Dune полностью

“Siona seems . . . so young.”

“And I am her favorite poseur, the sham who holds power under false pretenses, never consulting the needs of his people.”

“Could I not talk to her and . . .”

“No! You must never try to persuade Siona of anything. Promise me, Hwi.”

“If you ask it, of course, but I . . .”

“All gods have this problem, Hwi. In the perception of deeper needs, I must often ignore immediate ones. Not addressing immediate needs is an offense to the young.”

“Could you not reason with her and . . .”

“Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!”

“But when you know they are wrong . . .”

“Do you believe in me?”

“Yes.”

“And if someone tried to convince you that I am the greatest evil of all time . . .”

“I would become very angry. I would . . .” She broke off.

“Reason is valuable,” he said, “only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe.”

Her brows drew together in thought. It fascinated Leto to sense the arousal of her awareness. “Ahhhh.” She breathed the word.

“No reasoning creature will ever again be able to deny the Leto experience,” he said. “I see your understanding begin. Beginnings! They are what life is all about!”

She nodded.

No arguments, he thought. When she sees the tracks, she follows them to find where they will lead.

“As long as there is life, every ending is a beginning,” he said. “And I would save humankind, even from itself.”

Again, she nodded. The tracks still led onward.

“This is why no death in the perpetuation of humankind can be a complete failure,” he said. “This is why a birth touches us so deeply. This is why the most tragic death is the death of a youth.”

“Does Ix still threaten your Golden Path? I’ve always known they conspired in something evil.”

They conspire. Hwi does not hear the inner message of her own words. She has no need to hear it.

He stared at her, full of the marvel that was Hwi. She possessed a form of honesty which some would call naive, but which Leto recognized as merely non-self-conscious. The honesty was not her core, it was Hwi herself.

“Then I will arrange a performance in the plaza tomorrow,” Leto said. “It will be a performance of the surviving Face Dancers. Afterward, our betrothal will be announced.”

Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their awakening. My samhadi is their samhadi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge distilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one.

—THE STOLEN JOURNALS

The Face Dancer performance occupied almost two hours of the morning, and afterward came the announcement which sent shock waves through the Festival City.

“It has been centuries since he took a bride!”

“More than a thousand years, my dear.”

The trooping of the Fish Speakers had been brief. They cheered him loudly, but they were disturbed.

“You are my only brides,” he had said. Was that not the meaning of Siaynoq?

Leto thought the Face Dancers performed well despite their obvious terror. Garments had been found in the depths of a Fremen museum—hooded black robes with white cord belts, spread-winged green hawks appliquéd across the shoulders at the back—uniforms of Muad’Dib’s itinerant priests. The Face Dancers had put on dark, seamed faces with these robes and performed a dance which told how Muad’Dib’s legions had spread their religion through the Empire.

Hwi, wearing a brilliant silver dress with a green jade necklace, sat beside Leto on the Royal Cart throughout the ritual. Once, she leaned close to his face and asked: “Is that not a parody?”

“To me, perhaps.”

“Do the Face Dancers know?”

“They suspect.”

“Then they are not as frightened as they appear.”

“Oh, yes, they are frightened. It’s just that they are braver than most people expect them to be.”

“Bravery can be so foolish,” she whispered.

“And vice-versa.”

She had favored him with a measuring stare before returning her attention to the performance. Almost two hundred Face Dancers had survived unscathed. All of them had been pressed into the dance. The intricate weavings and posturings could fascinate the eye. It was possible to watch them and, for a time, forget the bloody preliminaries to this day.