Children of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  "To whom do you talk, My Lady?" a voice asked.

  For a confused moment, Alia thought this another intrusion by those clamorous multitudes within, but recognition of the voice opened her eyes. Ziarenka Valefor, chief of Alia's guardian amazons, stood beside the bench, a worried frown on her weathered Fremen features.

  "I speak to my inner voices," Alia said, sitting up on the bench. She felt refreshed, buoyed up by the silencing of that distracting inner clamor.

  "Your inner voices, My Lady. Yes." Ziarenka's eyes glistened at this information. Everyone knew the Holy Alia drew upon inner resources available to no other person.

  "Bring Javid to my quarters," Alia said. "There's a serious matter I must discuss with him."

  "To your quarters, My Lady?"

  "Yes! To my private chamber."

  "As My Lady commands." The guard turned to obey.

  "One moment," Alia said. "Has Master Idaho already gone to Sietch Tabr?"

  "Yes, My Lady. He left before dawn as you instructed. Do you wish me to send for ..."

  "No. I will manage this myself. And Zia, no one must know that Javid is being brought to me. Do it yourself. This is a very serious matter."

  The guard touched the crysknife at her waist. "My Lady, is there a threat to--"

  "Yes, there's a threat, and Javid may be at the heart of it."

  "Ohhh, My Lady, perhaps I should not bring--"

  "Zia! Do you think me incapable of handling such a one?"

  A lupine smile touched the guard's mouth. "Forgive me, My Lady. I will bring him to your private chamber at once, but ... with My Lady's permission, I will mount guard outside your door."

  "You only," Alia said.

  "Yes, My Lady. I go at once."

  Alia nodded to herself, watching Ziarenka's retreating back. Javid was not loved among her guards, then. Another mark against him. But he was still valuable--very valuable. He was her key to Jacurutu and with that place, well ...

  "Perhaps you were right, Baron," she whispered.

  "You see!" the voice within her chortled. "Ahhh, this will be a pleasant service to you, child, and it's only the beginning ..."

  These are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness ...

  --FROM THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL: MISSIONARIA PROTECTIVA

  "I am called Muriz," the leathery Fremen said.

  He sat on cavern rock in the glow of a spice lamp whose fluttering light revealed damp walls and dark holes which were passages from this place. Sounds of dripping water could be heard down one of those passages and, although water sounds were essential to the Fremen paradise, the six bound men facing Muriz took no pleasure from the rhythmic dripping. There was the musty smell of a deathstill in the chamber.

  A youth of perhaps fourteen standard years came out of the passage and stood at Muriz's left hand. An unsheathed crysknife reflected pale yellow from the spice lamp as the youth lifted the blade and pointed it briefly at each of the bound men.

  With a gesture toward the youth, Muriz said: "This is my son, Assan Tariq, who is about to undergo his test of manhood."

  Muriz cleared his throat, stared once at each of the six captives. They sat in a loose semicircle across from him, tightly restrained with spice-fiber ropes which held their legs crossed, their hands behind them. The bindings terminated in a tight noose at each man's throat. Their stillsuits had been cut away at the neck.

  The bound men stared back at Muriz without flinching. Two of them wore loose off-world garments which marked them as wealthy residents of an Arrakeen city. These two had skin which was smoother, lighter than that of their companions, whose sere features and bony frames marked them as desert-born.

  Muriz resembled the desert dwellers, but his eyes were more deeply sunken, whiteless pits which not even the glow of the spice lamp touched. His son appeared an unformed copy of the man, with a flatness of face which did not quite hide the turmoil boiling within him.

  "Among the Cast Out we have a special test for manhood," Muriz said. "One day my son will be a judge in Shuloch. We must know that he can act as he must. Our judges cannot forget Jacurutu and our day of despair. Kralizec, the Typhoon Struggle, lives in our hearts." It was all spoken with the flat intonation of ritual.

  One of the soft-featured city dwellers across from Muriz stirred, said: "You do wrong to threaten us and bind us captive. We came peacefully on umma."

  Muriz nodded. "You came in search of a personal religious awakening? Good. You shall have that awakening."

  The soft-featured man said: "If we--"

  Beside him a darker desert Fremen snapped: "Be silent, fool! These are the water stealers. These are the ones we thought we'd wiped out."

  "That old story," the soft-featured captive said.

  "Jacurutu is more than a story," Muriz said. Once more he gestured to his son. "I have presented Assan Tariq. I am arifa in this place, your only judge. My son, too, will be trained to detect demons. The old ways are best."

  "That's why we came into the deep desert," the soft-featured man protested. "We chose the old way, wandering in--"

  "With paid guides," Muriz said, gesturing to the darker captives. "You would buy your way into heaven?" Muriz glanced up at his son. "Assan, are you prepared?"

  "I have reflected long upon that night when men came and murdered our people," Assan said. His voice projected an uneasy straining. "They owe us water."

  "Your father gives you six of them," Muriz said. "Their water is ours. Their shades are yours, your guardians forevermore. Their shades will warn you of demons. They will be your slaves when you cross over into the alam al-mythal. What do you say, my son?"

  "I thank my father," Assan said. He took a short step forward. "I accept manhood among the Cast Out. This water is our water."

  As he finished speaking, the youth crossed to the captives. Starting on the left, he gripped the man's hair and drove the crysknife up under the chin into the brain. It was skillfully done to spill the minimum blood. Only the one soft-featured city Fremen protested, squalling as the youth grabbed his hair. The others spat at Assan Tariq in the old way, saying by this: "See how little I value my water when it is taken by animals!"

  When it was done, Muriz clapped his hands once. Attendants came and began removing the bodies, taking them to the deathstill where they could be rendered for their water.

  Muriz arose, looked at his son who stood breathing deeply, watching the attendants remove the bodies. "Now you are a man," Muriz said. "The water of our enemies will feed slaves. And, my son ..."

  Assan Tariq turned an alert and pouncing look upon his father. The youth's lips were drawn back in a tight smile.

  "The Preacher must not know of this," Muriz said.

  "I understand, father."

  "You did it well," Muriz said. "Those who stumble upon Shuloch must not survive."

  "As you say, father."

  "You are trusted with important duties," Muriz said. "I am proud of you."

  A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires a measure of respect for the inertial power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called "being primitive." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage.

  --THE LETO COMMENTARY AFTER HARQ AL-ADA

  "How can we be sure?" Ghanima asked. "This is very dangerous." "We've tested it before,
" Leto argued.

  "It may not be the same this time. What if--"

  "It's the only way open to us," Leto said. "You agree we can't go the way of the spice."

  Ghanima sighed. She did not like this thrust and parry of words, but knew the necessity which pressed her brother. She also knew the fearful source of her own reluctance. They had but to look at Alia and know the perils of that inner world.

  "Well?" Leto asked.

  Again she sighed.

  They sat cross-legged in one of their private places, a narrow opening from the cave to the cliff where often their mother and father had watched the sun set over the bled. It was two hours past the evening meal, a time when the twins were expected to exercise their bodies and their minds. They had chosen to flex their minds.

  "I will try it alone if you refuse to help," Leto said.

  Ghanima looked away from him toward the black hangings of the moisture seals which guarded this opening in the rock. Leto continued to stare out over the desert.

  They had been speaking for some time in a language so ancient that even its name remained unknown in these times. The language gave their thoughts a privacy which no other human could penetrate. Even Alia, who avoided the intricacies of her inner world, lacked the mental linkages which would allow her to grasp any more than an occasional word.

  Leto inhaled deeply, taking in the distinctive furry odor of a Fremen cavern-sietch which persisted in this windless alcove. The murmurous hubbub of the sietch and its damp heat were absent here, and both felt this as a relief.

  "I agree we need guidance," Ghanima said. "But if we--"

  "Ghani! We need more than guidance. We need protection."

  "Perhaps there is no protection." She looked directly at her brother, met that gaze in his eyes like the waiting watchfulness of a predator. His eyes belied the placidity of his features.

  "We must escape possession," Leto said. He used the special infinitive of the ancient language, a form strictly neutral in voice and tense but profoundly active in its implications.

  Ghanima correctly interpreted his argument.

  "Mohw'pwium d'mi hish pash moh'm ka," she intoned. The capture of my soul is the capture of a thousand souls.

  "Much more than that," he countered.

  "Knowing the dangers, you persist." She made it a statement, not a question.

  "Wabun 'k wabunat!" he said. Rising, thou risest!

  He felt his choice as an obvious necessity. Doing this thing, it were best done actively. They must wind the past into the present and allow it to unreel into their future.

  "Muriyat," she conceded, her voice low. It must be done lovingly.

  "Of course." He waved a hand to encompass total acceptance. "Then we will consult as our parents did."

  Ghanima remained silent, tried to swallow past a lump in her throat. Instinctively she glanced south toward the great open erg which was showing a dim grey pattern of dunes in the last of the day's light. In that direction her father had gone on his last walk into the desert.

  Leto stared downward over the cliff edge at the green of the sietch oasis. All was dusk down there, but he knew its shapes and colors: blossoms of copper, gold, red, yellow, rust, and russet spread right out to the rock markers which outlined the extent of the qanat-watered plantings. Beyond the rock markers stretched a stinking band of dead Arrakeen life, killed by foreign plants and too much water, now forming a barrier against the desert.

  Presently Ghanima said: "I am ready. Let us begin."

  "Yes, damn all!" He reached out, touched her arm to soften the exclamation, said, "Please, Ghani ... Sing that song. It makes this easier for me."

  Ghanima hitched herself closer to him, circled his waist with her left arm. She drew in two deep breaths, cleared her throat, and began singing in a clear piping voice the words her mother had so often sung for their father:

  Here I redeem the pledge thou gavest;

  I pour sweet water upon thee.

  Life shall prevail in this windless place:

  My love, thou shalt live in a palace,

  Thy enemies shall fall to emptiness.

  We travel this path together

  Which love has traced for thee.

  Surely well do I show the way

  For my love is thy palace ...

  Her voice fell into the desert silence which even a whisper might despoil, and Leto felt himself sinking, sinking--becoming the father whose memories spread like an overlayer in the genes of his immediate past.

  For this brief space, I must be Paul, he told himself. This is not Ghani beside me; it is my beloved Chani, whose wise counsel has saved us both many a time.

  For her part, Ghanima had slipped into the persona-memory of her mother with frightening ease, as she had known she would. How much easier this was for the female--and how much more dangerous.

  In a voice turned suddenly husky, Ghanima said: "Look there, beloved!" First Moon had risen and, against its cold light, they saw an arc of orange fire falling upward into space. The transport which had brought the Lady Jessica, laden now with spice, was returning to its mother-cluster in orbit.

  The keenest of remembrances ran through Leto then, bringing memories like bright bell-sounds. For a flickering instant he was another Leto--Jessica's Duke. Necessity pushed those memories aside, but not before he felt the piercing of the love and the pain.

  I must be Paul, he reminded himself.

  The transformation came over him with a frightening duality, as though Leto were a dark screen against which his father was projected. He felt both his own flesh and his father's, and the flickering differences threatened to overcome him.

  "Help me, father," he whispered.

  The flickering disturbance passed and now there was another imprint upon his awareness, while his own identity as Leto stood at one side as an observer.

  "My last vision has not yet come to pass," he said, and the voice was Paul's. He turned to Ghanima. "You know what I saw."

  She touched his cheek with her right hand. "Did you walk into the desert to die, beloved? Is that what you did?"

  "It may be that I did, but that vision ... Would that not be reason enough to stay alive?"

  "But blind?" she asked.

  "Even so."

  "Where could you go?"

  He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Jacurutu."

  "Beloved!" Tears began flowing down her cheeks.

  "Muad'Dib, the hero, must be destroyed utterly," he said. "Otherwise this child cannot bring us back from chaos."

  "The Golden Path," she said. "It is not a good vision."

  "It's the only possible vision."

  "Alia has failed, then ..."

  "Utterly. You see the record of it."

  "Your mother has returned too late." She nodded, and it was Chani's wise expression on the childish face of Ghanima. "Could there not be another vision? Perhaps if--"

  "No, beloved. Not yet. This child cannot peer into the future yet and return safely."

  Again a shuddering breath disturbed his body, and Leto-observer felt the deep longing of his father to live once more in vital flesh, to make living decisions and ... How desperate the need to unmake past mistakes!

  "Father!" Leto called, and it was as though he shouted echoingly within his own skull.

  It was a profound act of will which Leto felt then: the slow, clinging withdrawal of his father's internal presence, the release of senses and muscles.

  "Beloved," Chani's voice whispered beside him, and the withdrawal slowed. "What is happening?"

  "Don't go yet," Leto said, and it was his own voice, rasping and uncertain, still his own. Then: "Chani, you must tell us: How do we avoid ... what has happened to Alia?"

  It was Paul-within who answered him, though, with words which fell upon his inner ear, halting and with long pauses: "There is no certainty. You ... saw ... what almost ... happened ... with ... me."

  "But Alia ..."

  "The damned Baron has her!"

  Le
to felt his throat burning with dryness. "Is he ... have I ..."

  "He's in you ... but ... I ... we cannot ... sometimes we sense ... each other, but you ..."

  "Can you not read my thoughts?" Leto asked. "Would you know then if ... he ..."

  "Sometimes I can feel your thoughts ... but I ... we live only through ... the ... reflection of ... your awareness. Your memory creates us. The danger ... it is a precise memory. And ... those of us ... those of us who loved power ... and gathered it at ... any price ... those can be ... more precise."

  "Stronger?" Leto whispered.

  "Stronger."

  "I know your vision." Leto said. "Rather than let him have me, I'll become you."

  "Not that!"