Paul of Dune

closest, dearest friend is with me.”

10

Trust is a luxury I no longer have. I have experienced too much betrayal.

—from Conversations with Muad’Dib by the PRINCESS IRULAN

In the immediate aftermath of the attack in the Celestial Audience Hall, Irulan longed for silence, but she heard only terrible screams and moans. Irulan realized she was turning slowly around, barely able to absorb everything with her eyes. It looked as if a Coriolis storm had passed through the enormous vaulted chamber.

From a very young age, as an Imperial Princess, she had been prepared for sudden attacks; her father had thwarted frequent assassination attempts, and Count Hasimir Fenring had probably foiled many more that she had never learned about. With his Jihad, Paul-Muad’Dib attracted more violence than Shaddam IV ever had.

She watched Paul pick himself and Chani up after the explosion of the new throne. Bludd had saved them. His ceremonial uniform and his grayish skin were flecked with red spots and tiny slashes. Facing Chani, Paul held her shoulders and gave her a quick but thorough inspection. “Are you hurt? Are you poisoned?”

Chani hardened her gaze. “Only bruises and scratches, Usul.” He touched her skin, as if by simply looking at the fresh wounds he could tell whether or not they were contaminated. She brushed him aside. “Not now. We have much to attend to here.” “Alia!” Paul shouted, looking around. “Are you safe?”

The girl appeared, looking unruffled. “I got out of the way, but the Fedaykin protecting me didn’t fare so well.”

Bludd also got to his feet, brushing himself off and looking drained. The wiry Swordmaster’s fine clothes had been shredded by flying debris, and his left arm showed a deep gash. He swayed on his feet, glanced over at Irulan. “At least… I saved the princess this time.” He touched the bleeding cut, then dropped to his knees again. “But I’m afraid one of the hunter-seekers must have scratched me. I feel very… strange.”

Paul shouted for a medic, and the nearest doctor hurried to him, climbing over bodies in order to do so. “This man’s been poisoned — save him!”

“But, Sire, without knowing the poison, I cannot possibly derive an antidote!”

In a brisk voice, Paul listed the eleven poisons he had identified in the hunter-seekers, so the doctors knew where to begin in treating Bludd. His team hurried the limp Swordmaster to a triage area outside the chamber.

Once the cavernous hall had been evacuated, it became clear that more of the victims scattered on the floor had been trampled than killed by the hunter-seekers. With a glance, Irulan counted dozens of bodies, mainly concentrated near the stage.

Paul stood with narrowed eyes and a countenance that was terrible to behold. She had never seen him so murderously furious. He came to her. “Irulan, are you injured?”

She had already assessed herself with Bene Gesserit intensity, finding only small scratches and tiny cuts. “I was not the target. Your Swordmaster protected me.”

Irulan’s mind was already racing through the consequences. At this Great Surrender ceremony, all the powerful families had been gathered. How many heads of noble Houses had been killed here, merely as collateral damage? The shock waves this would send through the Landsraad! Even though Muad’Dib had not been killed, the assassin had struck a severe blow by proving that the Emperor’s much vaunted security was inadequate. Had that been the real message here? So much for Muad’Dib’s vow to impose peace and calm upon the galaxy. He couldn’t even protect his immediate surroundings.

As she scanned the bodies strewn in front of the stage, Irulan saw bent arms and legs, gruesome, twisted forms, a flash of fine blue fabric. Rugi! Her heart froze. She scrambled down from the dais, picked her way through the dead, and rushed to where her little sister had been seated. The young woman had been so proud of her prominent position close to the Emperor’s throne, formally representing Salusa Secundus.

“Rugi!” In the background noise, Irulan strained to hear a response, even a moan of pain. The silence now was more horrific than the screams had been.

Determined, unwilling to admit to herself what she knew she would find, Irulan began searching for the young girl, the smallest of her four sisters. She had never really been close to Rugi — the thirteen-year disparity in their ages had been too great. By the time Rugi was born, Irulan had already finished much of her basic instruction and managed to embroil herself in court politics on Kaitain. She had watched her father’s manipulations, his games of alliances, the assassination attempts, and his palpable scorn for his “useless” daughters. And since Rugi was the youngest, Shaddam had made no secret that he considered her to be the most useless of all.

Irulan called her name again. Continuing her search, she stumbled on a slack-jawed, glassy-eyed man — a dead nobleman with bright handkerchiefs stuffed into his pockets like some kind of rank insignia. She rolled him away, angry at the corpse, as if it had intentionally tried to hinder her.

Beneath him lay Rugi’s thin-limbed and childlike body. Irulan grabbed her sister by the shoulders, pulled her up, and touched her neck, desperately feeling for a pulse. “Oh, Rugi! Dear Rugi!”

She shook the girl. A dribble of blood trailed from Rugi’s lifeless mouth, and her heart did not beat. Her eyes were half open but did not blink. Moaning, Irulan cradled her sister’s body, letting the girl’s head roll limply against her. Rugi had never understood what a pawn she’d been.

Paul walked to the main aisle, flanked by a dozen surviving Fedaykin, including Korba. The investigation had already begun, and Korba’s men were combing through the bodies, searching for survivors and a perpetrator. Inspectors used tweezers to pick up evidence from the shattered remains of the elaccawood throne and from the smashed hunter-seekers.

“Find out who did this!” Paul’s voice cut the air like an arctic wind.

“I don’t care how long it takes or how many people you must interrogate, but bring me answers. Learn who was responsible… and I will deal with them.”

“Muad’Dib, we can be sure it has something to do with Memnon Thorvald.” suggested Korba.

But Paul was not convinced. “We can be sure of nothing.”

Filled with grief, Irulan looked up at him, feeling her own accusation rippling from her in waves. “You gave my sister a promise of safety! You swore to protect her, granted her Imperial security.” She cradled the young woman’s body, as if to prove his lies. She had blocked away any expression of feelings toward Paul for the past several years, but she did not want to control the flood of emotions she felt now.

Paul had no answer for her. So many people hated the Emperor Muad’Dib.

11

Each morning when I open my eyes, my first thoughts are of violence.

—Tleilaxu lab recording of the Kwisatz Haderach candidate

Count Fenring had never seen the Tleilaxu men so frantic in all the years he had lived among them. Eerie alarm horns hooted through the city and echoed across the turgid lake water. Lady Margot looked at him, and he mirrored her sudden concern. “Marie — we must find Marie!”

Moments later, a uniformed security officer pounded on the sealed door of their quarters and demanded that they go with him to Ereboam’s main laboratory complex. Without explanation, he rushed them into the backseat of a groundcar. Fenring could detect the man’s urgency, but knew this mid-caste underling would have no answers for him.

The vehicle raced through the narrow streets of the city, and Fenring feared the emergency had something to do with their little daughter. From all directions, alarms sounded, and multicolored emergency lights flashed on