Siona answered for him, smiling at Garun. “To provide a suitable greeting for the God Emperor.”

This had been before her doubts, before her own eyes and the ignorance of such a climb, had begun to erode that first confidence.

With that first elation, Idaho asked: “How wide is the Royal Road up there?”

“I have never seen it,” Garun said. “But I am told it is very wide. A great troop can march abreast along it, so they say. And there are bridges, places to view the river and… and… oh, it is a marvel.”

“Why have you never gone up there to see it for yourself?” Idaho asked.

Garun merely shrugged and pointed at the wall.

Nayla arrived then and the argument about the climb had begun. Idaho thought about that argument as he climbed. How strange, the relationship between Nayla and Siona! They were like two conspirators… yet not conspirators. Siona commanded and Nayla obeyed. But Nayla was a Fish Speaker, the Friend who was trusted by Leto to make a first examination of the new ghola. She admitted that she had been in the Royal Constabulary since childhood. Such strength in her! Given that strength, there was something awesome about the way she bowed to Siona’s will. It was as though Nayla listened for secret voices which told her what to do. Then she obeyed.

Idaho groped upward for another handhold. His fingers wriggled along the rock, up and outward to the right, finding at last an unseen crack where they might enter. His memory provided the natural line of ascent, but only his body could learn the way by following that line. His left foot found a toehold… up… up… slowly, testing. Left hand up now… no crack but a ledge. His eyes, then his chin lifted over the high ledge he had seen from below. He elbowed his way on to it, rolled over and rested, looking only outward, not up or down. It was a sand horizon out there, a breeze with dust in it limiting the view. He had seen many such horizons in the Dune days.

Presently, he turned to face the wall, lifted himself on to his knees, hands groping upward, and he resumed the climb. The picture of the wall remained in his mind as he had seen it from below. He had only to close his eyes and the pattern lay there, fixed the way he had learned to do it as a child hiding from Harkonnen slave raiders. Fingertips found a crack where they could be wedged. He clawed his way upward.

Watching from below, Nayla experienced a growing affinity for the climber. Idaho had been reduced by distance to such a small and lonely shape upon the wall. He must know what it was like to be alone with momentous decisions.

I would like to have his child, she thought. A child from both of us would be strong and resourceful. What is it that God wants from a child of Siona and this man?