Authors: Frank Herbert
Tags: #Dune (Imaginary place), #Fantasy, #General, #Science Fiction, #Fiction
Dune Messiah (19 page)
What mattered a single moon in such a universe?
Far within his fortress citadel, so deep within that the sound sometimes lost itself in the flow of city noises, a ten-string rebaba tinkled with a song of the Jihad, a lament for a woman left behind on Arrakis:
Her hips are dunes curved by the wind,
Her eyes shine like summer heat.
Two braids of hair hang down her back—
Rich with water rings, her hair!
My hands remember her skin,
Fragrant as amber, flower-scented.
Eyelids tremble with memories …
I am stricken by love’s white flame!
The song sickened him. A tune for stupid creatures lost in sentimentality! As well sing to the dune-impregnated corpse Alia had seen.
A figure moved in shadows of the balcony’s grillwork. Paul whirled.
The ghola emerged into the sun’s full glare. His metal eyes glittered.
“Is it Duncan Idaho or the man called Hayt?” Paul asked.
The ghola came to a stop two paces from him. “Which would my Lord prefer?”
The voice carried a soft ring of caution.
“Play the Zensunni,” Paul said bitterly.
Meanings within meanings!
What could a Zensunni philosopher say or do to change one jot of the reality unrolling before them at this instant?
Meanings within meanings!
What could a Zensunni philosopher say or do to change one jot of the reality unrolling before them at this instant?
“My Lord is troubled.”
Paul turned away, stared at the Shield Wall’s distant scarp, saw wind-carved arches and buttresses, terrible mimicry of his city. Nature playing a joke on him!
See what I can build!
He recognized a slash in the distant massif, a place where sand spilled from a crevasse, and thought:
There! Right there, we fought Sardaukar!
See what I can build!
He recognized a slash in the distant massif, a place where sand spilled from a crevasse, and thought:
There! Right there, we fought Sardaukar!
“What troubles my lord?” the ghola asked.
“A vision,” Paul whispered.
“Ahhhhh, when the Tleilaxu first awakened me, I had visions. I was restless, lonely … not really knowing I was lonely. Not then. My visions revealed nothing! The Tleilaxu told me it was an intrusion of the flesh which men and gholas all suffer, a sickness, no more.”
Paul turned, studied the ghola’s eyes, those pitted, steely balls without expression. What visions did those eyes see?
“Duncan … Duncan …” Paul whispered.
“I am called Hayt.”
“I saw a moon fall,” Paul said. “It was gone, destroyed. I heard a great hissing. The earth shook.”
“You are drunk on too much time,” the ghola said.
“I ask for the Zensunni and get the mentat!” Paul said. “Very well! Play my vision through your logic, mentat. Analyze it and reduce it to mere words laid out for burial.”
“Burial, indeed,” the ghola said. “You run from death. You strain at the next instant, refuse to live here and now. Augury! What a crutch for an Emperor!”
Paul found himself fascinated by a well-remembered mole on the ghola’s chin.
“Trying to live in this future,” the ghola said, “do you give substance to such a future? Do you make it real?”
“If I go the way of my vision-future, I’ll be alive
then
,” Paul muttered. “What makes you think I want to live there?”
then
,” Paul muttered. “What makes you think I want to live there?”
The ghola shrugged. “You asked me for a substantial answer.”
“Where is there substance in a universe composed of events?” Paul asked. “Is there a final answer? Doesn’t each solution produce new questions?”
“You’ve digested so much time you have delusions of immortality,” the ghola said. “Even
your
Empire, my lord, must live its time and die.”
your
Empire, my lord, must live its time and die.”
“Don’t parade smoke-blackened altars before me,” Paul growled. “I’ve heard enough sad histories of gods and messiahs. Why should I need special powers to forecast ruins of my own like all those others? The lowliest servant of my kitchens could do this.” He shook his head. “The moon fell!”
“You’ve not brought your mind to rest at its beginning,” the ghola said.
“Is that how you destroy me?” Paul demanded. “Prevent me from collecting my thoughts?”
“Can you collect chaos?” the ghola asked. “We Zensunni say: ‘Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering.’ What can you gather without gathering yourself?”
“I’m deviled by a vision and you spew nonsense!” Paul raged. “What do you know of prescience?”
“I’ve seen the oracle at work,” the ghola said. “I’ve seen those who seek signs and omens for their individual destiny. They fear what they seek.”
“My falling moon is real,” Paul whispered. He took a trembling breath. “It moves. It moves.”
“Men always fear things which move by themselves,” the ghola said. “You fear your own powers. Things fall into your head from nowhere. When they fall out, where do they go?”
“You comfort me with thorns,” Paul growled.
An inner illumination came over the ghola’s face. For a moment, he became pure Duncan Idaho. “I give you what comfort I can,” he said.
Paul wondered at that momentary spasm. Had the ghola felt grief which his mind rejected? Had Hayt put down a vision of his own?
“My moon has a name,” Paul whispered.
He let the vision flow over him then. Though his whole being shrieked, no sound escaped him. He was afraid to speak, fearful that his voice might betray him. The air of this terrifying future was thick with Chani’s absence. Flesh that had cried in ecstasy, eyes that had burned him with their desire, the voice that had charmed him because it played no tricks of subtle control—all gone, back into the water and the sand.
Slowly, Paul turned away, looked out at the present and the plaza before Alia’s temple. Three shaven-headed pilgrims entered from the processional avenue. They wore grimy yellow robes and hurried with their heads bent against the afternoon’s wind. One walked with a limp, dragging his left foot. They beat their way against the wind, rounded a corner and were gone from his sight.
Just as his moon would go, they were gone. Still, his vision lay before him. Its terrible purpose gave him no choice.
The flesh surrenders itself,
he thought
. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not … yet, I occurred.
he thought
. Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time. What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not … yet, I occurred.
You do not beg the sun for mercy.
One moment of incompetence can be fatal, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam reminded herself.
She hobbled along, apparently unconcerned, within a ring of Fremen guards. One of those behind her, she knew, was a deaf-mute immune to any wiles of Voice. No doubt he’d been charged to kill her at the slightest provocation.
Why had Paul summoned her? she wondered. Was he about to pass sentence? She remembered the day long ago when she’d tested him … the child kwisatz haderach. He was a deep one.
Damn his mother for all eternity! It was her fault the Bene Gesserit had lost their hold on this gene line.
Silence surged along the vaulted passages ahead of her entourage. She sensed the word being passed. Paul would hear the silence. He’d know of her coming before it was announced. She didn’t delude herself with ideas that her powers exceeded his.
Damn him!
She begrudged the burdens age had imposed on her: the aching joints, responses not as quick as once they’d been, muscles not as elastic as the whipcords of her youth. A long day lay behind her and a long life. She’d spent this day with the Dune Tarot in a fruitless search for some clue to her own fate. But the cards were sluggish.
The guards herded her around a corner into another of the seemingly endless vaulted passages. Triangular meta-glass windows on her left gave a view upward to trellised vines and indigo flowers in deep shadows cast by the afternoon sun. Tiles lay underfoot—figures of water creatures from exotic planets. Water reminders everywhere. Wealth … riches.
Robed figures passed across another hall in front of her, cast covert glances at the Reverend Mother. Recognition was obvious in their manner—and tension.
She kept her attention on the sharp hairline of the guard immediately in front: young flesh, pink creases at the uniform collar.
The immensity of this ighir citadel began to impress her. Passages … passages … They passed an open doorway from which emerged the sound of timbur and flute playing soft, elder music. A glance showed her blue-in-blue Fremen eyes staring from the room. She sensed in them the ferment of legendary revolts stirring in wild genes.
There lay the measure of her personal burden, she knew. A Bene Gesserit could not escape awareness of the genes and their possibilities. She was touched by a feeling of loss: that stubborn fool of an Atreides! How could he deny the jewels of posterity within his loins? A kwisatz haderach! Born out of this time, true, but real—as real as his abomination of a sister … and there lay a dangerous unknown. A wild Reverend Mother spawned without Bene Gesserit inhibitions, holding no loyalty to orderly development of the genes. She shared her brother’s powers, no doubt—and more.
The size of the citadel began to oppress her. Would the passages never end? The place reeked of terrifying physical power. No planet, no civilization in all human history had ever before seen such man-made immensity. A dozen ancient cities could be hidden in its walls!
They passed oval doors with winking lights. She recognized them for Ixian handiwork: pneumatic transport orifices. Why was she being marched all this distance, then? The answer began to shape itself in her mind: to oppress her in preparation for this audience with the Emperor.
A small clue, but it joined other subtle indications—the relative suppression and selection of words by her escort, the traces of primitive shyness in their eyes when they called her
Reverend Mother
, the cold and bland, essentially odorless nature of these halls—all combined to reveal much that a Bene Gesserit could interpret.
Reverend Mother
, the cold and bland, essentially odorless nature of these halls—all combined to reveal much that a Bene Gesserit could interpret.
Paul wanted something from her!
She concealed a feeling of elation. A bargaining lever existed. It remained only to find the nature of that lever and test its strength. Some levers had moved things greater than this citadel. A finger’s touch had been known to topple civilizations.
The Reverend Mother reminded herself then of Scytale’s assessment:
When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.
When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.
The passages through which she was being escorted grew larger by subtle stages—tricks of arching, graduated amplification of pillared supports, displacement of the triangular windows by larger, oblong shapes. Ahead of her, finally, loomed double doors centered in the far wall of a tall antechamber. She sensed that the doors were
very
large, and was forced to suppress a gasp as her trained awareness measured out the true proportions. The doorway stood at least eighty meters high, half that in width.
very
large, and was forced to suppress a gasp as her trained awareness measured out the true proportions. The doorway stood at least eighty meters high, half that in width.
As she approached with her escort, the doors swung inward—an immense and silent movement of hidden machinery. She recognized more Ixian handiwork. Through that towering doorway she marched with her guards into the Grand Reception Hall of the Emperor Paul Atreides—“Muad’dib, before whom all people are dwarfed.” Now, she saw the effect of that popular saying at work.
As she advanced toward Paul on the distant throne, the Reverend Mother found herself more impressed by the architectural subtleties of her surroundings than she was by the immensities. The space was large: it could’ve housed the entire citadel of any ruler in human history. The open sweep of the room said much about hidden structural forces balanced with nicety. Trusses and supporting beams behind these walls and the faraway domed ceiling must surpass anything ever before attempted. Everything spoke of engineering genius.
Without seeming to do so, the hall grew smaller at its far end, refusing to dwarf Paul on his throne centered on a dais. An untrained awareness, shocked by surrounding proportions, would see him at first as many times larger than his actual size. Colors played upon the unprotected psyche: Paul’s green throne had been cut from a single Hagar emerald. It suggested growing things and, out of the Fremen mythos, reflected the mourning color. It whispered that here sat he who could make you mourn—life and death in one symbol, a clever stress of opposites. Behind the throne, draperies cascaded in burnt orange, curried gold of Dune earth, and cinnamon flecks of melange. To a trained eye, the symbolism was obvious, but it contained hammer blows to beat down the uninitiated.
Time played its role here.
The Reverend Mother measured the minutes required to approach the Imperial Presence at her hobbling pace. You had time to be cowed. Any tendency toward resentment would be squeezed out of you by the unbridled power which focused down upon your person. You might start the long march toward that throne as a human of dignity, but you ended the march as a gnat.
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