ and noia, meaning ‘thinking’ or ‘knowing.’ Metanoia.”2

  He made it sound so simple, but nothing about him standing there in that impossible place seemed simple to me. “Just rewire my mind?”

  “Don’t conform to the patterns of the world you see. Step off the shore of your old mind and into a new mind. Walk on water.”

  “I don’t see how I can do that.”

  “Try it and you will see how.”

  I stared at the water, feeling silly and way out of my depth. But he said walk.

  Heart hammering, I gingerly stepped forward. Cool water swallowed my feet and ankles. Then, with another step, my calves. But of course. I already knew I couldn’t walk on water.

  “Or not,” Talya said, right brow arched over a slight grin. “Have no fear, we only just begin.”

  He walked past me, stepped onto the shore, and strode toward his horse. “You see, 49th? It’s as difficult for Albinos to overcome the polarity of love and fear as it is for them to escape the polarity of gravity. They’re still stuck in an old story about who they are and what the world is and so remain victims of that story.” He grabbed his reins and swung into his saddle, eyes on me. “But one day, if you pay attention, you might believe a new story and walk on the troubled seas of this life.” He paused. “We ride.”

  I sloshed out of the lake and hurried for my mount, mind buzzing. He was comparing overcoming fear with overcoming gravity, which I got. But how he could actually do it was beyond me.

  I mounted and drew my horse next to his as he took us into the trees. Still no sign of his lion, Judah.

  “The problem of polarity,” he boomed, spreading both arms wide to the world around us. “This . . . is the crux of the matter. Yes, 49th?”

  My mind was churning through wild possibilities.

  “Light and darkness, up and down, love and fear. And the greatest miracle is rising above the seas of fear rather than being pulled into them. This is the true power of a water walker. Yes?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, caught up in his passion.

  He lifted a finger. “All fear springs from an aversion to being threatened or wronged on some level. And yet it is written that true love holds no record of wrong.3 Love does not take wrong into account. There is no fear in love. No polarity. This is Elyon’s love, which sees no threat against itself because it is whole and cannot be disturbed or upset by any finite threat.”