Chapter 18

Moderator: Freakzilla

Post Reply
User avatar
Freakzilla
Archivist
Posts: 3453
Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:56 pm
Location: Duluth, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Chapter 18

Post by Freakzilla »

Over here sand blows; over there sand blows.
Over there a rich man waits; over here I wait.

-The Voice of Shai-Hulud,
From the Oral History


This chapter is an account of a conversation between Sister Chenoeh and Leto. She hid this report on Leto's orders and threat that he would bring his rage upon the Bene Gesserit if she did otherwise. She had been ordered to avoid bringing down his wrath. She asks about Leto's likiness to a Reverend Mother. He says he and Ghanima received their memories as a result of genetics and the spice, awakened to their ancestral memories before birth. She says the Bene Gesserit call this abomination. He says they're right to do so, who knows whether good or evil will command the horde. She asks how he overcame it and he admits that he didn't, they formed an alliance with powerfull ancestors who followed the pharaonic model. They helped him form a mingled identity with the mob. Chenoeh finds this disturbing and Leto says she should. Leto tells her these things because he knows she records them accurately in her mind and he will never see her again. He tells her that he will be remembered as a great tyrant, and that's true, he is. The more people try to understand him the more remote he will become until one day he will be pure myth, a living god. He is not a leader or guide but a god. Gods need only take responsibility for genesis. His ancestors are his spirit world, his truth. Beware the truth, myths and lies are easier. Truths can demand painfull changes. Some truths are wordless. Words are easier, you can cry: "why didn't someone warn me?". He is warning humanity by example. "The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you." She asks who these words are to be recorded for. Posterity, he says, those seeking the truth. History is his instrument, even in using the facts truthfully he changes them. Leto tells her that she will die before she becomes a Reverend Mother but people will pray to her for intercession with Him. On learning this she understands what he said and feels a bond of friendship with him she cannot describe. An indescribable wordless truth.
===
Archivists' note:
Because of intervening events, the discovery of this private record is now
little more than a footnote to history, interesting because it contains one of
the earliest references to the God Emperor's secret journals.
(Footnote: Sister Quintinius Violet Chenoeh died in the fifty third year of her
Sisterhood, the cause being ascribed to melange incompatibility during her
attempt to achieve the status of Reverend Mother.)
They were destroyed because they lied pretentiously. Have no fear that my wrath
will fall upon you because of your innocent mistakes.

~Leto II, God Emperor
Post Reply

Return to “God Emperor of Dune”