The Road To Dune (Short Stories) Read online

  The Road To Dune by Frank Herbert.txtThe Road To Dune by Frank Herbert

  with Illustrations by Jim Burns

  (From "Eye" by Frank Herbert with Illustrations by Jim Burns)

  First published in the USA 1985

  by Berkeley Books, New York, by arrangement with Byron Preiss Visual

  Publications, Inc

  First Punlished in Great Britain 1986

  by Victor Gollancz Ltd, 14 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8QJ

  EYE copyright © 1985 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc

  Text for "The Road To Dune" copyright © 1985 by Frank Herbert

  All illustrations copyright © 1985 Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc

  You have arrived on planet Arrakis. You will embark on a walking tour of epic

  proportions. Rarely does a visitor on the road to Dune make his or her way

  without an Imperium guide. Here is a sampling from such a guide, complete with

  illustrations.

  Your walking tour of Arrakis must include this approach across the dunes to the

  Grand Palace at Arrakeen (background). From a distance, the dimensions of this

  construction are deceptive, especially when hazed by wind-blown dust. The

  largest man-made structure ever built, the Grand Palace could cover more than

  ten of the Imperium's most populous cities under the one roof, a fact that

  becomes more apparent when you learn Atreides attendants and their families,

  housed spaciously in the Palace Annex (foreground), number some thirty-five

  million souls.

  When you walk into the Grand Reception Hall of the Palace at Arakeen, be

  prepared to feel dwarfed before an immensity never before conceived. A statue of

  St. Alia Atreides (foreground), shown as "The Soother of Pains," stands

  twenty-two meters tall but is one of the smallest adornments in the hall. Two

  hundred such statues could be stacked atop the other against the entrance

  pillars (background) and still fall short of the doorway's capitol arch, which

  itself is almost a thousand meters below the first beams upholding the lower

  roof.

  If you are numbered among "the heartfelt pilgrims," you will cross the last

  thousand meters of this approach to the temple of Alia on your knees. Those

  thousand meters fall well within the sweeping curves (background) leading your

  eyes up to the transcendant symbols dedicating this Temple to St. Alia of the

  Knife. The famed "Sun-Sweep Window" (left face of the Temple) incorporates every

  solar calendar known to human history in the one translucent display whose

  brilliant colors, driven by the sun of Dune, thread through the interior on

  prismatic pathways.

  On each pilgrimage, one hundred are chosen by lot to make the three-day climb up

  secret passages of the Grand Palace and, half-way up, may look down from this

  vantage on Muad'Dob's personal ornithopter. It sits on His private landing

  platform against an inner wall of the Palace. A narrow strip of windows in

  Atreides family quarters glisten on the high wall (left). An attendant has just

  made the regular inspection of of the 'thopter, returning to the Palace with a

  traditional Fremen cry heard clearly from the observation stop: "His water is

  secure!"

  This Ixian heating device, set like a giant pearlin an ornate stand, greets you

  in a smaller passage of the Grand Palace. The ring-bound queue of the attendant

  servicing the device marks him as a city Freman. On your walking tour of

  Arrakis, you will see many such Ixian artifacts, some set with rare gems, all

  worked in precious metals by dedicated artisans, some of whom devote years to

  the completion of a single decorative line. Attention to detail can be seen on

  this space heater. It incorporates twenty precious metals in each lapped scale.

  Rarely, in a private passage of the Grand Palace, the walking pilgrim will

  encounter the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. The famed Bene Gesserit

  graciously paused here to be recorded in the light of a glowglobe. Note her

  wedding bands. They signify her eternal bond to the Sisterhood. The glowglobe is

  of an ancient design and may have come from Caladan in the original Atreides

  migration. The cracked vascule rim on the lower left side of the globe could

  indicate rough treatment in the Harkonnen attack. Many artifacts from those

  troubled times survived and were restored on orders of Muad'Dib himself.

  This authentic visage of the Princess Irulan, Muad'Dib's virgin consort, should

  be committed to memory before your walking tour of Arrakis. The pilgrim should

  beware of false images. You will be beset by tradesmen hawking such mementoes.

  Irulan authorized only this portrait for official sale to pilgrims.

  The face of Duncan Idaho, ghola warrior, teacher, friend and advisor of Muad'Dib

  stares out at you from this official portrait. It is sold to pilgrims on the

  walking tour of Arrakis only in Palace shops. All proceeds go to support retired

  Fremen and provide for the education of Freman orphans.

 

 

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