[Dune7: Advent]

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[Book Three: “The Dark”]

[Dune7: Advent]

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[Book Three - Chapter One]

With the proper guidance from within, averting the liberating but highly dangerous lack of responsibilities Abomination offers is possible - the Bene Gesserit know this, and purposefully bred for the ability to utilise this knowledge in their breeding program. However, they failed to realise what horrors the ascent out of Abomination would unlock.

-Leto II, the God Emperor. From The Stolen Journals.

            The no-ship had set down on a patch of rock surrounded by high stone walls, a secluded spot located not far from the Bene Gesserit sietch. Inside, Idaho and Scytale followed the battle, information being delivered to them periodically by small spy drones cloaked by the effects of tiny no-generators. The semi-sentient central processor of each drone constituted a direct violation of the edicts of the Butlerian Jihad, but the Ixians who had constructed the no-ship and its complement of training droids, mood-sensitive furniture and spy drones apparently hadn’t cared about these restrictions. Less conceptually offensive methods of reconaissance were much more dangerous than the current method, Idaho realised: using the no-ship’s scanners could give away their position, because the active sensor signals could be intercepted, and to outside observers passive data intake by the no-ship would create anomalies in radiation fields that would indicate the presence of a no-ship.

            Idaho and Scytale observed how both Honoured Matre and Bene Gesserit troops were being decimated, despite the fact these consisted of some of the most powerful fighters of the Old Empire. Up until a few hours earlier, both factions had been involved in a furious civil war, the Bene Gesserit superior in numbers but lacking the beastlike ferocity the Honoured Matres were capable of displaying - neither side had had the clear upper hand. Currently it seemed the animosity between the groups had been suspended, their aggression instead focused on the common threat. Still, both Bene Gesserit and Honoured Matres preferred to fight amongst their own kind, apparently not trusting the other half of their alliance with their life yet.

            The first invader craft to set down on the planet had been relatively small, but their appearance - dark as night, sleek and outfitted with many powerful, lasgun-like weapons -induced fear in the hearts and minds of all Honoured Matres and Bene Gesserit. There were thousands of them, landing at strategic places all across the planet, clearing a perimeter with their on-board weapons, allowing the troopers to disembark. They were humanoid in appearance, but demonstrated extraordinary strength, speed and agility, outclassing even the most accomplished Honoured Matre fighters. Being shot with maula pistols didn’t stop their advance, their wounds healing within minutes, and many a defender paid for this knowledge with her life.

            It wasn’t until after the first of them had been killed by a Bene Gesserit acolyte carrying a heavy lasgun that the cause of their apparently superhuman abilities became apparent - they were in fact not human, or at least not completely: the troopers had been enhanced with mechanical implants and additions.

            Witnessing the carnage, seeing how the defenders continued to rise up against the Prometheans but were destined to lose time and time again, Duncan was reminded of a song Gurney Halleck had written once:

Through shrouds of mist

Seas rising high

And darkly scented waters

My eyes tear down

This wall of clouds

The sounds of swords intruding.

Serpents lashing at our flesh

Our shields will not be broken

Spectres soaring all around

Will sanity surrender?

Venom burning in our veins

Blade sinking into the heart

Demon god whose will directs

Do our lives yield to nightmares?

            After the Honoured Matre and Bene Gesserit forces had been weakened by the first assault wave, a second group of nightmares appeared: incredibly fast and agile beasts burst from the ships, dodging lasgun blasts with ease and actively chasing the defenders, killing them with claws and flesh-tearing teeth. The sight of these Futars - genetically engineered hybrids of man and feline - made some of the Honoured Matres run away in terror: they had been pursued by these beasts before.

            Advancing behind the Futars were the beasts’ Handlers: much less fearsome in appearance, but possessing much greater physical power than their size would suggest, and carrying weapons that immediately and without exception turned any successfully hit sentient target into a mental vegetable. Within minutes, the battlefields were littered with Honoured Matre and Bene Gesserit soldiers unable to move or even think, just barely hanging on to life without being aware of anything around them.

            The defenders retreated to fortified positions, and managed to fight most of the invaders to a standstill with heavy lasgun blasts. Suddenly, the Prometheans’ infantry retreated, the small landing ships taking off again and setting down beyond the reach of the defenders’ weapons, leaving only a few Futars and their Handlers behind to finish up. The first of the Honoured Matres emerged from their hiding places, wondering if they had perhaps won, and prepared to turn on the Prometheans that had stayed behind.

            Their advance hadn’t yet gotten underway, when new landing ships appeared in the sky, much larger ones than the first wave. For a while, everything was silent: the ships did not open to release more troopers. Suddenly, manny bigger and smaller tremors shook the ground - sandworms were coming in from the desert, and entering the relatively moisture-rich areas surrounding Central, not deterred by the water barriers which usually kept them at a distance. Like demons unleashed, fueled by the intense pain of the moisture burning through their skin, the worms attacked the armoured groundcars and grounded ornithopters, broke through thick stone walls and destroyed plasteel bunkers even a heavy lasgun would not penetrate. The worms were dying, killing themselves in their mindless fury, but the damage they wrought was extreme.

            The ship’s hatches opened, and what looked like tanks emerged: black blocks of superdense alloy on treads, bristling with weapons. Once on the sand, the treads retracted and the armour opened, part of each structure revealing a human shape. Duncan Idaho, having seen a similar being throughout many of his hundreds of ghola lifetimes, realised almost immediately what these troopers were.

            They’ve merged with the sandtrout!, he tried to explain to himself, not quite believing what he was seeing. They accepted the transformation Leto underwent, and moved beyond that, becoming cyborgs as well! Remembering the destruction Leto had been capable of, Idaho realised any hopes the defenders might have had to win this battle would now completely vaporise.

            Seeing these beings, Idaho was overwhelmed by a barrage of sensations, the pain and suffering of the many lifetimes as a servant of the God-Emperor returning to him all at once. He felt himself being crushed by that gross body over and over, and briefly realised that he was being crushed again, mentally this time, the Tyrant having come back from beyond the grave to once more take hold of him. For a moment, his rebellious nature appeared to overpower the influence the worm had over him, but soon after the ignorance returned, making him forget his lack of freedom once more.

            Idaho heard an ear-piercing shriek right next to him. Scytale, having returned from the axolotl-tanks which demanded his attention so often now that the new gholas were almost ready to be born, recoiled in terror from the image of thousands of cyborg-versions of his Prophet causing death and destruction on a grand scale. He fell to the floor, hugging his knees, whispering something in a language Idaho did not recognise over and over.

            Madness, Idaho thought. How easy it would be to retreat to that world without logic, and release all responsibilities! To be able to design your own universe, not bothering with consistency - to push subjectivity, the only viable world-view in this non-absolute universe, beyond all rational constraints! My own Abomination awaits!

[Dune7: Advent]

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[Book Three - Chapter Two]

In my youth I succumbed to love, and I understand the dangers I created for the Sisterhood. However, my actions have not caused irrepaireable damage - the preparations I’ve made for the future of my grandson will ensure that. Despite what many Sisters believe, love does not destroy indiscriminately. Subservience to an emotion might not diminish once you understand the relation of dependence you are trapped in, if that particular relationship - or the propensity to it - makes you stronger. The love I still feel for my Duke makes me stronger.

-Reverend Mother Jessica Atreides.

            Murbella!

            The latest video material delivered by the spy drones showed Duncan images of the Mother Superior struggling to get away from a Futar, the loose sand impeding her escape. She had killed three of the man-cat hybrids already, but exhaustion was taking its toll on her now.

            Without hesitation Idaho exited the no-ship, his desire to save her greater than his concern for his own safety. She was quite close to the ship and was attempting to reach the Bene Gesserit sietch.

            She sank away up to her knees in a small dust basin, the material in it having the consistency of water, and fell forward onto the sand. The Futar halted, savoring what it thought would be the final moments of the chase. Further back, the beast’s Handler was looking on with a satisfed smirk on his face.

            Turning around, Murbella saw the Futar coming closer, and this sight filled her with intense fear. She had been pursued by one of these beasts once before, and had barely escaped with her life. Her patrol’s mission had been to secure the base of a group of rebels on a world rich in valuable ore, but instead of the easy victory they had imagined, they found themselves caught in an ambush, Futars suddenly attacking them from all sides. Murbella had been the only one to get away.

            Fear of the ferocious animals grew wild amongst Honoured Matre ranks, every battle proving that despite their immense speed and strength, not even the best Honoured Matre fighters were a match for the claws and teeth of the Futars.

            Fully expecting to die at that moment, Murbella was rather surprised to see the Futar suddenly sink away into the sand, disappearing entirely, and a large moving dune covering the Handler. Strong hands grabbed her from behind, and she whirled around, ready to combat whatever threat this would turn out to be.

            “Murbella, my love,” a familiar voice said.

**  **  **  **  **

            Under cover of a hail of sand Duncan saw fit to generate, he and Murbella managed to find their way to the Bene Gesserit sietch. Stunned by the fear she had experienced in battle, as well as the sudden reapperance of the man she had not seen in such a long time, she failed to wonder about the strange powers Duncan displayed.

Duncan sat down next to Murbella, took her hands in his and wordlessly requested intimate eye-contact. She seemed distracted and somewhat unwilling to share such a moment with him right now, requiring some time to meet his gaze.

            “Murbella, I love you,” he said softly. “I realise now that what we had - what we have - transcends the purely physical dependency of our mutual imprinting. I left Chapter House to safeguard the future of the Sisterhood, and coming back here now is not a course of action I actively chose, but I am extremely happy to be here, and see you again.”

            Murbella turned away, her posture containing the slightest hint of revulsion. “I… I missed you too.”

            Duncan failed to notice what Murbella’s body language transmitted. “You cannot imagine how terrible our months apart have been for me.”

            Murbella’s facial expression underwent a radical change, angry contortions Duncan had never seen before. “Months? I suffered for three years before I was finally able to not think of you for the greater part of the day!”

            “Three years?” Duncan was lost.

            “I haven’t seen you in over a decade,” Murbella spat back. Not allowing Duncan to ask her about the discrepancy between his experiences and hers - although her comment did corroborate his suspicions -, she continued. “I can’t just go back to loving you. You should leave.”

            In Murbella’s mind, a vortex of conflicting emotions, inherent propensities and conditioned responses drove away all clear thoughts. The Imprinting she shared with him told her to take him in her arms; her own emotions wanted her to process the shock of his reappearance first, but simultaneously made her rejoice at his return after all these years; her Honoured Matre conditioning told her to either use this lowly male or discard of him, preferably in a violent manner; and her Bene Gesserit conditioning warned her about the dangers of love, and drove her to question the circumstances of his reappearance.

            “You mentioned you didn’t actively choose to come back,” Murbella said, her Bene Gesserit curiosity emerging the victor from her inner turmoil. “What then made you return to Chapter House?”

“I… I don’t recall.” Idaho failed to remember exactly what he had meant.

He has changed, Murbella realised. The Duncan I knew would know. His actions since our reunion suggest it’s as if his intelligence has dropped considerably: he’s simply unable to think of certain things, while believing he has thought of everything.

Suddenly Murbella’s arrogance escalated into anger, realising what might have happened. “The Prometheans - you led them here!”

“No!”

The answer was a reflex, but Idaho knew that she was essentially correct. The guilt he felt for the destruction he had indirectly caused consumed him, but something else attracted his attention.

She is different, he noticed. She is immersed in a strange aura, a subtle atmosphere of evil that was never there before. Did our time apart effect such a drastic change? Still, I cannot deny my feelings. She hasn’t divulged what she feels yet.

“Do you love me?”, he asked, carefully.

Love…, Murbella thought. How can such a primitive tendency have such a profound effect on our lives? Perhaps it really is a vital element of our existence. In their efforts to realise the widespread emergence of humanity, the Sisterhood might have gotten rid of one of the more useful and vital animal relics in humanity - perhaps the aversion I’ve been taught to harbour against love really is born out of an incomplete understanding of what it means to be human.

Love will provide one with a passion for things in life, and without such passion nothing is possible. On the other hand, the way love creates dependencies on people, carnal pleasures, places and things will limit ones rational development and cloud ones judgment. Perhaps a proper balance needs to be found between the propensities of the flesh and the logic of the mind - the latter existing in the knowledge of when to relinquish control.

            “I do not love,” Murbella lied, not wishing to accept the pain that would accompany a return to Duncan’s arms and heart. “Emotions will only serve to lead us to damnation.”

            Idaho started humming one of Gurney Halleck’s old love songs, partly to annoy her, and partly because the situation reminded him of the pain Gurney had been so skilled at conveying in his music.

            “Stop it!”, Murbella cried. “Singing unlocks emotions.”

“Is this the reason why the Bene Gesserit despise music?” Idaho taunted her.

            Duncan continued humming. The human voice is an extraordinarily expressive instrument. No two voices are exactly the same, and within a good vocalist’s range there are numerous possibilities for unique variations in sound. However, the thing that makes the voice so special, is it’s potential to form words, a word being a sonic constructum that has a certain *meaning* beyond the immediately apparent by virtue of it being part of a larger practice. Within a certain social and cultural context, some concatenations of sounds can refer to objects, states of affairs, concepts or operations because the people have agreed to partake in that particular context, which enables them to reconstruct and interpret part of the intentions and thoughts of the speaker based on what he or she said.

The fact that words can be used by appropriately conditioned listeners to create links to entities outside the boundaries of the conversation or the song in which these words appear, vastly increases the scope of said conversation or song, and because the act of reconstruction while trying to apprehend a sentence or group of sentences is such a personal process - despite the need to submit to the whims of the collective precisely because language is a communal practice -, a song with great lyrics can touch the attentive listener on many other levels than just the immediately and viscerally aesthetical. The ability of the human voice to inflict these words with many different shades of meaning by way of intonation and such only increases the range of emotions, thoughts and feelings that can be expressed in a song.

However, it cannot be the lyrics set to the music that offend or intimidate the Bene Gesserit so - they use words more effectively and intensively than anyone else. It has to be the music itself.

The absence of vocals does not need to create a void - rather, letting the instruments do the talking creates that space pregnant with associations that would normally have emerged from the use of lyrics.

In a similar fashion, a real musical artist can create soundscapes rich with meaning and imagery. The lack of words in such a case is not a flaw, but an asset: it gives the listener the space to enjoy the music and let the mind wander on the unique flow the interplay of instruments creates. Gurney Halleck had this ability - his skill on the baliset was unparallelled.

            “That’s it, isn’t it?” Idaho exclaimed triumphantly, normal-thought derivatives of some of his Mentat abilities having enabled him to reach his conclusions in a matter of seconds. “Music is a language you Bene Gesserit cannot control! The voice, religion, the ritual and many other cultural elements lie within the Sisterhood’s sphere of influence, but music has always managed to evade you. Anything beyond your control is a potential threat - that’s why you wanted to exorcise it, at least within your own ranks.”

            Upon witnessing Duncan’s outburst, Murbella was at first confused because of what was apparently a non sequitur, but she quickly constructed a hypothetical scenario that was in accordance with his behaviour, and decided this explanation was satisfying enough for her to not want to press the matter any further. However, the melody of Halleck’s song had awakened something inside of her, something unexpected and utterly overwhelming as music is wont to do.

To Duncan, still rather pleased with himself for uncovering yet another element of the Bene Gesserit mystery, she appeared excessively nervous - much more nervous than was warranted by the revelation of this minor secret.

            Once again, Idaho noticed a change in Murbella, a slight shift in her posture, a way of moving coupled with a facial expression that disturbed him deeply.

            That’s when he noticed the tapping of her fingers, and he immediately recognised what had to be the source of this compulsion

            No!, he cried in his mind. A heart-tearing conflict of love and repulsion filled him. I lost my precious Alia to you - I will not let you take Murbella as well!

[Dune7: Advent]

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[Book Three - Chapter Three]

Our studies of Murbella have taught us much. The Honoured Matres, usually rather appropriately referred to as “whores” in less formal exchanges, have developed highly effective techniques akin to sexual imprinting they use to subjugate the males of any world they conquer. They utilise an adrenalin-based Melange-substitute, which allowed them to develop unprecedented physical speed, no doubt extrapolations from Bene Gesserit Prana-Bindu techniques. The entire conscious persona of an Honoured Matre is directed outward, constantly scanning for an event that is in some way offensive to them to latch on to, to use this as a foothold for a customarily explosive expression of rage. The structure of the organisation in its entirety reflects this: whoever is strongest or most devious will rule. In order to accomodate the extreme arrogance these traits generate, the subconscious and unconscious regions of the mind need to be extremely large, shunting away any and all signs of personal ineptitude from the minuscule consciousness. Any Reverend Mother, when given the opportunity to converse, will be able to control even the strongest of them within minutes.

-Bene Gesserit memorandum.

            Slowly, the sietch filled with refugees as the battle outside raged on. Honoured Matres, on the run from the terrible forces of the Prometheans, were found wandering the wastes, and were brought in by concerned Bene Gesserit. Despite the differences that had divided them in the past, the current circumstances had made them reconsider their loyalties.

            “Which of you was insane enough to give Honoured Matres the location of this sietch?”, Murbella demanded.

            “We didn’t,” a Bene Gesserit Proctor said. “They had heard we had a sietch somewhere in the area, but they did not know where. We brought them in.”

            “They are Honoured Matres - whores!”, Mother Superior cried.

            “With all due respect: you are an Honoured Matre yourself.”

            “And I am also Bene Gesserit Mother Superior. These Honoured Matres knew this sietch existed! That should not have happened.”

            Murbella walked over to an Honoured Matre acolyte standing nearby, took her right arm and casually broke it. The young girl cramped up in pain, but tried to stand up again, trying to appear not to be bothered by her injury after noticing Murbella’s angry glare.

            “Once more, a lesson.”

            “She’s in pain!”, one of the other Honoured Matre acolytes yelled.

            “Of course. Pain needs to be endured to be valuable,” she recited the Bene Gesserit tenet. “It reminds you of your limitations. Pain is a blessing disguised as a curse: it blunts your senses, but raises your tolerance. The ultimate pain is the Spice Agony - the greatest pain which promises the greatest rewards. All other pain is tolerable after the Agony, and carries its own compensation.”

            Murbella commended the acolyte she had hurt for her bravery she displayed with a nod, and continued to lecture her audience on the necessities the situation had created, and how to plan a counterattack against the invaders.

            To the side, Idaho stood, contemplating Murbella’s actions. Is this his influence? She has degenerated even faster than I feared! She is no longer the woman I loved…

            Taking in the reactions of the crowd, he realised that most Bene Gesserit were at once repulsed by the actions of their Mother Superior, and secretly pleased by her apparent lack for the well-being of the Honoured Matres. Their hatred goes deep, he realised. The Honoured Matres present were used to such behaviour from their superiors, and in some cases enjoyed the return to more familiar leadership tactics.

            Deeply saddened, Idaho slipped away, and left the sietch.

continue

                                                                Last modified: May 24, 2000