Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
("I hate you and I love you. How can it be, you ask me insistently. / I don't know, but I feel it happen, and am crucified.")
- GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS
The last of the Masheiks waited until the spring month of Laab to escape. He did so unpreoccupied; his plans scrupulously followed the Tleilaxu's own credo, deeply etched into his soul. You were always right, Bijaz, he reflected after his daily prayer. When planning for violence, every knife we drive home will call for karmic vengeance. He pictured in his mind the friend he long ago had abandoned, the small stature of the man concealing unsuspected depths. "Everything balances: a give for every take." That was why Tleilaxu plans seldom only took, and when they did, an escape route was left open in every maze. When a Tleilaxu thought of violence, the threat was to his target as much as to himself. Such is the nature of a fair bargain. And with that spirit, he had sought to wait.
At the moment he was pacing nervously across the entire length of his apartments, made decadent and comfortable by his asks and the Bene Gesserit's. But his new accommodations were still a prison, a planet-bound one instead of the ship's. Yet it did not matter. His task was to endure.
I am but a mote of dust blown away in the Void by my God's breath.
He had no more illusions to be the Mahai and Abdl. Months of Bene Gesserit manipulations had stripped his ego down to nil. Reduced the last master to a slave. He had embraced it. I let my ambition seduce me; through the witches, God taught me a lesson I had forgotten. My only task is for the Tleilaxu to endure. I have become stronger.
A knock at the door.
"It's me, Sheeana." The contralto voice from the other side of the door precipitated Scytale into confusion. His mind filled with fear while his body rejoiced, disobeying him. Send anybody, but not her again!
Yet he had no power to block the opening of the door, through which the most uncontrollable of his lucid dreams stepped in, dressed - to keep him off balance, he knew! - in a crimson, skintight backless dress. At the mere sight of her he felt his body faint, stumbling to get support.
Reduced to an addicted slave.
I will stay strong. I am but a subatomic particle dancing to God's rhythm. I will endure.
Liar, his body reminded him. Even your mind dreams of her at night.
"Strip down," she ordered. "We will do business first, then if you like, we can talk," the woman who could make him hold his breath by just gazing at him said with a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact attitude. She was going to handle him like a piece of technical work, was the message in her eyes, a cold task she was dutiful to complete, and nothing else. She unzipped the dress. Scytale's face flushed. Sheeana knew of her devastating effect on Scytale. She made it a point to remind him it was just routine.
And so just like every time before that, Scytale was overjoyed to obey, and in doing so losing his body, his mind, and his self-esteem in a sea of sensuality where his sanity drowned every day a bit more.
"Deliver me God, for I have sinned and I have liked it," the Master's mouth proffered some time later, still lying exhausted among the sweaty bedsheets, his head facing out and away from the temptress in the attempt not to be heard.
It felt like a pointless routine, tried too many times. Since the time Sheeana had visited him the first time on the no-ship, the witch had sometimes sent other sisters, lesser ones, less skilled, in order to keep his sexual addiction on edge. Never quite satisfied. The witches knew how to be stingy. The spice in his food was so little, too. Never quite far enough from a withdrawal attack. We are watching you, and you depend on us, was the message.
I am but a particle of dust in God's eyes.
Panic attacks would paralyze him at times, preventing him from working or praying. Every time a woman showed up at his apartments he swore and cursed, even while he was subjugated to the agony of pleasure. Every time the sweaty deed was done, he felt the iniquity penetrate his body deeper, contaminating his mind like the demon of indulgence. His body rejoiced while his mind retreated in terror, repudiated the body, condemned it to countless acts of purification and of prostration and of self punishment. "Deliver me God, for I have sinned and I have liked it," he had repeated countless times while whipping himself with a knotted leash. Even while doing so, his criminal body was trembling from ecstasy still and his mouth smiled with delight. I hate you my body, my flesh, my imperfect, rotten flesh.
"I will deliver you, then," whispered Sheeana, the curves of her body wrapped in silk.
Scytale closed his eyes, reining in his wandering mind. God, your tests keep me humble. You remind me of my inadequacy, and I thank you. Because of a trick of his mind, he inadvertently blurted out the last few words... thank you. Sheeana got up and dressed quickly, factually, with precision and deliberation, ordering with quick movements of her short, soft fingers two cups of spice coffee.
Like a treat for the obedient dog.
She sipped and looked down at the Master, then passed him a cup. The spice fumes floated in the air, and for a moment he breathed the deliverance he sought.
Plotting his escape was the only way for his mind to stay on task. He would go back to rethink his plan over and over. His mission was to continue the Tleilaxu line; whether he was worthy of the task was a judgment only God could pass. This way he found solace and sanity, briefly, in between encounters. Or like, the way Sheeana had just framed them: "You seem to always be crashing in the same car."
"Which car?" Scytale asked.
"Don't mind me, it's an ancient quote," she replied enigmatically.
Did the witches suspect they had done him a favor, establishing the tanks on this dry planet? Scytale's white, small body shriveled in anticipation. I am like a spider, weaving my net.
"I heard you escaped the city for a while," he commented to distract her and himself.
"I ran away from myself." At least with Scytale this witch played no apparent games. No threats, no devious manipulations. Sheeana was direct and luminous, like the sun. Or was his mind too full of ghafla to realize it?
It was the work he painstakingly did alone, in the shadow of the axolotl tanks, that Scytale preserved a mote of self-esteem and pride. Do they know I have collected and stored skin samples of all the witches the Sisterhood has sent to domesticate me? Do they know of the subtle modifications to the access system that give me control over all doors and comeyes, which I did by taking a page straight from the Ixians? Do they know I am going to strike today?
Bijaz, he thought, if only you could be here. If God allows it, one day I will rear Reverend Mother tanks and produce the formidable Atreides flesh.
"How did you come back?" continued Scytale, sipping the coffee which delivered relief in his pulsating veins.
I am but an addicted slave, but give me your orders, God, and I will be saved.
Don't you feel it? demanded his body. We are already saved.
"Inescapable duty," Sheeana smiled a hard smile. "Like yours."
He looked up at this woman, this portent, the luminous Sheeana.
"Yet, your Sisterhood would be consternated to learn you are not doing your duty, here," he inquired.
"Never did I say my duty is the Sisterhood's."
"Oh yes?" Scytale was now intrigued.
"When I came in through the door the first time, what do you think my duty was?" Sheeana asked, this time no whispering, it was the other Sheeana, an ancient woman whose voice could smother your words in your throat. Scytale had met this other Sheeana a few times.
"You were sent to bond me to you and to the witches." Truth be told, Scytale had not had a way to think back then. He had felt doomed at the first sight of her. He recalled that first time. His body, shamefully, did not feel his. He had closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable surge of pleasure that would have left him spent and captive, his body like a dead husk, his mind like the dirtiest of the saints.
"But then," Sheeana commented.
"But then the impossible happened," he confessed.
"I did not bond you." Because, all this time, Sheeana's body had subjugated him but not his mind. The other witches, yes, had bonded his nerves and flesh and turned him into an addict. Yet, Sheeana's presence he craved more. But, his body was not addicted to her. After every encounter, he felt more free, more in control, and for the first time, joyful, even if shameful.
"The sweat," she said, interrupting his thoughts like she could read them, "the pleasure, the desire, and the shame too are all yours."
What was the woman doing to him? Was that a more subtle way to subvert him? Did he feel pleasure in being overpowered, and did so cooperatively and with blissful delight?
Bijaz, help me. But the image of Bijaz which his mind had learned to conjure so often, did not appear.
Sometimes Sheena stayed next to him for hours, talking. Was that the next stage of the witches' trap, not knowing the difference between being free or enslaved? But the other Sisters, the gross, lowly succubi whose hypnotic commands that entered his psyche while he entered them, and who inhabited his nightmares, those were for sure demons who polluted his mind.
Am I free, and just smitten with this woman?
Am I losing my mind?
"What are you doing to me?" a confused Scytale asked.
Send me a signal, God, and I will keep believing.
And again: I control all doors in this facility, and I can trap her here, my way out is clear.
Sheeana took his hand, causing him to recoil, slightly afraid. "Ahh, Scytale, little Scytale," she replied gently. "I have been playing you like a musical instrument. You are, in fact, a little violin," she smiled, not explaining the meaning of the word. "One that had stopped to sing, confined in a cage of his own making."
"Are you mocking the Shariat?
"You stopped leashing yourself and fasting. Tell me, why?" she pressed on.
"It worked no longer."
"Cleansing yourself from whatever contamination you think we bring to you? Scytale, do you really believe God exists only to punish and control?
"But I am his servant!"
"Do you really believe your God inflicts suffering as a way to learn? Why would God declare all joy a sin? Who truly gained from this statement?" Scytale was sobbing.
"A Master has full control over what he does. But you have me leashed," he accused.
"I have not bonded you. And you admitted it. Your body's reactions are only your own."
"But my mind! I am obsessed. You ask and I obey. You asked me to teach you our secret language and so I did." Scytale hesitated.
"See me, Scytale! A true woman, a creator of life, a bringer of change and of balance. Never before you had appreciated my kind as the manifestation of unspeakable portents. Women are truly divine. Your leash? Your leash were your masters, Scytale, since the time they created you a lowly Face Dancer on a suicidal mission. And I am here to free you once and for all."
Free? "If in any other way you have bonded me," he implored, "don't free me." I will free myself. Five doors to the exit of this place.
"Oh but I have bonded you alright, Master Tleilaxu. I have dismantled your mind, one wall at a time. And I will still free you."
Scytale felt like he was losing something inside. Like an echo of his thoughts, Sheeana continued: "You will love me Master Scytale, and you will adore me, and before this is all done, you will worship me. But I can tell you at the end of this, you will be truly free. You will be free when..."
"When I believe in a woman as my God?"
"Oh no," Sheeana-Goddess replied, "you will be free the day you will realize you, and all Bene Tleilax with you, were puppets on string, led by a bigger mind." She got up and closed the door of the bathroom.
Scytale's raucous protest rose from his throat, in what he thought would be a perfectly acceptable reaction. It was joy in reality and he tried to smother it as his hand reached toward the small device that controlled the door locks of the facility. One subtle click with his fingertip and...
As he was about to press the button to open all doors, and shut Sheeana's, metallic footsteps stopped outside of the apartment, and a frantic knock came, two beats and a pause, a beat, and another one.
Sheeana jumped out through the door, her face dark. The Master's protest died on the tip of his tongue. Three of Sheeana's sworn bodyguards stormed in the room, locked eyes with her.
"Dress up Master Scytale," Sheeana said, rushing to get her clothes, not out of modesty, but concern, "and get going. We are under attack."