Brian Herbert - Paul of Dune

Lady Margot glanced under the table to see what her daughter was doing.

Paul continued, “The fact that my Fremen defeated them so resoundingly was a mortal blow to their confidence. It is the law of the vanquished: I have proven myself the leader of the human pack, and they must bare their throats in submission.”

When she thought no one was looking, Alia slipped beneath the table as well. “Marie, what are you doing?”

The girl darted a glance back at her like a snake. Marie had peeled something long and thin from the table leg, barely thicker than a thread but as long as her forearm. A flexible band was wrapped around her knuckles. It had been hidden among the cracks and ornate carvings beneath the banquet table’s trim. Seeing Alia, Marie activated a minute power source, causing the object to extend and became rigid.

Alia recognized it for what it was — needlewhip dagger — a contraband Ixian assassination tool made from sharp, braided krimskell fibers. Because it was organic, it gave off no chemical signatures that would have tripped either a poison or explosive snooper. Marie could have placed it there during one of their games.

Alia’s thoughts tumbled into place, spelling out the details of a long-planned murder. The little girl had been planted like a cuckoo’s egg in the nest of the Arrakeen citadel. “Paul! Stilgar!”

She lunged toward Marie under the table, but the other girl slapped a hidden switch in one of the curlicue knobs on the table’s trim, activating another booby trap. From the stone block walls near the main door came a popping crack, densely packed powders released by a tightly wound spring-dispersal mechanism. When the two inert dusts mixed, a chemical reaction caused the fumes to spread out in a noxious cloud of foul-smelling yellow smoke that billowed blindingly into the room.

Someone screamed, repeatedly. At first it sounded like a woman, but Alia realized quickly it was Korba.

The explosion of smoke, cleverly planted without energetic chemicals or any kind of detectable ignition device, sent the door guards running to the wrong place. The delay and diversion needed to last only a few seconds. Marie was already there under the table, and with her small but deadly body she rose up between the table and Paul, even as he pushed back to get into a defensive position.

Marie pressed forward, far stronger than she looked, and drove herself into Paul’s now-activated shield, inserting the deadly needlewhip through the barrier. She slowed, using the resistance to her advantage. The weapon’s fine tip slid through the barrier like the needle of a medic administering a euthanasia injection.

Moving smoothly at the first instant of turmoil, Lady Margot Fenring snapped the thread of her necklace and spilled her strand of lavender diamonds into the goblet in front of her. Immediately upon contact with the water, the Tleilaxu gems released their impregnated chemicals, a potent but short-term paralytic not detectable by the banquet room’s poison snoopers. She and Count Fenring had already consumed a prophylactic antidote. She hurled the goblet’s contents away from her, splashing it across the table at Korba and Stilgar even as the men lunged to their feet. Some of the fumes even reached Irulan.

Alia saw Paul grab Marie’s small wrist and hold her off, preventing the needlewhip from extending more and plunging its fine, sharp point through his forehead. By now, the power source would have built up a substantial electrostatic charge, and a single burst could quickly and effectively short-circuit her brother’s brain.

At the far side of the room, yellow smoke continued to spread out. People were choking. The guards nearly tripped over each other. Stilgar and Korba had collapsed, stunned by the paralytic; Irulan could barely move.

Count Fenring had already acted, moving through the blinding smoke to reach the thick stone wall of the banquet room, where blocks fitted together perfectly to form a corner that, to even the most detailed inspection, appeared to be perfectly aligned. He knew the precise crack to push, the slight sliding to the left and then upward to reveal another mechanism — all the components of which were made of exactly the same kind of stone. Then a release, and the passage opened: access to the ancient tunnels underneath the Residency.

Many years before the Atreides occupation, Count Fenring had discovered the network of incalculably old passages beneath the foundations, and he had installed several access points in key areas. Because the system was his own clever design, Fenring knew these hidden entrances would have remained undetected in all the subsequent time.

Now, it would provide a perfect way for them to get away after the murder of Muad’Dib, leaving Arrakeen in an uproar. According to the plan he and Lady Margot had developed so carefully, an armed escape craft was already waiting outside, and from there they would reach the Heighliner and fold space to freedom.

The right people had been bribed, the entire process made easier by the fact that the Emperor Muad’Dib was so widely hated, even by many of those closest to him. The assistance of the Spacing Guild didn’t hurt, either. In all likelihood, the Count, Margot, and Marie would fill the power vacuum after Paul’s death, or find someone compatible who could do so. Even if not, without such a charismatic, prescient leader, the Jihad and this fanatical government would consume itself from within.

But first, Muad’Dib had to die.

When Marie threw herself upon Paul, however, surprise and treachery had been her main advantages. As Paul stalled the initial attack for a moment, Alia burst out from beneath the table and sprang at the other girl like a mongoose.

Breaking free of Paul, Marie lashed out at Alia with the needle-whip, and Paul’s sister danced back. Alia was more than a match for the other girl’s fighting ability, but she had no weapon of her own. Marie jabbed, and the hair-fine rapier made a whistling sigh through the air. “Let’s play, Alia.”

Though her muscles could barely respond from her exposure to the paralytic, Irulan crawled to one side, out of the way. Stilgar lay sprawled with his head, shoulders, and arms on the table, where he had collapsed. He twitched and struggled, his eyes fully aware, as he tried to pull himself up. Chani held her drawn crysknife, looking as formidable a fighter as any Fedaykin.

Alia sprang onto the dining table, trying to get out of reach of the needlewhip. Marie lashed and spun as she followed her up there, knocking settings aside while Alia dodged. It was clear the little Fenring assassin meant to dispatch her quickly. So much had happened in only a few seconds. “Now who is the scorpion?” Marie laughed.

Alia took another step across the tabletop and kicked a plate with a half-eaten fish carcass at Marie. The girl ducked to one side, her hard gaze never wavering. Alia spotted the Emperor’s ornate knife near her brother’s plate. In a blur of motion, she grabbed the blade and jumped toward her opponent, slashing beneath the needlewhip, catching the girl on the wrist, severing tendons. “I can sting, too.”

Marie’s hand instantly became useless, and the deadly weapon dangled from the loops wrapped about her knuckles. With no more than a hiss of pain, Marie jumped off the table and pounced on the half-paralyzed Irulan, choosing any victim she could find.

But Alia was unleashed now. The voices in Other Memory howled at her like a bloodthirsty mob. She raised the jewel-handled knife and slammed it into the back of the little girl. The blow was true, and the Emperor’s sharp blade pierced Marie’s heart.

“Marie!” Fenring cried, turning away from his exit tunnel and bounding forward. “No, not my daughter!”