“What are those books, Lord?”

“They are my words for my people. I want them to be read. What I want to know is what Siona has said about the Citadel charts she took.”

“She says there is a great hoard of melange beneath Your Citadel, Lord, and the charts will reveal it.”

“The charts will not reveal it. Will she tunnel?”

“She seeks Ixian tools for that.”

“Ix will not provide them.”

“Is there such a hoard of spice, Lord?”

“Yes.”

“There is a story about how Your hoard is defended, Lord. That Arrakis itself would be destroyed if anyone tried to steal Your melange. Is it true?”

“Yes. And that would shatter the Empire. Nothing would survive—not Guild or Sisterhood, not Ix or Tleilaxu, not even the Fish Speakers.”

She shuddered, then: “I will not let Siona try to get Your Spice.”

“Nayla! I command you to obey Siona in everything. Is this how you serve me?”

“Lord?” She stood in fear of his anger, closer to a loss of faith than he had ever seen her. It was the crisis he had created, knowing how it must end. Slowly, Nayla relaxed. He could see the shape of her thought as though she had laid it out for him in illuminated words.

The ultimate test!

“You will return to Siona and guard her life with your own,” Leto said. “That is the task I set for you and that you accepted. It is why you were chosen. It is why you carry a blade from Stilgar’s household.”

Her right hand went to the crysknife concealed beneath her robe.

How sure it is, Leto thought, that a weapon can lock a person into a predictable pattern of behaviour.

He stared with fascination at Nayla’s rigid body. Her eyes were empty of everything except adoration.

The ultimate rhetorical despotism… and I despise it!

“Go then!” he barked.

Nayla turned and fled the Holy Presence.

Is it worth this? Leto wondered.

But Nayla had told him what he needed to know. Nayla had renewed her faith and revealed with accuracy the thing which Leto could not find in Siona’s fading image. Nayla’s instincts were to be trusted.

Siona has reached that explosive moment which I require.

CHAPTER XIII

The Duncans always think it odd that I choose women for combat forces, but my Fish Speakers are a temporary army in every sense. While they can be violent and vicious, women are profoundly different from men in their dedication to battle. The cradle of genesis ultimately predisposes them to behaviour more protective of life. They have proved to be the best keepers of the Golden Path. I reinforce this in my design for their training. They are set aside for a time from ordinary routines. I give them special sharing which they can look back upon with pleasure for the rest of their lives. They come of age in the company of their sisters in preparation for events more profound. What you share in such companionship always prepares you for greater things. The haze of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into something different than they were. That’s the way today changes history. All contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, but few realize it.