Page 33 (1/2)
This is ht
But the God Emperor had reinforced his cos
Siona&039;s orders were explicit, leaving no way for evasions And Nayla had no way here to query her God Emperor Siona had said: "When his cart is in the e-then!"
"But why?"
They had been standing well away from the others in the chill dawn atop the Barrier Wall, Nayla feeling precariously isolated here, rerim features, her low, intense voice, could not be denied "Do you think you can har
"You reed
Nayla studied the approach of the distant cortege, noting the colors of the courtiers, the thickher sisters of the Fish Speakers the shiny surface of her Lord&039;s cart
It was another test, she decided The God Emperor would know He would know the devotion in His Nayla&039;s heart It was a test The God Es That was the earliest lesson of her Fish Speaker childhood The God Emperor had said that Nayla must obey Siona It was a test What else could it be?
She looked toward the four Fremen They had been positioned by Duncan Idaho directly in the roadway and blocking part of the exit froe They sat with their backs to her and looked out across the bridge, four brown-robed mounds Nayla had heard Idaho&039;s words to thereet him from here Stand when he nears you and bo"
Greet, yes
Nayla nodded to herself
The three other Fish Speakers who had climbed the Barrier Wall with her had been sent to the center of the bridge All they knehat Siona had told them in Nayla&039;s presence They were to wait until the Royal Cart was only a few paces from them, then they were to turn and dance away froe point above Tuono
If I cut the bridge with ht And all the others who come with our Lord
Nayla craned her neck to peer down into the gorge She could not see the river fros, a movement of rocks
They would all die!
Unless He perfore for a Holy Miracle What else could Siona intend now that she had been tested, now that she wore the uniforiven her oath to the God Emperor She had been tested by God, the two of theht, peering at the architects of this greeting Siona and Idaho stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the roadway about twenty ht They were deep in conversation, looking at each other occasionally, nodding
Presently, Idaho touched Siona&039;s aresture He nodded once and strode off toward the bridge, stopping at the buttress corner directly in front of Nayla He peered down, then crossed to the other near corner of the bridge
Again, he peered doard, standing there for several e creature, that ghola, Nayla thought After that awesoht of hie who stood next to God But he could breed
A distant shout caught Nayla&039;s attention She turned and looked across the bridge The cortege had been in the fa to a sedate walk only a fewin the van, his uniforaze straight ahead The cover of the Elittered in mirror-opacity as it rolled behind Moneo on its wheels
The mystery of it all filled Nayla
A ht at Siona Siona returned her gaze and nodded once Nayla drew the lasgun frohted along it The cable on the left first, then the cable on the right, then the faery trellis of plasteel on the left The lasgun felt cold and alien against Nayla&039;s hand She took a tre breath to restore calaze fro stride, turn to shout so at the cart or the ones behind it Nayla could not make out the words Moneo faced front once more Nayla steadied herself, a part of the rock pillar which concealed most of her body
A test
Moneo had seen the people on the bridge and at the far end He identified Fish Speaker uniforreeters He turned and shouted a question at Leto, but the God E Hwi and Leto within it
Moneo was onto the bridge, the cart rasping in blown sand behind hi well back from the far end He identified four Museuh Moneo&039;s lance down at the river-a platinuht The sound of the cart was loud behind hie, the sweeping is in which he played a role-all of it caught up hissensation of the inevitable
We are not people passing this way, he thought We are pri one piece of Ti behind us will drop off into no-sound, a place like the no-rooain the same as it was before we cas wafted through Moneo&039;s memory and his eyes went out of focus in the re for its wishfulness, a wish that all of this were ended, all past, all doubts banished, tranquility returned The plaintive song drifted through his awareness like s:
"Insect cries in roots of pa to hi are the color Of the last leaves In roots of parass"
Moneo nodded his head to the refrain:
"Day is ended, Visitors gone Day is ended In our Sietch, Day is ended Storone"
Moneo decided that the lute-player&039;s song had to be a really old one, an Old Fre about hione, the excitements ended, peace once more Peace was so near yet he could not leave his duties He thought of all that impedie froolden plates and jeweled knives, glowglobes fashioned in the arabesque shapes of ancient la rich and full of expectations from completely different lives
They will never be the sahts in Tuono once on an inspection tour He re fires-aro in the dark They would not use sunstoves because "that is not the most ancient way"
Most ancient!
There was little se in Tuono A sweet acridity and the musky oils of oasis shrubs, these dominated the odors Yes and the cesspools and the stink of rotting garbage He recalled the God E on that tour
"These Fremen do not knohat is lost from their lives They think they keep the essence of the old ways This is a failure of allfades; it dries out of the exhibits and is gone The people who administer the museum and the people who come to bend over the cases and stare few of theine of life in earlier tione"
Moneo focused on the three Fish Speakers who stood just ahead of hian to dance, whirling and skipping away froht I&039;ve seen the other people dance in the open, but never Fish Speakers They only dance in the privacy of their quarters, in the intiht was still in his un and felt the bridge lurch beneath hi, his mind told him
He heard the Royal Cart scrape sideways across the roadbed, then the snap-slap of the cart&039;s cover sla open A bedlam of screams and cries arose froe&039;s roadbed had tipped steeply to Moneo&039;s right, spilling hi toward the abyss He clutched a severed strand of cable to stop hi in the spilling film of sand which had covered the roadbed He clutched the cable with both hands, turning with it He saw the Royal Cart then It skewed sideways toward the edge of the bridge, its cover open Hwi stood there, one hand steadying her on the folding seat while she stared past Moneo
A horrible screa of metal filled the air as the roadbed tipped even farther He saw people fro Soht Moneo&039;s cable His arms were stretched out over his head as he turned once reased by the perspiration of fear, slipping along the cable
Once ainst the stubs of broken girders Even as Moneo looked, the God Eroped for Hwi Noree, but failed to reach her She fell fro upward to reveal her body stretched out as straight as an arrow
A deep, ruroan came from the God Emperor
Why doesn&039;t he activate the suspensors? Moneo wondered The suspensors will support hi and, as Moneo&039;s hands slipped fro fla one after another in eruptions of golden smoke Moneo stretched his hands over his head as he fell
The s him until his face was directed doard into the abyss With his gaze on the depths, he recognized arapids there, the es, allup all substance Leto&039;s words wound through his olden s, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve" Moneo fell freely then in the ecstasy of awareness The universe opened for hiolden smoke!
"Leto!" he screamed "Siaynoq! I believe!"
The robe tore away from his shoulders then He turned in the wind of the canyon-one last gli from the shattered roadbed The God E solid smashed into Moneo&039;s back-his last sensation
Leto felt hie of Hwi striking the river-the distant pearly fountain which e into the myths and dreams of terh all of his o on ahead, Love"
As- he slipped froed thing which shimmered in its h Eternity and ready now to receive hiht Tears are no longer possible They&039;re water I&039;ll have water enough in a rief I aed body flexed as it fell, twisting hi at the broken brink of the bridge
Now, you will learn! he thought
The body continued to turn He watched the river approach The water was a dreanited an ancienthis hungers
I join you, Hwi, in the banquet of the gods!
A bursting flash of bubbles enclosed hiony Water, vicious currents of it, buffeted hiled upward to broach in a torrential cascade, his body flexing in a paroxys splashes The canyon Wall, wet and black, sped past his frantic gaze Shattered spangles of what had been his skin exploded away fro away into the river, a ring of dazzling litter of sandtrout leaving hiony continued Leto marveled that he could remain conscious, that he had a body to feel
Instinct drove him He clutched at a rock around which the torrent spilled hier torn frorip The sensation of it was only a minor accent in the symphony of pain
The river&039;s course swept to the left around a chash of hie of a sandbar He lay there aaway froonyfroone and he felt every touchhi that would have been a worress out of the water He peered upward through eyes that saw everything in sheets of flame from which shapes coalesced of their own accord At last, he recognized this place The river had swept him to the turn where it left the Sareer forever Behind him lay Tuono and, just a ways down the barrier Wall, was all that rear&039;s realm, the place where all of Leto&039;s spice had been concealed
Exhuding blue fule of beach, dragged its blue-dyed way across broken boulders and into a dainal sietch It was only a shallow cave now, blocked at its inner end by a rock fall His nostrils reported the wet dirt sony He turned in the confine at the entrance A figure slid down the rope He recognized Nayla She dropped to the rocks and crouched there, staring into the shadows at him The flaure dropping from the rope: Siona She and Nayla scra in at hiure dropped off the rope: Idaho He :
"Why did you kill her! You weren&039;t supposed to kill Hwi!"
Nayla sent hi with a casual, almost indifferent sweep of her left arm She scrambled closer up the rocks and stopped on all fours to peer in at Leto
"Lord? You live?"
Idaho was right behind her, snatching the lasgun from her holster Nayla turned, astonished, as he leveled the weapon and pulled its trigger The burning started at the top of Nayla&039;s head It split her, the pieces slu uniforri the pieces of Nayla until the weapon&039;s charge was gone The blazing arc vanished Only wet and s rocks
It was the moment for which Siona had waited She scraun from Idaho&039;s hands He whirled toward her and she poised herself-to subdue hione
"Why?" he whispered
"It&039;s done," she said
They turned and looked into the cave shadows at Leto
Leto could not even ione, he knew There would be some kind of surface pocked with cilia holes from the departed skin As for the rest, he could only look back at the two figures froh the vision flames he saw Siona as a female demon The demon name came unbidden to his minds and he spoke it aloud, amplified by the cave and much louder than he had expected:
"Hanmya!"
"What?" She moved a step closer to him
Idaho put both harass over his face
"Look at what you&039;ve done to poor Duncan," Leto said
"He&039;ll find other loves" How callous she sounded, an echo of his own angry youth
"You don&039;t knohat it is to love," he said "What have you ever given?" He could only wring his hands then those travesties which once had been his hands "Gods below! What I&039;ve given!"
She sled closer and reached toward him, then drew back
"I am reality, Siona Look upon me I exist You can touch me if you dare Reach out your hand Do it!"
Slowly, she reached tohat had been his front segment, the place where she had slept in the Sareer Her hand was touched with blue when she withdrew it
"You have touched e beyond any other thing in this universe?"
She started to turn away
"No! Don&039;t turn away froht, Siona How is it that you can touch me but you cannot touch yourself?"
She whirled away from him
"There is the difference between us," he said "You are God ereatest miracle of this universe, yet you refuse to touch or see or feel or believe in it"
Leto&039;s awareness andering then into a night-encircled place, a place where he thought he could hear theaway in their lightless room There was a co which made it a place of anxiety and spiritual alienation because it had no connection with the rest of the universe
But it will have a connection
He sensed then that his Ixian printers had been set in hts without any special command