Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap.
—The Spacing Guild Handbook
Alia lay panting, curled into a small bundle on the floor of her temple. She felt her other lives, that querulous multitude bound within her well up, like a ravenous tide threatening to consume all in its path. Faces old and young, callous and kind, brave and treacherous, hideous and beautiful danced beneath her eyelids. The pressure built in her skull as the swarm washed over her, hands and claws and teeth beyond number reaching out to pull her down, down, down...
The creature that wore her nephew's face, that had crumpled her indestructible plastasteel door as if it was paper, leered down over her. The distance somehow made the folds of his stillsuit seem even stranger, and she could have sworn she saw cilia branching out from it, digging into his skin. "I could've thrown you through a wall," Leto said. "Perhaps that would've been best, but we're now at the center of the struggle. You deserve your chance."
Alia's eyes darted wildly around from side to side. From Leto to Ghanima, to Farad'n, to Jessica, to Leto again they went. Desperately, she tried to force her body to move. To do something, anything at all. To her horror, she found that even the slightest twitch of a finger was beyond her now. And the voices, those terrible voices rose ever higher.
"I, Tantalus, demand your audience. Let us... feast forevermore," a low voice cackled.
"Give yourself to me!" a female voice called out. "Rest now and suffer no longer."
Where had it all gone wrong? Alia wondered. Just minutes before, she had felt invincible. Stilgar's rebellion had been quelled and Ghanima had been found. She had hoped to use her as a Gom Jabbar against Farad'n, to disarm the Bene Gesserit plot she knew swelled against her. Then... Paul had returned. Only with his last, terrible words had she known for certain the truth she had so long tried to deny. He returned not to offer me counsel or comfort. Only to denounce me as a heretic, and with his dying breath, destroy me! And now her body had betrayed her too, just as everyone else had. She had not felt so helpless since the day she had ordered Paymon's execution, all those years ago.
"I have conquered those inner lives," Leto said. Though he loomed over her, the words seemed somehow distant and muffled. "Look at Ghani. She, too, can—"
Ghanima cut in, "Alia, I can show you—"
"No!" A voice within Alia called out, though she not who spoke. The voices began to pour from her pour from her mouth, cursing, crying, pleading. "You see! Why didn't you listen?" One said.
Another mumbled, "Why're you doing this? What's happening?"
And another voice screamed, "Stop them! Make them stop!"
She saw Jessica cover her eyes, as if to weep and offer her life's water to the desert. Farad'n reached out his hand to steady her. Alia felt a fresh rage build within her chest. Now? This what moves you to tears, Mother? You cry now, though you could not bring yourself to muster the slightest sympathy for Paul's death, and he was the child you wanted. This? Everything that has become of me is your doing! From the minute you arrived on Arrakis, you worked to my ruin!
"I'll kill you!" Alia shouted. She did not know if it was her who spoke, or an other-memory. She no longer cared.
Hideous curses erupted from her, in every tongue and from every time imaginable. "I'll drink your blood!"
From the corner of her vision, she saw her guards huddling in the outer passage make the sign of the worm, before clenching their fists besides their ears. They call me possessed!
She saw Leto stand, shaking his head. He stepped to the window and shattered the supposedly unbreakable crystal-reinforced glass from its frame with three swift blows. He means to kill me! Her rage rose ever higher. It was a terrible, all-consuming thing now, though at last, she felt the voices begin to recede.
Time! Alia thought. I just need more time! Calling on the Voice, she shouted, "All of you! Stay where you are!"
Jessica sobbed harder.
Alia rolled to her knees and lurched to her feet. I... I just need them to leave me alone.
"Don't you know who I am?" she asked. If they would just stop staring at me, with those cold accusing eyes... "Why're you all looking at me that way?" She turned to Jessica, hoping against hope her mother would defend her for once in her life. "Mother, make them stop it."
Jessica only shook her head in response, turning her gaze to Leto and Ghanima.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT! Alia thought. She felt a fresh ache throb in her head. Her heart thumped like the whirring of an ornithopter, and her breath come unsteady. Why won't they stop looking at me! The room swayed before her, and blood trickled down her forehead from where Leto had kicked her earlier.
The Baron bubbled up within her. She closed her eyes. Help me. Help me. Help me...
"Grandmother," Leto said in a pleading tone. "Must we have a Trial of Possession?"
"Who are you to speak of trial?" the Baron replied, using her mouth to speak.
Leto and Ghanima's eyes widened in recognition, while Jessica continued to sob silently. Alia watched it all through a haze. I am beyond it now. Safe...
"Then the decision is mine," Leto said. "And the choice is yours, Alia. Trial of Possession or..." He tilted his head towards the window he had broken. Death later, or death now...
"Who're are you to give me a choice?" the Baron demanded, once more using her tongue.
"Demon!" Ghanima screamed. "Let her make her own choice!"
"Mother," Alia mustered one final effort, but found she could not truly bring herself to care. It's over now, anyway. I've lost... "Mother, what're they doing? What do you want me to do? Help me."
"Help yourself," Leto ordered.
Alia stared at him for what felt almost an eternity. For once, the Baron was silent. Death later, or death now... she thought again. There is no need to linger and subject myself to the indignity of a trial. Let me make an end of it now...
With a stumbling, sticklike walk, she began to move towards the window. The voices, all of them, fought her for control now, with the desperate strength of those who clung to life at the edge of death. Alia ignored them all and continued to move forward. She felt a strange sort of calm wash over her. Soon, it will all be over...
The Baron's voice raged from her lips again, "Stop! Stop it, I say! I command you! Stop it! Feel this!" Fresh agony surged through her head then, like the force of a thousand nails being jammed into her skull, one by one. Still, she ignored it, continuing. Closer, closer, closer... She had the sill against her thighs then, but the voice still raved. "Don't do this! Stop it and I'll help you. I have a plan. Listen to me. Stop it, I say. Wait!"
Alia hesitated. She looked down and saw the body of Paul lying broken against the steps of the temple far below. Only then did she understand everything.
He attempts to clear the board. Paul Muad'Dib and St. Alia of the Knife. Two halves of one soul, reunited at last in death. The final vestiges of the Religion of the Golden Elixir and the Qizarate swept away so that something new could take their place. She thought. He is the Desert Demon, the one who fomented rebellion in the dunes and drained the qanat reservoirs. The one the Fremen whisper is Shai-Hulud incarnate. He has come here not to steal my throne, but to coronate himself as a living god!
Alia turned back and saw it then. The scarcely concealed look of triumph in Leto's eyes. She wondered how she had not seen it before. He is Abomination, just as I am. He has only chosen a more subtle ancestor.
"Denounce him," the Baron's voice suggested in her mind. "Plant a seed of doubt in the Fremen, and in time, we can regain that which we have lost."
No one shall believe me after our... display. And if they did, he would just kill me outright. He does not need my cooperation, or anyone's for that matter. He only wishes it to ease the transition. Enough believe already that he can rule through force of arms alone. Now leave me, Grandfather, she commanded. I need silence to think.
Alia heard the basso voice chuckle, "As you wish, my darling granddaughter." Then the Baron fell silent, withdrawing his image and inner presence. Not one memory, face, or voice intruded into her consciousness. She was alone again.
She saw then what she had to do. The only way out is through the heart of the coriolis storm. Meeting Leto's gaze, she spoke in a steady voice, "I, Alia of the House Atreides, sister of Paul Muad'dib, Imperial Regent of the Known Universe, would like to exercise my right as Fremen to a Trial of Possession."