Dune

The thwock-thwock of many ’thopters grew louder all around. There was the sound of hurrying feet. Paul watched his friends come, matching their sounds to his oracular vision.

“Stilgar!” Paul shouted, waving an arm. “Over here!”

“Thanks to Shai-hulud,” Stilgar cried, running up to Paul. “You’re not . . .” In the sudden silence, Paul’s vision showed him Stilgar staring with an expression of agony at the ruined eyes of his friend and Emperor. “Oh, m’Lord,” Stilgar groaned. “Usul . . . Usul . . . Usul . . .”

“What of the stone burner?” one of the newcomers shouted.

“It’s ended,” Paul said, raising his voice. He gestured. “Get up there now and rescue the ones who were closest to it. Put up barriers. Lively now!” He turned back to Stilgar.

“Do you see, m’Lord?” Stilgar asked, wonder in his tone. “How can you see?”

For answer, Paul put a finger out to touch Stilgar’s cheek above the stillsuit mouthcap, felt tears. “You need give no moisture to me, old friend,” Paul said. “I am not dead.”

“But your eyes!”

“They’ve blinded my body, but not my vision,” Paul said. “Ah, Stil, I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly.”

“Usul, I don’t, I don’t . . .”

“Don’t try to understand it. Accept it. I am in the world beyond this world here. For me, they are the same. I need no hand to guide me. I see every movement all around me. I see every expression of your face. I have no eyes, yet I see.”

Stilgar shook his head sharply. “Sire, we must conceal your affliction from—”

“We hide it from no man,” Paul said.

“But the law . . .”

“We live by the Atreides Law now, Stil. The Fremen Law that the blind should be abandoned in the desert applies only to the blind. I am not blind. I live in the cycle of being where the war of good and evil has its arena. We are at a turning point in the succession of ages and we have our parts to play.”

In a sudden stillness, Paul heard one of the wounded being led past him. “It was terrible,” the man groaned, “a great fury of fire.”

“None of these men shall be taken into the desert,” Paul said. “You hear me, Stil?”

“I hear you, m’Lord.”

“They are to be fitted with new eyes at my expense.”

“It will be done, m’Lord.”

Paul, hearing the awe grow in Stilgar’s voice, said: “I will be at the Command ’thopter. Take charge here.”

“Yes, m’Lord.”

Paul stepped around Stilgar, strode down the street. His vision told him every movement, every irregularity beneath his feet, every face he encountered. He gave orders as he moved, pointing to men of his personal entourage, calling out names, summoning to himself the ones who represented the intimate apparatus of government. He could feel the terror grow behind him, the fearful whispers.

“His eyes!”

“But he looked right at you, called you by name!”

At the Command ’thopter, he deactivated his personal shield, reached into the machine and took the microphone from the hand of a startled communications officer, issued a swift string of orders, thrust the microphone back into the officer’s hand. Turning, Paul summoned a weapons specialist, one of the eager and brilliant new breed who remembered sietch life only dimly.

“They used a stone burner,” Paul said.

After the briefest pause, the man said: “So I was told, Sire.”

“You know what that means, of course.”

“The fuel could only have been atomic.”

Paul nodded, thinking of how this man’s mind must be racing. Atomics. The Great Convention prohibited such weapons. Discovery of the perpetrator would bring down the combined retributive assault of the Great Houses. Old feuds would be forgotten, discarded in the face of this threat and the ancient fears it aroused.

“It cannot have been manufactured without leaving some traces,” Paul said. “You will assemble the proper equipment and search out the place where the stone burner was made.”

“At once, Sire.” With one last fearful glance, the man sped away.

“M’Lord,” the communications officer ventured from behind him. “Your eyes . . .”

Paul turned, reached into the ’thopter, returned the command set to his personal band. “Call Chani,” he ordered. “Tell her . . . tell her I am alive and will be with her soon.”

Now the forces gather, Paul thought. And he noted how strong was the smell of fear in the perspiration all around.

He has gone from Alia,

The womb of heaven!

Holy, holy, holy!

Fire-sand leagues

Confront our Lord.

He can see

Without eyes!

A demon upon him!

Holy, holy, holy

Equation:

He solved for

Martyrdom!

—THE MOON FALLS DOWN

SONGS OF MUAD’DIB