We exist only to serve.
- BENE GESSERIT CODA
Aletheia. The smoke coming from the hookah was Aletheia, the fragrance of truthfulness. For once, the Tleilaxu Master allowed himself to forget where he was, forget the damned no-ship, forget the depth of his loneliness, for he was the only left of the Masheiks.
"I am the last of the Tleilaxu," he murmured softly to himself, a sad murmur that betrayed just a hint of pride. In the steam baths the subdued lighting and splashing of water soothed the mind, awakened senses long forgotten. Shadows of female bodies moved amidst hot and scented vapors, laughter like fountain rivulets was all he heard when he tried to chase them to grab a piece of soft skin, a finger, a cheek, a subtle nipple.
In his dreams he had dreamt of the silvan nymphs, the dryads and the naiads of his Bandalong mansion; for once he forgot of the difference between his face dancer slaves, faithful forgers of everything beautiful, and the real thing, simpler but - to his surprise - as good as the copy.
He had forgotten what it meant to be touched.
The Bene Gesserit had obliged. Pliable, they could be, he had realized, if the value in the bargain was made plain to see. For they had threatened him, many times, about the spice business. He had obliged them, a bit. Then he tested for softness. "I am bored, and overworked," he had confessed to a withered Reverend Mother. "I have been stuck in the no-ship for two decades. Do you want me to serve you? At least give me in my demands. Some enjoyment!" And so they did, per his detailed instructions, organize a feast in the style of the long-lost sybaritic parties of Bandalong. The food, delicious, with a raw, powerful bite so far from the genetically-engineered cuisine of his past, yet surprisingly delectable: durian-like sherbets mixed with the most surprising spices, meats of unknown origin, yet some superior even to Tleilaxu slig; sweet honey cakes whose flavor melted into a fiery after-taste, inducing euphoria. It was an orgy of the senses. Then musicians, then the steamed baths whose half-shadows revealed mysterious naked bodies dressed up like water and tree spirits ready to entertain him.
His senses played sweet music in his own head. The fragrance in the air, some mild stimulant, quieted the mind while letting the body take over. Ancient desires surged in him, and he enjoyed the scent and the sweat of soft skin rubbing against his; he abandoned himself completely to pleasure until all his passions were placated. A piece of him still lusted for more, the very Reverend Mother who had tamed him, but he let that craving go. Colored lights created prismatic effects on the water drops that clung to the tiled walls. A thin naiad in fiery red hair brought a drink that tasted like oblivion. His body had never felt so alive.
"My master, drink more," continued the naiad while dripping citrusy drops from her forefinger to his mouth.
"I am your master," he asserted.
"And I am yours to command," she whispered, smiling.
All around, the echoes and soft laughter continued. Scytale could make out shapes in the mist. He stood up, but for an imperceptible moment a pang felt deep down in his body threatened to imbalance him; still he found it simpler to sit down again, and in good company.
"You are," he whispered softly to the naiad, "All of you, here, are mine tonight."
"Order and be obeyed," she replied while a second sylvan beauty with wreaths in her hair arrived to massage his shoulders.
"Oh daughters of the wild! You are mine, and I will take you to my palace one day," he declared with lyric passion.
They laughed. "A palace, master? Do you own a palace?"
"Yes," he muttered like a drunk, "I had. White marbles with fountains and streams running through the rooms, servants attending guests, kitchens where ingredients from our finest tanks created the most delicious alchemies; and musicians and artists to accompany the days of rest."
"Artists? What artists? Maybe painters?" prompted the red haired one, unbelieving.
"Painters, yes, holo-painters, and mesmers to make your mind travel, and dancers, the finest dancers you have ever seen. But... and no offense, of course... nothing wild like you."
"Wild, master? How am I wild?"
"Wild... you look to me... untamed... agrestal..."'
"Agrestal? Mailah, is this old Galach?" laughed the red-haired beauty.
"You are beautiful, stunning, do not get me wrong, at least for your station," the master continued.
"My station?" asked Maliah the sylvan beauty.
"Yet you have to understand the perfect possibilities of a completely pliable body, my Face Dancers... to have at your disposal a woman, or a man, of any complexion, and eyes and lips and body shapes... all you want at your command... a tool of the imagination..."
Unfazed, the red-haired caressed his arm while whispering in his ear: "all your desires, one word away?"
"Yes! But oh those days are gone, are long gone. And yet even surrounded by mundane faces and bodies, it is incredible how much... softness, there is to find, how much capacity for pleasure... there is still."
"Yes, so much pleasure..." the other girl soothed him while taking his thighs in hers and massaging him. "So are we not enough, master?"
"I... yes," he continued, the drink now completely possessing him, "Extraordinary. I will cleanse myself later, to touch what is impure and to enjoy it requires... purification..."
"I am not impure..." replied Mailah, pouting in mild protest.
"But you are my dear... beautiful yet profane... how attractive the combination, I would have known," Scytale replied while moving to sit straight, his mind suddenly lit by his own thoughts. His drink-induced stupor had faded as his body chemistry brought him back to a lucid state. "I will take you to my palace, and one day... I will have you served by my Face Dancers, pamper you so that you can be always ready as my need arises... then one day I will cleanse you too, model your bodies into something perfect, something pure..."
"Tell me about that body, master..."
"Like a goddess, a motherly one, the perfect being, beautiful when still and yet generating movement, fertile and yet caste, unsurmountable pleasure and life springing out of your breasts and belly and unresisting and irresistible..."
A smile came upon the wreath-adorned dryad, "I don't understand... but I don't want to wait!"
A decision formed inside Scytale's mind. After all, this was all payment for his services to the Sisterhood. And his services required sacrifice. "Come with me and I will show you, Mailah."
"What goddess will you turn me into again, master?" continued uncertain the dryad girl.
"The fruit of love. I will perfect you to become more beautiful than you could have ever imagined."
"Show me," she whispered, eyes expectant.
He got up and headed out while unstable on his feet, grabbing somebody else's robe to cover himself. The multitude that populated his reverie cheered him on. Cold air rushed in as he stepped out into the corridor. He loathed the soundless gray corridor and asked the musicians to play and take away the pain; the girls around him took him by the hand as he entered his lab, six bulky masses emitting gurgling sounds in the low light. Let the light be low, he thought.
"What is this, master?" asked the red-hair, slightly confused by the eerie place but with a trusting look in her eyes.
"This is the way to total bliss," he replied. "Climb the stairs and see it for yourself from the top." He took her hand, inviting her to step first. "Come up with me, let's watch from above." Up they went.
"Master, I see fireflies dancing in the water of the pool below!" she murmured, surprised, just one step ahead of him.
"Look better, what else do you see my dear?"
"I see... fish? Colors... what is this marvel, master?"
Master Scytale stopped faking an inebriation, while a surge of adrenaline crawled from the bottom of his spine up to his scalp as he swiftly shoved the warm body he had tricked into position with his two hands. Several things happened at once. From below there was a scream. The music stopped. In the dimly lit room, he failed to see the body falling. As he started to wonder when the splash would come, his body was forced down on his knees while the string of his robe was tied hard against his throat, stopping his breathing. The warm body he had craved to perfect stood in fact right behind him after having clung to the rail and jumped back with impossible dexterity on the platform, and was pulling on the string.
"Master..." she whispered cruelly, "it is time to talk."
Scytale gripped the string with his hands, his face a catatonic red, the strength he had felt seconds ago completely drained away. He was as weak as butter. The pangs returned.
"Have we given you what you bargained for? You can nod with your head."
It took Scytale all his willpower to nod, his throat now free to breath but aware of the string against it.
"Even this little party of yours we agreed to organize, right? Right."
The red-haired woman who was destined to fall into the tank, but was instead the source of his pain, turned him around to face him. "You have prepared something down below for me, have you? What would have happened if I had stepped into it? Would you have turned me into the latest addition to your axolotl tanks?"
"Ha..." he muffled.
"I will know now what you would have turned me into!"
"...tank," he continued.
"Indeed. Except, we don't need more tanks because the ones you created for us do not work. They produce a diluted spice syrup, it tastes and smells like it, but it is not the melange."
"Not..." he gasped for air but the air did not reach his lungs.
"As a Reverend Mother, I know spice when I see it!" She let go of the strip of fabric that was nearly strangling the master while Scytale's face slammed against the metal platform. A rasp told her that the master was still gasping for air, but alive.
"You will know my secrets when you will be ready to trade for them!" he reproached.
"Look at me, Master Scytale. I am no Sheeana. My Sister thinks sex starvation can make any man come to his senses. Foolish! Your punishment is coming, Scytale. Be warned." She dragged him down the stairs in a room that was suddenly empty. Scytale massaged his neck while hanging on the rail, looking at the darkness in stupor.
"You can't command me. I am the last of the Masters, and we will negotiate. Do you prefer to die the untimely death of spice withdrawal? How will you all fare, when your spice is finished? It is the most painful way to die, believe an ancient Master!" he threatened while pointing a finger at her.
But the beautiful creature of fire looked back at him with full blue eyes. The doors swung open, letting six people dressed in a fashion he could not recognize. "Indeed. I am Reverend Mother Garimi. Remember me. The one who a month ago ordered the withdrawal of the spice melange from your food." The master's face changed from anger to confusion, then fear.
"Scytale the fool! We have been lacing your food with spice for a long time. Slowly. Gradually. Inevitably. You are under the curse of the Reverend Mother. Experience spice withdrawal on your own skin."
"How... did I..."
"Search your own body. Do you feel that little aching? The temporary pangs? The loss of balance? In a week it will turn into despair, and within the month the convulsions will leave you senseless for hours in a row. You will pray to your god for deliverance. You had no clue. And what a pleasant surprise for us to learn that Tleilaxu's eyes don't turn blue."
The master looked up terrified, looked up to the stairs he was still on. Red-haired Garimi followed his gaze. "For what I care, you can drown yourself in your tank, Scytale. A glorious end to your god-chosen people. Or, you can come to work and make the melange we require, and hope to recreate your Bene in the shape that satisfies your cravings another day."
"You won't have it from me!" he screamed, but he knew it was an empty threat. Death from spice withdrawal was worse than being consumed by fire. How many weeks, or days, did he have? Was he truly ready to be a martyr?
"You think yourself a martyr?" Garimi continued. Scytale flinched. Mind readers! "There is no martyr where there isn't a people. A month, master. Sheeana can wait, but I won't. Our patience has run out. As a master of pleasure and pain, you understand the implications of my offer. Come down. Now!" She used Voice on him, and he was powerless to resist her, dragging himself at the bottom of the steps.
"Who are these people?" he said, noticing for the first time the newcomers that encircled him.
"The Scattering is a constant source of surprise," Garimi answered. "We Bene Gesserit have coined a new saying, Find your cure in the Scattering. Who would have known that an entire profession would arise around the concept of causing maximum, non-lethal pain. These are the Masters of Pain. A venerable order in this part of the universe. Expensive, no less."
"Your body is ours, even when your mind is not. Notice the tools, Scytale. The pliers are designed to electrify your nerve centers. This is the scorcher, this the skinner, the choker. I am told the Harkonnens pioneered the technique centuries ago. The nerve probe attunes your mind to the recording of a catatonic madman.
"Reveremd Mother, I beg you dismiss these Masters of Pain!" he prayed.
"But we already did. Little did we know, Scytale, the Masters do not administer the pain directly, they only provide safe tools for ferocious people to use. These you see are the relatives of the women you turned into your tanks," she whispered. "They have been selectively exposed to the truth. Their hate is really, really fresh."
"No!" a moan came out of him as the group approached with the hideous implements.
"Rest assured, you will survive. You will still go through your withdrawal until you see the error in your ways," observed Garimi, and she walked out as the torturers closed in.