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"We are friends of Jamis," Stilgar said. "We are not wailing for our dead like a pack of garvarg."
A gray-bearded man to Paul's left stood up. "I was a friend of Jamis," he said. He crossed to the mound, lifted the distrans. "When our water went below minim at the siege at Two Brids, Jamis shared." The man returned to his place in the circle.
Am I supposed to say I was a friend of Jamis? Paul wondered. Do they expect me to take something from that pile? He saw faces turn toward him, turn away. They do expect it!
Another man across from Paul arose, went to the pack and removed the paracompass. "I was a friend of Jamis," he said. "When the patrol caught us at Bight-of-the-Cliff and I was wounded, Jamis drew them off so the wounded could be saved." He returned to his place in the circle.
Again, the faces turned toward Paul, and he saw the expectancy in them, lowered his eyes. An elbow nudged him and a voice hissed: "Would you bring the destruction on us?"
How can I say I was his friend? Paul wondered.
Another figure arose from the circle opposite Paul and, as the hooded face came into the light, he recognized his mother. She removed a kerchief from the mount. "I was a friend of Jamis," she said. "When the spirit of spirits within him saw the needs of truth, that spirit withdrew and spared my son." She returned to her place.
And Paul recalled the scorn in his mother's voice as she had confronted him after the fight. "How does it feel to be a killer?"
Again, he saw the faces turned toward him, felt the anger and fear in the troop. A passage his mother had once filmbooked for him on "The Cult of the Dead" flickered through Paul's mind. He knew what he had to do.
Slowly, Paul got to his feet.
A sigh passed around the circle.
Paul felt the diminishment of his self as he advanced into the center of the circle. It was as though he lost a fragment of himself and sought it here. He bent over the mound of belongings, lifted out the baliset. A string twanged softly as it struck against something in the pile.
"I was a friend of Jamis," Paul whispered.
He felt tears burning his eyes, forced more volume into his voice. "Jamis taught me ... that ... when you kill ... you pay for it. I wish I'd known Jamis better."
Blindly, he groped his way back to his place in the circle, sank to the rock floor.
A voice hissed: "He sheds tears!"
It was taken up around the ring: "Usul gives moisture to the dead!"
He felt fingers touch his damp cheek, heard the awed whispers.
Jessica, hearing the voices, felt the depth of the experience, realized what terrible inhibitions there must be against shedding tears. She focused on the words: "He gives moisture to the dead. " It was a gift to the shadow world--tears. They would be sacred beyond a doubt.
Nothing on this planet had so forcefully hammered into her the ultimate value of water. Not the water-sellers, not the dried skins of the natives, not stillsuits or the rules of water discipline. Here there was a substance more precious than all others--it was life itself and entwined all around with symbolism and ritual.
Water.
"I touched his cheek," someone whispered. "I felt the gift."
At first, the fingers touching his face frightened Paul. He clutched the cold handle of the baliset, feeling the strings bite his palm. Then he saw the faces beyond the groping hands--the eyes wide and wondering.
Presently, the hands withdrew. The funeral ceremony resumed. But now there was a subtle space around Paul, a drawing back as the troop honored him by a respectful isolation.
The ceremony ended with a low chant: "Full moon calls thee--
Shai-hulud shalt thou see;
Red the night, dusky sky,
Bloody death didst thou die.
We pray to a moon: she is round--
Luck with us will then abound,
What we seek for shall be found
In the land of solid ground."
A bulging sack remained at Stilgar's feet. He crouched, placed his palms against it. Someone came up beside him, crouched at his elbow, and Paul recognized Chani's face in the hood shadow.
"Jamis carried thirty-three liters and seven and three-thirty-seconds drachms of the tribe's water," Chani said. "I bless it now in the presence of a Sayyadina. Ekkeri-akairi, this is the water, fillissin-follasy of Paul-Muad' Dib! Kivi a-kavi, never the more, nakalas! Nakelas! to be measured and counted, ukair-an! by the heartbeats jan-jan-jan of our friend ... Jamis."
In an abrupt and profound silence, Chani turned, stared at Paul. Presently she said: "Where I am flame be thou the coals. Where I am dew be thou the water."
"Bi-lal kaifa," intoned the troop.
"To Paul-Muad'Dib goes this portion," Chani said. "May he guard it for the tribe, preserving it against careless loss. May he be generous with it in time of need. May he pass it on in his time for the good of the tribe."
"Bi-lal kaifa," intoned the troop.
I must accept that water, Paul thought. Slowly, he arose, made his way to Chani's side. Stilgar stepped back to make room for him, took the baliset gently from his hand.
"Kneel," Chani said.
Paul knelt.
She guided his hands to the waterbag, held them against the resilient surface. "With this water the tribe entrusts thee," she said. "Jamis is gone from it. Take it in peace." She stood, pulling Paul up with her.
Stilgar returned the baliset, extended a small pile of metal rings in one palm. Paul looked at them, seeing the different sizes, the way the light of the glowglobe reflected off them.
Chani took the largest ring, held it on a finger. "Thirty liters," she said. One by one, she took the others, showing each to Paul, counting them. "Two liters; one liter; seven watercounters of one drachm each; one watercounter of three-thirty-seconds drachms. In all--thirty-three liters and seven and three-thirty-seconds drachms."
She held them up on her finger for Paul to see.
"Do you accept them?" Stilgar asked.
Paul swallowed, nodded. "Yes."
"Later," Chani said, "I will show you how to tie them in a kerchief so they won't rattle and give you away when you need silence." She extended her hand.
"Will you ... hold them for me?" Paul asked.
Chani turned a startled glance on Stilgar.
He smiled, said, "Paul-Muad'Dib who i
s Usul does not yet know our ways, Chani. Hold his watercounters without commitment until it's time to show him the manner of carrying them."
She nodded, whipped a ribbon of cloth from beneath her robe, linked the rings onto it with an intricate over and under weaving, hesitated, then stuffed them into the sash beneath her robe.
I missed something there, Paul thought. He sensed the feeling of humor around him, something bantering in it, and his mind linked up a prescient memory: watercounters offered to a woman--courtship ritual.
"Watermasters," Stilgar said.
The troop arose in a hissing of robes. Two men stepped out, lifted the waterbag. Stilgar took down the glowglobe, led the way with it into the depths of the cave.
Paul was pressed in behind Chani, noted the buttery glow of light over rock walls, the way the shadows danced, and he felt the troop's lift of spirits contained in a hushed air of expectancy.
Jessica, pulled into the end of the troop by eager hands, hemmed around by jostling bodies, suppressed a moment of panic. She had recognized fragments of the ritual, identified the shards of Chakobsa and Bhotani-jib in the words, and she knew the wild violence that could explode out of these seemingly simple moments.
Jan-jan-jan, she thought. Go-go-go.
It was like a child's game that had lost all inhibition in adult hands.
Stilgar stopped at a yellow rock wall. He pressed an outcropping and the wall swung silently away from him, opening along an irregular crack. He led the way through past a dark honeycomb lattice that directed a cool wash of air across Paul when he passed it.
Paul turned a questioning stare on Chani, tugged her arm. "That air felt damp," he said.
"Sh-h-h-h," she whispered.
But a man behind them said: "Plenty of moisture in the trap tonight. Jamis' way of telling us he's satisfied."
Jessica passed through the secret door, heard it close behind. She saw how the Fremen slowed while passing the honeycomb lattice, felt the dampness of the air as she came opposite it.
Windtrap! she thought. They've a concealed windtrap somewhere on the surface to funnel air down here into cooler regions and precipitate the moisture from it.
They passed through another rock door with latticework above it, and the door closed behind them. The draft of air at their backs carried a sensation of moisture clearly perceptible to both Jessica and Paul.
At the head of the troop, the glowglobe in Stilgar's hands dropped below the level of the heads in front of Paul. Presently he felt steps beneath his feet, curving down to the left. Light reflected back up across hooded heads and a winding movement of people spiraling down the steps.
