BOOK ONE - CHAPTER FIVE
 

The current stretch of my Golden Path has forced upon me a role that I abhor, yet I do everything in my power to encourage this particular development. In order to supply the human race with a future and make them truly free, I need to take away their autonomy for a sufficiently long period of time. My status as a living God takes away an element vital to humanity's continued existence, and their worship combined with my acts of divine intervention that burrow towards the very core of the self of each ensures that at one time they will actually see they've never had complete possession of that element. It's all about contrast, and I trust upon the most basic qualities ofthe human psyche to subconsciously carry humanity along my Golden Path after I'm gone. Ancestral Memory supplied me with an ancient story just now, which I'm certain only you and I remember. Slightly altered, it would be remarkably appropriate: "Oh my, what impressive temples and monuments you have!" -"Of course, my child, those are to better give you a future with."
-Leto Atreides II, recounting a conversation with his sister, Ghanima. From The Stolen Journals-
 

The barrage of blurry images, shards of words, incomprehensible sounds and tiny but highly annoying pangs of nausea that engulfed Sheeana reminded her of the Spice Agony. What's happening?

You lost control. Odrade-within, her essence safely walled-off from the maelstrom of sensations but aware of what was plaguing Sheeana, broke free of the constraints that her host had implemented earlier, and attempted to comfort the young Reverend Mother. The Spice Agony is an unleashing of information that lies locked inside. This comes from elsewhere. It originates deeper, much deeper.

"What should I do?", Sheeana cried out loud. She rose from her bed, and stumbled into her private sitting room.

I ... I'm not sure.

The influx of images increased, causing great pain for Sheeana, but suddenly all was silent in her mind. A single image emerged, harrowing in its intensity, releasing old fears Sheeana thought she had mastered long ago.

A ... a worm, Sheeana thought.

The giant worm violently rose up from the sand, the terrible maw with its sharp teeth snapping at an imaginary prey, a strong melange odour pervading the air.

Cause and effect, and earlier and later invaded each other's territories in Sheeana's mind. She was a child now, eight years old. She was in the desert not far from the village where she lived, looking for small deposits of melange in the sand like Fremen children often did. Of course she heard the screams mixed in with the sounds of the wind and the sand, but when your attention is focused on something else it often takes some time before you truly realise the composition and meaning of the information being offered to your senses for interpretation.

The worm did not stop when she commanded him to, continuing to take Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade, Tleilaxu Master Tylwyth Waff and herself deeper into the desert. Eventually, the beast halted at a wall of rock approximately fifty meters high.

Odrade's persona managed to wrestle herself back to prominence in Sheeana's mind again the moment the memory of her manifested itself. Sheeana? Listen to me. I can help you. Remember he left us a message in the place you just saw.

Odrade hoped reminding Sheeana of the discovery she had made in the ruins of Sietch Tabr would help restore the disturbed girl's ability to think properly, which had somehow been severely tainted during the discussion with Scytale. Remember his warning! Noble purpose was-

"Shaitan has brought me nothing but pain!", Sheeana growled out loud. She collapsed in pain when another series of powerful images surfaced in her mind.

She turned, and watched her village being destroyed, her father being pulled down in an avalanche of sand, into the dark pit below.

The priests worshipped her, because she could communicate with the worms.

Cradling a small worm, she entered the working chamber of Mother Superior Darwi Odrade. Finally the next stage of the cycle had been reached on Chapter House!

The worm loomed over her. She screamed at it, cursing it for causing her so much grief, but it would not take her. She rans towards its gaping mouth, coming so close she could see the smouldering fires of the furnace inside, but the beast backed away.

She danced, long and complex strings of movements and rythms of her feet on the sand, very rarely repeating themselves.

"Shaitan is everywhere!", Sheeana cried. She stumbled out of her quarters and started running, in a vain attempt at getting away from the pain inside her head.

Everywhere she looked, the worm appeared: elongated reflections in polished black plaz wall panels, the steel guiding rail along the walls of the corridors - running away from Shaitan appeared impossible.

Odrade had a revelation then, a flowing together of different fragments of knowledge and memories, the resulting gestalt revealing and hiding its various facets in such a way that a powerful realisation emerged. Siaynoq - of course!

She attempted to address her host. Sheeana, listen! Do you recall that day in Keen, when we observed the dancers on the Great Square? Their dance - the patterns in which they moved, the sounds, the pheromones - it was a language. A complex interplay of cultural phenomena had imprinted a language in their unconsciousness, a more subtle version of how most languages are learnt. We don't understand the words, we just use them in combinations that are acceptable in a certain situation.

Sheeana's hysteria retreated somewhat. Odrade continued. Entrenched in the deepest recesses of their minds, those dancers had very little control over when and where these words would emerge, the activation depending on impulses and sensory input they could not control. You were like that too! You could communicate with the worms somehow.

Now the worms return in your thoughts. Don't you see? It's the emergence of a new awareness! Every time the essence of language and communication changed in the past, new abilities were unlocked in the human mind. The invention of written text allowed the mind to allocate more of its capacity to thinking, and less to remembering. The thinking machines stimulated man's creativity, the machines having relieved man of tedious mental tasks. The Butlerian Jihad changed that, pointing out the dangers of surrendering too many abilities to machines, and forced us to expand our minds rather than restructuring existing capabilities. Now you are at the threshold of another breakthrough! He foretold your arrival, and only now do we understand what he meant.

A new image of a worm forced Odrade's speculations into the background. It was a small worm this time, squirming on its bed of sand. This is not a vision ... This is real, Sheeana thought.

She saw then that she had walked to the hold of the no-ship where the small worm that had been taken from Chapter House was being kept. She walked up to it, and saw the beast turning its mouth towards her, but not hissing at her like it would at anyone else.

"Why are you doing this to me, Shaitan? Stop hurting me!", Sheeana shouted. "What do you want from me?"

Sheeana walked around the pen, the worm turning to follow her with its head.

"I won't be a part of your Golden Path! I'm breaking free of it, you hear me?" She spat on the worm, the moisture landing on the worm's hide, trickling down onto the sand along one of the beast's segments. A puff of blue smoke rose from the small wound the water caused, accompanied by a fizzing sound.

A final image burst into Sheeana's mind, its intensity causing her to lose consciousness. She saw herself lying squirming on the sand, her arms and legs severed from her body, screaming for help. No help came. The hiss of a worm approaching under the sand grew louder.

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