Leto knew he could not make that choice, not this night, not with Hwi out there in his City.
Would he choose a review of warfare, then'?
"Which Napoleon was the greater coward?" he asked his imaginary visitor. "I will not reveal it, but I know. Oh, yes, I know."
Where can I go." With all of the past open to me, where can I go'
The brothels, the atrocities, the tyrants, the acrobats, nudists, surgeons, male whores, musicians, magicians, ungenciers, priests, artisans, priestesses...
"Are you aware," he asked his imaginary visitor that the hula preserves an ancient sign language which once belonged only to males? You've never heard of the hula'' Of course. Who dances it anymore? Dancers have preserved many things, though. The translations have been lost, but I know them.
"One whole night I was a series of caliphs moving eastward and westward with Islam-a traverse of centuries. I will not bore you with the details. Be gone now, visitor'"
How seductive it is, he thought, this call of the siren which would have me live only in the past.
And how useless that past now, thanks to the damnable lxians How boring the past when Hwi is here. She would come to me right now if I summoned her. But I cannot call for her... not now... not tonight.
The past continued to beckon.
I could make a pilgrimage into my past. It does not have to be a safari. I could go alone. Pilgrimage purifies. Safaris make me into a tourist. That's the difference. I could go alone into my inner world.
And never return.
Leto felt the inevitability of it, that the dream-state would eventually trap him. create a special dream-state throughout my Empire. Within this dream, new myths form, new directions appear and new movements. New... new... new... The things emerge a from my own dreams, out of my myths. Who more.susceptible to them than l? The hunter is caught in his own net.
Leto knew then that he had encountered a condition for which no antidote existed-past. present or future. His great body trembled and shivered in the gloom of his audience chamber.
At the portal, one Fish Speaker guard whispered to another: "Is God troubled?"
And her companion replied: "The sins of this universe would trouble anyone."
Leto heard them and wept silently. -= When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path. I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak. they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security. they squirm in it. How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto's Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation.
- The Stolen Journals MUCH AGAINST his will, Idaho found himself at dawn with Siona beside him being taken to "a safe place" in an Imperial ornithopter It raced eastward toward the golden arc of sunlight which lifted over a landscape carved into rectangular green plantations.
The 'thopter was a big one, large enough to carry a small squad of Fish Speakers with their two guests. The pilot captain of the squad, a brawny women with a face Idaho could believe had never smiled, had given her name as Inmeir. She sat in the pilot's seat directly ahead of Idaho, two muscular Fish Speaker guards on either side of her. Five more guards sat behind Idaho and Siona.
"God has ordered me to take you away from the City," Inmeir had said, coming up to him in the command post beneath the central plaza. "It is for your own safety. We will return by tomorrow morning for Siaynoq."
Idaho, fatigued by a night of alarms, had sensed the futility of arguing against the orders of "God Himself." Inmeir appeared quite capable of trundling him off under one of her thick arms. She had led him from the command post into a chilly night canopied with stars like stone edged facets of shattered brilliants. It was only when they reached the 'thopter and Idaho recognized Siona waiting there that he had begun to question the purpose of this outing.
During the night, Idaho had come to realize that not all of the violence in Onn had originated with the organized rebels. When he had inquired after Siona, Moneo had sent word that "my daughter is safely out of the way," adding at the end of the message: "I commend her to your care."
In the 'thopter, Siona had not responded to Idaho's questions. Even now, she sat in sullen silence beside him. She reminded him of himself in those first bitter days when he had vowed vengeance against the Harkonnens. He wondered at her bitterness. What drove her'?
Without knowing why, Idaho found himself comparing Siona with Hwi Noree. It had not been easy to encounter Hwi, but he had managed it in spite of the importunate demands of Fish Speakers that he attend to duties elsewhere.
Gentle, that was the word for Hwi. She acted from a core of unchanging gentleness which was, in its own way, a thing of enormous power. He found this intensely attractive.
I must see more of her.
For now, though, he had to contend with the sullen silence of Siona seated beside him. Well... silence could be met with silence.
Idaho peered down at the passing landscape. Here and there he could see the clustered lights of villages winking out as the sunlight approached. The desert of the Sareer lay far behind and this was land that, by its appearance, might never have been parched.
Some things do not change very much, he thought. They are merely taken from one place and reformed in another place.