Chani had always had strange dreams: giants roaming the land, fighting ferocious battles with grisly weapons; an endless swarm of people, numerous as ants, frantically building a tower that stretched up into the clouds; celestial beings surrounded by a ring of fire, filled with countless, wide-open eyes, traveling with the swiftness of a storm. At first, with child-like innocence, she delighted in sharing the dreams, but the adults' reactions soon made her cease.
She should become a Sayyadina, Grandfather would say. She has the gift.
No child of mine will become a foreigner-worshipping priestess, Mother would hiss back. When she's old enough, I'll take her to the Old Temple, to see the Prophetess. She'll instruct us what's to be done with her.
And after that they would argue, usually for hours.
Mother was half-foreign herself, a paradox she lived with peacefully, as she lived with all the other complex and contradictory facets of her identity. She was the imperial ecologist, her work dealing in facts and logic and science, yet she was the most xenophobic, old-fashioned, and dogmatic person Chani knew. Grandfather said she was that way because she belonged to the Remnant. Her own father, the foreigner Pardot Kynes, had married into Sietch Ammit, a stronghold of the Remnant. Many Fremen had tried to warn Pardot Kynes away from the fanatics, but Kynes, being a man of singular focus, ignored them. For him, all Fremen beliefs were equally irrelevant, except inasmuch as they supported his fascination with ecology and his plans to transform the planet. He ended up marrying Dhuri, a defector of the fervent faith—ordinarily a member of the Remnant would never consider marrying a non-believer, let alone a foreigner. However, Dhuri soon reverted to her ancestors' Old Ways, particularly once she'd had children.
Thus, Chani's mother, Liet Kynes, was born in Sietch Ammit. While Liet's father taught her everything he knew and trained her to be the next imperial ecologist, Dhuri devoted all of her time and vigor to indoctrinating her into their zealous, bigoted cult.
Or so Grandfather told the story.
From a very young age, Chani got the distinct impression that Grandfather hated Mother and wished she would disappear. He would grumble under his breath whenever she dared to disagree with him or contradict his statements, which was often.
Foolish lad, he would shake his head. Why did he have to fall for that heretic?
The 'foolish lad' was Father, whom Chani couldn't remember. He'd died in battle when she was just a baby, and after that, Mother had to move to Sietch Hagga, to live with Grandmother and Grandfather. Sietch Ammit, deemed too vulnerable following several enemy attacks, had been abandoned, its members dispersed.
Chani couldn't picture Sietch Ammit, no more than she could picture her father. Even when relatives tried to describe him, all she could form in her mind were vague impressions. In a way, she considered it worse than the constant streak of grief Mother carried around. At least Mother had someone she could miss, instead of just an awkward blankness in the middle of her life. Of course, Chani was far from the only child to have lost a father in Sietch Hagga, but none of the other orphans had a mother as strange as hers. She couldn't recall the exact moment she'd first realized how unconventional Mother truly was, but a certain incident stood out in her memory.
She must have been around five or six years old. She'd joined a circle of her friends who sat on the earthen floor before Takim, an elder of the sietch. He was telling them stories: stories of his own childhood, stories of long, long ago, and stories of what would happen in the future. He'd just finished telling a story about the Voice from the Outer World, the prophesized savior who would lead them to paradise, when a query occurred to Chani.
"Where does the Lisan al-Gaib come from?" she asked Takim. He didn't usually mind responding to questions from his audience, so long as they accepted his replies without argument.
"From the Outer World, outside the sky."
Chani frowned. Something about that didn't make sense to her. "Is he… Is he a foreigner?"
"Yes, but he shall know our ways as if he was born within them."
A niggling objection remained. Chani's memory for scripture had always been excellent, and it produced a verse Mother was fond of quoting. She blurted it out without much deliberation: "Thou shalt not elevate a foreigner above thee, who is not of thy brethren."
Takim glared at her. "Heresy!" he growled.
The other children all turned to stare at Chani with a mixture of shock, revulsion, and curiosity. One or two let out a nervous giggle.
Chani wanted to bury herself in a mound of sand, hidden away from all the horrified eyes. "My mother said—" she choked out.
"Heresy," Takim began to chant. "Heresy, heresy, heresy, heresy…"
After a moment, the children joined in, quietly at first, but as more and more voices joined the chorus, they rose to a shout.
"Heresy, heresy, heresy, heresy!"
Chani ran away. She wasted water that day, which she was too ashamed to admit to anyone. Even babies don't waste water like that, she thought with potent self-loathing. She omitted that detail when she told Mother of the incidence.
After listening to Chani recount the entire tale, Mother's mouth became a disapproving line. "Those fools…" she sighed. "Chani, my soul, my atonement, our elders have all strayed from the correct path. They've forgotten the Book of Teachings. Even you, a child, know it better than them. They bow now before the icons of beast and man and believe the lies of the foreign preachers, like the lie of the Lisan al-Gaib."
"You don't believe in the Lisan al-Gaib," said Chani. She didn't understand everything Mother had said, but she understood that part.
"I don't," said Mother firmly.
"But you pray for the Mahdi to come every day. I heard you say it."
Mother shook her head, unable to hold back a smile. "That's different."
"How?" So far as Chani could tell, most people used 'Lisan al-Gaib' and 'Mahdi' interchangeably.
"The Mahdi," said Mother, her voice filled with unsullied resolution, "will be Fremen."
*
When Chani was twelve, they rode a sandworm to the Old Temple. Only rarely did they ride a sandworm, when vast distances made travel by foot impractical. Mother didn't approve of using the mount without sufficient justification. She expressed reluctance even at the thought of allowing Chani to learn the art.
You will have to learn it one day, for practical reasons, she had said, but better to delay that day. So many of our people today claim to worship the sandworm. They place icons of the sandworms in their yalis and bow before them.
They don't really worship Shai-Hulud? Chani had asked.
Mother had snorted. It's a big, dumb, impure beast that can be directed by hooks. It's exploited to replace human labor. How can anyone worship that? She'd fallen silent for a moment, before adding softly: They worship power, Chani. They worship the sensation of riding the sandworm, that irresistible hubris.
Chani didn't understand why Mother, and the Book of Teachings for that matter, found such fault with riding sandworms. She watched her friends preparing for their first ride with silent, seething envy, swearing to herself that she would never dissuade her own children from celebrating that milestone.
As such, the ride to the Old Temple was a wondrous experience, all the more thrilling due to its rarity. Chani sat cross-legged on the creature's tough hide, the wind blowing so strongly that it felt like it might lift her up. A breathtaking sight extended before them, dunes stretching endlessly under a star-studded sky. While they traveled, the sun slowly rose, turning the world golden. Although Chani had ridden in ornithopters, mostly while joining Mother on work related missions, riding a sandworm felt far closer to what she imagined birds must feel while flying. The journey ended far too quickly, after they'd covered a distance that would've taken them days upon days on foot.
The Old Temple itself was a far more disappointing. It must have been grand in the past, thought Chani, staring at the ruins carved into the red mountainside. Over the years it had been ransacked and looted more times than anyone cared to remember, and most of it had been abandoned to the elements long ago. Only a small part had been kept fairly intact.
It was that part they approached now, advancing towards a draped arch that stretched above round, fluted columns. They entered past the first sealed-off screen, which allowed them to finally remove their stillsuit masks and breathe freely. An old woman, wearing an intricately woven, faded robe, emerged from behind the inner screen to greet them. Her sunken eyes lit up as she seemed to recognize Mother.
"Liet," she rasped, mouth opening in a faint, toothless grin.
"Priestess," Mother bowed her head, holding out the parcel she'd carefully prepared back at home. It contained multiple flasks of water, a large amount of smoked hare meat, nuts, and dried fruit. "Please accept my offering."
"Much thanks." The woman took the parcel, placing it to the side.
"Have any pilgrims come this month?" asked Mother, a quiet anxiety in her voice.
"Ah, yes, more than usual! With the two of you, we had a total of five this month."
That means only three other people came here this month, thought Chani, shifting from foot to foot as she stood behind Mother. That's nothing.
"May we speak to the Prophetess?" Mother had a tremor in her voice.
The priestess looked at Mother in thoughtful silence. "You're well aware that the Prophetess had been ill during the last few months," she said at last, "and had been growing weaker day by day."
Mother's hands went to her mouth. "Has the sun set?"
The priestess nodded. "Last night, with the fading light, she breathed her last breaths. All night we sat before her and mourned. But now the sun has risen again, has it not?"
Her eyes were intently focused on Chani, as though she wasn't talking about the actual dawn. Chani fought the urge to squirm.
Mother glanced at Chani, then back at the priestess. Her eyes widened and she made a strange movement with her hand, as though to grab Chani.
"Priestess, if you'll forgive me, I must speak to my daughter alone."
"Of course." The priestess inclined her head slightly and, lifting the parcel, retreated into the temple.
"Sihaya," her mother turned to face her, using her private name, "when you were born, I thought to train you as an ecologist, just as my father had trained me, so you could continue our work of transforming Arrakis. But as soon as you began speaking of your dreams, I realized you were destined for a different path. Now we arrived at the Old Temple on the dawn of the Prophetess's death. The signs couldn't be clearer."
Chani's discomfort must have been evident, because Mother softened her tone and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I won't force you, Sihaya. This temple should be entered only with a willing heart. If you refuse, I can prepare you to be the next ecologist, although I doubt you'll enjoy that. Another option is to send you up north. The corruption and deception of the foreign preachers are far less entrenched there, and they have frequent clashes with the Harkonnens. You told me once you want to become Fedaykin, like your father. The best fighters are in the north. They will train you well."
Chani stood, dumbfounded. It was easy to dismiss the path of becoming an ecologist. Mother was right, that wasn't for her. But choosing between the other two options was far more difficult. She glanced at the Old Temple, so lonely and gloomy, and thought of the freedom that could be hers, of riding a sandworm fearlessly, of learning combat, of exhilarating brushes with death and the glowing warmth of victory over the Harkonnens. She knew what she wanted.
But as she looked into Mother's eyes and opened her mouth, the words wouldn't come out.
Mother's heart will break, Chani thought. She'll hide it and smile at me and pretend that everything's all right. She'll kiss me before I leave to the north, never mentioning the Old Temple again. But her heart will be broken inside because this is the thing she cares most about in the world.
"I'll stay here, Mother," she said.
*
Prophecy first came to Chani during the night, as she lay on the Old Temple's floor.
She had grown accustomed to the awful solitude of the place over the years. Pilgrims were far and few between, and their numbers seemed to dwindle from year to year. In the absence of many pilgrims who would provide them with sustenance, the priests had to tend to the wind traps and dew collectors, and Chani had to spend some of her days hunting and setting up traps.
Still, there weren't many mouths to feed, with the temple's members including two priests and one priestess, beside Chani. Even the struggle to survive did not take up all their time. The rest was dedicated to sacred duties: cleaning the temple, tending to the eternal flame, burning the incense, praying. Hathem, the priest closest to her age—he was in his late forties—taught her to read the Book of Teachings, deciphering the ancient, beautiful letters etched across the scroll. He taught her how to chant melodically as she read aloud, voice rising and falling with the strange rhythm.
Often, during the long hours of the day and night, when Chani couldn't fall asleep or when she was staring into the vast, desolate expanse before her, she heard him reciting the verses like a song.
"And I will leave in the desert the remnant, the knees that have not bent before the foreign lords and the mouths that have not kissed their rings."
Great One, Ancient One, she would pray then in silence, what do you want of me? To live my life out here alone? They have all forgotten you. They no longer come.
Then, thinking of her mother, she added, I will stay here and die here, if that's your will.
Mother came as often as she could. The first year, when Chani was experiencing the worst period of homesickness and dejection, she even yielded and taught Chani to ride a sandworm. That joy was short lived, however, as Chani never had any excuse to summon a sandworm. She wasn't going anywhere.
Once a year, Mother brought a new garment with her: a woven priestess's robe for Chani's changing body. They would speak of Sietch Hagga, of their relatives and friends, but it seemed sometimes to Chani as though she was speaking on the basis of hazy recollections of a legend she'd known of long ago, not of her own life just a few years ago. It was as though she'd always lived here, in the heart of bleak emptiness.
Then, shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Chani noticed her mother hadn't visited for over four months. She waited with growing apprehension, her face perpetually turned east, fruitlessly searching the horizon for signs of an approaching worm.
Finally, word came with one of their infrequent pilgrims. Mother had been slaughtered, caught up in a clash of the foreign lords. There were eye witnesses to her death, although they'd been unable to recover her water. It had been lost to the desert.
Chani mourned her mother for the traditional three months, sitting in a tent outside the Old Temple. She was exempt from any sacred duties during that period and was glad of it. Yet she found herself praying instinctively. They were furious prayers, full of grief and pain.
Why didn't you protect her, Ancient One? She was loyal. She was faithful. Why did you abandon her?
On the night her mourning period ended, she removed her rags, cleansed herself with sand and put on her priestess's robe. She ran her hands over the cloth, made with such loving effort, and reflected that her mother would never weave another one. Part of her wanted to retrieve her thumper and hooks from their hidden place and leave the temple forever, but she knew this was mere fantasy. Her mother's death had bound her more tightly to the Old Temple than any oath could.
As she lay down on her pallet in her small room, she heard someone calling her name. It sounded close by, and as she rose and walked down the corridor, turning the corner, she indeed found her three companions—Hathem, Tandis and Ramollo—sitting cross-legged around the hookah at the temple's entrance.
"Who called me?"
Ramollo glanced at her kindly. "None of us, my soul. You can go lie down."
She returned to her room, but barely had the opportunity to lay her head down before her name was called again, loud and insistent.
She leapt up and hurried back to the entrance. "I'm here. What do you need?"
They exchanged glances, looking unsettled.
"Chani," said Hathem slowly, "none of us called you. Are you sure you heard something?"
"Clear as wormsign." Chani let out a sigh, feeling frustration bubble up. "No pilgrims have visited the temple recently, correct?"
"Yes," said Ramollo.
It was impossible to approach the temple without being noticed, surrounded by emptiness as it was. Chani gave a defeated shrug.
"Must be all the effects of mourning getting to me."
"Perhaps," said Tandis, watching her closely. "Sihaya, what did the voice sound like? Young? Old? Male? Female?"
"Well, it was…" Chani paused, a sudden chill passing through her. "I couldn't tell you. I don't know."
"But you're certain you heard it call your name?"
Chani swallowed, her mouth dry. "Yes."
"Go back and lie down," said Tandis, his voice slow and careful. "If you hear your name called again, reply: 'Speak, Great One, for thy servant hears.'"
Chani opened her mouth to protest. I don't think the Great One would want to speak to me right now. I haven't been very polite to him in recent months. But she thought better of it and returned to her place in silence.
She didn't have time to lower herself back to the pallet before she heard her name again, clear as though someone was standing right next to her.
"Speak…" she said, voice shaking. "Speak… for thy servant hears."
And the Great One spoke.
