'Lord, how did you overcome such a force?'
I did not overcome it,' the Lord Leto said. 'But the persistence of the pharaonic model saved both Ghani and me. Do you know that model, Sister Chenoeh?'
'We of the Sisterhood are well coached in history, Lord.'
'Yes, but you do not think of this as I do,' the Lord Leto said. 'I speak of a disease of government which was caught by the Greeks who spread it to the Romans who distributed it so far and wide that it never has completely died out.'
'Does my Lord speak riddles?'
'No riddles. I hate this thing, but it saved us. Ghani and I formed powerful internal alliances with ancestors who followed the pharaonic model. They helped us form a mingled identity within that long dormant mob.'
'I find this disturbing, Lord.'
'And well you should.'
'Why are you telling me this now, Lord? You have never answered one of us before in this manner, not that I know of.'
'Because you listen well, Sister Chenoeh; because you will obey me and because I will never see you again.'
The Lord Leto spoke those strange words to me and then he asked:
'Why have you not inquired about what your Sisterhood calls my insane tyranny?'
Emboldened by his manner, I ventured to say: 'Lord, we know about some of your bloody executions. They trouble us.'
The Lord Leto then did a strange thing. He closed his eyes as we went, and he said:
'Because I know you have been trained to record accurately whatever words you hear, I will speak to you now, Sister Chenoeh, as though you were a page in one of my journals. Preserve these words well, for I do not want them lost.'
I assure my Sisterhood now that what follows, exactly as he spoke them, are the words uttered then by the Lord Leto:
'To my certain knowledge, when I am no longer consciously present here among you, when I am here only as a fearsome creature of the desert, many people will look back upon me as a tyrant.
'Fair enough. I have been tyrannical.
'A tyrant-not fully human, not insane, merely a tyrant. But even ordinary tyrants have motives and feelings beyond those usually assigned them by facile historians, and they will think of me as a great tyrant. Thus. my feelings and motives are a legacy I would preserve lest history distort them too much. History has a way of magnifying some characteristics while it discards others.
'People will try to understand me and to frame me in their words. They will seek truth. But the truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.
'You will not understand me. The harder you try the more remote I will become until finally I vanish into eternal myth-a Living God at last!
'That's it, you see. I am not a leader nor even a guide. A god. Remember that. I am quite different from leaders and guides. Gods need take no responsibility for anything except genesis. Gods accept everything and thus accept nothing. Gods must be identifiable yet remain anonymous. Gods do not need a spirit world. My spirits dwell within me. answerable to my slightest summons. I share with you, because it pleases me to do so, what I have learned about them and through them. They are my truth.
'Beware of the truth, gentle Sister. Although much sought after, truth can be dangerous to the seeker. Myths and reassuring lies are much easier to find and believe. If you find a truth, even a temporary one, it can demand that you make painful changes. Conceal your truths within words. Natural ambiguity will protect you then. Words are much easier to absorb than are the sharp Delphic stabs of wordless portent. With words, you can cry out in the chorus:
'Why didn't someone warn me?'
'But I did warn you. I warned you by example, not with words.'
'There are inevitably more than enough words. You record them in your marvelous memory even now. And someday, my journals will be discovered-more words. I warn you that you read my words at your peril. The wordless movement of terrible events lies just below their surface. Be deaf! You do not need to hear or, hearing, you do not need to remember. How soothing it is to forget. And how dangerous!
'Words such as mine have long been recognized for their mysterious power. There is a secret knowledge here which can be used to rule the forgetful. My truths are the substance of myths and lies which tyrants have always counted on to maneuver the masses for selfish design.
'You see? I share it all with you, even the greatest mystery of all time, the mystery by which I compose my life. I reveal it to you in words:
'The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you.'
The God Emperor fell silent then. I dared to ask: 'Are those all of the words that my Lord wishes me to preserve`.''
'Those are the words,' the God Emperor said, and I thought he sounded tired, discouraged. He had the sound of someone uttering a last testament. I recalled that he had said he would never see me again, and I was fearful but I praise my teachers because the fear did not emerge in my voice.
'Lord Leto,' I said, 'these journals of which you speak, for whom are they written?'
'For posterity after the span of millennia. I personalize those distant readers, Sister Chenoeh. I think of them as distant cousins filled with family curiosities. They are intent on unraveling the dramas which only I can recount. They want to make the personal connections to their own lives. They want the meanings, the truth!'
'But you warn us against truth, Lord,' I said.
'Indeed! All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact-yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them. What am I speaking to you now? What is a diary, a journal`? Words.'
Again, the Lord Leto fell silent. I weighed the portent of what he had said, weighed it against the admonition of Reverend Mother Syaksa, and against the things that the God Emperor had uttered to me earlier. He said I was his messenger and thus I felt that I was under his protection and might dare more than any other. Thus it was that I said:
'Lord Leto, you have said that you will not see me again. Does that mean you are about to die?'
I swear it here in my record of this event, the Lord Leto laughed! Then he said:
'No, gentle Sister, it is you who will die. You will not live to be a Reverend Mother. Do not be saddened by this for by your presence here today, by carrying my message back to the Sisterhood, by preserving my secret words as well, you will achieve a far greater status. You become here an integral part of my myth. Our distant cousins will pray to you for intercession with me!'
Again, the Lord Leto laughed, but it was gentle laughter and he smiled upon me warmly. I find it difficult to record here with that accuracy which I am enjoined to employ in every accounting such as this one, yet in the moment that the Lord Leto spoke these terrible words to me, I felt a profound bond of friendship with him, as though some physical thing had leaped between us, tying us together in a way that words cannot fully describe. It was not until the instant of this experience that I understood what he had meant by the wordless truth. It happened, yet I cannot describe it.
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Archivists' note:
Because of intervening events, the discovery of this private record is now little more than a footnote to history, interesting because it contains one of the earliest references to the God Emperor's secret journals. For those wishing to explore further into this account, reference may be made to Archive Records, subheadings: Chenoeh, Holy Sister Quintinius Violet: Chenoeh Report, The, and Melange Rejection, Medical Aspects of. (Footnote: Sister Quintinius Violet Chenoeh died in the fists third year of her Sisterhood, the cause being ascribed to melange incompatibility during her attempt to achieve the.status of Reverend Mother.) Our ancestor, Assur-nasir-apli, who was known as the cruelest of the cruel, seized the throne by slaying his own father and starting the reign of the
