“Between the superhuman and the inhuman,” he said, “I have had little space in which to be human. I thank you, gentle and lovely Hwi, for this little space.”

CHAPTER LII

In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are sometimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshy sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary.

—The Stolen Journals

Nayla was the first to glimpse the approaching cortège. Perspiring heavily in the midday heat, she stood near one of the rock pillars which marked the edges of the Royal Road. A sudden flash of distant reflection caught her attention. She peered in that direction, squinting, realizing with a thrill of awareness that she saw sun-dazzle on the cover of the God Emperor’s cart.

“They come!” she called.

She felt hunger then. In their excitement and singleness of purpose, none of them had brought food. Only the Fremen had brought water and that because “Fremen always carry water when they leave sietch”. They did it by rote.

Nayla touched one finger to the butt of the lasgun holstered at her hip. The bridge lay no more than twenty metres ahead of her, its faery structure arching across the chasm like an alien fantasy joining one barren surface to another.

This is madness, she thought.

But the God Emperor had reinforced his command. He required his Nayla to obey Siona in all things.

Siona’s orders were explicit, leaving no way for evasions. And Nayla had no way here to query her God Emperor. Siona had said: “When his cart is in the middle of the bridge—then!”

“But why?”

They had been standing well away from the others in the chill dawn atop the barrier wall, Nayla feeling precariously isolated here, remote and vulnerable.

Siona’s grim features, her low, intense voice, could not be denied. “Do you think you can harm God?”

“I…” Nayla could only shrug.

“You must obey me!”

“I must,” Nayla agreed.

Nayla studied the approach of the distant cortège, noting the colours of the courtiers, the thick masses of blue marking her sisters of the Fish Speakers… the shiny surface of her Lord’s cart.

It was another test, she decided. The God Emperor would know. He would know the devotion in His Nayla’s heart. It was a test. The God Emperor’s commands must be obeyed in all things. That was the earliest lesson of her Fish Speaker childhood. The God Emperor had said that Nayla must obey Siona. It was a test. What else could it be?

She looked toward the four Fremen. They had been positioned by Duncan Idaho directly in the roadway and blocking part of the exit from this end of the bridge. They sat with their backs to her and looked out across the bridge, four brown-robed mounds. Nayla had heard Idaho’s words to them.