Paradise on my right, hell on my left, and the Angel of Death behind.
-Sirat, passage from the Orange Catholic Bible



Chapter 3: Alam Al-Mithal*

(*the apendix of Frank Herbert's Dune defines Alam Al-Mithal as the mystical world of similitudes where all physical limitations are removed)

And what is it that you must do, Taelyn?
I must make certain another of me can never be grown, that no one will command the limitless power I am cursed with until humankind is ready. Prescience! The temptations to rape time are infinite. I have seen! I have sat on the powindah's Lion Throne, I have forged my own throne. Seen proud empires shrivel, and even the Bene Gesserit enslaved. I have led the Tleilaxu on the greatest release of energy the universe has felt. I have ridden at the crest of jihad! Damn me, but in moments of weakness, I have looked to futures and craved them.
Katreda could not believe what she was hearing. You have been given a great gift! Why not use it to make sure your goal comes to pass? All is for a reason- this could be your life's test.
Of course you would think that. No, even if ends justified means, there is no stopping evolution. I was grown in an axlotl tank to have this power, but you have the potential as well, and who knows how many others. If I have learned anything from my mental sojourns, there is no such thing as coincidence.
When I first awoke to my own potential, I forced the Masters to give me a larger dose of Pain, the ultimate awareness drug, than ever before. I madly clawed my way up threads of time, to ends more distant than any man should know.
With every step, I felt my sanity slipping: billions of potentials increasing geometrically every day foward I pulled myself. The single timeline from which all chaos sprang was a great tree, which the organism that is humanity pulled itself down over millenia. I thought I was one of the dreamers, the shapers, the singers, the makers of magic! I was nothing!
There will be legions led by men invisible to me because they, too, can break from time's chosen course. Wars, massacres, exoduses, worms! oh, the worms! and inevitable jihads, as the universe sighs and shudders with the release of pent sexual energy from racial consciousness. And then, after evolution and natural selection through stryfe, holocaust, and one apocalypes after another has made its claim, humanity will be a new organism.
Somewhere, in the yet unplumbed depths, the tree had roots.
Every human will be prescient. Humanity will find its true alam al-mithal, and become one with the universe and itself. All timelines will merge into one.
And what did you see in this solitary timeline? Aer'rhi demanded.
I had seen infinacy, and the second age of humankind. I let go, and fell- until the Masters revived me from the coma my subconscious must have put me into to save my sanity.
There was a long pause as the acolyte and divine guardian digested the revelations shared with them of humanity's future. Finally, Taelyn broke the silence, yes, my insight-hungry friend, you may ask what plagues your mind.
I thought you couldn't sense me! Katreda.
Not in the way you are thinking, but the Bene Gesserit have spent, and will continue to spend, millenia learning to read the body language of others. There is not much that your face can hide from me.
Aer'rhi gasped, Powindah witchery!
No, useful powindah knowledge.
Aer'rhi was silent for a long time after that.
Then if I may, Taelyn- why are you telling us all this? Katreda asked, if you've seen futures, why not choose one and leave us where our usefulness as guides ran out?
Because I am not that kind of man. I am not going to live the coward's way, sacrificing novelty and experience for safety and assured victory. Why you? Because you are invisible to me, and thus you are the only human I've yet discovered in the universe who could keep my life interesting and stop myself from ever looking at my own future in a moment of weakness.
If your God is truly omnipotent, then he is infinitely cruel. I could never choose what timeline out of infinite potentials, what lives and accomplishments, deserve to live over another.
But you are a prescient. By definition you create and destroy timelines with every thought--
Aer'rhi interupted her concerned musing with a sudden outburst, but He is real! I've seen Him! In the qran'Orqgía, He comes to us...
You see what you want to see. Do you recall the substance all but the orator drink just before each ceremony?
Aer'rhi's tiny eyes burned His taqwa will be feirce! May the test-mashad for your noc'kai be on the front lines of the tahaddi al-burhan! May He--
The subtle power in Taelyn's voice was enough to give his whisper the power of a shout. Aer'rhi mouth closed abruptly, though his face showed a struggle to open it again.
You preach as if your religion is the first, and will be the last, Taelyn said, I have been force fed it as you have since, I suspect, before my axlotl tank-aided conception.
You know that the Masters can reincarnate a human from a single cell, all memories intact ready to be reawoken. Is this not contrary your dogma? You believe that every pure, obviously meaning Tleilaxu, soul is prepared in life for an apocalyptic battle against the powindah for the sake of the universe.
Aer'rhi finally found his voice. You mock me. What chance do I have against one who knows my every move long before I do?
You are safe as long as you remain in her shadow.
Suddenly remembering the shuttle's third passenger, Aer'rhi turned to demand sympathy from Katreda. Her seat was left empty, vacated it only seconds previous. The pale fabric lining was from a tulgey bush from a breeding cluster on the homeworld, and, Taelyn knew from infinite experience, retained indents only briefly.
He found her in the back compartment, meditating, legs crossed on the floor with her back to him. Closing the door of the tiny, bare cell behind him, Taelyn stopped his hand just short of touching her cheek.
He exhaled the Zensunni name long and carefully, cleansing his psyche with each sylable.
Taelyn sighed and sat next to her, facing the unsympathetic door. He would be there when she woke.