If making a difficult decision is considered a strength, then does changing one’s mind indicate weakness?

—The Book of Mentat

Jessica froze as Paul emerged to stand beside Bronso Vernius, the man who had supposedly broken all ties with House Atreides.

Paul!

Time funneled down into a pinprick of an instant, and all of her Bene Gesserit schooling came to bear. If she truly meant to commit the unthinkable act, this was her chance. Paul suspected nothing.

Something had annealed inside her when she made up her mind to stop him. Her son had vowed to sterilize eleven more worlds. She had to remove him from power, end his reckless path of destruction.

She stepped closer, cautiously hoping for an embrace. She could deliver a single mortal blow—fast, irreversible . . . and necessary.

Seeing his strong-boned face and remembering the dear boy who had been such a dedicated student and eager learner, the pride of her beloved Duke Leto, Jessica almost lost her resolve. But this was what she had to do—not because the Bene Gesserit had suggested it, but because her own conclusions required it.

Paul said, “Mother, don’t do what you’re thinking.” With surprising power and authority, his words stopped her in her tracks, just as she was about to strike out. Her arm flickered, hesitated. He added in a softer tone, “I desperately need your help.”

Though he had seen the potential violence in her, he did not step back to put even a small buffer of safety between them. Paul remained exactly where he was. “No one else knows I’m here, and it has to remain that way.”

The Ixian chamber was intensely quiet until Bronso said. “This is a very important matter. No one can know what we plan here. These walls are shielded, so we can speak plainly.”

Paul nodded. “The excesses of the Jihad are too extreme. My own myth has grown too powerful, and Bronso is about to change all of that.”

The Ixian’s expression was hard, his skin pale from a life spent underground in the cavern city. “Paul has asked me to be his secret foil to counter the destructive myth of the messiah, to make people see that he is not the demigod that he’s been portrayed as. And I have agreed to this.” A cold smile crossed his lips. “Wholeheartedly.”

Jessica jerked back her head in surprise. Her heart hammered in her chest.

Paul continued, “Bronso has made no secret of his animosity toward me since the night his father died—so no one will suspect that I put him up to anything. He’s going to take me down a few notches, refute what the Qizarate and Princess Irulan say, ridicule those who blindly revere me. After so much bloodshed in the Jihad, it is time.”

The words gave Jessica great pause. She felt stiff, heard no emotion in her own voice. “This is . . . not what I expected at all.”

“I know the violence I have condoned, and I know that must seem inexplicable to you, unforgivable.”

“At first I thought I was going to take pleasure in this,” Bronso said, “but the more I consider the overwhelming task—and the perils involved—the more I doubt I’ll get out of this with my skin intact.”

Paul gave him a sincere smile. “Yet even with all that, my rediscovered friend has agreed to do as I wish, at considerable danger to himself. He will write the words that no one else has the courage to say, and people will talk about them. More and more, they will talk, and they will think.”

“And, oh, how his fanatics will howl for my blood,” Bronso said.

Paul’s expression showed the determination that had overthrown an empire and launched fanatical troops across hundreds of worlds. “Through destiny or fate, Mother—call it what you will—I found myself unable to prevent the Jihad. Through prescience, I saw horrific aspects of my future, yet I could not prevent it. Similarly, my father found himself caught in his own destiny, knowing that Arrakis was a trap set by his enemies, but knowing that he had to play it out and see if he could emerge victorious. I, too, know my own destiny—and it is not a glorious one. Perhaps it is the culmination of the Atreides curse.” His words trailed away, and he stared at Jessica with his deep blue eyes. “Isn’t there a Bene Gesserit saying—‘Prophets have a way of dying by violence’?”

“Don’t say that!” she said, then realized the irony, since she had been prepared to kill him herself only moments earlier.

“I am no longer just a nobleman making parochial decisions for Caladan and House Atreides. I have become something else entirely, a monstrous leader the likes of which this universe has never seen. When my warriors rush into battle, they shout my name as if it will protect them and strike their opponents dead with fear.”

“I know, I know.” She looked away, sadly.

Paul’s words came faster. “The moment I became Muad’Dib, I reached the point of no return. As the Kwisatz Haderach, I saw portions of my future and of mankind’s future, and I knew that I needed to lead my legions across planet after planet, carrying banners dipped in blood. And for what purpose, Mother? Just to kill, just to gain power, just to overthrow the old ways? Of course not!”

Glancing at Bronso, she saw the other man nodding as he listened.

“It was my fate to seize my role as the Lisan al-Gaib and the Kwisatz Haderach, in order to guide people through the whirlwinds of history, so that we could reach this point. The turning point.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes, glanced sidelong at Bronso, then back at her son, without saying anything.

“Because of me, Mother, our noble House will be spoken of with hatred for years, maybe even centuries . . . no matter the noble deeds of our ancestors, no matter the good deeds I committed before the full violence of the Jihad became apparent.”

She felt empty. “Then why are you ordering the sterilization of eleven more planets? How is that necessary to counter your myth?”

“Because I have seen that it must be done. In a way, it is the act that tips the balance and turns people against me, with a bit of persuasion from Bronso. It gives him a legitimate reason. If not for that, the situation would grow worse, much worse, and if he doesn’t start now, it will be too late.”

“But eleven planets? All those people, just to make a point?” Then, thinking of what Mayor Horvu and his followers had done with their foolish cry for independence, she added, “Is one of those worlds Caladan?”

He recoiled. “Caladan is my home planet. I would never harm it.”

“Each of those worlds is somebody’s home planet.” She wondered if she had made a mistake in not killing him when she’d had her chance.

As if he could read her thoughts, he said, “I understand what you thought you needed to do to me, Mother. You hoped to save as many lives as possible, and that is my hope, as well. There are small deeds you aren’t aware of. The recent massacre at the Lankiveil monastery involved fewer than one hundred and fifty deaths. Secretly, I arranged for forty-seven women and children to escape before the priests came in. Word has also been leaked to the rulers of the eleven target planets, and Guildships are taking away great numbers of people in an unofficial evacuation, though of course I would deny it vehemently.”

Jessica caught her breath, almost sobbed as she asked, “But why, why do you want to be hated for all of eternity, and why must you take House Atreides down with you? Why must so many people die in the name of Muad’Dib? How can that be your destiny, or theirs?”

“I have had many visions that guide my course, some after great consumption of melange, others through dreams. I took my name from the desert mouse, the muad’dib, the shape of the shadow on the second moon—and in many visions I have seen the moon, and shadows, growing dark . . . maybe eclipsed.” His voice trailed off, then he shook his head. “But that does not mean that all light is lost from that moon, or that my life has no purpose. Though caught inextricably in my own destiny, I will teach a lesson for all time, showing by example the danger of falling into the myth of the charismatic leader, the mistaken belief that following a heroic figure will always lead humankind to utopia. Such a myth is mass insanity, and must be destroyed. The legacy I leave is that my personal, very human, flaws are amplified by the number of people who carry my banner into battle.”

Jessica began to comprehend the immensity of what Paul had in mind. His words were like an unexpected splash of cold water to open her eyes. He had done so many reprehensible things that she’d begun to believe that he had tumbled headlong down a slippery slope of his own justifications. She had begun to believe the worst of him, and using that chink in her armor, both Mother Superior Harishka and Reverend Mother Mohiam had tried to manipulate Jessica into murdering her own son.

With great sorrow, Paul said, “The things I have to do are my terrible purpose, revealed to me in my visions—the nightmarish path I must follow through darkness that seems never-ending, but which must ultimately emerge into light.” His face was a grim mask that she would never forget. He looked so much older than his twenty-four years.

She felt a strange sense of calm. Paul had opened her eyes with his confessions, his immense personal sacrifice. Despite her fears, she realized that he really did know what he was doing after all, that his plans encompassed a much vaster canvas than any single tragedy, that he was not an abomination who needed to be slain just to stop a current crisis. Great numbers of people were being evacuated from targeted planets, but his part in saving their lives had to remain a secret. He was sacrificing himself, and the lives that were lost were the smallest price he could find.

She was appalled by how close she had come to killing him. How little she had understood!

Bronso broke the silence. “For a long time I considered myself Paul’s enemy, and it took me a long time to find room for forgiveness. But I realized, eventually, that my father’s death was not Paul’s fault. The greatest blow was when my father’s last words were about Paul . . . and only Paul.” The Ixian nobleman drew a deep breath. “But then I realized something else. My father had made me swear to watch out for Paul, to protect him from dangers. By asking with his dying breath whether Paul was safe, he was asking me whether I had fulfilled my responsibility.”

The young man raised his chin, and his eyes sparkled with a proud nobility. “Now I understand much more. And this gives me my own strong purpose—a purpose I have avoided for my entire adult life.”

Bronso gestured to the shielded wall of the chamber. “The Technocrat Council runs Ix. Although I’m a Landsraad representative and still the titular ruler of the planet, my authority here is empty. The technocrats already regard me as irrelevant, and soon they’ll conclude that I am an annoyance. Vermillion Hells, with all the dangers here, it may be safer if I hide out in the space lanes and spread dangerous tracts about Muad’Dib!” He smiled gamely at Paul, then at Jessica. “I’m ready for this task.”

“It is my destiny to love you, Paul, no matter what,” Jessica said. Paul turned to her with a plea on his face, and Jessica saw her son again, the bright, sensitive person she thought she had lost. She had conceived him in love and had given birth to him, and now she could do nothing to remove herself from the powerful historical current that carried House Atreides into the future.

Jessica could only nod when he said, “I want you to help Bronso, in secret, however you can. Help him to destroy me.”