God Emperor of Dune (34 page)
“Yes, Lord!”
As the women responded, Leto popped his wafer into his mouth. Each mother below the ledge took a bite from her wafer and offered the rest to her child. The massed Fish Speakers behind the whiteclad women lowered their arms and ate their wafers.
“Duncan, eat your wafer,” Leto said.
Idaho slipped the thing into his mouth. His ghola body had not been conditioned to the spice but memory spoke to his senses. The wafer tasted faintly bitter with a soft undertone of melange. The taste swept old memories through Idaho’s awareness—meals in sietch, banquets at the Atreides Residency … the way spice flavors permeated everything in the old days.
As he swallowed the wafer, Idaho grew conscious of the stillness in the hall, a breath-held quiet into which came a loud
click
from Leto’s cart. Idaho turned and sought the source of the sound. Leto had opened a compartment in the bed of his cart and was removing a crystal box from it. The box glowed with a blue-gray inner light. Leto placed the box on the bed of his cart, opened the glowing lid and removed a crysknife. Idaho recognized the blade immediately—the hawk engraved on the handle’s butt, the green jewels at the hilt.
click
from Leto’s cart. Idaho turned and sought the source of the sound. Leto had opened a compartment in the bed of his cart and was removing a crystal box from it. The box glowed with a blue-gray inner light. Leto placed the box on the bed of his cart, opened the glowing lid and removed a crysknife. Idaho recognized the blade immediately—the hawk engraved on the handle’s butt, the green jewels at the hilt.
The crysknife of Paul Muad’Dib!
Idaho found himself deeply moved at the sight of this blade. He stared at it as though the image in his eyes might reproduce the original owner.
Leto lifted the blade and held it high, revealing the elegant curve and milky iridescence.
“The talisman of our lives,” Leto said.
The women remained silent, raptly attentive.
“The knife of Muad’Dib,” Leto said. “The tooth of Shai-Hulud. Will Shai-Hulud come again?”
The response was a subdued murmur made deeply powerful by contrast with the previous shouting.
“Yes, Lord.”
Idaho returned his attention to the enraptured faces of the Fish Speakers.
“Who is Shai-Hulud?” Leto asked.
Again, that deep murmur: “You, Lord.”
Idaho nodded to himself. Here was undeniable evidence that Leto had tapped into a monstrous reservoir of power never before unleashed in quite this way. Leto had said it but the words were a meaningless noise compared to the thing seen and felt in this great hall. Leto’s words came back to Idaho, though, as if they had waited for this moment to cloak themselves in their true meaning. Idaho recalled that they had been in the crypt, that dank and shadowy place which Leto seemed to find so attractive but which Idaho found so repellent—the dust of centuries there and the odors of ancient decay.
“I have been forming this human society, shaping it for more than three thousand years, opening a door out of adolescence for the entire species,” Leto had said.
“Nothing you say explains a female army!” Idaho had protested.
“Rape is foreign to women, Duncan. You ask for a sex-rooted behavioral difference? There’s one.”
“Stop changing the subject!”
“I do not change it. Rape was always the pay-off in male military conquest. Males did not have to abandon any of their adolescent fantasies while engaging in rape.”
Idaho recalled the glowering anger which had come over him at this thrust.
“My
houris
tame the males,” Leto said. “It is domestication, a thing that females know from eons of necessity.”
houris
tame the males,” Leto said. “It is domestication, a thing that females know from eons of necessity.”
Idaho stared wordlessly at Leto’s cowled face.
“To tame,” Leto said. “To fit into some orderly survival pattern. Women learned it at the hands of men; now men learn it at the hands of women.”
“But you said …”
“My
houris
often submit to a form of rape at first only to convert this into a deep and binding mutual dependence.”
houris
often submit to a form of rape at first only to convert this into a deep and binding mutual dependence.”
“Dammit! You’re …”
“Binding, Duncan! Binding.”
“I don’t feel bound to …”
“Education takes time. You are the ancient norm against which the new can be measured.”
Leto’s words momentarily flushed Idaho of all emotion except a deep sense of loss.
“My
houris
teach maturation,” Leto said. “They know that they must supervise the maturation of males. Through this they find their own maturation. Eventually,
houris
merge into wives and mothers and we wean the violent drives away from their adolescent fixations.”
houris
teach maturation,” Leto said. “They know that they must supervise the maturation of males. Through this they find their own maturation. Eventually,
houris
merge into wives and mothers and we wean the violent drives away from their adolescent fixations.”
“I’ll have to see it to believe it!”
“You will see it at the Great Sharing.”
As he stood beside Leto in the hall of Siaynoq, Idaho admitted to himself that he had seen something of enormous power, something which
might
create the kind of human universe Leto’s words projected.
might
create the kind of human universe Leto’s words projected.
Leto was restoring the crysknife to its box, returning the box to its compartment in the bed of the Royal Cart. The women watched in silence, even the small children quiet—everyone subdued by the force which could be felt in this great hall.
Idaho looked down at the children, knowing from Leto’s explanation that these children would be rewarded with positions of power—male or female, each in a puissant niche. The male children would be female-dominated throughout their lives, making (in Leto’s words) “an easy transition from adolescence into breeding males.”
Fish Speakers and their progeny lived lives “possessed of a certain excitement not available to most others.”
What will happen to Irti’s children?
Idaho wondered.
Did my predecessor stand here and watch his whiteclad wife share in Leto’s ritual?
Idaho wondered.
Did my predecessor stand here and watch his whiteclad wife share in Leto’s ritual?
What does Leto offer me here?
With that female army, an ambitious commander could take over Leto’s Empire. Or could he? No … not while Leto lived. Leto said the women were not militarily aggressive “by nature.”
He said: “I do not foster that in them. They know a cyclical pattern with a Royal Festival every ten years, a changing of the Guard, a blessing for the new generation, a silent thought for fallen sisters and loved ones gone forever. Siaynoq after Siaynoq marches onward in predictable measure. The change itself becomes non-change.”
Idaho lifted his gaze from the women in white and their children. He looked across the mass of silent faces, telling himself that this was only a small core of that enormous female force which spread its feminine web across the Empire. He could believe Leto’s words:
“The power does not weaken. It grows stronger every decade.”
To what end?
Idaho asked himself.
Idaho asked himself.
He glanced at Leto who was lifting his hands in benediction over the hall of his
houris.
houris.
“We will move among you now,” Leto said.
The women below the ledge opened a path, pressing backward. The path opened deeper into the throng like a fissure spreading through the earth after some tremendous natural upheaval.
“Duncan, you will precede me,” Leto said.
Idaho swallowed in a dry throat. He put a palm on the lip of the ledge and dropped down into the open space, moving out into the
fissure
because he knew only that could end this trial.
fissure
because he knew only that could end this trial.
A quick glance backward showed him Leto’s cart drifting majestically down on its suspensors.
Idaho turned and quickened his pace.
The women narrowed the path through their ranks. It was done in an odd stillness, with fixity of attention—first on Idaho and then on that gross pre-worm body riding behind Idaho on the Ixian cart.
As Idaho marched stoically ahead, women reached from all sides to touch him, to touch Leto, or merely to touch the Royal Cart. Idaho felt the restrained passion in their touch and knew the deepest fear in his experience.
The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?
—MUAD’DIB,
FROM THE ORAL HISTORY
FROM THE ORAL HISTORY
wi Noree followed a young Fish Speaker guide down a wide ramp Hwhich spiraled into the depths of Onn. The summons from the Lord Leto had come in late evening of the Festival’s third day, interrupting a development which had taxed her ability to maintain emotional balance.
Her first assistant, Othwi Yake, was not a pleasant man—a sandy-haired creature with a long, narrow face and eyes which never looked long at anything and never
ever
looked directly into the eyes of someone he addressed. Yake had presented her with a single sheet of memerase paper containing what he described as “a summation of recently reported violence in the Festival City.”
ever
looked directly into the eyes of someone he addressed. Yake had presented her with a single sheet of memerase paper containing what he described as “a summation of recently reported violence in the Festival City.”
Standing close to the desk at which she was seated, he had stared down somewhere to her left and said: “Fish Speakers are slaughtering Face Dancers throughout the City.” He did not appear particularly moved by this.
“Why?” she demanded.
“It is said that the Bene Tleilax made an attempt on the God Emperor’s life.”
A thrill of fear shot through her. She sat back and glanced around the ambassadorial office—a round room with a single half-circle desk which concealed the controls for many Ixian devices beneath its highly polished surface. The room was a darkly important-appearing place with brown wood panels covering instruments which shielded it from spying. There were no windows.
Trying not to show her upset, Hwi looked up at Yake. “And the Lord Leto is …”
“The attempt on his life appears to have been totally without effect. But it might explain that flogging.”
“Then you think there
was
such an attempt?”
was
such an attempt?”
“Yes.”
The Fish Speaker from the Lord Leto entered at that moment, hard on the announcement of her presence in the outer office. She was followed by a Bene Gesserit crone, a person she introduced as “The Reverend Mother Anteac.” Anteac stared intently at Yake while the Fish Speaker, a young woman with smooth, almost childlike features, delivered her message:
“He told me to remind you: ‘Return quickly if I summon you.’ He summons you.”
Yake began fidgeting as the Fish Speaker spoke. He darted his attention all around the room as though looking for something which was not there. Hwi paused only to pull a dark blue robe over her gown, instructing Yake to remain in the office until she returned.
In orange evening light outside the Embassy, on a street oddly empty of other traffic, Anteac looked at the Fish Speaker and said simply: “Yes.” Anteac left them then and the Fish Speaker had brought Hwi through empty streets to a tall, windowless building whose depths contained this down-plunging spiral ramp.
The tight curves of the ramp made Hwi dizzy. Brilliant tiny white glowglobes drifted in the central well, illuminating a purple-green vine with elephantine leaves. The vine was suspended on shimmering golden wires.
The soft black surface of the ramp swallowed the sounds of their feet, making Hwi extremely conscious of the faint abrasive swishing caused by the movements of her robe.
“Where are you taking me?” Hwi asked.
“To the Lord Leto.”
“I know, but where is he?”
“In his private room.”
“It’s awfully far down.”
“Yes, the Lord often prefers the depths.”
“It makes me dizzy walking around and around like this.”
“It helps if you do not look at the vine.”
“What is that plant?”
“It is called a Tunyon Vine and is supposed to have absolutely no smell.”
“I’ve never heard of it. Where does it come from?”
“Only the Lord Leto knows.”
They walked on in silence, Hwi trying to understand her own feelings. The God Emperor filled her with sadness. She could sense the man in him, the man who might have been. Why had such a man chosen this course for his life? Did anyone know? Did Moneo know?
Perhaps Duncan Idaho knew.
Her thoughts gravitated to Idaho—such a physically attractive man. So intense! She could feel herself drawn to him. If only Leto had the body and appearance of Idaho. Moneo, though—that was another matter. She looked at the back of her Fish Speaker escort.
“Can you tell me about Moneo?” Hwi asked.
The Fish Speaker glanced back over her shoulder, an odd expression in her pale blue eyes—apprehension or some bizarre form of awe.
“Is something wrong?” Hwi asked.
The Fish Speaker returned her attention to the downward spiral of the ramp.
“The Lord said you would ask about Moneo,” she said.
“Then tell me about him.”
“What is there to say? He is the Lord’s closest confidant.”
“Closer even than Duncan Idaho?”
“Oh, yes. Moneo is an Atreides.”
“Moneo came to me yesterday,” Hwi said. “He said I should know something about the God Emperor. Moneo said the God Emperor is capable of doing
anything
, anything at all if it is thought to be instructive.”
anything
, anything at all if it is thought to be instructive.”
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