Frank Herbert - Dune Book 4 - God Emperor Of Dune

by Frank Herbert

  Haw he has aged, Leto thought.

  Moneo stepped down off the cart and looked back at the litter's occupant. "He is injured, Lord. They want to send a medical. . ."

  "They wanted to send a spy."

  Leto studied Malky the dark wrinkled skin, the sunken cheeks, that sharp nose at such contrast with the rounded oval of his face. The heavy eyebrows had turned almost white. There but for a lifetime of testosterone . . . yes.

  Malky's eyes opened. Such a shock to find evil in those doe-like brown eyes! A smile twitched Malky's mouth.

  "Lord Leto." Malky's voice was little more than a husky whisper. His eyes turned right, focusing on the majordomo. "And Moneo. Forgive me for not rising to the occasion."

  "Are you in pain?" Leto asked.

  "Sometimes." Malky's eyes moved to study his surroundings. "Where are the houris?"

  "I'm afraid I must deny you that pleasure, Malky."

  "Just as well," Malky husked. "I don't really feel up to their demands. Those were not houris you sent after me, Leto."

  "They were professional in their obedience to me," Leto said.

  "They were bloody hunters!"

  "Anteac was the hunter. My Fish Speakers were merely the clean-up crew."

  Moneo shifted his attention from one speaker to the other, back and forth. There were disturbing undertones in this conversation. Despite the huskiness, Malky sounded almost flippant . . . but then he had always been that way. A dangerous man!

  Leto said: "Just before your arrival, Moneo and I were discussing Infinity."

  "Poor Moneo," Malky said.

  Leto smiled. "Do you remember, Malky? You once asked me to demonstrate Infinity."

  "You said no Infinity exists to be demonstrated." Malky

  swept his gaze toward Moneo. "Leto likes to play with paradox. He knows all the tricks of language that have ever been discovered."

  Moneo put down a surge of anger. He felt excluded from this conversation, an object of amusement by two superior beings. Malky and the God Emperor were almost like two old friends reliving the pleasures of a mutual past.

  "Moneo accuses me of being the sole possessor of Infinity," Leto said. "He refuses to believe that he has just as much of Infinity as I have."

  Malky stared up at Leto. "You see, Moneo? You see how tricky he is with words?"

  "Tell me about your niece, Hwi Noree," Leto said.

  "Is it true, Leto, what they say? That you are going to wed the gentle Hwi?"

  "It is true."

  Malky chuckled, then grimaced with pain. "They did terrible damage to me, Leto," he whispered, then: "Tell me, old worm. . ."

  Moneo gasped.

  Malky took a moment to recover from pain, then: "Tell me, old worm, is there a monster penis hidden in that monster body of yours? What a shock for the gentle Hwi!"

  "I told you the truth about that long ago," Leto said.

  "Nobody tells the truth," Malky husked.

  "You often told me the truth," Leto said. "Even when you didn't know it."

  "That's because you're cleverer than the rest of us."

  "Will you tell me about Hwi?"

  "I think you already know it."

  "I want to hear it from you," Leto said. "Did you get help from the Tleilaxu?"

  "They gave us knowledge, nothing more. Everything else we did for ourselves."

  "I thought it was not the Tleilaxus' doing."

  Moneo could no longer contain his curiosity. "Lord, what is this of Hwi and Tleilaxu? Why do you..."

  "Here there, old friend Moneo," Malky said, rolling his gaze toward the majordomo. "Don't you know what he. . ."

  "I was never your friend!" Moneo snapped.

  "Companion among the houris then," Malky said.

  "Lord," Moneo said, turning toward Leto, "why do you speak of..."

  "Shhh, Moneo," Leto said. "We are tiring your old companion and I have things to learn from him yet."

  "Did you ever wonder, Leto," Malky asked, "why Moneo never tried to take the whole shebang away from you?"

  "The what?" Moneo demanded.

  "Another of Leto's old words," Malky said. "She and bang-shebang. It's perfect. Why don't you rename your Empire, Leto? The Grand Shebang!"

  Leto raised a hand to silence Moneo. "Will you tell me, Malky? About Hwi?"

  "Just a few tiny cells from my body," Malky said. "Then the carefully nurtured growth and education-everything an exact opposite to your old friend, Malky. We did it all in the no-room where you cannot see!"

  "But I notice when something vanishes," Leto said.

  "No-room?" Moneo asked, then as the import of Malky's words sank home. "You? You and Hwi . . ."

  "That is the shape I saw in the shadows," Leto said.

  Moneo looked full at Leto's face. "Lord, I will call off the wedding. I will say..."

  "You will do nothing of the kind!"

  "But Lord, if she and Malky are. . ."

  "Moneo," Malky husked. "Your Lord commands and you must obey!"

  That mocking tone! Moneo glared at Malky.

  "The exact opposite of Malky," Leto said. "Didn't you hear him?"

  "What could be better?" Malky asked.

  "But surely, Lord, if you now know..."

  "Moneo," Leto said, "you are beginning to disturb me."

  Moneo fell into abashed silence.

  Leto said: "That's better. You know, Moneo, once tens of thousands of years ago when I was another person, I made a mistake."

  "You, a mistake?" Malky mocked.

  Leto merely smiled. "My mistake was compounded by the beautiful way in which I expressed it."

  "Tricks with words," Malky taunted.

  "Indeed! This is what I said: `The present is distraction; the future a dream; only memory can unlock the meaning of life.' Aren't those beautiful words, Malky?"

  "Exquisite, old worm."

  Moneo put a hand over his mouth.

  "But my words were a foolish lie," Leto said. "I knew it at the time, but I was infatuated with the beautiful words. No memory unlocks no meanings. Without anguish of the spirit, which is a wordless experience, there are no meanings anywhere."

  "I fail to see the meaning of the anguish caused me by your bloody Fish Speakers," Malky said.

  "You're suffering no anguish," Leto said.

  "If you were in this body, you'd. . ."

  "That's just physical pain," Leto said. "It will end soon."

  "Then when will I know the anguish?" Malky asked.

  "Perhaps later."

  Leto flexed his front segments away from Malky to face Moneo. "Do you really serve the Golden Path, Moneo?"

  "Ahhh, the Golden Path," Malky taunted.

  "You know I do, Lord," Moneo said.

  "Then you must promise me," Leto said, "that what you have learned here must never pass your lips. Not by word or sign can you reveal it."

  "I promise, Lord."

  "He promises, Lord," Malky sneered.

  One of Leto's tiny hands gestured at Malky, who lay staring up at the blunt profile of a face within its gray cowl. "For reasons of old admiration and. . . many other reasons, I cannot kill Malky. I cannot even ask it of you . . . yet he must be eliminated."

  "Ohhh, how clever you are!" Malky said.

  "Lord, if you will wait at the other end of the chamber," Moneo said. "Perhaps when you return Malky no longer will be a problem."

  "He's going to do it," Malky husked. "Gods below! He's going to do it."

  Leto squirmed away and went to the shadowed limit of the chamber, keeping his attention on the faint arc of a line which would become an opening into the night if he merely converted the wish into a thought-of-command. What a long drop that would be out there-just roll off the landing-lip. He doubted that even his body would survive it. But there was no water in the sand beneath his tower and he could feel the Golden Path winking in and out of existence merely because he allowed himself to think of such an end.

  "Leto!" Malky called from behind him.r />
  Leto heard the litter grating on the wind-scattered sand which peppered the floor of his aerie.

  Once more, Malky called: "Leto, you are the best! There's no evil in this universe which can surpass. . ."

  A sodden thump shut off Malky's voice. A blow to the throat, Leto thought. Yes, Moneo knows that one. There came the sound of the balcony's transparent shield sliding open, the rasping of the litter on the rail, then silence.

  Moneo will have to bury the body in the sand, Leto thought. There is as yet no worm to come and devour the evidence. Leto turned then and looked across the chamber. Moneo stood leaning over the railing, peering down . . . down . . . down . . .

  I cannot pray for you, Malky, nor for you, Moneo, Leto thought. l may be the only religious consciousness in the Empire because I am truly alone . . . so I cannot pray.

  ===

  You cannot understand history unless you understand its flowings, its currents and the ways leaders move within such forces. A leader tries to perpetuate the conditions which demand his leadership. Thus, the leader requires the outsider. I caution you to examine my career with care. I am both leader and outsider. Do not make the mistake of assuming that I only created the Church which was the State. That was my function as leader and I had many historical models to use as pattern. For a clue to my role as outsider, look at the arts of my time. The arts are barbaric. The favorite poetry? The Epic. The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism. Dances? Wildly abandoned. From Moneo's viewpoint, he is correct in describing this as dangerous. It stimulates the imagination. It makes people feel the lack of that which I have taken from them. What did I take from them? The right to participate in history.

  -The Stolen Journals

  IDAHO, STRETCHED out on his cot with his eyes closed, heard a weight drop onto the other cot. He sat up into the midafternoon light which slanted through the room's single window at a sharp angle, reflecting off the white-tiled floor onto the light yellow walls. Siona, he saw, had come in and stretched herself on her cot. She already was reading one of the books she carried around with her in a green fabric pack.

  Why books? he wondered.

  He swung his feet to the floor and glanced around the room. How could this high-ceilinged, spacious box be considered even remotely Fremen? A wide table/desk of some dark brown local plastic separated the two cots. There were two doors. One led directly outside across a garden. The other admitted them to a luxurious bath whose pale blue tiles glistened under a broad skylight. The bath contained, among its many functional services, a sunken tub and a shower, each at least two meters square. The door to this sybaritic space remained open and Idaho could hear water running out of the tub. Siona appeared oddly fond of bathing in an excess of water.

  Stilgar, Idaho's Naib of the ancient days on Dune, would have looked on that room with scorn. "Shameful!" he would have said. "Decadent! Weak!" Stilgar would have used many scornful words about this entire village which dared to compare itself with a true Fremen sietch.

  Paper rustled as Siona turned a page. She lay with her head propped on two pillows, a thin white robe covering her body. The robe still revealed clinging wetness from her bath.

  Idaho shook his head. What was it on those pages which held her interest this way? She had been reading and re-reading since their arrival at Tuono. The volumes were thin but numerous, bearing only numbers on their black bindings. Idaho had seen a number nine.

  Swinging his feet to the floor, he stood and went to the window. There was an old man out there at a distance, digging in flowers. The garden was protected by buildings on three sides. The flowers bore large blossoms-red on the outside but, when they unfolded, white in the center. The old Man's uncovered gray hair was a kind of blossom waving among the floral white and jeweled buds. Idaho smelled moldering leaves and freshly turned dirt against a background of pungent floral perfume.

  A Fremen tending flowers in the open!

  Siona volunteered nothing about her strange reading matter. She's taunting me, Idaho thought. She wants me to ask.

  He tried not to think about Hwi. Rage threatened to engulf him when he did. He remembered the Fremen word for that intense emotion: kanawa, the iron ring of jealousy. Where is Hwi? What is she doing at this moment?

  The door from the garden opened without a knock and Teishar, an aide to Garun, entered. Teishar had a dead colored

  face full of dark wrinkles. His eyes were sunken with pale yellow around the pupils. Teishar wore a brown robe. He had hair like old grass that had been left out to rot. He seemed unnecessarily ugly, like a dark and elemental spirit. Teishar closed the door and stood there looking at them.

  Siona's voice came from behind Idaho. "Well, what is it?"

  Idaho noticed then that Teishar seemed strangely excited, vibrating with it.

  "The God Emperor. . ." Teishar cleared his throat and began again. "The God Emperor will come to Tuono!"

  Siona sat upright on the bed, folding her white robe over her knees. Idaho glanced back at her, then once more to Teishar.

  "He will be wed here, here in Tuono!" Teishar said. "It will be done in the ancient Fremen way! The God Emperor and his bride will be guests of Tuono!"

  Full in the grip of kanawa, Idaho glared at him, fists clenched. Teishar bobbed his head briefly, turned and let himself out, shutting the door hard.

  "Let me read you something, Duncan," Siona said.

  Idaho was a moment understanding her words. Fists still clenched at his sides, he turned and looked at her. Siona sat on the edge of her cot, a book in her lap. She took his attention as agreement.

  "Some believe," she read, "that you must compromise integrity with a certain amount of dirty work before you can put genius to work. They say the compromise begins when you come out of the sanctus intending to realize your ideals. Moneo says my solution is to stay within the sanctus, sending others to do my dirty work."

  She looked up at Idaho. "The God Emperor-his own words."

  Slowly, Idaho relaxed his fists. He knew he needed this distraction. And it interested him that Siona had emerged from her silence.

  "What is that book?" he asked.

  Briefly, she told him how she and her companions had stolen the Citadel charts and the copies of Leto's journals.

  "Of course you knew about that," she said. "My father has made it plain that spies betrayed our raid."

  He saw the tears latent in her eyes. "Nine of you killed by the wolves?"

  She nodded.

  "You're a lousy Commander!" he said.

  She bristled but before she could speak, he asked: "Who translated them for you?"

  "This is from Ix. They say the Guild found the Key."

  "We already knew our God Emperor indulged in expedience," Idaho said. "Is that all he has to say?"

  "Read it for yourself." She rummaged in her pack beside the cot and came up with the first volume of the translation, which she tossed across to his cot. As Idaho returned to the cot, she demanded: "What do you mean I'm a lousy Commander'?"

  "Wasting nine of your friends that way."

  "You fool!" She shook her head. "You obviously never saw those wolves!"

  He picked up the book and found it heavy, realizing then that it had been printed on crystal paper. "You should have armed yourselves against the wolves," he said, opening the volume.

  "What arms?" Any arms we could get would've been useless!"

  "Lasguns?" he asked, turning a page.

  "Touch a lasgun on Arrakis and the Worm knows it!"

  He turned another page. "Your friends got lasguns eventually."

  "And look what it got them!"

  Idaho read a line, then: "Poisons were available."

  She swallowed convulsively.

  Idaho looked at her. "You did poison the wolves after all, didn't you?"

  Her voice was almost a whisper: "Yes."

  "Then why didn't you do that in advance?" he asked.

  "We . . . didn't . . . know . . . we . . . could."

  "But y
ou didn't test it," Idaho said. He turned back to the open volume. "A lousy Commander."

  "He's so devious!" Siona said.

  Idaho read a passage in the volume before returning his attention to Siona. "That hardly describes him. Have you read all of this?"

  "Every word! Some of them several times."

  Idaho looked at the open page and read aloud: "I have created what I intended-a powerful spiritual tension throughout my Empire. Few sense the strength of it. With what energies did I create this condition? I am not that strong. The only power

  I possess is the control of individual prosperity. That is the sum of all the things I do. Then why do people seek my presence for other reasons? What could lead them to certain death in the futile attempt to reach my presence? Do they want to be saints? Do they think that thus they gain the vision of God?"