Dune

And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War that Paul-Muad’Dib lay alone in the Cave of Birds beneath the kiswa hangings of an inner cell. And he lay as one dead, caught up in the revelation of the Water of Life, his being translated beyond the boundaries of time by the poison that gives life. Thus was the prophecy made true that the Lisan al-Gaib might be both dead and alive.

—FROM “COLLECTED LEGENDS OF ARRAKIS”

BY THE PRINCESS IRULAN

Chani came up out of the Habbanya basin in the predawn darkness, hearing the ’thopter that had brought her from the south go whir-whirring off to a hiding place in the vastness. Around her, the escort kept its distance, fanning out into the rocks of the ridge to probe for dangers—and giving the mate of Muad’Dib, the mother of his firstborn, the thing she had requested: a moment to walk alone.

Why did he summon me? she asked herself. He told me before that I must remain in the south with little Leto and Alia.

She gathered her robe and leaped lightly up across a barrier rock and onto the climbing path that only the desert-trained could recognize in the darkness. Pebbles slithered underfoot and she danced across them without considering the nimbleness required.

The climb was exhilarating, easing the fears that had fermented in her because of her escort’s silent withdrawal and the fact that a precious ’thopter had been sent for her. She felt the inner leaping at the nearness of reunion with Paul-Muad’Dib, her Usul. His name might be a battle cry over all the land: “Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib!” But she knew a different man by a different name—the father of her son, the tender lover.

A great figure loomed out of the rocks above her, beckoning for speed. She quickened her pace. Dawn birds already were calling and lifting into the sky. A dim spread of light grew across the eastern horizon.

The figure above was not one of her own escort. Otheym? she wondered, marking a familiarity of movement and manner. She came up to him, recognized in the growing light the broad, flat features of the Fedaykin lieutenant, his hood open and mouth filter loosely fastened the way one did sometimes when venturing out on the desert for only a moment.

“Hurry,” he hissed, and led her down the secret crevasse into the hidden cave. “It will be light soon,” he whispered as he held a doorseal open for her. “The Harkonnens have been making desperation patrols over some of this region. We dare not chance discovery now.”

They emerged into the narrow side-passage entrance to the Cave of Birds. Glowglobes came alight. Otheym pressed past her, said: “Follow me. Quickly, now.”

They sped down the passage, through another valve door, another passage and through hangings into what had been the Sayyadina’s alcove in the days when this was an overday rest cave. Rugs and cushions now covered the floor. Woven hangings with the red figure of a hawk hid the rock walls. A low field desk at one side was strewn with papers from which lifted the aroma of their spice origin.

The Reverend Mother sat alone directly opposite the entrance. She looked up with the inward stare that made the uninitiated tremble.

Otheym pressed palms together, said: “I have brought Chani.” He bowed, retreated through the hangings.

And Jessica thought: How do I tell Chani?

“How is my grandson?” Jessica asked.

So it’s to be the ritual greeting, Chani thought, and her fears returned. Where is Muad’Dib? Why isn’t he here to greet me?

“He is healthy and happy, my mother,” Chani said. “I left him with Alia in the care of Harah.”

My mother, Jessica thought. Yes, she has the right to call me that in the formal greeting. She has given me a grandson.

“I hear a gift of cloth has been sent from Coanua sietch,” Jessica said.

“It is lovely cloth,” Chani said.

“Does Alia send a message?”

“No message. But the sietch moves more smoothly now that the people are beginning to accept the miracle of her status.”

Why does she drag this out so? Chani wondered. Something was so urgent that they sent a ’thopter for me. Now, we drag through the formalities!

“We must have some of the new cloth cut into garments for little Leto,” Jessica said.

“Whatever you wish, my mother,” Chani said. She lowered her gaze. “Is there news of battles?” She held her face expressionless that Jessica might not see the betrayal—that this was a question about Paul-Muad’Dib.

“New victories,” Jessica said. “Rabban has sent cautious overtures about a truce. His messengers have been returned without their water. Rabban has even lightened the burdens of the people in some of the sink villages. But he is too late. The people know he does it out of fear of us.”

“Thus it goes as Muad’Dib said,” Chani said. She stared at Jessica, trying to keep her fears to herself. I have spoken his name, but she has not responded. One cannot see emotion in that glazed stone she calls a face…but she is too frozen. Why is she so still? What has happened to my Usul?

“I wish we were in the south,” Jessica said. “The oases were so beautiful when we left. Do you not long for the day when the whole land may blossom thus?”

“The land is beautiful, true,” Chani said. “But there is much grief in it.”

“Grief is the price of victory,” Jessica said.

Is she preparing me for grief? Chani asked herself. She said: “There are so many women without men. There was jealousy when it was learned that I’d been summoned north.”

“I summoned you,” Jessica said.

Chani felt her heart hammering. She wanted to clap her hands to her ears, fearful of what they might hear. Still, she kept her voice even: “The message was signed Muad’Dib.”

“I signed it thus in the presence of his lieutenants,” Jessica said. “It was a subterfuge of necessity.” And Jessica thought: This is a brave woman, my Paul’s. She holds to the niceties even when fear is almost overwhelming her. Yes. She may be the one we need now.

Only the slightest tone of resignation crept into Chani’s voice as she said: “Now you may say the thing that must be said.”

“You were needed here to help me revive Paul,” Jessica said. And she thought: There! I said it in the precisely correct way. Revive. Thus she knows Paul is alive and knows there is peril, all in the same word.

Chani took only a moment to calm herself, then: “What is it I may do?” She wanted to leap at Jessica, shake her and scream: “Take me to him!” But she waited silently for the answer.

“I suspect,” Jessica said, “that the Harkonnens have managed to send an agent among us to poison Paul. It’s the only explanation that seems to fit. A most unusual poison. I’ve examined his blood in the most subtle ways without detecting it.”

Chani thrust herself forward onto her knees. “Poison? Is he in pain? Could I….”

“He is unconscious,” Jessica said. “The processes of his life are so low that they can be detected only with the most refined techniques. I shudder to think what could have happened had I not been the one to discover him. He appears dead to the untrained eye.”

“You have reasons other than courtesy for summoning me,” Chani said. “I know you, Reverend Mother. What is it you think I may do that you cannot do?”

She is brave, lovely and, ah-h-h, so perceptive, Jessica thought. She’d have made a fine Bene Gesserit.

“Chani,” Jessica said, “you may find this difficult to believe, but I do not know precisely why I sent for you. It was an instinct…a basic intuition. The thought came unbidden: ‘Send for Chani.’”

For the first time, Chani saw the sadness in Jessica’s expression, the unveiled pain modifying the inward stare.

“I’ve done all I know to do,” Jessica said. “That all…it is so far beyond what is usually supposed as all that you would find difficulty imagining it. Yet…I failed.”

“The old companion, Halleck,” Chani asked, “is it possible he’s a traitor?”

“Not Gurney,” Jessica said.

The two words carried an entire conversation, and Chani saw the searching, the tests…the memories of old failures that went into this flat denial.

Chani rocked back onto her feet, stood up, smoothed her desert-stained robe. “Take me to him,” she said.

Jessica arose, turned through hangings on the left wall.

Chani followed, found herself in what had been a storeroom, its rock walls concealed now beneath heavy draperies. Paul lay on a field pad against the far wall. A single glowglobe above him illuminated his face. A black robe covered him to the chest, leaving his arms outside it stretched along his sides. He appeared to be unclothed under the robe. The skin exposed looked waxen, rigid. There was no visible movement to him.

Chani suppressed the desire to dash forward, throw herself across him. She found her thoughts, instead, going to her son—Leto. And she realized in this instant that Jessica once had faced such a moment—her man threatened by death, forced in her own mind to consider what might be done to save a young son. The realization formed a sudden bond with the older woman so that Chani reached out and clasped Jessica’s hand. The answering grip was painful in its intensity.

“He lives,” Jessica said. “I assure you he lives. But the thread of his life is so thin it could easily escape detection. There are some among the leaders already muttering that the mother speaks and not the Reverend Mother, that my son is truly dead and I do not want to give up his water to the tribe.”

“How long has he been this way?” Chani asked. She disengaged her hand from Jessica’s, moved farther into the room.

“Three weeks,” Jessica said. “I spent almost a week trying to revive him. There were meetings, arguments…investigations. Then I sent for you. The Fedaykin obey my orders, else I might not have been able to delay the….” She wet her lips with her tongue, watching Chani cross to Paul.

Chani stood over him now, looking down on the soft beard of youth that framed his face, tracing with her eyes the high browline, the strong nose, the shuttered eyes—the features so peaceful in this rigid repose.

“How does he take nourishment?” Chani asked.

“The demands of his flesh are so slight he does not yet need food,” Jessica said.

“How many know of what has happened?” Chani asked.

“Only his closest advisers, a few of the leaders, the Fedaykin and, of course, whoever administered the poison.”

“There is no clue to the poisoner?”

“And it’s not for want of investigating,” Jessica said.

“What do the Fedaykin say?” Chani asked.

“They believe Paul is in a sacred trance, gathering his holy powers before the final battles. This is a thought I’ve cultivated.”

Chani lowered herself to her knees beside the pad, bent close to Paul’s face. She sensed an immediate difference in the air about his face…but it was only the spice, the ubiquitous spice whose odor permeated everything in Fremen life. Still….

“You were not born to the spice as we were,” Chani said. “Have you investigated the possibility that his body has rebelled against too much spice in his diet?”

“Allergy reactions are all negative,” Jessica said.

She closed her eyes, as much to blot out this scene as because of sudden realization of fatigue. How long have I been without sleep? she asked herself. Too long.

“When you change the Water of Life,” Chani said, “you do it within yourself by the inward awareness. Have you used this awareness to test his blood?”

“Normal Fremen blood,” Jessica said. “Completely adapted to the diet and the life here.”

Chani sat back on her heels, submerging her fears in thought as she studied Paul’s face. This was a trick she had learned from watching the Reverend Mothers. Time could be made to serve the mind. One concentrated the entire attention.

Presently, Chani said: “Is there a maker here?”

“There are several,” Jessica said with a touch of weariness. “We are never without them these days. Each victory requires its blessing. Each ceremony before a raid—”

“But Paul-Muad’Dib has held himself aloof from these ceremonies,” Chani said.

Jessica nodded to herself, remembering her son’s ambivalent feelings toward the spice drug and the prescient awareness it precipitated.

“How did you know this?” Jessica asked.

“It is spoken.”

“Too much is spoken,” Jessica said bitterly.

“Get me the raw Water of the maker,” Chani said.

Jessica stiffened at the tone of command in Chani’s voice, then observed the intense concentration in the younger woman and said: “At once.” She went out through the hangings to send a waterman.

Chani sat staring at Paul. If he has tried to do this, she thought. And it’s the sort of thing he might try….

Jessica knelt beside Chani, holding out a plain camp ewer. The charged odor of the poison was sharp in Chani’s nostrils. She dipped a finger in the fluid, held the finger close to Paul’s nose.

The skin along the bridge of his nose wrinkled slightly. Slowly, the nostrils flared.

Jessica gasped.

Chani touched the dampened finger to Paul’s upper lip.

He drew in a long, sobbing breath.

“What is this?” Jessica demanded.

“Be still,” Chani said. “You must convert a small amount of the sacred water. Quickly!”

Without questioning, because she recognized the tone of awareness in Chani’s voice, Jessica lifted the ewer to her mouth, drew in a small sip.

Paul’s eyes flew open. He stared upward at Chani.

“It is not necessary for her to change the Water,” he said. His voice was weak, but steady.

Jessica, a sip of the fluid on her tongue, found her body rallying, converting the poison almost automatically. In the light elevation the ceremony always imparted, she sensed the life-glow from Paul—a radiation there registering on her senses.

In that instant, she knew.

“You drank the sacred water!” she blurted.

“One drop of it,” Paul said. “So small…one drop.”

“How could you do such a foolish thing?” she demanded.

“He is your son,” Chani said.

Jessica glared at her.

A rare smile, warm and full of understanding, touched Paul’s lips. “Hear my beloved,” he said. “Listen to her, Mother. She knows.”

“A thing that others can do, he must do,” Chani said.

“When I had the drop in my mouth, when I felt it and smelled it, when I knew what it was doing to me, then I knew I could do the thing that you have done,” he said. “Your Bene Gesserit proctors speak of the Kwisatz Haderach, but they cannot begin to guess the many places I have been. In the few minutes I….” He broke off, looking at Chani with a puzzled frown. “Chani? How did you get here? You’re supposed to be…. Why are you here?”

He tried to push himself onto his elbows. Chani pressed him back gently.

“Please, my Usul,” she said.

“I feel so weak,” he said. His gaze darted around the room. “How long have I been here?”

“You’ve been three weeks in a coma so deep that the spark of life seemed to have fled,” Jessica said.

“But it was…. I took it just a moment ago and….”

“A moment for you, three weeks of fear for me,” Jessica said.

“It was only one drop, but I converted it,” Paul said. “I changed the Water of Life.” And before Chani or Jessica could stop him, he dipped his hand into the ewer they had placed on the floor beside him, and he brought the dripping hand to his mouth, swallowed the palm-cupped liquid.

“Paul!” Jessica screamed.

He grabbed her hand, faced her with a death’s head grin, and he sent his awareness surging over her.

The rapport was not as tender, not as sharing, not as encompassing as it had been with Alia and with the Old Reverend Mother in the cavern…but it was a rapport: a sense-sharing of the entire being. It shook her, weakened her, and she cowered in her mind, fearful of him.

Aloud, he said: “You speak of a place where you cannot enter? This place which the Reverend Mother cannot face, show it to me.”

She shook her head, terrified by the very thought.

“Show it to me!” he commanded.

“No!”

But she could not escape him. Bludgeoned by the terrible force of him, she closed her eyes and focused inward—the-direction-that-is-dark.

Paul’s consciousness flowed through and around her and into the darkness. She glimpsed the place dimly before her mind blanked itself away from the terror. Without knowing why, her whole being trembled at what she had seen—a region where a wind blew and sparks glared, where rings of light expanded and contracted, where rows of tumescent white shapes flowed over and under and around the lights, driven by darkness and a wind out of nowhere.

Presently, she opened her eyes, saw Paul staring up at her. He still held her hand, but the terrible rapport was gone. She quieted her trembling. Paul released her hand. It was as though some crutch had been removed. She staggered up and back, would have fallen had not Chani jumped to support her.

“Reverend Mother!” Chani said. “What is wrong?”

“Tired,” Jessica whispered. “So…tired.”

“Here,” Chani said. “Sit here.” She helped Jessica to a cushion against the wall.

The strong young arms felt so good to Jessica. She clung to Chani.

“He has, in truth, seen the Water of Life?” Chani asked. She disengaged herself from Jessica’s grip.

“He has seen,” Jessica whispered. Her mind still rolled and surged from the contact. It was like stepping to solid land after weeks on a heaving sea. She sensed the old Reverend Mother within her…and all the others awakened and questioning: “What was that? What happened? Where was that place?”

Through it all threaded the realization that her son was the Kwisatz Haderach, the one who could be many places at once. He was the fact out of the Bene Gesserit dream. And the fact gave her no peace.

“What happened?” Chani demanded.

Jessica shook her head.

Paul said: “There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it’s almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed.”

Jessica looked up, found Chani was staring at her while listening to Paul.

“Do you understand me, Mother?” Paul asked.

She could only nod.

“These things are so ancient within us,” Paul said, “that they’re ground into each separate cell of our bodies. We’re shaped by such forces. You can say to yourself, ‘Yes, I see how such a thing may be.’ But when you look inward and confront the raw force of your own life unshielded, you see your peril. You see that this could overwhelm you. The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It’s as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.”

“And you, my son,” Jessica asked, “are you one who gives or one who takes?”

“I’m at the fulcrum,” he said. “I cannot give without taking and I cannot take without….” He broke off, looking to the wall at his right.

Chani felt a draft against her cheek, turned to see the hangings close.

“It was Otheym,” Paul said. “He was listening.”

Accepting the words, Chani was touched by some of the prescience that haunted Paul, and she knew a thing-yet-to-be as though it already had occurred. Otheym would speak of what he had seen and heard. Others would spread the story until it was a fire over the land. Paul-Muad’Dib is not as other men, they would say. There can be no more doubt. He is a man, yet he sees through to the Water of Life in the way of a Reverend Mother. He is indeed the Lisan al-Gaib.

“You have seen the future, Paul,” Jessica said. “Will you say what you’ve seen?”

“Not the future,” he said. “I’ve seen the Now.” He forced himself to a sitting position, waved Chani aside as she moved to help him. “The Space above Arrakis is filled with the ships of the Guild.”

Jessica trembled at the certainty in his voice.

“The Padishah Emperor himself is there,” Paul said. He looked at the rock ceiling of his cell. “With his favorite Truthsayer and five legions of Sardaukar. The old Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is there with Thufir Hawat beside him and seven ships jammed with every conscript he could muster. Every Great House has its raiders above us…waiting.”

Chani shook her head, unable to look away from Paul. His strangeness, the flat tone of voice, the way he looked through her, filled her with awe.

Jessica tried to swallow in a dry throat, said: “For what are they waiting?”

Paul looked at her. “For the Guild’s permission to land. The Guild will strand on Arrakis any force that lands without permission.”

“The Guild’s protecting us?” Jessica asked.

“Protecting us! The Guild itself caused this by spreading tales about what we do here and by reducing troop transport fares to a point where even the poorest Houses are up there now waiting to loot us.”

Jessica noted the lack of bitterness in his tone, wondered at it. She couldn’t doubt his words—they had that same intensity she’d seen in him the night he’d revealed the path of the future that’d taken them among the Fremen.

Paul took a deep breath, said: “Mother, you must change a quantity of the Water for us. We need the catalyst. Chani, have a scout force sent out…to find a pre-spice mass. If we plant a quantity of the Water of Life above a pre-spice mass, do you know what will happen?”

Jessica weighed his words, suddenly saw through to his meaning. “Paul!” she gasped.

“The Water of Death,” he said. “It’d be a chain reaction.” He pointed to the floor. “Spreading death among the little makers, killing a vector of the life cycle that includes the spice and the makers. Arrakis will become a true desolation—without spice or maker.”

Chani put a hand to her mouth, shocked to numb silence by the blasphemy pouring from Paul’s lips.

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it,” Paul said. “We can destroy the spice.”

“What stays the Guild’s hand?” Jessica whispered.

“They’re searching for me,” Paul said. “Think of that! The finest Guild navigators, men who can quest ahead through time to find the safest course for the fastest Heighliners, all of them seeking me…and unable to find me. How they tremble! They know I have their secret here!” Paul held out his cupped hand. “Without the spice they’re blind!”

Chani found her voice. “You said you see the now!”

Paul lay back, searching the spread-out present, its limits extended into the future and into the past, holding onto the awareness with difficulty as the spice illumination began to fade.

“Go do as I commanded,” he said. “The future’s becoming as muddled for the Guild as it is for me. The lines of vision are narrowing. Everything focuses here where the spice is…where they’ve dared not interfere before…because to interfere was to lose what they must have. But now they’re desperate. All paths lead into darkness.”