Dune

Scytale wondered: Did this powindah female have no natural sympathies on which he could play? Typicals were ambivalent on that question.

“The Wekht of Jandola is no more,” he said. “Billions of us slain by those whores. To the farthest reaches of the Yaghist, we are destroyed and only I remain.”

Yaghist, she thought. Land of the unruled. It was a revealing word in Islamiyat, the Bene Tleilax language.

In that language, she said: “The magic of our God is our only bridge.”

Once more she claimed to share his Great Belief, the Sufi-Zensunni ecumenism that had spawned the Bene Tleilax. She spoke the language flawlessly, knew the proper words, but he saw falsehoods. She calls God’s Messenger “Tyrant” and disobeys the most basic precepts!

Where did these women meet in kehl to feel the presence of God? If they truly spoke the Language of God, they would already know what they sought from him with crude bargaining.

As they climbed the last slope to the paved landing at Central, Scytale called on God for help. The Bene Tleilax come to this! Why have You put this trial upon us? We are the last legalists of the Shariat and I, the last Master of my people, must seek answers from you, God, when You no longer can speak to me in kehl.

Once more in flawless Islamiyat, Odrade said: “You were betrayed by your own people, ones you sent into the Scattering. You have no more Malik brothers, only sisters.”

Then where is your sagra chamber, powindah deceiver? Where is a deep and windowless place only brothers may enter?

“This is a new thing for me,” he said. “Malik Sisters? Those two words have always been self-negating. Sisters cannot be Malik.”

“Waff, your late Mahai and Abdl, had trouble with that. And he led your people almost to extinction.”

“Almost? You know of survivors?” He could not keep excitement from his voice.

“No Masters . . . but we hear of a few Domel and all in Honored Matre hands.”

She paused where the edge of a building would cut off their view of the setting sun in the next steps and, still in the secret language of the Tleilaxu, said: “The sun is not God.”

The dawn and sunset cry of the Mahai!

Scytale felt faith wavering as he followed her into an arched passage between two squat buildings. Her words were proper but only the Mahai and Abdl should utter them. In the shadowy passage, footsteps of their escort close behind, Odrade confounded him by saying: “Why did you not say the proper words? Are you not the last Master? Does that not make you Mahai and Abdl?”

“I was not chosen so by Malik brothers.” It sounded weak even to him.

Odrade summoned a liftfield and paused at the tubeslot. In Other Memory detail, she found kehl and its right of ghufran familiar—words whispered in the night by lovers of long-dead women. “And then we . . .” “And so if we speak these sacred words . . .” Ghufran! Acceptance and readmission of one who had ventured among powindah, the returned one begging pardon for contact with unimaginable sins of aliens. The Masheikh have met in kehl and felt the presence of their God!

The tubeslot opened. Odrade motioned Scytale and two guards ahead. As he passed, she thought: Something must give soon. We cannot play our little game to the end he desires.

Tamalane stood at the bow window, her back to the door, when Odrade and Scytale entered the workroom. Sunset light slanted sharply across the rooftops. The brilliance vanished then and left behind it a sense of contrast, the night darker because of that last glow along the horizon.

In the milky gloom, Odrade waved the guards away, noting their reluctance. Bellonda had charged them to stay, obviously, but they would not disobey Mother Superior. She indicated a chairdog across from her and waited for him to sit. He looked back suspiciously at Tamalane before sinking into the ’dog but covered it by saying: “Why are there no lights?”

“This is a relaxing interlude,” she said. And I know darkness worries you!