Ten years ago, Marha, Jafar, and all the followers of Selim’s vision abandoned their long-standing settlement and made their pilgrimage deep into the desert, far from the offworld hunters and Naib Dhartha’s betrayers. On that fateful day, Marha— after climbing Needle Rock for a better vantage— had witnessed the end of her husband’s life. But the event was really a beginning, as the great Wormrider allowed himself to become incorporated into the magnificent segmented body of God.

For a decade they had continued Selim’s dream and his mission. Word of the outlaw leader’s incredible fate had spread among the Zensunni settlements of Arrakis, causing hundreds of candidates to seek the isolated hideout and attempt to join the Wormriders.

The stone caves and open dunes of Arrakis formed a shelter instead of a prison. Far back in the shadowed passageway, the wormriders and outlaws had found more Muadru rune designs deeply etched into the cool stone. The symbols reminded Ishmael of the ancient undeciphered writings his grandfather had kept among Sutra parchments at his shack on Harmonthep. Ishmael didn’t know how to interpret the markings, but was certain they carried some message of hope and solidarity.

In the first year, the refugees from Poritrin had learned to live with the Arrakis natives, working side by side with them, assisting in the daily toils of survival. The weakest among them had recovered their strength, and no one complained. After a life of indentured servitude, serving capricious masters in tasks that even machines would have resented, the former slaves were resilient and strong.

Ishmael stood with his surviving people at a large opening that looked out upon the foreboding expanse where no footprints of slavers would ever be seen. It was bright dawn, which Marha told them had been Selim Wormrider’s favorite time of day.

Ishmael’s daughter Chamal looked hopeful and strong, filled with womanhood at the age of twenty-six. She had married again, in the way of the rugged desert people, and had already borne three children. She still carried Rafel in her heart, but every person in Ishmael’s group of refugees had lost family, either back on Poritrin or here on Arrakis. They must all move forward, knowing that this was destined to be their home, now and forever.

Lovely Marha came to stand at Ishmael’s side, gazing with flinty eyes across the desert. He smiled warmly at her, and they remained close, the joining of two peoples. El’hiim, her son be Selim Wormrider, had grown into a fine strong boy, now almost ten years old… and he had learned to be more careful before crawling into unexplored crevices, where black scorpions might lurk.

LESS THAN A year after the refugees had been rescued, Marha had made no secret of the fact that she considered Ishmael a logical choice to succeed Selim. She had been blessed with a healthy and intelligent young son, and by Zensunni custom and the necessities of a difficult nomadic life, the people of Arrakis did not ostracize fatherless children or wives who had lost their husbands.

“I was the Wormrider’s woman,” she had said to him in the protected cave quietness, lifting her chin like a desert princess. The crescent scar on her left eyebrow seemed pale in the shadows. “After Shai-Hulud devoured my husband and the evil Naib Dhartha, my obvious choice for a new partner should have been Jafar, who was Selim’s second in command. But…”

She looked away, then back to Ishmael. “Jafar reveres Selim’s legendary memory, and is intimidated in his shadow. He has not said so, but I sense that he feels it would be some kind of… sacrilege if he took me as his wife. The other men worshipped Selim, too, followed him like a prophet. They honor his memory, the traditions he established, and they treat me as if I were some kind of untouchable goddess.” Marha touched his arm. “A person cannot live like that, Ishmael.”

He looked at her. “And since I am a comparative stranger, you believe I am not stifled by those expectations?”

“You are a leader of your own people, a man who commands their respect, who is fair and firm and not afraid to stand by his convictions. You are a rock, not a soft dune to be reshaped by every errant breeze.”

He frowned. “You ask me to forget my other wife.”

Marha shook her head. “I ask you to forget nothing. Nor will I ever forget My first husband. We both have our pasts, Ishmael… and our futures. We are stronger together.”

Her words frightened him, but Ishmael recognized the truth in her words. “You have given me a heavy burden to bear.” She stood very close to him, so that he felt intoxicated by her sharp intelligence and beauty.

She shrugged, then kissed his rough cheek. “We all bear burdens, do we not?”

And so they wed each other, and worked together to lead the growing band of outlaws in their continued effort to stifle the hemorrhaging flow of melange from Arrakis. All of them swore to defend Shai-Hulud and prevent the taking of spice.

NOW, AFTER SUMMONING his bandits to join him at the cave opening, Ishmael stared at these people who had followed him over such a great distance, and the others who had accepted him as the successor to Selim Wormrider. Behind him on the sands, the new day grew warmer.

Selim had experienced many visions, receiving flashes of the future through his connection to the great Shai-Hulud, through a conduit of potent melange. Ishmael, though, had no such reliable source to guide him in his decisions. He had to study the Koran Sutras and all the other scriptures, hoping he could properly determine the will of God. At times, Ishmael often found time alone in the darkest hours of night to quietly scan the infinite desert as if he could see the future out there, somewhere….

As the sun crept up the rugged cliffside, he inhaled a deep breath of dry air, and felt its harshness. Arrakis was far more inhospitable than Poritrin or Harmonthep— but this was his new home, a place where he could live away from the threats of slavers and thinking machines, and even away from the League of Nobles.

With a smile, Ishmael looked around, from face to face. “We can live on this world as we choose, making our own lives and future. We shall never be slaves again!” He sighed with immense pride, and added, “From this day forward we shall call ourselves the Free Men of Arrakis.”