They say of El’hiim that he loves neither his father nor his stepfather, and that he is disloyal to his people.
— Comment made by Zensunni elder,
secondhand source
It was Ishmael’s last chance to save the man he had raised as his son. He had asked, then nearly begged the Naib to go with him on a pilgrimage into the deep desert, the Tanzerouft. “I saved you once, long ago, from scorpions,” Ishmael finally said, hating that he was forced to call in an old debt.
El’hiim looked troubled by the memory. “I was foolhardy, without any caution, and you almost died from all the stings.”
“I will keep you safe, now. When a man knows how to live with the desert, he need not fear what it has to offer.”
Finally, the younger man capitulated. “I remember the times you went with me to other villages and into Arrakis City, even though I know how much you dislike those places. I can make the same sacrifice for my stepfather. It has been a long time since I was reminded of how rustic and difficult life used to be for the outlaw followers of Selim Wormrider.”
To his fellow villagers, El’hiim gave the impression that he was merely humoring the old man. His young water-fat followers, wearing their strange and colorful clothing, joked and wished El’hiim a fine time.
But Ishmael could see uncertainty and even a flicker of fear in the Naib’s eyes. That is good.
For decades now, El’hiim had forgotten how to respect the desert. Regardless of how many luxuries the Zensunni people purchased from offworld merchants, Shai-Hulud still reigned supreme out there. The Old Man of the Desert had little patience for those who scorned the religious laws.
El’hiim left instructions with his lieutenants. His trek with Ishmael would last several days, during which time the Zensunni villagers would continue delivering supplies of spice to VenKee merchants or whichever offworlders bid the best price. Though she looked old now, Chamal was still in charge of most of the women in the cave city and would keep everyone else at their tasks. She kissed her father on his dry, leathery cheek.
Ishmael said nothing, gazing longingly out into the vast and clean dunes, as the two departed from the cliff village. When they had made their way in the moonlight down to the open sands, he turned to his stepson. “Summon a worm for us, El’hiim.”
The Naib hesitated. “I would not take that honor from you, Ishmael.”
“Are you incapable of doing that which made a legend of your father? The son of Selim Wormrider is afraid to summon Shai-Hulud?”
El’hiim let out an impatient sigh. “You know that’s not true. I have called many worms.”
“But not for a long time. Do it now. It is a necessary step in our journey.”
Ishmael watched the Naib as he planted the resonant drum stake and pounded on it with his rhythmic hammer. He studied El’hiim’s every movement, watched how he set out the equipment and prepared to face the monster. His actions were swift but jerky, clearly nervous. Ishmael did not criticize him, but he readied himself to help should anything go wrong.
Even for a master, summoning a sandworm was a dangerous activity, and El’hiim had almost forgotten how to live with danger. Their journey would remind him of this, and of many things.
When the sinuous beast arrived, it was accompanied by a hissing roar, a scraping of sand, and a cloud of thick, pungent scent. “It’s a big one, Ishmael!” The awe and excitement in his voice almost drowned out his terror. Good.
The worm reared up, and El’hiim ran forward, concentrating fully now. Ishmael threw his own hooks and ropes, climbing, assisting in the capture. The younger man didn’t seem to pay attention to how much of the task Ishmael performed for him, and his stepfather did not point it out.
Exhilarated, El’hiim rode on the back of the worm, glancing over at the old man beside him. “Now where do we go?” He seemed to be remembering his younger days. Finally.
His long gray-white hair blowing behind him, Ishmael pointed toward the flat, shadowed horizon. “Out there into the deepest desert, where we can be safe and alone.”
The worm plowed through the loose dunes, eating distance throughout the night. Selim Wormrider had originally taken his band of outlaws deep into the most barren wilderness where they could hide, and Marha had led them even farther into exile. But since the Wormrider’s death, most followers had lost their dedication, tempted by comforts and easy lives. Once-isolated settlements drifted closer to the scattered cities again.
Selim would have been disappointed that the influence of his vision had dwindled so much in only a generation, when he had sacrificed his life so that his legend would be remembered for all time. As the first Naib after the legendary founder, Ishmael had done his best to continue the quest, but after relinquishing control to Selim’s son, he had felt all progress slipping through his callused fingers.
The two men rode the powerful worm until dawn, then took their packs and dismounted near a cluster of rocks that would offer shelter for the day. As El’hiim ran to find a place to lay his soft pads and erect their reflecting shade-cloth, he looked uneasily at the austere surroundings.
Sitting with his stepfather in the heat of the strengthening sun, El’hiim shook his head. “If we used to live with no more comforts than this, Elder Ishmael, then our people have made substantial progress over the years.” He stretched out his hand to touch the rough, hard rock.
Ishmael looked at him, blue-within-blue eyes sharp. “You cannot grasp how much Arrakis has changed in your lifetime— most especially in the past two decades since the Grand Patriarch opened our planet to hordes of spice prospectors. All across the League, people are consuming melange, our melange, in huge quantities, hoping it will protect them from sickness and maintain their youth.” He made a disgusted noise.
“Don’t be blind to how we have benefited from it,” El’hiim pointed out. “Now we have more water, more food. Our people live longer. League medical care has cured numerous ills that needlessly stole our people— like my mother.”
Ishmael felt stung, remembering Marha. “Your mother made her own choice, the only honorable one.”
“An unnecessary one!” El’hiim actually looked angry at him. “She is dead because of your stubbornness!”
“She is dead because it was her time to die. Her disease was incurable.”
The younger man angrily threw a stone far from their camp. “Primitive Zensunni methods and superstitions couldn’t cure her, but any decent doctor in Arrakis City could have done something. There are treatments, medicines from Rossak and elsewhere. She could have had a chance!”
“Marha did not want that kind of chance,” Ishmael said, disturbed. He himself had felt the awful grief of knowing that his wife was dying, but she had devoted her life to Selim Wormrider’s philosophy and goals. “It would have been a betrayal of all she was.”
El’hiim sat in brooding silence for a long time. “Such beliefs are only part of the great rift that separates us, Ishmael. She didn’t need to die, but her pride and your insistence on the old ways killed her, just as surely as the sickness did.”
Ishmael softened his voice. “I miss her just as much as you do. If we had delivered her to Arrakis City, perhaps she would have lived a few years longer connected to medical machines. But if Marha sold her soul for a bit of comfort, then she would not be the woman I loved.”
“She would still be my mother,” El’hiim said. “I never knew my father.”
Ishmael frowned. “But you have heard enough stories about him. He should be as familiar to you as if he had spent his life at your side.”
“Those are just legends, stories that make him out to be a hero or a prophet, or even a god. I don’t believe such nonsense.”
Ishmael furrowed his brow. “You should know the truth when you hear it.”
“Truth? Finding that is more difficult than sifting melange powder out of fine sand.”
They sat in silence for a long while, and then in a gesture of truce, Ishmael recounted his stories from Poritrin. He steered away from the grandiose myths of the Wormrider, speaking only things that he could declare were the outright truth.
The two got along well enough for several days. El’hiim was clearly miserable with the harsh conditions, but he was trying. Ishmael appreciated the effort. He reminded his stepson of traditional desert pastimes that El’hiim had long since stopped following, how to find food and moisture, how to create shelter, how to predict weather from the smell and feel of the wind. He talked about the different kinds of sand and dust, and how they all moved and changed.
Though he had known most of these things all his life, El’hiim actually appeared to listen. “You are forgetting the most important technique of survival,” the younger man said. “Be cautious and do not allow yourself to get into such a desperate situation in the first place.”
For those few days, Ishmael felt young again. The desert was silent, and he saw no taint of encroaching spice prospectors. When finally they agreed to make their way back to one of the outlying cliff villages, the old man felt as if a new bond had been forged between them.
They took another worm, a small one, and made their way to the southern fringe of the Shield Wall, where another of the former outlaw settlements had been established. Members of Chamal’s extended family lived there along with descendants of the original Poritrin refugees. El’hiim also had friends in the settlement, though he usually took more traditional means of transportation to get there. The two men left their worm to wallow back into the sands and made their way along the wall on foot, traveling in the long afternoon shadows.
When they reached the cave city, though, Ishmael and El’hiim could smell the smoke and burned corpses before they saw the open passages. With growing urgency, Ishmael ran across the crumbling rocky ground through the still-burning remnants of what had been homes and possessions. Appalled, El’hiim followed him. When they entered the caves that had once been settled by peaceful Zensunni people, they both stared, sickened.
Ishmael heard the moans of survivors, found a few children and an old woman weeping beside the murdered bodies of the village’s elders. All of the young, healthy Zensunni men and women had been taken away.
“Slavers.” Ishmael spat the word. “They knew exactly where to find this settlement.”
“They came with many weapons,” said a woman hunkered over the dismembered torso of her husband. “We knew them. We recognized some of the traders. They— “
Ishmael turned away as bile rose in his throat. El’hiim, reeling from the horror and bloodshed, stumbled through the chambers, finding a few young boys who had lived through the raid. When Ishmael saw them, he remembered that he himself had been only a small boy on Harmonthep….
His breathing came fast and hard, but he could think of no curses sufficient to express what he felt. El’hiim returned, blinking, with an odd expression on his face. He held a torn piece of colorful fabric, on which an intricate pattern had been imprinted with dyes. “The slavers took their own wounded and dead, but they left this material, clearly of Zanbar manufacture. This design is traditional on that planet.”
Ishmael narrowed his eyes against the stinging wind. “You can tell that simply by looking at a gaudy scrap?”
“If you know what to look for.” El’hiim frowned. “Some vendors in Arrakis City sell a similar pattern, but this one here comes from Zanbar.” He waved the cloth. “Very distinctive. No one can counterfeit this dye— Zanbar Red. And I looked outside at the skid marks made by the landing gear of the raider vessel. The configuration looked like it comes from one of those sleek new Zanbar skimmers. Prospectors imported them here.”
Ishmael wondered if the Naib was trying to show off his prowess. “And what good does this do us? Shall we go to war against the planet Zanbar?”
El’hiim shook his head. “No, but it means I know exactly who did this and where they usually make their camp.”