"It sounds much too casual, Lord." Her voice had a remote and testing quality.
"I assure you that anyone could not do it."
"But you imply that you inherited your godhood from..."
"Never suggest that to a Fish Speaker," he said. "They react violently against heresy."
She tried to swallow in a dry throat.
"I say this only to protect you," he said.
Her voice was faint: "Thank you, Lord."
"My godhood began when I told my Fremen I no longer could give the death-water to the tribes. You know about the death-water?"
"In the Dune days, the water recovered from the bodies of the dead," she said.
"Ahhh, you have read Noah Arkwright."
She managed a faint smile.
"I told my Fremen the water would be consecrated to a Supreme Deity, left nameless. Fremen were still allowed to control this water through my largesse."
"Water must have been very precious in those days."
"Very! And I, as delegate of this nameless deity, held loose control of that precious water for almost three hundred years."
She chewed at her lower lip.
"It still sounds calculating?" he asked.
She nodded.
"It was. When it came time to consecrate my sister's water, I performed a miracle. The voices of all the Atreides spoke from Ghani's urn. Thus, my Fremen discovered that I was their Supreme Deity."
Hwi spoke fearfully, her voice full of puzzled uncertainties at this revelation. "Lord, are you telling me that you are not really a god?"
"I am telling you that I do not play hide-and-seek with death."
She stared at him for several minutes before responding in a way which assured him that she understood his deeper meaning. It was a reaction which only intensified her endearment to him.
"Your death will not be like other deaths," she said.
"Precious Hwi," he murmured.
"I wonder that you do not fear the judgment of a true Supreme Deity," she said.
"Do you judge me, Hwi?"
"No, but I fear for you."
"Think on the price I pay," he said. "Every descendant part of me will can-y some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless."
She put both hands over her mouth and stared at him.
"This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity."
She lowered her hands and whispered: "You will be conscious?"
"In a way... but mute. A little pearl of my awareness will go with every sandworm and every sandtrout-knowing yet unable to move a single cell, aware in an endless dream."
She shuddered.
Leto watched her try to understand such an existence. Could she imagine the final clamor when the subdivided bits of his identity grappled for a fading control of the Ixian machine which recorded his journals? Could she sense the wrenching silence which would follow that awful fragmentation?
"Lord, they would use this knowledge against you were I to reveal it."
"Will you tell?"
"Of course not!" She shook her head slowly from side to side. Why had he accepted this terrible transformation? Was there no escape?
Presently, she said: "The machine which writes your thoughts, could it not be attuned to..."
"To a million of me? To a billion? To more? My dear Hwi, none of those knowing-pearls will be truly me."
Her eyes filmed with tears. She blinked and inhaled a deep breath. Leto recognized the Bene Gesserit training in this, the way she accepted a flow of calmness.
"Lord, you have made me terribly afraid."
"And you do not understand why I have done this."
"Is it possible for me to understand?"
"Oh, yes. Many could understand it. What people do with understanding is another matter."
"Will you teach me what to do?"
"You already know."
She absorbed this silently, then: "It has something to do with your religion. I can feel it."
Leto smiled. "I can forgive your Ixian masters almost anything for the precious gift of you. Ask and you shall receive."
She leaned toward him, rocking forward on her pillow. "Tell me about the inner workings of your religion."
"You will know all of me soon enough, Hwi. I promise it. Just remember that sun worship among our primitive ancestors was not far off the mark."
"Sun... worship?" She rocked backward.
"That sun which controls all of the movement but which cannot be touched-that sun is death."
"Your... death?"
"Any religion circles like a planet around a sun which it must use for its energy, upon which it depends for its very existence."
Her voice came barely above a whisper: "What do you see in your sun, Lord?"
"A universe of many windows through which I may peer. Whatever the window frames, that is what I see."
"The future?"
"The universe is timeless at its roots and contains therefore all times and all futures."
"It's true then," she said. "You saw a thing which this-' she gestured at his long, ribbed body= "prevents."
"Do you find it in you to believe that this may be, in some small way, holy?" he asked.
She could only nod her head.
"If you share it all with me," he said, "I warn you that it will be a terrible burden."
"Will it make your burden lighter, Lord?"
"Not lighter, but easier to accept."
"Then I will share. Tell me, Lord."
"Not yet, Hwi. You must be patient a while longer."
She swallowed her disappointment, sighing.
"It's only that my Duncan Idaho grows impatient," Leto said. "T must deal with him."
She glanced backward, but the small room remained empty.
"Do you wish me to leave now?"
"I wish you would never leave me."
She stared at him, noting the intensity of his regard, a hungry emptiness in his expression which filled her with sadness.
"Lord, why do you tell me your secrets?"
"I would not ask you to be the bride of a god."
Her eyes went wide with shock.
"Do not answer," he said.
Barely moving her head, she sent her gaze along the shadowy length of his body.
"Do not search for parts of me which no longer exist," he said. "Some forms of physical intimacy are no longer possible for me."
She returned her attention to his cowled face, noting the pink skin of his cheeks, the intensely human effect of his features in that alien frame.
"If you require children," he said, "I would ask only that you let me choose the father. But I have not yet asked you anything."
Her voice was faint. "Lord, I do not know what to..
."
"I will return to the Citadel soon," he said. "You will come to me there and we will talk. I will tell you then about the thing which I prevent."
"I am frightened, Lord, more frightened than I ever imagined I could be."
"Do not fear me. I can be nothing but gentle with my gentle Hwi. As for other dangers, my Fish Speakers will shield you with their own bodies. They dare not let harm come to you!"
Hwi lifted herself to her feet and stood trembling.
Leto saw how deeply his words had affected her and he felt the pain of it. Hwi's eyes glistened with tears. She clasped her hands tightly to still the trembling. He knew she would come to him willingly at the Citadel. No matter what he asked, her response would be the response of his Fish Speakers:
"Yes, Lord."
It came to Leto that if she could change places with him, take up his burden, she would offer herself. The fact that she could not do this added to her pain. She was intelligence built on profound sensitivity, without any of Malky's hedonistic weaknesses. She was frightening in her perfection. Everything about her reaffirmed his awareness that she was precisely the kind of woman who, if he had grown to normal manhood, he would have wanted (No! Demanded!) as his mate.
And the lxians knew it.
"Leave me now," he whispered.
- = I am both father and mother to my people. I have known the ecstasy of birth and the ecstasy of death and I know the patterns that you must team. Have I not wandered intoxicated through the universe of shapes? Yes! I have seen you outlined in light. That universe which you say you see and feel, that universe is my dream. My energies focus upon it and I am in any realm and every realm. Thus, you are born.