Dune 001 - The Prophet of Dune (Jerry eBooks) by Frank Herbert

Author:Frank Herbert [Herbert, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2014-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

They passed another brightly lighted room visible through an arch on their left. “What’s made there?” he asked.

“They repair the weaving machinery,” she said. “But it must be dismantled by tonight.” She gestured at a tunnel branching to their left. “Through there and beyond, that’s food processing and stillsuit maintenance.” She looked at Paul. “Your suit looks new. But if it needs work, I’m good with suits. I work in the factory in season.”

They began coming on knots of people now and thicker clusterings of openings in the tunnel’s sides. A file of men and women passed them carrying packs that gurgled heavily, the smell of spice strong about them.

“They’ll not get our water,” Harah said. “Or our spice. You can be sure of that.”

Paul glanced at the openings in the tunnel walls, seeing the heavy carpets on the raised ledges, glimpses of rooms with bright fabrics on the walls, piled cushions. People in the openings fell silent at their approach, followed Paul with untamed stares.

“The people find it strange you bested Jamis,” Harah said. “Likely you’ll have some proving to do when we’re settled in a new sietch.

“I don’t like killing,” he said.

“Thus Stilgar tells it,” she said, but her voice betrayed her disbelief.

A shrill chanting began to grow louder ahead of them. They came to another side opening wider than any of the others Paul had seen. He slowed his pace, staring in at a room crowded with children sitting cross-legged on a maroon-carpeted floor.

At a chalkboard against the far wall stood a woman in a yellow wraparound, a projecto-stylus in one hand. The board was filled with designs—circles, wedges and curves, snake tracks and squares, flowing arcs split by parallel lines. The woman pointed to the designs one after the other as fast as she could move the stylus, and the children chanted in rhythm with her moving hand.

Paul listened, hearing the voices grow dimmer behind as he moved deeper into the sietch with Harah.

“Trees,” the children chanted. “Trees, grass, dune, wind, mountain, hill, fire, lightning, rock, rocks, dust, sand, heat, shelter, heat, full, winter, cold, empty, erosion, summer, caravan, day, tension, moon, night, sand-tide, slope, planting, binder—”

“You conduct classes at a time like this?” Paul asked.

Her face went somber and grief edged her voice: “What Liet taught us, we cannot pause an instant in that. Liet who is dead must not be forgotten. It’s the Chakobsa Way.”

She crossed the tunnel to the left, stepped up onto a ledge, parted gauzy orange hangings and stood aside: “Your yali is ready for you, Usul.”

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