Paul of Dune hod-1

by Brian Herbert

  “Please, no! We beg you!”

  She let them squirm for a few moments, then stood up. “All right, we’ll end this game. The guards will accompany you to ensure that you pay what you owe me. Since I won so many times, I cannot claim you were cheating.” Some members of the audience chuckled at her clearly facetious statement, for the evidence of the dice had been quite plain. She turned to the accuser, meeting his troubled expression. “From my winnings, I will repay half of what you have lost — but only half. The rest goes into the Imperial treasury.” She raised her voice. “All of life is a gamble, and opponents will not always play by neat and tidy rules. If you would participate in the game, you must be prepared to lose.”

  The old veteran seemed more than satisfied with her unique form of justice. The three left by separate doors, and Alia returned to her high throne….

  ***

  A SHORT WHILE later, Alia received word that Lady Margot Fenring and her daughter had arrived at the Arrakeen Spaceport and were being escorted to the Citadel of Muad’Dib. Stilgar and Irulan had already discussed with her how best to receive their visitors.

  Lady Margot did not bring a large entourage, arriving as a traveler of no particular importance on a Heighliner bound from the Bene Tleilax worlds via Richese, Junction, and a number of unremarkable planets, until reaching Dune. Stilgar guided her into the throne room, and the supplicants parted for them.

  Margot Fenring was beautiful, trained to use every bit of her appearance and personal magnetism to achieve the Sisterhood’s aims. In this visit, though, Alia wondered whose aims were at play. Her own mother had made different choices. Was Lady Margot content to be a pawn for the Bene Gesserit? And how did little Marie fit into the game plan? Something to do with breeding, no doubt.

  Alia looked down with a bright smile, and her eyes met the other girl’s. Marie appeared so young, though Alia knew that this was how she herself looked to strangers.

  “We present ourselves to the Emperor’s throne,” Count Fenring’s wife said, bowing slightly.

  Stilgar stepped up to the dais, acting as a chamberlain. He spoke to Alia out of the side of his mouth in Chakobsa, the ancient tongue of the desert, though Margot Fenring could understand him as easily as Alia could. “I don’t like this witch or her daughter.”

  “You have already made your feelings plain, Stilgar.” Alia raised her voice to make sure the audience could hear her. “It will be good for me to have someone my own age at court. Princess Irulan laments that I should act as a child more often.” She stepped down to meet Marie, who stood facing her with bright and exceedingly intelligent eyes, exquisite features, and perfect manners.

  “My brother is unavailable right now,” Alia said to Lady Margot. “We do not know when he will return, but I am happy to welcome you to our court. I grant our protection to you and your daughter.”

  “Thank you, your Royal Eminence,” Margot said. A rather startling title to use, but Alia did not dispute it.

  Alia then turned her attention back to the little girl. “I’m very pleased to have you here, Marie. We’ll have so much fun together.” She indicated the uppermost step of the dais, just below her throne. “Come, sit next to me and watch as I continue to dispense a mixture of Fremen and Atreides justice.”

  4

  Arrakis: Men saw great danger there, and great opportunity.

  —the PRINCESS IRULAN, entry in Paul of Dune

  Of all deaths, one is the most difficult. This was the death of his name, of his family honor, of everything that mattered to him as a man and a leader. The desert had made him see that.

  With the face mask of his stillsuit thrown back, Paul sat alone, gazing out across the sea of dunes with the blue-blue eyes of a Fremen. The night’s coolness still clung to the shadowed pocket, but it would vanish rapidly with the awakening day. He had spent the night sitting motionless on a large flat stone, absorbing the rich aroma of windblown, powdery spice. Al-Lat, the golden sun, was just rising over an escarpment, but he did not yet feel its warmth. A deep desert chill had settled into his bones, and into his thoughts.

  Though his body had hardly moved, his mind had ranged far.

  The course he had chosen for mankind was difficult. Billions of people had already been killed in his name — some justifiably, many not. Wave after wave of violence came as his warrior legions surged out into space, hunting any enemy of Muad’Dib, whether real or imagined. Allowing such horrendous damage to be done in his name had left an indelible mark on his soul. But it was his terrible purpose.

  He remembered the joy of returning home from Grumman when he was a boy, the smell of the Caladan seas and the drifting cries of seabirds. Not so long ago, Paul had been the proud son of a nobleman, heir to the Atreides tradition, destined to be a Duke.

  How could I have forgotten Caladan so easily? he wondered. Dismissing those people my father loved so well? No one should consider himself that important. Duncan Idaho and Thufir Hawat would have given him a powerful dose of humility. Had Gurney himself given up on Paul, retiring from the uncontrollable Jihad to find a bit of peace on Caladan?

  Paul felt like a man tumbling off a cliff, taking everyone he loved and all of his followers with him. He heard the harsh, unsettling cry of a bird. Looking up into the brightening sky, he watched two vultures drifting overhead, as if examining him with interest. Presently, they flapped their wings and moved on. Paul was not dead, but he was dying inside.

  A distant and mechanical sound intruded, and he saw an ornithopter circling to the east. With the sun behind it, the operator was trying to avoid being noticed. Undoubtedly, Muad’Dib’s Fedaykin had picked up his location and were monitoring him, making certain he was safe.

  No one leaves me alone.

  Korba’s motives were transparent and refreshingly understandable. The Fedaykin leader had used Paul to broker his own power, his own religion… but the reverse was true as well, and Paul had exploited others like him, those who sought personal power through the new order. By fanning the flames of his holy war, the divine Emperor had intended to purge the old ways of the Imperium and set up a future in which there would be no more wars. Throughout history, however, many others had used the same excuse….

  In embarking upon that terrible but necessary course, he had known from the outset that it would not be possible for him to remain a purely heroic figure. Never had any one person held such absolute power. It was inevitable that he would become hated, especially when he did what prescience demanded.

  He had already seen a turning point in the wildfires of rebellion around the Imperium, blazes that kept flaring up no matter how hard his soldiers tried to extinguish them. Opposition was to be expected, and Memnon Thorvald wasn’t particularly competent or effective, yet he provided a constant reminder that not everyone worshipped the sand on which Paul-Muad’Dib walked. Assassination attempts and conspiracies would spring up for as long as Muad’Dib ruled, and one day there would be a point at which the fires of rebellion would rise higher than his own light. A funeral pyre would burn for House Atreides.

  Ultimately, out of the ashes, history would be written by the survivors, and no matter how many volumes Irulan left behind about the Emperor Paul-Muad’Dib, he would be reviled as a monster… until someone worse came along. Was that his true legacy? He heaved a great sigh of resignation. Chani knew of his pain over this. So long as some people realized why Muad’Dib had done what he did, all was not lost.

  Now alone, Paul considered wandering off into the desert and vanishing. His skills were sufficient that he could avoid the Fedaykin indefinitely. But he could not bear the thought of leaving Chani, of never seeing her again. It was not a path he could take.

  Sunlight warmed the spice sands around him, causing their rich cinnamon odor to seep into his mind, enhancing his consciousness. Multiple futures shifted in and out of his view. Prescience was always with him, sometimes as a whisper, sometimes as a shout. Paul saw countless circuitous paths, any one of which could be trigg
ered by the tiniest act.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw marching armies in every color and cut of uniform, their varied weapons dripping with blood, surging across vast sectors of space. He could barely discern his own legions in their midst, so dwarfed were they by the shadowy shapes of mankind’s future.

  Across Paul’s melange-saturated mind, myriad possibilities spun and clashed and tangled, then fused into one path of certainty. Memnon Thorvald. Paul saw Guild Heighliners traveling clandestinely between planets, loading the secret battle fleets of Landsraad nobles and delivering them to a staging area in orbital space over the rebellious earl’s planet. He recognized the indigo-and-yellow colors of House Thorvald, along with the banners of CHOAM, the Spacing Guild, and even golden lion crests and blue griffins on a handful of ships. Though both House Corrino and House Harkonnen had been devastated at the beginning of Muad’Dib’s Jihad, their stubborn, ragtag remnants still resisted him.

  In his vision Paul watched Thorvald receive sanctuary and shielding from the Guild, aided by CHOAM — both of which saw the turmoil of the Jihad as bad for commerce. Normal warfare provided numerous economic advantages for the trading conglomerate, but Paul’s fanatics did not follow predictable lines. They caused damage without the compensation of increased profits.

  Paul suddenly knew what was different. These families allied against him had been emboldened by Bludd’s spectacular hunter-seeker attack in the Celestial Audience Chamber. Thorvald had continued to take credit for the act, though he’d had nothing to do with it.

  No longer content to be seen as mere gadflies and annoyances, these rebels had gathered their resources to make a concerted strike. They had carefully selected a target that would hurt Muad’Dib deeply.

  They intended to destroy Caladan.

  He saw that all of the ships carried aboard two Guild Heighliners would be disgorged over the ocean world. Thorvald would unleash his most devastating weaponry, specifically targeting Castle Caladan, the Lady Jessica, Gurney Halleck, and Cala City. Everything Paul remembered and loved from his childhood, and all that Duke Leto had held so dear, would be sterilized.

  They’re going to destroy Caladan!

  Paul tried to shake himself free of the vision, the nightmare. With sand dropping through the hourglass of the future, he could not afford to sit and watch the remaining details. He had to return. He had to stop this.

  For several long moments, his eyes would not open, and he could not hear or feel anything. Finally, in bright sunlight, he gazed out on the sands and saw the ornithopter flying in the sky, searching for him. Paul rose to his feet and signaled it. Time to stop hiding.

  He shook with fury.

  5

  Children play with toys and games. My brother Muad’Dib plays with Empires and entire populations.

  —ST. ALIA OF THE KNIFE

  Because of her unique background, Alia could immediately see how peculiar a child Marie was. She had the demeanor of something else about her.

  After Lady Margot had departed to rejoin her husband, leaving her daughter behind in the care of Muad’Dib, Alia delved within her Other Memories as they became accessible to her. She reviewed Bene Gesserit training scattered throughout her mother’s past, as well as some of the interconnected Fremen lives Jessica had obtained from the ancient Sayyadina Ramallo. Alia knew the Sisterhood’s tricks in honing and shaping a young girl’s personality, and Lady Margot Fenring was herself an adept. No doubt she had shared that wisdom with her daughter. In addition, Marie had been raised under strange Tleilaxu oppression, and Alia, even with all of her inborn pasts, still knew nothing about those closed worlds or the cloaked society of the Tleilaxu.

  Months ago, Princess Irulan had admonished Alia to find a childhood of her own, so she had decided to try. Now that she had a playmate, she attempted to wall off the inner voices in order to ignore those myriad other lives and their incessant, often contradictory, advice. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. Usually, the voices grew quiet.

  Alia had discovered how to create youthful experiences for herself, and Marie did the same. “I have never had playmates my own age, either,” the other girl said. “We were kept isolated among the Tleilaxu, and they do not have children… in the normal way.”

  Alia could remember uncounted births, even her very own. But she was intrigued to learn that the Tleilaxu reproduced differently, somehow. “How do they do it, then?”

  Marie just shrugged. “They wouldn’t tell us.” That, Alia decided, was a mystery she might have to look into.

  The two spent much of their days exploring the citadel, occupying themselves with games such as hide-and-seek. With so vast a complex in which to conceal themselves, the diversion quickly grew untenable, until they agreed to restrict the areas in which they could hide to certain reception wings and banquet rooms. They also enjoyed playing tricks on the ever-increasing number of amazon guards, Fremen-trained women among the palace staff who were assigned to watch over Alia. The female guards responded with great awkwardness to the games, not sure how to treat the girls.

  As the two became more comfortable with each another, Marie pressed her companion about what her childhood had been like in the Fremen sietch, living in caves, wearing a stillsuit every day. With a gleam in her eye, Alia replied, “I shall show you a game Fremen children often play. You’ll find it amusing.”

  Marie lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s give it a try.”

  ***

  ONCE THE WIFE of Jamis, Harah had been a battle prize won by young Paul Atreides, and then willingly taken by Stilgar. She was a consummate Fremen woman, elevated by Stilgar to be first among his wives. Despite her traditions and her own superstitions, Harah had been one of the few in sietch who was not terrified by the strange child Alia. Harah had given the girl her love and attention, rather than calling her Abomination and muttering that she be put to death.

  When Stilgar returned from the Jihad battlefields, glad to be back in the pure desert, Harah was his source of strength, his anchor. She was not a meek woman; in fact, Harah frightened Stilgar’s other wives and any Fremen, male or female, who dared to get in her way. Now she came to him with a facial expression as dangerous as a Coriolis storm. “Alia is gone. She and the Fenring child have disappeared. I suspect treachery.”

  “You always suspect treachery, Harah. You know Alia better than anyone, and you know she can take care of herself.”

  Harah stamped her foot. “But I do not know that other girl. She could be a weapon programmed by the Tleilaxu or Count Fenring or any of Muad’Dib’s enemies.”

  Stilgar looked into her eyes and saw the genuine concern. Harah was not an alarmist.

  “I have already searched the likely places,” she said. “I have dispatched the household staff to search as well, and told them to forsake their other duties until the children are found.” Stilgar felt a cold hand grip his heart, as Harah added in a low, warning voice, “When Muad’Dib returns from the desert, I would not like to be the one to tell him his sister has been lost.”

  “I will summon the guards and the Fedaykin. Chani will lead them, I am sure.”

  ***

  FOR NEARLY A full day, swarms of desperate searchers pushed through every corridor, every wing, and every chamber in the huge Citadel of Muad’Dib. In their scrutiny they discovered crimes and indiscretions, numerous hidden vaults, and a great deal of material that could be used as blackmail, all of which Korba promptly seized and locked away in private Qizarate files.

  But they found no sign of Alia or Marie, not a trail or a clue. The two had vanished.

  Search parties combed the outlying districts of Arrakeen, forcing their way into dwellings, ransacking merchants’ warehouses and marching through places of worship built by the countless sects that had sprung up to honor and revere Muad’Dib. They found many things, but no sign of the missing children.

  Stilgar was sickened, expecting at any moment to receive a ransom demand or, worse, Alia’s severe
d head sent in a package to the citadel. Stilgar authorized the Emperor’s treasury to offer a breathtaking reward for information about Alia’s whereabouts, and word spread around the city of Arrakeen. Orinthopters flew overhead and out into the desert in tightly arranged search patterns, craft that were fitted with the most advanced scanning technology. But the daily winds would quickly erase any footprints the children might have left.

  Finally Stilgar received a message from a poor desert family that lived in one of the squalid villages at the fringe of the Shield Wall, where breezes blew sand into the sheltered basin and radiation from Muad’Dib’s atomics still lingered at barely tolerable levels. Children were often seen playing at the edge of the desert. This family had reported noticing two girls that they did not recognize.

  Stilgar barked a command that the family be taken as guests to the citadel, so they could receive their reward if the information proved accurate. He climbed into a small ‘thopter himself and seized the controls. When the articulated wings began to shudder, he did not wait for the other troopers to scramble into their own aircraft. He took off from the citadel landing pad before the others even started their engines. The rest of the vessels swooped after him, then concentrated their search in the appropriate area. The ‘thopters swarmed out over the dunes, looking for any sign of figures.

  Stilgar went out several kilometers, though he was certain that Alia had sense enough not to go too far into the deep desert. On the other hand, the child was exceedingly unpredictable. Though he had no evidence, he would not have been surprised if Alia knew how to summon a worm and ride out into the open bled. She could have taken Marie with her, perhaps to find Paul on his long pilgrimage. The girls might have thought it would be fun.

  At last, he spotted two small figures huddled in the sand. The winds had died down, and their tiny footprints left a centipede-like path along the crest of a dune, then down into a shallow valley. The ‘thopters landed like a full-scale invasion force, and the two girls stood up, shielding their eyes and ears from the blowing sand and the noise of engines. Stilgar sprang out of the ‘thopter even before the articulated wings had slowed. He strode forward, his face a mixture of anger and relief.