Paul of Dune

Emperor Muad’Dib

10,198 AG

1

Whitmore Bludd — architect and Swordmaster — stood admiring the detailed projection model, as if he himself couldn’t believe what he had accomplished. He smiled at Paul. “Your magnificent citadel will never be completed, my Lord, and that is by design. Your followers will see the palace as a symbol that your work will never be finished.” With a limber movement of his arms, he cracked his knuckles. “Nevertheless, I proudly announce that I am satisfied with the portion I call Phase One.”

On the solido hologram that covered a conference-room table, the main part of the immense fortress, already as large as a small city and centered on the old Arrakeen Residency, looked solid and tangible; semitransparent extensions marked new structures that Bludd still wished to build. He had proposed additions that would be the size of districts, towers so high that they would experience their own weather patterns, and labyrinthine corridors that (some quipped) would require a Guild Navigator to explore.

Paul frowned skeptically. “Master Bludd, the cost of constructing such a thing would bankrupt CHOAM. Do you think the financial resources of my Empire are infinite?”

The Swordmaster smiled at him again. “Why yes, my Lord, I do. I present this model not to ask for more money or workers, but to suggest a spectacular celebration, a… grand opening of sorts.” He activated the holo-controls, and all of his proposed additions dissolved, leaving only the actual structure. “Think of it as a gala celebration. Representatives from every world conquered in your Jihad will come here to demonstrate their obedience.”

Chani and Korba were both in the room; their brows furrowed as they tried to digest the foppish man’s proposal and its implications. Alia sat at the end of the table, and the holographic image dwarfed her small body. “I think you merely wish to show off your work, Swordmaster,” she said.

Bludd seemed embarrassed. “As always, child, you have a talent for cutting to the heart of the matter.” He spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. “Naturally, I am proud of my work. Can you think of a better way to cement my place in history? Long after I am gone, I would like to be remembered in the company not just of my old friends Rivvy Dinari and Duncan Idaho, but also my famous ancestor, Porce Bludd, maybe even Jool Noret, the founder of the Ginaz School.”

Korba said in a low voice, “Security will be extremely difficult with all those planetary governors and Landsraad representatives here. Many of them despise you, Usul.”

Paul wished Stilgar could have been here, but the naib was leading a force of Fremen, chasing down another group of Thorvald’s persistent followers. Paul frowned at Korba. “Do you say that protecting me is not possible in such a situation?”

Now Korba seemed offended. “Of course not, Usul.”

Bludd asked, “With your prescience, could you not identify and eliminate any danger?”

Paul sighed. With every battle, every crisis, every failure (that his faithful viewed as “tests” rather than mistakes), he could not help but be reminded of how uncertain his knowledge was. Year by year, as the Jihad worsened and he saw no end in sight, he doggedly stuck to the path that had once seemed terrible but clear.

In recent days he’d experienced a recurring dream that baffled him, a vivid image of a leaping fish carved of wood over thick brown waves, also of wood. A symbol of his childhood on Caladan, now turned false? Was he the fish? He had no idea what the dream meant.

“My visions are imperfect and incomplete, Whitmore. I can see the great swell of dunes in the desert, but I do not always know the movement of individual grains of sand.”

Even so, as soon as Bludd had suggested the festival, Paul had sensed a tumultuous and chaotic clash of futures, many of which held grave danger for him. Some possibilities even offered a path to martyrdom. But he knew that, whatever the cost, humanity must survive for an even more incredible battle to come in the far future. While looking so far ahead, though, he had to beware that he did not fall into a pit at his feet.

The very fact that so many people believed in him and prayed to him, that they believed Muad’Dib saw all and knew all, paradoxically muddled his ability to perceive the workings of the future. But the future was always there in front of him, alternately veiled or exposed in fine detail. Wherever his destiny led him, he could not escape it. The path he would take was, and would be, determined by both Fate and his own actions.

He made his decision. “Yes, it is time to announce my victories and give the weary people something to celebrate. Send for Irulan. Tell her I need her.”

BECAUSE THE PRINCESS sequestered herself in her private chambers and offices, a few wagging tongues suggested that she had taken a secret lover since she did not share Muad’Dib’s bed. The more faithful believed that Irulan simply meditated in private on her awe for Muad’Dib.

But Paul knew that Irulan spent most of her days occupied with the next volume of her massive biographical project. He had read some of her draft passages, noting occasional errors and fabrications designed to build his image as a messiah. Because her alterations almost always coincided with his purposes, he rarely asked her to change what she had written. He smiled, thinking of this.

She takes grains of truth and builds them into vast deserts.

He had asked his spies to watch for any seditious treatises or manifestos that she might attempt to circulate among the populace. Thus far they had found no cause for concern. He didn’t think Irulan would try to foment a revolution, simply because it did not make sense for her to do so. Though he didn’t trust her entirely, he could rely on her for certain things. Such as now.

Pursuant to his summons, Irulan arrived at the conference room where Bludd’s citadel model still shimmered, although the wiry Swordmaster had already gone away to begin his preparations. An army of workers would complete the finishing touches, cleaning and polishing every corner, slab, and engraving, though Bludd insisted on doing the final ornate work in the Celestial Audience Chamber with his own hands, claiming his personal standards of perfectionism were far more rigorous than any other man’s (though Korba disagreed).

Irulan’s long blonde hair was tied back in a serviceable, yet not extravagant, style. Paul liked her better this way than with her formal hauteur. Her blue eyes studied the others who were present. “You summoned me, Husband?”

“I have a new task for you, Irulan — one for which you are well suited. It will require that you re-establish connections with the once-prominent families of the Landsraad.” He explained about the proposed ceremony. “Help me to summon them here. Bring forth one representative from every world in my Empire to celebrate the completion of the first part of my palatial fortress.”

When Korba spoke, he found a way to impart vehemence into every word. “This festival will also force every leader to prove his loyalty to Muad’Dib. My Qizarate will help administer the details. We will call this the Great Surrender. All must comply. Attendance is mandatory.”

Irulan was surprised. “Even my father, from Salusa Secundus?”

Paul tapped his fingers on the table. “Shaddam IV is one of my subjects as well. He is not exempt.”

Irulan’s face took on a calculating expression. “I can help you write the invitations, send summonses that will not be ignored, but are you aware of how much such an extravagance will cost you? Plus the commotion, the security issues, the traffic flow through the spaceports? Can the Guild handle the transport details?”

“The Guild will handle it,” Paul said. “And the lords themselves will help defray the expense. Each representative shall come to Dune with his frigate’s cargo hold filled with water.”

Irulan’s eyes showed surprise, then admiration. “A neat trick. Such a thing will not unduly strain the coffers of any planetary lord, and the Fremen will delight in it. A perfect symbolic gesture.”

“Symbolic and practical. We will distribute the water to all the people in Arrakeen,” Chani said. “It will show the benevolence of Muad’Dib.”

Irulan bowed slightly to him. “I will write my father immediately and compose missives for Guild couriers to deliver to the Landsraad nobles and other dignitaries.”

Paul had no doubt that she would sign each one “Princess Irulan, Daughter of Shaddam IV, Wife of Emperor Paul-Muad’Dib Atreides.” And that was her due.

2

Sire, I bring a message from your daughter, the Princess Irulan.” Dressed in his gray Sardaukar uniform, Bashar Zum Garon held his officer’s cap in one hand and with the other he extended a message cylinder to Shaddam, who had just finished breakfast with Wensicia and her husband in the austere drawing room of his private residence. An attendant had taken the baby away for now; Shaddam couldn’t abide eating with all the fuss surrounding the infant.

“And what makes you think I want to hear from her?” Shaddam motioned for Wensicia to accept the transmittal. “I would rather hear from Count Fenring.”

Sitting too close to Wensicia, Dalak brightened. “Sire, would you like me to write my cousin? Perhaps this time I can convince him to come back to us. I am happy to continue trying.”

Wensicia frowned at her husband. “Stop overestimating your own importance and influence. It has become tedious. Count Fenring barely even remembers who you are.” Dalak had left Salusa twice in the previous six months, brightly insisting that he could find and talk to his cousin. Each time, however, he had “encountered travel difficulties” and was unable to reach the Tleilaxu, much less find Fenring, though Bashar Garon never seemed to have such troubles. Both times Dalak had returned looking childishly abashed, shrugging in embarrassment at his incompetence.

Shaddam, however, had discovered exactly what Dalak was up to on these extracurricular expeditions. Wensicia’s simpering husband was less of a fool than he appeared to be — and more of a Fenring. Shaddam intended to deal with the man’s indiscretions in his own way….

Wensicia studied the message cylinder suspiciously. “This bears both Irulan’s personal seal and the royal seal of the Emperor.”

“Official business,” Garon said, still standing at attention. “And, no, Sire, I have not been able to make Count Fenring reconsider. He sends his regards along with a thousand apologies, but circumstances will not permit his return to Salusa.”

“And did he give you any response to his dear cousin’s pleas?” Shaddam looked pointedly at Dalak, who cringed.

“He made no mention whatsoever of having any contact with Wensicia’s husband, Sire. But I will continue to press him with each visit to the Tleilaxu homeworlds. They have begun to develop your private army, as requested.”

“Whether or not his cousin can convince him, as our plans build toward fruition, Hasimir won’t be able to resist getting involved. I know it.”

Dalak seemed eager to change the subject of the conversation. “I thought Irulan wasn’t allowed to participate in official business?” He peered over his wife’s shoulder to study the sealed message cylinder. “Is Paul Atreides finally going to send troops and work crews here to begin the terraforming? I would love for our little Farad’n to grow up in a more hospitable place.”

Wensicia broke open the seals and read the missive. “Muad’Dib means to show off his new citadel, which he claims surpasses the old Imperial Palace on Kaitain in both size and opulence.”

His mouth curling downward bitterly, Shaddam looked out the reinforced window onto the devastated landscape. “Anything surpasses what I have now.”

“He requests a representative from every world and every noble family, including the Corrinos on Salusa Secundus. He will even generously ease the travel restrictions that keep you bottled up here.”

Wensicia looked up. “It is more than an invitation, Father: It is a summons. You, or your representative, are required to attend a Great Surrender ceremony on Arrakis — bringing a cargo hold full of water as a gift for the Emperor.”

“I am the Emperor.” Shaddam made the comment out of habit, without much conviction.

“It is to be a gift for Muad’Dib. There are other specifics here, concerning the minimum amount of water.”

“I was given to understand that similar messages have gone out to all planetary leaders. I do not advise ignoring the summons,” Bashar Garon said. “His fanatics would seize upon any excuse to kill you and end the Corrino bloodline forever.”

Shaddam knew the commander was right. “Does it specify exactly who must attend? Or will any representative do?” His gaze fell on Wensicia’s milquetoast husband. The thin little man always dressed in silk and lace, and swooped around like a prince at a costume ball, oblivious to his stark surroundings or the plight of his father-in-law. “Maybe it’s time for you to make yourself useful, Dalak. Give me the sort of advice and counsel that Count Fenring once provided for me. Kill some of my enemies, as he did. Go there as my representative and find a way to assassinate Muad’Dib.”

“Sire?” Dalak’s face turned the color of pale cheese. “Don’t you have other people to do that for you?”

“No one as expendable.” Shaddam was pleased to see the shocked expression on the man’s face, as if he had never been so blatantly insulted before. “What good are you, Dalak? Hasimir could have done it easily. My daughter says that the first thing you do after you awaken is look at yourself in a mirror at the foot of your bed. Is this the best sort of ally I have now? No wonder House Corrino is in such disgrace.”

Dalak stiffened, gathering a thin and fragile shell of pride. “I groom meticulously to present myself well in your royal court. I do it all for you, Majesty. And I would do anything you command. It is my duty. My life revolves around restoring glory to House Corrino.”

“Ah, restoring glory to House Corrino. Perhaps I can help.” Shaddam sent a signal, and four of his servants entered from a side door, nudging along several large crates that were lightened by suspensors. “These crates contain some of the greatest and most valuable Corrino family treasures. They are restored to us now. Somehow, they vanished from our private vaults and secret hiding places. These treasures found their way onto the black market.”

From the panicked look on Dalak’s face, Shaddam could tell that the man knew precisely what the crates contained. “I… I am glad to see them returned to their rightful owners.”

Shaddam got up from the dining table and walked over to the man. “It was rather difficult, and expensive. I am sure, however, that those costs can be retrieved from your own private accounts.”

Wensicia looked at her husband as if he had become a putrefying mass of flesh. “You stole and liquidated Corrino heirlooms?”

“Certainly not!” Dalak’s indignant demeanor was not quite convincing. “I had nothing whatsoever to do with anything like that.”

Shaddam continued, “We now know why he had such difficulty reaching the Tleilaxu worlds and speaking with Count Fenring. He was much too preoccupied by other business.”

“No — I deny it completely. Where is your proof?”

“An Emperor’s word is all the proof any loyal subject should need.” Indeed, he had sufficient documentation, hidden receipts, secret images of the transactions occurring. There could be no question at all. Shaddam glanced at Bashar Garon. “Do you have an extra weapon on your person that you might loan to this young man? One of the daggers or handguns you keep in your boots and sleeves? Or perhaps that little poison dart pistol in your inside jacket pocket. That seems an adequate weapon for my effeminate son-in-law.”

Dutifully, Garon reached into his coat and brought out the tiny weapon, not certain what Shaddam intended. The dart pistol was flat and half the size of his hand.

Dalak was deeply frightened. Count Fenring would never have acted so, even in the direst of circumstances. “Sire, there has been a misunderstanding. I can prove my worth to you. Let me speak to my cousin. I can convince him to return to Salusa. I know I can! I will do anything you ask.”

“Since Dalak is such a loyal subject,” Shaddam said to the Bashar, “you’d best give him the weapon. I may need him to use it in my service.”

Without questioning, Garon handed the deadly device to Dalak, who accepted it reluctantly. Shaddam saw Garon rest his hand on the hilt of his sword so that the weapon could be drawn quickly if necessary. Shaddam thought, A Sardaukar is always dependable.

In an icy tone, the fallen Emperor gave patient instructions to his son-in-law. “First, some basic information. To fire the weapon, lift that panel with one of your nice long fingernails and press the button beneath. Now, do you see where the darts come out?”

Dalak scowled at the device. “Uh… yes. Y-you want me to kill someone with this, Majesty? Who displeases you?”

“Don’t point it in the wrong direction.” He spoke as he would to a child. “Do you have the courage to use it?”

The man swallowed hard, looked at his wife, and then said with false bravado, “If you command me to do so, my Emperor.” He seemed to think he could get out of this.

“Good.” Shaddam gave his daughter a pitying glance, but she seemed intrigued rather than frightened. Although he hadn’t told Wensicia about the thefts before today, the two of them had already discussed Dalak in detail and decided he was not the complete sycophantic fool he appeared to be. “Now, access the button, point the weapon at your own head, and fire.”

“Sire!” He scowled like a stubborn little boy. “Is this some sort of test?”

“Yes, a test. You have already proved your flaws and your guilt. Can you prove your loyalty?” Shaddam turned to the Sardaukar commander. “Bashar Garon, are you willing to give your life if House Corrino requires it?”

“Always, Sire.”

“So, a mere soldier is more loyal than my own son-in-law. Wensicia, you have made a bad choice of husbands.”

“He was supposed to be more than that,” Wensicia said.

“Marrying him should have been a peace offering to Count Fenring, but apparently Hasimir is no more impressed with this man than I am. Therefore, I see little point in keeping him around. Dalak has done his duty, gotten you pregnant so that you bore me a male heir, at last.” He looked over at the crates of recovered family treasures. “But I shall not abide treachery against me, and I despise thieves.”

The young man was both angry and terrified. “If this is how the Imperial family sees me, then I will gladly leave Salusa Secundus.”

“You’ll leave, but not in the manner you’d prefer.” Shaddam nodded to the stoic Sardaukar commander, feigning terror. “Oh dear, Bashar! Look, this man is pointing a deadly weapon in my presence! Protect us from this fanatic and his dart pistol. Kill him.”

Dalak dropped the weapon as if it had stung him, and he raised his hands, backing away. “I am not armed. I am no threat.”

Hesitantly, Bashar Garon slid his Sardaukar sword from its scabbard. The well-honed blade gleamed in the light of the room. “Are you certain, Sire? I would rather blood this in battle, than against an unarmed fool.”

“But you will do it if I command you?”

Garon did not look pleased. “Of course.”

“Oh, enough of this!” Wensicia snatched the dart pistol from the floor and without flinching fired an array of tiny darts into her husband’s chest. Little flowers of red bloomed on his shirt, and he dropped to his knees, crying and whining. She leaned close to his ashen face, as if she meant to give him a last kiss on the cheek. “When he grows older, I’ll tell Farad’n what a gallant, strong man his father was, and how you died defending us. History sometimes requires little fictions like that. We’ll say that one of those renegade prisoners broke through security, and you saved us all.”

Dalak wasn’t listening anymore. He slumped to the floor and died.

“So much easier than a divorce.” Wensicia tossed the dart pistol at the body. Watching her, both surprised and impressed, Shaddam thought this daughter was better suited to ruling than her older sister Irulan was.

As Garon resheathed his still-clean sword, Shaddam noticed that the soldier looked troubled by what he had just witnessed. “I apologize for this unpleasantry, Bashar, but it was unavoidable. A matter of cleaning house.”

The craggy-faced commander bowed his head in acknowledgement. “There is still the matter of sending a representative to Muad’Dib’s Great Surrender ceremony, Sire.”

Briefly, Shaddam considered sending the dead body of Dalak — now that would be an insult! “Does the summons require my ambassador to be alive?”

“I will go,” Wensicia said, a little too eagerly. “As the daughter of Shaddam Corrino IV, I will speak on your behalf.”

Rugi burst into the room carrying the baby, even though she had not been summoned. The teether in Farad’n’s mouth had once been used by Rugi herself, and bore a golden lion crest. Seeing the dead body on the floor, she almost dropped the child. “Oh! What happened to poor Dalak?”

“A terrible accident,” Wensicia said. “Lock the door behind you, please.”

Rugi did so. Nervously, the young woman with light brown hair stepped around the corpse and passed the child to Wensicia. “Your poor husband! Shouldn’t we call someone?”

“There’s nothing to be done.” Wensicia brushed the baby’s dark hair out of his eyes. “You are not to discuss this with anyone until I have given you instructions. But first we are deciding who will go to a party.”

Rugi’s face showed her confusion. “We’re having a party?”

Shaddam smiled at the baby and said, “Perhaps we should send little Farad’n. No mistaking that message.”

Wensicia vehemently shook her head. “Farad’n is your only male heir, Father! He would be too vulnerable on Arrakis. Irulan might even kill the baby out of jealousy, since she hasn’t been able to bear an heir of her own.”

Shaddam paced in front of the window, then focused his gaze on Rugi. The youngest and most worthless of the brood he’d had with Anirul, Rugi was meek and empty-headed. Before his downfall on Arrakis he had expected to marry her into an important Landsraad house, but since the exile of the Corrino leader, suitors were likely to be men as dismal as Dalak Zor-Fenring.

The former Padishah Emperor smiled to himself. Perhaps Rugi might be useful to him after all. Sending his youngest and least valued daughter to the Great Surrender would also convey a clear message to Muad’Dib.

3

In the weeks after they met Dr. Ereboam’s Kwisatz Haderach candidate, Count Fenring was interested to learn more about how the Tleilaxu had applied Twisting procedures to Thallo in an attempt to control him. With little Marie in tow, the Count and Lady Margot followed the albino researcher into an organic-looking, eight-story building filled with exotic testing machinery.

There, in a laboratory chamber, a large machine whirled an experimental subject around and around inside an oval capsule attached to a long metal arm. The capsule went up and down, in and out and around, subjecting the occupant to very high accelerations and gravitational stresses.

Marie stared at the contraption. “I would like to try that.”

Lady Margot felt immediately protective. “Not now, dear child. It isn’t safe.”

“We would never subject our Kwisatz Haderach to anything unsafe.” Dr. Ereboam’s pinkish eyes followed the spinning, swooping pod. “It is primarily a centrifuge procedure, combined with precise bursts of finely calibrated energy that penetrate certain areas in the endorphin-infused brain. Think of it as a sorting and filing process. This technique isolates specific portions of the mind, closing off unproductive neural pathways and synapses, while opening others. We have empirical data to prove that such exposure improves both mental and physical performance. Our techniques have proved effective for centuries.”

Fenring, though, had his doubts. Thallo might have followed a carefully prescribed genetic blueprint, but he was not as impressive as Lady Margot’s own perfect little daughter. Smiling, the Count tousled the golden hair of the girl whose intelligent eyes continued to study everything around her.

When Ereboam turned off the machine, the lithe and muscular Thallo emerged, his body still covered by a beige filmsuit. He didn’t look the slightest bit disoriented from the stressful experiment. When he fixed his gaze on Marie’s, she met it with her pale blue eyes, unwaveringly. A strange spark seemed to pass between them.

As Thallo approached, the two continued to stare at each other. Much taller, the Tleilaxu candidate carried himself with a casual, almost derisive demeanor.

“We could be taught together,” she suggested. Considering the intense training he and his wife were already giving the girl, Fenring was not averse to adding another advantage to Marie’s personal arsenal. In order to succeed — with or without the Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach candidate — she would have to be the most precisely trained individual in the Imperium.

Ereboam found the idea intriguing. “In the years you have lived among us, Count, your Marie is one of the most interesting subjects I have ever seen. She could be an effective catalyst for Thallo’s training.”

“And vice versa,” Fenring suggested.

“THEY WATCH EVERYTHING we do.” Thallo covered his own mouth and was careful not to gesture toward the poorly disguised observation plate mounted high on the wall of their enclosed exercise chamber. “They conceal themselves up there, several men at a time. Thus, the observers themselves affect their experiment. Appallingly poor science.”

Marie looked, not caring if she was noticed by the ubiquitous Tleilaxu. During the six years of her life, she’d grown accustomed to having someone monitor her constantly, whether it was her parents, Tonia Obregah-Xo, or unseen spies. Usually, she didn’t even think about it. The blank observation plate made no response.

Keeping his hand partially in place, Thallo smiled at her. “They don’t see everything they believe they see. I have disrupted their viewing images, added special induction subsonics.”

Marie was intrigued. “You can manipulate their technology?”

“They think they have taught me everything, though I have learned much more on my own.” He looked at the observation window with a hint of scorn. “By manipulating their technology, I can manipulate them.” He seemed troubled. “They consider me to be perfect, yet they always underestimate what I can do. They don’t even see the contradiction in their own actions.”

“And are you perfect?”

He lowered his voice, revealing a secret. “Nothing can be perfect. It is an insult to the universe.” He turned his back to the observation window, then slowly rolled up the stretching, flexible beige fabric of his sleeves to reveal vivid red cuts that marred the pale skin of his arms, interlaced with the scars of older injuries that had healed over.

She leaned closer, her eyes wide. “Was it an accident?”

“I’ve got more underneath.” He stroked his leotard-covered chest and legs. “Flaws disguise the myth of perfection.” He chuckled. “Dr. Ereboam knows, but he has kept it secret from his fellow Masters. He tries to hide sharp objects from me, but I always find alternatives. Your fingernails, for example. They’ve trimmed mine, but I could use yours.”

“You want me to help cut you?” She was curious, intrigued.

“Not now.” Moving with an eerie speed and grace, he led her toward a set of metal stairs up to the walkway circling the chamber. He stopped directly in front of the opaque observation film and stared at it, as if he could see inside.

Pressing her face against the barrier, Marie tried to discern even a shadow of the watchers on the other side, but could see only murky darkness. Thallo pressed his palm against the window, bulging his muscles until the barrier flexed inward, but he did not break it. The girl wondered what the observers thought they were seeing.

Quickly bored with that amusement, the two playmates crawled across pipe conduits in the ceiling and dangled high above the floor. Though a fall from such a height would surely be harmful, if not fatal, no panicked guards or researchers rushed in to stop them.

“Don’t be afraid,” Thallo said. “The Masters will not allow me to come to harm.”

To Marie’s alarm, he leaped away from the ceiling pipe and into the open air, dropping heedlessly toward the floor ten meters below. But before he could crash onto the hard surface, an emergency suspensor field cushioned him and lowered him gently to the floor. She wondered when and how he had discovered the unexpected safety net, and whether he had fallen by accident just now… or if he had tried to kill himself.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Marie jumped as well, throwing herself into what would have been a suicidal fall, had it not been thwarted by the safety system. As she got to her feet, delighted, she saw Thallo sitting on the floor, looking as if all the elation had drained out of him. “I am only a candidate. They hope to perfect me, but if I fail, they will try again. And again.”

“Fail at what?” She sat beside him. “What do they plan to do with you?”

“I am supposed to be their Kwisatz Haderach.” His brown eyes glittered. “When they give me large doses of melange, I sometimes see multiple futures for mankind. One of them always clears up, like sunlight cutting through fog, and I see myself as the Emperor of the Known Universe. That is what they want — for me to be their puppet, after I overthrow Muad’Dib.”

“Very ambitious.” She did not doubt him for a moment. Her parents had said they wanted her to eventually sit on Muad’Dib’s throne, so why were they cooperating with the Tleilaxu now? Did they expect Marie to be Thallo’s consort someday?

“But because I can see the future, I know that I will not succeed. Therefore, I am not perfect.” Thallo’s voice trailed off and his shoulders sagged, as if the immensity pressed down upon him.

On impulse, Marie reached out and slashed a fingernail across his cheek, a wound that his filmsuit could not cover. Thallo recoiled. Then, seeing the blood flow, he grinned at her. “Friends,” he said.

Moments later, Dr. Ereboam hurried into the chamber alongside Marie’s parents. “Why did you do that to him?” the albino researcher demanded, grabbing Thallo’s head and studying the deep scratch on his cheek. He wiped away the small amount of blood and sprayed a substance on the wound.

“We were just playing,” Marie said sweetly. “It was an accident.” She exchanged glances with her mother, who frowned disapprovingly.

Lady Margot had taught her daughter in the use of fingernails as a Bene Gesserit fighting skill.

Thallo agreed. “Just an accident.”

“Have the girl’s nails trimmed,” Dr. Ereboam demanded.

“I will not,” her mother said.

“She cannot really harm Thallo, hmmm?” Fenring said. “If he is to be your Kwisatz Haderach, he shouldn’t be afraid of a little girl.”

Marie put on the most innocent, cherubic expression she could manage.

IN ENSUING DAYS, Marie and Thallo were permitted to spend time with each other regularly. The Tleilaxu researchers established what they called “interactive scenarios” that sometimes put them together in formal laboratory chambers, while at other times their interactions were more casual and unchoreographed.

They played games, running through common rooms and corridors. The pair even ate meals together, during which Marie once started throwing food just to shock the observers, pretending to be a child having a tantrum. Noodles, stew, fruit, drinks, and plastic table settings flew back and forth. Finally, laughing, she and Thallo sat together in a mess on the floor… and she surreptitiously pressed a small item into his hand.

“Here. My mother gave it to me for self-protection,” Marie whispered, keeping a hand over her mouth to cover her moving lips. “Use it to do little things to yourself. Keep the Masters from controlling you.”

It was a multitool containing a tiny knife, an igniter to inflict minor burns, and a long thread that could be discharged and extended as an electronic whip. In the supposed privacy of his room, he could cut, burn, and flagellate himself to his heart’s content — until someone forcibly stopped him. Nodding thankfully, he slipped it into a pocket.

Thallo whispered to her, “Someday I’m going to make an extravagant gesture that will really upset the Masters. I want them to be sorry they ever created me. As my friend — my best friend — you should help me.”

4

The lack of fanfare that greeted the embarrassingly small ship from Salusa Secundus was a snub to House Corrino. Even so, Irulan went on her own initiative to greet the vessel and whichever representative Shaddam IV had sent for the Great Surrender ceremony. She was convinced that her father would not have come himself.

When she left the citadel for the spaceport, Irulan considered doing so without any extravagant ceremony, dressing in common clothing. After all, Paul apparently liked to walk among the people, letting himself be swallowed up in the populace and pretending to be one of them, as when he went off on his foolish stunt, posing as a soldier on the battlefield of Ehknot. He thought it brought him close to his subjects.

But Irulan did not want to navigate her way through the press of people unguarded, where the dust and the stench of unwashed bodies would fill her every breath. She was the daughter of one Emperor and the wife of another, and insisted on maintaining appearances for her family, even if no one else did. Sometimes she felt that appearances were all she had left.

The Princess chose to dress in a dark blue gown rather than Atreides green or white, then swept her hair up in a simple twist. As she left her private wing of the palace, Irulan summoned a full escort of soldiers and asked several members of the household staff to carry the colorful and impressive banners from the doorway and precede her through the streets, as was her due. Though these were Muad’Dib’s soldiers and his banners, they could serve her as well.

It was not the grand spectacle that the Corrinos truly deserved, but it would have to suffice, since too much ostentation could well be interpreted as an insult. She did not feel comfortable unduly flaunting the grandeur and wealth of Muad’Dib while the rest of her family was exiled to a devastated planet. Irulan already knew that her family considered her a traitor simply because she had accepted her situation; she did not wish to antagonize them further.

At the bustling spaceport out on the plains of Arrakeen, the latest Guild Heighliner had disgorged numerous diplomatic frigates that had come in response to Muad’Dib’s summons. The clamor, movement, and confusion were incredible. Her father, who had spent much of his reign dabbling with regimented Sardaukar maneuvers, would have been offended by the inefficient chaos.

Frigate after frigate awaited their turns in the disembarkation zones while security troops scanned the exteriors, then boarded and inspected the passengers and their belongings. Each flight crew endured a lengthy interrogation before being released to go about its business.

The Mother Superior on Wallach IX had offered to send dozens of Truthsayers to assist with the interrogations, supposedly as a token of Bene Gesserit loyalty. Such Sisters could detect falsehood among anyone who would try to hide their motives from the Qizarate guards. But Paul had spurned the offer, claiming he did not trust witches any more than he trusted would-be assassins.

The diplomatic frigates were lined up in no particular order on the paved expanse. In the first year of his reign, Paul had increased the spaceport’s landing area tenfold, and again as he acquired more ships for his Jihad. Now, each of these vessels carried at least one representative from a surrendered Landsraad family.

Paul had formally demanded a tribute of water from every ship. Qizarate priests were everywhere, guiding groundcar tankers that pumped the water from the holds to fill large decorated cisterns, whose spigots would be opened up for the people during the festival.

At last Irulan tracked down the Corrino frigate by identifying the faded, barely discernible lion symbol of her family painted on the hull, a design that had graced incredible structures and inspirational flags for thousands of years. Now the emblem was but a pitiable, stained reminder of the past, and the ship attracted no particular notice. Paul had decreed that the Corrino representative was to be viewed not as a member of the Imperial family, but as a spokesman for a minor House based on Salusa Secundus.

Security guards had already boarded the frigate, and Irulan could see that they had nearly completed their inspection scans of the interior. The ship’s cargo holds were being emptied of water. Though Salusa was a harsh planet, devastated by the old holocaust, water was not particularly scarce there. Certainly not like Arrakis.

Irulan called for a fanfare, asked her welcoming party to raise the banners and clear a path for her while her guards stood at arms. Then she stepped forward as the passenger hatch opened and the ramp extended. Onlookers were all around Irulan, watching the constantly changing show of strangers coming from distant planets. By now, they had seen so many hundreds of arrivals that they all looked bored, although the escort party’s flags of Muad’Dib gave them something else to consider.

Accompanied by ten disarmed Sardaukar guards, the Salusan representative finally appeared. She looked like a waif, her skin pale, her eyes large and round, her hair a mousy brown rather than Irulan’s rich gold or the lush auburn of her sister Wensicia. The girl looked completely overwhelmed.

“Rugi!” Irulan startled the escort guards. Amidst all the background noise, the Arrakeen security troops gave Irulan only a cursory glance, then allowed her forward.

When her sister took dainty steps down the ramp, Rugi was breathing heavily, fighting to control a disturbed expression on her face. She had chosen to wear one of her finest court gowns, which she had taken into exile with her from Kaitain. A stiff, gem-encrusted collar rose higher than the top of her head. Her billowing skirts dripped prismatic lace; a choker of Hagal emeralds encircled her tiny neck, while Mallabor pearls looked like a lather of sea foam across her bodice. Rugi looked as if she wanted to dart back into the safety of her frigate.

Irulan kissed her little sister on the cheek. Though the young woman was about the same age as Paul Atreides, she appeared vastly younger and more innocent. Because of her low ranking even among the daughters of Shaddam, Rugi had received only cursory training from the Sisterhood. She had lived a sheltered life, first on Kaitain and afterward on Salusa Secundus. Irulan understood immediately the message the fallen Emperor was sending: I could not be bothered to send anyone more important. Thus, I sneer at your summons, Muad’Dib.

A dangerous game to play, Irulan thought, worried for her father’s safety and concerned that he might be planning something even more foolish.

She took her sister’s dainty hand — too dainty. Obviously out of her depth, this was a girl who had been bred for court life in the old Imperium, nothing more. “I’ll take care of you, little sister. Muad’Dib has guaranteed you his protection.” Irulan half expected her sister to pull away and reject her as a “traitor to House Corrino.” Instead, Rugi clasped Irulan’s hand tightly. With a smile, Irulan said, “We have an apartment for you in the new citadel, in my private wing.”

“And rooms for my Sardaukar?” Rugi asked, her voice quavering. “Father told me not to stray from them.”

“Yes, we have quarters for them as well.” The magnificent Citadel of Muad’Dib could house the entire population of Salusa and still have rooms left over, she thought.

“Father is not happy with you, Irulan.”

“I know. We’ll have time to talk about that.”

Rugi summoned what bravery she possessed. She released Irulan’s hand, taking her arm instead, and the two of them strolled together away from the spaceport, followed by the Sardaukar retinue. “I thought Salusa Secundus was bad.” Rugi stared at the dusty streets, and winced at the noise and stench. “But this place is much, much worse.”

5

Jericha had impressive mountains — gray, craggy peaks thatched with glistening snow that provided too many hiding places for Thorvald’s rebels. In the five years since the start of the Jihad, Stilgar had seen many things that went beyond the wildest things he’d ever thought of as a Fremen naib. In Sietch Tabr he had considered himself a wise and powerful man, yet he had never seen beyond the horizon of his own planet. Dune had been enough for him then.

But when Muad’Dib asked him to do more, he could not refuse. In preliminary reports, Stilgar had heard about the harsh conditions that awaited his troops once they got high above the tree line to the windswept fastnesses where Memnon Thorvald’s guerrilla troops had concealed a weapons stockpile. He had laughed at the warnings about weather. Cold, snow, blizzards — such weather could not possibly be more dangerous than the sandstorms he had endured for most of his life.

As the date of the Great Surrender ceremony approached, more than a thousand representatives had already traveled to Arrakeen to pledge themselves and show their humility. Stilgar longed to be back in Arrakeen where he could stand at Muad’Dib’s side and be the first to embrace him. But the press of the Jihad did not slow for festivals or celebrations. The fighting would not stop, no matter what Muad’Dib decreed. For now Stilgar had another job to do.

The nine surviving rebel nobles in Thorvald’s persistent insurrection had sent a defiant announcement to a number of fringe worlds. Thorvald had proclaimed his own gathering of opposition leaders and provided cryptic instructions on where to meet.

Paul had looked genuinely sad as he dispatched Stilgar and a special group of crack soldiers to Jericha. “Everyone else in my Empire needs to prove their loyalty to me, Stil, but not you, and not Gurney Halleck.”

For the important assignment Stilgar had selected a few of his best Fremen warriors, including Elias, one of the bravest of Muad’Dib’s death commandos. Most of this army, though, was composed of Caladan troops, trained and dispatched by Halleck as he did his part to continue the fight. Jericha was a water-rich world, and after his unsettling debacle in the marshes on Bela Tegeuse, Stilgar had requested soldiers with more proficiency in the type of environment they were likely to encounter.

Their path to the rebel stockpile in the Jerichan mountains was slow and tedious. In a brilliant tactical move, Thorvald’s followers had obtained and deployed powerful suspensor-field jammers, dangerous and expensive Ixian technology available only on the black market. The jammers were capable of shutting down the engines of scout fliers and airborne assault ships. Stilgar had discovered this to his dismay when he’d sent his first assault team to investigate and destroy the enclave. Every ship in the first wave crashed, plummeting into the rugged mountains before they could manage to get off a single shot.

So, Stilgar had been forced to plan another approach. Since standard flying vehicles and even ‘thopters were not reliable against the jammers, he decided to use a more conventional means of locomotion. From small tundra villages — whose men and women enthusiastically swore their loyalty to Muad’Dib as soon as they saw the overwhelming military force — they obtained ruh-yaks: sturdy, shaggy, and smelly beasts of burden. The creatures could carry men and equipment, and their plodding footsteps did not slow (or hasten) regardless of the load they carried. Invoking the name of Muad’Dib, Stilgar had commandeered the entire herd and all the necessary saddles, harnesses, straps, and goads.

With the ruh-yaks, his team could pass through a green stream valley and up into the barren rock to a high pass, following trails that the rebels in Thorvald’s stronghold were not likely to suspect. Based on intelligence reports, Stilgar had no doubt that his fighters would overwhelm and crush the enemy. The only question in his mind was how many lives it would cost him.

Leaving the tundra village nearly empty after the people helped Muad’Dib’s fighters, Stilgar’s men set off to find the weapons stockpile. The ruh-yaks were offensive beasts, stupid, flatulent animals whose thick, matted fur was a haven for biting insects that seemed to prefer the taste of human blood over that of the animals. Some were ornery and stubborn and often made such loud noises of complaint that Stilgar despaired of approaching his target quietly.

Proceeding up steep slopes, plodding relentlessly for more than a day, they finally reached a second river valley that led even higher into the crags. Drawing tributaries from several adjacent drainages, the mountain stream itself was wide and deep, greatly swollen by spring runoff.

“I am not certain we can ford this,” said Burbage, the highest-ranking man of Stilgar’s Caladan troops, a noncom. “Normally, I wouldn’t recommend a crossing for another month or two, until the waters go down. It’s the wrong season.”

“Muad’Dib cannot keep track of every season on every planet in his Empire,” Stilgar said. “He sent us here to wipe out a nest of vipers. Would you like to go tell him he will have to wait?”

Burbage seemed more dismayed than intimidated. He touched a long, thin mark on his cheek. “I got this scar fighting in Duke Leto’s War of Assassins, facing the charging stallions of Viscount Moritani. I have been following Atreides orders since long before Master Paul became the man you call Muad’Dib. I’ll find a way.”

The Caladan man urged his beast to the edge of the river. The current looked deceptively motionless, showing only a few feathery ripples across the surface. Nevertheless, Stilgar could hear the hollow chuckling of water that stirred past rocks on the bank.

“Deep and cold.” Burbage raised his voice to the Caladan troops. “But I can swim, and cold doesn’t bother me. Shall we go?” His men cheered, and Stilgar was caught up in their confidence.

Burbage’s ruh-yak lurched into the water with a great splash, and the other Caladan riders charged forward, cheering as if it were a game. Within moments dozens of the beasts had plunged into the deep, wide stream, striking out into the current and pushing downstream. Quickly the water became too deep for the beasts to find footing, and they began to swim.

Stilgar, Elias, and his Fremen were caught up in the charge, driven into the river, which carried them farther down the valley. When they were in the middle of the channel, algae-slick rocks just beneath the surface began to churn the current into rougher water.

Some of the Caladan troops had already made it across, while several men had fallen off of their mounts and were soaked. They splashed to the bank, laughing, pulling some of their friends back into the water to engage in horseplay. These soldiers had been born and raised around water; they had learned to swim as easily as they walked.

But Stilgar was awed by the swift and powerful current. Elias slipped off of his ruh-yak and flailed in the river, rushing downstream to where he was caught up against jutting boulders. He clung to them, bellowing for help and not willing to let go to swim for the far bank.

Burbage shouted for ropes and swimmers to retrieve the Fremen. Stilgar tried to get close enough to help Elias, but his own thrashing ruh-yak slipped beneath the water. Stilgar went under and instead of letting out a yell, he swallowed and inhaled a mouthful of the river. He began to cough and gasp uncontrollably. The weight of his heavy pack pulled him down.

The struggling ruh-yak tried to throw off its rider and the packs. The equipment fell off first, whisked along in the current. Stilgar couldn’t catch any of it, couldn’t even keep his hold on the saddle and reins. He found himself drifting free, in clothing that was soaked and heavy. The coldness of the water settled into his chest, squeezing his lungs like an icy fist. He kept going under, choking and coughing; he hadn’t been able to draw a decent breath since his accidental gulp of water. The stream seemed so deep, so cold.

He saw a light above and struck out for it, but something grabbed his shoulder, sharp and powerful, like a monster’s claw under the water. A tree branch. Tangled in it, he couldn’t stroke upward. As his need for air became more and more desperate, he forgot everything Gurney Halleck had taught him about swimming. He felt something tear at his skin. The strap of his pack was snagged on the waterlogged branch.

He had to breathe. His lungs were being crushed. His vision was growing dark. He had to breathe. No longer able to bear it, Stilgar stretched his arms toward the sunlight above, pulled, tried to free himself, but finally had no choice but to inhale.

The only breath he could draw, though, was filled with cold, liquid blackness.

HE AWOKE SPEWING bile-tasting water from his mouth and nostrils. Burbage had pressed hard on Stilgar’s upper stomach, making him retch and forcing the water out of his lungs.

A battered and bedraggled Elias stood over him, looking deeply worried, as the naib drew several shuddering breaths. “He will be like Enno, a Fremen dead from too much water and come back to life.”

“No fighters will be drowning today,” Burbage said with a nod.

Stilgar tried to say that he would be fine, but he vomited again, rolled over, coughed, and spat up more water. His knees and arms trembled. He had no words to explain what he had seen within the light and the water. In the darkness of death he remembered something, but it was fading quickly. A warm, tingling amazement began to spread through him.

Burbage had already sent his soldiers up and down the riverbank to retrieve as many packs as possible. Seventeen ruh-yaks had gone under, while others wandered, wet and dazed, on both sides of the river. Some had vanished completely.

“We’re going to miss our weapons and supplies. Now we’ll have to move faster to get up to the mountain stockpile,” Burbage said. “Otherwise we’ll run out of food and fuel before we get there. We’d better hope the rebel larders are well supplied.”

Stilgar got to his feet. The sunlight seemed brighter, the drying water on his skin and the foul taste in his mouth were undeniable signals that he was alive. A part of him knew that he had surrendered to death, and would have stayed there if these men hadn’t brought him back. It was God’s will that he was still alive. He had more work to do for Muad’Dib.

Still slightly disoriented, he recalled when he had first sworn fealty to the young man who would eventually become the leader of the Fremen and the whole Imperium. A huge chamber filled with Fremen, shouting, cheering… and he had drawn his crysknife, pointing it over the heads of the throng. The cavern tilled with a roar of voices, an echoing chant. “Ya hya chouhada! Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib! Ya hya chouhada!”

Long live the fighters of Muad’Dib!

Paul had made him kneel, taken the naib’s crysknife, and made him repeat, “I, Stilgar, take this knife from the hands of my Duke. I dedicate this blade to the cause of my Duke and the death of his enemies for as long as our blood shall flow.”

And much blood had flowed.

But now, through his near-drowning, Stilgar had also come to a deep realization, perhaps even an epiphany. With his own eyes, he had looked upon green forests and swamps. He had seen the sea and fast-flowing rivers. Soon, he would be up in the mountain snows. But Muad’Dib had nearly lost his services because of a clumsy accident. He was certain of where he belonged.

A Fremen was out of place when he was not in the desert. Stilgar needed to serve Muad’Dib back on Dune. He had been named planetary governor of Arrakis, and Muad’Dib had offered him a position as his Minister of State. He did not belong on the battlefield anymore. He knew that now, as clearly as he knew anything. Others could do this fighting. He would be far more valuable on Arrakeen, fighting political battles.

After he accomplished this mission, he would return to Muad’Dib — and find a way to remain with him on Arrakis.

6

As little as I am, I can still defeat you.” Marie grinned at Thallo. “You may have fooled them into thinking you are perfect, but I know you have weaknesses.” The girl crouched in a fighting stance, which made her look even smaller than she really was. Less threatening and deceptively benign. Like her rival on the grassy playfield, she wore a full-body filmsuit and remained barefoot.

“You look just like a harmless child,” he countered mildly. “But I no longer make the mistake of underestimating you.”

It was early afternoon, a cool day in Thalidei, with trees swaying in a breeze blowing across the polluted lake. Tleilaxu men held onto their weather-hats. Despite the illusion of freedom, Thallo’s trainers and observers were always close by. Two lab technicians watched from opposite sides of the field, dictating notes into lapel imagers that sparkled in sunlight.

In the guarded park, Thallo towered statuesque and confident over Marie. He moved only enough to watch the little girl as she circled him. “You bruised me yesterday,” he said, “but it will not happen again.”

“You enjoyed the bruises.” That time, after Marie had struck his lower legs with hard kicks, Thallo had limped back to the laboratory building, unable to hide the pain. Technicians had rushed to apply fast-healing medical packs on him, but Dr. Ereboam insisted on tending the injuries himself, shooing everyone else out of sight — including Marie — before peeling away the beige filmsuit.

Marie realized the truth: Because the albino researcher knew about Thallo’s propensity for cutting himself and had carefully hidden the fact from his peers, Ereboam couldn’t let anyone see the fresh scabs and old scars. The girl wondered how often the mysterious and insular Tleilaxu lied to each other.

Today, Thallo’s limited range of movement suggested that his legs still hurt. Nevertheless, he lunged unexpectedly, striking out at her with a stiff-fingered hand, but she slipped to one side so that he missed her by centimeters. His blow brushed past her, and she didn’t even feel the breeze.

With her varied and intense training, Marie considered herself more than a match for this maladjusted Tleilaxu creation. Still, she played — and fought — with him, observing carefully, continually learning, and Thallo was learning from her as well. They would be a formidable fighting team.

Using perceptive techniques her mother had taught, Marie had come to understand Thallo. He had exceptional fighting skills and a wealth of encyclopedic knowledge, but the Tleilaxu treated him as a specimen, a valuable experiment, a child. Sometimes he acted the role of child for his own amusement. Spurts of action and game playing were only distractions for him, after which he would often wallow in depression, as if slipping into a dark chasm. He was falling now; she could see it.

She kicked at his shins with her hardened feet. He dodged, moving back defensively. She pursued, kicking again and again, but narrowly missed each time. Despite her best efforts, even when she was certain the blows had landed perfectly, she never managed to touch him.

Thallo taunted her. “You have to do better than that!” His voice didn’t sound quite right; it seemed to come from all directions, as if the breeze scattered it all around her. Was he throwing his voice to distract her?

Marie executed a series of speed-somersaults, spinning past him and then coming around from behind. Finally, just as he turned to face her, she landed with her hands on the grass and launched her tiny body toward him in a proven Bene Gesserit bullet maneuver. She hit the middle of his abdomen — and passed completely through his body, landing in tumbling disarray on the rough lawn.

Thallo laughed at her astonishment “I’m too fast for you!” His lips moved as he spoke, but once more the voice did not seem to come from the right direction. “I am the Kwisatz Haderach. I can do anything.”

Marie brushed herself off, glanced over at the observers, whose expressions showed consternation. “How did you really do that?” she asked in a low voice.

His face remained cool, like a porcelain mask. “Does a magician reveal the secret of his tricks?”

“To his best friend, he would.”

“Friends.” He had a perplexed, troubled expression. Then he whispered, “I can’t tell you here.”

Thallo stood like a statue, exploring his own internal realms. What was he thinking? Was he performing Mentat calculations? His face had gone uncharacteristically blank, and though he stared back toward Marie, he didn’t seem to see her. His expression shifted, as if currents were ebbing and flowing in his psyche. She noticed how quiet the training field had grown. On the other side of the bluish grass, the observers seemed to be holding their breath.

“Follow me.” Abruptly adopting a childlike personality, Thallo shouted, “Hide and seek!” With that, he darted off. As she ran after him, Marie heard the lab technicians trying to keep up, and calling ahead for assistance. She saw a guard spring into action, running toward them from the right.

With his long, muscular legs and athletic ability, Thallo easily outdistanced the guard and the technicians. Marie kept up with him as she ran down a short slope and entered a moss-overgrown tunnel that passed beneath a walking bridge. In the shadows, Thallo ducked to his right and disappeared from view. She hurried after him into another tunnel, but to her surprise she heard him call from behind, “Not that way. Over here — now!”

Confused, she turned and saw him in low light, just inside the entrance of another tunnel. Thalidei was riddled with them, but he couldn’t possibly have moved so swiftly. “How did you get here?”

“More magic.” Then, whispering in her ear, Thallo added, “That was just an enhanced solido holo-image out there. I adapted their technology beyond what even the Tleilaxu think they can do. That’s why you couldn’t touch me. I have been waiting down here all the time.”

A light flickered out in the opposite tunnel as the guards pushed inside, angrily trying find them. They did not guess what Thallo had done to their own systems.

Thallo continued in an excited rush, “I can defeat any security and surveillance system they have. This time I will let them catch me, but only because I’m not ready yet.”

“Not ready for what?”

“We don’t have much time.” He whispered his confession to her. “By being so close to perfection, I can plainly see how far I fall short of the mark. Dr. Ereboam knows I am not the flawless Kwisatz Haderach. As soon as the other Masters realize it, they will terminate the experiment — and Ereboam as well. Then they will try again.”

Their pursuers came at them from different directions in the shadowy tunnels, shouting, shining lights. Looking meek and immature again, Thallo stepped forward and raised his hands in mock surrender.

THAT EVENING, THALLO disabled the security systems around him and used the same trick for Marie, leaving full-spectrum holos of them in their respective beds. Though the girl was uneasy about slipping past her unsuspecting parents, she calculated that it was a wise investment to see what her purported friend had in mind. Information is the best defensive weapon. Before she could confide in her mother and father, she needed to understand Thallo’s game.

On a moonless night, the pair of playmates slipped away into silent and brooding Thalidei. They found a place to sit in the middle of a skeletal, abandoned construction site near the shore of the fetid-smelling lake, and they talked for much of the night. As they gazed back toward the flickering lights of the city, Marie continued her own work of understanding, and perhaps even shaping, the young man’s psyche as her parents had taught her, hoping to shift Thallo’s loyalty to her instead of to the Tleilaxu.

This Kwisatz Haderach candidate had more potential than she’d realized at first. Maybe he really could peer into the murky future as he claimed, and maybe he did know with absolute certainty that he was doomed to failure. But if so, he had a blind spot when it came to Marie, and a glaring weakness that she intended to exploit. Thallo was desperate to escape the clutches of the Tleilaxu, and Marie would help him do exactly that.

7

The Great Surrender ceremony was planned with even more care and precision than any military strike in Paul’s Jihad. When she was not spending time with Rugi, Irulan kept an eye on the preparations, making suggestions from time to time. Armies of devoted volunteer servants, all cleaned up and given new household uniforms, had decorated the enormous citadel in its entirety. Immense banners hung from the cliff faces to the north.

The people of Arrakeen, from beggars to merchants to city guards, had pleaded for a chance to perform even the most menial activities, just so they could say they had been a part of the event. Several deadly knife fights had occurred as people fought over limited slots on the expanded staff.

Security around Paul had been further tightened. Before being allowed to attend the ceremony, every Landsraad representative was interrogated a second time to weed out possible threats. Paul’s Fedaykin security did indeed uncover two admittedly inept schemes to smuggle weapons into the Celestial Audience Hall. The would-be assassins’ planning had not factored in the sheer size of the chamber in which Muad’Dib would receive them all. None of their little weapons even had the range to reach the Emperor, unless they happened to be seated in the front few rows, and neither of the suspicious nobles had the social standing to be anywhere but the rear of the room. Now, instead of attending the ceremony, the two awaited further interrogation sessions in deep, stone-walled cells.

Irulan saw to it that her sister Rugi had one of the most prominent seats in the hall, right in the first row near the inlaid stone dais. Emperor Muad’Dib would sit in a newly carved elaccawood throne designed and built especially for the occasion. He said the elaccawood from Ecaz reminded him of the War of Assassins from so long ago.

Paul had installed two lower chairs on either side of the new ceremonial chair, one for Irulan, the wife in name only, and the other for Chani, the more significant wife of his heart. One step lower and in the front rested a child-sized but equally ornate chair for Alia. Thus, Muad’Dib was surrounded by three uniquely powerful women.

In an apparent contradiction, Paul had issued orders that — for safety — no one was to use a personal shield in the huge audience chamber. For centuries, the fear of the devastating pseudo-atomic consequences of a lasgun-shield interaction had been a cornerstone of the rules for all forms of warfare. No man would have overstepped those bounds, knowing that the blast would kill not only a target but himself, as well as cause inconceivable collateral damage.

But the emotions, fanaticism, and hatred spurred by his Jihad had lifted many such restraints. One person firing a cleverly concealed lasgun — even a tiny one — upon a shielded person could vaporize the huge palace, Muad’Dib and his entire family, and much of Arrakeen. An act of once-inconceivable brutality was now a very real possibility. There would be no active shields for the ceremony.

The Celestial Hall was a cavernous, vaulted chamber displaying the pinnacle of architectural finesse and ostentation. Familiar with the Imperial Palace on Kaitain, Irulan had not thought she could be impressed with grandeur, but this was beyond even her ability to absorb. Everyone from the lowest handler of the dead to the wealthiest monarch of a conquered world would feel cowed by this immensity. Yes, Whitmore Bludd had surpassed all expectations.

As part of the upcoming ceremony, Paul intended to commend the Swordmaster-turned-architect in front of all these people, though Bludd had abashedly insisted that his work spoke more eloquently for him than any words he could possibly say. “How could I require adulation from the audience, when I have your respect, and I have this magnificent citadel to show for all history?” Nevertheless, it was plain to see that Bludd would bask in the recognition.

Around the elaccawood throne, the ornately patterned walls were comprised of kaleidoscopically repeating keyhole arches, each the size of a pigeonhole, alternating with small windows of stained glass cut into various geometric shapes. Irulan knew that the intricate pattern had been designed to conceal any number of the Emperor’s spy-eyes and sensors. Bludd had been very secretive and dedicated about all his work, like an enthusiastic child working on a special project. Now, the Swordmaster sat in a seat of honor in the front row just below her, resplendent in such fine clothes that he reminded her of one of the peacocks that had once strutted around the palace grounds on Kaitain. He wore his thin rapier and a broad smile.

Nearby, Korba seemed to be praying; he had emphatically refused to be recognized for his part in the work, wanting no name associated with the palace other than Muad’Dib’s.

When the ceremony finally began, Irulan felt small and overwhelmed to be facing the hundreds of noble representatives who had answered Paul’s direct summons, as well as the uncounted thousands who had crowded into the opulent fortress. After Muad’Dib’s bureaucratic corps tallied all those ambassadors who answered the summons from other planets, comparing names against a chart of expected visitors, the Emperor would know who had spurned his command. Then punitive operations would begin.

As the crowd fell into a hush, Irulan looked at Rugi waiting among the sea of faces near the front. During the course of her stay with Irulan here on Arrakis, Rugi had begun to blossom. Day by day, her confidence had grown. Even so, Irulan was surprised that today, for the first time in her memory, Rugi was beautiful. Dressed in Corrino finery, she wore her family pride like a garment. Gone were the shyness and insecurity she had shown at first. Rugi’s demeanor made it clear that she was an Emperor’s daughter.

Irulan glanced at Chani, noticing how serene and beautiful the Fremen woman looked. Since she’d been raised in a political arena, Irulan was willing to accept political realities. She knew Paul had chosen her merely to secure his rule, while he kept his desert concubine as mate. Of course, Muad’Dib could take whatever he wanted. No one would challenge him if he chose two wives or took a dozen lovers. Irulan didn’t care if he bestowed all his love on his Fremen woman, but Chani, like a she-wolf, was not inclined to share her man.

Because of the design of the chamber, the background sounds were muted. The walls that surrounded the great throne and its platform, as well as the huge hall, were textured so as to drown out the murmurous crowd noises.

When Paul stood, the onlookers fell into silence as if they had all been struck dumb. “At the end of war, there is peace.” His voice was repeated and amplified cleverly by hundreds of speakers throughout the Celestial Hall. “Over eight hundred representatives and their entourages have come to bow in my name and carry the banner of Muad’Dib. My victory is inevitable — and I would much prefer to do the rest without bloodshed.” He paused, and the spectators remained quiet, hanging on his words.

In the ensuing moments of silence, Irulan heard an unnatural, sinister humming sound. Chani noticed it too and spun, trying to pinpoint the source. Irulan saw movement and realized that dozens of the tiny cubbyholes had begun to open up. Small black mouths emitted a faint buzzing noise. Swordmaster Bludd was already on his feet, yelling a warning.

A swarm of hunter-seekers flew out into the room like angry wasps.

8

Humming on their small suspensor fields, the hunter-seekers drifted out like predatory eels, accelerating as they acquired targets. Cylindrical shafts as long as a hand, each sporting a poisoned needle at its nose, they rode forward noisily on suspensor fields.

With a flash of icy dread, Paul realized that he had seen this before in a dream — many little attackers, countless stinging needles, a thousand painful deaths. His prescient visions were often confusing and rarely literal. And now another recent dream clicked into place, like a tumbler in a complex locking mechanism: a vivid image of the detailed design carvings on the audience chamber walls blurred together with the wooden fish carving leaping over the wooden waves… and the image sharpened enough so that he knew where he had seen it before: on the old headboard of his bed in the Arrakeen Residency.

The headboard that had folded down so that the first hunter-seeker could emerge. That was what the dream had been trying to tell him, but he had not been able to interpret it properly. Not soon enough.

Now he counted at least a dozen of the weapons, then saw at a glance that they had a modified design based on bootlegged Ixian models: self-guiding tracker systems and kill-programming driven by rudimentary impulses. Though based on the same general principles, these looked different from the one that had emerged from his headboard, which had been a mere sliver of metal. These hunter-seekers were more complex, though their primitive programming could target only general victims, not specific individuals. Nevertheless, a Caladan dragon shark was primitive as well, and extremely deadly.

The faint sound of ominous movement, the gaudily dressed audience members, the grand celebration — every instant echoed in Paul’s mind in a horrible flash of déjà vu: His father’s wedding day, the flying razor-edged disks, Swordmaster Dinari and his heroic death, Archduke Armand mangled. Ilesa so lovely in her nuptial gown… then covered in blood.

Chani!

He could not let it happen again.

In a cluster, four hunter-seekers shot toward the throne. With a swift and desperate push, he forced Chani to the floor even as she stood to fight. “Stay down!” In a blur, he then knocked Irulan sideways, sending her to scrabble for shelter under her overturned chair, while Alia bounded down the steps and out of the way.

The first hunter-seeker slammed its needle prow into the center of the throne where Paul had been sitting only seconds earlier.

Reacting without hesitation, Fedaykin guards sprang from the aisles and the sides of the chamber and dove forward to protect Muad’Dib with their own bodies. Bludd bounded onto the stage, his rapier drawn to slash at the whirring projectiles.

But Paul was moving to stop the hunter-seekers himself. The floating needle weapons came so fast that he could avoid them only one at a time. One buzzed beneath his arm, and he twisted violently to the left to avoid its sting. Two Fedaykin threw themselves in the hunter-seekers’ paths to intercept the deadly devices with their chests. The men lay writhing and spasming from the discharged poison; they would be dead within moments.

So much panicked movement, and so many people swarming around the throne area, confused the devices’ targeting. At least twenty hunter-seekers had been launched, maybe more, and many had already found victims.

With a sharp thrum of metal like a struck tuning fork, Bludd’s rapier knocked one of the flying devices out of the air. He stood his ground in front of Irulan, who took advantage of whatever protection her overturned chair might offer. Another hunter-seeker came close, and Bludd battered at it with a flurry of his thin blade.

Without understanding the nature of the threat, the terrified audience began to flee the Celestial Audience Chamber. Those in the front rows turned to run, pushing up against the crush of bodies packed into the immense hall.

Another volley of hunter-seekers emerged from the ornamented openings, and the second wave came streaking toward Paul. Chani lay rigid on the floor, knowing that any movement would draw the attention of the questing devices. But when one of the nearby Fedaykin was struck and collapsed thrashing beside her, she rolled over, instinctively trying to help him.

Paul saw a hunter-seeker change its trajectory and flash toward Chani, but he had become preternaturally aware of each movement around him. With furious speed, he jumped to grab the thing out of the air. Knowing the suspensor field would make a firm grip difficult, he squeezed hard as he clamped down.

He felt a painful, burning sting.

A Mentat assessment flashed the immediate answer to him. The middle of the hunter-seeker’s cylindrical shaft was girdled with another ring of short, fine needles, also dripping poison. Though the lethal points bit into his hand, he squeezed tighter, seized control, and smashed its nose onto the polished stone of the platform.

He could already feel the poison working its way into his blood, but he had the ability to neutralize it. With the Bene Gesserit cellular powers he had learned, Paul identified the chemicals, unlocked their modes of toxicity, and altered the molecules to neutralize the poison. It took only a moment, but it was a moment he did not have. More hunter-seekers sped toward him.

But now he was immune to that particular toxin, and his body’s biochemistry manufactured the antidote. Lunging back to his feet, he grabbed another hunter-seeker that buzzed directly in front of his face. He felt the sting of the needles again as he smashed it to the floor.

Turning to find another target, however, Paul realized that the second device had contained a different poison from the first — equally deadly, but one that required a new, independent effort for him to alter its chemistry and make himself immune. Either of the toxins would have been fatal to a normal human, and Paul had to expend the extra effort to counteract two toxins instead of just one. It was nonsensically redundant.

He suddenly understood that in planning this attack, someone had tailored it precisely, taking Paul’s abilities into account — someone who had intimate knowledge of the Emperor’s particular skills.

The mysterious opponent had not underestimated Paul-Muad’Dib Atreides. The assassination attempt had come when he was with those he loved, which forced him not only to protect himself but to protect all of them — which meant he was facing a threat as convoluted and extravagant as the most tortuous training sessions that Duncan Idaho and Thufir Hawat had concocted for him when he was a boy. If not for Bludd’s assistance, Irulan would probably already be dead.

Paul became like a whirling dervish, grabbing hunter-seekers, smashing them into each other, slamming them to the floor, leaping for others with hands outstretched before they could strike Chani, Irulan, Alia, or even Bludd. His chair was studded with stray hunter-seekers, and each projectile he grabbed was armed with a different poison. More and more complexities!

He was exhausted, his body clamoring from the effort of his accelerated fight as well as from driving back the toxins.

By now the air was abuzz with more hunter-seekers than he could stop, perhaps a hundred. His hands, arms, chest, and back had been stung repeatedly. He could barely concentrate now, forced to devote most of his effort to counteracting the dangerous chemicals building up in his bloodstream. Bodies lay in heaps on the dais and out in the audience. The crowd was a cacophony of screams.

From out in the audience, Korba bellowed orders, finally acting like a Fedaykin again rather than a priest. He commanded the soldiers to shoot out the cubbyholes, preventing more weapons from being launched. Someone — Bludd? — thrust a body shield at Paul and activated it; the field would slow the hunter-seekers, making it easier to intercept them. Bludd activated a shield of his own, apparently having brought the protective devices despite Paul’s orders that they were not to be used. Rather than insubordination, the act now appeared to be remarkable foresight.

Korba’s men, also wearing full shields, waded through the bodies, using clubs, stretches of fabric, and gloved hands to eliminate more of the hunter-seekers. Over half of the men perished in the effort, but their companions continued, regardless.

Despite his difficulty focusing, Paul at last saw the threat diminishing and he concentrated more of his personal energy on stopping the waves of poison within him. When he finally returned to awareness and found himself collapsed near the base of the throne, breathing heavily, he realized the attack was over.

Or was it? He sensed something more, a brooding danger like a subsonic pulse throbbing at the back of his mind.

Chani came toward him, looking exhausted, but her eyes were bright and her skin flushed pink. She was intact, though her clothes were torn and her hair in disarray. “Usul, you are hurt!”

“I will live.” Feeling uneasy, he looked around at the horrific aftermath. Most of the crowd had been evacuated from the Celestial Hall, while more guards and medical personnel were trying to push their way in. All in the audience who had been touched by a hunter-seeker’s poison were either dying or dead, and many other hapless celebrants had been injured in the panic.

Paul tried to calm himself, but a threat still clamored inside his skull. As far as he could see, all the devices had been neutralized, and the cubbyholes had been destroyed. Then why did he still feel such imminent danger? It pulsed in his mind, refused to go away.

His head rang, and he found it difficult to think clearly. Though he had counteracted the poisons in his body, their aftereffects left him physically drained.

Still, the sense of supreme danger roared around him like a wind.

Chani sat at his side and put her arms around him, imparting strength to him as she held him close. Suddenly, the silent warning blared in his mind, like an unexpected spike on a power grid. He couldn’t understand it, but couldn’t ignore it, either. Paul did not question what he felt.

Using the last of his strength, he grabbed Chani and began to move. In the same instant, Swordmaster Bludd surprised them. “My Lord! Down!” Like a juggernaut, Bludd pushed them both so that all three tumbled away from the throne and off the edge of the dais. They fell onto the grisly cushion of dead bodies strewn on the floor about them.

A fraction of a second later, a small, hidden bomb exploded from beneath the elaccawood throne, hurling a rippling fireball over the entire dais.

9

We shall provide a new entertainment today.” Thallo’s low voice simmered with excitement as he met Marie in one of their designated training areas. The Tleilaxu observers seemed to consider their time together as constructive “play,” but Dr. Ereboam had been growing increasingly nervous as he watched the mounting strain on his Kwisatz Haderach candidate. To a great extent Thallo was like a void in human shape, revealing few answers to the questions he sparked about himself.

“What sort of entertainment?” Marie looked around, but saw nothing unusual in the small laboratory chamber. The walls were lined with interactive game simulations and exotic exercise machines. Behind one of the dark, mirrored surfaces she knew the ever-present monitors were watching them. Though she maintained a bright, childish expression, Marie was alert, wary of what Thallo might do next.

Ignoring the observers behind the mirrors, he took her small arm and led her out into the corridor. “I want you by my side. It is a special day, and I have been waiting a long time for this.” He marched her toward a security check station where two alert-looking Tleilaxu guards sat, but the lavender scanner lights dimmed and switched off as Thallo and Marie approached. The Kwisatz Haderach candidate and the little girl walked right past the apparently attentive middle-caste guards, who didn’t seem to see them at all.

Thallo’s ability to manipulate Tleilaxu technology and perceptions seemed almost supernatural. “The Masters have such high hopes for me, but apparently low expectations. They cannot guess the half of my capabilities.” His perfect lips quirked into a smile. “Why create a Kwisatz Haderach and then assume he will fit into narrowly defined parameters?”

They passed a second security station, but as before, the pair proceeded without being noticed. At a doorway, Thallo touched an identity pad on the wall, and a heavy door slid upward to allow them access. He flexed his hand. “I know much, much more about Thalidei than they can ever guess.”

Marie’s wariness increased as they slipped into a high-ceilinged chamber — clearly a heavy-security zone. Her companion sealed the door behind them and reinforced it with a second, heavier plate. “There, now we are barricaded in. We’re safe.”

“Safe from what?” All of her senses anticipated danger — but from Thallo.

“Safe to do our work.” His usually guarded expression had a manic, edgy quality. “Through the prescience the Tleilaxu gave me, I know I am doomed to fail. The mode of my failure, however, is under my primary control. And if I am to be a failure, I may as well make it a spectacular one.” He touched his forearm where a wet line of red from a particularly deep cut had begun to seep through the filmsuit. “Painful lessons are the ones best remembered.”

Inside the chamber, Marie was startled to see nine electronic containment cells, each holding an apparently identical version of Thallo, all muscular, perfectly formed young men. “Meet my brothers,” he said. “Replacements prepared by the Masters.”

The identical Thallos stood caged in their containment chambers, looking out imploringly. They all appeared awake, hyperaware, and completely trapped, each awaiting his turn. “See, they hope for me to be discarded so that they can be next. Despite what Dr. Ereboam says, the Tleilaxu are a long way from achieving their superhuman.”

“Are you going to free them?” Seeing the nine remaining clones, Marie wondered how many previous versions of Thallo had been tried, and discarded. Had he been inside one of those confinement chambers, himself looking out, counting endless days, waiting? How many previous Kwisatz Haderach candidates had been labeled unacceptable and then killed?

Moving with a lithe grace, Thallo bounded up to a mezzanine walkway above the containment chambers. Marie followed him, not showing her uneasiness, looking down at the caged clones that stared out at them, following Thallo’s every movement. The Kwisatz Haderach candidate stood motionless in front of an intricate control panel, his gaze far away, as if the complexities had placed him in a trance.

Marie stood at his side, silent and intent. Thallo spoke to her in a low, wistful voice. “Throughout my life the Masters have slapped scanners on my brain, performed chemical tests, twisted my thoughts, recorded my movements and words. But I fixed it so they can do that no more. I fooled them.” He looked down at her, his face a mask of pain. “I fooled you, too, Marie.”

She said carefully, “I think you’re playing another trick on me.”

“The extreme knowledge and prescience is too much for me to endure. The impossible expectations placed upon me are more than overwhelming.” His face was locked in a grimace, but she’d seen Thallo’s swift mood swings before. His outstretched hands hovered over the controls, as if feeling the heat rising from the circuits themselves.

Marie tensed, ready to take necessary action.

“I am more than a clone, more than a ghola,” he said, “and much more than a person. Dr. Ereboam fused specific molecular memories into me, from the cells of historical figures that he thinks will aid me in becoming their superpowerful puppet. I sense that I am Gilbertus Albans, who founded the Order of Mentats. I am Jool-Noret, the greatest Swordmaster in the history of Ginaz. I am Crown Prince Raphael Corrino, too — as well as thousands of others.”

“I prefer Thallo for my playmate,” Marie said, sounding intentionally immature. “Let’s call Dr. Ereboam. He can make you feel better. Or let my mother try her Bene Gesserit techniques.”

“I don’t want to feel better. I want to make a statement. How else to make the Tleilaxu see what they have created, their hubris in believing that such a flawed race could create perfection, and then control it?”

She tried to distract him. “We can escape from here. We can get away from Thalidei, from this planet — see the whole galaxy, just the two of us.”

“No matter where I go, I am still a prisoner in here.” He tapped his forehead with a finger. “Escaping physically doesn’t help the part that’s inside me. Or what will be inside them.” He pointed down to the confinement chambers.

Marie tried to lure him away from the controls. “I don’t like this game.”

“Game? Call it that if you wish. Now see how I win.” When his fingers danced over the controls, the caged duplicate Thallos all screamed in eerie unison, a piercing noise that hurt Marie’s ears. “The Tleilaxu are very efficient at killing. They conduct many experiments. Have you seen their catalog of poisons?” The high tone modulated, and blood began to stream from the eyes and nostrils of the numerous copies. Thallo showed no outward pleasure or distress from causing them so much agony. “The nerve agent should be fast acting. I have seen this happen before.”

The duplicate Thallos twitched, clawed at the curved but impenetrable plaz walls of their chamber, and then slumped dead, folding their bodies into small volumes like poorly stored marionettes.

“Why did you have to kill them?” Marie was more curious than anguished.

Thallo’s porcelain face was flushed with excitement. “I freed them. Now, I shall free myself — and you, too, Marie. I know the impossible expectations your parents have placed on you, too. You and I are the same.”

“No!” She put a hand on his arm. “I don’t want that.”

But his fingers again became a blur over the controls, activating a deep subroutine, awakening a rumble and purr of machinery. The floor and walkway vibrated. “The Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach program can never be perfect.”

“I’m not perfect either,” Marie said, “but I can still do what I need to. My parents trained me. You are highly trained yourself. Think of what we could do together.” She lowered her voice as she repeated, “Think of what we can do….”

“I have already done it — I powered up the biogenerators for all of the labs in Thalidei and the underground ducts, the atmosphere-distribution system that runs under the streets and buildings. A most effective nerve toxin, instantly fatal, prepared for a man named Thorvald to be used in his rebellion against Muad’Dib. Thorvald will never receive his poison, though. The entire shipment will be dispersed in a rush throughout the city. The Tleilaxu have good reason to be proud of their poisons — this one is so toxic that the merest whiff will fell the largest man.” He smiled, touching the console in front of him and thrilling to the vibrations he felt. “The large containers are currently being pressurized for widespread release.” Thallo patted her stiff shoulder. “It will erase everything, clean everything. Air currents might even carry the gas as far away as Bandalong before it loses its potency.”

Marie looked at the controls herself. “Shut it down!” Struggling with what she knew, the girl altered her tone to place all the emphasis she could summon, attempting to use Voice. “Shut it down!”

Thallo paused for a second, then looked at her, unaffected. He sighed tenderly as he continued to explain, like a teacher. “We still have a little time left together, but no one can stop what I intend to do. I have been working on this for months. Even before I met you.”

Marie heard alarm sirens and horns sounding outside. She used her most sympathetic tone. “And what will happen to me? You don’t want to hurt me, do you, Thallo? I’m your friend!”

“That is why I brought you in here with me. We have a pact, you and I. We can thwart the Masters and erase their Kwisatz Haderach program.” He stroked her golden hair. “Never again will either of us be controlled by others.”

“Who says I let myself be controlled?” Marie’s voice was cold and calculating. “Don’t you see? I manipulated them.”

He didn’t want to hear any more. He sounded far away. “The nerve agent is filling the sealed pipes throughout Thalidei.”

Marie heard men pounding on the doors and shouting in strained voices over the intercom system. She also heard whirring, screeching sounds outside — drilling and cutting tools.

“They won’t get to us in time.” Thallo’s face became beatific. “Finally I’ve found my inner peace, and my closest, dearest friend is with me.”

10

In the immediate aftermath of the attack in the Celestial Audience Hall, Irulan longed for silence, but she heard only terrible screams and moans. Irulan realized she was turning slowly around, barely able to absorb everything with her eyes. It looked as if a Coriolis storm had passed through the enormous vaulted chamber.

From a very young age, as an Imperial Princess, she had been prepared for sudden attacks; her father had thwarted frequent assassination attempts, and Count Hasimir Fenring had probably foiled many more that she had never learned about. With his Jihad, Paul-Muad’Dib attracted more violence than Shaddam IV ever had.

She watched Paul pick himself and Chani up after the explosion of the new throne. Bludd had saved them. His ceremonial uniform and his grayish skin were flecked with red spots and tiny slashes. Facing Chani, Paul held her shoulders and gave her a quick but thorough inspection. “Are you hurt? Are you poisoned?”

Chani hardened her gaze. “Only bruises and scratches, Usul.” He touched her skin, as if by simply looking at the fresh wounds he could tell whether or not they were contaminated. She brushed him aside. “Not now. We have much to attend to here.” “Alia!” Paul shouted, looking around. “Are you safe?”

The girl appeared, looking unruffled. “I got out of the way, but the Fedaykin protecting me didn’t fare so well.”

Bludd also got to his feet, brushing himself off and looking drained. The wiry Swordmaster’s fine clothes had been shredded by flying debris, and his left arm showed a deep gash. He swayed on his feet, glanced over at Irulan. “At least… I saved the princess this time.” He touched the bleeding cut, then dropped to his knees again. “But I’m afraid one of the hunter-seekers must have scratched me. I feel very… strange.”

Paul shouted for a medic, and the nearest doctor hurried to him, climbing over bodies in order to do so. “This man’s been poisoned — save him!”

“But, Sire, without knowing the poison, I cannot possibly derive an antidote!”

In a brisk voice, Paul listed the eleven poisons he had identified in the hunter-seekers, so the doctors knew where to begin in treating Bludd. His team hurried the limp Swordmaster to a triage area outside the chamber.

Once the cavernous hall had been evacuated, it became clear that more of the victims scattered on the floor had been trampled than killed by the hunter-seekers. With a glance, Irulan counted dozens of bodies, mainly concentrated near the stage.

Paul stood with narrowed eyes and a countenance that was terrible to behold. She had never seen him so murderously furious. He came to her. “Irulan, are you injured?”

She had already assessed herself with Bene Gesserit intensity, finding only small scratches and tiny cuts. “I was not the target. Your Swordmaster protected me.”

Irulan’s mind was already racing through the consequences. At this Great Surrender ceremony, all the powerful families had been gathered. How many heads of noble Houses had been killed here, merely as collateral damage? The shock waves this would send through the Landsraad! Even though Muad’Dib had not been killed, the assassin had struck a severe blow by proving that the Emperor’s much vaunted security was inadequate. Had that been the real message here? So much for Muad’Dib’s vow to impose peace and calm upon the galaxy. He couldn’t even protect his immediate surroundings.

As she scanned the bodies strewn in front of the stage, Irulan saw bent arms and legs, gruesome, twisted forms, a flash of fine blue fabric. Rugi! Her heart froze. She scrambled down from the dais, picked her way through the dead, and rushed to where her little sister had been seated. The young woman had been so proud of her prominent position close to the Emperor’s throne, formally representing Salusa Secundus.

“Rugi!” In the background noise, Irulan strained to hear a response, even a moan of pain. The silence now was more horrific than the screams had been.

Determined, unwilling to admit to herself what she knew she would find, Irulan began searching for the young girl, the smallest of her four sisters. She had never really been close to Rugi — the thirteen-year disparity in their ages had been too great. By the time Rugi was born, Irulan had already finished much of her basic instruction and managed to embroil herself in court politics on Kaitain. She had watched her father’s manipulations, his games of alliances, the assassination attempts, and his palpable scorn for his “useless” daughters. And since Rugi was the youngest, Shaddam had made no secret that he considered her to be the most useless of all.

Irulan called her name again. Continuing her search, she stumbled on a slack-jawed, glassy-eyed man — a dead nobleman with bright handkerchiefs stuffed into his pockets like some kind of rank insignia. She rolled him away, angry at the corpse, as if it had intentionally tried to hinder her.

Beneath him lay Rugi’s thin-limbed and childlike body. Irulan grabbed her sister by the shoulders, pulled her up, and touched her neck, desperately feeling for a pulse. “Oh, Rugi! Dear Rugi!”

She shook the girl. A dribble of blood trailed from Rugi’s lifeless mouth, and her heart did not beat. Her eyes were half open but did not blink. Moaning, Irulan cradled her sister’s body, letting the girl’s head roll limply against her. Rugi had never understood what a pawn she’d been.

Paul walked to the main aisle, flanked by a dozen surviving Fedaykin, including Korba. The investigation had already begun, and Korba’s men were combing through the bodies, searching for survivors and a perpetrator. Inspectors used tweezers to pick up evidence from the shattered remains of the elaccawood throne and from the smashed hunter-seekers.

“Find out who did this!” Paul’s voice cut the air like an arctic wind.

“I don’t care how long it takes or how many people you must interrogate, but bring me answers. Learn who was responsible… and I will deal with them.”

“Muad’Dib, we can be sure it has something to do with Memnon Thorvald.” suggested Korba.

But Paul was not convinced. “We can be sure of nothing.”

Filled with grief, Irulan looked up at him, feeling her own accusation rippling from her in waves. “You gave my sister a promise of safety! You swore to protect her, granted her Imperial security.” She cradled the young woman’s body, as if to prove his lies. She had blocked away any expression of feelings toward Paul for the past several years, but she did not want to control the flood of emotions she felt now.

Paul had no answer for her. So many people hated the Emperor Muad’Dib.

11

Count Fenring had never seen the Tleilaxu men so frantic in all the years he had lived among them. Eerie alarm horns hooted through the city and echoed across the turgid lake water. Lady Margot looked at him, and he mirrored her sudden concern. “Marie — we must find Marie!”

Moments later, a uniformed security officer pounded on the sealed door of their quarters and demanded that they go with him to Ereboam’s main laboratory complex. Without explanation, he rushed them into the backseat of a groundcar. Fenring could detect the man’s urgency, but knew this mid-caste underling would have no answers for him.

The vehicle raced through the narrow streets of the city, and Fenring feared the emergency had something to do with their little daughter. From all directions, alarms sounded, and multicolored emergency lights flashed on buildings. He suspected that either Marie had caused the crisis, or Thallo had.

A harried Ereboam met them at the entrance to the central lab. “Your child and Thallo have barricaded themselves inside one of the chambers!” With his snow-white hair in disarray, the albino researcher looked even paler than ever. His spoiled-milk skin showed splotches of angry pink, and he shouted to be heard over the alarms and clamor. “They disabled the security systems, and have accessed and completely drained our stockpile of a new nerve poison, enough to kill every living creature in Thalidei. They will wipe out our programs, our research — our very lives! Why would your daughter do this? What plot have you Fenrings hatched?”

Lady Margot shouted back as they followed him into the building at a run. “Marie knows nothing of your security systems or machinery. Your Thallo is the mastermind here.” Ereboam did not seem to want to believe it.

They reached the chamber door, where sluggish lower-caste Tleilaxu workers operated drilling equipment. Nearby, another group unleashed controlled, silent explosives in an attempt to knock down the wall itself, but their own security systems thwarted them. So far, Fenring saw only a small dent in the outer hatch. More equipment was on the way, but he doubted there would be enough time.

“Talk to your daughter through the intercom. Tell her to stop this!” Ereboam activated the communication system. “Find out what she has done to corrupt our Kwisatz Haderach candidate.”

“Ahh, I believe your Thallo was thoroughly unstable without any help from Marie.”

“Impossible. He is faultless!”

“So perfect that he is about to kill us all with poison gas — including our daughter.” Lady Margot hurried to the intercom. “But I’ll try.”

Frantic Tleilaxu men scuttled out of her way, some of them glaring at her, apparently for no other reason than that she was a female. When his wife spoke into the intercom, Count Fenring recognized the command inflection of Bene Gesserit Voice. She knew precisely how to manipulate her daughter. “Marie! If you are in there, open this door at once.”

The girl did not — or could not — respond.

Fenring had deep concerns for Marie’s safety. Even though she was not his biological daughter, he had been her father from the moment of her birth. And he had pinned so many hopes and plans on her special abilities. We need her!

ON THE OTHER side of the sealed blast doors, Marie heard the call on the intercom and noted the compelling intonation, but her mother had taught her how to identify and resist Voice. Not even her nanny Tonia could command the little girl, and now Marie resisted Lady Margot’s orders. She had to. By remaining here close to Thallo, at least she had a chance of averting the disaster.

But defeating a highly advanced Kwisatz Haderach candidate would require her utmost skills. This, she knew, would be more difficult than all of her previous vigorous exercises. This was what she had been born and trained for.

Obviously, Thallo was convinced she could do nothing to stop him. His classically handsome face appeared on the verge of rapture, hypnotized by the colored patterns in the control panel. His fingers danced efficiently over the pressure pads, making adjustments, shutting down safety systems and interlocks, ensuring that the pressurized nerve gas built up continuously and spread to all simultaneous release points around the entire city.

Over the intercom, both her mother and Fenring continued to shout and plead, desperate for some response.

Slowly and silently, Marie melted out of the aberration’s peripheral vision, so that she could get a good running start against him. She considered removing her shoes, since her bare feet were hard and deadly, easier to inflict a precise killing blow. Bene Gesserit training. But with the bioreactors reaching overload, every second mattered. The gush of nerve toxin would kill everyone. She did not dare risk Thallo noticing her.

He doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head, and his prescience — if he has it — doesn’t seem to see me, either. Nevertheless, Thallo’s hearing was acute, his reactions amazingly swift… and he was determined to die in a huge incident.

Marie, however, was just as determined to live.

She had become his friend, showed this awkwardly “perfect” Kwisatz Haderach that he was not alone in his alienation. Marie had also trained with Thallo, fought against him in mock battles, and she was proficient in the best Bene Gesserit killing techniques along with Count Fenring’s assassination skills. She was not a child; she was a weapon. Killing even a Kwisatz Haderach was not beyond her abilities.

Coiling all of her energy, summoning every skill she had been taught, Marie launched herself toward Thallo, a guided human projectile. She saw a muscle flicker on the back of his neck. He began to turn, blindingly fast. She had anticipated his reaction, though — had planned for it, in fact. His hand blurred up, but he hesitated for the merest fraction of a second, either reluctant to release the controls… or afraid to hurt her.

With the rigid tips of both feet, Marie slammed into his neck. She heard the cracking sound of breaking bone.

Thallo’s head bent forward at a sharp, unnatural angle. His face slammed into the panel, and he slumped to the floor. As his fingers slid away from the controls, she pushed aside the heavy body of the would-be Kwisatz Haderach. No longer concerned about him, Marie concentrated on the complex banks of controls. She would have only moments to throttle back the pressure release.

OUT IN THE corridor, Count Fenring heard the explosions rippling beneath the city. A deep thump came, and then another, much closer. Ereboam wailed, “It is too late!”

But the rumbling seemed distant, the angry thrumming of energy discharges fading away. Fenring looked at his wife, saw her eyes filled with love and fear. The Count cocked his eyebrow at the researcher, speaking harshly, “Perhaps you should find out exactly what is happening, hmmm?”

Tleilaxu researchers scurried to their update panels and control systems, speaking on comlines and chattering as they received results. Dr. Ereboam glanced around in amazement, his shock of white hair mussed. Presently he said, “You heard the explosions, but the discharge was… focused. The nerve gas was released into the lake, and the water reaction will render it inert.” He spun to the Count and his Lady. “Thallo has averted the disaster!”

“Even so, I wouldn’t suggest going outside without a mask for some time,” Fenring said, still struggling with his deep concern. “Are you certain the lake water can neutralize the chemical?”

“Poisons, by their very nature, are quite reactive. Some are activated by water, others are made safe.”

Before he could continue his lecture, the heavy vault door opened, and Marie emerged, looking small and strong. Behind her, in transparent containment cells, nine Thallo clones lay dead, and on the mezzanine control deck above, the failed Kwisatz Haderach lay sprawled with his head lolling on a limp stalk of broken neck. Oddly, he wore a serene smile on his face.

Marie hugged her parents, then gave them the most innocent of expressions. “My friend was broken, and I couldn’t fix him. He wasn’t right.”

12

Korba began the investigation of the assassination attempt with high fervor, exactly as Paul expected him to do. Swordmaster Bludd, clearly a hero for his bravery in shielding Princess Irulan and for knocking Paul and Chani clear of the bomb blast, had nearly died from his poisoned wound. Once he gathered sufficient strength, Bludd left the medics and retired to his quarters to recover.

Meanwhile, Paul shut himself inside the enormous citadel, not out of fear or paranoia, but because he was so overwhelmed with fury that he did not trust himself to be seen among the populace. Though he’d had murky dreams, his prescience had been unable to prevent this. Such a reckless, hateful attack against him, with no regard for all the innocents who had been slain in the attempt.

Duke Leto must have felt like this after the wedding-day massacre sucked him into the bloody War of Assassins; it was why his father became such a hardened man, a protective psychological response that anchored him against the tragedies. At the time, Paul had not understood the depths of his father’s difficulties, but he did now.

Investigators stripped the Celestial Audience Hall down to its structural components. Chemical signatures were analyzed. Work logs were inspected to discover who might have had an opportunity to set up such a plot. The conspiracy had to be large and widespread; too many pieces had fit together perfectly. Unfortunately, by ordering his soldiers to blast the panels from which the hunter-seekers had emerged, Korba had also destroyed some of the evidence.

The modified assassination devices were traced to an exiled Ixian merchant who had provided many technological toys and amusements for Muad’Dib. But the man’s ship had recently — and conveniently — been destroyed in a small Jihad skirmish on Crell.

Many of the new servants hired for the Great Surrender ceremony were interrogated, and an unfortunately high percentage of them died during the aggressive questioning. Korba was certain they must be hiding something from him, even though no one divulged any useful information.

Despite the nagging objections of his conscience, Paul allowed the merciless inquisition to continue. Innocent deaths? There had already been plenty, and there would be more. He even considered recruiting Bene Gesserit Truthsayers, but decided against the idea, because he could not entirely convince himself that the Sisterhood was not involved.

But whom could he trust? Paul had only a few faithful confidantes — Chani, Stilgar, Alia. He could also trust his mother, and Gurney Halleck, but they were both far away on Caladan. Perhaps Korba, too, and Bludd. What about Irulan, though? He neither trusted nor distrusted her. She had lost her sister in the attack, and his truth-sense picked up no deception on her part. Could it have been a botched Corrino scheme, with Shaddam’s youngest daughter as a sacrificial lamb? Or some hitherto unknown Harkonnen heir?

Other names and questions surfaced in Paul’s mind, but he set them aside. He didn’t want to go too far along that line of thinking, because paranoia could drive him mad. I must be more alert than ever. New security measures must be established to keep my enemies off balance.

Not surprisingly, amidst the uproar, Memnon Thorvald dispatched a pompous-sounding message through disguised intermediaries, taking credit for the massacre. Expressing satisfaction from his hidden planetary base, he crowed about how he had infiltrated the Emperor’s security and struck close to Muad’Dib’s loved ones. But too many of the details in his claims were wrong, his narrative rife with contradictions about what had actually occurred. It appeared that in this instance, at least, Thorvald was merely being an opportunist, attempting to use the tragedy to his advantage. But the rebel leader did not seem knowledgeable enough to have put such an extravagant scheme into place.

In addition to invoking echoes of the Elaccan flying disks from the wedding-day attack, whoever had assembled this plot knew Paul well enough to choose hunter-seekers, a weapon once used in an attempt to kill him in the Arrakeen residency after he first arrived on Dune. This time, where one hunter-seeker might fail, more could succeed — especially given the variety of poisons. The plotter, or plotters, understood Muad’Dib’s abilities quite well.

But not well enough to kill him.

The sheer mechanics of installing so many hunter-seekers and the bomb beneath the elaccawood throne required extended, unfettered access to that section of the citadel construction site. Looking into this, Korba’s Qizarate seized all workers involved in the project and questioned them with more fanaticism than finesse. Oddly, many of the suspect workers had recently been killed on the streets, the victims of random robberies or assaults. The ones who remained alive passed the closest questioning.

When the spotlight of suspicion shone on Korba himself, he protested vehemently. Documents and testimony proved that he had imposed many alterations to the citadel’s detailed plans, some of them at the last minute. Throughout the construction, Korba had demanded architectural changes that seemed capricious and dictatorial; viewed in the current light, they looked doubly suspicious, opportunities to install booby traps.

Hearing these questions raised, Paul recalled a time during the Harkonnen occupation, when he and his Fremen band had captured Gurney Halleck and a group of smugglers out on the open desert. After Gurney had revealed to Paul that some of the men were not to be trusted, Korba had been given the task of searching the men carefully. Several of those smugglers had indeed been disguised Sardaukar, but somehow Korba had failed to find the false toenail weapons, the shigawire garrotes in their hair strands, the daggers hidden in their still-suits. An outrageous lapse in security. Had it been intentional even then?

Listening to Korba take umbrage at the accusations, Paul thought he protested too much. Was it possible that Korba sought to make Muad’Dib into a martyr, using that as a springboard to seize greater religious power for himself? Yes, Paul decided. Korba might very well be capable of that.

And yet, in the end, Paul’s truthsense convinced him that the man was not lying.

When Swordmaster Bludd himself became a target of the investigation, Paul knew that Korba was just being thorough. Bludd had thrown himself into the fight without regard to his own safety, had saved Irulan and shielded Paul from the explosion, and nearly died from a poisoned wound.

Even so, Bludd had brought a body shield, despite Paul’s orders against it. And he had sensed that there was a bomb hidden under the throne. Or had he known?

Paul felt a cold tingle on his skin.

Astoundingly, the recovering Swordmaster did not bother to deny his involvement when Korba confronted him in his quarters. “I had expected you to talk with me sooner. You could have saved yourself a great deal of difficulty.” He sniffed. “And you could have saved the lives of all those poor innocents you interrogated. Before I say more, I demand to speak with Paul Atreides.”

Bludd wore his finest, most outrageously formal outfit. Though Korba himself had begun to dress in the finery of offworld clothiers, unconsciously following the Swordmaster’s lead in fashion, he snapped orders for the foppish man to be stripped, searched, and scanned as thoroughly as they would have done to any captive Sardaukar.

Korba took great delight in yanking the sleeves and collars, ripping the fabric, and slicing open Bludd’s breeches until he stood naked, his well-toned body a patchwork of bandages from his various cuts. Handling him roughly, guards scanned his hair for shigawire garrotes, analyzed his teeth for hidden suicide weapons, tested the sweat from his pores for specifically targeted neurotoxins. They even peeled off his fingernails and toenails to make sure they contained no hidden wafer weapons.

The Swordmaster endured the excruciating pain without so much as a whimper; rather, he looked impatient and offended. “You have nothing to fear from me.” Not believing this, they probed him again.

Finally, bruised and bloody yet still walking with a somewhat graceful limp, Bludd was brought before Emperor Muad’Dib. Instead of his finery, the traitor wore only a plain loincloth. His bandages showed bright spots of fresh blood from wounds that had reopened. He smiled ruefully up at Paul. “I am sorry I could not be more presentable, my Lord. My garments were damaged by your zealots. But no matter.” He shrugged his shoulders. “These rags take me back to my roots. I feel like a young Swordmaster in training on Ginaz, somewhat like Duncan Idaho.”

Paul rose to his feet. He felt weary and furious; wanted to understand Bludd’s motivations as much as he wanted revenge. “You don’t deny what you did?”

“To what purpose? You could detect a lie the moment I spoke it. Ah, I wish it had not come to this. It wasn’t what I intended.”

Korba stepped forward and shouted at the prisoner. “Tell us all of the members of your conspiracy. How far does it spread? How many others are traitors in Muad’Dib’s court?”

Bludd gave the Fremen leader a withering frown. “I needed no one else. This was my plot, and mine alone. I wanted to be a hero — and I succeeded. Everyone saw me save you, Chani, and the Princess.”

Korba confronted the near-naked man in his bindings. “You could not have done this by yourself. No man could.”

“Maybe not one ordinary man, but one Swordmaster could. I planned it all in every detail, without help.” Then Bludd began to regale them with the entire scheme, rattling off specific details of every phase of the operation that had taken him many months to put into place — step by step, one part of the plan after another.

Korba snorted in disbelief at the preposterous claims, but Paul realized that Bludd was not exaggerating. As the Swordmaster talked, he seemed impressed with his own cleverness, though a bit sheepish to reveal it. “I have been caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and now you have me. I presume that my service to you is at an end, Sire? You must admit, I did excellent work on your citadel.”

Paul was genuinely baffled. “But why did you turn on me?” He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so confused. His words came out in a rush. “What did you have to gain? How did I offend you? What could possibly have sparked such absolute hatred?”

“Hatred? Why, I do not hate you, Sire. You have been exceedingly fair and kind to me, and I never sought to harm you.” He sighed, and Paul finally detected a deep-seated wound that the man had carried inside for many years, a scar that had never faded. “But history has been less kind to me. I wanted to add my own flourish to the record.” “Explain yourself, man!” Korba growled.

“I lived my life as a great Swordmaster and accomplished many deeds of valor. Can you name them?” He raised his eyebrows, looked wearily at Korba, then at the guards, and back at Paul. “Come, you must remember some of them? Any of them? You certainly do, my Lord. Or do you only remember Rivvy Dinari, who died protecting Archduke Armand during the wedding-day attack? Not poor Swordmaster Bludd, who failed to save Ilesa.” He lowered his head. “I missed my chance then. I failed and was brushed aside, but Rivvy went out in a final flash of glory, a true hero. In fact, he was the star of all the historical accounts. Have you read them, my Lord Paul?”

“I was there. I don’t need to read them.”

“I fought with the Ecazi and Atreides soldiers on Grumman. I helped in the final showdown with Viscount Moritani — does anyone remember? As Archduke Armand clung to life all these years, I served as steward of House Ecaz and apparently accomplished nothing! For you, I oversaw the construction here of the greatest work of architecture in human history, but it will always be known as the Citadel of Muad’Dib. Korba is right about that. I am just another footnote.”

Defiant tears sparkled in his eyes, but he drew no shred of sympathy from Paul. “I demand a grand ending for the history books, not a fading-away. No matter what I’ve done before, this should have been seen as my last great act as a Swordmaster.” Bludd looked around, as if expecting cheers.

“Your secret police can relax, my Lord. I had no political motivations in doing this, I assure you. All your security, your protective measures, your tests… kept looking outward for enemies, imagining motives and eliminating any threats you could perceive. But my motive? I just wanted the attention, the recognition, the respect.” He smiled and lowered his voice. “Despite all, I must confess that I am glad to see you are still alive. And I suppose I will not be remembered as a hero after all. Ah well, it is better to be famous than infamous, but it is better to be infamous than forgotten altogether.”

Anger honed Paul’s voice to a dangerous edge. “What makes you think I will not have your name stricken from the historical record — like House Tantor after they unleashed their holocaust on Salusa Secundus?”

Bludd crossed his sinewy arms over his chest. “Because, Paul Atreides, you have too much respect for history, no matter what Princess Irulan writes.” He brushed at his bare chest, as if imagining wrinkles in a ruffled shirt he no longer wore. “You will sentence me to death, of course. There is nothing I can do about that.”

“Yes, you are sentenced to death,” Paul said, as if in an afterthought.

“Muad’Dib, I refuse to believe he acted alone! Such a complex conspiracy?” Korba said. “The people will never believe it. If you execute this one man, they will see him as a token, perhaps even a scapegoat. They will believe we are unable to find the true perpetrators.”

Bludd laughed sarcastically. “So you will punish random people because you are too narrow-minded to believe that a man with talent and imagination could accomplish what I did? How appropriate.”

Paul was too tired and sickened to deal further with the matter. “Continue your investigations, Korba. See if what he says is true. But do not take too long. There’s enough turmoil on Arrakeen, and I want to end this.”

Bludd was taken away in chains, looking oddly satisfied, even relieved.

13

The open square in front of the Citadel of Muad’Dib was spacious enough to hold the population of a small city, but it could not encompass all those who clamored to witness the execution of Whitmore Bludd.

From just inside his high balcony — designed by Bludd himself, so that the Emperor could stand above all his people and address the multitudes — Paul watched the throng shift like waves of sand on endless dunes. He heard their grumbles and shouts, felt their charged anger ready to ignite.

It concerned him, but he could not deny them this spectacle. His Empire was based on passion and devotion. These people had sworn their lives to him, had overthrown planets in his name. While pretending to be a brave hero, the traitor Bludd had tried to harm their beloved Muad’Dib, and they felt a desperate need for revenge. Paul had little choice but to grant it to them. Even with his prescience, he could not foresee all the harm that would arise if he dared to forgive Bludd. If he dared! He was the ruler of the Imperium, and yet he was not free to make his own decisions.

Out in the square, guards cleared a central area so that the group of condemned prisoners could be brought out. Guards wearing personal shields used clubs to drive the people back, but it was like trying to deflect the winds in a raging sandstorm. In the mob’s frenzy, some of them turned upon each other, overreacting to an unintentional shove or the jab of an elbow.

It is a tinderbox down there. Paul saw now that he had addicted them to violence as much as they were addicted to spice. How could he expect them simply to accept peace? The crowd below was a microcosm of his entire Empire.

Fedaykin guards brought Bludd and ten other men forward from the citadel’s prison levels. The men plodded along in heavy chains.

Seeing them, the crowd responded with a roar that rolled through the square like a physical wave. At the forefront of the captives, Whitmore Bludd tried to stride along with a spring in his step, though he had been severely beaten, his feet were bruised and swollen, and he was so sore he could barely walk. The men behind him were allegedly fellow conspirators who’d had some part in the terrible massacre.

Two of the ten were the pair of inept assassins who had also plotted to kill Muad’Dib but had been caught in the early stages of their plan. Korba had offered up the other eight as sacrificial lambs, but it was clear to Paul that the evidence against them had been doctored, their confessions forced. Paul was sadly unsurprised to note that all eight were known to be Korba’s rivals, men who had challenged his authority. Paul felt sick inside. And so it begins….

In the square beneath the balcony, a stone speaking platform had become a gathering place for priests, news-criers, and orators proclaiming the glory of Muad’Dib. Now the platform had been reconfigured as an execution stand.

Though limping, Bludd maintained some semblance of grace and courage, but three of the men behind him stumbled or resisted and had to be dragged along. Those men protested their innocence (correctly, perhaps) by their gestures, their expressions, their wails of anguish. But the thunderous roar of the crowd drowned out their words.

As soon as the foppish Swordmaster was hauled up to the speaking platform, the crowd let out another roar that soon began to coalesce into words, a chanted, mocking, hate-filled chorus of “Bad Bludd, Bad Bludd!”

Half of the doomed men fell to their knees trembling, but not the Swordmaster, who stood with his chin high. The others turned their heads down in dismay and terror.

Defiant, Bludd squared his shoulders and gazed at the crowd. His long ringlets of silver-and-gold hair blew in the hot breeze. Even now the Swordmaster seemed to consider this to be part of a performance, determined not to be remembered by history as a gibbering coward. He smiled boldly, swelling his chest. If he was going to be infamous, then Bludd would be truly extravagant in his infamy.

Paul allowed the crowd’s emotions to rise. Finally, passing smoothly through the moisture seals, he emerged onto the balcony and stood under the warm yellow sunlight. Many faces in the crowd turned rapturously toward him. For a long moment, he said nothing — just absorbed the throbbing wash of emotions, and let the onlookers absorb him. The shouts rose to a cacophony, and Paul raised his hands for silence.

He could have spoken in a normal voice, not even requiring the amplifiers that were spaced around the vast square. But he shouted, “Justice is mine.”

Even Bludd turned to face him. It seemed as if the Swordmaster wanted to give him a salute, but his hands were bound.

Paul had decided against a long and ponderous speech. The crowds already knew the crime, and knew who had been found guilty. “I am Muad’Dib, and I give you this gift.” He gestured down toward Bludd and the other men. “Justice is yours.”

The guards removed the shackles from Bludd and the other prisoners, and let the chains tumble heavily onto the speaking platform. Knowing what was to come, the guards vanished quickly into the crowd. With a dismissive gesture, Paul stepped back into the shadows, out of sight, as if he had washed his hands of the matter. But he continued to watch.

The mob hesitated for a minute, not sure what they were supposed to do, unable to believe what Muad’Dib had just said. Two of the prisoners tried to bolt. Bludd stood on the execution platform with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting.

The crowd surged forward like a crashing wave. They howled and clawed at each other to get closer. Paul watched, sickened, as they tore Bludd limb from limb, along with the ten hapless scapegoats.

Chani slipped into the shadows beside him, her face dusky, her eyes large and hard. She had a Fremen’s bloodthirstiness, wanted to see pain inflicted upon those who had tried to harm her and her beloved. Even so, at the sight of such violence and fanaticism, revulsion showed on her face.

Paul knew exactly what he had created here. For so long, he had been forced by prescience to use violence as a tool in order to achieve what needed to be done. And violence was an effective and powerful tool. But now it seemed that the slippery instrument had turned, and the violence itself was using him as its tool. A dark part of him wasn’t sure if he would be able to control what he had unleashed. Or if he even wanted to.

14

“They are reasonably good fighters,” Bashar Zum Garon admitted as he looked at the trained group of gholas that the Tleilaxu presented in an enclosed arena in Thalidei. “No match for my Sardaukar or Muad’Dib’s Fedaykin, but I do see considerable skills out there. Emperor Shaddam may find them acceptable for his secret army.”

“Ah, hm-m-m-m,” Count Fenring said, sitting next to Margot in the spectator seats of the combat area. “That was a nice parry from the tall, bearded one.” They watched a hundred uniformed soldiers engage in practice matches with an array of simulated weapons that left marks on their opponents to show “kills” and “wounds.” They were using swords, stunners, knives, darts, and projectile simulators.

“And the man in red just made a decent thrust against his opponent, but they’re half a step slow,” Lady Margot pointed out.

Dr. Ereboam nodded knowingly. “When we have finished honing them, they will successfully compete against Sardaukar and Fedaykin, because they begin with the same raw material. Their minds remember nothing of their past lives, but their bodies remember their training. Our battlefield harvesters take cells from fallen warriors, even intact bodies if they are reparable. These gholas have the same muscle reflexes and superior potential as the most celebrated fighters. They are the most celebrated fighters.”

“Hmmm, I would submit that any soldier who does not survive a battle is not, ahh, by definition, the best fighter.”

The albino researcher scowled. “These are the best of the best, those who not only possessed superior skills, but who died bravely. These resurrected fighters can become a spectacular army for Emperor Shaddam — an army that Muad’Dib knows nothing about. They appear on no census rolls, their names no longer exist. Provided we can smuggle them to Salusa Secundus, they will seem to have appeared out of thin air.”

Garon nodded seriously. “I will inform the Emperor of what you offer. As gholas, none of them fear death. Yes, they can be fierce, indeed.”

Though Fenring was loathe to participate in any more of Shaddam’s schemes that were bound to fail, he had to admit that this one showed a certain measure of promise. He feared, however, that the fallen Emperor would never truly understand how different and formidable a foe Muad’Dib was, with his fanatical armies that felt no sense of self-preservation.

Count Fenring and Lady Margot knew their own plans for Marie were much more likely to succeed than Shaddam’s tiresome schemes to restore himself to power. Even at her young age, Marie had outwitted and outfought the deranged Thallo. The Tleilaxu were quite dismayed after the disaster, but Fenring did not need their flawed Kwisatz Haderach candidate for his own success.

Yes, the little girl’s skills were developing nicely.

Fenring watched as a mock town appeared at the center of the enclosed arena; building facades emerged from places of concealment in the floor. The ghola soldiers divided into two squadrons designated by red or blue waist sashes, then faced off on the faux town streets and alleys, firing marker darts at one another. None of them spoke a word.

“My Marie could defeat the whole pack of them down there,” Count Fenring mused. “You’ll have to do better than that, Doctor.”

Ereboam let out a shrill, scoffing sound. “Against so many trained opponents she would not stand a chance!”

“Oh, she would stand a chance all right,” Lady Margot agreed. “But perhaps saying she could kill a hundred warrior gholas is a bit too boastful. I am confident she could eliminate a dozen of them, however.”

“Yes,” Fenring said, correcting himself. “Make it fifteen.”

Bashar Garon seemed deeply disturbed by the suggestion. “That little girl? Against hardened warriors? She can’t be more than seven years old.”

“Ahh-hm-mm, she is six,” Fenring said. “And her age is not the question here, only her skill level.” He lowered his voice, adding a dangerous undertone. “Perhaps I should send her to Shaddam’s court. Our dear Emperor would find her far more difficult to kill than my dear cousin Dalak.”

He had not loved Wensicia’s husband, or even known him well, but the fool had indeed been a member of Fenring’s family. When Garon reported the “unfortunate incident” of Dalak’s death — first telling Shaddam’s lie, then admitting to the dishonorable truth — the Count had been extremely annoyed. He could not ignore the insult, even for the sake of his supposed childhood friend. For his own part, the Bashar remained offended by many of Shaddam’s recent actions, and Dalak’s murder was only one of them.

One more reason not to assist Shaddam, one more reason to despise the man’s ineptitude. Fenring had half a mind to expand his plot and exterminate the Corrinos as well as Muad’Dib. Kill them to the last man, woman, and child. Burn their planets. Wipe them off the map of the universe.

Maybe later. With Marie on the throne, it would be done. Everything in its time. Muad’Dib was the true enemy. Shaddam was just… irrelevant.

“Why don’t we let the child demonstrate her abilities against Dr. Ereboam’s ghola soldiers?” Fenring said, intentionally taunting the albino researcher. Right now, he needed an outlet for his rage. Marie waited nearby, alone in a game room. Since killing Thallo, she no longer had a playmate.

“Do you seriously wish to pit your girl against a dozen trained ghola soldiers?” Garon asked, in disbelief.

“Fifteen,” Fenring said. He knew that in private training sessions she had already proved herself more than capable of handling such a challenge. “Mmm, yes, that should be fair enough.”

MARIE’S EYES FLASHED dangerously as she was led into a small indoor combat arena. She had been told it was time to play. Fenring felt a rush of adrenaline as he smiled at her, feeling complete confidence in the sweet little girl.

Lady Margot seemed just as eager. “Now you shall see what a Bene Gesserit child can do when seasoned with my husband’s advice, and a dash of Tleilaxu Twisting techniques. She has a far broader skill set than any previous assassin.”

Fifteen uniformed ghola fighters chosen by Ereboam had already been sent into the combat room and armed with real weapons, at the insistence of the Fenrings. The Count patted Marie on her blonde head and handed the girl a dagger. “This is all you should need, hmmm?” He bent down to kiss her forehead.

“It’s all I need.”

Margot kissed her daughter’s cheek before sending her into the enclosed arena. The muscular, fully grown soldiers faced Marie, looking at the girl in uneasy confusion as the door sealed, leaving the observers outside.

“Now,” Margot said, using the implacable command of Voice, “extinguish all the lights. She will fight in complete darkness.”

“Hmm-ah, yes,” Fenring agreed, his eyes sparkling. “That should make it more of a challenge.”

THE COUNT COULD see that Bashar Garon was alarmed to hear a flurry of commotion on the combat floor — darts flying and weapons clashing, cries of surprise and pain from the ghola fighters. Several screamed as they died. The darkness remained absolute.

He smiled to himself and gripped Lady Margot’s hand on her lap. He felt her pulse quicken. “Just a little controlled violence,” Fenring said to the Sardaukar commander, as if to ease Garon’s concerns.

“But they are so many and she is so small,” the Bashar said.

Men continued to cry out, and then everything fell eerily silent. Thirty seconds later, the lights went back on.

On the floor, Marie stood looking up at the viewing area. Motionless bodies lay at her feet — the best fighters that the Tleilaxu had to offer. At some point she had discarded her dagger; the girl was speckled with blood on her hands, feet, and face. Count Fenring was still struck by how small and innocent she looked. He couldn’t have been prouder. “Amazing,” Garon said.

“A waste of our best gholas,” Dr. Ereboam added bitterly.

“Perhaps you need to start with better genetic material,” Lady Margot said with an edge of sarcasm.

Fenring watched the other Tleilaxu Masters conferring among themselves in their rude, secret tongue. He didn’t care what they were saying. Their body language revealed enough.

Marie had functioned with deadly precision, synthesizing the wealth of teachings she had been given. With a thrill of fear, he wondered if the girl might be able to best even him. Fenring turned to his wife and saw that her eyes held a sheen of unshed tears. Joyful tears, he thought.

He said tersely, “She is ready.”

15

The Imperium reeled from the impact of the violence in the Celestial Audience Chamber, and the people’s reactionary anger displayed itself in increasingly deadly raids on new planets. The jihadis demanded retribution on Muad’Dib’s behalf, and many innocent populations paid the price.

Worse, Irulan watched Paul turn a blind eye to the unjust bloodshed.

No one of importance paid any attention to the death of her sister. Rugi was merely a name on a list of casualties, and few people remarked on the fact that she was the youngest daughter of the Padishah Emperor, a man once described as “the Ruler of a Million Planets.” The spotlight of history focused only upon Muad’Dib and the ever-mounting violence around him. House Corrino had become no more than a footnote in history… just as Swordmaster Bludd had vowed not to be.

But Irulan could not drive away the memory of holding her sister’s body in her arms, and she allowed herself a flash of hatred for Paul, because he had not cared about her grief. Had not even noticed it.

Preoccupied with his new crackdowns and increased security after the threat, Paul did not acknowledge her universe of pain. How hardened he had become! How brutal, steely, and inflexible. Perhaps those were valid traits for the revered godlike leader of a galaxy… but not for a human being. She could not help but feel bitter.

According to reports, her father had wailed with grief when he learned the news. He had fooled few people with his crocodile tears, but he had certainly gained some sympathy. Poor Shaddam had dutifully sent his youngest and “most beloved” daughter to attend the Great Surrender ceremony, and Muad’Dib had allowed her to be killed! Her father was certainly shrewd to use the tragedy to build momentum, possibly as a lever in another bid for power.

The Corrino Princess suspected that he had already sent emissaries to find Earl Thorvald, calling upon familial connections, asking the brother of her father’s “dear but regrettably lost” fifth wife, Firenza. Irulan thought he might even succeed, for a while at least.

Irulan once again took control over her emotions, using her Sisterhood training to discover a resolve that allowed her to balance her conflicting roles. She was not permitted direct influence in the government. She was not a true wife. She was not Paul’s lover.

But she was still his wife, and the daughter of an Emperor.

Paul knew her worth, from her writing ability to her knowledge of politics. She had nearly finished writing his early-life ordeals during the War of Assassins, and, like Scheherazade, Irulan would continue to make herself indispensable. His followers devoured any glimpse into his life, his philosophy, his vision for them, for Dune, and for all inhabited planets. His mother, after all, had been a Bene Gesserit. He knew full well the value of mythmaking.

Irulan’s quarters, with the adjacent offices, solarium, and enclosed dry-climate garden, had been specifically designed to be conducive to her writing. She had plenty of light, meditation areas, uninterrupted concentration, secretaries if she needed them. By Muad’Dib’s command, historical documents were surrendered to her; friends of House Atreides, eyewitnesses to events, even former rivals were strongly encouraged to grant the Princess any interviews she desired.

Irulan promised herself that one day she would also tell the story of her own upbringing in the Imperial household and find a way to make the death of poor Rugi meaningful. With each passing day the next manuscript neared completion….

Three Fedaykin guards marched into the enclosed garden where she sat at a small table surrounded by shigawire spools and a reader, filmbooks, and clean spice paper on which to take notes. She looked up, surprised to see Paul himself coming toward her.

Other than the silent guards, they had no audience, so she felt no need to be overly formal. “Husband, it is quite an unexpected event when you decide to visit me in my private wing.”

“I have paid too little attention to your writings,” he said in a voice as flat as the blade of a Sardaukar’s dagger. “There is great unrest, and I am anxious for you to release the next chapter of my story. Nevertheless, I must be careful about what you publish. This time, I will read it more closely.”

“To censor it?” She feigned indignation, but she had never expected to complete the work without interference.

“To read it. You know well enough what you should and should not say. I trust you that much.”

Paul stood before her waiting, not at all relaxed, while Irulan remained seated at her table surrounded by the paraphernalia of the project. The three guards seemed decidedly uncomfortable that she did not throw herself to the ground and abase herself before him. She smiled at this. “I think you should appoint me your official Minister of Propaganda.”

“You already serve the role — and you do it well.” His eyes narrowed. “Though I am not entirely certain why you do it. You are a ghanima, a prize I won in battle. You cannot revere me as a husband, and I don’t think you lust after power for its own sake. What is your real motive?”

“I am a scribe of history, my Husband.”

“No historian is without an agenda. That is why no genuine truth is ever recorded. Is it your wish that I believe you are loyal to me — to the exclusion of your family and the Sisterhood — that you wholeheartedly accept your role? You have no hidden agenda, no scheme?”

Irulan looked down at her notes, giving herself a chance to marshal her thoughts. “Ask yourself that question, Paul Atreides. Function as a Mentat. Why would I remain secretly loyal to House Corrino, to my father? He failed. Why would I follow the secret instructions of the Bene Gesserit? They failed, too. Where do I have the most to gain? As your loyal wife. Look at me, ask the question, and decide for yourself where I should invest my efforts.” She watched him follow the logic.

He bent over the table, picked up a few pages from the stack of papers on which she had been writing, and skimmed them, his eyes darting with the speed of static electricity. Then he picked up the entire manuscript.

“Before long, I will depart. I feel the need to … go on a meditative retreat after the recent terrible events. In the meantime, Korba will read this.”

Irulan gave him a mirthless smile. “Korba sees what he wants to see.”

Paul handed the manuscript to one of the guards, who took it as if the pages contained either holy scripture or incriminating evidence. “Yes, he is predictable. But useful because of that.”

And so am I, Irulan thought.