ALIA AS GODDESS: "THE WOMB OF HEAVEN.". The first recorded Cult of Alia was established in Arrakeen in 10970. Members of this and succeeding Cults should not be confused with those who worshipped Alia during her lifetime. The first group believed that Alia possessed a godhead of her own; the second saw her only as a reflected image of her brother, carrying on the work Muad'Dib had begun. While "The Womb of Heaven," one of her most popular titles in life, was adopted by the Cults, it took on far more hallowed connotation. Her lesser titles, including "Saint Alia-of-the-Knife," were discarded.
The formation of the Cults may well have been a reaction against the rule of the Lord Leto. Humanity by this time understood that they were being ruled by a being who would outlive their most distant posterity, and many found the idea repellent. Turning to the worship of an older, safely dead goddess was one way of rebellion against the new deity. It could also be a dangerous one, if word of an individual's membership in the Cult got back to one of Leto's priests or priestesses. The heresy was not encouraged.
The Book of Alia is believed to have been composed by Cyris Nels (10942-11013), a failed candidate for the God Emperor's society of priestesses. Whether or not Nels was truly the author of the Book, whoever wrote it had access to considerable historical data concerning both Alia and the rest of her family, Leto II included. This familiarity would point to authorship by someone affiliated with the religion of the God Emperor; by this point in Leto's reign, these were the only persons allowed access to the written histories, and the Oral History did not contain the wealth of detail present in the Book.
The Cult's view of the relationship between Alia and her brother was unorthodox. Noting that Paul Atreides often denied his own divinity while not denying that of his sister, the Book of Alia offers its own interpretation:
Muad'Dib, we see, was a messenger, a prophet. Great powers of divination and prophecy were his, but not for use on his own behalf: it was his glorious duty to prepare the way for the Womb of Heaven.
If the seeker doubts this and would see Muad'Dib as a god in his own right, let the prophet's own life provide instruction. He was unaware at birth, an infant like any other. While some degree of prescience was within his power from his youth, not until Blessed Mother Jessica gave birth to his sister did he realize how dim were his feeble peerings into the future. He submitted to the Water of Life to brighten them. Even with the knowledge of the future thus gained, he permitted himself to be blinded, made a widower, and abandoned to the desert where he wandered for eleven years before his return to Arrakeen and his execution by his sister's priests.
Contrast this pitiable existence with that of our Lady, divine and aware from her earliest months in the Blessed Mother's womb, dying only to return when the cleansing of her people is completed, and it can clearly be seen by all that Muad'Dib was no god. Woe to those who persist in believing that he was!
On the subject of Alia's death the Book departs furthest from theological norms. It is now known that the body of Alia Atreides was removed from the courtyard of her Temple following her suicidal leap and processed through the nearest deathstill. The water thus obtained was carried into the desert and allowed to evaporate in the fierce sun. This Fremen way of disposing with the water of one convicted of Possession indicates the low opinion held of the Regent at the time of her death. In The Book of Alia, a far different explanation is given:
Her servants, all unknowing, were performing the Lady's will in ensuring that neither her body nor its water would be preserved. For when the Time of Trial is ended and the Usurper removed from his position of slavemaster to her people, the Womb of Heaven will return to sit in judgment over all in a divine form bearing no relation to that she occupied in life. Reminders of that shell of flesh would serve no purpose.
The true nature of Alia Atreides — Abomination, goddess, victim of history — may never entirely be known. The possibility exists, too, that she had no one distinct nature, and that Lady Alia was capable of encompassing each of the contradictory personalities with which she has been credited. In The Dune Catastrophe, Harq al-Ada makes this very point, citing the opinion of Ghanima Atreides: "My aunt chose her own course at many junctures, but the opportunity to choose was not always given her. Leto and I pitied her even as we feared her, and I believe that she often felt the same mix of emotions toward herself."
J.A.C.
Further references: ATREIDES, PAUL MUAD'DIB; ATREIDES, GHANIMA; ATREIDES, LETO II; MOHIAM, REVEREND MOTHER GAIUS HELEN; Anon., The Azhar Book, ed K.R. Baraux, Arrakis Studies 49 (Grumman: United Worlds); Pyer Briizvair, ed., Summa of Ancient Belief and Practice (Bolchef: Collegium Turno); R.M. Lucius Ellen Callen and R.M. Hallus Deborah Seales, eds., Report on Alia Atreides, Lib. Conf, Temp. Series 169; Nels, Cyris (?), The Book of Alia, Lib. Conf. Temp. Series 242.
ATREIDES, ALIA, AS ABOMINATION: "THE ACCURSED ONE"
The Bene Gesserit were the first to refer to the daughter of Lady Jessica and Duke Leto Atreides as "The Accursed One." Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in 10193 told the Bene Gesserit General Council of the existence and nature of Lady Jessica's second child in a report which caused great consternation. The first reaction of the B.G. hierarchy was to order secret assassinations of both mother and daughter in spite of the enormous risks involved. More rational thought prevailed, however, and the Sisterhood decided on a safer course. They would undertake the study of this Abomination while wooing her mother back into the ranks. In this way, the precious genes the Bene Gesserit had cultivated for so many centuries need not be thrown uselessly away, and studying Alia might provide them with information they would need to destroy her.
A number of B.G. spies (the Princess Irulan being the most public and therefore least effective of them) were introduced into Muad'Dib's household following his defeat of Shaddam IV. Posing as retainers, these spies remained close to the Lady Alia for many years; some of them served her during her years as Regent, staying with her until her death in 10220. Their observations, along with those of various Reverend Mothers who came into contact with the Emperor's sister during her lifetime, provided the basis for the Report on Alia Atreides. The Report led to the Bene Gesserit Judiciary Council decision in 10211 to declare Alia an "Abomination to be Abhorred." The overall tone of the report is condemnatory:
Had the Lady Jessica arranged the birth order of her child as she was supposed to do, the question of Abomination would never, however innocently, have arisen. The fetus she was carrying in 10191 was to have been male, not female.
The document saves the bulk of its condemnation for Alia herself, however. The Sisters who assembled the final draft of the Report after Alia's death were unanimous in their opinion that Alia Atreides willfully chose Abomination's way for herself, spurning all attempts to save her humanity:
Much has been made of the effect her isolated position had in shaping Alia's destiny. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that it was her pattern to choose isolation. Even Lady Jessica recalls times from her daughter's childhood in Sietch Tabr when Alia took herself off to the desert, away from her companions, in order to listen to her voices within.
Such instances occurred with increasing frequency as Alia grew older until, as reported by Princess Irulan, she absented herself from her brother and the rest of the Court whenever her presence was not commanded. Following her elevation to the Regency, the public record indicates that she was unavailable except for official duties, such as greeting pilgrims and sitting in judgment of cases brought to her for trial.
During the same years in which she held herself aloof from family and friends, Alia indulged in massive doses of melange, ostensibly for the purpose of broadening her prescient vision. Since we have reliable accounts of her confession that she lacked her brother's prescient ability, and that the spice-trance most often failed her, it seems reasonable to assume that her purpose in entering the spice-trance with such regularity was quite different from that stated.
The same drug which had initially keyed her sens
itivity to her ancestral voices could be depended upon to keep those same voices from becoming blurred or unavailable. Alia's heavy melange consumption was just another means of maintaining contact with her internal advisors.
(The Bene Gesserit were not alone in this view, Bronso of Ix, in The Atreides Imperium, dismisses Alia as "a self-made disaster." A similar opinion is held by Lors Karden, author of Truth and Fancy in the Oral History, published some eight hundred years after the B.G. Report.)
Alia's actions during her Regency are depicted in the Report as those of a power-hungry woman aided by the memories of generations of ambitious rulers and princelings. Her every maneuver, including her marriage to the first Duncan Idaho ghola, is seen as having been performed in order to solidify her own position, and her manipulation of the children in whose names she ruled is declared the most devious maneuver of all:
Not content with having destroyed herself, she set about to lead her niece and nephew into similarly destructive ways. Since the most direct way of achieving this goal involved the children's becoming enmeshed in their ancestral memories, Alia continually tried to interest them in the spice trance.
The Regent's suicide relieved the Sisterhood, and their Report carries this tone despite the Lady Jessica's vigorous attempts to change it (Jessica's contribution to the final report was her last act of involvement with her former Sisters):
The kind of ruler Leto II will become cannot at present be known. He has undergone a strange transformation that we do not fully understand, and the danger of his following his aunt's path must still be present, regardless of his assurances of the contrary.
That is unimportant at the moment. Of far greater importance was the freeing of the Imperium from the control of the Lady Alia. Had it not been for her death — reported by witnesses on the scene as an obvious suicide, perhaps as a result of a final takeover by her inner voices — she could have continued to rule for several centuries by regenerating her cellular structure. As with all Abominations, the only cure is death.
The Report concludes here, but an appendix indicates that the Sisterhood had already begun investigations of two other possible Abominations: Leto II and Ghanima.
Further references: R.M. Lucius Ellen Callen and R.M. Hallus Deborah Seales, eds.. Report on Alia Atreides, Lib. Conf. Temp. Series 169; Bene Gesserit Judiciary Files, File No. 2078475, pp. 2889-2999 (available only upon application to the Bene Gesserit}.
ATREIDES, LADY CHANI
(10177-10209). Born in Sietch Tabr in 10177, Chani was the daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist and secret leader of the Fremen, and Falra, a Tabr woman with whom Liet-Kynes had been raised. Stilgar, Naib of the sietch and blood-brother to her father, stood as godfather to Chani while the Naib's wife Misra stood as godmother and performed the Water of Conception ritual for the newborn.
Liet-Kynes was away from the sietch far more than he was present, and Chani was cared for chiefly by Falra, with some assistance from Misra and the other woman. (Although Fremen children were raised by their individual households and not communally, every adult in a community accepted some responsibility for the welfare of every child; the nearer the adult's relationship to the child's parents, of course, the greater the obligation.) She quickly learned the earliest lessons Fremen children were taught: that crying was not allowed since it wasted the body's moisture, and that wasting water, in any form, was an unpardonable sin. She naturally grew more and more independent, for independence was encourage in all sietch youngsters so that they not burden the tribe. The Fremen had learned centuries earlier that weak, dependent children could jeopardize an entire sietch by demanding time and attention their parents could not spare, while contributing nothing to the tribal welfare.
Even as early as age three, then, when Falra was killed in a rockslide and Chani was taken into Stilgar's household, she was far better able to cope with the loss than many an outworld child of the same age might have been. Chani attended the spirit-releasing ceremony for her mother without weeping, although only dimly understanding what was taking place. Within a few weeks, she had so completely become a part of the Naib's family that he and his wives would have found it difficult to imagine her not being with them.
Liet-Kynes visited his daughter whenever possible, sometimes stealing a day from his work at the palmaries to journey to Sietch Tabr. Her quick intellect was a source of tremendous pride to him, and he occasionally took her out to the planting sites with him, to show her how the palmaries were expanding and would eventually change the harsh face of Arrakis. Chani accepted the extra tutoring as a gift and remembered everything she was shown.
His greater gift to her, so far as her father was concerned, was that of an undivided heritage. After talking the matter over with Stilgar, Liet-Kynes had decided not to introduce Chani to the other aspects of his life, the world which included an Imperial commission and all the duties it entailed. While Liet-Kynes was satisfied with the way in which his own father had arranged his life — letting him be raised among the Fremen, as one of them, but never allowing him to forget that he was destined for Imperial service — he did not choose to do the same for his daughter. Fremen women often held positions of great influence, particularly the Sayyadina, but it was unlikely that a woman would ever be accepted in Liet-Kynes's position as a leader. Furthermore, he did not think that Chani's generation of Fremen would require a leader with one foot in each world. They would be capable of carrying on the ecological transformation on their own. Chani would be free to live entirely as a Fremen.
Aside from her special relationship with Liet-Kynes, Chani lived like every other female child in Sietch Tabr. By the age of five, she was helping to care for the sietch gardens, capturing sandtrout to be run through the deathstill for their water and helping to dispatch enemy wounded after battles. (Their bodies would be destined for the same fate as those of the sandtrout.) During the next years, she learned to weave, to make coffee, to make and mend stillsuits — in short, to perform all of the occupations she would be required to know as an adult.
When she reached puberty, Chani was taken with a small group of girls her own age to retreat with Sietch Tabr's Reverend Mother Ramallo. On their last day with the Reverend Mother, the girls went on a hajra, a short pilgrimage to one of the tribal holding basins. Reverend Mother Ramallo with her pupils seated around her, altered a small quantity of the Water of Life and bid each of them drink from it. Then, as the girls entered the sharing trance the drug induced, she spoke briefly to them about the water in the basin, reminding them that it held the future life of all their people within its depths as surely as each of them held a smaller portion of that future within their own bodies.
The talk was a cover, designed to relax the girls while turning their minds to consideration of serious issues. While they pondered the future of their tribe, the Reverend Mother studied, probed, observed in hope of finding one in the group who might eventually take her place. The matter of finding such a candidate had become most urgent to Ramallo: she was an old woman and had suffered the ill luck several years before of having her apprenticed Sayyadina killed in an explosion in a sietch factory.
Chani, the old Reverend Mother saw, demonstrated many of the traits necessary for a Sayyadina. She possessed courage, intelligence, and compassion; she was capable of considering her own mortality while discounting it in the light of her people's survival. With enormous relief, Ramallo decided to initiate her during the next tribal assembly.
In 10191, less than three months after her return to Sietch Tabr, Chani was caught up in the shattering of the peace that followed the Harkonnen-Sardaukar attack on House Atreides. Sietch Tabr was well outside the combat areas, but Stilgar had received an order from Liet-Kynes to take a band out into the desert in search of Paul Atreides and his mother, the Lady Jessica. Included in the command was a request that Stilgar take Chani along as part of the group, and the Reverend Mother seconded that request. The Lady Jessica was known to be one of the Bene Gesserit, and me
ssages sent back to the sietch by the Shadout Mapes had indicated that Jessica might be something more as well. Whatever the outcome of their hunt for the two fugitives might be, the Reverend Mother wished to hear Chani's impressions of the encounter, since it was impossible for her to witness it herself. (Ramallo had not left the sietch, except in a palanquin, for many years.)
Both at that first meeting, and on the journey back to the sietch, Chani found herself more impressed by Lady Jessica than by her son. The Atreides was a handsome boy, not much older than she was herself, and the murmurings of his being the Lisan al-Gaib filled her with wonder. But the woman, the out-freyn Sayyadina, had bested Stilgar — Stilgar! — in single combat using her weirding ways. No other female, to Chani's knowledge, had ever even contemplated equal combat against a Freman Naib. She studied the outworld woman with a combination of fear and awe, and had much to tell her instructress on her return home.
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