The Winds of Dune (9 page)

From a high battlement, Gurney gazed out into the rugged distance at a rock escarpment that partially framed the expanse of desert. He
knew Duncan was right, but there seemed no end to the governmental brutality.

“I noted subtle weaknesses in the eyes of the soldiers, and I heard it in the voice of their station commander.” Duncan glanced at his companion. “I have learned how to read the most minute details, for there are always messages beneath the surface. I even see them in your face at this very moment, the way you look at me. I am not an alien creature.”

Gurney took a moment to consider his response. “I was a friend of Duncan Idaho’s, that’s true, and I lamented his death. Such a brave, loyal warrior. You look and act like him, though you’re a bit more reserved. But a ghola is . . . beyond my comprehension. What was it like?”

Duncan had a distant gaze as he stared away into the past. “I remember my first moment of awareness, huddled afraid and confused in a pool of liquid on a hard floor. The Tleilaxu said I had been a friend of the Emperor Paul-Muad’Dib, and that I was to ingratiate myself so that I could destroy him. They gave me subconscious programming . . . and ultimately I found it
unbearable
. In refusing to follow the fundamental commands they imposed upon me, I shattered that artificial psyche, and in that moment I became Duncan Idaho again. It’s me, Gurney. Really, I’m back.”

Gurney’s voice was a low growl, more of a promise than a threat, and he held his hand on the hilt of his sheathed knife. “If I ever suspect that you intend to harm the Atreides family, I’ll kill you.”

“And if that were truly the case, then I would let you.” Duncan lifted his chin, tilted his head back. “Draw your dagger, Gurney Halleck. Here, I bare my throat to you now, if you feel this is the time.”

A long moment passed, and Gurney did not move. Finally, he removed his hand from the hilt of his weapon. “The real Duncan would offer his life like that. I’ll accept you, for now . . . and accept that I’ll never be able to understand what you’ve been through.”

Duncan shook his head as they went down the steep, winding staircase to the landing field and the waiting ’thopter. “One day you’ll die, and then you’ll be halfway to understanding.”

True forgiveness is a rarer thing than melange.

—Fremen wisdom

T
he crowd surrounding Alia’s Fane surged with an energy of humanity. So many lives, so many minds, all in a single mood. . . . Standing on the balcony of the temple high over the blur of population, Jessica knew what Paul must have felt as Emperor, what Alia now felt daily. With the white sun of Arrakis high overhead, the Fane’s tower became a gnomon, casting a shadow blade across the sundial of humanity.

“Thank you for doing this, Alia,” Princess Irulan said, standing proud and cool, but not bothering to cover her sincere gratitude and relief.

Alia looked back at her. “I do it out of necessity. My mother has spoken to me on your behalf, and she made good sense. Besides, this is what Paul would have wanted.”

Next to the Princess, Jessica folded her hands together. “It is an open wound that needs to be healed.”

“But there are conditions,” Alia added.

Irulan’s gaze didn’t waver. “There are always conditions. I understand.”

“Good, then it’s time.” Without further delay, Alia stepped forth into the bright glare of the open sunlight. When the people below
noticed the movement, their voices thundered upward like a physical force. Alia stood facing the throng, a smile fixed on her countenance, her hair loose, feral.

“My father was never greeted like that when he addressed the people in Kaitain,” Irulan whispered to Jessica.

“After Muad’Dib, the people will never again look upon their leaders the same way.” Jessica understood how perilous, how seductive that power could be; she also understood that Paul had unleashed the Jihad intentionally, knowing what he did. And it got out of his control.

Long ago, in a Fremen cave, she had greatly feared his choice of touching a flame to the religion-soaked kindling of desert traditions. It was a dangerous path, and it had proved to be as treacherous as she’d feared. How could he think he could just shut it away when its usefulness was over? Jessica feared now for Alia in that storm, and for the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, as well.

Alia spoke, her amplified voice echoing across the great square. The crowd dropped into a hushed silence, absorbing her words. “My people, we have been through a difficult and dangerous time. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood teaches that we must adapt. The Fremen say that we must avenge. And
I
say that we must
heal
.

“The conspirators against Muad’Dib, those responsible for the plot against him, were punished. I ordered their executions, and we have taken back their water.” She turned and extended her hand into the tower chamber, summoning Irulan. “But there is another wound we must heal.”

The Princess squared her shoulders and emerged into the sunlight beside Alia.

“You may have heard rumors that Princess Irulan had some involvement in the conspiracy. A few of you wonder how much she is to blame.”

Now the murmur grew like a low, synchronous growl. Out of sight in the chamber, Jessica clenched her hands. She had convinced Alia what she must do, and her daughter decided on this wise course of action. But right now—with a single word, with all these people under her thrall—Alia could change her mind and command Irulan’s death, and no force in the universe could stop it. They would break into the tower and rip her apart.

“Let there be no further doubts,” Alia said, and Jessica let out a long, slow sigh of relief. “Irulan was my brother’s wife. She loved him. Therefore, it is out of my own love for my brother, for Muad’Dib, that I proclaim her to be innocent.”

Now Jessica stepped into view, so that the three powerful women, the three
surviving
women who had so influenced the life of Paul-Muad’Dib, stood together. “And as the mother of Muad’Dib, I shall write and seal a document that completely exonerates Princess Irulan of any crimes of which she has been accused. Let her be guiltless before your eyes.”

Alia lifted her arms into the air. “Irulan is the official biographer of Muad’Dib, anointed by him. She will write the truth so that all can discover the true nature of Muad’Dib. Blessed be his name throughout the annals of time.”

The automatic rumbling response came back from below: “Blessed be his name throughout the annals of time.”

The three women stood for an extended moment and clasped hands, so that the people could see their harmony—mother, sister, and wife.

The Princess said quietly to Alia, “Again, I am indebted to you.”

“You have always been indebted to me, Irulan. And now that we have passed this troublesome distraction, we’ll see how best we can put you to use.”

Muad’Dib was never born and never died. He is eternal, like the stars, the moons, and the heavens.

—The Rite of Arrakeen

N
o mother should have to attend the funeral of her son.

In a private box overlooking Arrakeen’s central square, Jessica and Gurney stood beside Alia, Duncan, Stilgar, and the newly pardoned Princess Irulan. A funeral coach approached them, draped in black and pulled by two Harmonthep lions. Irulan had suggested this touch of Corrino symbolism, a tradition that had accompanied the mourning of emperors for centuries.

Jessica knew that this would be nothing like a traditional Fremen funeral. Alia had planned the ceremony, insisting that the carefully crafted—and continuously growing—legend of Muad’Dib demanded it. The whole Plain of Arrakeen, it seemed, could not hold the millions who had come to mourn Muad’Dib.

Just past sunset, the sky was awash with pastels; long shadows stretched across the city. Numerous observation craft flew overhead, some at high altitude. As the sky began to darken, dozens of commissioned Guildships streaked through the atmosphere releasing plumes of ionized metal gases, pumping up the debris in the magnetic field lines to ignite a wondrous aurora show. A blizzard of tiny pellets sprinkled into low, swiftly decaying orbits that created an almost constant meteor
shower, as if the heavens were shedding fiery tears for the death of such a great man.

Seven days of pageantry would reach a climax this evening in a celebration of Muad’Dib’s life, rites meant to chronicle and praise Paul’s greatness. As Jessica watched, she felt that the overblown display was more of a reminder of the
excesses
committed in his name.

An hour earlier, Jessica had watched two Fedaykin place the large funeral urn inside the coach, an ornate jar that should have contained Muad’Dib’s water from the deathstill. But the vessel was empty, because Paul’s body had never been found, despite exhaustive searches. The hungry sands had swallowed him without a trace, as was fitting.

By leaving no body, Paul had enlarged upon his own mythos, and set new rumors in motion. Some people fervently believed he was not actually dead; for years to come, they would no doubt report seeing mysterious blind men who might be Muad’Dib.

She felt a chill as she recalled the report of Tandis, the last Fremen who had seen Paul alive before her son left Sietch Tabr and wandered into the hostile vastness. Paul’s last words, which he’d called back into the night, were, “Now I am free.”

Jessica also remembered a time when Paul was only fifteen, immediately after his ordeal with Reverend Mother Mohiam’s gom jabbar. “Why do you test for humans?” he had asked the old woman.

“To set you free,” Mohiam had said.

Now I am free!

Had Paul, in the end, seen his unorthodox exit as a means to return to his
human
nature and attempt to leave deification behind?

From the observation platform, she gazed toward the high Shield Wall splashed with fiery bronze light in the last glimmers of dusk. That was the place where Muad’Dib and his fanatical Fremen army had broken through in their great victory against the Corrino Emperor.

Jessica recalled Paul at various ages, from a bright child to a dutiful young nobleman, to the Emperor of the Known Universe and the leader of a Jihad that swept across the galaxy.
You may have become Fremen,
she thought,
but I am still your mother. I will always love you, no matter where you have gone, or what path you took to get there.

As the plodding lions pulled the coach toward the viewing stand,
a cadre of uniformed Fedaykin and yellow-robed priests marched alongside. Ahead of them, two heroes of the Jihad led the procession with fluttering green-and-black Atreides banners. The immense, murmurous crowd parted for the coach’s passage.

The throngs were beyond anyone’s ability to count, millions and millions of people crowded into the city and into camps outside, Fremen as well as offworlders. The water softness of the new arrivals was readily apparent, not only in their smooth, unweathered flesh, but in their colorful raiment, faux stillsuits, or outlandish outfits that had been made especially for this occasion. Even those who tried to dress like natives were obviously unauthentic. It was a dangerous time and place for the unwary. There had been killings of outsiders who purportedly did not show the proper respect for the Emperor Muad’Dib.