Deleted Scenes and Chapters From Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Author:Frank Herbert [Herbert, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: beta
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

New Chapter: CONSPIRACY’S END

(This dramatically changes the end of the Dune Messiah story.)

My enemies can always dissemble. They can always dissemble. There are limits even to an Emperor’s law.

—MUAD’DIB AND HIS LAW, STILGAR’S COMMENTARY

Edric stared through the small, field-blocked communications hole into the adjoining cell. Ennui and a profound fatalism gripped him. The Reverend Mother paced restlessly back and forth in the confinement there, virtually ignoring a visitor.

Irulan sat on the Revered Mother’s bed, hands folded in her lap. Her blond hair had been tied in a severe knot at the neck and there was a look of bloodless austerity about her features.

“I have done precisely as I was instructed,” Irulan said. Could she flee to the children and take them?

The Reverend Mother cast a warning look toward the door where the guards stood, looked around the cell at the places where listening devices probably had been planted. She sniffed. The smell of the place annoyed her.

“It doesn’t mater what they hear now,” Irulan snapped. “If he wishes to continue ruling, he must come to me on my own terms.”

“Your terms?” the Reverend Mother inquired in a slyly insinuating tone.

“His concubine, his link to the Fremen, is no more,” Irulan said.

“You’re sure?” the Reverend Mother asked, not looking at Irulan. Something was wrong, and she could feel it with the limited oracular ability which spice addiction gave her.

“Security communications never lie,” Irulan said. “She is dead. There are two brats, but they have no status.”

“They have whatever status he gives them,” the Reverend Mother said.

As though she had not heard, Irulan said: “And he will be forced to free you. He is an astute politician, my husband. The days of the spice monopoly are numbered, and he knows it. He must give concessions, compromise. There is no way out for him.”

“Your husband,” the Reverend Mother sneered.

“He will be my husband completely now,” Irulan said, voice smug. “That is one of the concessions we will require.”

“Will we now?” the Reverend Mother asked. She caught sight of Edric’s face through the communications hole. “What say you, Guildsman?”

“The days of the spice monopoly are numbered,” Edric said, “but I don’t believe it’s coming out as we wished.”

“What do you see in the future?” the Reverend Mother demanded. “What’s going wrong?”

Edric shook his head. What did it matter? They could not change the thing now. Far too late for that.

“You’re supposed to be a Steersman, a living oracle,” the Reverend Mother pressed. “What do you see?”

Again, Edric shrugged. An unaccustomed sense of kindness held him silent.

“You call yourself a living oracle,” Irulan sneered, “yet you cannot know all the things I have done or will do.”

Edric bent to peer directly at her. “You should not be here, M’Lady,” he said. “The guards will pass you out of here. Go while there is still time.”

“What nonsense is this?” the Reverend Mother demanded, sensing the unspoken communication in Edric’s words.

“This is a dangerous place,” Edric said. “It is about to become even more so.”

“You prattle,” the Reverend Mother said, but her voice lacked conviction.

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