The air and sand smelled of spice, his body smelled of spice . . . the world was spice!

Selim could barely breathe or move as the swell of melange filled his pores, his nostrils, his eyes. He clawed his way up the rusty sand, every motion like swimming through glass. He gulped a deep breath, hoping for fresh air, but instead inhaled only more choking, cinnamon-tinted air. He was drowning in it.

The desert treated its melange as a secret, only rarely shouting it forth in spice blows, scattering the reddish brown powder out onto the dunes. Spice was life. The worms reeked of the stuff.

The young man could move only sluggishly, as if he were suffocating in visions. At the bottom of the trough, he came to a halt, coughing, but the dream images continued to roar through him like the strongest storm wind. . . .

The sandworm was long gone, snaking off through the dunes and leaving Selim where he had fallen. That old man of the desert could have eaten its lost rider, but had not heeded him. It was no accident. Buddallah had brought Selim here, and he hoped to finally find his purpose.

He had ridden the giant worm for hours, guiding it aimlessly through the night and choosing no particular destination. He had grown preoccupied, comfortable . . . foolish.

Unexpectedly, the sandworm had come upon the site of a fresh spice blow. Mysterious chemical reactions and building pressures deep beneath the dunes had reached a critical point, churning and fermenting the melange until the cap layers could no longer contain the pressure. The spice had exploded upward, a pillar of sand and gases and fresh, potent melange.

In the darkness, Selim had not seen the plume, had not been prepared. . . .

Encountering the scene, the sandworm had gone into an uncontrolled frenzy. Apparently maddened by the presence of so much melange, the creature had thrashed and bucked.

Taken by surprise, Selim had clutched his spreaders and ropes. The worm slammed into the ground, pounding the dunes as if the stained sand itself was its enemy. The seizure knocked loose the rider’s metal spear, dislodging the wedge that kept the segments pried apart.

Selim had tumbled away, too stunned even to cry out. He saw the crusty-skinned beast roll beneath him, churning up the spice-laden sands, and then he struck the soft moist ground, rolling to absorb the impact.

Freed at last, the worm dove under the sand, burrowing deep, as if searching for the source of the melange. Selim flailed in the flowing dust and dirt, trying to keep on the surface of the churning dune. The sandworm charged onward like a projectile fired deep into the ground. A spume of sand and spice erupted in its wake, covering everything in sight with a thick layer of rusty grit.

Selim came up gasping. The cloying smell made him dizzy, and he spat out cinnamon sweetness. His face and clothes were covered with sticky spice. He smeared his eyes clear, but only drove the stinging powder deeper.

He finally stood on swaying feet, checking his arm, shoulder, ribs, making certain that no bones had been broken. He seemed miraculously unscathed— another miracle for him.

And another cryptic lesson Buddallah wanted to teach him.

Under the moonlight, all the soft and creamy dunes looked stained with blood, spice thrown in all directions as if by the antics of a capering demon. He had never seen so much in his life.

Lost out here in the open, far from his sanctuary station, Selim began to trudge through the sands. He searched the smooth ground until he found his fallen equipment, a metal spear and a spreader half buried in the sand. If another worm came, he must be ready to mount it.

As he walked, the spice seemed to penetrate him with every step and breath. His eyes had already turned the dark blue of addiction— he had seen it in the reflecting panels back in the botanical research station— but now the melange engulfed him. His head began to swim.

Selim finally reached the top of the dune but didn’t even realize it until he had slipped over the crest and tumbled down the loose sand, rolling, scouring the clinging melange from his clothes, his skin. The world around him shifted, opened . . . and revealed its wondrous mysteries. “What is this?” he said aloud, the words echoing in his head.

The dunes shifted like whitecaps on a forgotten sea, swelling, rising, crashing into powder. Worms swam through the parched ocean, enormous denizens like giant predatory fish. Veins of spice flowed with the lifeblood of the desert, hidden beneath the surface, enriching the strata, tended by a complex ecosystem— sandplankton, gelatinous sandtrout . . . and of course the worms, known collectively as Shai-Hulud. The name thrummed within his skull, and it felt right. Not Shaitan, but Shai-Hulud. Not the term for a creature, not a description, but the name of a being. A god. A manifestation of Buddallah.

Shai-Hulud!

Then in his vision he saw the spice draining away, vanishing, stolen by parasites that looked like . . . like the starships he had seen in the Arrakis City Spaceport. Workers— offworlders and even Zensunni— scoured the dunes, stealing the melange, taking the treasure of Shai-Hulud and leaving him to suffocate in a dry and lifeless sea. Heavily laden ships departed, stealing the last grains of spice, leaving the people there with their hands outstretched, beseechingly. Soon, immense desert storms swept across the land, stirring up sand and raining it from the sky, like an overwhelming flood inundating the people and the sandworm carcasses. Nothing lived anywhere on the planet. Arrakis became nothing more than a bowl of sand, unstirred and sterile.

Without worms, without people . . . without melange . . .

Selim found himself sitting cross-legged atop a dune under the baking sun of midday. His skin was red and raw, burned from exposure. His lips were cracked. How long had he been there? He felt a terrible suspicion that it had been more than a day.

He struggled to his feet. His arms and legs were as stiff as rusty hinges. Spice powder still clung to his clothes and face, but it no longer seemed to affect him. He had seen too much in his vision, and the nightmarish possibilities had burned most of the melange from his system.

Selim swayed, but kept his balance. The wind whispered around him, stirring feathers of dust from the dune crests. Empty and silent . . . but not dead. Unlike his vision.

Melange held the key to Arrakis, to the sandworms, to life itself. Even the Zensunni did not know all the interconnected webs, but Buddallah had revealed the secret to Selim. Was this his destiny?

He had seen offworlders taking the spice, carrying it far from Arrakis, bleeding the desert world dry. Perhaps he had seen a true vision of the future, or only a warning. Naib Dhartha had driven him out into the sands to die, but Buddallah had saved him for a reason . . . for this?

To protect the desert and the worms? To serve Shai-Hulud? To find the offworlders who would steal the melange from Arrakis?

He had no choice, now that God had touched him. He must find those people— and stop them.