AS ONE they turned. As one they fell silent.
The 49th Mystic was back from the dead.
But neither the Horde nor the Albinos yet knew that there was no death. Or that my drowning in the lake was the final surrender that led to the Fifth Seal—not even I knew until that moment, there by the pool with my feet planted in warm, white sand, staring at Ba’al and the armies and the ring of frozen Shataiki that rimmed the Realm of Mystics.
Talya had always known. All of the Mystics had known. Even I had once known. The 49th Mystic would know the Fifth Seal called love when the world drowned her in the Realm of Mystics. Then the lion would lie down with the lamb.
I could hear the boy’s song hanging in the air, a faint and beautiful refrain spun from the purest source. It had always been present to hear, but now I had the ears to hear it.
Something was about to change—I could feel the air itself charged with a desperate need for the sons and daughters of Elyon to be revealed. My skin prickled in anticipation of it.
Not a soul moved. Not a single Shataiki drew even a single breath. They now knew their own folly in thinking they could crush the light. They knew and they were trembling in that knowing, because their time had come to an end.
All of this was plain to me as I stood beside Jacob on the sand, eyes locked with Ba’al, who stared in stunned disbelief. I felt no disdain or the slightest ill will toward him, because I was seeing him in the light of love. He, like the rest, was only blinded by judgment because his earthen vessel was bound in judgment. And he, like all, had suffered deeply in that blindness.
But now he would see. All would see. Every knee would bow, every tongue sing the glory of the one who reigned supreme.
Still no one moved. No one dared.
I heard the pounding of hooves behind me first, and I turned. Looked up at the cliffs where the waterfall had flowed from the upper lake only an hour earlier. Teeleh’s large, mangy body clung to the dried cliffs, frozen in place, staring at me with unblinking red eyes.
Then I saw it. Saw the white horse leap over Teeleh’s head, ridden by a man in a robe dipped in blood, blazing sword of light held high in his right hand.
I stood in astonishment, watching as Justin’s stallion bounded over the edge of the cliff, sailing high, and as soon as he’d crossed that threshold, the lake erupted with a brilliant green light, blasting up the cliff’s face, vaporizing the little bat called Teeleh before it reached him.
But the lake’s light didn’t just flow to the top of the cliff. It shot to the sky, shattering the silence with an ear-splitting roar. Behind that roar, I could hear the distinct sound of the same pure note that had become so familiar to me in the lake.
The sound of a love that knew no opposite.
I jerked my head to see the light spreading east and west along the cliffs, from the ground up into the sky, so that the whole Realm was surrounded by cliffs made of the lake’s green light, streaming from the earth to the sky. It was as if the lake had been underneath the whole of the Realm and was only now breaking free.
In one fell swoop, the Shataiki were no more. They didn’t flee; they were ended. The knowledge of good and evil was no more. The shadow had been vanquished.
With the crashing of hooves, Justin’s stallion landed on the shore to my left, and I spun to see him hurl his blade even as he thundered on, straight toward Ba’al.
And I thought, I come to bring a sword that divides truth from untruth.
His sword spun through the air, end over end, and impaled the ground fifty paces from me. A great thunder cracked high above. White light seared my mind, blinding me for a single moment. I gasped.
And then I could see again.
Light from Justin’s sword spread out in all directions, like fast-moving ripples in a pond. Only these ripples were made of the lake’s green light, flooding the charred wasteland of that sinkhole that had been the Realm of Mystics.
At the same time, the blue sky high above shimmered and began to peel back in all directions, as if the sky itself was falling. What had once blinded the world was now being pulled away to offer new sight. And in that new sight, the sky flowed with bright colors—gold, red, purple, green—like the sky I’d seen over the sea after the storm had cleared.
I knew then what I was watching. The green light was true perception before the knowledge of good and evil had distorted it. The light was the healing balm that made blind eyes see what was in truth.
The Realm of Mystics wasn’t a place hidden here in this sinkhole. It was everywhere and always had been, to be seen with new perception by those who had eyes to see.
I was witnessing the teaching of Yeshua right here in three dimensions! And I thought, The Spirit is on me to proclaim good news and sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free and proclaim the favor of Elyon. It had always been Justin’s mission. Now the fullness of that mission was at hand.
The world suddenly stalled. Justin raced, but I saw it in slow motion. He was bent over his stallion, robe flapping behind him like a banner, chasing the cleansing green light.
The light reached Ba’al and Aaron and Qurong, slamming into them and then rushing past them, flowing with gaining speed as it flooded the Realm and joined the wall of light flowing up the cliffs.
It shot to the tops of the cliffs, where it bent at a right angle and flowed over the land above and beyond the Realm with breathtaking speed.
The green light now covered every square inch of the Realm, but my eyes were back on Justin. His stallion raced even faster now, past the commanders and their armies, through the Realm, and then leaping high for the tops of the far cliffs and disappearing from sight.
Everything was happening at once, too much to take in.
White lions bounded from the trees behind me, sweeping by me in Justin’s wake. Above, a thousand white Roush, flying west. And other magnificent creatures as well. Large dragonfly-like birds, wings glinting in dancing colors. Golden elk and deer, flocks of red and yellow parrots. I was sure I saw Judah among the lions.
In the power of the light, the grayed and charred landscape came back to life. Where the Shataiki and the armies had darkened the land, the trees budded and flowered and began to fill with leaves before my eyes. Green grass sprouted and covered the meadows; the wooden structures in the village shed their charred skin and glowed in bright yellows and blues and greens again.
I stood in stunned fascination, breathing steadily beside Jacob.
“Look!” His eyes were on the Horde. On Ba’al and his father.
They were no longer Horde! Their flesh was cleansed of the scabbing disease.
But even more, their skin wasn’t Albino. Nor was the Elyonites’ flesh Albino. It was flesh, yes, and flesh-colored, but it shone with a golden hue. Like a glorified body.
I snatched up my arm and saw that my skin had shifted as well, no longer the pale white I’d known myself to be. No, my skin hadn’t changed, I realized. I was just able to see more than skin. I was seeing beyond the skin of this world. Where once I had seen through a glass dimly, I was now seeing clearly.
I looked back up. It was as if they had all drowned in the lake in one fell swoop. All. Albino, Horde, Eramite, Elyonite, and undoubtedly the Circle, wherever they now camped. The whole world, brought to true sight once more in the lake’s power.
But of course, I thought. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. All had been blind, I chief among them. And now all of Other Earth was being healed from that curse.
Grace and love had finally come. In truth, the whole earth was and always had been the Realm of Mystics.
The kingdom of heaven had always been here, as Yeshua had claimed. We were just finally seeing it in its fullness.
I watched as Ba’al stared at his hands in stunned wonder. Then fell to his knees and wept, arms raised to the heavens.
It was the end of one age and the beginning of another. The lion was yielding to the lamb in the hearts of all mankind. Conflict had surrendered to peace. Guilt had been washed by innocence.
Jacob stumbled forward and then was running toward Qurong.
“Father!”
Qurong spun back, dazed. His eyes shone bright and his skin sparkled in the glow of the light, which was still flowing up the cliffs and spreading beyond. He saw Jacob and ran.
They met halfway, throwing themselves into an embrace. Qurong slumped to his knees, weeping, clinging to his son’s waist as if Jacob was his own life. They were tears of joy and love, not regret. The same tears that moistened my own eyes.
Water splashed behind me and I turned to the lake. It was water once more—the light was streaking up along the cliffs from below the Realm, leaving the pool shimmering and green.
From the pool rose Thomas, carrying a woman. Chelise, I thought. This was Jacob’s sister! She’d been in the Realm and been killed, but now Thomas brought her back. Which meant Thomas had gone to the pond by the cabin and come back through, leaving me there to speak to the world.
The me who had the Fifth Seal both here and there.
As soon as Thomas set Chelise down she caught sight of Jacob, her brother, and Qurong, her father, and was running for them. But first she pulled up, hurried to me, grabbed my hand, and kissed my knuckles.
“Thank you!”
“No, I wasn’t—”
“Thank you, thank you.” She kissed my cheeks. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “It was Justin and . . .”
But she was already running for her brother and father again.
Ba’al was now jumping and leaping and hugging his guard like a captive released from endless suffering. A suffering he’d lived in for far too long. Now he was free.
Beyond him, thousands of Horde and Elyonite warriors stood in wonder, gazing about as if seeing for the first time. They were only now beginning to cry out, realizing what had happened.
They were cries of awe. The shouts of stunned disbelief at such fortune.
But it wasn’t fortune. It was Justin’s power, which was far greater than any could have possibly imagined. Greater even than the first Adam—Tanis—who’d first embraced blindness in this world forty years earlier.
Thomas rushed up to me, eyes on his flesh, then on the light still racing up the cliffs, then on me, eyes wide.
“Justin . . .”
“Came,” I finished.
A smile of wonder slowly curved his lips. “Was there ever any doubt?”
I hesitated, lifting my hand to see it again. I almost thought I could see through it to the light coursing through my veins.
“Far too much,” I said.
He nodded, eyes on me. “And the other world?”
Ba’al was now running toward me, eyes bright, grinning like a newborn child. Ba’al, whom I would embrace like a mother because Ba’al had been all of us.
Now you know, my precious daughter. Now you know.
I took a deep breath, overwhelmed by a love beyond the knowledge of good and evil.
“The final judgment against all judgment is finished here,” I said to Thomas, eyes still on Ba’al. “I think it might just be beginning in the other world.”
And then I was running for Ba’al.