voice wailing across the dunes. “Who can turn away the Angel of Death? What Shai-hulud has decreed must be.”
Paul listened, recognizing that these were the words that also began the death chant of his Fedaykin, the words the death commandos recited as they hurled themselves into battle.
Will there be a rock shrine here this day to mark the passing of another soul? Paul asked himself. Will Fremen stop here in the future, each to add another stone and think on Muad’Dib who died in this place?
He knew this was among the alternatives today, a fact along lines of the future radiating from this position in time-space. The imperfect vision plagued him. The more he resisted his terrible purpose and fought against the coming of the jihad, the greater the turmoil that wove through his prescience. His entire future was becoming like a river hurtling toward a chasm—the violent nexus beyond which all was fog and clouds.
“Stilgar approaches,” Chani said. “I must stand apart now, beloved. Now, I must be Sayyadina and observe the rite that it may be reported truly in the Chronicles.” She looked up at him and, for a moment, her reserve slipped, then she had herself under control. “When this is past, I shall prepare thy breakfast with my own hands,” she said. She turned away.
Stilgar moved toward him across the flour sand, stirring up little dust puddles. The dark niches of his eyes remained steady on Paul with their untamed stare. The glimpse of black beard above the stillsuit mask, the lines of craggy cheeks, could have been wind-etched from the native rock for all their movement.
The man carried Paul’s banner on its staff—the green and black banner with a water tube in the staff—that already was a legend in the land. Half pridefully, Paul thought: I cannot do the simplest thing without its becoming a legend. They will mark how I parted from Chani, how I greet Stilgar—every move I make this day. Live or die, it is a legend. I must not die. Then it will be only legend and nothing to stop the jihad.
Stilgar planted the staff in the sand beside Paul, dropped his hands to his sides. The blue-within-blue eyes remained level and intent. And Paul thought how his own eyes already were assuming this mask of color from the spice.
“They denied us the Hajj,” Stilgar said with ritual solemnity.
As Chani had taught him, Paul responded: “Who can deny a Fremen the right to walk or ride where he wills?”
“I am a Naib,” Stilgar said, “never to be taken alive. I am a leg of the death tripod that will destroy our foes.”
Silence settled over them.
Paul glanced at the other Fremen scattered over the sand beyond Stilgar, the way they stood without moving for this moment of personal prayer. And he thought of how the Fremen were a people whose living consisted of killing, an entire people who had lived with rage and grief all of their days, never once considering what might take the place of either—except for a dream with which Liet-Kynes had infused them before his death.
“Where is the Lord who led us through the land of desert and of pits?” Stilgar asked.
“He is ever with us,” the Fremen chanted.
Stilgar squared his shoulders, stepped closer to Paul and lowered his voice. “Now, remember what I told you. Do it simply and directly —nothing fancy. Among our people, we ride the maker at the age of twelve. You are more than six years beyond that age and not born to this life. You don’t have to impress anyone with your courage. We know you are brave. All you must do is call the maker and ride him.”
“I will remember,” Paul said.
“See that you do. I’ll not have you shame my teaching.”
Stilgar pulled a plastic rod about a meter long from beneath his robe. The thing was pointed at one end, had a spring-wound clapper at the other end. “I prepared this thumper myself. It’s a good one. Take it.”
Paul felt the warm smoothness of the plastic as he accepted the thumper.
“Shishakli has your hooks,” Stilgar said. “He’ll hand them to you as you step out onto that dune over there.” He pointed to his right. “Call a big maker, Usul. Show us the way.”
Paul marked the tone of Stilgar’s voice—half ritual and half that of a worried friend.
In that instant, the sun seemed to bound above the horizon. The sky took on the silvered gray-blue that warned this would be