Summary: A thousand years have past since Leto II took to the throne and the fourth Duncan Idaho ghola stands by his side. Peace reined for the past hundreds of years for the first time in a thousand years, the Golden Path is starting to crumble from its very base...
A/N: Okay, this is my first attempt at a Dune fan fiction. I don't have much down yet mostly because I'm still not quite sure what I'm writing about! *grins* If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please tell me by reviewing! I adore reviewing and I adore everyone who reviews...even if there isn't much to review... *yes, she did realize that her A/N and Summary is about as long as her story*
Part 1 - Golden Path
A small girl stood stoically in the desolate desert, as sand whipped around her slick gray stillsuit, which held short bronze hair in place. She breathed heavily from the long walk, but not as heavily as those behind her. She glanced back at the ignorant group who stood behind her with their important robes and capes of purples, golds and whites, and wondered why she was leading these women to a destination far more important than any of them could ever comprehend. But she did not need to wonder, for she already knew the answer. Her uncle of many greats had ordered her to.
She let a small, ironic smile touch her lips as she thought of the second son of the great Muad'Dib, who was married to Ghanima, his sister, yet was not the father of her children. He was called the God Emperor now. But Leto was what he was called back when Arrakis was covered with sand and the worms roamed freely, when Fremen knew the wealth of water, and when Fish Speakers were of thing of no existence. The girl wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought of the Fish Speakers. The vile worshipers of the "God Emperor" that Leto had created after the death of his twin. Ah, dear Ghanima, how would you like your brother now?
"Lady Patrine," a nasal voice said from behind the young girl. Kalliek, a Fish Speaker to her Emper was who the voice belonged to. "Are we almost there? The water rations are running out, and... " The woman trailed off as she saw the look in her lady's eyes that meant she was thinking.
Patrine turned to face the round-faced woman, not bothering to hide her disdain for the woman, and all the Fish Speakers of the Emperor. The water rations were running out? She felt that tug in her heart that she always felt when she thought of the past that was slipping away from Arrakis. These people, fat with water, are complaining when they were the very ones who had refused to take of their ceremonial robes and don a stillsuit? "Kalliek." She said, subtly letting the Voice enter her own soft, lilting voice. "Do you know where we are heading?"
"The Golden Path." The woman answered immediately. "The Golden Path of out divine God Emperor." The green-eyed woman said, her voice only betraying a hint of puzzlement as she wondered why her lady was changing the subject. She looked down, making no comment.
The Golden Path? Patrine scoffed. The woman acts as if the Golden Path were something to walk upon. She thinks that she knows what the Golden Path is, yet she now wonders why I change the subject, though I am not changing the subject at all. "And what is the Golden Path, dear Kaliek?" She asked to woman, who was at least 20 Standard Years her senior. Her tone had taken that dangerously silky voice that the Fish Speaker recognized immediately.
Kalliek did not blink. The lady is testing me, she thought knowingly. Yes, a test. The God Emperor often does the same. "It is the path in which the God Emperor, Leto II takes us upon so that Arrakis may one day - "
"Do not quote the words of a book, Fish Speaker!" She snapped, saying the word "Fish Speaker" as if it were a curse. "What do you know of the Golden Path?" The oval-faced girl demanded, looking deeply into the older woman's green eyes, with her own blue in blue eyes. The Voice blared in her words, no longer soft and prying.
The woman lowered her head, russet ringlets veiling her rounded features. She did not reply to the Voice because Kalliek was one of the few Fish Speakers with Bene Gesserit background. Patrine sighed at the woman's simple ignorance. She no longer felt mad, but tired and old, and wondered not for the first time if any of the people who supposedly followed the Golden Path had any idea what it was. "You may go back to the others," she told the woman softly, looking out on the dunes once again.
"My lady," Kalliek said, inclining her head slightly. Though the older woman didn't imply that she was thinking it, Patrine could almost hear the woman's unsaid curse. Abomination!
They had traveled long and far, but there was still a long way to go, and the company that she held did not put her weary soul to rest. Abomination. How she hated that word, but yet could not. Was that not what she was? Yes, she was pre-born - an Abomination as the Bene Gesserit say with unbridled loathing and fear in their tones. She was the first since the God Emperor himself in the Atreides blood-line. The first in a thousand years.
to be continued...