Dyuna

Book Two: Niaeb'D'd

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          NIAEB'D'D

When my father, the Pbejtibi Sultan, heard of Duke Nicholas's death and the manner of it, he went into such a rage as we had never before seen.  He blamed my mother and the compact forced upon him to place a Bala Garrasaid on the throne. He blamed the Guild and the evil old Baron.  He blamed everyone in sight, not excepting even me, for he said I was a witch just like all the others.  And when I sought to comfort him, saying it was done according to an older law of self-preservation to which even the most ancient rulers give allegiance, he sneered at me and asked if I thought him a weakling.  I saw then that he had been aroused to this passion not by concern over the dead Duke but by what that death implied for all royalty. As I looked back on it, I think there may have been some prescience in my father, too, for 'tis sure that his line and Niaeb'D'd's shared a common ancestry.

                                                                                  --"In My Father's House," by the Princess Dalia

"And now Seppanen shall kill Seppanen," Alexei whispered.

He had awakened shortly before nightfall, sitting up in the sealed and darkened stilltent.  As he spoke, he heard the vague stirrings of his mother where she slept against the tent's opposite wall.

Alexei glanced at the proximity detector on the floor, studying the data illuminated in the blackness by its phosphor tubes.

"It should be night soon?" his mother said.  "Why don't you lift the tent shades?"

Alexei realized then that her breathing had been different for some time, that she had lain silent in the darkness until certain he was awake.

"Lifting the shades wouldn't help," he said. "There's been a storm.  The tent's covered by sand.  I'll dig us out soon."

"Any sign of Grady yet?"

"No."

Alexei rubbed absently at the ducal signet on his thumb, and a sudden rage against the very substance of this planet which had helped to kill his father set him to trembling.

"I heard the storm begin," Alexandra said.

The undemanding emptiness of her words helped to restore some of his calm. HIs mind focused on the storm as he'd seen it begin through the transparent end of their stilltent----cold dribbles of sand crossing the basin, then runnels and tails furrowing the sky.  He had looked up to a rock spire, seen it change shape under the blast, becoming a low, cheddar-colored wedge.  Sand funneled into their basin had shadowed the sky with dull curry, then blotted out all light as the tent was covered.

Tent bows had creaked once as they accepted the pressure, then---silence broken only by the dim bellows wheezing of the sand snorkel pumping air from the surface.

"Try the reciever again," Alexandra said.

"It's no use," he said.

 He found his stillsuit's watertube in its clip at his neck, drew a warm swallow into his mouth, and he thought that here he truly began a Dyuni existence---living on reclaimed moisture from his own breath and body.  It was flat and tasteless water, but it soothed his throat.