The Winds of Dune Read online

  THE WINDS OF DUNE

  THE DUNE SERIES

  BY FRANK HERBERT

  Dune

  Dune Messiah

  Children of Dune

  God Emperor of Dune

  Heretics of Dune

  Chapterhouse: Dune

  BY FRANK HERBERT, BRIAN HERBERT,

  AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  The Road to Dune (includes the original short novel Spice Planet)

  BY BRIAN HERBERT AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  Dune: House Atreides

  Dune: House Harkonnen

  Dune: House Corrino

  Dune: The Butlerian Jihad

  Dune: The Machine Crusade

  Dune: The Battle of Corrin

  Hunters of Dune

  Sandworms of Dune

  Paul of Dune

  The Winds of Dune

  The Throne of Dune (forthcoming)

  BY BRIAN HERBERT

  Dreamer of Dune

  (biography of Frank Herbert)

  THE WINDS OF DUNE

  Brian Herbert

  and

  Kevin J. Anderson

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PART I: 10, 207 AG

  PART II: 10, 188 AG

  INTERLUDE: 10, 207 AG

  PART III: 10, 207 AG

  PART IV: 10, 200 AG

  INTERLUDE: 10, 207 AG

  PART V: 10, 207 AG

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  THE WINDS OF DUNE

  Copyright © 2009 by Herbert Properties LLC

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Herbert, Brian.

  The winds of dune / Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 978-0-7653-2272-2

  I. Dune (Imaginary place)—Fiction. I. Anderson, Kevin J., 1962–II. Title.

  PS3558.E617W56 2009

  813'.54—dc22

  2009016702

  First Edition: September 2009

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  It is difficult to be married to an author, more challenging

  in many ways than the writing task itself. For their sacrifices,

  for their unconditional love and patience, this book,

  like others, is dedicated to our remarkable wives,

  JANET HERBERT and

  REBECCA MOESTA ANDERSON.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  While we are busy writing new novels in the incredible Dune universe, many other people contribute to what the reader sees on the printed page. We would like to thank Tor Books, Simon & Schuster U.K., WordFire Inc., the Frank Herbert family, Trident Media Group, New Amsterdam Entertainment, and Misher Films for their contributions and support. As always, we are especially grateful to Frank Herbert, who left the most remarkable literary legacy in all of science fiction, and to Beverly Herbert, who devoted so much of her own talents and energy to the success of the series.

  To the Fremen, he is the Messiah;

  To the vanquished, he is the Tyrant;

  To the Bene Gesserit, he is the Kwisatz Haderach;

  But Paul is my son and always will be, no matter how far he falls.

  —LADY JESSICA, Duchess of Caladan

  The Emperor Paul-Muad’Dib survived a major assassination attempt when a stone-burner robbed him of his eyesight. Though blind, he could see the cracks in his empire, the political stresses and long-festering wounds that threatened to tear his rule apart. Ultimately he knew —whether through prescience or Mentat analysis—that the problems were insurmountable.

  With his beloved Chani dead in childbirth and his newborn twins helpless, Muad’Dib turned his back on humanity and his children and walked into the desert, leaving the empire to his sixteen-year-old sister, Alia. Thus, he abandoned everything he had worked to create.

  Even the most careful historian can never know the reason for this.

  —BRONSO OF IX, Analysis of History: Muad’Dib

  Though he is gone, Muad’Dib never ceases to test us. Who are we to doubt his choices? Wherever he is, in life or death, Muad’Dib continues to watch over his people. That is why we must pray to him for guidance.

  —PRINCESS IRULAN, The Legacy of Muad’Dib

  PART I

  10, 207 AG

  After the overthrow of Shaddam IV, the reign of Paul-Muad’Dib lasted fourteen years. He established his new capital in Arrakeen on the sacred desert planet, Dune. Though Muad’Dib’s Jihad is over at long last, conflicts continue to flare up.

  Paul’s mother, the Lady Jessica, has withdrawn from the constant battles and political schemes and returned to the Atreides ancestral home of Caladan to serve there as Duchess.

  In my private life on Caladan, I receive few reports of my son’s Jihad, not because I choose to be ignorant, but because the news is rarely anything I wish to hear.

  —LADY JESSICA, Duchess of Caladan

  The unscheduled ship loomed in orbit over Caladan, a former Guild Heighliner pressed into service as a Jihad transport.

  A young boy from the fishing village, apprenticed to the Castle as a page, rushed into the garden courtyard. Looking awkward in his formal clothing, he blurted, “It’s a military-equipped vessel, my Lady. Fully armed!”

  Kneeling beside a rosemary bush, Jessica snipped off fragrant twigs for the kitchens. Here in her private garden, she maintained flowers, herbs, and shrubs in a perfect combination of order and chaos, useful flora and pretty pleasantries. In the peace and stillness just after dawn, Jessica liked to work and meditate here, nourishing her plants and uprooting the persistent weeds that tried to ruin the careful balance.

  Unruffled by the boy’s panic, she inhaled deeply of the aromatic evergreen oils released by her touch. Jessica rose to her feet and brushed dirt off her knees. “Have they sent any messages?”

  “Only that they are dispatching a group of Qizarate emissaries, my Lady. They demand to speak with you on an urgent matter.”

  “They demand?”

  The young man quailed at her expression. “I’m sure they meant it as a request, my Lady. After all, would they dare to make demands of the Duchess of Caladan—and the mother of Muad’Dib? Still, it must be important news indeed, to warrant a vessel like that!” The young man fidgeted like an eel washed up on shore.

  She straightened her garment. “Well, I’m sure the emissary considers it important. Probably just another request for me to increase the limits on the number of pilgrims allowed to come here.”

  Caladan, the seat of House Atreides for more than twenty generations, had escaped the ravages of the Jihad, primarily because of Jessica’s refusal to let too many outsiders swarm in. Caladan’s self-sufficient people preferred to be left alone. They would gladly have accepted their Duke Leto back, but he had been murdered through treachery at high levels; now the people had his son Paul-Muad’Dib instead, the Emperor of the Known Universe.

  Despite Jessica’s best efforts, Caladan could never be completely isolated from the outside storms in the galaxy. Though Paul paid little attention t
o his home planet anymore, he had been christened and raised here; the people could never escape the shadow cast by her son.

  After all the years of Paul’s Jihad, a weary and wounded peace had settled over the Imperium like a cold winter fog. Looking at the young messenger now, she realized that he had been born after Paul became Emperor. The boy had never known anything but the looming Jihad and the harsher side of her son’s nature. . . .

  She left the courtyard gardens, shouting to the boy. “Summon Gurney Halleck. He and I will meet the delegation in the main hall of Castle Caladan.”

  Jessica changed out of her gardening clothes into a sea-green gown of state. She lifted her ash-bronze hair and draped a pendant bearing a golden Atreides hawk crest around her neck. She refused to hurry. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered what news the ship might bring. Perhaps it wasn’t a trivial matter after all. . . .

  Gurney was waiting for her in the main hall. He had been out running his gaze hounds, and his face was still flushed from the exercise. “According to the spaceport, the emissary is a high-ranking member of the Qizarate, bringing an army of retainers and honor guards from Arrakis. Says he has a message of the utmost importance.”

  She pretended a disinterest she did not truly feel. “By my count, this is the ninth ‘urgent message’ they’ve delivered since the Jihad ended two years ago.”

  “Even so, my Lady, this one feels different.”

  Gurney had aged well, though he was not, and never would be, a handsome man with that inkvine scar on his jaw and those haunted eyes. In his youth he’d been ground under the Harkonnen boot, but years of brave service had shaped him into one of House Atreides’s greatest assets.

  She lowered herself into the chair that her beloved Duke Leto had once used. While scurrying castle servants prepared for the emissary and his entourage, the director of the kitchen staff asked Jessica about appropriate refreshments. She answered in a cool tone, “Just water. Serve them water.”

  “Nothing else, my Lady? Is that not an insult to such an important personage?”

  Gurney chuckled. “They’re from Dune. They’ll consider it an honor.”

  The foyer’s oaken castle doors were flung open to the damp breeze, and the honor guard marched in with a great commotion. Fifteen men, former soldiers from Paul’s Jihad, carried green banners with highlights of black or white. The members of this unruly entourage wore imitation stillsuits as if they were uniforms, though stillsuits were completely unnecessary in Caladan’s moist air. Glistening droplets covered the group from the light drizzle that had begun to fall outside; the visitors seemed to consider it a sign from God.

  The front ranks of the entourage shifted aside so that a Qizara, a yellow-robed priest of the Jihad, could step forward. The priest lowered his damp hood to show his bald scalp, and his eyes glittered with awe, completely blue from addiction to the spice melange. “I am Isbar, and I present myself to the mother of Muad’Dib.” He bowed, then continued the bow all the way to the floor until he had prostrated himself.

  “Enough of this. Everyone here knows who I am.”

  Even when Isbar stood, he kept his head bowed and his eyes averted. “Seeing the bounty of water on Caladan, we more fully understand Muad’Dib’s sacrifice in coming to Dune as the savior of the Fremen.”

  Jessica’s voice had enough of an edge to show that she did not wish to waste time on ceremony. “You have come a long way. What is the urgency this time?”

  Isbar seemed to wrestle with his message as if it were a living thing, and Jessica sensed the depth of his dread. The members of the honor guard remained silent as statues.

  “Out with it, man!” Gurney ordered.

  The priest blurted, “Muad’Dib is dead, my Lady. Your son has gone to Shai-Hulud.”

  Jessica felt as though she had been struck with a cudgel.

  Gurney groaned. “Oh no. No . . . not Paul!”

  Isbar continued, anxious to purge himself of his words. “Forsaking his rule, the holy Muad’Dib walked out into the desert and vanished into the sands.”

  It took all of Jessica’s Bene Gesserit training to erect a thick wall around herself, to give herself time to think. The shutdown of her emotions was automatic, ingrained. She forced herself not to cry out, kept her voice quiet and steady. “Tell me everything, priest.”

  The Qizara’s words stung like sand pellets blown by a harsh wind. “You know of the recent plot by traitors among his own Fedaykin. Even though blinded by a stone-burner, the blessed Muad’Dib viewed the world with divine eyes, not the artificial Tleilaxu ones that he purchased for his injured soldiers.”

  Yes, Jessica knew all of that. Because of her son’s dangerous decisions, and backlash from the Jihad, he’d always faced the very real threat of assassination. “But Paul survived the plot that blinded him. Was there another one?”

  “An extension of the same conspiracy, Great Lady. A Guild Steersman was implicated, as well as the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam.” He added, as an afterthought, “By order of the Imperial Regent Alia, both have now been executed along with Korba the Panegyrist, architect of the cabal against your son.”

  Too many facts clamored at her at once. Mohiam, executed? That news shook her to the core. Jessica’s relationship with the old Reverend Mother had been tumultuous, love and hate cycling like the tides.

  Alia . . . Regent now? Not Irulan? Of course, it was appropriate. But if Alia was the ruler . . . “What of Chani, my son’s beloved? What of Princess Irulan, his wife?”

  “Irulan has been imprisoned in Arrakeen until her involvement in the plot can be measured. Regent Alia would not allow her to be executed with the others, but it is known that Irulan associated with the traitors.” The priest swallowed hard. “As for Chani . . . she did not survive the birth of the twins.”

  “Twins?” Jessica shot to her feet. “I have grandchildren?”

  “A boy and a girl. Paul’s children are healthy, and—”

  Her calm façade slipped dangerously. “You did not think to inform me of this immediately?” She struggled to organize her thoughts. “Tell me all that I need to know, without delay.”

  The Qizara fumbled with his story. “You know of the ghola who was a gift to Muad’Dib from the Tleilaxu and the Guild? He turned out to be a weapon, an assassination tool created from the slain body of a faithful Atreides retainer.”

  Jessica had heard of the ghola grown from Duncan Idaho’s dead cells, but had always assumed him to be some sort of exotic performer or Jongleur mimic.

  “Hayt had the appearance and mannerisms of Duncan Idaho, but not the memories,” the priest continued. “Though programmed to kill Muad’Dib, his true personality surfaced and defeated the alter ego, and through that crisis he became the true Duncan Idaho again. Now he aids the Imperial Regent Alia.”

  At first, the idea amazed her—Duncan, truly alive and aware again?—then her focus returned to the most pressing question. “Enough distractions, Isbar. I need more details about what happened to my son.”

  The priest kept his head bowed, which muffled his voice. “They say that through prescience, Muad’Dib knew the tragedies that would befall him, but could do nothing to prevent what he called his ‘terrible purpose.’ That knowledge destroyed him. Some say that at the end he was truly blind, without any future sight, and he could no longer bear the grief.” The Qizara paused, then spoke with greater confidence. “But I believe, as do many others, that Muad’Dib knew it was his time, that he felt the call of Shai-Hulud. His spirit is still out there on the sands, forever intertwined with the desert.”

  Gurney wrestled with his sorrow and anger, clenching and unclenching his fists. “And you all just let him walk off into the dunes, blind?”

  “That’s what blind Fremen are compelled to do, Gurney,” Jessica said.

  Isbar straightened. “One does not ‘let’ Muad’Dib do a thing, Gurney Halleck. He knows the will of God. It is not for us to understand what he chooses to do.”


  Gurney would not let the matter drop so easily. “And were searches made? Did you attempt to find him? Was his body recovered?”

  “Many ’thopters flew over the desert, and many searchers probed the sands. Alas, Muad’Dib has vanished.” Isbar bowed reverently.

  Gurney’s eyes were shining as he turned to Jessica. “Given his skills in the desert, my Lady, he might have survived. Paul could have found a way.”

  “Not if he didn’t want to survive.” She shook her head, then looked sharply at the priest. “What of Stilgar? What is his part in this?”

  “Stilgar’s loyalty is beyond question. The Bene Gesserit witch, Korba, and the Steersman died by his hand. He remains on Dune as liaison to the Fremen.”

  Jessica tried to imagine the uproar that would occur across the Imperium. “And when did all this happen? When was Paul last seen?”

  “Twenty-seven days ago,” Isbar said.

  Gurney roared in astonishment. “Almost a month! By the infinite hells, what took you so long to get here?”

  The priest backed away from the man’s anger, bumping into members of the entourage. “We needed to make the proper arrangements and gather a party of appropriate importance. It was necessary to obtain a sufficiently impressive Guild ship to bring this terrible news.”