come to see,” Stilgar said.
A rustling of robes marked movement at the back of the troop as men turned to get the water.
Stilgar held up a hand, and there was silence. “As to Jamis,” he said, “I order the full ceremony. Jamis was our companion and brother of the Ichwan Bedwine. There shall be no turning away without the respect due one who proved our fortune by his tahaddi-challenge. I invoke the rite … at sunset when the dark shall cover him.”
Paul, hearing these words, realized that he had plunged once more into the abyss … blind time. There was no past occupying the future in his mind … except … except … he could still sense the green and black Atreides banner waving … somewhere ahead … still see the jihad’s bloody swords and fanatic legions.
It will not be, he told himself. Icannot let it be.
***
God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
—from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan
IN THE stillness of the cavern, Jessica heard the scrape of sand on rock as people moved, the distant bird calls that Stilgar had said were the signals of his watchmen.
The great plastic hood-seals had been removed from the cave’s opening. She could see the march of evening shadows across the lip of rock in front of her and the open basin beyond. She sensed the daylight leaving them, sensed it in the dry heat as well as the shadows. She knew her trained awareness soon would give her what these Fremen obviously had—the ability to sense even the slightest change in the air’s moisture.
How they had scurried to tighten their stillsuits when the cave was opened! Deep within the cave, someone began chanting:
“Ima trava okolo!
I korenja okolo!”
Jessica translated silently: These are ashes! And these are roots!”
The funeral ceremony for Jamis was beginning.
She looked out at the Arrakeen sunset, at the banked decks of color in the sky. Night was beginning to utter its shadows along the distant rocks and the dunes.
Yet the heat persisted.
Heat forced her thoughts onto water and the observed fact that this whole people could be trained to be thirsty only at given times.
Thirst.
She could remember moonlit waves on Caladan throwing white robes over rocks … and the wind heavy with dampness. Now the breeze that fingered her robes seared the patches of exposed skin at cheeks and forehead. The new nose plugs irritated her, and she found herself overly conscious of the tube that trailed down across her face into the suit, recovering her breath’s moisture.
The suit itself was a sweatbox.
“Your suit will be more comfortable when you’ve adjusted to a lower water content in your body, ” Stillgar had said.
She knew he was right, but the knowledge made this moment no more comfortable. The unconscious preoccupation with water here weighed on her mind. No, she corrected herself: it was preoccupation with moisture.
And that was a more subtle and profound matter.
She heard approaching footsteps, turned to see Paul come out of the cave’s depths trailed by the elfin-faced Chani.
There’s another thing, Jessica thought. Paul must be cautioned about their women. One of these desert women would not do as wife to a Duke. As concubine, yes, but not as wife.
Then she wondered at herself, thinking: Have I been infected with his schemes? And she saw how well she had been conditioned. I can think of the marital needs of royalty without once weighing my own concubinage. Yet … I was more than concubine.
“Mother.”
Paul stopped in front of her. Chani stood at his elbow.
“Mother, do you know what they’re doing back there?”
Jessica looked at the dark patch of his eyes staring out from the hood. “I think so.”
“Chani showed me … because I’m supposed to see it and give my … permission for the weighing of the water.”
Jessica looked at Chani.
“They’re recovering Jamis’ water,” Chani said, and her thin voice came out nasal past the nose plugs. “It’s the rule. The flesh belongs to the person, but his water belongs to the tribe … except in the combat.”
“They say the water’s mine,” Paul said.
Jessica wondered why this should make her suddenly alert and cautious.
“Combat water belongs to the winner,” Chani said. “It’s because you have to fight in the open without stillsuits. The winner has to get his water back that he loses while fighting.”
“I don’t want his water,” Paul muttered. He felt that he was a part of many images moving simultaneously in a fragmenting way that was disconcerting to the inner eye. He could