Children of Dune (Dune Chronicles #3)

Children of Dune (Dune Chronicles #3) Page 6

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!"

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

"He's in you... but... I... we cannot... sometime 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!"

Leto nodded to himself, sensing the enormous will-force his father had required to withdraw, recognizing the consequences of failure. Any possession reduced the possessed to Abomination. The recognition gave him a renewed sense of strength, and he felt his own body with abnormal acuteness and a deeply drawn awareness of past mistakes: his own and those of his ancestors. It was the uncertainties which weakened - he saw this now. For an instant, temptation warred with fear within him. This flesh possessed the ability to transform melange into a vision of the future. With the spice, he could breathe the future, shatter Time's veils. He found the temptation difficult to shed, clasped his hands and sank into the prana-bindu awareness. His flesh negated the temptation. His flesh wore the deep knowledge learned in blood by Paul. Those who sought the future hoped to gain the winning gamble on tomorrow's race. Instead they found themselves trapped into a lifetime whose every heartbeat and anguished wail was known. Paul's final vision had shown the precarious way out of that trap, and Leto knew now that he had no other choice but to follow that way.

"The joy of living, its beauty is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you," he said.

A soft voice whispered in his ear: "I've always known that beauty."

Leto turned his head, stared into Ghanima's eyes which glistened in the bright moonlight. He saw Chani looking back at him. "Mother," he said, "you must withdraw."

"Ahhh, the temptation!" she said, and kissed him.

He pushed her away. "Would you take your daughter's life?" he demanded.

"It's so easy... so foolishly easy," she said.

Leto, feeling panic begin to grip him, remembered what an effort of will his father's persona-within had required to abandon the flesh. Was Ghanima lost in that observer-world where he had watched and listened, learning what he had required from his father?

"I will despise you, mother," he said.

"Others won't despise me," she said. "Be my beloved."

"If I do... you know what you both will become," he said. "My father will despise you."

"Never!"

"I will!"

The sound was jerked out of his throat without his volition and it carried all the old overtones of Voice which Paul had learned from his witch mother.

"Don't say it," she moaned.

"I will despise you!"

"Please... please don't say it."

Leto rubbed his throat, feeling the muscles become once more his own. "He will despise you. He will turn his back on you. He will go into the desert again."

"No... no..."

She shook her head from side to side.

"You must leave, mother," he said.

"No... no..." But the voice lacked its original force.

Leto watched his sister's face. How the muscles twitched! Emotions fled across the flesh at the turmoil within her.

"Leave," he whispered "Leave."

"No-o-o-o..."

He gripped her arm, felt the tremors which pulsed through her muscles, the nerves twitching. She writhed, tried to pull away, but he held tightly to her arm, whispering: "Leave... leave..."

And all the time, Leto berated himself for talking Ghani into this parent game which once they'd played often, but she had lately resisted. It was true that the female had more weakness in that inner assault, he realized. There lay the origin of the Bene Gesserit fear.

Hours passed and still Ghanima's body trembled and twitched with the inner battle, but now his sister's voice joined the argument. He heard her talking to that image within, the pleading.

"Mother... please -" And once: "You've seen Alia! Will you become another Alia?"

At last Ghanima leaned against him, whispered: "She has accepted it. She's gone."

He stroked her head. "Ghani, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll never ask you to do that again. I was selfish. Forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive," she said, and her voice came panting as though after great physical exertion. "We've learned much that we needed to know."

"She spoke to you of many things," he said. "We'll share it later when -"

"No! We'll do it now. You were right."

"My Golden Path?"

"Your damned Golden Path!"

"Logic's useless unless it's armed with essential data," he said. "But I -"

"Grandmother came back to guide our education and to see if we'd been... contaminated."

"That's what Duncan says. There's nothing new in -"

"Prime computation," she agreed, her voice strengthening. She pulled away from him, looked out at the desert which lay in a predawn hush. This battle... this knowledge, had cost them a night. The Royal Guard beyond the moisture seal must have had much to explain. Leto had charged that nothing disturb them.

"People often learn subtlety as they age," Leto said. "What is it we're learning with all of this agedness to draw upon?"

"The universe as we see it is never quite the exact physical universe," she said. "We mustn't perceive this grandmother just as a grandmother."

"That'd be dangerous," he agreed. "But my ques -"

"There's something beyond subtlety," she said. "We must have a place in our awareness to perceive what we can't preconceive. That's why... my mother spoke to me often of Jessica. At the last, when we were both reconciled to the inner exchange, she said many things." Ghanima sighed.

"We know she's our grandmother," he said. "You were with her for hours yesterday. Is that why -"

"If we allow it, our knowing will determine how we react to her," Ghanima said. "That's what my mother kept warning me. She quoted our grandmother once and -" Ghanima touched his arm. "- I heard the echo of it within me in our grandmother's voice."

"Warning you," Leto said. He found this thought disturbing. Was nothing in this world dependable?

"Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions," Ghanima said. "That's what my mother kept quoting."

"That's pure Bene Gesserit."

"If... if Jessica has gone back to the Sisterhood completely..."

"That'd be very dangerous to us," he said, completing the thought. "We carry the blood of their Kwisatz Haderach - their male Bene Gesserit."