“We are talking about the Landsraad.” Nalla Tur sounded impatient. “For millennia, we provided checks and balances against supreme Corrino rule. By virtue of our rights and long-standing tradition, we must be part of the current government. Even Muad’Dib knew the wisdom in letting the Landsraad continue. The Regent Alia should not rule without us.”
Jessica didn’t accept all of their arguments. “Muad’Dib has been gone only a month. You expect the entire government to change back to the way it was so swiftly?”
The stocky man from the high-gravity planet sounded conciliatory. Yes, his accent was definitely from Andaur. “Your son paid only lip service to the reconstituted Landsraad, and the Regent is even less receptive to shared governmental responsibilities. We need your help. We cannot allow Alia to become a tyrant.”
Jessica scowled. “A tyrant? You should choose your words carefully in my presence.” She made a warning gesture and accidentally bumped her hand against the spines of the enhanced cholla cactus, drawing blood from her palm.
“Apologies, great Lady, but we only seek the best for all concerned, and we need your help desperately.”
“I will speak with my daughter when the opportunity arises, as both her mother and—as you say—as a Landsraad representative. But she is the Regent, and I can’t guarantee that she will listen to either.”
Hyron Baha bowed formally, letting the red beads in his hair dangle in front of his face. “We’ve all been affected by the Jihad, Lady Jessica. We all know the human race will be generations recovering from the last few years. We should not let it grow worse.”
Jessica glanced down at her hand, then at the cactus. For every move I make, there will be sharp hazards, she thought, and caution cannot protect me from all of them.
Paul was a reflection of our father, Duke Leto the Just. I, however, am not a reflection of only our mother, Jessica, but of all the mothers before me. From that vast repository of Other Memories, I am the beneficiary of great wisdom.
—ST. ALIA OF THE KNIFE
Jessica felt she needed to pay her respects to Paul in a more private manner; it was neither a Bene Gesserit nor a political need, but the need of a mother to say goodbye to her son. Thanks to Stilgar, she would also soon attend a traditional, solemn, and secret Fremen memorial ceremony for Chani . . . but Alia did not know about that.
After breakfast, Jessica told her daughter that she wanted to go out to Sietch Tabr to visit the place from which Paul had walked off into the dunes, releasing his body to the desert planet, while leaving his memory firmly ensconced in legend.
Alia smiled at her uncertainly, her expression that of a daughter longing for acceptance from her mother. Despite possessing wisdom beyond her years, Alia was physically a teenager, growing into her body, discovering the world with her own senses. “I’ll go with you, Mother. It is a pilgrimage we should make together . . . for Paul.”
Jessica realized that she had been thinking primarily of herself and her son, giving inadequate consideration to Alia. Have I always brushed my daughter aside, without realizing it? Jessica had lost Duke Leto, and now Paul—leaving her with only Alia. Jessica chastised herself for the slight, then said, “I’d be glad to have you accompany me.”
They made quick preparations for an informal journey out to the sietch, neither of them wanting to make this into a grand procession of sycophants and wailing priests. Now that the public funeral was over, Alia seemed to understand her mother’s need for privacy; maybe the girl felt it herself as well.
The pair dressed in the simple garb of pilgrims so they could walk to the public landing areas without anyone remarking on their presence. Duncan would meet them at the pad, where he had readied an ornithopter for the flight across the desert.
Moving through the Arrakeen streets, Jessica immersed herself in the sights and sounds, sensing the clamoring energy of the populace: all those minds and souls generating a collective power that drove the human race forward. Here she and Alia were merely another mother and daughter, indistinguishable from others in the crowd. She wondered how many of those parents felt awkward around their children. Other teenage girls had entirely different troubles than the ones that weighed so heavily on Alia’s mind.
“When I learned you were coming here,” the girl said suddenly, “I looked forward to talking with you, hearing your advice. Paul valued your opinion, Mother, and I value you as well. But I know you don’t approve of some of my initial decisions as Regent. I am only doing what I believe is necessary and what Paul would have wanted.”
Jessica’s reply was noncommittal. “Paul made many decisions that troubled me, too.” Despite her second-guessing of her son’s leadership, she had come to realize that he did indeed see a much larger picture, a vast landscape of time and destiny with only a very faint and treacherous path through it. He had a terrible purpose that few others could grasp. He had been right and knew it so firmly that his mother’s disapproval had not swayed him in the least. In retrospect, Jessica realized that Paul had done some of the same things for which she now resented Alia. Maybe she had a blind spot where her daughter was concerned. “I’m worried, both as a mother and as a human being. I can’t help but fear that you are about to slide off the edge of a precipice.”
Alia’s response was filled with confidence. “My footing is sure, and I’m pragmatic.”
“And I have no interest in ruling the Imperium. There doesn’t need to be friction between us.”
Alia laughed, touched her mother’s sleeve. “Of course there is friction between us, for we are too much alike. I have all your memories within me.”
“Only my memories up to the moment of your birth. I’ve learned and changed much since then.”
“And so have I, Mother. So have I.”
At the edge of the spaceport, they passed a bazaar that had sprung up as a temporary camp of vendors and their wares. Over the course of decades, it had grown and evolved into a permanent fixture in Arrakeen. Polymer tarps formed artificial ceilings to shield pilgrims and curiosity seekers alike from the unrelenting sun. Large intake fans sucked in air and filtered out every drop of wasted moisture.
Fortune-tellers sat at booths, staring at ornate and colorful cards, doing readings from the enhanced Dune Tarot, with illustrations drawn to include recent events and the tragic loss of Muad’Dib; the artwork on the card of the Blind Man was particularly eerie. Most of the merchants, Jessica saw, offered religious icons, holy relics, and other “sacred” paraphernalia—all sorts of garbage—to which they had applied dubious “authentications” of their significance.
“This cloak was worn by Muad’Dib himself!” a man shouted, then named a price astronomical enough to “prove” the item’s provenance. Half a dozen vendors claimed to possess the original Atreides signet ring and accused one another of being liars. Alia, of course, had the genuine ring locked away back at the fortress citadel. Other salespeople hawked items supposedly touched by Muad’Dib or blessed by him or—for the bargain-conscious—merely glimpsed by him, as if his gaze imparted some sort of residual holiness.
The sheer tonnage of material in the bazaar was absurd, and this was only one shopping complex. Hundreds more were scattered throughout Arrakeen, and similar markets had sprung up on countless planets. Jessica stared in dismay. “My son has become a tourist attraction. Fodder for charlatans taking advantage of customers who are easily—and willingly—duped.”
A flash of anger crossed Alia’s face. “They are liars, all liars. How can they prove any of their claims? They are a disgrace to my brother’s name.”
“Similar men did this on Caladan while Paul was alive, during the worst years of his Jihad. When I could no longer tolerate it, Gurney and I evicted them.”
“Then I should do the same here. The Dune Tarot has always made me uneasy.” Wheels seemed to be turning in Alia’s mind, and she brooded for a moment. “Might you offer me your advice about how to accomplish it?”
The fact that her daughter would ask so
openly for her help lightened Jessica’s mood. “Yes, but later. Right now, we are off to the desert to say farewell to my son and your brother. This isn’t a time for politics.”
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the landing pad, where Duncan waited beside an ornithopter, young and healthy in a crisp uniform that made him look as if he had leapfrogged across years from the past.
After they landed at the distant sietch, Jessica stood outside the entrance and gazed out upon the desert. “This is where my grandchildren were born. And where Chani died.”
Duncan had a strange, disturbed look about him, but not the far-off expression of a Mentat engrossed in calculations. “Sietch Tabr is also the place where I tried to kill Paul.”
“And where the ghola Hayt became Duncan Idaho again.” Alia turned, wrapped her arms around him.
Without asking them to accompany her, Jessica followed the winding path out of the rocks and picked her way down to the edge of the sweeping vista of open dunes, the undulating crests and slopes of golden sand. The wind had picked up, a breeze the Fremen named pastaza, strong enough to stir sand and dust but presaging no storm.
Jessica walked out onto the soft warm dunes, leaving prominent footprints as she crested the nearest rise. She gazed past the arid horizon and envisioned the unbroken landscape stretching on forever. She stared at the pristine sands until her eyes ached from the glare, searching for signs of Paul, as if a silhouetted figure might stride back out of the dunes, returning from his sacred journey, his own hajj to Shai-Hulud.
But the winds and the sands of time had erased his footprints, leaving no sign of his passing. The desert was empty without him.
I know what you are thinking. I know what you are doing. Most of all, I know what I am doing.
—ST. ALIA OF THE KNIFE
Unpredictability.
Sitting in the nearly empty audience chamber, Alia smiled to herself as she let the word float through her mind. Unpredictability was far more than a word; it was a useful tool and a powerful weapon. It worked not only on her closest aides and advisers, and on the Qizarate, but also on the masses she ruled. No one knew how she thought or why she made her choices as Regent. And that kept others off guard and unsettled, making them wonder what she might do next, what she was capable of.
Her unpredictability would make the worst jackals hesitate, for now, and she hoped it gave her the time she needed to secure her hold and gather her strength, before any usurpers could try to rock the seat of government. But she had to be swift, and firm.
Dressed in a black aba with the red Atreides hawk on one shoulder, Alia waited impatiently. It was midmorning in the second week after Paul’s funeral, and a team of workers were shifting the position of the heavy Hagar emerald throne. “Turn it around. I want my back to the delegation from the Ixian Confederacy as they enter.”
The workers paused, confused. One man said, “But then you will not be able to see the delegation, my Lady.”
“No, they will not have the honor of seeing me. I’m not pleased with them.”
Though the technocrats insisted—as they had for years—that Ix had severed all ties with Bronso, she did not entirely believe them. Too many suspicions and questions, too many convenient explanations. While Paul had a certain affinity for Ix, thanks to his childhood memories, Alia did not suffer from such sentimentality. The technocrats would find that Muad’Dib’s sister was a different sort of ruler. Alia needed to keep the Ixian Confederacy unbalanced; it was easier to control power structures when they remained on unsteady ground.
She had considered this carefully.
Even when she was alone, Alia frequently chose to spend time pondering the consequences of her decisions. She knew that her mother had much wisdom to impart, but often Jessica’s advice seemed one-sided or limited. Today, at least, Alia would not ask her mother’s opinion. Caladan was known to make people soft and take away their edge.
Alia had additional advisers as well—Other Memories that unfolded like fractal patterns inside her consciousness in a cacophony of conflicting advice. Often in her private chambers she would consume great amounts of spice, inducing a trance so that she could journey into that Bene Gesserit archive of memories, and stir them up. She did not have the skill to pick and choose among them or locate any particular person as if she were querying a library. The memories came and went, with some presences shouting more loudly than others.
She let them assail her now, while she brooded about the Ixians’ arrival. Listening to the clamor, she heard one of those past lives rise above the others, a sharp-tongued voice in the archive. A wise old woman who was familiar with many of the challenges that Alia faced. She had, after all, been the Truthsayer to Emperor Shaddam IV . . . Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam.
Alia spoke to her in a taunting mental tone. Do you still call me “Abomination,” Grandmother, even when you are one of the voices inside of me?
Mohiam sounded dry and tart. By allowing me to advise you, child, you demonstrate wisdom, not weakness.
Why should I trust the voice of a woman who wanted to kill me?
Ah, but you were the one who ordered my death, child.
What of it? I also killed my grandfather, the Baron, because he needed killing. How could I do any less for you? Aren’t we taught to ignore or even despise emotional attachments?
Mohiam sounded pleased. Perhaps with maturity you have learned from your mistakes. I am willing to help.
Have you learned from your mistakes, Grandmother?
Mistakes? The dry rasp of a laugh echoed in Alia’s head. If you believe me so fallible, why ask me for advice?
Asking for advice is not the same as heeding it, Grandmother. What do you think I should do with these Ixians?
I think you should make them squirm.
Because they continue to secretly support Bronso?
I doubt very much if they’ve had any knowledge of that renegade for years now. However, they will be so eager to prove it that you can gain many concessions from them. The more fear and guilt you make them feel, the more they will want to appease you. I suggest you use this as a lever against them.
Alia made no further reply as she heard Mohiam’s presence fall back into the buzz of the background voices. Considering what Alia had done to the witch, could she trust her advice? Perhaps. Something about what she said, and the way she said it, rang of truth.
Meanwhile, the sweating workers threw themselves into the labor of turning the throne around. They could have attached suspensors to move the enormous blue-green seat with the nudge of a finger, but instead they grunted, strained, and pushed. It was their way of serving her.
Three black bees hummed over the heads of the workers, particularly irritating a swarthy offworld man who had a dark bristle of beard. The stinging insects darted around the sweat of his forehead. He released his hold to swat at them, while the other workers squared the heavy chair into position on the dais. The annoyed man knocked a bee out of the air and onto an arm of the throne, where he then crushed the insect with his fist and casually wiped it away.
Alia startled him. “Who gave you permission to smash a bee on the Imperial throne?”
Astonished at what he had done on impulse, the man turned, suddenly trembling, his face flushed, his eyes downcast and guilty. “N-no one, my Lady. I meant no affront.”
Alia drew her crysknife from its sheath at her neck and said in a measured tone, “With Muad’Dib gone, all the lives in his empire have been left to my stewardship. Including yours. And even a life as insignificant as that of an insect.”
The worker closed his eyes, resigned to his fate. “Yes, my Lady.”
“Extend the offending hand, palm up!”
Shaking, the worker did so. With a deft move, Alia slashed with the crysknife’s razor edge, neatly shaving a thin slice of flesh from the man’s palm, the portion that had killed the bee and touched the throne. He hissed in pain and surprise, but did not draw back, did not beg for mercy.
>
Good enough, she thought. He had learned his lesson, as had the other workers. Alia wiped the milky blade on the man’s shirt and resheathed the weapon. “They called my father Leto the Just. Perhaps I have some of him in me.”
Unpredictability.
When the Ixian delegation arrived, Alia sat dwarfed on the great crystalline throne and stared at the orange hangings that covered the wall behind the dais. Her coppery hair was secured with golden water rings, pieces of tallying metal that announced to everyone that she, like her brother, considered herself Fremen. Though she heard the commotion as the technocrats entered, she did not turn to see the men. Duncan would have told her never to sit with her back to a door, but Alia considered it symbolic of her disdain for these men.
From behind her, the chamberlain announced the Ixians, and she heard the approaching footsteps. Their shoes made sharp sounds on the hard, polished floor, because by her orders the workers had not laid out a royal carpet. She heard an unevenness—uncertainty?—in their gait.
A standing audience in the huge hall murmured, then grew quiet, curious as to what Alia would do next. Her amazon guards were stationed as usual, and ever alert. She did not know the name of the delegation leader, nor did she care. All technocrats were the same. Since the fall of the ruling House Vernius seven years earlier—when Bronso, the last heir, had gone into hiding to promote his sedition—the planet Ix had increased its research and industrial production, with little interest in the politics of the reconstituted Landsraad.
She heard the men stop at the base of the dais and shuffle uncomfortably. A clearing throat, the rustle of clothing, and a hint of annoyance in a male voice. “Lady Alia, we have come as you requested.”
Alia spoke straight ahead to the wall. “And do you know why I summoned you?”
The Winds of Dune Page 8