Dune

Made nervous by Chani’s attention, Stilgar looked around the Council Chamber. His gaze fell on the balcony window and Korba standing outside. Korba raised outstretched arms for the benediction and a trick of the afternoon sun cast a red halo onto the window behind him. For a moment, Stilgar saw the Court Qizara as a figure crucified on a fiery wheel. Korba lowered his arms, destroyed the illusion, but Stilgar remained shaken by it. His thoughts went in angry frustration to the fawning supplicants waiting in the Audience Hall, and to the hateful pomp which surrounded Muad’Dib’s throne.

Convening with the Emperor, one hoped for a fault in him, to find mistakes, Stilgar thought. He felt this might be sacrilege, but wanted it anyway.

Distant crowd murmuring entered the chamber as Korba returned. The balcony door thumped into its seals behind him, shutting off the sound.

Paul’s gaze followed the Qizara. Korba took his seat at Paul’s left, dark features composed, eyes glazed by fanaticism. He’d enjoyed that moment of religious power.

“The spirit presence has been invoked,” he said.

“Thank the lord for that,” Alia said.

Korba’s lips went white.

Again, Paul studied his sister, wondered at her motives. Her innocence masked deception, he told himself. She’d come out of the same Bene Gesserit breeding program as he had. What had the kwisatz haderach genetics produced in her? There was always that mysterious difference: she’d been an embryo in the womb when her mother had survived the raw melange poison. Mother and unborn daughter had become Reverend Mothers simultaneously. But simultaneity didn’t carry identity.

Of the experience, Alia said that in one terrifying instant she had awakened to consciousness, her memory absorbing the uncounted other-lives which her mother was assimilating.

“I became my mother and all the others,” she said. “I was unformed, unborn, but I became an old woman then and there.”

Sensing his thoughts on her, Alia smiled at Paul. His expression softened. How could anyone react to Korba with other than cynical humor? he asked himself. What is more ridiculous than a Death Commando transformed into a priest?

Stilgar tapped his papers. “If my liege permits,” he said. “These are matters urgent and dire.”

“The Tupile Treaty?” Paul asked.

“The Guild maintains that we must sign this treaty without knowing the precise location of the Tupile Entente,” Stilgar said. “They’ve some support from Landsraad delegates.”

“What pressures have you brought to bear?” Irulan asked.

“Those pressures which my Emperor has designated for this enterprise,” Stilgar said. The stiff formality of his reply contained all his disapproval of the Princess Consort.

“My Lord and husband,” Irulan said, turning to Paul, forcing him to acknowledge her.

Emphasizing the titular difference in front of Chani, Paul thought, is a weakness. In such moments, he shared Stilgar’s dislike for Irulan, but sympathy tempered his emotions. What was Irulan but a Bene Gesserit pawn?

“Yes?” Paul said.

Irulan stared at him. “If you withheld their melange . . .”

Chani shook her head in dissent.

“We tread with caution,” Paul said. “Tupile remains the place of sanctuary for defeated Great Houses. It symbolizes a last resort, a final place of safety for all our subjects. Exposing the sanctuary makes it vulnerable.”

“If they can hide people they can hide other things,” Stilgar rumbled. “An army, perhaps, or the beginnings of melange culture which—”

“You don’t back people into a corner,” Alia said. “Not if you want them to remain peaceful.” Ruefully, she saw that she’d been drawn into the contention which she’d foreseen.

“So we’ve spent ten years of negotiation for nothing,” Irulan said.

“None of my brother’s actions is for nothing,” Alia said.

Irulan picked up a scribe, gripped it with white-knuckled intensity. Paul saw her marshal emotional control in the Bene Gesserit way: the penetrating inward stare, deep breathing. He could almost hear her repeating the litany. Presently, she said: “What have we gained?”

“We’ve kept the Guild off balance,” Chani said.

“We want to avoid a showdown confrontation with our enemies,” Alia said. “We have no special desire to kill them. There’s enough butchery going on under the Atreides banner.”