many battles during my Swordmaster training on Ginaz, then helped Duke Leto’s troops retake Ix from the Tleilaxu, and through it all I survived. I cannot begin to count the number of battles I have fought in the name of House Atreides. Those numbers do not count. The only thing that matters is that I am still alive to defend House Atreides.
With his wiry black hair and distinctive features, Duncan Idaho bore no resemblance to young Paul Atreides. Since they could not pose as father and son traveling together, they decided instead upon uncle and ward.
They wore comfortable but ill-fitting clothes and carried patched travel sacks, all of which had been picked up at a secondhand market in Cala City. Duncan concealed the Old Duke’s sword beneath a loose cape. Paul’s hair had been cropped short, and his recent scabs and scrapes also altered his appearance. The Swordmaster inspected him and said, “The job of a disguise is not to be perfect, but to deflect attention.”
They boarded a large passenger ferry that slowly crossed the ocean, carrying cargo, farm crews, vacationers who preferred the leisurely pace, and others who were simply too poor to afford a long-distance flight. Most of the passengers in the lower decks were pundi rice farmers who moved from paddy to paddy along the continental coasts, following the monsoon season. Short in stature, they had broad faces and aboriginal features, and they spoke a dialect that Paul did not understand; many were descended from tribes that still resided in the dense jungles, isolated for hundreds of generations. In filmbooks Paul had read about the mysterious “Caladan primitives,” but little was known about them, since for many generations the Atreides rulers had adhered to a policy of noninterference in the natural, self-contained societies.
Some passengers amused themselves by fishing from the main deck. The ferry’s cook dragged a net from the stern and used his catch for the day’s communal meal. All passengers ate at a common table, though Paul and Duncan kept to themselves. Paul was satisfied enough with the thin fish stew and dried wedges of paradan melon.
Once, a storm came close enough to make the large ferry sway back and forth, but Paul had his sea legs and stood on deck with Duncan, watching the clouds and whitecaps, seeing flashes of lightning in the distance. He thought of the stories of electrical creatures named elecrans that preyed upon lost sailors, but this was a more mundane form of lightning, a simple thunderstorm that passed away to the north.
When the ferry finally arrived at the Eastern Continent’s largest city, little more than a village with docks and wooden houses that extended out over the shoreline, they disembarked. Paul regarded the rugged mountains that rose abruptly from the coastline. “Are we going to the interior, Duncan? I don’t see any roads.”
“It will probably be no more than a trail. The Sisters keep themselves hidden, but there’s no isolation so great that I can’t find it.”
When they asked villagers about the mysterious fortress abbey, they received sour, suspicious looks. Though the Sisters in Isolation were not revered, the locals viewed strangers with even less enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Duncan continued to press, insisting that his interest in the abbey was a private matter. Finally he received vague directions, which enabled the two of them to set off.
It took them days to make the journey on foot, following a wide road that degenerated into a dirt one, then a rutted trail, and ultimately dwindled to a muddy path that wound upward into the mountains. Around them the jungle grew denser, the trees taller, the rugged slopes steeper.
When they finally reached the fortress nunnery on the third afternoon, it seemed almost as if they had stumbled upon it by accident. Sheer black walls rose from the ground like artificial cliffs. Paul stared at the imposing razor-edged corners and lookout turrets on which small figures could be discerned. The communal home of the Sisters in Isolation had few windows, only small slots in the thick barricade — perhaps to minimize vulnerabilities, or to give the Sisters few opportunities to view the outside world.
Duncan and Paul strode up to the barred, unwelcoming gates. “They must receive visitors occasionally,” Paul mused. “How else do they get supplies and equipment? They can’t be entirely self-sufficient.”
“No sense hiding our identity, now that we’re here. I’m sure they’ve been watching us for the past several kilometers.” Duncan threw back his hood and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. He shouted at the gate. “Hello!”
Other than the tiny figures stationed at the highest towers, he detected no movement, heard no sound. Duncan called again, “Open the gate! We demand entry in the name of Duke Leto Atreides of Caladan!”
After a moment, Paul saw a flurry above. One of the blocks of stone over the gate shifted aside to reveal a camouflaged window. “Duke Leto the Just? Your claim is easy enough for any man to make,” came a gruff voice. A male voice, Paul decided. He wondered why a man would be guarding the door of the towering abbey.
“But it’s not easy for a man to bring the Duke’s own son, Paul,” Duncan countered. “His grandmother Helena is with you. She won’t recognize her grandson, since she’s never looked upon him, but she
Paul turned his face upward, sure that hidden imagers were capturing every detail.
“And why should the Abbess wish to see her grandson? Your Duke himself told her never again to have contact with his family.”
Paul absorbed this information quickly. The Abbess? He was not actually surprised. From what he’d read of Helena Atreides, she was a scheming, highly intelligent woman with lofty ambitions.
Duncan said, “That is a matter we will discuss in private with Lady Helena. She knows why she is there — or would she rather I shout the reasons at the top of my lungs?”
A mechanical click was followed by a heavy droning hum as the gates swung inward. The man who came down to meet them had once been handsome — Paul could see that from his features — but now his face was lined and weathered, as though psychological pressures and sadness had eaten away at his heart for years. Amazingly, he wore a faded and much-mended House Atreides uniform.
Duncan regarded the man, then suddenly stiffened. “Swain Goire! So you have kept yourself alive all these years.”
The other man’s scowl appeared to be a natural expression for him. “I remain alive only because my Duke commanded it as part of my punishment. Still, my penance can never atone for what I took from him.”
“No, but you
THEY REQUESTED SANCTUARY in the Duke’s name, and the Sisters in Isolation grudgingly provided them with quarters, but very little welcome. The women were dressed in uncomfortable black outfits; many wore dark wimples, while others covered their faces with obscuring mesh. They spoke little, if at all, and seemed to be better at building barricades than bridges.
The Sisters in Isolation had almost no contact with the outside, though they were known for their handmade tapestries. Most of the women were said to have come here because of mental injuries, scars they could not bear. Paul suspected that they simply wallowed together in combined grief, and for their own protection.
At sunset, brassy bells shattered the haunted silence of the abbey, summoning everyone for dinner in a large mess hall. The meal was plain — bread, fruits, vegetables, and preserved fish. They drank water that bubbled up from jungle springs and was piped into the abbey.
Goire took a seat by himself at a small table on the far edge of the room, avoiding even the two new guests. Apparently he was not welcome to dine with the Sisters. Sentenced here after the death of Victor and Kailea, he was one of the few males in the entire abbey.
The large chair at the head of the long table remained empty, and Paul wondered if his grandmother would bother to show up, or if she would spurn them. He was eager to meet this woman whose name was rarely spoken around the castle. Even though he had pressed Duncan, Gurney, and Thufir for details, they had only answered him with brusque, dismissive words.
Finally, as though telepathically linked, all the silent Sisters turned to face a wooden door at the far side of the banquet chamber. It opened, and a tall, hooded woman entered.
She wore a black mesh over her face, and spangles of Richesian circuit-embroidery wound about the wrapping at her throat.
