AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm afraid I must deny you that pleasure, Malky."
"Just as well," Malky husked. "I don't really feel up to their demands. Those were not houris you sent after me, Leto."
"They were professional in their obedience to me," Leto said.
"They were bloody hunters!"
"Anteac was the hunter. My Fish Speakers were merely the clean-up crew."
Moneo shifted his attention from one speaker to the other, back and forth. There were disturbing undertones in this conversation. Despite the huskiness, Malky sounded almost flippant ... but then he had always been that way. A dangerous man!
Leto said: "Just before your arrival, Moneo and I were discussing Infinity."
"Poor Moneo," Malky said.
Leto smiled. "Do you remember, Malky? You once asked me to demonstrate Infinity."
"You said no Infinity exists to be demonstrated." Malky swept his gaze toward Moneo. "Leto likes to play with paradox. He knows all the tricks of language that have ever been discovered."
Moneo put down a surge of anger. He felt excluded from this conversation, an object of amusement by two superior beings. Malky and the God Emperor were almost like two old friends reliving the pleasures of a mutual past.
"Moneo accuses me of being the sole possessor of Infinity," Leto said. "He refuses to believe that he has just as much of Infinity as I have."
Malky stared up at Leto. "You see, Moneo? You see how tricky he is with words?"
"Tell me about your niece, Hwi Noree," Leto said.
"Is it true, Leto, what they say? That you are going to wed the gentle Hwi?"
"It is true."
Malky chuckled, then grimaced with pain. "They did terrible damage to me, Leto," he whispered, then: "Tell me, old worm ..."
Moneo gasped.
Malky took a moment to recover from pain, then: "Tell me, old worm, is there a monster penis hidden in that monster body of yours? What a shock for the gentle Hwi!"
"I told you the truth about that long ago," Leto said.
"Nobody tells the truth," Malky husked.
"You often told me the truth," Leto said. "Even when you didn't know it."
"That's because you're cleverer than the rest of us."
"Will you tell me about Hwi?"
"I think you already know it."
"I want to hear it from you," Leto said. "Did you get help from the Tleilaxu?"
"They gave us knowledge, nothing more. Everything else we did for ourselves."
"I thought it was not the Tleilaxus' doing."
Moneo could no longer contain his curiosity. "Lord, what is this of Hwi and Tleilaxu? Why do you ..."
"Here there, old friend Moneo," Malky said, rolling his gaze toward the majordomo. "Don't you know what he ..."
"I was never your friend!" Moneo snapped.
"Companion among the houris then," Malky said.
"Lord," Moneo said, turning toward Leto, "why do you speak of ..."
"Shhh, Moneo," Leto said. "We are tiring your old companion and I have things to learn from him yet."
"Did you ever wonder, Leto," Malky asked, "why Moneo never tried to take the whole shebang away from you?"
"The what?" Moneo demanded.
"Another of Leto's old words," Malky said. "She and bang--shebang. It's perfect. Why don't you rename your Empire, Leto? The Grand Shebang!"
Leto raised a hand to silence Moneo. "Will you tell me, Malky? About Hwi?"
"Just a few tiny cells from my body," Malky said. "Then the carefully nurtured growth and education--everything an exact opposite to your old friend, Malky. We did it all in the no-room where you cannot see!"
"But I notice when something vanishes," Leto said.
"No-room?" Moneo asked, then as the import of Malky's words sank home. "You? You and Hwi ..."
"That is the shape I saw in the shadows," Leto said.
Moneo looked full at Leto's face. "Lord, I will call off the wedding. I will say ..."
"You will do nothing of the kind!"
"But Lord, if she and Malky are ..."
"Moneo," Malky husked. "Your Lord commands and you must obey!"
That mocking tone! Moneo glared at Malky.
"The exact opposite of Malky," Leto said. "Didn't you hear him?"
"What could be better?" Malky asked.
"But surely, Lord, if you now know ..."
"Moneo," Leto said, "you are beginning to disturb me."
Moneo fell into abashed silence.
Leto said: "That's better. You know, Moneo, once tens of thousands of years ago when I was another person, I made a mistake."
"You, a mistake?" Malky mocked.
Leto merely smiled. "My mistake was compounded by the beautiful way in which I expressed it."
"Tricks with words," Malky taunted.
"Indeed! This is what I said: 'The present is distraction; the future a dream; only memory can unlock the meaning of life.' Aren't those beautiful words, Malky?"
"Exquisite, old worm."
Moneo put a hand over his mouth.
"But my words were a foolish lie," Leto said. "I knew it at the time, but I was infatuated with the beautiful words. No--memory unlocks no meanings. Without anguish of the spirit, which is a wordless experience, there are no meanings anywhere."
"I fail to see the meaning of the anguish caused me by your bloody Fish Speakers," Malky said.
"You're suffering no anguish," Leto said.
"If you were in this body, you'd ..."
"That's just physical pain," Leto said. "It will end soon."
"Then when will I know the anguish?" Malky asked.
"Perhaps later."
Leto flexed his front segments away from Malky to face Moneo. "Do you really serve the Golden Path, Moneo?"
"Ahhh, the Golden Path," Malky taunted.
"You know I do, Lord," Moneo said.
"Then you must promise me," Leto said, "that what you have learned here must never pass your lips. Not by word or sign can you reveal it."
"I promise, Lord."
"He promises, Lord," Malky sneered.
One of Leto's tiny hands gestured at Malky, who lay staring up at the blunt profile of a face within its gray cowl. "For reasons of old admiration and ... many other reasons, I cannot kill Malky. I cannot even ask it of you ... yet he must be eliminated."
"Ohhh, how clever you are!" Malky said.
"Lord, if you will wait at the other end of the chamber," Moneo said. "Perhaps when you return Malky no longer will be a problem."
"He's going to do it," Malky husked. "Gods below! He's going to do it."
Leto squirmed away and went to the shadowed limit of the chamber, keeping his attention on the faint arc of a line which would become an opening into the night if he merely converted the wish into a thought-of-command. What a long drop that would be out there--just roll off the landing-lip. He doubte
d that even his body would survive it. But there was no water in the sand beneath his tower and he could feel the Golden Path winking in and out of existence merely because he allowed himself to think of such an end.
"Leto!" Malky called from behind him.
Leto heard the litter grating on the wind-scattered sand which peppered the floor of his aerie.
Once more, Malky called: "Leto, you are the best! There's no evil in this universe which can surpass ..."
A sodden thump shut off Malky's voice. A blow to the throat, Leto thought. Yes, Moneo knows that one. There came the sound of the balcony's transparent shield sliding open, the rasping of the litter on the rail, then silence.
