4
Every new year brings great hope and expectations. Every previous year fails to live up to them.
According to the Imperial Calendar, recalibrated so that its primary clocks and meridian were centered on Arrakis rather than Kaitain, the year changed to 10,198 A.G. Another year of Muad’Dib’s greatness, another year with more and more victories in his great Jihad. In Arrakeen, the wild and hedonistic celebrations rivaled a millennial fervor.
The Emperor Paul-Muad’Dib stood at a corner of the high open balcony outside his sietch-austere bedchamber. He watched people milling below in the streets and squares, and was unsurprised by their mania. For thousands of years, the Fremen had understood the human need for animalistic release in their tau orgies. This was similar, but on a much larger scale, and he had planned it carefully.
His holiness Muad’Dib, beloved of the people, had opened his coffers to provide spice and food for all supplicants. He emptied his cisterns so that water flowed into outstretched hands, and people reveled in it. In the months to come, he could easily refill his reservoirs, if only by using the deathstill water from all the nameless dead rounded up by his undertakers from side alleys and squalid housing.
Chani joined him outside the moisture seal, barely touching him. She still hadn’t conceived another child, a much-anticipated heir. They both knew the necessity, and both wanted a baby, but the deep hurt of losing their first son, Leto — killed in a Sardaukar raid in the days before Paul won his victory against Emperor Shaddam — filled them with unconscious hesitation. The doctors said nothing was physically wrong with Chani, but Paul knew they could not measure or test for a mother’s broken heart.
A second son would come, however. There would be another Leto, but that, too, carried heavy consequences — especially for Chani.
They both breathed deeply of warm night air that smelled of smoke, cooking fires, incense, and unwashed bodies. So many people pushed together, rippling and swaying in a Brownian motion that Paul thought of as a large-scale unconscious dance as difficult to interpret as many of his visions.
“They love me so easily when I demonstrate my largesse,” Paul said to her. “Does that mean that when times turn hard, they will be as quick to hate me?”
“They will be quick to hate someone else, Beloved.”
“And is that fair to the scapegoats?”
“One should not be concerned with fairness when dealing with scapegoats,” Chani said, showing her ruthless Fremen streak.
From the expansion of Arrakeen, many new houses pressed against each other, built along tried-and-true designs to huddle in the desert heat and preserve every breath of moisture. Other buildings stood defiantly (or foolishly) against tradition — homesick architects having erected structures that reminded Paul of Fharris, Grand Hain, Zebulon, and even Culat, planets so bleak and miserable that their inhabitants were happy to leave them in favor of Dune.
As project master, Whitmore Bludd had continued to oversee the enormous construction of the new palace, and his blueprints became more grandiose day after day. Already, remarkably, the completed portion of Muad’Dib’s citadel was larger than the Imperial Palace they had burned on Kaitain, and Bludd was just getting started….
When Korba entered their private wing, Paul noted how easily his guards let the man pass, even bowing respectfully, making a sign from one of the Qizara rites. He did not suspect treachery from the former head of his Fedaykin — the man’s loyalty was as unwavering as his fervor — but Paul did not like to be so glibly interrupted.
“Korba, did I summon you?” The sharpness of Paul’s tone brought the other man up short.
“If you had, I would have been here faster, Muad’Dib.” He apparently did not see the reason for Paul’s annoyance.
“Chani and I were enjoying a private moment. Were you not raised in a sietch? A Fremen should know to respect privacy.”
“Then please excuse the interruption.” Korba bowed, and blurted out the matter that concerned him so much. “Pardon me for saying so, but I do not like these immense public gatherings. They celebrate the Imperial Calendar. We should no longer follow that old relic.”
“It is 10,198 A.G., Korba, counted from the formation of the Spacing Guild. That is not linked to the old Imperium, or to mine. They merely celebrate the turning of the new year, a harmless but necessary release of their energies.”
“But there should be a new age — the Age of Muad’Dib,” Korba insisted, then laid out an idea he had obviously been planning for some time. “I propose that we start counting the calendar from the day you overthrew Shaddam IV and the Harkonnens. I have already asked several priest-scientists to draw up specific plans for its implementation and to search for numerological implications.”
Paul refused the idea, much to Korba’s consternation.
“But we are living in the greatest moment in history. We should signify it as such!”
“One cannot see history while living it. If every Emperor were to reset the calendar just because he considered himself great, we would have a new age every century or so.”
“But you are Muad’Dib!”
Paul shook his head. “I am still but a man. History will determine the measure of my greatness.” Or
LATER THAT NIGHT, when they lay in bed and neither of them could sleep, Chani stroked his cheek. “You are troubled, Usul.”
“I am thinking.”
“Always thinking. You need to rest.”
“When I rest, I dream… and that makes me think even more.” He sat up in bed, noticing how cool and slick the expensive sheets felt. He had wanted his quarters to have nothing more than a simple Fremen-style pallet, no extravagances at all, but amenities had crept in nonetheless. Despite his best intentions, and the honor that his father had taught him, Paul feared that such ready access to so much power was likely to corrupt him eventually.
“Are you worried about the battles, Usul? Thorvald and his rebellion? All enemies will fall to your armies, sooner or later. It is inevitable — the will of God.”
Paul shook his head. “Some measure of popular support for Thorvald and his eleven nobles is to be expected. Against any Empire as powerful as mine, there will be rebels. It is as natural as the sun and the moons that he will attract supporters, and as he gains influence, that my own supporters unite more strongly against him. Thorvald cannot survive long. Stilgar has just left for Bela Tegeuse to root out one of the infestations. I have no doubt he’ll be victorious.”
Chani shrugged and seemed to be stating the obvious. “He is Stilgar, after all.”
As they so often did, his followers would respond more violently than was strictly necessary. He had seen it firsthand on the battlefield of Ehknot. He had already pulled Gurney Halleck from such duties and granted him the whole Harkonnen world to heal, a different kind of battlefield where he could truly make a difference. He had earned it.
Stroking the side of his cheek, Chani continued, “You feel the weight of those you rule, Beloved. You count their dead as your own, and yet you must never forget that you have saved them all. You are the one we have been waiting for, the Lisan-al-Gaib. The Mahdi. They fight in your name because they believe in the future you will bring.”
Exactly the beliefs his father had told him to use, if necessary. And the Bene Gesserit’s Missionaria Protectiva had planted superstitions and prophecies, which he also applied to his own situation. A trick, a tool. But
