She glanced backward, but the small room remained empty.
"Do you wish me to leave now?"
"I wish you would never leave me."
She stared at him, noting the intensity of his regard, a hungry emptiness in his expression which filled her with sadness.
"Lord, why do you tell me your secrets?"
"I would not ask you to be the bride of a god."
Her eyes went wide with shock.
"Do not answer," he said.
Barely moving her head, she sent her gaze along the shadowy length of his body.
"Do not search for parts of me which no longer exist," he said. "Some forms of physical intimacy are no longer possible for me."
She returned her attention to his cowled face, noting the pink skin of his cheeks, the intensely human effect of his features in that alien frame.
"If you require children," he said, "I would ask only that you let me choose the father. But I have not yet asked you anything."
Her voice was faint. "Lord, I do not know what to..
."
"I will return to the Citadel soon," he said. "You will come to me there and we will talk. I will tell you then about the thing which I prevent."
"I am frightened, Lord, more frightened than I ever imagined I could be."
"Do not fear me. I can be nothing but gentle with my gentle Hwi. As for other dangers, my Fish Speakers will shield you with their own bodies. They dare not let harm come to you!"
Hwi lifted herself to her feet and stood trembling.
Leto saw how deeply his words had affected her and he felt the pain of it. Hwi's eyes glistened with tears. She clasped her hands tightly to still the trembling. He knew she would come to him willingly at the Citadel. No matter what he asked, her response would be the response of his Fish Speakers:
"Yes, Lord."
It came to Leto that if she could change places with him, take up his burden, she would offer herself. The fact that she could not do this added to her pain. She was intelligence built on profound sensitivity, without any of Malky's hedonistic weaknesses. She was frightening in her perfection. Everything about her reaffirmed his awareness that she was precisely the kind of woman who, if he had grown to normal manhood, he would have wanted (No! Demanded!) as his mate.
And the lxians knew it.
Chapter Eighteen
"Leave me now," he whispered.
- = I am both father and mother to my people. I have known the ecstasy of birth and the ecstasy of death and I know the patterns that you must team. Have I not wandered intoxicated through the universe of shapes? Yes! I have seen you outlined in light. That universe which you say you see and feel, that universe is my dream. My energies focus upon it and I am in any realm and every realm. Thus, you are born.
- The Stolen Journals "My FISH SPEAKERS tell me that you went to the Citadel immediately after Siaynoq," Leto said.
He stared accusingly at Idaho, who stood near where Hwi had sat only an hour ago. Such a small passage of time-yet Leto felt the emptiness as centuries.
"I needed time to think," Idaho said. He looked into the shadowy pit where Leto's cart rested.
"And to talk to Siona?"
"Yes." Idaho lifted his gaze to Leto's face.
"But you asked for Moneo," Leto said.
"Do they report on every movement I make?" Idaho demanded.
"Not every movement."
"Sometimes people need to be alone."
"Of course. But do not blame the Fish Speakers for being concerned about you."
"Siona says she is to be tested!"
"Was that why you asked for Moneo?"
"What is this test?"
"Moneo knows. I presumed that was why you wanted to see him."
"You presume nothing! You know."
"Siaynoq has upset you, Duncan. I am sorry."
"Do you have any idea what it's like to be me... here?"
"The ghola's lot is not easy," Leto said. "Some lives are harder than others."
"I don't need any juvenile philosophy!"
"What do you need, Duncan?"
"I need to know some things."
"Such as?"
"I don't understand any of these people around you! Without showing any surprise about it, Moneo tells me that Siona was part of a rebellion against you. His own daughter!"
"In his day, Moneo too was a rebel."
"See what I mean? Did you test him, too?"
"Yes."
"Will you test me?"
"I am testing you."
Idaho glared at him, then: "I don't understand your government, your Empire, anything. The more I find out, the more I realize that I don't know what's going on."
"How fortunate that you have discovered the way of wisdom," Leto said.
"What?" Idaho's baffled outrage raised his voice to a battlefield roar which filled the small room.
Leto smiled. "Duncan, have I not told you that when you think you know something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning?"
"Then tell me what's going on."
"My friend Duncan Idaho is acquiring a new habit. He is learning always to look beyond what he thinks he knows."
"All right, all right." Idaho nodded his head slowly in time to the words. "Then what's beyond letting me take part in that Siaynoq thing?"
"I am binding the Fish Speakers to the Commander of my Guard."
"And I have to fight them off! The escort that took me out to the Citadel wanted to stop for an orgy. And the ones who brought me back here when you..."
"They know how much it pleases me to see children of Duncan Idaho."