When Duncan Idaho arrived at Ginaz, he believed he needed nothing more than the Old Duke’s prized sword to become a great warrior. His head full of romantic expectations, he envisioned the swashbuckling life he would lead, the marvelous fighting techniques he would learn. He was only twenty, and looked forward to a golden future.

Reality was quite different.

The Ginaz School was an archipelago of habitable islands scattered like bread crumbs across turquoise water. On each island, different Masters taught students their particular techniques that ranged from shield-fighting, military tactics, and combat skills to politics and philosophy. Over the course of his eight-year training ordeal, Duncan would move from one environment to the next and learn from the best fighters in the Imperium.

If he survived.

The school’s main island served as the spaceport and administration center, surrounded by reefs that blocked waves from the choppy water. Tall clustered buildings reminded Duncan of the bristles on a spiny rat, like the one he’d kept as a pet inside the Harkonnen prison fortress.

Revered throughout the Imperium, the Swordmasters of Ginaz had built many of their primary structures as museums and memorials, rather than classrooms. This reflected the supreme confidence they felt in their personal fighting abilities, a self-assurance that bordered on hubris. Politically neutral, they served their art and allowed its practitioners to make their own choices regarding the Imperium. Contributing to the mythology, the academy’s graduates had included the leaders of many Great Houses in the Landsraad. Master Jongleurs were commissioned to compose songs and commentary about the great deeds of the legendary heroes of Ginaz.

The central skyscraper, where Duncan would endure his final testing years hence, held the tomb of Jool-Noret, founder of the Ginaz School. Noret’s sarcophagus lay in open view— surrounded by clear armor-plaz and a Holtzman-generated shield— yet only the “worthy” were allowed to see it.

Duncan vowed that he would prove himself worthy. . . .

He was met at the spaceport by a slender, bald woman wearing a black martial-arts gi. Brisk and businesslike, she introduced herself as Karsty Toper. “I have been assigned to take your possessions.” She extended her hand for his rucksack and the long bundle containing the Old Duke’s sword.

He clutched the blade protectively. “If you give me your personal guarantee that these items will be safe.”

Her forehead furrowed, wrinkling her shaved head. “We value honor more than any other House in the Landsraad.” Her hand remained extended, unwavering.

“Not more than the Atreides,” Duncan said, still refusing to relinquish the blade.

Karsty Toper frowned as she considered. “Not more, perhaps. But we are comparable.”

Duncan handed her the packages, and she directed him to a long-distance shuttle ’thopter. “Go there. You will be taken to your first island. Do what you are told without complaining, and learn from everything.” She tucked the sword bundle and his rucksack under her arms. “We will hold these for you until it is time.”

Without seeing the Ginaz city or the school administration tower, Duncan was flown far across the deep sea to a low, lush island like a lily pad that barely lifted itself out of the water. Jungles were dense and huts were few. The three uniformed crewmen dropped him on the beach and departed without answering any of his questions. Duncan stood all alone, listening to the rush of ocean against the island shore, reminded of Caladan.

He had to believe this was some sort of test.

A deeply tanned man with frizzy white hair and thin, sinewy limbs strode out to meet him, parting palm fronds. He wore a sleeveless black tunic belted at the waist. The man’s expression appeared stony as he squinted into the light glaring off the beach.

“I am Duncan Idaho. Are you my first instructor, sir?”

“Instructor?” The man scowled. “Yes, rat, and my name is Jamo Reed— but prisoners don’t use names here, because everyone knows his place. Do your work, and don’t cause any trouble. If the others can’t keep you in line, then I will.”

Prisoners? “I’m sorry, Master Reed, but I’m here for Swordmaster training—”

Reed laughed. “Swordmaster? That’s rich!”

Without giving him any time to settle, the man assigned Duncan to a rugged work crew with dark-skinned Ginaz natives. Duncan communicated by rough hand signals, since none of the natives spoke Imperial Galach.

For several hot and sweaty days, the men dug channels and wells to improve the water system for an inland village. The air was so thick with humidity and biting gnats that Duncan could barely breathe. As evening approached and the gnats dissipated, the jungle swarmed with mosquitoes and black flies, and Duncan’s skin was covered with swollen bites. He had to drink copious amounts of water just to replace what he sweated out.

As Duncan labored to move heavy stones by hand, the sun warmed the rippling muscles of his bare back. Workmaster Reed watched from the shade of a mango tree, arms folded across his chest, a studded whip gripped in one hand. He never said a word about Swordmaster training. Duncan voiced no complaints, demanded no answers. He had expected Ginaz to be . . . unexpected.

This has to be some kind of test.

Before attaining his ninth birthday, he’d suffered cruel tortures at the hands of the Harkonnens. He had watched Glossu Rabban murder his parents. Even as a boy, he had killed hunters in Forest Guard Preserve, and he’d finally escaped to Caladan only to see his mentor, Duke Paulus Atreides, slain in the bullring. Now, after a decade of service to House Atreides, he chose to view each day’s effort as a training exercise, toughening himself for future battles. He would become a Swordmaster of Ginaz. . . .

A month later, another ’thopter unceremoniously dropped off a red-haired, pale-skinned young man. The newcomer looked out of place on the beach, upset and confused— just as Duncan must have appeared at his own arrival. Before anyone could speak to the redhead, though, Master Reed sent the work crews to hack at the dense undergrowth with dull machetes; the jungle seemed to grow back as fast as they could cut it down. Perhaps that was the point of sending convicts here, a perpetual but pointless errand, like the myth of Sisyphus he’d heard during his studies with the Atreides.

Duncan didn’t see the redhead again until two nights later, when he tried to fall asleep in his own primitive palm-frond hut. In a shelter on the other side of the shoreline encampment, the newcomer lay moaning with a horrible sunburn. Duncan crept out to help him under the starlight of Ginaz, rubbing a creamy salve on the worst blisters, as he had seen the natives do.

The redhead hissed at the pain, bit back an outcry. He finally spoke in Galach, startling Duncan. “Thank you, whoever you are.” Then he lay back and closed his eyes. “Damned poor way to run a school, wouldn’t you say? What am I doing here?”

The young man, Hiih Resser, came from one of the Houses Minor on Grumman. As part of a family tradition, every other generation selected a candidate to be trained on Ginaz, but during his generation he was the only one available. “I was considered a poor choice, a cruel joke to send here, and my father is convinced I’m going to fail.” Resser winced as he sat up, feeling his raw, blistered skin. “Everyone tends to underestimate me.”

Neither of them knew how to explain his situation, stuck on an island populated by convicts. “It’ll toughen us up at least,” Duncan said.

The next day, when Jamo Reed saw them talking with each other, he scratched his frizzy white hair, scowled, then assigned them to different work details on opposite sides of the island.

Duncan did not see Resser again for quite a while. . . .

As months passed with no further information, no structured exercises, Duncan began to grow angry, resenting the wasted time when he could have been serving House Atreides. How was he ever going to become a Swordmaster at this rate?

One dawn as he lay in his hut, instead of the expected call from Workmaster Reed, Duncan heard a rhythmic beating of ’thopter wings, and his heart leaped. Racing outside, he saw a craft landing on the wide, wet beach just within the line of breakers. Wind from the articulated wings blew the leaf fronds like fans.

A slender, bald form in a black gi climbed out and spoke with Jamo Reed. The sinewy workmaster grinned and extended a warm handshake; Duncan had never noticed that Reed’s teeth were so white. Karsty Toper stepped aside, letting her eyes rove across the curious prisoners who had emerged from their huts.

Workmaster Reed turned back to the convicts standing beside their ramshackle huts. “Duncan Idaho! Come over here, rat.” Duncan ran across the rocky beach toward the ’thopter. When he got closer to the flying machine, he could see redheaded Hiih Resser already sitting inside the cockpit. He pressed a freckled, smiling face against the curved windowplaz.

The woman bowed her shaved head to him, then ran her eyes up and down his body like a scanner. She turned to Reed and spoke in Galach. “Success, Master Reed?”

The workmaster shrugged his whipcord shoulders, and his moist eyes suddenly filled with expression. “The other prisoners didn’t try to kill him. He didn’t get himself in trouble. And we worked some of the fat and weakness out of him.”

“Is this part of my training?” Duncan asked. “A labor crew to toughen me up?”

The bald woman placed her hands on her narrow hips. “This was a genuine prison crew, Idaho. These men are murderers and thieves, assigned here for the rest of their lives.”

“And you sent me here? With them?”

Jamo Reed came forward and gave him a surprising hug. “Yes, rat, and you survived. As did Hiih Resser.” He gave Duncan a paternal pounding on the back. “I’m proud of you.”

Embarrassed and confused, Duncan mustered a disbelieving snort. “I lived through worse prisons when I was an eight-year-old boy.”

“And you will face worse from this day forward.” In a no-nonsense tone, Karsty Toper explained, “This was a test of character and obedience— and patience. A Swordmaster must have the patience to study an opponent, to implement a plan, to ambush the enemy.”

“But a real Swordmaster usually has more information about his situation,” Duncan said.

“Now we have seen what you can do with yourself, rat.” Reed wiped a tear from his own cheek. “Don’t let me down— I expect to see you on your final day of testing.”

“Eight years from now,” Duncan said.

Toper directed him toward the still-fluttering ’thopter; he was delighted to see that she had brought the Old Duke’s sword back to him. The bald woman had to raise her voice to be heard over the loud hum of the aircraft’s engines as she applied thrust. “Now it is time to begin your real training.”