Nayla turned only her eyes to the right, peering at the architects of this greeting. Siona and Idaho stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the roadway about twenty meters to Nayla’s right. They were deep in conversation, looking at each other occasionally, nodding.
Presently, Idaho touched Siona’s arm—an oddly possessive gesture. He nodded once and strode off toward the bridge, stopping at the buttress corner directly in front of Nayla. He peered down, then crossed to the other near corner of the bridge. Again, he peered downward, standing there for several minutes before returning to Siona.
A distant shout caught Nayla’s attention. She turned and looked across the bridge. The cortege had been in the familiar trot of a royal peregrination. Now, they were slowing to a sedate walk only a few minutes away from the bridge. Nayla recognized Moneo marching in the van, his uniform brilliant white, the even, undeviating stride with his gaze straight ahead. The cover of the Emperor’s cart had been sealed. It glittered in mirror-opacity as it rolled behind Moneo on its wheels.
The mystery of it all filled Nayla.
A miracle was about to happen!
Nayla glanced to the right at Siona. Siona returned her gaze and nodded once. Nayla drew the lasgun from its holster and rested it against the rock pillar as she sighted along it. The cable on the left first, then the cable on the right, then the faery trellis of plasteel on the left. The lasgun felt cold and alien against Nayla’s hand. She took a trembling breath to restore calm.
She saw Moneo lift his gaze from the roadway and, not changing stride, turn to shout something at the cart or the ones behind it. Nayla could not make out the words. Moneo faced front once more. Nayla steadied herself, a part of the rock pillar which concealed most of her body.
Moneo had seen the people on the bridge and at the far end. He identified Fish Speaker uniforms and his first thought was to wonder who had ordered these greeters. He turned and shouted a question at Leto, but the God Emperor’s cart cover remained opaque, hiding Hwi and Leto within it.
Moneo was onto the bridge, the cart rasping in blown sand behind him, before he recognized Siona and Idaho standing well back from the far end. He identified four Museum Fremen seated on the roadway. Doubts began squirming through Moneo’s mind, but he could not change the pattern. He ventured a glance down at the river—a platinum world there caught in the noonday light. The sound of the cart was loud behind him. The flow of the river, the flow of the cortege, the sweeping importance of these things in which he played a role—all of it caught up his mind in a dizzying sensation of the inevitable.
A bit from one of the lute-player’s songs wafted through Moneo’s memory and his eyes went out of focus in the remembrance. He knew that song for its wishfulness, a wish that all of this were ended, all past, all doubts banished, tranquility returned. The plaintive song drifted through his awareness like smoke, twisting and compelling:
“Insect cries in roots of pampas grass.”
Moneo hummed the song to himself:
“Insect cries mark the end.
Autumn and my song are the color
Of the last leaves
In roots of pampas grass.”
Moneo nodded his head to the refrain:
“Day is ended,
Visitors gone.
Day is ended.
In our Sietch,
Day is ended.
Storm wind sounds.
Day is ended.
Visitors gone.”
Moneo decided that the lute-player’s song had to be a really old one, an Old Fremen song, no doubt of it. And it told him something about himself. He wished the visitors truly gone, the excitements ended, peace once more. Peace was so near . . . yet he could not leave his duties. He thought of all that impedimenta piled out there on the sand just beyond visibility range from Tuono. They would see it all soon—tents, food, tables, golden plates and jeweled knives, glowglobes fashioned in the arabesque shapes of ancient lamps . . . everything rich and full of expectations from completely different lives.
