Dune (51 page)

“It is time!”

The voice was Stilgar’s ringing in the cavern. “Jamis’ weapon has been
killed. Jamis has been called by Him, by Shai-?hulud, who has ordained the phases
for the moons that daily wane and–in the end–appear as bent and withered
twigs.” Stilgar’s voice lowered. “Thus it is with Jamis.”

Silence fell like a blanket on the cavern.

Jessica saw the gray-?shadow movement of Stilgar like a ghost figure within
the dark inner reaches. She glanced back at the basin, sensing the coolness.

“The friends of Jamis will approach,” Stilgar said.

Men moved behind Jessica, dropping a curtain across the opening. A single
glowglobe was lighted overhead far back in the cave. Its yellow glow picked out
an inflowing of human figures. Jessica heard the rustling of the robes.

Chani took a step away as though pulled by the light.

Jessica bent close to Paul’s ear, speaking in the family code: “Follow their
lead; do as they do. It will be a simple ceremony to placate the shade of
Jamis.”

It will be more than that, Paul thought. And he felt a wrenching sensation
within his awareness as though he were trying to grasp some thing in motion and
render it motionless.

Chani glided back to Jessica’s side, took her hand. “Come, Sayyadina. We
must sit apart.”

Paul watched them move off into the shadows, leaving him alone. He felt
abandoned.

The men who had fixed the curtain came up beside him.
“Come, Usul.”

He allowed himself to be guided forward, to be pushed into a circle of
people being formed around Stilgar, who stood beneath the glowglobe and beside a
bundled, curving, and angular shape gathered beneath a robe on the rock floor.

The troop crouched down at a gesture from Stilgar, their robes hissing with
the movement. Paul settled with them, watching Stilgar, noting the way the
overhead globe made pits of his eyes and brightened the touch of green fabric at
his neck. Paul shifted his attention to the robe-?covered mound at Stilgar’s
feet, recognized the handle of a baliset protruding from the fabric.

“The spirit leaves the body’s water when the first moon rises,” Stilgar
intoned. “Thus it is spoken. When we see the first moon rise this night, whom
will it summon?”

“Jamis,” the troop responded.

Stilgar turned full circle on one heel, passing his gaze across the ring of
faces. “I was a friend of Jamis,” he said. “When the hawk plane stooped upon us
at Hole-?in-?the-?Rock, it was Jamis pulled me to safety.”

He bent over the pile beside him, lifted away the robe. “I take this robe as
a friend of Jamis–leader’s right.” He draped the robe over a shoulder,
straightening.

Now, Paul saw the contents of the mound exposed: the pale glistening gray of
a stillsuit, a battered literjon, a kerchief with a small book in its center,
the bladeless handle of a crysknife, an empty sheath, a folded pack, a
paracompass, a distrans, a thumper, a pile of fist-?sized metallic hooks, an
assortment of what looked like small rocks within a fold of cloth, a clump of
bundled feathers . . . and the baliset exposed beside the folded pack.

So Jamis played the baliset, Paul thought. The instrument reminded him of
Gurney Halleck and all that was lost. Paul knew with his memory of the future in
the past that some chance-?lines could produce a meeting with Halleck, but the
reunions were few and shadowed. They puzzled him. The uncertainty factor touched
him with wonder. Does it mean that something I will do . . . that I may do,
could destroy Gurney . . . or bring him back to life . . . or . . .

Paul swallowed, shook his head.

Again, Stilgar bent over the mound.

“For Jamis’ woman and for the guards,” he said. The small rocks and the book
were taken into the folds of his robe.

“Leader’s right,” the troop intoned.

“The marker for Jamis’ coffee service,” Stilgar said, and he lifted a flat
disc of green metal. “That it shall be given to Usul in suitable ceremony when
we return to the sietch.”

“Leader’s right,” the troop intoned.

Lastly, he took the crysknife handle and stood with it.

“For the funeral plain,” he said.

“For the funeral plain,” the troop responded.

At her place in the circle across from Paul, Jessica nodded, recognizing the
ancient source of the rite, and she thought: The meeting between ignorance and
knowledge, between brutality and culture–it begins in the dignity with which we
treat our dead. She looked across at Paul, wondering: Will he see it? Will he
know what to do?

“We are friends of Jamis,” Stilgar said. “We are not wailing for our dead
like a pack of garvarg.”

A gray-?bearded man to Paul’s left stood up. “I was a friend of Jamis,” he
said. He crossed to the mound, lifted the distrans. “When our water went below
minim at the siege at Two Birds, Jamis shared.” The man returned to his place in
the circle.

Am I supposed to say I was a friend of Jamis? Paul wondered. Do they expect
me to take something from that pile? He saw faces turn toward him, turn away.
They do expect it!
Another man across from Paul arose, went to the pack and removed the
paracompass. “I was a friend of Jamis,” he said. “When the patrol caught us at
Bight-?of-?the-?Cliff and I was wounded, Jamis drew them off so the wounded could
be saved.” He returned to his place in the circle.

Again, the faces turned toward Paul, and he saw the expectancy in them,
lowered his eyes. An elbow nudged him and a voice hissed: “Would you bring the
destruction on us?”

How can I say I was his friend? Paul wondered.

Another figure arose from the circle opposite Paul and, as the hooded face
came into the light, he recognized his mother. She removed a kerchief from the
mount. “I was a friend of Jamis,” she said. “When the spirit of spirits within
him saw the needs of truth, that spirit withdrew and spared my son.” She
returned to her place.

And Paul recalled the scorn in his mother’s voice as she had confronted him
after the fight. “How does it f eel to be a killer?”

Again, he saw the faces turned toward him, felt the anger and fear in the
troop. A passage his mother had once filmbooked for him on “The Cult of the
Dead” flickered through Paul’s mind. He knew what he had to do.

Slowly, Paul got to his feet.

A sigh passed around the circle.

Paul felt the diminishment of his self as he advanced into the center of the
circle. It was as though he lost a fragment of himself and sought it here. He
bent over the mound of belongings, lifted out the baliset. A string twanged
softly as it struck against something in the pile.

“I was a friend of Jamis,” Paul whispered.

He felt tears burning his eyes, forced more volume into his voice. “Jamis
taught me . . . that . . . when you kill . . . you pay for it. I wish I’d known
Jamis better.”

Blindly, he groped his way back to his place in the circle, sank to the rock
floor.

A voice hissed: “He sheds tears!”

It was taken up around the ring: “Usul gives moisture to the dead!”

He felt fingers touch his damp cheek, heard the awed whispers.

Jessica, hearing the voices, felt the depth of the experience, realized what
terrible inhibitions there must be against shedding tears. She focused on the
words: “He gives moisture to the dead.” It was a gift to the shadow world–
tears. They would be sacred beyond a doubt.

Nothing on this planet had so forcefully hammered into her the ultimate
value of water. Not the water-?sellers, not the dried skins of the natives, not
stillsuits or the rules of water discipline. Here there was a substance more
precious than all others–it was life itself and entwined all around with
symbolism and ritual.

Water.

“I touched his cheek,” someone whispered. “I felt the gift.”

At first, the fingers touching his face frightened Paul. He clutched the
cold handle of the baliset, feeling the strings bite his palm. Then he saw the
faces beyond the groping hands–the eyes wide and wondering.

Presently, the hands withdrew. The funeral ceremony resumed. But now there
was a subtle space around Paul, a drawing back as the troop honored him by a
respectful isolation. The ceremony ended with a low chant:

“Full moon calls thee–
Shai-?hulud shall thou see;
Red the night, dusky sky,
Bloody death didst thou die.
We pray to a moon: she is round–
Luck with us will then abound,
What we seek for shall be found
In the land of solid ground.“

A bulging sack remained at Stilgar’s feet. He crouched, placed his palms
against it. Someone came up beside him, crouched at his elbow, and Paul
recognized Chani’s face in the hood shadow.

”Jamis carried thirty-?three liters and seven and three-?thirty-?seconds
drachms of the tribe’s water,“ Chani said. ”I bless it now in the presence of a
Sayyadina. Ekkeri-?akairi, this is the water, fillissin-?follasy of Paul-?Muad’Dib!
Kivi a-?kavi, never the more, nakalas! Nakelas! to be measured and counted,
ukair-?an! by the heartbeats jan-?jan-?jan of our friend . . . Jamis.“

In an abrupt and profound silence, Chani turned, stared at Paul. Presently
she said: ”Where I am flame be thou the coals. Where I am dew be thou the
water.“

”Bi-?lal kaifa,“ intoned the troop.

”To Paul-?Muad’Dib goes this portion,“ Chani said. ”May he guard it for the
tribe, preserving it against careless loss. May he be generous with it in time
of need. May he pass it on in his time for the good of the tribe.“

”Bi-?lal kaifa,“ intoned the troop.

I must accept that water, Paul thought. Slowly, he arose, made his way to
Chani’s side. Stilgar stepped back to make room for him, took the baliset gently
from his hand.

”Kneel,“ Chani said.

Paul knelt.

She guided his hands to the waterbag, held them against the resilient
surface. ”With this water the tribe entrusts thee,“ she said. ”Jamis is gone
from it. Take it in peace.“ She stood, pulling Paul up with her.

Stilgar returned the baliset, extended a small pile of metal rings in one
palm. Paul looked at them, seeing the different sizes, the way the light of the
glowglobe reflected off them.

Chani took the largest ring, held it on a finger. ”Thirty liters,“ she said.
One by one, she took the others, showing each to Paul, counting them. ”Two
liters; one liter; seven watercounters of one drachm each; one watercounter of
three-?thirty-?seconds drachms. In all–thirty-?three liters and seven and three-
thirty-?seconds drachms.“

She held them up on her finger for Paul to see.

”Do you accept them?“ Stilgar asked.

Paul swallowed, nodded. ”Yes.“

”Later,“ Chani said, ”I will show you how to tie them in a kerchief so they
won’t rattle and give you away when you need silence.“ She extended her hand.

”Will you . . . hold them for me?“ Paul asked.

Chani turned a startled glance on Stilgar.

He smiled, said, ”Paul-?Muad’Dib who is Usul does not yet know our ways,
Chani. Hold his watercounters without commitment until it’s time to show him the
manner of carrying them.“

She nodded, whipped a ribbon of cloth from beneath her robe, linked the
rings onto it with an intricate over and under weaving, hesitated, then stuffed
them into the sash beneath her robe.

I missed something there, Paul thought. He sensed the feeling of humor
around him, something bantering in it, and his mind linked up a prescient
memory: watercounters offered to a woman–courtship ritual.

”Watermasters,” Stilgar said.

The troop arose in a hissing of robes. Two men stepped out, lifted the
waterbag. Stilgar took down the glowglobe, led the way with it into the depths
of the cave.
Paul was pressed in behind Chani, noted the buttery glow of light over rock
walls, the way the shadows danced, and he felt the troop’s lift of spirits
contained in a hushed air of expectancy.

Jessica, pulled into the end of the troop by eager hands, hemmed around by
jostling bodies, suppressed a moment of panic. She had recognized fragments of
the ritual, identified the shards of Chakobsa and Bhotani-?jib in the words, and
she knew the wild violence that could explode out of these seemingly simple
moments.

Jan-?jan-?jan, she thought. Go-?go-?go.

It was like a child’s game that had lost all inhibition in adult hands.

Stilgar stopped at a yellow rock wall. He pressed an outcropping and the
wall swung silently away from him, opening along an irregular crack. He led the
way through past a dark honeycomb lattice that directed a cool wash of air
across Paul when he passed it.

Paul turned a questioning stare on Chani, tugged her arm. “That air felt
damp,” he said.

“Sh-?h-?h-?h,” she whispered.

But a man behind them said: “Plenty of moisture in the trap tonight. Jamis’
way of telling us he’s satisfied.”

Jessica passed through the secret door, heard it close behind. She saw how
the Fremen slowed while passing the honeycomb lattice, felt the dampness of the
air as she came opposite it.

Windtrap! she thought. They’ve a concealed windtrap somewhere on the surface
to funnel air down here into cooler regions and precipitate the moisture from
it.

They passed through another rock door with latticework above it, and the
door closed behind them. The draft of air at their backs carried a sensation of
moisture clearly perceptible to both Jessica and Paul.

At the head of the troop, the glowglobe in Stilgar’s hands dropped below the
level of the heads in front of Paul. Presently he felt steps beneath his feet,
curving down to the left. Light reflected back up across hooded heads and a
winding movement of people spiraling down the steps.

Jessica sensed mounting tension in the people around her, a pressure of
silence that rasped her nerves with its urgency.

The steps ended and the troop passed through another low door. The light of
the glowglobe was swallowed in a great open space with a high curved ceiling.