Chapter 22

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Chapter 22

Post by Freakzilla »

There was a man so wise,
He jumped into
A sandy place
And burnt out both his eyes!
And when he knew his eyes were gone,
He offered no complaint.
He summoned up a vision
And made himself a saint.

-Children's Verse from History of Muad'dib

Paul is standing outside Sietch Tabr, trying not to think about Chani, noting the changes since he was last there through his oracular vision. An aid comes up behind him with a clipboard and hands it to Paul, telling him what it is. Paul snaps at him, "I can read!", signs it and hands it back. The aid flees in fear. He feels like going back inside and telling the aids to worship all life if they really need something to worship. They wouldn't understand. He wishes he could stop the vision. The ghola joins him outside and tells him everything about Bijaz and his violent compulsion. Paul says there will be no violence from Duncan. Hayt calls Paul "Young Master" and Paul asks him to do a human thing to release the Duncan within. Paul hears someone cry out "Usul". A Fedaykin comes out then and tells him that Chani is dead, he says, "She's gone". The words activate Hayt's compultion to kill Paul and he resists, holding his knife up ready to strike. Duncan's memories come flooding back and they go inside. The Fedaykin tells Paul he has two children and Paul stumbles. He's confused, his visions only showed him one baby. As they reach the birthing room, Paul's vision goes black and he stumbles again, almost falling. Harah tells him he has twins, a boy and a girl, the vision had only shown him the girl. Paul says goodbye to Chani and Alia brings in Lichna. Paul says she's not Lichna, but a Face Dancer. Alia insists he hear what she has to say. Lichna introduces himself as Scytale and asks if the ghola is now Duncan Idaho. Paul asks Duncan if he would kill the Tleilaxu and he agrees with supressed rage. Scytale moves to the babies and threatens to kill them if anyone moves. Scytale offers Paul a restored ghola of Chani and asks Paul way he would pay for this. Paul says he can't bargain with what he cannot see and asks Alia to do it for him. She asks for time to think but Scytale warns that Chani's flesh cannot wait. Paul begins to see through the eyes of one of his babies. Scytale suggest the Atreides turn over all their CHOAM holdings. Using the sight from the baby, Paul carefully removes his crysknife from it's sheath and measures out the distance and throws the knife into Scytale's eye. He's dead before he hits the floor. Paul names the babies Leto and Ghanima. Duncan takes Paul to his quarters where Bijaz comes to see them. Bijaz is excited that Duncan has his memories back because now he can have all his pasts back. Bijaz offers to restore Chani again and Paul has Duncan kill him. Paul tells Duncan he had no choice in all of this, he meddled with all the possible futures he could until they created him. As he spoke his vision finally leaves him, overwhelming his his mind with infinite possibilities.
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
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