The 49th Mystic

by Ted Dekker

  His ignoring me only sent more blood up my neck.

  “It’s been six days and I’m not seeing anything.”

  He continued on as if I hadn’t spoken, much less snapped at him.

  My mare ambled forward, following his. “Have you ever stopped to consider my predicament for a second? Let me see if I have this right. My parents were killed when I was three years old and I was raised by heretics, none of whom I know, who live in the high desert somewhere.”

  With every word, the injustice of my predicament deepened.

  “I don’t even know who I am, because I was kidnapped and poisoned by the Horde. I’m totally lost here and you just want me to see what can’t be seen? How?”

  “Inchristi is all; Inchristi is in all.”

  “Inchristi is all? You might as well say the moon is the sun. It sounds like some New Age nonsense Simon warned us about.”

  “That ancient philosophy you call New Age was just another label, and it, like all religion, was mostly bound in attachment to earthen vessels. Heavens no. We don’t deal in magic but fix our eyes on the unseen, beyond labels and the judgments of earthen vessels.”

  I let the rush of emotion take me away. “Have you stopped to listen to yourself? How can you fix your eyes on anything that by definition can’t be seen?”

  “It is the only way to know truth, blind one.”

  “Do you know what I do know to be true? At this very moment I’m asleep in a bed in Eden, Utah. The world’s falling apart around me there. Vlad Smith wants to kill me!”

  “No, he wants to bind this world to lasting darkness by getting you to betray who you really are,” he corrected. He was goading me, I knew that, but I was so fixated on presenting evidence for the injustices in my life that I plowed forward.

  “Did I ask for any of this? Did I ask to be born blind? Did I ask for my mother to die during childbirth? Did I ask to be a Mystic? Did I ask to be chosen?”

  “Feeling a little lost, are we?” he asked, totally unconcerned.

  “Stop it!” I pulled my mount to a halt. “Just stop all of this!”

  “If we stop now, we only give Jacob an advantage. You have a mission. For that mission you will need to find all five seals before the appointed time, the most important being the fifth.” He continued up the path, slouched in his saddle as if on a lazy Sunday afternoon ride through the woods. “Your mission is far too critical.”

  He said more, but I lost his words to my thoughts. I felt like I was in a nightmare again. He still hadn’t told me when the appointed time was. In the darkness that swallowed me, I was only the young blind girl being crushed by Shadow Man’s threats. And now Talya would be leaving me?

  “Please . . .” My anger fell away, replaced by desperation. Tears blurred my vision. “Talya, please . . .”

  He stopped his mount, then slowly turned his horse back and studied me. “Now you’re getting somewhere,” he said.

  I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but a boulder was lodged in my throat.

  “Getting lost is part of the journey. When you have lost something, such as your identity, it is still yours, only misplaced and forgotten. Such is the state of all. The question now is, how long do you want to stay lost, my dear little prodigal?”

  Getting lost is part of the journey. Justin had said that my life of pervasive fear was part of my journey.

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t want to be lost.”

  “What would you give to find the forgotten way?”

  “Everything.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Talya dipped his head. Then scanned the forest around us. “Tell me what you see here.”

  I looked around, hoping to see more than trees, but I was blind to all but the darkening of the sky, now billowing with ominous clouds.

  “Do you see the valley to our right?” he asked.

  A snicker sounded from the trees there and I twisted in my saddle. I could hardly mistake the sound of Shataiki.

  “No. Did you hear that?”

  “Do you see the cliff directly ahead of us?” he asked.

  We were headed for a cliff? “No.” The sky above the canopy flashed with light.

  “Remember this: in every moment, you manifest what you believe. You place your faith in one system or the other, not both. Will you be blind and see darkness, or will you see and know light?”

  “Blind?” Fear gripped me. “Why do you say that? Of course I don’t want to be blind.”

  Talya turned his mount away from me. “We shall see.” He clicked and the stallion took off in a fast trot, then a gallop, weaving between trees as Talya’s cloak flowed behind. “Hurry, daughter. Ignore them! The time is closing in. Follow me!”

  The air filled with the clicking and hissing of a dozen Shataiki. Red eyes blinked to life in the treetops on either side. Wind gusted through the canopy.

  “Talya!”

  “Ride! Ride like you’ve never ridden before. Straight ahead! Whatever you do, don’t stop when you see the cliff. Over it, daughter. Over it!”

  He was pulling away from me, hard on the heels of Judah. Then they vanished into the trees, out of sight.

  All I could see were Shataiki, hundreds now, streaking for me with claws extended and fangs gaping, and I was sure they were coming for my eyes.

  I dug my heels into my mare’s flank and took off, straight ahead. “Talya!” Gale-force winds roared. No rain.

  The first Shataiki to reach me nipped my head and I screamed, desperate to keep them from my eyes, swatting wildly as my horse tore through the trees. But then they were on me like a swarm of flies.

  “Talya!”

  I could just hear the cry of his voice far ahead, but I couldn’t make out his words above the winds.

  I rode faster, head down. Then faster, slapping the mare’s rump as she dodged trees at breakneck speed. Another Shataiki made contact with me, this one with its wing, nearly knocking me from my mount. I hugged her neck and held on.

  A break in the trees revealed a long valley to my right. Dark clouds boiled overhead, but it was the movement below that shut down my breathing. The trees were moving with thousands of the black beasts, surging to join those now diving at me.

  A talon grazed my cheek, and I screamed again. I was a girl accustomed to nightmares, but the thought of losing the sight I had just gained filled me with fresh terror. I threw my left arm over my eyes.

  Still the Shataiki screeched, deafening me to all but those cries cutting deeply into my nerves.

  Still the storm roared about me, winds and black sky without rain.

  Still I raced on, screaming with them, wildly swinging one arm as I clung to the mare’s neck with the other.

  The large black bats nipped at me, pulled at my tunic, smacked into my arm, threatened to gouge out my eyes.

  I suddenly broke from the trees and saw past my arm. I could see the mountain peak in the distance, a few hours’ ride. The Great Divide. I lowered my gaze. Talya had pulled up on a flat outcropping a hundred yards ahead, hair and robe streaming in the wind. Relief flooded me.

  Then I saw the wide gap between us, fifty paces ahead. The cliff!

  Panic abruptly dismissed my relief. I had two choices. The first and only reasonable course was to pull up while I still had time and take my chances with the Shataiki. The second was to do as Talya had said. But I didn’t see how my horse could cross such a wide gap!

  I went anyway, beyond reason now, desperate to be free from the threat of blindness.

  My fear fell from me like shattered shackles ten paces from the cliff, at the point of no return when I accepted certain death. I simply closed my eyes and let my mount leap. Then soar. Twenty feet, five seconds, but to me it felt like an eternity. And in that eternity, I was a bird who had no fear of falling to the ground.

  The mare landed on the far side, clambered up the incline, and came to a jarring halt on the ledge next to Talya’s stallion. I could hear the hissing and clicking of
the Shataiki above the wind and rain. They’d stayed in the trees.

  Talya was already on the ground, snatching his bundle of books from the saddlebag.

  “Hurry!” he urged, striding toward the ledge that overlooked the valley.

  Buzzing with exhilaration, I dropped to the ground and ran after him. In that moment, I felt that if I jumped off the ledge on which he stood, I would discover I had wings and could fly.

  Breathing hard, I gazed over the vista of rolling wooded lands that gave way to desert. Beyond the desert I could see the lower mountain range we had crossed two days earlier—all of it capped by a black lid of a sky. Millions of Shataiki teemed over the canopy—a living carpet of death. I stared, dumbfounded.

  The shadow of death.

  Talya faced me, wind tugging at his flapping robe. “Are you ready?”

  “For what?”

  “To understand why, though Albino, you are powerless in this life like so many. Why seeing, they do not see, as Justin said.”

  I stared, wide-eyed. “Yes.”

  “Blind, you see in fear, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But as you rise up the mountain, your view of all that is below can change. So it is with the world of the spirit. At the lower consciousness of polarity, you feel fear. But at the higher consciousness of love, what once caused you fear falls away. There is no fear in love. Only as you experience that love can you know it rather than know about it. Do you see it?”

  I stared at the valley. “I see them . . . the darkness.”

  “And it masters you! There are two systems at work in this plane of existence: the system of fear and control, and the system of love and freedom. These two realities cohabitate at all times, though most experience only one. There is the realm of polarity—the law—in which all living things must forcefully protect against what they fear, trading and fighting, back and forth, up and down, winning and losing. And the realm of love. A grace that is beyond polarity, in which there is no battle, no fear, only love. No darkness, only light—because it is finished! The lamb has overcome.”4

  He looked out over the vista.

  “Can you see the light?”

  Did I? I almost thought I could. I certainly understood the teaching.

  “Two systems,” he rushed on, lifting his fingers to the air. “As it is written. One kingdom is a dimension seen with earthly eyes, the other realm is unseen by earthly eyes. In the first you struggle with fear. In the other you’re already complete, risen Inchristi and beyond harm. In the first you live in a temporary earthen vessel, desperate to avoid the shadow of death. In the other you are an eternal being, beyond death. You can align yourself with only one of these masters in any given moment.”5

  “Earthen vessel,” I breathed.

  He gestured to my body. “Earthen vessel. Jar of clay. Costume. The mask you believe yourself to be. Show me your hand.”

  I held it out.

  “Is this beautiful flesh you? Are you these fingernails so that when you cut them you fall to the ground? Are you your hair, your cells, dying by the millions every moment? Are you your clothes, your sweat, your fingers?”

  “No.”

  “Are you your memories, snatched from you so easily by poison or a blow to the head? Never! Are you your emotions and thoughts? Never. These are all part of your earthen vessel, a beautiful gift that is here today and gone tomorrow. Protecting yourself from death is only a temporary and utterly futile war you wage in polarity until your earthen vessel finally dies and you discover death always was only a shadow. There is no death. There is no darkness in light. It is finished. Inchristi is all; Inchristi is in all!”6

  I didn’t really understand it all, but my heart and mind soared with his words.

  “And the Roush?” I asked, mesmerized.

  “The Roush and the Shataiki are all a part of polarity, bound in the knowledge of good and evil, like all Albino, all Horde, all humans, all the world bound by time and space.”

  Talya clapped his hands and snatched his fingers into two fists held out before him.

  “Two systems. Two selves, one that is temporal and bound in polarity, and one that is eternal and Inchristi, only temporarily experiencing life in this earthen vessel, a blink in the scope of eternity. One in blood, one in light, just as Justin showed you when he gave you the stone. Do you understand?”

  My breathing was thick. I felt like I was leaping into a whole new world, yet unseen by me.

  “I think so.”

  “Do you, with Yeshua, want to sleep in peace as the troubles rise like a storm to crush you? Do you want to see beyond this storm that causes fear? Really see?”7

  “Yes.” My voice was unsteady.

  “Will you see what is unseen, daughter? Past the illusion of fear. Will you fix your attention on what is unseen, not on what is seen by the eyes in your head?”

  He sank to one knee and withdrew one of the books from his bundle. I knelt beside him and stared at it for the first time. On its ancient leather cover were etched these words:

  The Writings of Johnin and Paulus

  A Book of History

  “Put your hand on the cover,” he whispered. “Let the scales fall from your eyes.”

  A hot breeze swept in from the distant desert and blew my hair off my shoulders. I lowered my hand and gently placed it on the cover.

  The moment my fingers made contact with the leather, my mind was blown open and I saw. I saw because I was suddenly above my body, staring down at myself kneeling there on the outcropping next to Talya.

  I was staring at me. I was the “I” who was staring down at “me,” which was just my temporary earthen vessel. Like a costume I lived in for a short time.

  The atoms and cells that made up the bodies below me were held in place by swirling energies, like clay or dust gathered by a force field.

  A hot wind hit me full in the face, carrying on it the distant sound of children giggling. Other sounds filled my ears. Birdsong, and falling water, like a distant downpour. Faint music. High-pitched strings.

  The tones grew, as if angels were singing in long unbroken notes that vibrated through my body. My bones resonated in perfect alignment, like a tuning fork that vibrated in perfect pitch.

  A nearly irresistible urge to join in that song pulled at me like an ancient memory.

  I lifted my eyes and saw the valley below us. A moment ago it had been filled with terrible winds and darkness and Shataiki.

  Now it brimmed with forests and green meadows sprinkled with brilliant patches of red and yellow and blue flowers. A village lay nestled in a shallow valley at the center, maybe thirty homes in all. A tall Thrall hugged the far side of the village.

  All of this I saw in a single glance. But it was the color of the houses and the trees that held my focus. They were colored—many brown trunks, yes, but also blue and red and gold. It was a colored forest, enchanted with wonder and beauty the likes of which I had never seen. At least not that I could remember.

  My eyes were drawn to a large waterfall on a far cliff, cascading down the sheer rock face like oil that shone in colored hues as the light reflected off its surface. At the bottom of that waterfall was a lake with a sandy white shore. This was the world Samuel had told me about, the one before evil had come.

  And then I knew—I had been in those waters. I had come from this valley. This was my home!

  “The scales fall from your eyes and now you see,” I heard Talya cry out.8 “The valley of the shadow of death and the valley of Justin’s kingdom are both here, thus the same valley. Within. Your perception is the lamp that reveals to you one or the other. In any given moment, you will see love and innocence, or you will see fear and grievance, not both. There is no fear in love; there is no darkness in light.”

  I was seeing. And in that seeing, the power of love flooded my body, a love in which there was no fear or darkness. From Elyon’s perspective, there was no problem. There never had been one. Origin is Infinite. Problems were exp
erienced only in polarity, where the me below was making them. Identifying with them. Clinging to them. Empowering them through my faith in them. I had made them my god.

  Hello, dear daughter.

  The voice spoke tenderly to the Rachelle on the ground, and I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, only that it filled Rachelle with wonder and deep longing. What if it was my mother?

  Do you want to know who you are? The voice washed through Rachelle, and I saw that she was sobbing.

  “Yes,” the me who still had her hand on the book said.

  It spoke again, and Rachelle trembled with each word. I will show you that I am in you, and you are in me. Joined as one, dear one.

  Inchristi is all; Inchristi is in all. Joined as one in spirit, not in flesh.9

  But I already knew this, I realized. I, meaning the me who was looking down at Rachelle. Only Rachelle didn’t know. She’d been born blind to that realization.

  The voice was tender like a mother’s, comforting Rachelle so that she could know her unseen self. The unseen me who was joined with her Creator.

  I looked to my right, half expecting to see my mother looking down at Rachelle, but I only saw the shimmering air. And I doubted the voice actually belonged to a mother.

  What is known that cannot be named?

  I blinked. It came again, fading.

  What is known that cannot be named, daughter?

  The world I saw vanished and I gasped. I was back in my body, kneeling over the Book of History. Talya had pulled my hand free.

  I frantically looked around, searching for any sign of the dimension I’d just glimpsed. The valley I saw instead was once more dark, dim, a shadow of its true state. The storm was gone, as were the Shataiki.

  “You saw,” Talya said.

  I lifted my hand and stared at it. Five fingers. But this wasn’t really me, was it? This was my temporal earthen vessel. A jar of clay. I nodded slowly, wondering why I could no longer see it as plainly as I had only a moment ago.

  Now we see through a glass dimly. Polarity did that.