Children of Dune (Page 115)

Muriz glared at him, brows contracted over his indigo eyes. Kralizec? That wasn’t merely war or revolution; that was the Typhoon Struggle. It was a word from the furthermost Fremen legends: the battle at the end of the universe. Kralizec?

The tall Fremen swallowed convulsively. This sprat was as unpredictable as a city dandy! Muriz turned to the squatting figure. "Woman! Liban wahid!" he commanded. Bring us the spicedrink!"

She hesitated. "Do as he says, Sabiha," Leto said.

She jumped to her feet, whirling. She stared at him, unable to take her gaze from his face.

"You know this one?" Muriz asked.

"She is Namri’s niece. She offended Jacurutu and they have sent her to you."

"Namri? But…"

"Liban wahid," Leto said.

She rushed past them, tore herself through the doorseal and they heard the sound of her running feet.

"She will not go far," Muriz said. He touched a finger to the side of his nose. "A kin of Namri, eh. Interesting. What did she do to offend?"

"She allowed me to escape." Leto turned then and followed Sabiha. He found her standing at the edge of the qanat. Leto moved up beside her and looked down at the water. There were birds in the nearby fan palms and he heard their calls, their wings. The workers made scraping sounds as they moved sand. Still he did as Sabiha did, looking down, deep into the water and its reflections. The corners of his eyes saw blue parakeets in the palm fronds. One flew across the qanat and he saw it reflected in a silver swirl of fish, all run together as though birds and predators swam in the same firmament.

Sabiha cleared her throat.

"You hate me," Leto said.

"You shamed me. You shamed me before my people. They held an Isnad and sent me here to lose my water. All because of you!"

Muriz laughed from close behind them. "And now you see, Leto-Batigh, that our Spirit River has many tributaries."

"But my water flows in your veins," Leto said, turning. "That is no tributary. Sabiha is the fate of my vision and I follow her. I fled across the desert to find my future here in Shuloch."

"You and…" He pointed at Sabiha, threw his head back in laughter.

"It will not be as either of you might believe," Leto said. "Remember this, Muriz. I have found the footprints of my worm." He felt tears swimming in his eyes then.

"He gives water to the dead," Sabiha whispered.

Even Muriz stared at him in awe. Fremen never cried unless it was the most profound gift of the soul. Almost embarrassed, Muriz closed his mouthseal, pulled his djeballa hood low over his brows.

Leto peered beyond the man, said: "Here in Shuloch they still pray for dew at the desert’s edge. Go, Muriz, and pray for Kralizec. I promise you it will come."

= = = = = =

Fremen speech implies great concision, a precise sense of expression. It is immersed in the illusion of absolutes. Its assumptions are a fertile ground for absolutist religions. Furthermore, Fremen are fond of moralizing. They confront the terrifying instability of all things with institutionalized statements. They say: "We know there is no summa of all attainable knowledge; that is the preserve of God. But whatever men can learn, men can contain." Out of this knife-edged approach to the universe they carve a fantastic belief in signs and omens and in their own destiny. This is an origin of their Kralizec legend: the war at the end of the universe. -Bene Gesserit Private Reports/folio 800881

"They have him securely in a safe place," Namri said, smiling across the square stone room at Gurney Halleck. "You may report this to your friends."

"Where is this safe place?" Halleck asked. He didn’t like Namri’s tone, felt constrained by Jessica’s orders. Damn the witch! Her explanations made no sense except the warning about what could happen if Leto failed to master his terrible memories.

"It’s a safe place," Namri said. "That’s all I’m permitted to tell you."

"How do you know this?"

"I’ve had a distrans. Sabiha is with him."

"Sabiha! She’ll just let him -"

"Not this time."

"Are you going to kill him?"

"That’s no longer up to me."

Halleck grimaced. Distrans. What was the range of those damned cave bats? He’d often seen them flitting across the desert with hidden messages imprinted upon their squeaking calls. But how far would they go on this hellhole planet?

"I must see him for myself," Halleck said.

"That’s not permitted."

Halleck took a deep breath to quiet himself. He had spent two days and two nights waiting for search reports. Now it was another morning and he felt his role dissolving around him, leaving him naked. He had never liked command anyway. Command always waited while others did the interesting and dangerous things.

"Why isn’t it permitted?" he asked. The smugglers who’d arranged this safe-sietch had left too many questions unanswered and he wanted no more of the same from Namri.

"Some believe you saw too much when you saw this sietch," Namri said.

Halleck heard the menace, relaxed into the easy stance of the trained fighter, hand near but not on his knife. He longed for a shield, but that had been ruled out by its effect on the worms, its short life in the presence of storm-generated static charges.

"This secrecy isn’t part of our agreement," Halleck said.

"If I’d killed him, would that have been part of our agreement?"

Again Halleck felt the jockeying of unseen forces about which the Lady Jessica hadn’t warned him. This damned plan of hers! Maybe it was right not to trust the Bene Gesserit. Immediately, he felt disloyal. She’d explained the problem, and he’d come into her plan with the expectation that it, like all plans, would need adjustments later. This wasn’t any Bene Gesserit; this was Jessica of the Atreides who’d never been other than friend and supporter to him. Without her, he knew he’d have been adrift in a universe more dangerous than the one he now inhabited.