Reverend Mothers are not mothers in the human sense. A real mother loves, understands, and forgives her child for almost anything.

But not everything.

—LADY JESSICA, private journal note

Even though Jessica had turned against them, the words of the militant Sisters had still penetrated, stirring her thoughts until they reinforced her own doubts.

As the Heighliner carried her away from Wallach IX, she isolated herself, in no mood for visitors or conversation. She had always clung to the certainty—perhaps delusion?—that Paul was right, that he did indeed know what he was doing, even if she didn’t understand it fully.

In the quiet of her private stateroom, she meditated to calm her fears, while trying to reach a resolution in her mind. If love and misplaced kindness prevented her from doing a terrible but necessary thing, then how much more death and destruction would occur? How many more lives would be lost?

How could she even understand what Paul was trying to do?

Her son could be extremely persuasive, with charismatic and oratory skills he had learned from Duke Leto, from the Bene Gesserit instruction she had given him, and from his time among the skilled Jongleurs. Paul could make his followers believe in him and react in whatever ways he deemed necessary—mass persuasion.

But did he make the correct choices, or was he deluding himself? For years Jessica had been bombarded by adverse reports from a variety of sources. What if he was wrong? What if he had lost his way? Her son was not who she had once thought he was, not the man she’d hoped he would be. That was why she and Gurney had left Arrakis, left the Jihad.

What if the Bene Gesserit were correct?

She knew full well that the Sisters had their own agenda. Their arguments were not objective, no matter how persuasive they sounded or how vehemently the women argued their points. On this particular subject, the Bene Gesserit had shown their true colors by trying to destroy her psyche through guilt-casting. But that in itself did not mean they were wrong.

When the mocking silence of the stateroom grew too much for her, she disembarked onto the public decks. She did not want conversation or company, just the presence of other people; she hoped the background drone of their lives would fill the empty spaces in her mind.

While she was there, she did not intend to seek out news of the Jihad, but the stories were so horrific that she could not avoid them. The Heighliner had stopped at several waypoints, picking up new passengers, new rumors, and even eyewitness accounts. The buzz of shock and disbelief overwhelmed the unsettled crowds.

Her heart pounded with renewed urgency. What had Paul done now?

Fresh reports had come aboard with passengers embarking at the current planetfall, and the news hadn’t yet had a chance to grow in the telling. Paul’s propaganda scouts had not been able to sanitize or contradict the witnesses’ statements. This was the true, raw reporting.

A pogrom had taken place on the planet Lankiveil, a former stronghold of House Harkonnen. In the snowy mountain fastnesses, Buddislamic monks lived in ancient cliffside monasteries surrounded by glaciers. The monks had been persecuted for years by Count Glossu Rabban, but not out of any particular religious hatred; Rabban merely liked to flaunt his power.

This time it was much, much different.

The Buddislamics had always been a quiet, peaceful sect who spent their days writing sutras, chanting prayers, and meditating on unanswerable questions. Members of Paul’s Fremen Qizarate had swept down upon Lankiveil’s religious retreats and demanded that the quiet monks erect a giant statue of Paul Atreides, as well as change their teachings and beliefs to reflect the fact that Muad’Dib was the greatest of all holy prophets, second only to God himself.

Although they had never spoken against Muad’Dib or the Jihad, and they had no political leanings whatsoever, the monks still had firm convictions. Meaning no disrespect, yet remaining adamant, they declined to follow the priests’ orders. They refused to accept that Muad’Dib possessed the sacred aspects attributed to him by the Qizarate.

As a punishment, the monks were slaughtered to the last man. The ancient monasteries were blasted from the cliffsides, and avalanches were sent down to bury the rubble. In the aftermath, the Qizarate dispatched hunters across the Imperium to discover and eradicate any other enclaves of the “heretical Buddislamic sect.”

Jessica sat down unsteadily in a hard, worn waiting chair, unable to deny how appalling the act was. Muad’Dib’s religion was like a cancer, metastasizing across the universe. But the reports were conflicting, and she could not be sure whether this heinous act had been committed by out-of-control priests and warriors, or if Paul had given the direct orders.

Then she learned more.

After the initial outcry and uproar, Muad’Dib released a widely distributed video statement, which was played and replayed onboard the Heighliner. These words were not some bureaucratic proclamation issued by a sanctimonious official. Paul spoke them himself.

“Regarding the recent tragedy on Lankiveil, I am saddened by the foolish loss of life. Those poor Buddislamic monks did not need to die. I feel their pain and suffering.

“But while we grieve because they were human beings, we must not forget that those people had the power to save themselves. The responsibility for their deaths lies with them alone. My Qizarate explained how they could save themselves, and they ignored the warning.” He paused, and his spice-saturated eyes blazed with fervor for his audience; he was like a master showman in his element. “And they paid the necessary price.”

His Harkonnen side is showing, she thought. That might as well have been his grandfather the Baron talking.

In the projected image, the Arrakeen crowds roared their approval as Paul gazed calmly out upon them. The chant grew louder, like an accelerating wave that never seemed to crest. “Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib!”

Jessica felt anger building up inside. Instead of condemning the unnecessary brutality of his own fanatics, instead of ordering restraint, Paul had pinned the blame for the massacre squarely on the poor, innocent monks. He didn’t even look troubled by what had happened.

When had Atreides honor died? She shuddered to imagine what Duke Leto would have thought if he’d seen his son’s behavior.

On the scale of things, after the years of bloodshed in the Jihad, the Lankiveil massacre was a comparatively small event, but it spoke volumes about Paul, about his followers, and about the lengths to which they would go. It was a singular demonstration of how much he had changed, how passionately he had embraced the artificial persona he had created for himself.

In the recording, though, Paul had more to say. Raising his arms high in the air to quell the noise, he said, “I do not speak idle words. My voice carries power across the stars. You who are foolish enough to think that I know not of your heresies shall find no place to hide. You cannot avoid the hammer of fate you have brought on yourselves. I say this to those who continue to defy me: Soon, at a time of my choosing, Guild Heighliners will appear over eleven worlds. There, they will disgorge my warships to sterilize every planet that has displeased me. Eleven worlds . . . and I pray that will be enough.”

The crowd grew strangely quiet, and as the recorder scanned over their faces, Jessica saw shock and surprise even among the Emperor’s most avid supporters. Then, gradually, the expressions began to change, and the stunned people roared their approval. “Eleven more worlds!”

“This is the punishment I have prescribed. Let it be done, and let it be recorded in the annals of the Holy Jihad.” With that, Paul turned and walked away, while the throng cheered wildly.

Jessica sat speechless. He had already sterilized four planets, in addition to the countless horrific battles that had been engaged in seven years of the Jihad. Now even more worlds were going to be erased . . . and she had no reason to believe the unspeakable violence would end there.

A sharp chill ran down the back of her neck. Emperor Muad’Dib no longer resembled the son she had loved and raised. In the past, Jessica had been able to see an echo of his father whenever she looked at Paul, but after hearing this speech, she could discern nothing of Duke Leto the Just. She’d heard enough, seen enough.

Paul had become the Empty Man, thirsting for the deaths of billions, a husk of a human being without a soul.

With a red haze around her vision, she hurried back to her state-room and sealed herself inside. This was a turning point for her, the crack in the levee that allowed the long-denied truth to flood into her.

She had played a part in the creation of a monster. For so long, Jessica had believed that she would eventually understand Paul’s rationale, if only he would explain himself. At one time she and her son had been a fine team, had relied upon each other through a series of challenges and crises. She had trusted him with her life. But her love for him had caused her to delay too long, just like Gurney and his gaze hounds infected with the bloodfire virus. Now eleven more planetary populations would be annihilated!

The conclusion was as inescapable as death: Paul was crippling the human race, and she could not pretend that events had simply slipped out of his control. He approved, even encouraged, the crimes committed in his name.

The Reverend Mothers had complained about Alia being an Abomination, but Paul was the real threat. Yes, Jessica’s daughter was strange by any mea sure, but the girl could not help the accident of her birth, the voices in her mind. Paul, on the other hand, made his own decisions, had chosen his own path. As a leader, he allowed his soldiers to run like wolfpacks amongst otherwise peaceable populations.

How much more slaughter would Muad’Dib order? How many more planets would he destroy? If Jessica did not do something to stop him, was not she just as responsible? Sitting alone in her dimly lit stateroom, surrounded by the clamor of her thoughts, Jessica came to the inescapable conclusion.

She had to stop Paul . . . kill him. The Bene Gesserit were right.

He had surrounded himself with thorough protective measures, and his personal fighting skills were incomparable. But, as his mother, Jessica could get close to him. She was a force to be reckoned with in her own right, and she believed she had a chance against Paul, against Muad’Dib . . . against her son, because she knew his weaknesses. Just a moment’s hesitation on his part—that was all she needed.

Lady Jessica knew Paul loved her. But the Bene Gesserit had taught her that she must not allow herself to feel love. Sadly, she realized, Mohiam may have been right about that after all. Muad’Dib was not merely Jessica’s son: He was the product of a long, long breeding plan that had gone wrong. He was a product of the Bene Gesserit.

And he had to die.