Dune [Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6]

Leto had said something about exploding violence. Even as he watched the women at their silent prayer, Idaho recalled what Leto had said: “Men are susceptible to class fixations. They create layered societies. The layered society is an ultimate invitation to violence. It does not fall apart. It explodes.”

“Women never do this?”

“Not unless they are almost completely male dominated or locked into a male-role model.”

“The sexes can’t be that different!”

“But they are. Women make common cause based on their sex, a cause which transcends class and caste. That is why I let my women hold the reins.”

Idaho was forced to admit that these praying women held the reins.

What part of that power would he pass into my hands?

The temptation was monstrous! Idaho found himself trembling with it. With chilling abruptness, he realized that this must be Leto’s intention—to tempt me!

On the floor of the great hall, the women finished their prayer and lifted their gaze to Leto. Idaho felt that he had never before seen such rapture in human faces—not in the ecstasy of sex, not in glorious victory-at-arms—nowhere had he seen anything to approach this intense adulation.

“Duncan Idaho stands beside me today,” Leto said. “Duncan is here to declare his loyalty that all may hear it. Duncan?”

Idaho felt a physical chill shoot through his intestines. Leto gave him a simple choice: Declare your loyalty to the God Emperor or die!

If I sneer, vacillate or object in any way, the women will kill me with their own hands.

A deep anger suffused Idaho. He swallowed, cleared his throat, then: “Let no one question my loyalty. I am loyal to the Atreides.”

He heard his own voice booming out over the room, amplified by Leto’s Ixian device.

The effect startled Idaho.

“We share!” the women screamed. “We share! We share!”

“We share,” Leto said.

Young Fish Speaker trainees, identifiable by their short green robes, swarmed into the hall from all sides, little knots of movement which eddied throughout the pattern of the adoring faces. Each trainee carried a tray piled high with tiny brown wafers. As the trays moved through the throng, hands reached out in waves of graceful grasping, an undulant dancing of the arms. Each hand took a wafer and held it aloft. When a tray bearer came to the ledge and lifted her burden toward Idaho, Leto said:

“Take two and pass one into my hand.”

Idaho knelt and took two wafers. The things felt crisp and fragile. He stood and passed one gently to Leto.

In a stentorian voice, Leto asked: “Has the new Guard been chosen?”

“Yes, Lord!” the women shouted.

“Do you keep my faith?”

“Yes, Lord!”

“Do you walk the Golden Path?”

“Yes, Lord!”

The vibration of the women’s shouts sent shock waves through Idaho, stunning him.

“Do we share?” Leto asked.

“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.

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.