Dune

“He told you that completion equals death!” The Preacher shouted. “Absolute prediction is completion . . . is death!”

She tried to pry his fingers away. She wanted to grab her knife and slash him away from her, but dared not. She had never felt this daunted in all of her life.

The Preacher lifted his chin to speak over her to the crowd, shouted: “I give you Muad’Dib’s words! He said, ‘I’m going to rub your faces in things you try to avoid. I don’t find it strange that all you want to believe is only that which comforts you. How else do humans invent the traps which betray us into mediocrity? How else do we define cowardice?’ That’s what Muad’Dib told you!”

Abruptly he released Alia’s arm, thrust her into the crowd. She would have fallen but for the press of people supporting her.

“To exist is to stand out, away from the background,” The Preacher said. “You aren’t thinking or really existing unless you’re willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.”

Stepping down, The Preacher once more took Alia’s arm—no faltering or hesitation. He was gentler this time, though. Leaning close, he pitched his voice for her ears alone, said: “Stop trying to pull me once more into the background, sister.”

Then, hand on his young guide’s shoulder, he stepped into the throng. Way was made for the strange pair. Hands reached out to touch The Preacher, but people reached with an awesome tenderness, fearful of what they might find beneath that dusty Fremen robe.

Alia stood alone in her shock as the throng moved out behind The Preacher.

Certainty filled her. It was Paul. No doubt remained. It was her brother. She felt what the crowd felt. She had stood in the sacred presence and now her universe tumbled all about her. She wanted to run after him, pleading for him to save her from herself, but she could not move. While others pressed to follow The Preacher and his guide, she stood intoxicated with an absolute despair, a distress so deep that she could only tremble with it, unable to command her own muscles.

What will I do? What will I do? she asked herself.

Now she did not even have Duncan to lean upon, nor her mother. The inner lives remained silent. There was Ghanima, held securely under guard within the Keep, but Alia could not bring herself to take this distress to the surviving twin.

Everyone has turned against me. What can I do?

The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the wolf within your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist.

—THE AZHAR BOOK; SHAMRA I:4

Jessica awaited Idaho at the window of her sitting room. It was a comfortable room with soft divans and old-fashioned chairs. There wasn’t a suspensor in any of her rooms, and the glowglobes were crystal from another age. Her window overlooked a courtyard garden one story down.

She heard the servant open the door, then the sound of Idaho’s footsteps on the wood floor, then on the carpet. She listened without turning, kept her gaze upon the dappled light of the courtyard’s green floor. The silent, fearful warfare of her emotions must be suppressed now. She took the deep breaths of her prana-bindu training, felt the outflow of enforced calmness.

The high sun threw its searchlight along a dustbeam into the courtyard, highlighting the silver wheel of a spiderweb stretched in the branches of a linden tree which reached almost to her window. It was cool within her quarters, but outside the sealed window there was air which trembled with petrified heat. Castle Corrino sat in a stagnant place which belied the greens in her courtyard.

She heard Idaho stop directly behind her.

Without turning, she said: “The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion, Duncan. Why do you wish words with me?”

“It may be that only one of us will survive,” he said.

“And you wish me to make a good report of your efforts?” She turned, saw how calmly he stood there, watching her with those grey metal eyes which held no center of focus. How blank they were!

“Duncan, is it possible that you’re jealous of your place in history?”

She spoke accusingly and remembered as she spoke that other time when she’d confronted this man. He’d been drunk then, set to spy upon her, and was torn by conflicting obligations. But that had been a pre-ghola Duncan. This was not the same man at all. This one was not divided in his actions, not torn.

He proved her summation by smiling. “History holds its own court and delivers its own judgments,” he said. “I doubt that I’ll be concerned when my judgment’s handed down.”

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“For the same reason you’re here, My Lady.”